On 4/19 (On 4/19 and Beyond 4/20) (19 page)

His words were soft, full of emotion, his concern for her evident. “Yeah. You?”

“Yeah.” He sighed and added, “Are
we
okay?”

His expression was one she could hardly read, one of worry mixed with tenderness. “What do you mean?”

“Do you regret us getting closer like this? Is it a mistake?”

Chelsea considered his question carefully. Of course it made her wonder if he regretted it. “It probably is, but I don’t regret it. Do you?”

Leaning in closer, he slid his hand behind her neck and drew her nearer. “No, not for a moment. I want to hold on for as long as I can.” With that, he kissed her softly. Pulling back, he was tempted to admit how much he cared for her, how his feelings for her were totally unexpected and alarming, but instead, he moved back in and kissed her again.

When John walked into the kitchen the following morning, he found Chelsea there making breakfast. “Where’s Mom?”

She glanced back at him and smiled at the sleepy look in his eyes. He’d slept later than she’d ever seen before. Clearly at home, he was relaxed and at peace. “She’s in changing. We had coffee earlier, and I told her I’d get breakfast started, so she could take her time.”

Looking at the stove, it felt like the old days when he and his dad were heading out to the fields. His mother had always prepared a feast like Chelsea was making. Bacon was sizzling on one burner; she was flipping French toast on a griddle, and he spied a pan of biscuits on the
counter. She already had a bowl of eggs scrambled and waiting to be cooked.

John moved in closer and planted a kiss on her cheek. “Good morning, by the way.” He slid his arms around her waist.

“Good morning.”

He was standing behind her, looking over her shoulder with his chin resting there. “Want me to cook the eggs?” He saw a skillet sitting on a burner with a lump of butter plopped in the middle.

“Sure.”

Together they moved around in the kitchen fluidly, as if they’d done so before. Setting the table and placing the food was John’s job while Chelsea poured drinks. It felt good and right and caused her to pray for a lifetime of such moments with him. John’s parents came in just as they finished.

Dragging a chair from the table, Claude whistled, suggesting, “I think we ought to keep her.”

Chelsea grinned at him, admitting, “I’m just trying to impress you. Usually, I have fruit and yogurt for breakfast.” Taking the biscuits over to the table, she sat two on Claude’s plate.

“Consider me impressed, little girl.”

Louise admitted, “We don’t eat like this anymore. Most mornings he eats oatmeal, and I eat cereal.” With Chelsea in her kitchen, cooking as she would for John, Louise could do nothing but continue the prayers she’d begun the night before. It hardly seemed right to pray for a union between a man and a woman so distant in age, but how could she not want such a wife for her son? Early on she discovered that Chelsea was a Christian, and just as quickly, she saw that she adored her son. Those were the only two things that really mattered.

Once she joined them at the table, Chelsea reached for Claude and John’s hands. After Claude said the prayer, Chelsea merely sat and watched everyone dig in. There was nothing better than being part of a family. Glancing over at John, she noticed his plate was piled high, and she knew she would happily spend the rest of her life cooking for him if only he were willing. More than anything, she wanted to have a family with him. When considering she had only known him three months and
felt what she did in such a short time, it was hard to imagine how she would feel by April. At the thought of the end, she suddenly lost her appetite.

No matter her fear over the future, though, she’d settled the matter with the Lord the night before. When dread and fear came against her in the months to come, which they surely would, she was determined to push them aside and simply enjoy being with John. She realized that if she spent all of her time anxious about the end, she would always regret not living in the moment with him. Never had she been happier than she was with him, and she loved the fact that they were really dating. She had the perfect relationship with the perfect man. At KI, her work was not only interesting, but it allowed them more time together. With him, she was able to travel and experience places she might not ever see again. It was an extraordinary life he was offering her, even if an expiration date loomed overhead.

