Home for Christmas, page 19
“You can’t beat their pep and cheese.” Finn popped up on the other side of Ben in the doorway. “They make their own pepperoni in house.”
Darcy’s breath caught in her chest. Finn stood in the doorway backlit with a halo from the kitchen light. He looked like one of the angels in Tessa’s story come to life. “What’re you doing here?”
He descended the wide steps to the patio. “Making excellent pizza topping recommendations.”
“Finn, do you want to join us?” Ben asked.
“Thanks, but I have another commitment tonight.”
Ben nodded and retreated into the house.
Finn walked past her to the fire pit.
Darcy slid the door closed on the shed and followed him. “Why’re you here?”
“I came to check on Lulu. She seems to be doing well.”
“I could’ve told you after worship. Or yesterday at Maggie’s café. Or today after the dress rehearsal. Or any of the half dozen times you obviously have avoided me since last Friday. Have I done something wrong? Did I make you mad somehow?”
He pivoted and lowered his gaze to meet hers. “No, I simply had more than my share with the ramp up to Christmas. It’s a busy time in the church.”
Guilt mixed with relief slithered through her body. “I didn’t mean to imply you owe me something, I thought after…umm…after…”
“I ravished you in the street?”
The burn spread from her chest through to the tip of her nose and likely could be seen by an orbiting satellite. “Something like that…I don’t know. I’m not good at this stuff.”
“I’m not very proficient, either.” He rested his wide palms on her shoulders and gave a gentle squeeze. “But I’m very protective of you.”
“Why have you been avoiding me?”
With a sigh, he lowered onto a chair circling the fire pit. “I haven’t been avoiding you.”
“Yes, you have. Please talk to me. What happened?”
“I’ve loved spending time with you,” Finn said to his feet. “They’ve been the best, most exciting days in longer than I can remember. You’re an amazing woman.”
“Finn, look at me.”
He shifted his focus. The pain reflected behind his dark blue gaze ripped a hole in Darcy’s contentment. “Finn?”
“I have to step back.”
“Step back? Step back? I don’t understand.”
“It’s not what I want to do.”
“Then tell me what’s happening. I know we haven’t known each other long, but this seems so…”
“It’s not you. It’s—”
“Don’t you dare say, ‘it’s not you, it’s me.’ Don’t!” Darcy closed the distance to the back door.
“Darcy…”
She twisted to face him. “I don’t want to hear it. You don’t owe me anything, Finn. What are we? A few stolen kisses? A moment at the church?” Gulping in a lungful of air, she willed the tears puddling on the edges of her eyelids to stay. She wouldn’t let him see he was hurting her. How had she let him get so close?
“Don’t, Darcy. Don’t make it less to stop yourself from being hurt.”
“Hurt? Seriously?” She started shaking her head. “Nope. I can’t. You need to leave, Finn. You need to leave now.”
“I’m sorry, Darcy. Sorrier than you’ll ever know.”
The sound of his retreating steps were muffled in the snow-covered backyard. “Congrats on the new job.”
Darcy turned in time to watch him disappear through the back gate. The click of the latch sounded like a sledgehammer in her brain.
What just happened?
52
What just happened?
Finn rested his forehead against the steering wheel. Did he really just end a relationship with Darcy before it ever truly had a chance to start on the off chance the leadership committee would question him tonight at their emergency meeting? Why did he care?
When he stopped on his way to church to visit with Lulu, hoping for some of her unique and valuable wisdom, he hadn’t contemplated any next step without Darcy. Within moments of sitting down beside Lulu, she shared the exciting news of Darcy’s job offer.
“Finn, I can’t think of a better answer to prayer. Darcy has tried to hide how upsetting the loss of her research has been, but let’s face it, my niece is a giant ball of feelings for all the world to see.”
Finn nodded, but Darcy’s news pinged through his mind with the force of a pinball being shot from the coiled launcher.
Darcy was returning to Columbus.
