Deep Haven [02] Tying the Knot Read online

  Anne looked away. Learning whether or not her hunches were correct wasn’t worth the risk. “Of course I forgive you.” It didn’t come out at all the way she wanted, but perhaps he’d take the hint and exit before she collapsed into her deck chair and began to weep. Why did she feel like she was the hoodlum here? “What will you do about your funding?”

  Noah was so tall that when he turned away from her and leaned on the railing, she suddenly felt the breeze lift her hair, as if he’d been protecting her from its invasive touch. She shivered.

  “Well, I guess I need to exercise a little faith. I can’t see God’s plans, but I know that He’s there, even in the dark moments, waiting to rescue me. I have full confidence that if He wants this camp to work, He’ll provide.”

  “What if He lets the entire thing crumble? What if all your hard work is for nothing?” Her voice sounded tight, and it wouldn’t take a genius to sift through her question to see her own searching, her own lack of faith. Thankfully, Noah didn’t even glance at her, leaving her unscathed by those probing, way-too-sensitive eyes.

  “Well, that’s a pretty universal question, isn’t it?” He folded his work-worn hands and stared toward the lake. His profile, bold and noble and suddenly overwhelmingly Native American, made her heart thump hard. In the soft glow of the starry luminaries, Noah Standing Bear was impossibly, undeniably handsome.

  “Where is God in the dark moments, when our dreams crumble, when the worst happens?” His voice became so soft, she leaned closer to hear him. “Where is God when children die, when disease racks a parent . . . or when a woman is attacked?”

  He looked at her, and she could barely breathe. She managed a nod.

  “He’s there. He’s there in the darkness, saying, ‘Look up! I’ll hold you. Look up!’ His grace is sufficient for even the worst moments.”

  Anne flinched, wanting to refute those words. Where was God when she awoke in the hospital, unable to breathe, minus a kidney, morphine flooding her veins? Her throat burned and she looked away. “It might be for you.”

  She felt his gaze on her, hot on the back of her neck. Tears bit her eyes. “I’m a Christian, Noah. But I’m not so sure about the sufficiency of God’s grace. What does that mean, anyway? What part of pain and sorrow and grief does God’s grace eliminate?”

  “None, Anne. And all.”

  She fought a crest of fury. A man like him, tall and capable and oozing strength, couldn’t possibly understand what it was like to feel vulnerable, afraid, alone. The gunshot had been only the topping on a lifetime of fear, a lifetime of seeing God fumble. No, God’s grace wasn’t sufficient. It was a Band-Aid, a placebo the Christian community used to cover the agony of suffering. No one wanted to look grief full in the face or admit its ruthlessness. So they dodged it and called it “God’s sufficient grace.” But she knew from firsthand experience that God checked out of people’s lives when the going got tough. At least, that’s what it felt like.

  Anne folded her hands across her chest, battling the grief of spiritual betrayal. “It’s late, and I have to go to bed.”

  He didn’t move.

  She gritted her teeth. “I’m not debating this with you. I don’t care what you believe.” She thumped her hand on her chest and felt her heart hammering. “I know that God’s grace isn’t enough. Frankly, I don’t have the faintest inkling what God’s grace in the dark moments might look like because I’ve never seen it. I’ve never felt His arms around me, never noticed the bright light that is supposed to calm my fears. I know the truth, and it doesn’t resemble your religious platitudes.”

  Noah nodded. “I guess you do.”

  What did he mean by that? “Just leave, Noah. I’m sorry I can’t help you.”

  He made a small noise in the back of his throat that sounded suspiciously like a groan. “Lord, give me a little grace here!”

  “Ha!” Anne jutted out her chin. “See?”

  He blinked at her, opened his mouth, and gave a huff that sounded suspiciously like . . . laughter?

  Anne nearly punched him. “What’s so funny?”

  He shook his head. “You are.” He gave her a tender look. “Anne, you are delightful. There’s no denying it. I wish you could see your face, all screwed up and angry. You’re ready to run from God’s grace.” He smiled, and it hinted at a kindness that made her bite her trembling lip. “I don’t know why you are in Deep Haven, but I know that whatever lessons God wants to teach you, He can do it here or anywhere. It doesn’t matter to Him. And that’s also a part of God’s grace. You can’t escape it. You simply can’t run from His love in your life.”

