“It just occurred to me today that I haven’t made an effort to share how important our—” He paused searching for just the right word, “friendship is to me.”
“Well, I’m glad to know it. What do you know about Etsy?” Grace’s mind still appeared to be on her conversation with Paige.
“Not much.” He tried again. “Grace, what I’m trying to say is that you are really an admirable woman.” Nolan prayed that Grace would focus on the discussion at hand.
“Do you think so? I don’t know. I think that, really, I’m just different. I’m just a house-spinster.”
“
What
!” Nolan’s reaction to her joke was stronger than Grace had expected.
“Well, I’m not married, so I can’t call myself a housewife, and homemaker sounds so architectural to me. I’m a house-spinster. Cute, huh?”
“I can’t believe you’d call yourself that. A spinster is a skinny old woman with no warmth or friendliness and who makes misers look like spendthrifts! A—”
Grace hastily interrupted. “Well, I may not be stereotypical. No one could accuse me of being skinny, that’s for sure.”
“Grace, that’s not what I meant at all.” Nolan’s voice sounded strained as he backpedaled.
“No, but it’s the truth… Prayerfully, I’m warm and friendly, though right now I feel pretty chilled.”
Nolan started to protest again, but her phone interrupted him. As Grace greeted someone by the name of Todd on the other end, he stood, gestured that he was going to go, and dragged himself homeward. Had he seen her collapse into a fit of giggles, he would have been at a complete loss. As it was, he immediately called Craig and made an appointment to talk. Talking to Grace had failed; maybe Craig would have some insights.
Meanwhile, Grace listened to the suggestion that Todd made. Several of the victims of the recent attacks wanted to gather for support, and Todd thought Grace might be a good group leader for the women. “Grace, maybe, and you didn’t hear this from me, but maybe one of these women will remember something in the group that they didn’t before. You could ask permission to share everything with me, just in case we didn’t know about it…”
Grace realized that Todd was really stretching the bounds of his job by suggesting the thought, but she pounced on the idea. “How about you tell them Thursday evenings at The Assembly. I’ll make sure we have coffee, tea and something tasty. We can meet from 7:30-8:30. You can come by around 9:00 or so, I’ll tell you anything I hear that they’ll let me share, and you can polish off any leftovers for me.”
~*~*~*~
Craig listened intently to Nolan’s ramblings. Grace had called him the previous night to warn him that Nolan might call and had collapsed into another fit of giggles upon hearing that Nolan had already set up a meeting. “He was trying to ‘declare himself’ or something. It was so cute. I felt bad playing the dumb brunette, sort of. It was kind of funny…” Her voice replayed through Craig’s mind, as Nolan tried to make his point.
“Oh, this is ridiculous. You were right. I don’t know how you knew I’d fall for her, but I am. Falling that is. I tried to talk to her yesterday and see if she was comfortable with that, but Grace—I don’t know. Either she’s completely clueless, or totally uninterested. She’s your sister. What do I do?”
Craig unsuccessfully stifled a chuckle. Nolan’s eyes flashed—not amused. “Nolan, Grace is a very intelligent woman. She’d have to be to survive the way she has this year. Do you know she’s socked away almost five thousand dollars?”
Nolan failed to look suitably impressed. “And your point is?”
“My point is that she isn’t clueless of your interest, and in my opinion, she’s definitely interested.”
Nolan shook his head. “I’m lost.”
“What is Grace’s defining characteristic? What is that one thing that sets her apart from most women that you’ve met?”
“She’s strong without being brash?”
Craig’s laugh resounded throughout the restaurant. “Ok, besides that. You’ve been around too many militant feminists, my man.”
“She’s traditional, almost old fashioned, but not caught in a time warp or anything.”
Craig nodded. “And what would that mean in regards to relationships?”
“Relationships? Plural? Is there something going on between her and that officer I saw her with?”
“No, as far as I know, that man has an online friend he’s been ‘seeing’ or however that works when you’re online.”
“Scary. Ok...”
Craig decided to help his friend understand. “You’ve seen how Grace and my relationship works. You know how concerned I was about you. Why would you think she’d want to discuss anything between you two without knowing you’d spoken to me first?”
