More Than This: Contemporary Christian Romance Novel (29 page)

He had gone stone-cold quiet, and fear took a swipe at her.

She glanced over at him. “You okay?”

His gaze at her held only surprise. “Yeah.” He walked another three steps before he said anything. “Look. I know this is going to sound completely insane...”

“So what else is new?”

However, instead of laughing or even getting teasingly defensive, he looked only serious. Step. Step. Step. But no words.

She was starting to get worried again. “Okay, what’s wrong? Where’d you go?”

He glanced over at her and then let his gaze drop to his feet as he let out a long breath. “Okay. I’m just going to say it.”

“Please. You’re worrying me.”

Two more steps and he stopped. They weren’t even half a block from her apartment, and when she stopped too, she glanced down the street and then back at him. Why were they stopping? “What’s...?”

He closed his eyes, inhaled, and exhaled slowly. “Okay. I know this is really sudden and kind of crazy, but... Liz.” Bridging the gap between them, he took her hands and backed them off the main thoroughfare into the nook of a storefront. His gaze captured hers and locked there. “Liz.” Then with no more warning than that, he dropped to the concrete on one knee and looked up at her.

Her heart slammed into her ribs. “Jake! What’re you...”

“The truth is I’ve loved you since the moment you left that coffeepot on my table. I know this is not how it’s supposed to be. I know I’m supposed to have a ring for your finger and everything, and I can get you one if you want it.”

What was he doing? “Jake?”

“The truth is, I love you, Liz, and all I want is to spend forever making really bad pie crust with you. I want to go shopping with you and come home to you. I want to see the world with you and sit with you on the couch. Please don’t say no. Even if we don’t do this right now. I want us to be together from now on and however that works, I’m okay with it.”

“Jake? Are you crazy?” She put her hand to her mouth. “Oh, my...”

“Yeah, I am. I’m crazy about you. What do you say? Will you marry me?”

Every scenario she’d ever had about this moment was wrong, and yet there was something about it that was so right she couldn’t hold it all in her heart. It was them, in microcosm, all wrong but somehow totally right. She sighed and smiled even as she shook her head to get the reality of the moment over the disbelief that it was happening. “Yes. You’re completely insane, but yes, I’ll marry you.”

Only now did he have the decency to look surprised. “You will?”

She nodded. “Yes. I will.”

With a whoop, he came up and grabbed her, lifting her and spinning her around. “Oh, man, for a minute there I thought I was toast.” He hugged her to him. “Are you serious? You’ll really marry me?”

“Yes. I’m serious. Are you serious?”

He let her slide down to the ground. “Yes. I’m serious.” His hands drifted to the sides of her face as he drank her in with his eyes. “Totally serious.”

“Good.” She reached up and splayed her fingers on the back of his neck. “Because if you’re teasing me, I’m going to kill you.”

Lowering his lips to hers, he laughed. “Sounds frightening.”

She would have replied except his kiss negated every thought in her brain. This was better anyway. Way better.

The next morning when she awoke, Liz tried to piece the night before together, and when she did, her eyes came wide open. He’d asked her to marry him, and she had accepted. She was almost 100% sure of that. Breathing through that thought, she tried to surmise what came next. He had dropped her off at her door, and they had said good night with a kiss that hadn’t left her memory since.

But somehow in all of that, talking about logistics and what came next never came up. Now it did. Big time. First, there was telling her parents and seeing about the church and setting a date. Then there was telling his parents.
Telling
his parents? How about
meeting
his parents? Details started flying at her like out-of-control bullets. Little things like figuring out where to live and what happened with her graduate school and his work and her work? If she went to work at the Literacy Center, would that be enough to carry them through her time in graduate school, or would she have to quit graduate school and get a job?

The questions spun through her head almost as fast as she could think them with one overriding all the others. What had she done?

Jake awoke the next morning to the beep of his alarm clock long before the sun came up and far earlier than he would have preferred. Mornings had never been his forte, and since meeting Liz, they had gotten even worse.
Liz.
His whole spirit slammed into the name. He jammed his eyes closed and then squinted through the thoughts attacking him. Had he really done what he thought he had? Had he really asked her to marry him? Had she really said yes?

Slowly so he wouldn’t explode, he let out the air in his chest. Great. What had he done now?

Somehow Liz made it through her morning classes although maybe it could only be said that her body made it because her mind was definitely elsewhere. The good news was, her body being there was what counted. The bad news was, she had learned a grand total of nothing.

With a heavy sigh, she opened the door to the Literacy Center feeling like she really should be happier about everything. So why did it all feel so daunting and worrisome?

“Liz!” Mrs. McLaughlin called from her office as Liz walked by.

Immediately she banked her steps that direction. “Hi. Sorry I’m a little late, I...”

“No. No. No. Don’t worry about that. Come in. Come in.”

Surprised at the director’s excitement, Liz stepped into the room. “What’s up?”

“Come in. Have a seat.” The director clicked two more things on her computer and then turned completely to Liz who took a seat across from the small, yellowed desk. “I may have some really good news for you.”

