Page 29 of Through the Dark Night
“I don’t know about that,” Lance said, and she realized something else—he was humble too.
“Still, when Katie turned eighteen, you could have dumped her on someone else.”
“No. I couldn’t. I just wouldn’t have. It wouldn’t sit right with me.”
“You realize that you’re fifty years old, and you’ve never left this town because of your sister.”
“Is it because of my sister?”
She stared at him.
“Or is it because of God? Because of the way He worked in my life? Maybe it was His will that I stay here. That I take care of her, and that I needed to grow and become more like Jesus by taking care of Katie, by giving up what I wanted, by not being bitter and angry about it, by not resenting the fact that she had maybe ‘stolen’ from me what someone else would have thought that I deserved. I… I’m a different person than I used to be. And it’s all because of her. And the way God has worked in my life.”
“Wow. That’s such a mature and spiritual way of looking at things.” She hadn’t even thought about it like that, but it was kind of the conclusion that she had been trying to come to about her divorce. That God was allowing the trial in her life in order to make her a stronger, better person. She wanted to believe that, but in order for that to happen, she had to choose not to be bitter and angry but to choose forgiveness and love and joy and peace. All the things that seemed to come so easily to Lance.
“I suppose the one thing I do regret is that…when you came back, you were married. And I’d obviously missed my chance. If… If there was one thing I could change, it would have been to chase after you, but… I’m not sure that that would have been the wise thing to do. After all, you needed to make your own choice, and you didn’t choose me.”
“I should have,” she said, and her words hung softly in the night air.
She shouldn’t have said them. She shouldn’t have let him know that she regretted that choice—all those years ago—to break up with him and to pursue something else, to allow James to develop a relationship with her. It was the worst mistake of her life. But ever since she’d come back to Raspberry Ridge, it seemed like the Lord had been trying to teach her that He could make beautiful things out of broken things, He could make joy and gladness come from mistakes.
“You’re just as beautiful now as you were then,” he said, and his hand came up, brushing her hair away.
She leaned closer, and his breath whispered across her skin.
It felt perfect and right the same way it had all those years ago. Except her ex-husband was between them, and Lance wasn’t anything like him, and maybe that was what jolted her out of her trance, because she moved, dropping her fork on the floor with a clatter.
“Oh goodness. It’s late, I need to go.” She jumped up from the swing and almost got hit in the head with it as she leaned down to pick up the fork. “Thank you so much for the meal and the company, everything was really nice, but I have to run.”
She shoved her plate and fork at him, and he took it, but she could tell by the look on his face, he was confused.
Whether he was confused about how she felt, confused about why she was leaving so fast, or just confused because she was obviously confused, she didn’t know. And she didn’t take the time to tell him. She just knew that she needed to get away. Even though a part of her was saying that she was running again.
Eleven
Shannon still hadn’t fully recovered from her evening with Lance. She managed to work with him all day without having any kind of personal conversation, but she was unable to shut her brain off, so after supper, when Marina went to her room, Shannon continued to work. She was getting pretty good at spackling drywall, although she had been spending the last few days helping Lance with the electrical work.
Still, there was always something to do, and she would rather keep her hands busy and her mind occupied with what she was doing.
She was so involved in her work that it took her a while to realize that thunder had been slowly getting closer and closer, until lightning flashed and thunder crashed almost immediately afterward.
A storm was upon them.
She thought immediately of the tarp that was outside, covering some of the work that the guys had been doing, and hoped that they had realized that there was going to be a storm and had tied it down.
She figured that it was one of those lake storms that would blow through pretty quickly, and so she went back to work. A couple more crashes of thunder and flashes of lightning, and then the lights flickered.
No. The lights couldn’tpossibly go out.
She hadn’t finished that thought when they flickered again, and the entire room went dark.
Thankfully, she had her phone and its flashlight and was able to put her tools in some semblance of order as the wind whipped at the windows, rattling them, and rain pounded—it almost sounded like there might have been some sleet or hail or something mixed in with it.
She thought about checking on Marina, but if Marina was sleeping, she didn’t want to wake her.
In her experience, since Marina had come, once she went to her room, she didn’t come out. She had a feeling that Marina slept like the dead.
Which would have been a nice thing to be able to do on a night like tonight. Then she wouldn’t realize that the lights had gone out and that the wind was blowing so strongly it shook the entire structure.