“I’m awfully dense, aren’t I?” Nolan sounded amused at himself.
“Nah. You’ve just never met anyone like Grace.”
Nolan smiled. “You’ve got that right.”
They drank their coffee in companionable silence. Nolan’s head jerked up from his cup. “Craig! You didn’t tell me to back off! Why?”
“Because I know you better now, and because I only wanted to keep her heart from being broken.”
“And you don’t think I’ll do that now?”
Craig took a sip before admitting, “Mel pointed out to me that killing a friendship with you would break Grace’s heart before you ever could. She’s right. I treated you just like those women that you are so sick of.”
Nolan’s questioning look prodded Craig to continue. “I reacted to you solely based upon your physical attractiveness.”
“You reacted before you saw me. You came charging over before you ever saw me.”
“And as I left the house to come find out just what kind of man you were, I overheard my sister tell my wife that you are the most attractive man she’s ever met.”
Nolan grinned. “Is that so? Hmm… seems like I remember her making some comment to that effect, once upon a time.”
“I have a suggestion for you, though.” Craig’s tone was serious.
“What is that?”
“When you talk to her, start by telling her you’ve spoken to me, and then avoid the kind of conversation you have with the guys. I’ve learned in the last three years that women like to be talked to as much as they like to be listened to. If you think you’ve said enough, double that, and you’ll be set.”
“Can I take her to dinner? Think she’ll go for that?”
Craig nodded. “I think you might find someplace that gives you a bit of privacy though, but not too private. Just avoid anything that might appear inappropriate.”
“And you’re sure that she’s not interested in this officer?”
Craig stood, laughing. “Go call her. You’ve got it bad. Oh, and one last thing. Women are into feelings. Tell her what you’re feeling. Trust me on that one.”
“Feelings. Great. Do I have feelings? Better get some if I don’t. Think the mall has a store with them?” Nolan began muttering something about how he didn’t know how to become proficient at expressing his feelings at his age.
Craig leaned back in his chair, grinning. How much funnier could it be when your future brother-in-law begins to pick up your sister’s quirky habits
before
he marries her?
~*~*~*~
“Morning. I come bearing eggs, bacon, and orange juice. What do I have to do to beg you to cook ‘em for us?”
The scent of blueberry muffins almost attacked his senses as Grace opened the door wider to allow him to pass. “Well, I’ve been craving an omelet…”
“I need to talk to you. You cook; I take orders and talk. Is it a deal?”
“No.”
“Well—” Nolan paused, taken aback. He hadn’t expected a negative response. “What?”
“I’ll cook, you sit and talk. I don’t handle helpers in the kitchen this early. Just sit down and let me function.”
While Grace pulled out a non-stick frying pan and laid the bacon strips in it, Nolan tried to re-gather his thoughts. He watched as she deftly whipped eggs and half-and-half together and chopped the tops off a green onion and diced a tomato. “I went to see Craig yesterday.”
“I thought you would.”
“You knew all along?”
“Well, I think I figured it out the day before Thanksgiving,” Grace replied as she poured the eggs into another hot skillet. “You said something like, ‘she’s not as far away from my acquaintance as you’d think.’ Something like that. I’m not dense.”
“You acted dense.”
She whirled and glared at him. “I acted nothing. You didn’t say anything, so I didn’t either.”
His eyes held hers until she whirled to sprinkle the onions, tomatoes, cheese and torn bacon strips over the omelet. “But you knew what I wanted the other day, and you played dumb.”
Once the omelet was flipped in half, she turned and pointed her spatula at him. “You were beating around the bush. You knew how bothered Craig was by our friendship, and yet you chose to talk to me without discussing it with him, and if that wasn’t enough,” her voice rose slightly as she scooped the omelet from the pan and slid it on a plate. “You were a little heavy handed.”
His incredulous expression prompted her to do an exaggerated imitation of him. “‘Grace, we need to talk.’ You sounded like my father, when I did something wrong. I expected to hear that I was on restriction.”
He started to protest but suddenly saw himself with a serious expression and heard the words with fresh ears. He groaned. “Oh, Grace…”
With a flourish, she handed him his omelet, a fresh muffin, and a glass of orange juice. He watched as she washed the pans and the baking bowls, and wiped down the stove. Once she cleaned the tiny kitchen, Grace settled into her chair with a hot cup of coffee, a quarter of the omelet, and her muffin.