Liz lowered her head, training her eyes on the woman. “Like what?”

“Well, I just received word that our grant proposal finally went through. We’ve been working on a joint proposal with the optical school and the medical school for like a year now, and the funding finally became available.”

Shaking her head in incomprehension, Liz fought to keep up. “The optical school?”

Mrs. McLaughlin let out a long breath and smiled. “Maybe I should start at the beginning.”

“Oh, good,” Liz said when Jake came through The Grind door at 7:30 washed and polished. “You made it. I was getting worried.”

He had done the calculations in his head, and he’d come to the conclusion that last night had in fact happened and that he truly was happy about that and that he needed to make it official. So he’d stopped off at the department store on the way home from work. The ring was now burning holes in his thigh through his pocket, but her greeting threw him off from making the romantic entrance he’d anticipated.

She wiped her hands on the towel and threw it to the counter, coming around it as if the place was on fire. “I don’t have much time, but this can’t wait.”

Fear pummeled into him. “What can’t?”

With no real pretense, she grabbed his hand and dragged him over to his table. Before he could question it, she sat down and he followed. “What’s going on? Is everything all right?”

“Fine. Great. No, better than great. It’s wonderful. Okay. I went to the LC today, and Mrs. McLaughlin told me that they just got this grant.”

The bells to the establishment dinged, and Jake looked over her head at the customers coming in the door.

“Are you listening to me?” Liz demanded.

Concern for how serious she was drilled through him as his gaze came back to hers. “What? Yeah. Yeah. Of course. I’m listening.”

“Now this proposal is some kind of joint thing with the optical school and the medical school and the LC. They are studying dyslexia. What causes it, what can help it.”

Jake narrowed his gaze at her. “O-kay.”

“They are looking for volunteers— people who suspect dyslexia but who’ve never really been treated for it outside of doing some extra reading stuff. You fit that, right?”

“Liz,” Mia said from behind them, “we have customers.”

“In a minute,” Liz shot back. “They’re going to do like brain testing on the volunteers and then split them into three groups— one does optical stuff and that’s it, one does optical and LC stuff, and one does just LC. She wants you to be one of the ones who does all of it. She said with your age and background, you would be perfect...”

“Liz!”

“I’m coming!” she growled over her shoulder before turning back to him. “But we have to sign up quick. Like tomorrow before all the slots are filled. I really think we should do it.” She stood from the table. “Think about it, okay? We can talk at my break.” Her attention yanked over to the counter and then came back to him as a smile played on her lips. “Oh, and hi.” Bending toward him, she kissed him lightly and then took off to her station in life as they were living it at the present moment.

Jake sat there, stunned by how life had suddenly changed so drastically. Who was this guy, sitting at this table in his best clothes, a ring in his pocket, with his girlfriend signing him up for testing? Testing. What was that anyway? It sounded horrific. Did he want to be tested?

The short answer was no. He hated tests. With every fiber of his being he hated tests. Always had. Panic began to coil around his chest. What if he failed this test just as he had failed every other one? His gaze came up to slide over her as how disappointed she would be in him swathed his spirit. He reached into his pocket and ran his fingers over the ring. Why wouldn’t she be disappointed? What did he have to offer her? The ring was hardly anything to get excited about and he was even less so.

He yanked his hand out of his pocket and ran his fingers through his hair. He sighed and slid back into his chair. Maybe he should just call the whole thing off.

“Okay,” Liz said, knowing there was precious little time to discuss this when she got back to his table an hour later, “we don’t have much time. What do you think? You want to sign up?”

“Liz...”

The look on his face told her everything, but she yanked her fear-filled spirit up by the collar. “Look. I know what you said about me falling for your potential, but this is not that. This is...” She searched for words that spun around her in frustrating arcs. “This is God. Okay? It is. That day. When we went to church, and the preacher said about putting things in God’s hands. This is that. For me. Not for you. I knew something was different. At the apartment. I knew it, but I couldn’t figure it out. Then, I said to God that He was going to have to do it because I couldn’t, and He did. Like right after that, you just opened up and told me everything, and it all just... fit.

“I can’t explain that, but I know it’s true. And I just keep thinking, they’ve been working on this a
year
. A year, Jake. Why did it not come through until now, until this very minute when we just figured this out, and now you can get into the program? And not just that, but I’d asked Mrs. McLaughlin about you, and she thought of you like first for this. Why? This is not something I could have done, Jake. Even if I had wanted to. I couldn’t. It’s
got
to be a God thing.”

He shook his head slowly, and she saw the bruises in his spirit. “I don’t know, Liz. What if it doesn’t work?”

“What if it does?”

His eyes pierced through her soul. “What if it doesn’t?”

At that moment she made a decision— one she’d never known she would have to make. “Then we’ll get through it together. Whatever happens.”

The faintest glimmer of hope glinted in his eyes. “I don’t know. What if I can’t do it?”

“You can’t,” she said with no hesitation. “I can’t either. We can’t, but God can... if we will let Him.” She slipped a soft smile toward him and then put her hand across the table. “Come on. What do you say? Will you at least try it?”

