Love Finds You at Home for Christmas (27 page)

Sophie stopped in the center of the great room to admire the exposed cedar trusses in the cathedral ceiling above her. “This is amazing, Jon,” she said, looking up.

“Thanks—it's because of David. He's an artist, can do anything with his hands. I just mostly did the grunt work and left the details to him.”

They walked over to the rock fireplace at the far end of the room away from the kitchen, where Sophie admired the mantel. Sitting in its center was an ornate iron gate, and on one end was a primitive-looking platter on an iron stand, with a matching water jug beside it.

“How interesting,” Sophie said as she looked at them.

“That gate is from Egypt, and I picked up the platter and jug in Kenya. These animals and things are from Kenya and Tanzania,” Jon said, pointing to the other end of the mantel.

Sophie turned and picked up one of the carvings—a wooden lion—to admire its artistry. It was fearsome and majestic, with a full mane and mouth open to roar, exposing powerful wooden teeth.
Like the real Aslan,
Sophie thought, and remembered her favorite line from
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe,
where Mr. Beaver is describing Aslan to the Pevensie children: “'Course he isn't safe. But he's good. He's the king, I tell you.”

She smiled as she carefully put the lion back in his position. Grouped around him stood a tall giraffe, an elephant, and a zebra. A scowling water buffalo, with its curled horns, looked especially mean.

“He is the one most feared by the natives,” Jon told her, holding it out for her to examine. “I would have thought it would be the lions, which steal their cows, but apparently the water buffalo is the most aggressive toward the people who live in the bush.”

“How weird,” Sophie commented, running her fingers over the smooth back of the buffalo. “They don't seem much more than cows.”

“Had I better check those seeds?” Jon remembered, and walked toward the kitchen.

“Yeah, why don't you give them a stir,” Sophie answered, placing the water buffalo back in his spot on the mantel and moving over to the wall opposite the bluff windows, which was full of photographs. Sophie felt like she was at a National Geographic exhibit.

“Jon, did you take these?”

“Uh, yeah, just a minute.” She heard the oven door slam closed.

When he walked back across the room to her, she looked at him with her mouth open.

“You took these?”

“Mm-hmm. I couldn't believe how well they turned out,” Jon said modestly.

In an assortment of sizes, the photographs hung straight and neat in a square pattern. They were all black and white—sepia, actually—and were framed in dark brown wood with ivory matting. Sophie was astounded, again, by the depth and scope of Jon's experiences since they'd parted ways. He seemed so sophisticated now, so alluring. And yet he was also still her same Jon.

“Margaret framed them all and hung them as a surprise when I moved in,” Jon explained. “‘Housewarming'—she called it.”

Sophie's eyes lingered on each picture, some of places she'd been, and others she hadn't. There was the Sphinx, and next to it, St. Peter's Basilica in Rome, and under it, an enlarged one of a child with her hands raised, singing. It was the only photograph of a person on the wall. “What is this one?” Sophie pointed to it.

“That's my favorite,” Jon said. “In Uganda, I visited an orphanage on a Sunday when they were having their church service. It was hot. There was a dirt floor and no music other than their voices. Most of them were in rags. But I'll never forget what those children taught me about worship, just by being among them. They were reaching out for life. It was quite a powerful experience.”

Sophie stared at the photo for several minutes, introspective.
Reaching out for life. That's me,
she thought—
I'm as poor as that girl. Lord, help me reach out for the life You give.

As Jon walked back over to take the roasted seeds out of the oven, Sophie scanned the rest of the wall.

“This is so cool!” she exclaimed. “I've been here, to the Leaning Tower, and isn't the David statue incredible?”

Jon nodded in agreement. “I'd say it has to be one of the most perfect man-made objects in the world.”

There were photos of more famous things, like the Parthenon, the Eiffel Tower, and Big Ben, and then there were mountains—presumably the Alps—a waterfall, and a Norman tower Sophie didn't recognize.

