Finding Hope (11 page)

He seemed delighted. “That was my father's little joke. I noticed it as a boy, but nobody else ever has.”

As usual, the old man alternated between snappishness and kindness, but he seemed to enjoy her visit. An hour passed quickly and Hope thought she'd better go. Dr. Hartman said he'd have her shown out.

“No, I can find my own way,” she said lightly. “I dropped bread crumbs as I came in.”

He chuckled. “Rodgers will have had them swept up by this time. Shall I draw you a map?”

She leaned down to kiss the bald spot on top of his head. “You forgot to beg me to come back soon, but I will anyway.”

He really could be a sweet old man, Hope thought as she descended the broad staircase. He just needed some encouragement, like Charles had. Why did nobody love these people? And why didn't they love each other?

Near the bottom of the stairs an enormous full-length portrait of a dark-haired woman in a long, white dress captured Hope's attention. Was this Charles's great-grandmother, the bride for whom this house had been built? Her dress and hairstyle seemed to belong to that era. She was standing before the staircase Hope had just come down and she held a small, open Bible in her right hand.

Was the book just a prop or had it meant something special to the young woman? Hope drew closer. Lost in her thoughts, she was startled by a voice behind her.

“Are you interested in art, Miss Evans?”

Hope's heart jumped into her throat, but she fixed a smile on her face and turned to greet Charles's mother, who was dressed in an immaculate white linen pantsuit. “Interested, but absolutely ignorant,” she replied as she stepped forwards and took the woman's outstretched hand. “Will you call me Hope?”

Cool blue eyes flicked over her as her hand was grasped briefly and impersonally. “Certainly,” answered Mrs. Hartman after a short pause. “I understand you've just seen my father-in-law. Will you stay and have tea with me?”

“Thank you,” Hope said, a little too brightly. “I'd like that.” She was amazed that the lie tumbled so effortlessly from her lips.

Mrs. Hartman led the way to a lavishly furnished sitting room where four impossibly tall windows on one side were balanced by a massive, ornately carved fireplace on the opposite wall.

Hope was invited to take a chair and Mrs. Hartman settled on the sofa opposite her. Tea was brought in immediately and after it was poured, Mrs. Hartman pushed a plate of exquisite little cookies towards Hope. “Please help yourself.”

Clutching the beautiful teacup and saucer as if they were life preservers, Hope tried desperately to think of something intelligent to say. Why was she suddenly so tongue-tied? Why were her palms so clammy?

Mrs. Hartman turned an artificial smile on her guest. “How long have you been seeing Trey?”

Hope lowered her cup into its saucer and smiled nervously. “Oh, we're not dating. We're best friends.”

The woman lifted one elegant shoulder. “Is that what they're calling it nowadays?”

Hope didn't understand. “I beg your pardon?”

Mrs. Hartman's chin jerked impatiently. “You're sleeping together, of course.”

Hope was positive that her heart had just stopped beating. It was several seconds before she was able to speak. “Mrs. Hartman! We're
not!
” With shaking hands, she placed her cup and saucer on the table in front of her.

Mrs. Hartman was unperturbed. “Of course I don't approve of all the bed-hopping you young people engage in, but I am aware that it goes on.”

Hope's heart had started again; only now it was beating much too fast. Her cheeks felt hot and she knew they must be flaming red. Why on earth had she insisted on coming here without Charles? “Mrs. Hartman,” she managed finally, “I am a Christian and I believe sex outside of marriage is wrong.”

Charles's mother crossed her slim legs and gave Hope a look of utter disgust. “You can't possibly imagine that he will marry you?”

“Of course I don't imagine that.”

“Then what do you want?”

Hope told the truth. “I want to be his friend and help him in any way I can. But most of all, I want to see him find peace with God.”

“Ah,” the woman said knowingly, “so you're a little evangelist.” Her words were as cold and brittle as icicles.