From that day forward, she would live in the moment, love him without holding back, and pray that the Lord would change his heart. She thought of a verse from the psalms.
If you take delight in the Lord, He will give you the desires of your heart
. She delighted in the Lord, and had for most of her life. Was that a promise for her? More than she had ever wanted anything, John was the desire of her heart. Understanding the verse never intended to promise that everyone gets what they want, she hoped in this case, that John was God’s desire for her. If that were the case, then nothing could stop it. If not, then somehow she’d find a way to live again. After what happened with Tuck, she discovered strength within her, a strength that only God was able to provide, that would certainly sustain her again if she lost John. That was the one and only sure thing she had to stand on.

John left with his dad in order to ride out to his own ranch. Knowing his mother and Chelsea had plenty to talk about, he wasn’t concerned about leaving her. Actually, he wondered if Chelsea would notice he was gone. When he gave her a peck on the cheek and told her he was leaving, she barely looked up from her cookbook. Together, the women were pouring over recipes looking for a dessert for dinner.
In a way, he was glad to get out of the house for a while. He noticed something so eerily comfortable between his mom and Chelsea that it caused him to feel alarming feelings and think dangerous thoughts. Every now and then, he wondered if things might somehow work out between them but then reminded himself of all the reasons it couldn’t possibly. There on the ranch, away from work and the real world, he felt like a different person entirely and could almost see the possibility of a future with Chelsea. Within seconds of such thoughts, though, the demands of his work and the reality of their situation shut down such notions.

Riding toward John’s place, Claude noticed how quiet his son was. Certain his mind was on Chelsea, he commented, “Your mama sure likes your young lady. Thinks she’s a real sweet girl.”

“She is.”

Not one to beat around the bush much, Claude asked, “Thinking about marriage?”

“No sir. We won’t marry.” Pausing for a moment, John felt sad at that admission. “We’re having a good time together for now though.” What could he say? He couldn’t tell his father that they had an arrangement, a contract for a year. He’d disapprove, thinking he was doing Chelsea wrong.

“But you like being with her?”

“Sure I do.” How could he not?

“You have no intention of marrying her, though?”

“No. I’ll never marry again.”

Claude became quiet for a while. He would feel sorry for John if he thought it had anything to do with him loving Tracy after all those years, but he knew that wasn’t the case. In the few visits Tracy came with John, it was clear he was not so deeply in love with her to begin with. Back then, he spent most of his time on this call or that. More often than not, when they did talk, it was about some high-falutin’ party or people they knew who were buying something she wanted, but never about things that mattered. Compared to what he was seeing between John and Chelsea, he was a totally different man. The man he witnessed the night before laughing with his young lady and his mama, now that was the boy
he raised. It felt good to have him home again and see a better future in the making.

Disappointed by John’s attitude, he said what he really thought. “I gotta say, son, that’s about the most selfish thing I’ve ever heard you say.”

Glancing over at his father in the passenger seat, John didn’t have to ask what he meant. His dad was a pretty perceptive guy. He always had been. As a boy, John could hardly get away with a thing without his dad catching on.

“So as long as
you
are having a good time with her, it’s okay to string her along?”

John gripped the steering wheel tighter, uncomfortable with the conversation. “I’m not stringing her along. She knows how I feel. I’ve been upfront from the very beginning.”

“And she’s okay with that?”

In truth, she had no choice in the matter, and John had made sure of it. Softly he said, “Yeah, she’s okay with it.”

“You’re either lying to me or to yourself. I saw the look on her face last night. You did too.”

Pulling up to the barn on his property, John got out of the truck, shutting the conversation down. Enough was said. His dad had made his point.

Chelsea was sitting on the porch snapping green beans with Louise. They had spent the morning in the kitchen canning tomatoes, and after lunch, when John went with his dad to the other ranch, started deciding what they would have for dinner. She felt very much like she was at her grandparents’ house. Her dad’s parents lived on the same farm in the original farmhouse. With her grandparents living so close, Chelsea spent nearly as much time with them as she did at home. Back then, it was her favorite place to be. When her grandmother died of cancer just before Chelsea’s fifteenth birthday, her grandfather didn’t live much longer after that. Her mom always said he died of loneliness. Louise and Claude’s relationship reminded her of how her grandparents loved one another. They seemed so devoted, that she would have to believe one would not live very long without the other, just like her grandparents.

