Angel of the Cove (41 page)

Something was wrong. Simon knew it. Anna had been quiet ever since her uncle arrived an hour ago. He had to find out what was troubling her, but she refused to meet his gaze across the dinner table. Doc Prentiss and John carried on a lively conversation all through the meal, but Anna remained quiet.

Anna looked up from concentrating on her plate and caught him watching her. With a scrape she slid her chair back from the table and stood up. “I'll check on Martha while all of you are having pie.”

“What? No pie? I've never seen you pass up a dessert.” Simon smiled at her, but she glanced away.

“I don't want any,” she said, and disappeared into the bedroom.

John and Doc Prentiss plowed through the pie, but Simon couldn't muster the appetite. Soon the other men went out to the barn, and Simon got up and went to Martha's door. She and Anna were deep in conversation.

“But, Anna, you cain't leave this soon. I'll miss you so much.” Martha's voice brought a frown to his face.

“I have to go, Martha. You're doing well now, and John and Simon
can take care of you. If you have any problems, send John for Granny, and she'll find someone to come help out.”

The bed creaked as Martha pushed up. “But I don't understand. Why do you have to go?” The baby cried at that moment. “She's hungry. I need to feed her, but, but…”

“I'll come back in before I leave.” Simon backed away as Anna's feet tapped across the floor.

He reached out to her as she came out, but she backed away. “What's wrong, Anna? Where are you going?”

She closed the door to Martha's room, then hurried past him to the kitchen. She sank down at the table and covered her face with her hands. “I didn't mean for you to find out this way.”

His heart raced, and he fell into the chair next to her. “Find out what? You're scaring me.”

She pulled a letter from the pocket of her apron and handed it him. He smoothed the crumpled pages on the table and began to read. His mouth gaped wider with each sentence that he read. When he'd finished, he looked up at her.

“You're not going to New York, are you?”

She nodded.

He jumped up, grabbed her hands, and pulled her up. She looked at him with a startled expression. He clenched his teeth and glared at her. “How can you even think about doing this? Not after everything we've had together. You belong here with me.”

She tried to pull away. “No, I can't stay with you. Please don't make this any harder than it is already.”

He released her. “Anna, I love you. I want to spend my life with you, and you're throwing that away like it's nothing.”

She balled her fists and held her arms next to her body. “There's no use arguing about this. I could never make you understand. I don't want to stay with you. I want to go to New York.”

He recoiled from her words and backed away, shaking his head slowly. “I'm sorry. I love you so much…and I thought you returned my feelings. I guess I was wrong. Go on then, Anna. I hope you find what you're looking for in New York. It doesn't seem to be here in the Cove.”

Tears stung her eyes. “Simon, please try to understand how much this means to me. It's my dream. I don't want to lose mine like you lost yours.”

He blinked in surprise at her words. Did he want Anna to stay in the Cove and always wonder what it would have been like if she'd followed her dream? He couldn't stand it if one day she regretted staying and blamed him for the decision. He exhaled. “I don't want you to lose your dream either, Anna. I wish you the best.”

Simon turned and strode from the house to the spot where he tied his horse earlier. He grabbed the reins, mounted, and galloped away without a backward glance. Since little Anna's birth, he had really thought he was making her understand how they belonged together. He'd been wrong. There would never be anyone for him but Anna, but her desires lay somewhere else. He would have to learn to live with that.

S
imon stared at the cold cup of coffee on the kitchen table in front of him and groaned. He pushed his open Bible to the side and listened for some sound outside the cabin. The morning silence overwhelmed him.

Many times during the past few months he had sat in this room and imagined Anna here, laughing with him, teasing him, pressing a quick kiss to his forehead. But she had ended that dream yesterday.

The sound of a buggy stopping outside caught his attention, and he walked to the front door. Doc Prentiss was climbing down, and Simon met him on the porch. “Morning, Doc. You're out kind of early. You just comin' by to visit, or can I help you with something?”

Doc Prentiss took off his hat and wiped the perspiration from his face. “It's Anna. She won't talk to me or Granny about this. She's mighty unhappy, and I thought I'd come see if there isn't something you can do to change her mind about leaving.”

Simon shook his head. “I've tried, but it's no use. She wants to go to New York, and I can't fight that.”

Doc Prentiss sat down on the steps and Simon settled beside him. “Simon, ever since Anna was a child she's talked of being a nurse in a big hospital. I always hoped she would follow me to the mountains instead. I have to confess there was an ulterior motive behind my bringing her to Granny's. I thought she would fall in love with the Cove and wouldn't be able to leave.”

Simon laughed joylessly. “Well, it didn't work, Doc.”

Doc Prentiss put his hat back on. “That's why I came to see you. I hope you'll try again to make her stay. Granny tells me Anna loves you and wants to stay, but she's too stubborn. Too determined.”

Simon shook his head. “There's nothing I can do. Nothing I want to do. Not anymore.”

A stunned expression flashed on Doc Prentiss's face. “What do you mean?”

Simon stared at the ground for a few moments before he spoke. “I want to tell you something, Doc. I've never told this to another soul except Anna.”