Hope lifted her chin. “I am Charlie's friend. And Tom's. And old Dr. Hartman's. And if you wanted, I could be
your
friend, too.”

“Thank you,” the woman said shortly. “I have plenty of friends.”

“Do you?” Hope's temper flared. “Do you really? I'm sure you know a lot of people, Mrs. Hartman, but I don't believe that you have any real friends at all!”

Mrs. Hartman's mouth dropped open and she actually looked wounded.

Hope's hand flew to her own mouth, covering it too late to stop the ugly words. Had they really come out of
her?
Tears stung her eyes as she thought how ashamed her mother would be of her at this moment. “Oh, Mrs. Hartman! Can you ever forgive me? I had no business saying—”

“Hope?” Charles spoke sharply as he strode into the room. “What's going on here?” he demanded of his mother.

If Mrs. Hartman had been hurt, she made a quick recovery. She wore the look of an outraged queen. “I don't believe you were brought up to interrupt private conversations, Trey,” she said haughtily. “Neither were you taught to storm into a room and bark at your mother.”

“It was my fault, Charlie.” Hope hurried to his side and linked her arms through one of his, desperate to soften him. “I said something horrible.”

“Don't worry about it, kid,” he said roughly. “I can well imagine how you were provoked.” His eyes bored into his mother's.

Mrs. Hartman sniffed and tossed her head indignantly.

“Please, Charlie,” Hope begged, tugging on his arm. “There's no need to—”

“Go home, Hope,” he interrupted, still glaring at his mother. “I'll have a short visit with Granddad and then I'll stop by your house on my way to the hospital.”

Frightened by his flashing eyes and the ruthless set of his jaw, Hope tightened her hold on his arm. When he finally looked at her, she shook her head, freeing a tear to make its way down her hot cheek. She gave him a long, pleading look. She had to make him understand how it would shame her if he defended her by verbally abusing his own mother.

He averted his eyes, biting his bottom lip, and when he turned a calmer face back to her she pulled a shaky breath and sighed gratefully. He gently disengaged her arms from his.

Hope faced Mrs. Hartman. “What I said was rude and hurtful. I hope one day you'll be able to forgive me.” With all the dignity she could muster, she walked out of the room.

 

Charles crossed the sitting room to one of the long windows and pushed aside a chintz curtain, leaning one hand on the window frame and thrusting the other into his pants pocket. As his mother sipped her tea in sullen silence, he watched Hope run to her car and throw herself into it. When she folded her arms on the steering wheel
and buried her head in them, something inside Charles twisted painfully and he had to look away.

“How could you do it, Mother?” He was more bewildered than angry now, his tone pleading rather than scolding. He half turned to look at her. “How could you make her cry? Are you really so cruel that you could hurt a gentle thing like Hope without any remorse at all?”

An eggshell-thin teacup rattled against its saucer as both were abruptly set down on the table. “Are you in love with that girl or not?” Mrs. Hartman demanded.

“Love,” Charles echoed in disgust. Regret tore at his soul. “There's no love in me, just like there's none in you. But Hope matters to me in a way I can't explain.” Not even to himself, and he had honestly tried.

His mother made no reply.

Charles turned back to the window and watched Hope drive away. “Mother, there's something extraordinary about her. Even Granddad has seen it.” He leaned his forehead against a cool windowpane and his voice softened. “She'd be friends with you if you'd let her. You'd never deserve her friendship any more than I do, but Hope wouldn't trouble herself about that. She'd find things in you to admire, not because you're so wonderful, but because she is.”

“You
are
in love,” said his mother. The hard edge was gone from her voice. She sounded curious, perhaps even a little envious.

Turning away from the window, Charles shook his head. As he moved to the chair Hope had just vacated he saw that she'd dropped her sunglasses beside it. He bent to pick them up, then he sat down heavily. He toyed with the glasses for a moment before he folded them and dropped them into his coat pocket.

He wasn't in love. But Hope had done something to
him, shaken something loose inside him, made him
feel
things.

