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“Mom,” Trey said with a sigh.
“I know, I know,” she said. “You don’t think praying will help.”
“No, Mom, I don’t.”
“Have you tried it?”
“No, ma’am,” he said quietly. He’d prayed plenty of times for the solution to his problems, and he’d never gotten an adequate answer. God didn’t seem to hear him, and if he did, he just didn’t care enough about Trey to answer.
“Just an idea,” Mom said. “Trey, we love you no matter what. You’re a good man, and I believe you’ll make the right choice for you and for Beth.”
Trey looked at his father. “Dad?”
“I like what your mother said,” he said. “Be honest with yourself and with her. Pray about it. Do what you think is right.”
“That can’t be the answer,” Trey said, beyond frustrated. Be honest? Pray about it?
No, he wanted asolution. He wantedan answer.
“Why not?” Daddy asked.
“It’s too easy. Be honest. Pray. Do what’s right?” He scoffed. “I’m not a six-year-old. I don’t need the cookie cutter answers.”
“Trey,” his mother started, but she cut off when Daddy put his hand on her arm. They exchanged a look with one another, and she returned her attention to him. “You do what you think is right.”
Trey wanted to roll his eyes. Instead, he got up and collected all the dishes. “Thanks for dinner and dessert, Mother.” He gave her a kiss. “I’m gonna head out.”
“Take some cobbler,” Mom called after him, and Trey said he would.
He did dish himself some cobbler, and he took it back to the homestead. “Cobbler,” he called to whoever might be in the house, but it was likely just Cayden. No one answered him, so he put the container on the counter and went out onto the back deck.
Kentucky sure was a slice of heaven to Trey, and he looked up into the sky. It had rained a lot last week, but today the evening sky shone with gold and blue.
He wrestled with himself and whether he should say a prayer or not. Surely the Lord already knew what the issue was, and he’d been decidedly silent.
“Maybe you don’t know how to hear,” Trey muttered to himself. “What can it hurt? It’ll take sixty seconds, and then you’ll get nothing, and you can go find Cayden—or better, Lawrence—and ask them what to do.”
Trey took a deep breath and exhaled. He did that over and over, trying to work up the courage to pray. He knew how; he’d done so as a child and teenager and even into his adulthood. It had just been quite a long time.
“Dear Lord,” he finally said. “Bethany Dixon is a good woman, and I sure do like her. She needs help, and I can help her. Should I marry the woman so she can enter her horse into the Sweetheart Classic?”
The wind kicked up, and a dog barked somewhere in the distance. Trey closed his eyes and tried—really tried—to hear something. He never heard anything with his ears, but rather his heart.
The things he should and shouldn’t do came as feelings, and in that moment, Trey felt like he should help Beth if he could.
“Should I?” he asked again.
There was no squirming in his stomach. The worry that had been needling his mind for weeks disappeared. The unrest in his very soul was simply not there anymore.
Part of him was disgusted, and the other part sagged in relief against the railing on the deck. The sun continued to go down, and the day died degree by degree.
“Why are you standing here?” he asked himself. “Get over to Beth’s and talk to her. The clock is ticking.”
He pushed away from the railing and hurried to his pickup truck. The drive to Beth’s didn’t take long. The longest part of the drive was getting down the dirt lane from the house to the road. Beth’s was just a bit down the highway, and he pulled up to the charming, white farmhouse before he knew it.
While he still had a well of courage, he got out of the truck and marched toward the porch. He made it to the door and rang the doorbell.
“C’mon in,” TJ yelled, and Trey took a deep breath.