  She swallowed, feeling like the insensitive brute had slapped her. “Right. Oh yes, God is just brimming with love for me. What a gift to be . . .” Tears clogged her throat. No, she wasn’t going to return to that moment. The last thing she wanted from the man before her was his pity.

  “What?” His voice was so soft it hurt.

  She clenched her jaw and turned away. “Nothing. Nothing at all. I don’t see God’s love as easily as you do, I guess.”

  He sighed, as if longing to respond. Then he started to leave, and she closed her eyes, immensely thankful that he wasn’t going to chase her down the road of grief to her most private sorrows. A man like him, packed with muscle and menace and immune to vulnerability, wouldn’t have the foggiest idea how to respond to her horrors.

  Then, as if unable to let her troubles linger between them without comment, he spoke into the wind. The words chilled her to her bones. “Whatever darkness you’ve walked through, Anne, God was there. You just don’t want to open your eyes and see Him. Don’t run from your fears. Face them.”

  She recoiled, unable to believe the audacity of his words. She was struck with the sudden impulse to haul up the edge of her shirt to just below her ribs and show him how she hadn’t run from her fears. How she’d planted herself long enough to get a jagged scar that shattered not only her body, but her faith in a good and protective God. She ought to show him exactly where God wasn’t at that ugly moment. Yeah, sure, God’s love surrounded me, didn’t it? She didn’t want to open her eyes to see God? She’d begged for His almighty presence as she tumbled into a pit of despair, of blinding darkness. Anne balled her fists at her sides, wanting to barrel them into Mr. I-Have-the-Sensitivity-of-a-Grizzly’s face.

  Instead, she said tightly, “My darkness is my business. You couldn’t possibly understand what kind of darkness I’ve lived in.” She folded her arms, pressing against the hollowness in her chest. “I came here to find peace. Please leave.”

  He stared at her, his smile erased, his eyes piercing. She clenched her jaw, refusing tears. Then he left without a word. His motorcycle’s roar drowned out the scream of her racing pulse, the only recognizable sign of life in her bereft heart.

  Noah paced the shoreline, his heart still lodged squarely in his throat, choking off any words of sympathy he might have said to Anne. At least it had silenced his pat answers.

  He couldn’t fault her for wondering if God had dropped her. He’d fought that faith battle more times than he wanted to remember.

  Like when he’d seen a boy he’d led to the Lord, a boy with promise and hope, flush his future away with a scrum—intravenous drugs. Or when he’d seen the woman who had raised him, the closest thing Noah had to a mother, die of a heart attack a week later. He even remembered the first time he felt as if he’d been drop-kicked by God—at the age of five when his newly widowed father, stupefied by drink, had thrown him out of the house and told Noah how he’d murder him if he returned. Yes, Noah knew all about dark moments and the paralyzing fear that God had fumbled.

  But he also knew how it felt to be rescued. To see God’s love in a smile, to hear it in a song, to feel it in the embrace of strangers. Strangers who found a hungry shivering boy in a Dumpster, huddled in a soggy apple box. Strangers who took him to a shelter and finally found him a home. God’s grace meant they delivered an orphaned boy to Mother Peters, a new mo
ther with a heart as wide as the Pacific.

  God’s grace didn’t mean life skipped over the hard parts. Grace meant that when life threatened to drown him, in those catastrophic moments, God enclosed him in the pocket of His embrace. Noah had learned that the only way to discover God’s sufficient grace was to let the storm buffet, then cling to God, like David said in Psalm 62:5, Noah’s favorite: “I wait quietly before God, for my hope is in Him.”

  Noah dug his hands into his hair, feeling grubby and small in the face of what he’d seen in Anne’s eyes and the avalanche of pain storming her words. How was he supposed to comfort that kind of emotional wreckage?

  “O my people, trust in Him at all times. Pour out your heart to Him, for God is our refuge.” The verse pulsed in his heart, something that he wished he’d said to Anne in place of his shocked silence.

  Where did a beautiful woman like Anne get emotional scars that shattered her faith in the God who had made this wondrous landscape around her? Noah sat on the beach under the glow of the Deep Haven lighthouse and listened to the storm gather, wishing he’d been there to stop the one who had assaulted Anne’s soul.