His heart knew her return to another life was a strong likelihood, but since they worked the festival together, he had allowed himself to daydream about the future. Their future. But now, the future seemed to be a misty mystery.
Lulu prattled on about Darcy’s new job. “God has been so quick to answer this prayer. This whole moment will just be a blip in her life. Isn’t that wonderful?”
A blip in her life.
It wasn’t a bad description of how Finn felt. Maybe her new job was the answer to the questions he had swirling in his head and heart since Sissy Jenkins cornered him on Saturday.
He’d been praying for direction since the confrontation, amplifying his efforts when he received a call from Uncle Tom to attend the emergency leaders meeting this evening. God had been silent. Not that God was often chatty. Finn knew God was always with him, guiding him and inspiring him. But Finn wasn’t arrogant enough to think each of his moments warranted a verbal comment from God. He believed God used others to speak wisdom into the soul, reserving one on one chats for burning bush moments. When Finn didn’t receive a direct verbal answer from his Heavenly Adviser, he turned to his most cherished earthly one, Lulu. And Lulu provided clear, nearly indisputable wisdom even though he had not asked a direct question.
The past week plus was a blip in Darcy’s life. He was a blip. And as much as he felt as if every molecule of his shifted the moment he first met her. Finn needed to let Darcy go.
She was his big bang.
He was her blip.
Better to cut the ties and move on with his life in Gibson’s Run, remembering what was rather than wishing for what could have been.
He continued to listen to Lulu and nodded at appropriate intervals as she finished telling about her physical therapy session with Isabel. She began telling how Isabel layered on the bags of ice and warm heat.”
At the first break in her story, Finn stood and said goodbye. He rejected her offer of dinner with a curtness he would later need to apologize for, and set about turning his back on the clear path to his future happiness.
Letting go of Darcy was the right thing. He needed to fulfill his obligations to God, to the church, and to his uncle. He couldn’t allow his longing for what might be to derail what clearly was. And he wouldn’t be the detour from which Darcy’s career never recovered.
No. It won’t be me.
Sitting tall in the driver’s seat, he turned the ignition of his decades old truck and allowed the hum of the newly rebuilt engine to vibrate through his soul. He made the right choice.
He loved Darcy. He knew that as purely as he knew his salvation was secure and his first love was Christ.
He loved Darcy, but Finn’s big bang would need to remain a small blip for God’s order to be restored.
Shifting the car into gear, he rubbed his wet cheek against the rough fabric of his coat. Doing right was nearly always harder than doing wrong.
53
“I don’t think people actually cook in Gibson’s Run.”
Ben glanced over the crowd jammed into the pizza parlor and took in the lean limbed Italian who had flared a before unseen jealousy in him. “What are you doing here, Marco?”
“Waiting for what was promised as the best pizza in Ohio, but my hopes are not high. Pizza not from Napoli does not seem as if it is worth the effort.”
“Then why not just head back to Napoli or Rome or wherever you are from.”
“Do you not know, I cannot? My father’s offer to Harper still waits a final answer.”
“What offer?”
The corner of Marco’s mouth curled. “Ah, so mia bella did not tell you of the extraordinary opportunity waiting for her?”
Small knots tightened under his skin. Ben had accidentally overheard whispers between Harper and Mrs. Jessup, but the details about why Marco was in Gibson’s Run were unclear. When he heard Mrs. Jessup mention Marco and Harper reconnecting Ben wasn’t brave enough to hear the details and he left the kitchen as quickly as he had entered. But now, it appeared, his ostrich routine had a time limit. “Spit it out, dude. You obviously feel as if you know Harper better than I do.”
Marco slid forward and brushed unseen lint from Ben’s shoulder. “Oh, but I do, my oversized American friend. You have known mia bella for what? Two weeks? I have known her for a lifetime. Our souls know each other. We are meant to be. I only need to have the time to remind her of our destiny.”
Destiny? Who was this guy? “What is this ‘extraordinary opportunity’?”
