After the Rains (49 page)

He cleared the plane’s wing, straightened, and glanced in her direction. “Nattie!”

“Daddy!” Incredulous, she turned to David, who stood smiling beside her. “David? It’s my daddy!”

She started running, and though her lungs burned in her chest and her head felt as though it would float away from her body, she didn’t stop until Cole Hunter’s arms were wrapped tightly around her, holding her up. She felt another pair of arms go around her, and she looked up into Mom’s blue eyes. Her gaze moved from Mom to Daddy and back again. Tears were streaming down both their faces, and Natalie’s eyes brimmed too. For five minutes, they cried and hugged and laughed, then cried some more.

“Did you know they were coming?” she asked David, suddenly remembering that he was standing there, looking on.

He nodded, grinning.

“You must be David,” Cole Hunter said, reaching out to shake his hand.

“Oh, I’m sorry!” Natalie cried, putting a hand to her mouth. “I’m not thinking straight.” She left her mother’s side and stepped forward to put a possessive hand on David’s arm. “This is David Chambers. David, these are my parents, Cole and Daria Hunter.”

David shook each of their hands in turn. “Very pleased to meet you. Natalie has told me a lot about you.”

Hank Middleton walked over from the hangar and joined them now, and Natalie made introductions again.

“I’ve heard a lot about you,” Hank said.

Cole looked at her with mischief in his eyes. “I’m afraid to ask what she’s been saying about us.”

They shared the nervous laughter of newly acquainted friends, while Natalie looked on in awe, still unable to believe they were actually here.

“Meghan will be anxious to meet you,” Hank said. “Why don’t we go on up to the house.”

With Hank and David leading the way, and Natalie tucked tightly—happily—between her parents, they started for the mission compound.

Natalie napped for several hours that afternoon, but that night they all stayed up past midnight, visiting and laughing and catching up on each other’s news.

Finally Hank and Meghan showed the Hunters to their room and called it a night. David and Natalie were left in the living room, where David was to sleep on the sofa.

“Oh, David,” she sighed. “I’m so happy. You knew they were coming all along?”

He nodded. “It was Nate’s idea, but I was happy to make the arrangements because it bought me several more days with you,” he confessed sheepishly.

Tears filled her eyes. “Thank you, David.”

He crossed the room and took her in his arms. “Oh, Natalie …”

He bent to kiss the top of her head, tightening his embrace. She raised her face to his, and their lips found each other. Tenderly, he kissed her once and then again. Then he held her away from him. “I’d better let you get to bed,” he said, his voice a breathless whisper.

She stood on tiptoe and kissed him once more.

The next three days were a gift, unlike anything Natalie had ever known. There were moments when she didn’t think she could possibly contain the joy that filled her. Besides the precious time with her parents in Conzalez, she experienced a new freedom in her communion with her heavenly Father. In letting go of her self-imposed guilt, a hindrance to her prayers had seemed to fall away with it. Now she praised God with unfettered joy and sought his counsel with a newly surrendered will. She hungered for God’s Word as though she were famished and spent hours reading her Bible and praying.

One afternoon as she sat reading in the cool shade on the Middletons’ patio, she came to a verse in the second chapter of Ephesians that seemed
to give voice to everything she had learned over the past few days. It was a scripture she must have read a dozen times before, but suddenly the words had life. They spoke to her as though they had been penned for her alone.

For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith
—, she read,
and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do
. To think that all along, when she had been trying to work hard enough to earn the right to be forgiven, he had already paid the price. Not only that, but, according to the Scriptures, even the very work she was doing in Timoné had been prepared in advance by the God of the universe—for her! Work that not only would benefit the people of the village, but that would change Natalie’s very being. It was a staggering, humbling thought.

Then there was David. As much as she’d loved him before, she saw him with new eyes now. Each day, as they sat together on the patio or walked the short distance that Natalie could manage about the village, the attraction they’d always felt for each other deepened. Natalie prayed for strength to keep her heart reined in.
Don’t let me run ahead of you, Lord
, she prayed. But before she whispered the words, she knew in her spirit that David was the man God had made for her—the man who shared her calling, who understood her frailties and loved her in spite of them. The man who completed her.

Each hour they spent together, the friendship that had grown between them matured. And the love they’d dared to declare for each other hardened and set, like strong cement, impervious to the rains that would surely fall in time.

Forty–Two

N
atalie carried Meghan’s laptop into the guest room and plopped cross-legged on the bed, placing the computer on a pillow in front of her. She opened the e-mail program and typed Evan Greenway’s address into the appropriate field.

Dear Evan
, she typed. The words she’d pecked out dozens of times since she came to Timoné, blurred through her tears as she wrote them now, possibly for the last time. It wasn’t that she was having second thoughts about David, or that she had any regrets. But still, it was hard to say goodbye to someone who had been such an important part of her life for such a long time. She blinked away the tears and put her fingers on the keyboard again.

