“Why?” Martha was looking at him.
He held that gaze. “So I can make lives better, bring people hope and help them find a touch of the elusive joy most of us crave.”
No.
David wasn’t sure who’d delivered the message, his private angel or his own disgusted ego. Or maybe it had been her.
She turned to the window, but not before David saw the small glimmer of disappointment in Martha Moore’s remarkable brown eyes. This woman might want him to think she was hardened beyond hope.
But she wasn’t. Not quite yet.
Still, he couldn’t tell her the whole truth—which was what she’d seemed to need.
A father to many because he would never, ever father children of his own, a mentor and caregiver to all as he would never provide for a wife and family, David Cole Marks had a secret to keep.
Elbows on his knees, he clasped his hands between them. “You ever come up against things in life that just don’t make sense?” he asked.
“I do.” Tim piped up again from the floor, the electronic game he’d been engrossed in now ignored. “Algebra. It’s stupid. Why waste time with as and bs and stuff when you’re just gonna have to stick numbers in there, anyway?”
“You are so lame,” Shelley whispered, with a surreptitious glance at her mother.
“Of course I have.” Martha answered as though her children hadn’t spoken. “Most of the things that happen don’t make sense.”
“Exactly.” David nodded, his eyes on her bent head as he willed her to look up at him. To engage in what might be an actual conversation. “So instead of making myself crazy trying to find sense in senseless things, I decided to devote my energies to the pursuit of universal truths. I really believe that’s the only source of lasting peace and happiness.”
If he was ever going to be able to influence this very jaded woman, he’d have to speak with an honest and open heart. His sincerity, his conviction, would convey the power of his message.
Her head rose, her eyes slowly meeting his. He could read intelligence in their striking brown depths—and, after that initial second, the skepticism with which she considered his words.
“You’re paid to say stuff like that.”
And that was why David hated being a minister. People automatically assumed that his message was the stereotypical religious platitudes. But there was nothing stereotypical about what he had to teach.
About what he believed.
“I don’t know, Mom,” Ellen said, wrinkling her forehead under the cropped and sprayed blond bangs. “Sure doesn’t sound like the kind of thing Pastor Edwards would say.”
A compliment, indeed. David smiled at the slim teenager.
Tim, once again engrossed in his handheld electronic game, was making noises to emulate the crashes and high-speed chases he was attempting to control.
“Pastor Marks.” Martha frowned at her son but said nothing to him. “Please tell my daughter that you get paid to say these things.”
Okay, he had his work cut out there. “I get paid to preach,” he said. “I don’t get paid to believe.”
Even Shelley was listening to the exchange.
Martha sat back, arms crossed over her chest, and such a clear I-told-you-so expression on her face that he couldn’t bite back his next words, in spite of his better judgment.
“And I do believe.”
“Point to the pastor,” Shelley said under her breath.
Martha sat forward. “So what about before you joined the ministry?” she asked.
He’d left that part of his life behind. Forgiven himself. Forgotten.
“I graduated from high school,” he said, repeating the story by rote. “I went to college, got an undergraduate degree in social work, took a job with a private corporation, trying to figure out what I wanted to do. A friend of mine jokingly suggested one night that if I was so filled with lofty ideas, I should have studied theology. His words struck a chord that wouldn’t be silent.”
“Cool,” Tim said. “So you became a minister then?”
David grinned at the boy. “After three years of intense study, yes.”
Martha stood. “Yes, well, it’s been nice—”
The phone on the end table beside Rebecca rang. The skinny young teen with the pitch-black hair in a ponytail handed the mobile receiver up to her mother.
With scarce intimate knowledge of this family, there was no way for David to guess who was on the other end of the line, receiving Martha’s pleasantly delivered message that her children were busy and couldn’t come to the phone. But if he were a betting man, he’d bet last week’s entire paycheck that the caller was not in her favor, despite her friendly tone. Before the phone had rung, Martha had been concluding David’s visit.
The sudden whiteness of her cheeks only heightened his curiosity.
“Oh,” she said, turning her back on the curious eyes of her children. Seconds later, she admitted, “Yes, they’re here, but—”
“It’s Dad,” Tim said quietly, head lowered as he glanced up at his three sisters.
“I know—” Martha began again. She was obviously cut off a second time by the persistent caller.
Ellen nodded. Rebecca draped her leg over the end of the couch and swung it back and forth. Motionless, Shelley sat there with no expression whatsoever. All three girls were watching their mother.
“I’m not—”
None of the kids seemed particularly worried—other than perhaps Ellen. As she looked at her mother, her eyes filled with a warm compassion. David was beginning to associate that quality with Martha’s eldest. None of the children seemed particularly eager to connect with the voice at the other end of the line, either.
Most interesting to David was the complete change that had come over the woman who’d topped the list months ago as his hardest sell in his new job. She was assertive, at least on the surface, but there was a vulnerability, a lack of self-confidence he didn’t recognize at all.
He’d felt drawn—no, guided—to her from the beginning. Compelled by the sense that she needed help she would never ask for. Her current reaction strengthened the inner resolve that had kept him trying, in spite of no success, for months.
“Fine. You’re right.” David was surprised to hear the words. And even more startled when Martha turned and, without another word, passed the phone to Ellen.
“It was good of you to come by.” She spoke to David immediately, loudly enough to camouflage at least part of her daughter’s telephone conversation.
He stood, taking the hand she offered. But he wasn’t ready to be dismissed so easily.
Or to leave when there might be a crisis unfolding. “You’ve got your hands full here,” he said. “I’ve got two very able ones—and some free time.”
Her expression distracted, Martha shook her head. Pulled back her hand. “I’ve been managing this brood just fine for more than four years, Pastor Marks. But thanks.”
Behind her, Ellen, lips pinched, gave the phone to Shelley, whose dark spiked hair was a sharp contrast to her timidly offered hello.
“I don’t mean to imply that you aren’t doing a terrific job,” David said, returning his gaze to the woman trying to get rid of him. He refrained from reminding her that he’d asked them all to call him David.