“She has the chance to decorate my father’s new chain of boutique hotels. Of course, I will be supervising.”
“A chain of hotels?” Why would Harper not have told him? This kind of opportunity could make her career. The job must have been what Mrs. Jessup and Harper were discussing. Reconnecting with Marco because of a decorating gig wasn’t threatening. Or at least it wouldn’t be threatening if Harper was only going after a job and not a Marco.
“Pick-up, Langston.” The server at the register shouted over the din of waiting customers.
“That’s me. Great catching up, Marco.” Ben turned toward the counter.
“She must pass the first test, but I do not fear her being up for the task. I will support her. And when she recognizes I am what she needs we will be together. As I said, we are destiny.”
~*~
Ben parked on the short driveway behind Aunt Lulu’s house. He lifted the three pizzas from the passenger seat and headed across the back lawn. His mind replayed the short interaction with Marco.
Why hadn’t Harper told him her good news? Maybe she was really still in love with Marco? Maybe Harper and Marco were destined? Maybe she didn’t know how to let Ben down easy? He could give her a few pointers. Ben had been let down easy more times than he could count.
A twig snapped to his right and the light of the low burning fire tugged his gaze. Darcy was folded tightly in the crook of an Adirondack chair staring into the flames.
“Darc, everything OK?”
She nodded and waved her hand, but the sound of sniffling cut through cold silence.
“Darc, I have three pizzas that will need to be thrown in the oven to warm regardless of whether I go in now or in ten minutes. Spill it?”
She lifted her gaze to his. In the softness of the moonlight, her blotchy cheeks and glossy eyes sparkled. “I’m stupid.”
Closing the distance between them, he set the pizzas on the edge of the fire pit. “You’ll have to be more specific.”
“I thought…”
He waited so Darcy could find her words.
“I thought he liked me as much as I like him.”
Ah, the pastor.
“What happened?”
She shrugged and dragged a gloved hand under her nose.
“I can’t help without words.”
“Everything’s been turning around, you know? This town. The church. The new job. All of it. And I thought Finn was an answer to a question I hadn’t even asked God. All the chaos of the past few weeks, months, maybe even years, seemed to be settling and life was clicking into place. And I really liked the picture.”
He could relate. As unexpected and derailing as the last two weeks should have been, Ben couldn’t remember a time when his life felt so…right. He had purpose helping Lulu. He and Darcy were back to being he and Darcy. And there was Harper Jessup.
And now there was Marco and destiny.
Maybe Ben was wrong about how Harper felt about him. Ben knew how he felt about her, but feelings sometimes only traveled one way. “I can relate.”
“But now, I don’t know. I think I’m in love with Finn. No, I know I’m in love with Finn, and he told me he needs to ‘take a step back.’ What does that mean? You’re a guy. Explain it to me.”
“And he didn’t tell you why?”
“He just said he needs to take a step back, but everything between us was real.”
“Maybe something at the church? Guys, well, we can get one track minds for two things, women and work. And his work is pretty all consuming.”
“I get it. Because, you know, Christmas. But why break up with me? We’ve never been on a real date. This was officially the shortest relationship of my entire life. Do you think there’s another woman?”
Ben shook his head. There couldn’t be another woman in the pastor’s orbit. Ben’s knuckles got sore just considering the possibility.
“Is it too much to ask for all parts of my life to work together? Just this once?”
He tugged her into his side. “Nope. You deserve everything good in this world. You’ve sacrificed so much to try and keep your corner of the world neat and orderly; it’s about time order came to you.”
“What’s that supposed to mean? I don’t try to control everything.”
“Darcy Langston, you’ve been trying to control the world since you could color coordinate your dolls’ clothes. It’s understandable. Your obsession with order was a bit of an antidote to our unorthodox childhood.”
“I don’t think I like you psychoanalyzing me.”