“The waterfall is Thomson's Falls in Kenya,” Jon clarified. “I hiked down to the foot of it to take that picture. And that tower is where the poet Yeats lived and did much of his writing. It's from the thirteenth century.”

“‘Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold….'” Sophie quoted Yeats's famous poem. “My mother and Granny are over in Ireland right now. I bet they saw this when they went to Yeats's country.”

“You know why I had to go there?” Jon queried her. “I had to see the Lake Isle of Innisfree. Turns out it is just this tiny, unimpressive little island in the middle of a lake—it looks like some of the brushy sandbars we have here in the river. But that poem has some of my favorite lines in all of literature.”

“Which ones?” Sophie asked. “Oh—oh—I bet I know: ‘I will arise and go now, for always night and day I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore; While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements gray, I hear it in the deep heart's core.'”

“How did you know?” Jon's eyes were twinkling.

“They're some of my favorites too. I feel that way about home—the river. It's who I am. I guess that's why I had to come back after being gone so long. It was always in my ‘deep heart's core.'”

“You're just as big a nerd as I am!” Jon declared, gently thumping her on the arm.

“Well, then, we're in good company!”

* * * * *

They made their way back to the kitchen, where Jon heated some apple cider and Sophie poured the warm seeds into a bowl. The sight of her doing something so simple there in his kitchen sent an electric current through his veins.

“Want to go back out on the deck?”

“That would be great,” said Sophie, and she opened the French door for him to go through with the mugs of cider.

He set them down on the little table between his two Adirondack chairs and motioned for her to sit while he went back inside to get a soft chenille afghan for Sophie. The evening air was getting chilly.

“I guess we're going to need two bowls for these seeds,” she said reluctantly.

Instead, Jon moved his chair right beside hers and set his cider down on the deck beside his chair, leaving hers on the table where she could easily reach.

They sat crunching seeds and listening to the evening. Crickets chirped, leaves rustled, a squirrel played along the railing of the deck farther down. A chipmunk came up from one of the holes cut for the oak trees, gathering seeds that had fallen from one of the feeders.

Sophie gasped, pointing to it, and Jon was delighted.

At another feeder, there were gold finches with their dazzling yellow plumage, Carolina chickadees, and a male cardinal.

“No wonder you never want to leave here,” Sophie whispered to Jon, so as not to disturb the animals.

Jon smiled at her and struggled to remain focused on the scenery. She was almost too near. His eyes lingered over her profile as she watched the birds—the high forehead, the long eyelashes, the slightly upturned nose, and the full lips. He could smell the light freshness of her perfume and feel the warmth of her hand as it met his in the bowl of pumpkin seeds.

It was so easy, now that she had been here and shared his home—and had such an overwhelming response to it—for Jon to want more. He wanted to touch her, to kiss her, to keep her here always. To sit in these chairs with her and watch the seasons change. But Jon stopped himself.

In silent prayer Jon willed himself to want one thing—the will of God—above everything else. He mustn't rush things. He must be patient. He knew she needed time. And he knew if anything was ever to happen between him and Sophie, it would be in God's time, His way.

Jon rose and walked over to the railing.

“Look, Sophie, there's a barge!”

She put down the bowl of seeds, and wrapping the afghan around herself like a shawl, came up beside him to see.

They counted, “One, two, three, four, five…” all the way to ten. The tugboat was pushing ten barges joined together and moving down the river.

Just then, as if on cue, a train whistled and drew their attention to the tiny tracks on the other side of the river.

“This place is an endless feast!” Sophie declared. “I'm glad you brought me here to see it.”

“I'm glad you came.” Jon looked at her tenderly. “But as much as I hate to, I think I should get you home.”
Before I lose it,
he mentally added.

* * * * *

They drove back to the Harbor House with the cover on the Jeep since the temperature had changed. Jon started unloading the pumpkins, carrying them to the front, while Sophie went to let Spot out the back.

Spot was dancing his greeting when Sophie opened the door, and while she sat down on the back stoop to pet him, he immediately sniffed her from head to toe, discerning the new scent of Aslan on his master. She rubbed him all over and kissed his nose.