He was a brilliant surgeon, a certifiable genius. He was saving lives and advancing the science. That had always been enough. Or at least, it had kept him so busy he never had time to wonder whether it
was
enough.

Now he knew it wasn't.

He was thirty-five years old and in all his life, he'd never confided in his mother. But somehow he was moved to share this with her. Suddenly he ached to tell his mother about his secret pain, the confusion in him. He was so much like her, and he wanted to know if she had ever felt this way.

“I wish I
could
love, Mother. I wish I could believe in God and see the world the way Hope does. I wish you could, too.”

H
ope was especially pretty tonight. Glowing. And Charles was trying to figure out why. He brought the Mercedes to a smooth stop at a red light and turned to her. “What are you so happy about?”

She looked out her window and sighed as if she'd just gained her heart's desire. “I didn't ask you to come to Bible study tonight, but here we are.”

He frowned, still clueless. “I don't have a standing invitation?”

She turned towards him, her blue eyes shining with excitement. “Of course you do. But I was going to skip tonight because I'm behind schedule on a translating job.”

“Why are we going, then?”

She turned an incredible smile on him and his pulse quickened. He wondered why. She gave his shoulder a friendly pat. “Because you called and asked whether you should pick me up or meet me there.”

“So?” Hope didn't usually talk in riddles. What was she trying to say?

The cabdriver behind them honked impatiently, alerting Charles that the light had changed.

“You're awfully dense tonight, Charlie,” Hope teased. “Can't you imagine what that means to me? To know that if you're not working, you just assume we'll be going to Bible study?”

That struck him as hilarious. He tossed her a quick glance as he changed lanes. “You're the only woman I've ever met who appreciates being taken for granted. You're positively abnormal, Hope.”

Minutes later he parked in front of Pastor Bill's house. They hurried inside, entering quietly when they realized the meeting had already begun. Pastor Bill was speaking as they took a couple of chairs on the outer edge of the group.

“…and please don't misunderstand. This isn't a shakedown. I'm just telling you so you can pray that we will follow God's will, whatever it is. I think a lot of our people have already given more than they can afford to the building fund, but you all know we agreed not to move forwards with buying this property unless we could pay cash for it. We're still three hundred thousand dollars short and it looks like we just won't be able to go ahead. Apparently the Lord is saying this isn't the right time.”

“But we can do more,” said Claire. “Some of us can do a lot more.”

A middle-aged woman scoffed. “We're not going to collect three hundred thousand dollars at this late date!”

Pastor Bill rubbed the back of his neck. “Far be it from me to limit God. Remember the loaves and the fishes? But the fact is, we've known for some time that the sellers want our answer a week from tomorrow. Let's pray about this right now, and may the Lord do as He sees fit.”

Charles bowed his head politely, but he didn't close
his eyes. He watched as Hope wrote something in the small notebook she always carried with her. “For the building fund,” she printed, and she quietly tore the page free.

Charles was still peeking as she reached for her purse and opened her wallet. She looked up briefly to make sure she was not being observed, then she counted her money. Four tens and two ones. Her chest rose and fell in a silent sigh. She rummaged in the bottom of her purse, but apparently she found no more money.

She rose from her chair and slipped into the dining room. Leaning back in his own chair, Charles watched her through the wide doorway. She folded the money inside the note and placed it in the center of the large oak table.

Charles felt an odd tightness in his chest. Did she really imagine forty-two dollars could make a difference? Hope couldn't even buy tires for her car—how could she afford to throw away forty-two dollars on this doomed project?

When she returned to her chair she closed her eyes and prayed with the others. Her face was lit by a secret smile.

 

“You're quiet tonight,” Hope commented as Charles drove her home from the Bible study.

“There's something on my mind,” he admitted. “Hope, I saw what you did.”

“What I did?” she repeated cautiously.

“The forty-two dollars,” he said. “You can't afford to give away that kind of money, especially to a hopeless cause.”

