The “you Christians” hurt a little, but he totally understood how tender the topic could be.
“Here’s the bottom line, Kate. And trust me, I’ve given this a lot of thought.” He took a deep breath and let it out, leaning in even closer. “I’d rather figure it out with you and have some challenges than have it easy with someone else. For me, thereisno one else.”
Her eyes filled—not quite tears, but the brightness that came right before them. She blinked and squeezed his hand so hard it almost hurt.
“That might be the most romantic thing anyone’s ever said to me.” She swallowed what he assumed was a painful lump in her throat. “I love you, Eli.”
“I love you, Kate. So, so much.”
The piano player shifted into something slow and familiar, and the dining room had emptied around them without either of them noticing. The waiter had quietly left the check. The candles were burning low.
“Walk me to my room?” she asked.
They crossed the lobby through a quiet lodge, down the dim hallways, their footsteps echoing softly on the old tile.
At her door, she turned to face him.
“Thank you for today,” he said. “All of it. The boat, the spring, the dinner. You planned something perfect, Kate.”
“I had good inspiration.” She put her hand on his chest, over his heart. “And good company.”
He cupped her face and kissed her as tenderly as he could. She kissed him back with everything she had, her hands sliding up his chest to his shoulders, and for a moment, the hallway and the lodge and the whole complicated world outside disappeared.
When they pulled apart, she rested her forehead against his chin.
“Goodnight,” she whispered.
“Goodnight, Kate.”
She slipped into her room, and the door closed with a soft click.
Eli stood in the hallway, his hand over the warm spot where she’d touched his chest. Then he went to his room, opened the window to the sound of the springs—that constant, ancient rush of water from deep in the earth—and sat on the edge of the bed.
In the dark, still night, he replayed the evening—her face in the candlelight, the yes that had come so unexpectedly, the way she’d said “I love you” like she meant it with every cell in her body. Because she did. He knew that. He felt it.
And he loved her back with a completeness that scared him, because the last time he’d loved someone like that, she’d been taken away.
He didn’t think that was the lesson here. He didn’t think God was in the business of reopening old wounds. But the fear was there, underneath everything, the fear that loving Kate was leading him somewhere God hadn’t mapped.
How could a love this good be anything but holy? How could God not want this for him—this woman, this second chance, this late-blooming, hard-won, imperfect, beautiful thing?
But what if Kate remained exactly who she was—brilliant, loving, stubbornly empirical—and the crack in the foundation never closed?
Was she his mission field? Had God placed her in his life so that Eli could lead her to faith? He wanted to believe that, but doubted the effort would be well-received.
And yet…unequally yoked. Itwasn’tholy. And it was the source of that tendril of discomfort that occasionally wrapped around his heart.
Closing his eyes, he silently prayed.
Not for answers, but for the faith to keep trusting a God who’d brought him this far.
Peace didn’t come with words or clarity. It came the way it always did—slowly, like that spring rising from deep in the earth, constant and clear and older than anything he could understand.
He loved her. He trusted God. And for tonight, he’d have to believe those two things were leading him in the same direction.
Dad was useless on this Monday morning, and Meredith thought that in the most loving way possible.
He’d floated into the Lakeside office around ten, still glowing from whatever magic had happened at Wakulla Springs this past weekend. He answered a few emails with uncharacteristic brevity and left by two, claiming he could work from home this afternoon while he and Kate watched Atlas for Jonah.