Everything about being on the ranch made Chelsea miss her own home. In the early years of living in L.A., she was glad to be away from the whispers and embarrassment that came along with Tuck’s return home. With her mind so focused on school, she didn’t think nearly as much about home. She always kept a job, so between work and school, she had plenty to keep her occupied.

Louise noticed how quiet Chelsea had become. Since her arrival, she’d been very talkative, so her silence indicated she must be deep in thought. The night before, there was a sudden tension, maybe even a sense of sadness that filled both John and Chelsea. Claude noticed it too. Louise had no doubt that Chelsea loved John. She would have to be blind not to see it. John, on the other hand, was harder to read. He was more affectionate with her than he ever was with Tracy. She had never seen John smile and joke around with Tracy as he did with Chelsea. She could hardly leave the room that she didn’t return to find him embracing her, oftentimes kissing her. It was sweet, something she’d not seen in John as a man. And just the fact that he brought her there to meet them spoke volumes about his feelings for her. Still, though, there was some level of restraint that he maintained with her. He was intentionally keeping himself at a distance. Chelsea knew it too, Louise was all but certain. That was the hint of what happened between them the night before. One minute they both seemed caught up in the moment of togetherness, the next, they both seemed drained of any happiness at all, or at least by their expressions that was the way it seemed.

From the moment she met Chelsea, she could tell there was something special about her. She was not at all who one would expect to be with John, and Louise had to wonder how she and John had gotten together. The times she asked, her question was never really answered. She really didn’t care how they met, just that Chelsea cared for John, which she clearly did. Louise was tremendously relieved to see John with a girl who shared their faith. As many times as she prayed for a renewing of John’s faith, she always knew that for that to happen, there’d have to be something significant in his life to point him in the direction of God. Maybe that something significant was Chelsea. There was a stirring deep in her heart that gave her cause to hope.

When John came pulling up the driveway with his dad, Chelsea could see he had a strained expression on his face the moment he stepped out of the truck. He smiled at her, though, so she believed nothing was seriously the matter.

“Want to go for a ride?” he called out.

Funny how just the sight of him set her heart to racing. Not wanting to leave Louise with the rest of the beans, she said, “I’m snapping beans right now.”

Reaching for Chelsea’s bowl, Louise insisted, “Don’t be silly. I can finish this up. You go.”

John walked nearer to the porch and told her, “Get your boots then.”

When Chelsea returned with her boots, she was pleasantly surprised to discover that the ride he intended was on horseback. They rode west, out toward where the majority of his property sprawled. While riding, it didn’t escape her notice how quiet John was. Often, though, he turned to her and smiled, which reassured her throughout his moments of silence. She had been as lost in thought throughout much of the morning, just as he currently seemed to be, so the time they rode without speaking didn’t bother her. Chelsea was now lost in the magnificence of the scenery around her.

As much as she considered the scenes she watched on TV to be breathtaking, she was ill-prepared for the actual beauty of the mountains of Montana. Often, when reaching the top of one rise, she would gasp at what was yet before them. With each passing moment, she found more to be seen than could actually be absorbed. Her mind was nearly boggled by the variety of shapes and textures contained within the panoramic view. In one scene, she was looking out over a blanket of tall evergreens, but by turning her head just barely, she saw jagged rock formations mixed within the green countryside and winding waterways. The landscape nearest them was like a brilliant canvas framed by even greater splendor farther away. Mountains in the distance spread before them in layer upon layer of peaks and valleys, colors and hues of which she could only wonder. Recalling the night she went with John to the gallery opening, she could easily imagine this masterpiece of God hanging on the wall there. Now this was art.

Currently, they rode on a level plain, but as John slowed his pace, and with an outstretched arm indicating she slow down as well, Chelsea realized they were coming near the edge of a large cliff.