Noble Pursuits Page 13

  Grace turned around quickly. Too quickly. Dizziness overwhelmed her and she found herself lurching for the table. “Acck. The room is spinning!”

  He seated the unsteady woman and continued stirring the pan she’d been working over. “What’s wrong? Did you forget to eat?”

  “No… I’m just exhausted. I don’t think I slept well last night.”

  A cheer went up from everyone in the living room. The game of charades was apparently over. Amber dashed into the kitchen looking for nibbles and stopped short. She gave Nolan and Grace a funny look before turning and running back into the group. Nolan looked at Grace.

  “Did I miss something?”

  Grace shrugged. “She is a mystery sometimes. Her mother calls her ‘intuitive.’ I call her silly. I think she prefers silly.”

  Chuckling, they carried the bowls and plates into Craig’s dining room and placed them on the large sideboard. “We’ll eat buffet style. It’ll be faster so the food won’t get cold.”

  “Let me make a plate for your aunt. You go sit down and eat.”

  Fran accepted the plate, smiling broadly at Nolan. Grace sat wondering if her aunt truly liked Nolan, or if it was just the air of courtesy she sometimes put on at appropriate occasions. She was rude to most of her family, rude to service people and store clerks, rude to people who intruded into her living space uninvited, but the rest of the time, even if she didn’t feel like it, she managed a cordial civility that always seemed out of character somehow.

  Unaware of her niece’s curiosity, Fran enjoyed her conversation with him. Over turkey, stuffing, and hot mashed potatoes that only Grace could have made, she quickly learned that Nolan Burke was one of the Rockland Burkes and that even if he and her family didn’t know it, he’d be a part of the family in the near future. His genuine interest in her and her life as a real estate developer in the early years of the Westbury boom gratified her and endeared her to him.

  An hour later, the group lounged in the large family room, everyone too stuffed to make any unnecessary movements. “Why do we do this every year?” Melanie groaned and shifted the baby from her stomach.

  “Because we’re all hedonists if we’re honest with ourselves,” quipped Fran to an uninterested and non-listening room.

  “Anyone feel like singing?” Craig’s tone implied that his heart wasn’t into the idea.

  “Anyone feel like meditating day and night?” Nolan’s quip earned him a few pained chuckles.

  “Let’s get up a good game of Twister! Come on, Paige; show ‘em what my girl can do!” Chuck’s oblivious self-absorption appeared to be reaching new heights.

  Nathan looked askance. “Um, Chuck. Cool it. The girl is resting. It’s what most people do when they finish an excellent Thanksgiving dinner.”

  Amber appeared to be the only one with any latent energy. Despite her obvious dislike for Chuck, she conned him into a pick-up game in the back yard. “It’ll be fun and they’ll be ready to do something by the time we come in… come on, Mr. Majors!”

  As the back door shut behind the would-be soccer players, Nathan turned to Paige. “Does a nice, slow amble down to the park and back sound like too much of an assault on your stomach?”

  Paige shook her head and the couple slipped silently out the front door. Nolan sighed. He’d considered making the same offer to Grace before the episode in the kitchen. Just as he began to formulate another plan to try to talk with Grace, Melanie stood to put Graceanna in her crib. Moments later, Craig followed. “I’m going to lay down for a few. I feel like those decadent Romans who overfed themselves. I need a rest.”

  Fran stood and followed them to the guest room next to theirs. “If you need me, find someone else. I don’t want to be disturbed.”

  “Looks like you’re stuck with me.” Grace’s voice lacked any traces of mirth.

  “Why do you say it like that? Are you still angry with me?” Nolan seemed confused.

  “I don’t know. Tiredness talking, I guess. I’m not angry. I wasn’t actually angry before. Well, I was when Cade was reading this verse out loud and I didn’t know how I was going to get out of it!”

  Nolan’s low chuckle was comforting. Their friendship had already resumed its comfortableness. “I appreciate your understanding. I’m still embarrassed. I mean, I don’t even remember reading that verse before.”