You might have heard that I’ve been ill. I’m in Conzalez right now, recovering from malaria. I’ve never been so sick in my life. It was scary for a while, but I’m much better now. The Lord has used this time to teach me some very important lessons. Mom and Daddy are here with me, and they’ll be bringing me home to recuperate for a while. But I’m coming back to Timoné, Evan, as soon as I can. I know this is where God wants me.

I understand now that Timoné has never held any attraction for you, and I apologize for trying to put my calling off on you. I wanted to have the best of both worlds, I guess. I wanted to be with you, but I felt drawn to Timoné. I still believe it was God who drew me here. I was a little mixed up about his reasons, but I’m beginning to figure some things out now, and I’m happier than I’ve ever been in my life.

Because I don’t know for sure how you feel about me after all this time, it’s hard to know what to write. I’m just going to tell you the truth and pray that you aren’t hurt by it. I have
fallen in love with David Chambers. David shares my love for Timoné, shares my calling to Colombia, and I believe in my heart that he is the man God intended for me.

You were a wonderful friend to me, Evan, and I’ll always be grateful for the time we had together. I know we didn’t make any promises to each other before I left, but I feel that I owe you an explanation. If this hurts you, if I’ve ever led you on, I’m sorry.

I trust that God is working in your life as he is working in mine.

She scrolled back over what she’d written. Satisfied, she signed her letter and filed it in the outbox for Hank to send the next time he flew into San José. She trusted that, because Evan belonged to God, the events of his life were being divinely charted just as the events of her own life were. She smiled to herself, thinking that now she might even be happy to find out that Candace Shaw had become more than just a tutor to Evan Greenway.

After breakfast Monday morning, Daria went with Natalie out to the cool shade of the porch to sit. Meghan was already at work in the clinic, and the men were loading the plane for their trip to Bogotá as well as getting David’s provisions ready to go back on the boat to Timoné. David was leaving this afternoon, and tomorrow morning Daria and Cole and Natalie would fly home.

It had all gone too quickly. But it had been wonderful to spend this time with her daughter here in Colombia, to see how much Natalie had come to love this country Daria had once called home. Natalie had grown up so much in the few months she’d been here. Last night Daria and Cole had lain awake in the guest room next to Nattie’s and marveled together at the changes they’d seen in her. And while they had begun to suspect from Natalie’s letters that there was something between David and Natalie, seeing them together had left no doubt.

“I wasn’t ready to like him one bit, Dar,” Cole had told her. “But I do.
I like him a lot. I wish he wasn’t quite so old, but it’s obvious that he loves Nattie. And he’s good to her.”

Daria had laughed softly.

“What’s funny?” Cole said.

“It’s just interesting that you think David Chambers is old. Oh, to be as ‘old’ as he is again! You’re no spring chicken, my darling.”

“Well, you know what I mean. I don’t like to think of Nattie widowed young or nursing an old man someday down the road. She’s in love. I’m sure she hasn’t thought that far ahead.”

“I’m sure God has,” Daria chided.

“You’re right, as always,” he’d whispered, pulling her close.

They’d fallen asleep in each other’s arms.

Now, seated across from Natalie on the porch, Daria fanned herself and took a sip of the chilled sweet tea Meghan had brewed for them. “Natalie, I’m crazy about David,” she said, “but I’ll have you know I’m not so crazy about his calling. I suppose there’s no question that you’ll be going back to Timoné?”

Natalie nodded. “As soon as I can, Mom. It’s
my
calling too.”

“Oh, Nattie, I know. But as a mother, I don’t like it one bit.” She sighed. “What about Evan? What happened with him?”

Natalie shook her head. “There’s nothing between us anymore, Mom. From the sound of his letters, I think maybe he’s found someone else. A certain ‘Candace’ has come up in his e-mails a lot lately.”

Daria rubbed the corner of the tablecloth between her thumb and forefinger. “This love for David isn’t.” She began.

“On the rebound?” Natalie shook her head vigorously. “No, Mom. Not at all. I think things were really over with Evan before I ever left Kansas.”

“Well, I had to ask.”

“I know. And I did write to Evan to let him know what’s happened. I owed him that much.”

Daria put a hand on her arm. “I’m so happy for you, Natalie.”

“Thanks, Mom. I’m so glad you and Daddy could come and meet David. I wish you could come to Timoné sometime.”

Timoné. Daria winced, struggling to stay clear of the whirlpool of memories that threatened to pull her in. She didn’t know whether she could handle seeing the place where she had left Nathan, could handle seeing him there still caring for the people she’d left so long ago. “Maybe someday, honey … maybe someday.”

“Don’t worry about me, Mom. I know this is where I’m supposed to be. Somehow, I just know it … right here.” Natalie put a hand gently over her heart. “And … well, Dad’s there. And he needs me.”

“Oh, Nattie, more than anything, I’m so happy that you’ve had this time to get to know your father. You can’t imagine how much that means to me.”

She covered her daughter’s hand with her own, and they exchanged teary smiles.

Natalie’s eyes held a knowing beyond their years, and she said, “I think maybe I do know, Mom.”