For the next few minutes he related how his dream had crashed when he made the decision to stay in the Cove and pastor the church. When he began to talk of how he'd agonized for the past three years over why God ignored his pleas to let him serve in a large city where he would encounter many people without Christ, his voice trembled, and he rose to his feet.

Doc Prentiss stared at him for a moment before he stood and placed his hand on Simon's shoulder. “So you don't want to be the cause of Anna giving up her dream like you had to.”

“That's right. I know what it's like to want something you can't have. I don't want that for her.”

Sadness flickered in Doc Prentiss's eyes, and he shook his head. “Oh, Simon, how could a man of God be so wrong?”

“What are you talking about? Wrong about what?”

Doc Prentiss put his hand on Simon's shoulder and stared into his eyes. “When God called you to be His servant, He promised to equip you with what you needed to serve Him. He didn't ask to see a plan of what you were going to do during your ministry because He knew what He wanted you to do and where He wanted you to go.”

Simon frowned. “But He had sent me to Milligan College, and all my teachers said I had the best speaking ability of any student they'd seen in a long time. They thought I had a great future ahead of me and would lead great numbers of people to the Lord. And I know I could have done that if I hadn't let the people of the Cove talk me into staying after my parents died. Nearly everybody in the Cove is a Christian.
They don't need me. I think about those outside these mountains who need to be told about Jesus.”

Doc Prentiss chuckled. “Simon, you're looking at this thing all wrong. Even Christians who are mature in the faith need a shepherd. And just because they're believers doesn't mean they don't have needs. Everybody has problems. When trouble strikes a family in the Cove, who do they think of first? You, that's who. Because you've been there for them, and they know you'll help them. And they love and respect you for the kind of pastor you are. I don't think they'd know what to do without you.”

Simon's heart dropped to the pit of his stomach. “So you're saying you think I'll be here forever?”

“Forever?” Doc Prentiss shrugged. “I have no idea what God has planned for you. Only He knows that. I thought I'd be practicing in a big hospital in Nashville or Knoxville, but God brought me to these mountains. Because that was His plan for me, I've never regretted it.”

It was a long moment before Simon asked the question whose answer had eluded him for the past three years. “But how do I know what God's will is? How did you know?”

“I followed God's instructions.”

Simon frowned. “I don't understand.”

Doc Prentiss walked to his buggy, opened his medical bag sitting on the seat, and pulled out a well-worn Bible. When he returned to Simon's side, he had already opened the book and held it out. “I found the answer in a verse I have underlined. Read what it says.”

Simon peered down at the page to the underlined scripture. “‘If any man serve me,'” he read aloud, “‘let him follow me; and where I am, there shall also my servant be: if any man serve me, him will my Father honour.'”

Doc Prentiss tapped the page with his index finger. “Simon, God didn't say we were to follow our dreams. He said we were to follow Him. If we do that and serve Him, He will honor us. Until you quit blaming God and surrender your will to Him, He's not going to honor you with the blessings He's ready to give you.”

Simon bit his lip and nodded. “I'll think about what you've said.”

A long sigh escaped Doc Prentiss's mouth. “Well, you better think in a hurry because Anna's leaving today.”

“Today?” Simon's throat tightened. He tried to speak but couldn't.

“Anna said you read the letter. Didn't you realize today is August 10?”

He frowned and shook his head. “I must have skipped over that part.”

Doc Prentiss smiled and turned back toward the buggy. “Whether or not you can make Anna stay, I don't know. But I do know if you don't get your relationship with God worked out, you're not going to be content with anyone—even her.”

With that he climbed into the buggy and picked up the reins. Simon watched him drive away. He had never felt so helpless in his life. If what Doc Prentiss said was true, in all the time he'd been talking to God about his disappointment he'd failed to open his heart to what God was trying to tell him.

There was nothing more he could do to make Anna stay, but now he realized there was something else he had to settle: his relationship with the God he loved. He had failed his Lord—failed in the mission to which he'd been called.

He leaped up the steps and rushed into his house. His Bible lay on the kitchen table where he'd left it. Turning to the book of John, he sank down in his chair and began to read.

For the next two hours he didn't move from the table but searched Scripture after Scripture, trying to find a word that would give him an answer. Anything that might tell him why God had made him remain in the Cove at a small church. More confused than ever, he turned back to the Scripture Doc Prentiss had shown him. John 12:26.

He read the verse again.
If any man serve me, let him follow me; and where I am, there shall also my servant be: if any man serve me, him will my Father honour.

In desperation he covered his face with his hands and cried out. “God, I don't understand why You seem so far away from me. I've stayed here and tried to do Your work here, even though I thought You needed me to do great things for You somewhere else. You don't answer when I pray. Why do You ignore my prayers? Tell me!”

A voice that began as a soft whisper and swelled like thunder flowed through his body. It was as if the speaker sat next to him, but there was no one in the room. Simon lowered his shaking hands from his face, stilled, and listened, for he knew the whisper was not of this world.

“Simon,” it said, “the problem is not that I need you. It's that you need Me.” Love. The words spoke love.