Page 74 of Freedom's Kiss
She hesitated. “No, not exactly.”
“Then you have one choice, Olivia. Either come in for your shift, or don’t bother coming back…ever.”
She glanced at her computer screen before shutting her eyes. “Then I quit, Dale. I’ll be by on Friday to pick up my last check.”
He cursed and slammed the phone.
Olivia waited a moment, bracing herself against the remorse that would cause a buzzing in her ears, but it never came. Waiting tables had never been her dream, just a stepping stone, and Seaside had never let her jump off that rock.
She looked down at her phone, a black screen staring back at her. Her hand trembled as she hit the Home button, unlocked it, and dialed the number in her email. It went straight to voicemail.
“Hi, Amy, it’s me. Umm…Olivia. Your sister?” A nervous laugh punctuated the end of the sentence, and she pounded her forehead with the palm of her hand. “Or maybe your sister. We don’t know for sure yet, right? Anyway, I’d love to meet. Call me back…please.” She hung up the phone and threw it on the bed.
“Well,thatcouldn’t have been inaner.” With hands over her eyes, she toppled backward into the mess of pillows near her country-chic headboard. She had a sister. Amy. Amy was her sister. Possibly.
Shoot!She hadn’t even clicked on the file to look at her possible sister’s photo. She rolled onto her stomach and wiggled her finger over the pad to wake up the computer before clicking on the attachment.
Her breath sucked through her teeth, making a whistling sound. Deep-chocolate eyes, strong cheekbones that pronounced a golden-hued complexion, and straight, silky oil-black hair.
While Olivia wore hers to the middle of her back, Amy’s was cut in a stylish A-line bob that ended at her chin and framed her face. She might as well be looking in a mirror from her days right after high school graduation.
A sister. Warmth flooded her limbs and heated her fingertips.
She had to tell Adam!
Bouncing off the bed, she peeled off her Seaside uniform and threw on a pair of denim Bermuda shorts rolled at the hem and her Southern Charm T-shirt. She slipped her feet into Croc clogs and grabbed her purse and keys.
When she pulled up behind the food truck, her brows dipped low. Where was everyone? Adam had started opening an hour earlier for those who took an early lunch, but the side window remained shut and there wasn’t a person in sight.
She knocked on the back door, worry niggling her stomach. Maybe he’d gotten a late start in prep. But the door remained closed, and no sound came from inside. She walked around to the side. Locked. Hands on hips, she scanned the area, then stopped as her gaze snagged on a figure at the picnic table, elbows at ninety-degree angles, chin in palms, staring out over the field.
The sight tugged at her heart, a perfect picture of lonely dejection. That soft whisper tickled her conscience. She couldn’t put it off any longer. Shelving her own recent news, she stepped toward Adam, dry grass crunching under her feet. Either he ignored her approach, or he was so deep in thought he didn’t even hear her.
She lifted a leg over the bench and straddled it so she faced him. It took a second, but finally he blinked and turned his head to look at her. A tiny smile, one that read exhausted yet pleased at her presence, greeted her. He resembled theFarnese Atlassculpture—the weight of the world on his shoulders.
Her pulse, which had been frantic and running on high speeds of exhilaration, decelerated to an even rhythm. Slower, even…if that were possible. The air around them grew heavy with anticipation. Not the electric kind, charged with mutual attraction, but with a somber expectancy.
His eyes, almost devoid of color, peered into her, unveiled. The struggle, the wrestling he’d been engaged in for longer than she’d known him, clear for her to see.
She reached up and cupped the side of his face. Ran her thumb over the scruff of his short beard.
He exhaled deeper than she’d ever heard a person expel breath. He didn’t have to say it. She read the exhaustion in every line of his face. A tiredness that ran deeper than the physical, although the slight puff to the skin under his eyes said he was that too.
He brought his hand up to cover hers, then lowered them both into his lap. One by one he traced her fingers, staring at the motion as if hypnotized. He didn’t look up when he asked, “Do you believe in a calling? From God? A specific purpose He has for each of our lives?”
The question settled around her. She searched her heart. Her mind. She had an answer. Knew what she believed. But… “Do you?”
He laughed, but it held no humor. “Michael called me a Moses the other day, but I don’t feel like a Moses.”
“No?” Who would? God had never spoken directly to her from a burning bush, though she’d often wished for that sort of clarity from the Divine Maker.
His eyes raised, and the mask of amusement he hid behind lowered, raw pain in its place. “I feel more like Jonah. Running, running…maybe even swallowed and spit out by a whale. But all that running has made me so completely drained.”
God had also called Jonah for a specific purpose, like Moses, though he’d tried to flee that divine summons. Olivia squeezed Adam’s hand. She couldn’t imagine what it felt like to be swallowed and spit out, to run and be pursued by a supernatural entity, though she believed God chased after each of His children with that dogged, relentless love. But if Adam admitted to identifying with Jonah, it meant his pace of flight was slowing. That his eyes were opening to more than just the guilty pressure compressing his heart. Didn’t it?
That gentle, prodding whisper. “Then maybe it’s time to stop running.”
“I can’t.” His voice broke.