He glanced at his watch. This had taken too long. He had appointments to keep and a project that needed to be finished before he left. “I have to go. Can we continue this discussion over dinner? I’ll take you anywhere you want to go.”
“I don’t know.”
The answer hit him in the gut. Staring at her in disappointed disbelief, he scrambled to find a response. “Well—”
“Nolan, it’s not you,” she explained. “I want to say I’ll go, and I want to be excited about it. I want to think about what it could mean and enjoy it, but the fact is, I don’t know. I thought I knew yesterday, but—” She struggled to explain without making him feel worse than he did. “Well, I just realized that I really do have to choose between two different relationships.”
“Between what?”
She tried again. “I have to choose between my current relationship with the Lord and—”
“I don’t want to come between you and the Lord; I want to share you with Him, not take you away from Him!”
Cocking her head, she waited for him to finish and then continued. “—my relationship with Jesus as it is now, and how it will be later. It can’t be the same. One isn’t better than the other, but I—” With a deep breath, she shared part of her heart that no person had ever seen. “Over the years, I’ve made Jesus the equivalent of my husband. When I was seventeen, I was fascinated by the Catholic idea of nuns marrying Jesus as they took their vows, and I realized that every Christian does that. It was a beautiful thing to me.”
Seeing that Nolan wasn’t following her train of thought, she tried again. “A year or two later I realized that I could rely on Jesus just as a wife does on a husband. I could go to Him for the emotional support that wives seem to glean from their relationships. I could trust Him to be my protector and defender. Basically, I have a relationship with Jesus that means a change—not a bad one, but a definite one—if I allow another man into my life, and I have to really pray about whether or not I’m ready to do that now.”
Stunned by the realization that her reception of his… interest… wasn’t the given he’d assumed, Nolan stood. “Well, will you call me if you decide that dinner is something we can do?”
“I’ll call you either way. Thanks for understanding.”
Nolan shook his head. “Don’t. Don’t thank me, because I don’t understand. You, Craig, Paige, Melanie—you’ve all talked about how you have spent your entire life preparing to be a wife, mother, and homemaker. You’ve been practicing this for years. You’re the ‘wife’ of Jesus, the mother of every child you meet, and you’re definitely a homemaker. You have everything you’ve ever wanted. You don’t need a man. You don’t need me. I just don’t understand why—” He paused. “I’m sorry. Please forgive me. I’ll wait for your call.”
~*~*~*~
“Mike, she’s not interested. I thought she would be but—” Nolan sat semi-speechless in Mike’s office.
“Are you sure about that? It sounds to me, from what you’ve described, like she’s making sure she’s ready for a new step in her life.”
“What if she’s not?”
Disgusted, Mike glared at him. “Then you wouldn’t want her to go against her conscience or her heart just to pacify you, I would hope!”
“Ouch. You’re right. I was just so sure—”
“That’s your problem, Nolan. You’ve always been very sure of yourself, but this time you have to lay it on the line and step back and wait.”
A new realization dawned. “I am incredibly arrogant. I’m so used to being pursued by women that I don’t know what to do when the one I want isn’t sure she wants me.”
“You’ll live. You would never believe the kick in the gut I had when Traci turned down my first proposal.”
“Traci did what!”
“She told me that she might be damaged goods, but she’d been repaired by the Master, and He considered her priceless. If I wanted her, I had to quit acting like I was doing her a huge favor by asking.”
“Ouch.”
“Amen.”
Chapter Twenty
“What do I wear, Mel? I haven’t been out to an elegant dinner since before Daddy died.
Melanie stood before Grace’s closet, thoughtfully considering their options. With a mischievous glint in her eye, she reached for Grace’s best dress. “We know he likes you in this one. Wear it.”
She examined the dress critically. “I remember him saying that. It took everything I had not to blush.”
They talked as Grace got ready for her dinner with Nolan. She brushed her hair, flipping it in the style that suited her best. Remembering the possibility of candlelight at the restaurant, she spent a few minutes carefully applying the cosmetics that she wore sporadically. Grace shivered.