And whatever it was that he wanted to say to her, she had a feeling he’d get straight to the point.
Francine had always been the one who’d listened to their prayers, but once she accepted the fact that her illness was terminal, she had said, “It’s important that you be there for them, morning and night. How else will they learn that talking to God can be as easy and as natural as breathing?”
It had been just one of the many things he’d promised in her last hours. So far, he hadn’t let her down. With the help of a cleaning service, he kept the house shipshape and saw to it Angie and Bobby ate three squares a day. He made sure they continued with their piano lessons and took her place in helping them with their homework. And most important of all, he’d made a point of attending Sunday services with them after their Bible class ended. “Children learn by example,” Francine had said.
More times than he cared to admit, Noah wished he’d been more observant of all the little things she’d done to make his life pleasant and peaceful. Things like pretty flower arrangements that brightened dark corners. His bathrobe, belted and hanging neatly in their closet. Socks, freshly laundered and paired, then rolled into a ball and tucked into his top dresser drawer.
She’d known without his saying so that he didn’t like his feet cramped into a tightly sheeted bed. And so, in addition to covers that were pulled back and smoothed, Francine had, without fail, untucked the sheets and blankets every night.
Raised in St. Vincent’s Orphanage with nothing but a change of clothes to call his own, the closest he’d come to loving and being loved was when old Brother Constantine invited the lonely boy to join him for his daily walks around the academy grounds.
He’d been dumped on the headmaster’s doorstep at the tender age of two, and by the time Noah turned fourteen, he’d given up hope that one of the smiling couples who came “visiting” would take him home. The starry-eyed ladies and their stoic husbands were looking for babies, after all, and he’d grown too tall, too gangly, for their tastes. Besides, if his own mother hadn’t wanted him, why should anyone else?
But years of the brother’s quiet and steadfast acceptance opened the boy’s heart to the possibility, at least, that one day he might find the kind of warmth that can be generated only by a loving family. And when he was twenty-two, four full years after he’d left St. Vincent’s and Brother Constantine behind, Noah found it in the arms of Francine Brewster.
Her motherly ministrations were like soothing salve, healing the raw wounds of desperation inflicted by years of believing love was an emotion intended for everyone, anyone but him.
He had accepted her gift of unconditional love, and, believing it was far better to show her that he appreciated it, Noah took to doing little things for his wife. Things like surprising her with bouquets of wildflowers, plucked from the roadside; building a potting shed out back, complete with heat and electricity, where she could tend her green-leafed “pets.” He added a room to the back of their Pennsylvania farmhouse so she’d have a place to read when the mood struck.
Oh, how she’d brightened his life! Noah often said he would have tried to reel in the sun if she thought it might warm her, would have gathered up the stars to add sparkle to her life. She’d laugh softly and wave his wishes away, saying, “You’re plenty warm and sparkly for me!”
Still, he’d have done anything she’d asked of him, because Noah believed that nothing he did or built or said could ever balance the scales once she’d given him those precious treasures called Angela Marie and Robert Edward.
He missed her. Missed the companionship and the camaraderie. And being with Dara tonight had reminded him that a rock-solid marriage could be as comfortable as a feather bed.
He hadn’t met a person who didn’t love Dara—and he’d spoken to dozens in trying to find out if she might be involved in the embezzlement scheme. Why, he’d need a calculator to count up all the people who said she’d done them a favor or a kindness over the years!
She certainly had a way with children, his own in particular. She had an incredible sense of humor. And from all he’d seen, she enjoyed hard work. He sensed that the sweetness in her started in her heart, reverberated to every other part of her. And she’s certainly pretty enough, he thought, picturing her dark doe eyes, her bouncy curls, her heart-stopping smile.
More importantly, Dara was a devout follower. That was essential. Francine had specifically told him if love ever came knocking again, he should open the door—provided a Christian woman stood on the other side. “A believer will see to it Angie and Bobby are raised in the faith. She’ll teach them through her own example, not just by words alone.”
He’d prayed himself hoarse over it; if he had to rehitch his wagon—and according to the counselor, that’s exactly what his kids needed most right now—why not yoke himself to someone he sincerely respected, a woman he genuinely liked?
Noah shrugged. Because who knows? You might just find yourself feeling more than friendship for Dara…one day.
If he was honest with himself, he’d have to admit he felt more than that for her now. How else was he to explain the way his heart had thundered when he’d almost held her in his arms…when he’d almost kissed her lovely pink lips.…
“Father?” Angela Marie was saying now.
She’d caught him daydreaming, and she knew it. Noah returned her mischievous smile.
“Good thing you listened to my prayers last,” she said, grinning.
He tucked the covers up under her chin. “And why is that?”
“Because Bobby gets his feelings hurt if you don’t pay attention to his prayers, remember?”
Nodding, Noah chuckled. “What makes you think I wasn’t paying attention to your prayers?”
“Because,” she said matter-of-factly, “you didn’t say ‘Amen’ when I finished.”
“Good night, sweet girl,” he said, bending to kiss her forehead.
He turned out the light, and as he stepped into the hall, he heard her whisper, “I love you, Father.”
“I love you, too.”
Heart knocking against his ribs, he descended the stairs and headed for the kitchen, where Dara was waiting for him. What he was about to say wouldn’t be easy, but it would be right.
Dara had finished one cup of tea and was halfway through a second before she decided to wait for him in the family room, where it was warmer. According to the carriage clock on top of the TV, he’d been gone twenty minutes.
It seemed like an hour.
Dara worried about staying the night. What would his neighbors say when the little red car that had been parked in his driveway before the snow started was still there in the morning? What would Angie and Bobby think when they woke up and found their Sunday-school teacher asleep on the sofa in their family room? And speaking of Sunday school, how would the parents of her other students feel when they found out she’d spent the night in a widower’s house?
You’re a grown-up, they’d scold, why didn’t you check the weather before it got too hazardous to drive? To which she’d reply, Well, if they don’t think any better of me than that…
Still, others might say that she’d subconsciously allowed herself to get waylaid at Noah’s house. Some would no doubt think it hadn’t been unconscious at all, that she’d deliberately gotten stranded, miles from home, on one of the worst weather nights of the year.
Dara sighed. Because, in all honesty she didn’t know which scenario was true.
She was standing at the stove when she heard him coming down the hall. “How do you take your tea?” she asked when he came in from the small home office adjacent to the kitchen.
He carried a thick