  “I think it’s pretty personal between Mel and Craig.” Grace blushed as she realized that she was passing on information that she shouldn’t.

  “Paige seems pretty happy with Nathan. Think they’ll get a ‘real’ chance? I mean…”

  Grace nodded. “Paige said that Nathan knows how to take care of it if he has to. I hope he’s as wonderful as he seems; I’d hate to see her hurt again.”

  He hesitated. Would she resent him asking about personal things? “Paige implied that you’d been hurt yourself.”

  “Ahhh, no.” Grace’s laugh was genuine. She looked at him with undisguised amusement in her face. “Paige persists in believing that my father’s in home care assistant ‘trifled with my affections and then dumped me when he discovered how low the life insurance was.”

  “Can I ask an extremely personal question?” Ever since discovering that Grace was everything that he’d asked for in a wife, he had changed his perception of her.

  She eyed him warily. “Well, I guess it depends upon the question.”

  “Have you ever considered marriage?” Nolan began to feel foolish for asking.

  “Marriage in general, or to someone in particular?” Grace wasn’t as oblivious to the change in Nolan’s perception of her as he believed, and she wasn’t sure what she thought of it. It was one thing to desire a husband and children, but her relationship with the Lord was so intimate—so special. She didn’t know if she was willing to risk that changing—even for someone like Nolan.

  “Well, how about both?” He was beginning to think that Grace was either incredibly dense, or she wasn’t interested in sharing anything personal with him.

  “Well, marriage in general? I’ve prepared for that my whole life.”

  Now this was going somewhere. “How? How have you prepared? What kind of wife do you see yourself as? What kind of husband or marriage have you been hoping for?”

  “Well, it’s a matter of what you think the design for men and women are, and what the purpose of marriage is. I believe that God has intended for most people to marry, so I prepared for that—almost from birth. Craig too.”

  “What about when Paul says that he wishes that most people would remain single like him?”

  “Look at the whole passage, Nolan. He says ‘for this present distress.’ He knew that a very difficult and dangerous time was coming, probably speaking of the fall of Jerusalem, and he still qualified it with, ‘let each man have his own wife’ etcetera because it’s better to ‘marry than burn.’”

  “Excellent point. So what did you do to prepare? What did Craig do?”

  Grace spoke of years of the excellent example that her parents had exhibited for her and her brother. The lessons in homemaking and learning to serve others above herself were taught lovingly by her mother as she lived it. As Nolan listened, fond memories came over him. He remembered similar times of instruction that he’d spent with his own parents.

  “That’s beautiful. So why haven’t you married yet?”

  “Well, I’m not exactly old, but I’ve been called an ‘old maid’ by some of the little girls at the church. They like to read antique books and assume if you’re over twenty-two, your hopes are gone. But you didn’t ask about that.”

  He hesitated and finally gave in. “So… how much older is Craig than you?”

  Her laughter rang out gleefully. “That’s a smooth one! I’m thirty-two. My birthday is July fourth.” She stretched. “But you wanted to know why I’m not married. I’d say because no one has ever asked me, but that implies that I’d just accept anyone.”

  “I can’t imagine that happening. I don’t think that Craig
would go for it.”

  “Uh… no. That he wouldn’t.”

  “Come on, tell me. If you could describe your husband if you could pick one out at a store, what would he be like?”

  Grace grew thoughtful. Eventually, she began describing a very special person. The warmth with which she spoke implied that she wasn’t just making this up on the spur of the moment. As she spoke of the qualities she hoped to find, Nolan realized that she was describing a man much like, if not exactly like, her father.

  “You miss him, don’t you?” The question didn’t need to be asked.

  “It’s our second Thanksgiving without him. I miss him. Sometimes I feel so alone in that house without him. Everyone thinks that I am happy to be alone in my own little world that I’ve created. I’ve been told how lucky I am. I have a nice house that I can do whatever I want with. I don’t have the hassle of in-laws or sharing the remote. Who wants to be alone like that for their whole life, unless it’s exactly what the Lord has planned for them?”

