“I’m sure He does. He really used you, in my family anyway.”
“Thank you. Your children are special to me.” That was the truth.
He turned away, and then she deliberately looked down. She would not watch him walk away again. So, she was surprised when he set his muffin down on the counter.
He leaned forward and said, “Are you happy doing this?”
“This?” she asked, looking around and assuming that he meant working the cash register here at the bakery.
“Yeah. This job. This is really what you want?”
“No, but you don’t always get what you want. Didn’t we just say that?” Now he was being weird. But it was interesting. She wasn’t put off by it, she almost felt like he…cared.
She shoved whatever odd feelings were welling up in her chest aside and gave him a curious look.
“I’m sorry. I’m acting oddly, because I just had an idea, and I’m not sure how to approach it with you. It’s a little off-the-wall.”
“All right.”
“So… Okay, I know you already sold your horses, but there’s that apartment above the stables. And you would be welcome to stay there if you wanted to. I don’t know if you can get your horses back, but if you could, you could keep them in the stable. And there’s plenty of bedrooms in the house.” He held up a hand. “I know that’s a little bit…funny, but I don’t mean anything by it. I’m just saying there’s plenty of room on the farm for you to live there, too. I can’t shake the bad feeling that I’ve had ever since I moved in. Can’t shake the way the kids felt when they were with you, how you help them, how generous you were with my family, how you helped my kids through one of the hardest times of their lives, and here you are in a hard time, and I kind of thought I was helping you by offering you more for your farm than what it was worth, but I think I could have helped you more by…figuring out how to help you keep it.”
She blinked, and her mind started whirling as soon as he said he didn’t know whether she could get her horses back or not.
She knew for a fact she could. Everyone that she sold them to—they were all friends who knew her circumstances—would sell them back for exactly the amount they paid for them, and she still had that money. She hadn’t needed to sell her horses because of the amount that he had paid for the farm. She just hadn’t had a place to keep them. And she knew she could get them all back. But… Was this God opening a door or was this just Him tempting her with something she really wanted, and she should decline and wait for the thing He really wanted to give her?
“That’s…very generous of you. I wouldn’t want to put your family out though.”
“You wouldn’t. I mean, I guess we’d have to figure out how to split the barn, since you would need it for your job, and… You didn’t charge my family for therapy for the last year. I wouldn’t charge you for the use of the barn. That seems fair to me, but… I know my kids would want to be able to use the barn and have horses that they could ride, and I know that you wouldn’t be able to have them around while you were doing therapy, if you could even get your clients back.” He lifted a hand and shrugged his shoulders. “I’m sorry, I’m kind of rambling, but I’m thinking out loud. I just…would love to see you be able to continue to do what you love and are good at, and somehow fit the kids and me in around it.”
“I love this idea. But how about you let me think about it and pray about it, and you do the same thing, and… Maybe we can talk about it in a day or two and see how you feel?”
“Yeah. I think that’s a good idea. You pray about it, I will too, and we’ll see what we come up with. I can come back in here for another muffin. Now that I know you work here. Will you be working on Wednesday?”
“Yeah. I will. I’ll actually be here all day, because the parade is Wednesday night.”
He nodded absently. Apparently he had forgotten about the parade. But it didn’t matter. Not to her. She wasn’t riding in it, she was working through it, and Sunny expected to be extremely busy that evening. Sunny would be in the parade, playing the cello, so it was going to be up to Summer to hold down the fort, so to speak.
“All right then. I’ll see you Wednesday.” He nodded at her, and started away, then turned back around, setting his muffin down one last time. “I thought I probably ought to give you my phone number. If you have any questions, or ideas, or things that you think I need to think about before we talk about it, just give me a call or text me, okay?”
“Sure,” she said, unable to contain her smile that he kept walkingaway and coming back, although this time, he seemed a lot more like his normal, competent self.
And to think she thought he was a jerk. He didn’t seem like that at all, he just had a serious demeanor that belied a soft heart. There were very few people she knew who would buy a home and then open it up to an almost stranger, just because he felt compassion for them. She refused to label it pity. She could stand on her own two feet, but sometimes God didn’t want a person to do that. Sometimes God wanted a person to accept outside help and to work with other people in order to accomplish the things that needed to be done.
He gave her his number, and she hesitated a moment before she texted “hi.”
“That way you have mine too,” she said, thinking that she was probably safe giving him her number. After all, this was Marjorie’s son, and Marjorie was one of the sweetest, most godly women she knew. In fact, if she could choose her mother, she would have chosen Marjorie.
“All right. It’s settled. Text me if you need me, I’ll do the same, and I’ll see you on Wednesday.”
“We’ll be busy in the evening, so I might not have a whole lot of time to talk.”
“I’ll keep that in mind. Maybe I’ll wait until the crowd leaves, and we can chat, if you don’t think you’ll be too tired.”
“No. I don’t think I’ll be too tired.” She would make sure she wasn’t too tired, because somehow in her heart, she started getting excited about being able to move back to her farm. The problem was, she would have to stop thinking about it as her farm. And how long would it last? How long would he allow her to work on his property, running her business from his barn? What if he got upset? Could he just kick her out of his house?
She wasn’t sure the apartment over the stable was livable. The last she remembered, there wasn’t even a bed in it. It was the one place on the farm that could use a substantial upgrade.
But if it got her back on the property, that would be good.