She grinned. “Well, since I'm participating, it can't be a Hope-less cause, now can it?”

He refused to be sidetracked. “Please, Hope. What will
you have to go without now that you've given away your last forty-two dollars?”

She looked uncomfortable. “That's personal, Charlie.”

“Is it? I would have thought you'd be eager to explain. Don't you want me to understand that aspect of your relationship with God?”

She seemed to be amazed by the question. “Is that why you want to know, Charlie? I thought you were just worried about me having gas money.” The corners of her pretty mouth eased down.

“Yes, I'm worried about that,” he conceded. “But I really want to understand what made you do it. And why you looked so happy afterward.” A wistful note crept into his voice. “Won't you explain it to me?”

“I don't know if we'll get the money on time,” she said slowly, looking out the window as she spoke. “But if we don't make our goal, I want to know that at least I did everything I could.”

Stopping for a red light, he turned to look at her. “And if you
do
make the goal?”

The busy city intersection was awash with colorful lights. They illuminated Hope's face, and when she turned to Charles her eyes glittered like stars, throwing sparks into his own eyes and making his breath catch in his throat.

“If we get three hundred thousand dollars by next week I'll be thrilled to have been a small part of the effort,” she said eagerly. “I'll have a share in the joy—don't you see?”

He nodded thoughtfully. He
did
see. But what was she going to do for gas money?

And why did that sparkle in her eyes make him forget to breathe?

 

Hope had promised to cook dinner for Charles the night before he left for Mexico. She made veal parmigiana and waited.

He was forty-five minutes late when someone from the hospital called to relay Dr. Hartman's apologies and inform Hope that he was still in surgery. “There was a bus accident and things are really hopping here,” the nurse explained. “Dr. Hartman will probably be here most of the night.”

Half an hour later Hope was at the hospital, picnic basket in hand. She located the nurse who had phoned her, explaining that she'd brought dinner for Dr. Hartman and that she'd be waiting in his office.

“We'll tell him you're here,” the nurse promised. “But I warn you, it could be some time before he gets a break.”

Hope occasionally picked up Charles's dry cleaning or brought sandwiches to share with him, so she had a key to his office. She let herself in and turned on the lights, feeling perfectly at home. She helped herself to a bottle of orange juice from his tiny countertop refrigerator, then she sat at his desk and went over some of her thesis notes. Just before midnight she dimmed the lights, slipped off her shoes and curled up on the comfortable leather sofa.

Charles was passionate about this sofa, which he had purchased expressly for sleeping on, and now Hope understood why. As she snuggled her head onto a goose down pillow, she felt like a baby lying in her mother's arms, warm and safe. She closed her eyes and whispered her thanks to God, then she prayed for her friend the surgeon.

Lord, he doesn't realize that his abilities come from You. Make him see that. Give him strength and wisdom and guide his hands tonight….

She was asleep before she got to “Amen.”

 

Hope was awakened by the wail of a siren. Opening her eyes briefly, she remembered where she was. Warm and deliciously comfortable, she settled down again, pulling the blanket more closely around her.

What
blanket? Her eyes flew open. Where had the blanket come from? She sat up, noticing immediately that her picnic basket was on the desk, not on the chair where she'd left it. She peeled off the blanket and went to investigate.

He'd been there. Okay, so she wasn't the lightest sleeper in the world, but how had he managed to eat dinner without waking her?

Her heart thumped with pleasure as she saw that he'd turned her notebook to a blank page and written a message. She held the notebook under the desk lamp and read.

Hope smiled at the signature. It was the second time he had called himself that.

She returned to the sofa and made herself comfortable again. Lying in the semidarkness, she wondered what he
was doing at that moment. She prayed for him again, until she felt a sweet peace that all was well.

She was awakened by orange-red sunlight streaming through the large window behind Charles's desk. She moved slightly, and something wasn't right. She turned her head and realized with a pang of delight that a warm head lay against her shoulder.