  Grace paused for a moment before continuing. “I don’t want to presume to know the mind of God, but I just don’t think that God means for me to be single.”

  “You really want a home and family, don’t you?”

  “On the other hand, and while I don’t want to sound pietistic and I truly do want a husband, children, and all that comes with them, I have a very close relationship with the Lord. I know that marriage will change that. It won’t tear me away from the Lord, but my relationship will change, and I don’t know if I want it to. Does that make sense?”

  Nolan nodded slowly. “Do you mean something like a living example of ‘the wife is concerned with the things of her husband but the single person, the things of the Lord?’”

  “Oh, what a relief for someone to understand,” she sighed. “Most don’t.”

  “What about Mr. Right? Do you know why he hasn’t come along?”

  Grace was thoughtful. She hated this part of the conversation. She was honest with herself, but whenever she talked about it, she felt like someone trying to garner sympathy. “Well, the long and short of things is that I tend to be thought of as ‘one of the guys.’ I’m not exceptionally pretty, kinda overweight—ok, a lot overweight. I don’t have a flashy career or any modern sophistication. I’m just an old-fashioned girl with a heart for hearth and home. Not a lot of men are looking for that.”

  “Does that bother you?” Nolan mentally refuted every point. Her beautiful personality and character shone in her eyes and illuminated a very gentle face. Who could notice her weight with a heart as big as hers, and there were already too many sophisticated career women out there in his opinion.

  “Not really. The right guy is either out there looking for me, or I am one of the exceptions; and as my dad said the day before he died…” Grace choked up a little as she tried to quote her departed father. “‘If you are one of those exceptions, Grace, that just means that God thinks you are exception-all.’”

  “Well, you’re already that. I—” Nolan was interrupted by a wail as Amber crashed into the room sobbing.

  “Amber! What is wrong?” Grace’s alarm brought a fresh round of wails from the child, but before Amber could answer Chuck came striding into the room.

  “What is wrong with her, one minute we’re playing and talking and the next minute she’s crying like a baby.” Chuck’s personality left much to be desired on most occasions, but Nolan was particularly irritated with him at that moment.

  Grace motioned for Nolan to take Chuck out of the room and held the weeping child. When the room was empty, and the girl’s sobs quieted, Grace tried again. “Amber, honey, what upset you?”

  “I want Mommy!”

  Aunt Fran’s voice hollered down the hallway, “Someone shut that child up! We’re trying to sleep.”

  Sighing, Grace tried again. “Did you get hurt?”

  The child shook her head and sniffled. “I don’t like him. I want Mommy.”

  “Did Chuck say something that bothered you?” Grace began to fume.

  “He asked when my mommy was going to get married again…”

  “Is that all?” Grace knew it wasn’t. It never was with Chuck Majors.

  “No, he asked if I was going to be a good girl when Mommy remarries so that the new daddy won’t leave.” Fresh sobs threatened to erupt.

  Before Grace could answer, Craig and Melanie came hurrying in. “What’s going on? Have we been asleep long? Amber, honey, why are you crying?”

  Amber ran to Melanie and began crying softly again. Grace looked gravely at Melanie and made a face as she pointed out the window where Nolan and Chuck were in deep conversation. Motioning for Craig to follow, she headed out doors.

  As they walked slowly down the steps, Grace filled Craig in and said, “Craig, it’s time. He’s gotten away with this kind of thing for too long. Do we need the elders or can you rebuke him first and contact the elders tomorrow if there’s still a problem?”

  Craig waived her to the side. “You are here as a witness as to what Amber said, not as a confronter. Keep quiet, Grace.”

  Grace shut her mouth, with much difficulty, and watched the proceedings. Craig confronted Chuck with his words to Amber. The man’s response was less than encouraging. “Yeah, so what?”

  Grinding her teeth in fury, Grace fumed. Is this guy for real? Does he have no clue that he just hung himself? The nerve! At least the noose is good and tight now.

