Hearts at Home
Hearts at Home
Heavenly Daze Book Five
LORI COPELAND
ANGELA HUNT
© 2003 by Lori Copeland and Angela E. Hunt
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Scripture quotations in this book are from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the authors' imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, organizations, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Copeland, Lori.
Hearts at home / by Lori Copeland and Angela Hunt.
p. cm.
ISBN-10: 978-0-8499-4344-7 (trade paper)
ISBN-13: 978-1-59554-550-3 (mass market)
I. Hunt, Angela Elwell, 1957â II. Title.
PS3553.O6336 H43 2003
813'.54âdc21
2002153120
Printed in the United States of America
08 09 10 11 12 QW 5 4 3 2 1
Who has not found the heaven below
Will fail of it above.
God's residence is next to mine,
His furniture is love.
âE
MILY
D
ICKINSON
,
Poems
With love and thanks to the
Heavenly Dazees,
who have become a community of believers
just like those who dwell in Heavenly Daze.
Contents
If You Want to Know More About . . .
W
hat goes around comes around,” the humans on Heavenly Daze tell each other, and I have to smile each time I hear this saying. I've seen the circle of mortal life spin out so many timesâa child is born, he grows to maturity, he ignores the wisdom of his elders and learns through painful mistakes. The young man marries a woman, they bear children who grow to maturity, ignore the wisdom of their parents, and learn through painful mistakes. . . .
No wonder the Father is patient with his human creations.
Greetings from Heavenly Daze, where the Creator has blessed us with an unusually mild winter. I am Gavriel, captain of the company of angels who guard this tiny island in accordance with a believer's prayer uttered more than two hundred years ago. Together with Micah, Abner, Elezar, Caleb, Yakov, and Zuriel, I minister to the humans who dwell here, serving them as joyfully as I serve the Master of heaven.
Our people talk about heaven as it if were some distant place . . . but it is within speaking distance to those who belong there. More than they know, heaven's boundaries are but a breath away.
On my last visit to the third heaven I saw the Lord Jesus sitting on a lofty throne before the crystal sea. Hovering around him were mighty seraphim, each with six wings. With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with the remaining two they flew. In a great chorus they sang, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty! The whole earth is filled with his glory!” As the twenty-four elders produced music on their harps, the glorious singing of one hundred million angels shook the Temple to its foundations, and smoke filled the entire sanctuary.
I shall never cease to marvel at the holiness and love of God. Because I have spent thousands of years observing humans, I have learned that any man can fashion a philosophy that supposedly rewards good people with an eternal heaven. Only God, however, could devise a plan through which sinners can enter this blessed and holy place.
I left the highest heaven filled with an urgency of purpose. The things the Lord revealed to me there were too momentous to be lightly received, and I know this coming month will forever change the lives of those who dwell on our little island.
God is faithful. Every heartache he meets with comfort, every tear he repays with joy. Life moves in a spiraling circle, and each created being must tread his path with wisdom, which the Lord freely gives to any who would ask.
As the winter winds chafe our island and hearts huddle around the hearth, I hope you'll join us for another month on the Island of Heavenly Daze.
A
nnie Cuvier clung to the ferry railing as the sea spat in her face. “Come away from there, Annie girl,” Captain Stroble called, his cheeks flaming above the scarf at his neck. “Come inside the cabin before you freeze your nose off.”
Annie waited a moment longerâjust to prove she was no off-islander who couldn't handle the windâthen tucked the collar of her coat tighter around her throat and ducked inside the warmth of the cabin. She grinned at the stalwart seaman who ran the ferry eleven months of the year. “Thought you and Mazie were heading south for February.”
“Ayuh, we are heading to Floridy,” Stroble replied, settling one gloved hand on the steering wheel as the boat pushed its way out of Perkins Cove. “Tomorrow morning, if Mazie's feeling better. She's been a mite squamish the last couple of days, and wasn't up to the drive.”
Annie took a seat on the bench behind the captain. “Anything the doctor can do?”
“It's just the usual stomach trouble whenever she thinks about leaving the house. No doubt a few days of sunshine will cure her.”
Annie smothered a smile as she turned to look out at the gray sea. A psychologist might say Mazie Stroble's legendary attachment to her home bordered on agoraphobia, but with her husband at sea every day and three sons in the navy, Mazie's devotion to the little house on the hill overlooking Perkins Cove seemed downright sensible.
“What brings you home this weekend, Annie?”
She transferred her gaze to the captain. “Nothing special. Aunt Olympia called to say she's planning a little Valentine's party next weekend, so I thought I'd come down to help her get a few things together.”