Hope didn't understand how he could sleep in that position. He sat on the floor, his body oddly twisted so that his chest was against the edge of the sofa. One arm lay across the pillow, just above her head, and except for the face against her shoulder, he was not touching her at all. But she savored the warmth of his nearness and she held her breath, not wanting to break the wonderful spell.

In that moment Hope realized something that filled her heart with equal parts rapture and dismay. She loved him.

It couldn't make any difference, she told herself sternly. Even if he loved her, she could never marry him. But he
didn't
love her, and it was actually a relief to know that.

The deep, even sound of his breathing filled her with unspeakable joy. Just one time, she promised herself. Just this once and then never again. What could it possibly hurt?

Slowly, carefully, she moved a little so she could kiss his head, just above his temple. She put her mouth against his soft, honey-colored hair and squeezed her eyes tightly shut as her lips applied a gentle pressure.

“Mmmm,” Charles murmured sleepily. “Thank you.”

Hope stiffened in shock.

“It's okay,” he said softly, his words muffled between her shoulder and the pillow. “I like it.” He yawned. “Do it again.”

Somehow she managed a light tone. “No, it's time for
you to wake up. You can't be very comfortable, anyway.”

He hadn't budged. “On the contrary, I am extremely comfortable. So please don't move, unless of course you have another wild urge to kiss me.”

Hope had all sorts of wild urges, but she wasn't about to give in to any more of them. She didn't move a muscle.

A minute later he yawned again and sat up. He flashed her an ornery grin. “I hope you're not planning to tell your four big brothers that we slept together.”

“That's not funny,” she scolded.

“I take it you're not a morning person,” he said amiably. He stood and stretched his arms towards the ceiling. When Hope saw a flash of bare skin between the hem of his scrub shirt and the drawstring waist of his pants she quickly averted her eyes. In the next instant she wondered why.

She'd seen him shirtless the day he slept at her house. But she'd been thinking of her brothers then, and things were entirely different now. She couldn't look now because she
wanted
to look. And those feelings had to be denied, for so many reasons.

He crossed his ankles and bent at the waist, easily touching his toes. “Want some coffee?” he asked, crossing his ankles in the other direction and repeating the move.

She sat up and rubbed her eyes. “No, thanks. How can you be so wide-awake?”

“Years of practice.”

“Was it a rough night?”

“It was pretty wild,” he admitted, rubbing the back of his neck as he looked out the window. “We had four people from a bus accident. Then there was the kid who found Daddy's stash of target pistols and accidentally
shot himself not once but
twice.
I still haven't figured that one out. After that they brought in a guy on drugs who got hit by a newspaper truck while he was directing traffic on Lake Shore Drive. He was stark naked. Or
mostly
naked. As I understand it, he was wearing a cowboy hat and black leather gloves.”

He rubbed his face with both hands. “People were streaming into that ER so fast, you'd have thought we were running some kind of sale. But they're all going to live happily ever after because all the best people were on duty last night, including your good friend, the breathtakingly brilliant Dr. Heartless.”

“I'm glad it went well. I prayed for you.”

“Did you?” His tone was sharp, but he seemed to realize immediately that he'd startled her. “Sorry. It's just that something strange happened last night and now I wonder…”

Hope's heart beat faster. “What happened, Charlie?”

He shook his head. “I want to think about this for a while, okay? And I have to leave in a minute, so we don't have time to discuss it, anyway.” He ran his hand over the stubble on his jaw. “But when I get back, ask me about last night. I want to tell you, Hope.”

She tried to suppress her disappointment. “Okay.”

Charles glanced at his watch. “I'd better go toss some clothes into a suitcase.”

She smiled. “Do you really sleep on airplanes?”

He pushed a hand through his hair. “Sure. It's great. I always buy two seats so I'll have plenty of room. That's probably why I keep signing up for these trips. That long flight is the best sleep I get all year.”