  Nolan was surprised to hear the grinding emanating from Grace’s jaw line. His disgust and anger with Chuck evaporated in his concern for her. He realized, with amusement and a trace of amazement, that Grace’s fists were clenching at her side in perfect synchronization with her jaw. Sheer willpower held a chuckle in check as he noticed that her foot had a tendency to inch forward, then back again, as if ready to strike.

  Craig’s voice brought him back to the current situation. Slightly embarrassed by how easily distracted he was, Nolan tried to focus on the situation at hand. “Chuck, I don’t think you are hearing what we are saying. I’d like you to listen, and listen carefully…”

  Before he could summarize what Chuck needed to hear, a swift movement caught the corner of his eye and Chuck yelped, “She kicked me! What’s up with that, Grace?”

  Craig shot a look at Grace, but she spoke first. “I didn’t say anything!” Craig’s look would have quelled a meeker disposition. Grace, however, was made of sterner mettle. “You said not to speak. You didn’t say I couldn’t kick some sense into him.”

  Chuck seemed stunned. Nolan jumped at the chance to make his point. “Chuck, you essentially told a seven-year-old girl that it’s her fault that her irresponsible father abandoned her. Tell me how this is acceptable behavior for a Christian.”

  Chuck, in his usual self-centered style, had ignored what was actually being said and responded only to what he thought they either were, or should be, saying. Nolan’s words seemed to sink in, but a voice behind him managed to make a deeper impression. “Chuck, what have you said now?”

  Nathan stood behind his brother with arms folded and steel in his eyes. Craig began pacing, ranting about Amber being hurt and humiliated. Everyone jumped back in surprise as Nathan stepped around Chuck and slugged his brother across the jaw. Everyone that is, except for Chuck. He almost seemed to expect it and stood ready to accept the blow.

  Chuck picked himself up from the ground where he’d stumbled, muttered thanks for the dinner and drove away. Craig and Nolan stood by with shock, confusion, and a trace of envy running through their minds. Curiosity finally drove them to blurt out in unison, “What just happened here?”

  “If there is one thing that I’ve learned about Chuck over the years, it’s that he values brawn over brains. As you can imagine, it made for an interesting childhood.”

  The men groaned and chuckled while Grace and Paige looked at each other and shrugged. Remembering Amber and her distress, Grace went back indoors. The emotional drain was beginning to take its toll. As s
he seated herself, Melanie mouthed something to her, but Grace’s lip reading skills left much to be desired.

  “Amber, honey, can you get Grace something to drink?” Melanie went to the door and motioned for Nolan to join them. When Craig and the others followed, Mel waived them back.

  Amber brought a glass of water and set it on the table before Grace. She gave an embarrassed glance at Nolan and hurried outside with the others. Melanie’s face showed confusion. “Nolan, Amber is dealing with a lot of guilt right now. She saw Nathan punch his brother, and she blames it on her ‘gossiping’ about him.”

  An awkward silence fell over the room. Nolan looked at Grace, who looked at Melanie. Mel looked at Nolan as if waiting for an explanation. “Nolan, she thinks that it is gossip to tell us that a man said unkind things to her.”

  He waited for Melanie to continue. He was positively clueless as to what Mel was getting at. “Am I supposed to do something about this? You appear to be waiting for something from me.”

  “She said that you taught her that anytime you say anything about someone who isn’t there to hear exactly what you said, that it is gossip and wrong.”

  Without a word, Nolan stood and went outside to talk with Amber. Grace and Melanie watched as he took her hand and led her down the street, talking earnestly as they went. Amber’s uncertain face was evident from their vantage point. Craig, Nathan and Paige came indoors clamoring for an explanation.

  After hearing the story, Craig sighed. “I’m glad to have him here. It’s like having a close brother.”

  “Two days ago you were ready to murder him, and now you’re glad he’s here. I don’t understand you, Craig Buscher.”

  “Well, I have to admit, I was a little unreasonable, but you just don’t mess with my women.”

  Nolan and Amber returned a short while later to find everyone pouring over the Black Friday sales planned for the following day. “Come on, guys; help us figure out where to go first.”