Ben swallowed against the thickness in his throat. He’d been dancing around the words he needed to say to Darcy for the better part of five years. But since he’d talked with Harper, they had been raw and on the surface. Pain and guilt rumbled through him as if he had eaten a two-day old sandwich. “I love you. You’re my sister, and the last few years of separation have been daily bouts of torture. But that was your choice, Darc, not mine. And because of how easily you cut me out, I’m petrified to share what I need to say.”
She shifted in her seat and lifted her chin toward Ben. “Say what you have to say.”
“You want the world to fit perfectly. You always have. If one piece falls out of order, you overreact and overcorrect. When Mom got sick, your need to put ninety-degree angles on every aspect of life went into overdrive. And when my choices didn’t make her well, you blamed me. You cemented the wall you created between us.”
“No...”
“Yes, you did. Your hurt ran extra deep because Mom didn’t choose you and your path. You started blaming me for everything wrong in your whole life, not just Mom’s illness. And I would have gladly accepted the blame if you had let me stay in your life. But you didn’t.
“Darc, I was so lost when Mom died. I lost her but I lost you, too. And losing you was by far worse. You were, are, my North Star. If I had a problem, I needed you to talk it out. If my heart was broken, you helped fix it. If I was scared, you made me brave. And in a moment, you were gone.”
She stretched to reach for his hand. “Ben, I’m so sorry. I was terrible. I couldn’t process Mom not being here anymore. Or how awful I was to her our whole lives. I guess I needed to shift the blame to release some of the guilt. And you ended up taking the burden. Just like every other time I had too much to carry, I lumped it on your shoulders. It wasn’t fair of me. And I will be forever ashamed of my inability to let go.”
“I’m just glad you have forgiven me.”
“Ben, you have nothing to be forgiven for. If either of us needs forgiveness, it’s me. I put my anger and hurt over Mom on you. And in the process, I junked up our relationship. Can you forgive me?”
He squeezed his sister’s fingers. “Done long ago. I can’t go through not talking to you again. Promise, no matter how mad you get at me you won’t ever shut me out of your life. You are my other half. As creepy and co-dependent as that might seem.”
“I promise. I love you, Benny boy.”
“I love you, Darcy darling.” Releasing the mantle of guilt and anger made Ben feel as though he was filled with helium. He glanced skyward and offered a silent thank You to God.
Shifting to sit on the arm of the chair, Ben draped his arm over Darcy’s shoulders. “I have to confess I feel the same way you do about Gibson’s Run. Mostly because we’re us again. But also, there is something simple and almost magical about this place. I hate Lulu had to have an accident for us to reconcile or for us to feel as if we have a home again, or maybe for the first time. But God has His hand in all this. Even you and Finn.”
“And you and the lovely Ms. Jessup?”
“Nice deflection.” He shrugged. “Maybe…I know what I feel and for me it’s a lot. But I don’t know what she’s feeling or thinking. I ran into that Marco guy at Frankie’s. His dad offered Harper a job. Why wouldn’t she have told me? Unless she doesn’t feel the same way I do.”
“Man, we are just two chips off the sentimental, romantic mom block.”
“Not a bad block to be chipped from.”
Darcy’s mouth tilted. “She was everything I ran from in my life. And now, all I want to do is follow in her footsteps.”
“Romantic lit professor?”
“Ugh! As if!” She shook her head. “No, I’ll stick with science. But I want to find what she chased most of her life.”
“Love?”
Darcy nodded. “I didn’t know I wanted it until I met Finn and quite frankly until my lips met Finn’s.”
“Darcy...we’ve talked about oversharing…”
“I guess I understand what Mom was pursuing with every move and new man. If she had even a spark of the feelings I have for Finn with our father, I can see why she was willing to try and recreate that feeling anywhere she could.”
Ben nodded. Once or twice, he experienced a twinge of the heady emotions Mom used to wax poetically about, but until the last few weeks he would not have considered upending his life to be with another person. But now? He would definitely entertain packing up his meager belongings and following Harper anywhere she led. Would he be as successful as Mom with his romantic endeavor of chasing a one-sided dream?