Jon finished with the pumpkins and came around back to wait with her while Spot ran around the yard doing his business. They sat comfortably together on the stoop.

“What have you got going this week?” she asked him.

“Writing,” he said, stretching his legs out in front of him and crossing his boots. “What about you? Is it a busy week?”

“I never know. I just kind of have to go with the flow.” Sophie smiled at him and kicked her boots back and forth like a little kid.

“Maybe we could get together again sometime soon…”

“I'd like that.” She actually loved the idea but appreciated the fact that Jon was not pushy.

Spot returned to the porch, and Jon stood, offering Sophie his hand to help her up. He squeezed her hand for just a moment, looking down at their hands, and said good-bye.

Sophie turned to go in and waved to Jon, who started his Jeep as she shut the door behind her.

Spot's toenails clicked on the floor in a happy little gait, making their way into the kitchen where she washed her hands and threw on a clean apron. He lay down on the rug and watched her.

As Sophie prepared her cheesecakes, her mind kept wandering over the particulars of the afternoon with Jon. Like a scientist, she examined it—taking pleasure in each remembrance, from the magnitude of the view from the bluff, to the minutia of the cinnamon stick in her cider. She liked Jon; that was sure. He intrigued her as much as he comforted her with his old, familiar kindness. But did he like her for anything more than a friend? Did she really want him to?

She'd never dated anyone who hadn't tried to kiss her by the second date. Certainly not Stephen, who kissed her the day they met. Sophie rolled her eyes at the memory.

Maybe these weren't dates she and Jon were having. After all, they were the same types of things they'd done as friends. Going up to St. Catherine's, getting cokes at the Dairy, even stuff like carving pumpkins. Still, something was different. Surely it wasn't all her imagination? Or was it different only for her?

Sophie worked herself into such a dither over these questions that she put Amaretto in the turtle cheesecake and topped the plain cheesecake with the chocolate and caramel intended for the turtle.
Oh brother,
she thought, covering them and placing them in the refrigerator.
I hope no one notices.

That night before bed, Sophie took Spot out in the backyard and opened her Bible under the porch light. She flipped to the second chapter of 2 Timothy and read about being sanctified for “noble purposes, made holy, useful to the Master.” She could remember her dad saying sanctified means “set apart.”

As Sophie read and then prayed, her thoughts turned to Andy. He reminded her of what she was like as a teenager, at least in his search to find his place. She thanked the Lord that she was finally learning what it meant to be “set apart”—that it has a higher purpose than just being different. She didn't have to be with someone like Stephen to have a meaningful life. In fact, sanctification for her was beginning to look more like the quiet beauty of Jon's place.

Chapter Fourteen

.................................

Jon knew Sophie was busy.

The Chamber of Commerce, which had claimed him as a reluctant member, was having its November luncheon in the café and, by the looks of things, had requested some special extras. René and Rhonda were working the full banquet tables that had been set up in the parlor, which had been set apart for private parties. He noticed Shannon and Sophie both running back and forth to help Debbie with the regular dining room, which was overflowing with people. At least it was too windy for many people to sit on the porch.

Jon waited till he saw Sophie start back to the kitchen from the front room and then slipped out of his seat.

“Sophie?” He touched her arm softly.

“Jon!” She was flustered and a little harried-looking, but her face lit up in a smile when she saw him.

“I won't keep you long. I just wanted to ask you—are you free tonight?”

“What's today? Saturday? Yes. I think I'll crash and burn.” She reached out quickly and grabbed a lemon from a tea glass that Debbie was carrying by.

“Mrs. Koch is allergic to citrus!” Sophie whispered.

Debbie smiled her thanks.

“Oh, well, never mind. You probably need a rest.”

Sophie asked him, “What is it?”

“The River Valley Theatre guy just told me the University of the Ozarks is putting on
A Christmas Carol
tonight. I know Christmas is still a ways away…but I thought I might go.” Jon looked at his boots.