  “Noah? What are you doing out here?” Pastor Dan crunched in the rocks down the shore, holding a flashlight. Dressed in a rain slicker, he looked prepared, as usual, for the daily unpredictabilities. “I was at the nursing home and saw your bike.” He sat down, digging a place in the stony beach to hold the light. The beam flashed skyward and was devoured by the night.

  “I’m just wishing I was a different man. Wishing I had the right words.”

  Dan frowned at him.

  Noah picked up a fistful of tiny pebbles, shaking them. “I blew it tonight. That nurse I got for the camp, well . . . I sort of trapped her.”

  “What?”

  Noah grimaced. “I know it wasn’t the right thing to do, so I went to apologize to her and managed to not only scare her to death, but I also stomped all over her feelings.”

  “That doesn’t sound like you.”

  “You don’t know me that well, Dan. I’ve been accused of having the sensitivity of a porcupine.” He gave a wry smile. “She’s been . . . emotionally injured. And I—” he could barely pry the words out of his constricting chest—“laughed.”

  Dan stayed mercifully silent.

  “She was so . . . cute and frustrated, and I had no idea her issues ran bone deep.” Noah buried his face in his hands. “I don’t know what to do.”

  The waves washed on shore, growing violent. The spray landed on their boots.

  “Noah, you’ll figure out a way to make it right.”

  “No, I think I really blew it this time.” He stared at his hands, at the scar across his right palm. “I’m not sure why God picked me to do this job. I’m so unqualified. How am I supposed to reach kids’ hearts with the gospel when I can’t even encourage Anne?”

  Dan threw a handful of stones into the surf. They crackled as they hit the beach. “Well, that’s where you forget that you’re just the vessel. Remember Galatians 2:20: ‘I myself no longer live, but Christ lives in me. So I live my life in this earthly body by trusting in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.’ It’s God who has to reach the kids. It’s God who will encourage Anne. God made you the way you are, and you’ll have to trust Him to mold you into the person He wants you to be. Trust Him to give you the right words for this woman.”

  Noah blew out a long, unsteady breath. “I can’t help feeling like I’m in way over my head, treading water for all I’m worth but going under fast.”

  “Hmm.” Dan reached for the flashlight, flicked it erratically toward the sky, then straight out across the lake. The beam lit the frothy peaks of waves. “It seems to me that a man who is drowning has no choice but to reach up for help.”

  Noah closed his eyes, letting Dan’s words settle deep into his soul.

  “You know,” Dan said softly, “I wonder if over your head and drowning might be exactly where God wants you to be.”

  Noah opened his eyes and pitched a rock into the swell of waves. “Perhaps. But if Anne Lundstrom doesn’t change her mind, I won’t even get a chance to get my feet wet.”

  The night toyed with his emotions. Sliding over him like a snake, slithering through his pores.

  Infecting his bones.

  He itched, shifted, struggled against the claw of the past. Voices—loud, drunk, angry. Fear, cold and thick, icing his veins.

  No! Father!

  He flinched, reeling from the blow of the memory. Fought to open his eyes. The room spun with the smell of anger—sweat, beer, iron-ore shavings.

  Then the shadows lurched over him, and the icy sting of a gun barrel screwed into his jaw.

  “Where is it?” a voice growled, and he came fully awake. Three shadows, accented by the spark of moonlight on silver gun barrels.

  “I don’t have it. Yet.” He sounded pitiful and adolescent. Fear rose and clogged his throat. “But I will.”

  Breath, thick with booze, streamed across him. “You have one week. One.”

  Relief melted every muscle. He lay down, a soggy, trembling mass on his double bed as they filed out and closed the door with a soft click.

  7

  The sunlight woke him, a kiss of hope after the onslaught of the night. Noah sprawled on the ratty sofa of the Wilderness Challenge lodge and closed his eyes, feeling as if he’d been beaten and left for dead. He’d chased his worst fears around in his sleep, and somewhere in the wee hours he knew he had no choice but to surrender. Wilderness Challenge would have to wait another season to open.

