Lessons from the Heart

“Come on!” David darted around the table, grabbed Erin’s free hand and ran toward the gazebo at the end of the path. When they arrived, his admiration for her took another giant leap upward. Her hair was wet, her clothes soaked and she was laughing. Brandee would have been screaming bloody murder! Not that she would have been playing a word game in the park in the first place. He felt a tug and lowered his gaze to their joined hands. He didn’t want to, but he let go.

Erin turned and dropped the bag into the trash can beside the steps. “Well that’s a first!” She shook her head, laughing as droplets of water flew everywhere. “I’ve never had a board game called because of rain.”

“Nor I.” David got lost somewhere in Erin’s dark green eyes. “We have to have a rematch now. I don’t want my reputation sullied by a questionable win.”

She wrinkled her nose at him. “Anytime, Mr. Carlson. Anytime!”

David’s hand clenched so hard the box popped. He put it down on the wide railing before he destroyed it.

“Where’d everyone go?” Erin glanced around. “Are we the only ones who took refuge here?”

David nodded. “I guess everyone else must have seen the rain coming and left.”

“Smart people.” She raised her hands and wrapped them about her bare upper arms. “I guess we were too involved in our game to notice the clouds rolling in.”

“I guess.” David frowned. She was shivering. “You’re cold. I’m sorry I don’t have a jacket to offer you, perhaps this will help.” He moved forward, folded his arms around her clasped ones and pulled her back against him. The moisture from the back of her sleeveless sweater penetrated his shirt front, momentarily cooling the skin on his chest. He took a breath, inhaling the suggestion of citrus that clung to her hair. His heart started thudding in time with the rain drumming on the roof. His grip tightened.

Erin went rigid, then shot from his grip like a bullet from a gun. He stared at her in astonishment.

“I’m all right now.” She wrapped her arms around herself again and turned to look out at the park. “Do you like rain? I’ve always loved it. When I was young I used to beg my mother to let me go outside and walk around the yard just so I could listen to it beating on my umbrella. I still go for walks in the rain. And, I suppose it’s silly, but I love to sit in a car when rain is pattering on the roof. Or on my back porch, so I hear it on the roof.”

She was nervous! She was chattering like a magpie. At such an innocuous touch? David didn’t know whether to be insulted or flattered. He put the debate aside until later. “I didn’t enjoy rainstorms as a kid. They interfered with playing ball. But I did like riding my bike through the mud puddles afterward.”

“Really?” Erin turned toward him. “And what did your mother think of that?”

He shook his head and leaned his shoulder against one of the roof support posts, blocking from his mind the feel of her in his arms. “My mom died when I was four years old.”

“How awful. I’m sorry, David. I’m sure that was terribly hard for you.”

The warmth and compassion in Erin’s eyes and voice stirred his heart. He nodded. “Thanks. But it was a long time ago. It’ll be twenty-four years next month.”

“Do you have a stepmom?”

David straightened and jammed his hands in his jeans pockets, uncomfortable with talking about his personal life. “Yes. My father…does a lot of traveling.” For God. Old anger snaked its way through him. “He met a woman overseas and remarried a few years later.”

“So you moved a lot as a child?”

She sounded less nervous. David shook his head and skirted around the fact that his father and the new wife hadn’t wanted him, because he would take time from their work for the Lord. “No. I lived with my grandmother and grandfather.” He pulled up a smile. “Grandpa was a terrific gardener, and Grandma baked the best cookies in ten counties. As a matter of fact, you can blame Grandpa for those words I used in the game. I wanted to be like him, so I took up botany in college.”

“Botany?” Those gorgeous eyes of hers widened in surprise. “How did you get from there to journalism?”

He shrugged. “One of my professors took me aside one day and told me I had an innate writing talent. He suggested I develop it and pursue fame and fortune as a journalist or writer. That sounded good to me, so I switched my major, and the rest, as they say, is history.” He smiled. “Except in my case, history is still in the making.”

“Now that’s the sort of a teacher every child should have. Not the kind who only put in their time and totally ignore the needs of their students! Not the kind who—” Erin clamped her lips together and walked to the railing.

She was shivering again. David stayed rooted in place. He wasn’t about to make the mistake of touching her again—no matter how innocent and altruistic his motives. “Sounds like you’ve had a bad experience with a teacher, Erin. Is that why you’re so passionate about the literacy center?”

“Yes. It is.”

He waited but she didn’t expand on her answer. She just stood there with her back toward him, staring out at the rain. Some emotion he felt but couldn’t identify emanated from her. Pain? Anger? Whatever it was, he wanted to take her in his arms and comfort her, but that avenue was closed to him. He cleared his throat. “I’m sorry for whatever happened to you, Erin. But if that experience is what motivated your passion for helping your students at the center, at least some good has come out of it.”