Ostensibly, the statement was true. But something more had drawn Annie home, an urgent feeling she couldn't quite understand. Few of her friends would rush home if even a favorite aunt called with news of a piddling little party, but Olympia had acted as Annie's guardian ever since her parents had died when she was seven years old. So she was coming home out of obligation . . . and concern.
She looked out at the ocean, where the water had turned the color of tarnished silver. Oddly enough, until last October she and Olympia had not been especially closeâin fact, they usually yowled like two quarreling cats when they were thrust together. But last October Annie had come home to say farewell to Uncle Edmund, who died the following month, and since that time she had begun to catch glimpses of the island matriarch's softer side. When Aunt Olympia called yesterday, Annie had felt the tug of responsibility.
One of Stroble's bushy white brows rose. “Olympia de Cuvier, feeling sociable? In the dead of winter?”
Annie rushed to her aunt's defense. “It's sort of a thank-you gesture.” Because Olympia had been reared to be proper and cultured, outsiders often thought her chilly, but beneath that frail frame and shellacked veneer beat a vulnerable heart. “The island folk were so kind to her after Uncle Edmund passed, so she wanted to do something special for them. But December was too busy with Christmas, and last month was a nightmareâwith the sickness and all. She thought the weekend before Valentine's Day might be a fittin' time.”
“Ayuh, so it is. Seems to me a Valentine is nothing but a gussied-up thank-you card to the folks who love us.”
“I only hope she's okay.” Annie frowned out the window. “She was sick last monthâalong with Pastor Winslow, Floyd, and Stanley Biddermanâall on account of that horrible tomato hybrid I developed. Dr. Marc assured me everyone has recovered, but what if there are lingering side effects?”
Stroble sent a wink and a grin over his shoulder. “Don't fret yourself, Annie. I heard they were right pretty tomatoes.”
“But completely indigestibleâand, regrettably, digestion is important when it comes to food plants.” She sighed and crossed her arms. “Back to the drawing board, I guess. But I'm not sure if I should keep working with tomatoes or move on to another plant. I've been toying with the idea of a winter-hardy zucchini. . . .”
She let her words trail away as the island of Heavenly Daze came into view. Even in the dead of winter, when the winds pushed the waves over the pounding rocks along the southwestern shore, the sight of the church steeple rising from the town center had the power to warm her heart. Seven of the town's structures had been built in 1798, when sea captain Jacques de Cuvier and a few of his cronies had decided to establish a retirement home for pirates who'd seen the lightâor decided thievery on the high seas was no longer worth the risk.
As Captain Stroble cut the motor, Annie quirked a brow. Someday she ought to do a little research on old Jacques de Cuvier. As his only direct descendant still living on the island, Aunt Olympia would enjoy learning more about him.
Annie stood, then braced herself for the cushioned impact of the boat against the rubber on the dock. A breath of freezing wind nipped at her nose as the captain flung the cabin door open and stepped outside. Once he had tossed heavy lines around the mooring posts, he turned and tucked his gloved hands beneath his armpits.
“Have yourself a nice bit of neighborin' then.” Stroble smiled her off the boat. “And give your aunt a hello from me and Mazie.”
“Have yourself a nice time in Florida,” Annie countered, pausing at the railing. “By the way, who's going to run the ferry while you and Mazie are getting suntans?”
Stroble grinned. “The boat's going in for maintenanceâ time to get the hull scraped and a new coat of paint slapped on. But Crazy Odell will be at your service . . whenever he's of a mind to take his boat out. Better call his granddaughter before you make plans, just to make sure he's running.”
Annie laughed. “And still breathing.”
Crazy Odell Butcher, who would take any customer out to Heavenly Daze for the right price, was ninety-two if he was a day. His granddaughter tried to keep him ashore, but he and his boat, the
Sally,
had helped many a desperate traveler cross to Heavenly Daze when the ferry wasn't running. Last Christmas Annie had been grateful for the old daredevil because he got her home in time for Christmas Eve . . . and inadvertently reunited her with A. J. Hayes, the current love of her life.
“Thanks, Captain.” She waved goodbye, then crossed the gangplank and hurried down the wooden dock. Across the way, the lights of Frenchman's Fairest gleamed like gold, welcoming her home.
Dr. Marcus Hayes rapped on the back door of Frenchman's Fairest, startling the old butler who stood at the kitchen counter. Caleb Smith squinted to peer through the lace draperies over the window in the door, then smiled and waved the doctor in.