  His heart felt like cement in his chest. God, I am sorry I’m not the man to make this happen. Please forgive me for being less than who You needed. He sat up and swung his legs onto the floor, the chill somehow a balm to his knotted nerves.

  The idea of calling the mothers and aunts of the campers and having to tell them the kids would be spending the summer on the streets pitched his empty stomach.

  He needed coffee. He staggered into the kitchen, newly outfitted and sparkly with a new industrial refrigerator and stove. The bag of coffee lay crumpled and empty next to the Mr. Coffee. He made a face at the two-day-old sludge crusting the bottom of the pot. Closing his eyes, he held the bag up to his nose and inhaled deeply. The aroma would have to do until he made it into town and grabbed a cup at the Footstep of Heaven.

  He enjoyed his occasional mornings there, chatting with Joe, the owner’s husband. Evidently, the guy knew something about being judged by external appearances, although Noah wasn’t sure how. Joe Michaels seemed to have life in the palm of his hand—a beautiful and charming wife, a life goal that didn’t need the approval of three committees to attain, and a very definite niche in the community. Everyone loved Joe, and it wasn’t rare to find the guy hosting a small crowd, like he was some sort of celebrity.

  Noah grabbed a towel and headed out to the men’s washhouse, a building with nothing more than a trough and a few faucets, half open to the sky. He’d built a private shower on one end, but Noah counted on the attraction of a clear Boundary Waters lake to entice his campers to cleanliness.

  The icy water, pumped up from the lake, made him gasp. He dunked his head into the trough, washed his hair, and felt frozen when he toweled dry.

  The sun blinked through the sodden trees, turning droplets into diamonds against a jade background. The storm had littered twigs and leaves across the yard, and Noah counted at least two big branches across the trails. He’d have to do some cleanup before he tackled assembling cots.

  No. He stopped and shook his head. There he went, thinking like a guy with a mission instead of a soggy failure with nothing but expenses piling up around his ears. It was so easy to fall into the plans, skipping ahead on the hope set before him, the grace already granted to him. He took a deep breath and trudged back to the lodge.

  He bent into the fridge, scrounging up some sort of sandwich—pickles and mayonnaise, maybe—when he heard the gravel crunch of wheels
on the drive. He paused, riffling through his mental files. Staffers? Not until Saturday. Inspectors? His stomach knotted.

  He closed the fridge and plodded outside. He was halfway out the door and across the porch when he saw her standing with her hands on her hips, surveying his freshly tiled roof.

  The wind toyed with her hair, the delicious color of copper. Dressed in a pair of track pants and a sweatshirt, she looked suspiciously ready to . . . work?

  Then she looked at him and smiled, and for a moment, he thought he would never move again.

  “Good morning!”

  Where was his voice? He managed to nod.

  “I thought, well . . .” She wrinkled her nose, as if trying to conjure up the right words. Then she took a breath and shrugged. “You helped me last night. I thought I could repay the favor.”

  His heart took a flying leap right out of his chest and landed at her feet. “Swell,” he croaked, trying not to sound like a besotted idiot. He had the sudden urge to race over to her, shake this alien being hard, and demand that the Anne he knew, the one with inborn spitfire, be immediately returned to her human body.

  Or maybe not. Perhaps he liked this new version better.

  He must have missed a few days here, a few episodes of their rocky relationship, because to save his life, he had no idea why Anne Lundstrom was standing in his yard, rolling up her sleeves.

  “Don’t make any assumptions. It’s just for one day.” But the way she smiled, well, he didn’t believe her for a second. No, not for one second. Because he’d make this day the best of her entire life.

  Shame had driven Anne up the Gunflint Trail to Wilderness Challenge. Noah had helped her clean her house and sat with her on the porch, listening to her spew out spiritual bitterness. Yes, she felt orphaned by God, but the pastor’s kid in her couldn’t leave that last ugly impression on Noah’s brain.

  And when he grinned at her, his expression turning to pure delight when she offered to help him, her heart did a tiny flip. With his wet hair, a shag of dark whiskers on his chin, his rumpled black T-shirt and army fatigues, he looked like a confusing, way-too-attractive mix of gangster and hobo. She shook off the impression and opened her car door. “Hope you don’t mind, but Bertha begged to come along.”