Her head lifted. She turned to look at him, then smiled. It felt as if someone had suddenly turned on the sun.

“Thank you, David.” Her smile widened. “You’re a very kind person—” she wrinkled her nose at him “—except when it comes to word games.”

That little wrinkle of her nose stirred more than his heart. David dragged in a breath of air and returned her smile. “Kindness isn’t in the rules.”

Erin laughed, then shifted her gaze to the roof. “Listen. The rain has stopped. We can go home and dry out.”

“I guess we can.” David picked up the game and followed Erin down the steps, wishing—for the first time in his life—the deluge had continued.

The rain had started again. Erin picked up her mug of hot cocoa, pushed open the back door and stepped out onto the porch. She was greeted by the steady drumming of raindrops on the roof overhead.

She took a deep breath, savoring the clean smell of the rain, then walked over to curl up in her favorite corner of the wicker couch. The cushion felt good against her bare feet. She snuggled them deeper into the softness and took a swallow of the cocoa, capturing one of the small marshmallows floating on top and letting its warm sweetness melt on her tongue.

If that experience is what motivated your passion for helping your students at the center, at least some good has come out of it.

Had her face revealed how startled she’d been by David’s statement? Not only by his sensitivity, but by the truth he’d expressed. Erin wrapped both hands around the warm mug and stared out into the night. She’d lived so long with the legacy of distrust, fear and anger that Mr. Gorseman’s attempted rape of her had caused, she’d never thought of the possibility of good coming from it. But it had. She’d become a teacher and a fierce advocate for the students at the literacy center because of it. And her mom and dad volunteered at the women’s rape and abuse shelter as a result of her experience. But that was all for the good of others.

Erin set her cup on the table, rose and walked to the top of the steps, wrapping her arms about herself and leaning back against the support post to watch the raindrops dancing on the wet bricks of the walk. What about her? What about her family? Where was the good for them? All she’d received was an inability to trust a man. Alayne had turned her back on God and was living in sin with a lying, cheating lothario. And her parents suffered because their oldest daughter was too ashamed of the life she lived to even speak to them, and their youngest daughter was too wary of men to ever fall in love.

No, nothing good had come to them from that experience.

Chapter Five

Erin pulled the dress over her head, zipped up the back then eyed herself in the full-length mirror on the back of her closet door. She loved this sleeveless dress with its square-cut neckline and soft apricot-colored fabric that skimmed over her body before flaring to the flirty, lettuce-edge hem. It was so summery and feminine. And she definitely felt feminine. Ever since David put his arms around her Friday night she’d felt…well…womanly.

Erin scowled and lifted her hands to smooth the fabric covering her shoulders. What was wrong with her? She’d felt his heart thudding against her back. He’d wanted to kiss her. That he restrained himself didn’t make him trustworthy, it only made him circumspect. They had been in an open gazebo in a public park with traffic passing by. It was the reason she hadn’t totally panicked when he’d put his arms around her.

Erin stuck her tongue out at herself in the mirror. “Forget how nice David Carlson seems, Erin Kelly, and remember he has a reputation as a ladies’ man! He wasn’t interested in you. You were only with him because of an accidental meeting. He was just reacting according to form!”

Erin turned away from the mirror, stepped into her dress sandals and went to brush her hair. Her time would be better spent concentrating on the lesson she’d prepared for her Sunday school class.

“Who remembers how long it rained after Noah, his family and all the animals went into the ark?” Little hands shot up all around the room. Erin smiled. “Janie?”

“Forty days and forty nights.”

“That’s right. And who can tell me why God saved Noah and his family?” Erin swept her gaze over the class. “Andrew?”

“’Cause Noah was the only one that was good. Everyone else was real bad!”

Erin nodded. “Yes. God’s word tells us that only Noah walked with God. And because Noah walked with God, the Lord saved his whole family! And the Lord still does that today.” She patted her Bible. “It says in God’s word, ‘Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved—and thy house.’ That means your family, not the house you live in.”

Erin smiled and glanced at her watch. “Okay, that’s all for today. I’ll see you next week. You’re dismissed.” She rose and walked to the door. “Remember, no running.” She stepped into the hall to watch the children walk safely to their waiting parents.

Thank You, Father God, that Jesus is our ark. He’s the one who saves us and shelters us through the storms of life.

Erin took a deep breath to relieve the sudden pressure in her chest and headed for the sanctuary. She’d been waiting and praying seven years for Alayne to come back to the Lord. How long would she have to wait for that storm to be over?