A long inhale followed by thoughts that trailed across his face. Finally he nodded. “Okay.”

Jake hadn’t given her the ring. As he walked back to his lonely apartment later after he’d walked her home, he ran his fingers around and around it in his pocket. It was so small. How could it literally change so much?

They hadn’t talked about marriage or the wedding or anything on that side of life. Maybe she had forgotten. Maybe it was better if he left it that way. Tired assaulted him, and he yawned. It was all so overwhelming, so beyond his ability to comprehend or control. How had he gotten here again? Finally, in exhaustion, he closed his eyes and whispered the greatest plea of his life. “God, I can’t do this. I really can’t. If You want it done, You’re going to have to do it because I’m lost on where any of this is going.”

However, if God was going to help, it didn’t look to be coming any time soon, and with that thought, he fell asleep across his bed.

“So what’re your plans tomorrow?” Liz asked on Friday night as she swept the floor as he leaned on the booth watching.

He shrugged. “Don’t know. Hadn’t really thought about it. Why?”

“Well.” The sweeping narrowed and slowed. “I thought maybe we could go check out the LC together.” Having turned his name in two days before, Liz had waited to bring up the prospect of going until they could go together. “Mrs. McLaughlin said she’d love to meet you.”

Meet me? Pick me apart is more like it.
The coils came around him again as they did every time this subject came up.

“They’re going to start the testing in a week, which is great because that’s when I start over there.”

Jake watched her sweep. She wasn’t looking at him, more talking to the floor.

“I think we should go in for the hospital part on Monday morning. Do it. Get it over with, don’t you?”

Concern smacked him. “Wait. You’re going with me?”

Her gaze jerked up to his. “Well, yeah.” Then she stopped. “Right? I mean, unless you don’t want me to go.”

It killed him to watch what this was doing to her. She looked so unsteady and scared. His gaze slid to the side and the plummeted. “I don’t know.” Inside him, his heart squeezed into a fist, and tears washed through him.

The space between them expanded although neither of them moved. Liz suddenly felt so far away from where he was standing, so far away from where his spirit had recoiled.

“You don’t want me to go?” she asked again.

The words got choked on the way out of him. “I don’t want to go.”

Tumults of understanding cascaded over her. Sighing her own worry down, Liz propped the broom next to a table. She walked over to him and slid her arms around his waist, laying her head on his chest and just holding him. The wool of his brown sweater scratched her cheek, but she snuggled all the closer. Closing her eyes, she prayed for the right words. “Look, I know you’re scared. I am too. But we’re in this together, remember?”

She felt his arms tighten around her, and she was glad for that. Pulling back, she gazed up into his eyes. “It’s not you and me anymore. It’s us now. Okay? We’re a team.” It was like digging into his soul. Looking at him at that moment, she could see all the things he’d never shown her before— the hurt and pain, the fear and hopelessness, the feelings of being less than. “That’s not you. None of that stuff is. And it really doesn’t matter to me what we find out because I’m here no matter what.”

He never really said anything back, and her heart broke for all the pain he had slogged through to get to this moment.

Lord,
she prayed as she held him,
we need Your answer here. Please help us find Your answer for Jake, whatever it is. Amen.

Jake dropped her off at her door later with a promise to be there in the morning so they could go to the Literacy Center together. If this was the answer like Liz thought it was, why did it feel like wild horses where pulling him in the exact opposite direction?
God, I can’t do this. I really can’t. I don’t want to let her down. I feel like running in the other direction, but I’m so tired of running, I’m tired of trying so hard and never getting anywhere. Lord, if You’re in this thing, please do this through me because if I try to do it myself, I think I’m sunk.

One part of Liz was truly surprised when Jake showed up at her door the next morning. She had to smile because it felt like the first time the prayers she’d been sending up had actually worked.

“Just let me grab my coat.” She swung it on and joined him at the door.

He looked about two seconds from running so she hurried. Then together, they walked out into the cold New York air. She simply let her steps match his for the first half-block. He was here. She should be happy with that, but worry was choking the air from her lungs.

“So,” she said when they made it through the first intersection, “you okay with this?”

His glance at her looked unsteady and near panic. “Do I have a choice?”

Sorrow and worry brushed her heart. He was doing this for her. What if it didn’t work? Would he ever trust her again?
God help, please. I don’t know what to say to get us through this.
“It’s going to be okay, you know?” But how could she know that? Maybe it would. Maybe it wouldn’t. She was clinging to the hope that it would. It was about all she had to go on right then.

He looked over at her, and the shroud of dark whiskers and dark eyes held so much sadness it ripped her heart out. “I hope so.”

She did too. She really did.

Every step was made with only effort and determination, and by the time they got to the little beige building on the edge of campus, Jake wondered if the next one might actually make him throw up. It wasn’t outside the realm of possibility. His stomach felt seriously queasy. Still, somehow, he got his hand up to open the door for her, and he noticed how she didn’t even look at him as she stepped through. One more breath. One more prayer he didn’t even know the words for, and he followed her inside.