The Wonder of You (20 page)

True to his invitation, he’d arrived at 5 p.m. to pick her up, heading north, toward a picnic clearing on Poplar Lake, a blue lake rich in walleye that she’d fished a couple times with her father. Seth had unloaded from his pickup truck a blanket and a basket full of sandwiches, fruit, and bottled lemonade
 
—a feast that she knew had taken some preparation.

The gesture had touched her, as did the egg salad sandwich he’d handed her. “You remembered.”

“Hello, you drove me crazy our senior year
 
—the Thursday special at the deli.”

She’d grinned. “We did have fun trying to make our Thursday deli runs in time to get back to school.”

“To this day, I avoid the strip of road in front of the school
 
—I just know Kyle is waiting for me to gun it so he can slap me with another $200 ticket.” He’d dug into his Italian roast beef.

“Yeah, well, you would have gotten more of them if it weren’t for me. His kid brother had a crush on me.”

Seth rolled his eyes. “Who didn’t have a crush on you, Red?”

Now, their dinner eaten, the sun falling lazily into the horizon, Amelia lay back to trace the clouds and finally responded to his offer. “I’d love to go to Europe with you.”

“I’m just saying, you don’t need James Bond to see the world. I can take you.” He rolled onto his side, propped himself up. “It’s not like I didn’t expect you to want to travel.”

She glanced at him.

“Sheesh, don’t you think I noticed you buried in the church library on Sunday mornings, reading those missionary books? I’d go in, pretend to check out a Left Behind book, and you wouldn’t even look up.”

“They were about Bible smugglers. I used to dream I’d be a spy for God, hiding Bibles in the back of my tricked-out motorcycle.”

Seth laughed. He picked a long piece of grass and tickled her neck with it.

She swatted at him. “Beyond playing lineman for the Minnesota Vikings, didn’t you ever have any dreams? And driving NASCAR doesn’t count either.”

His smile fell, and he nodded, suddenly serious.

She waited, but he flopped onto his back, staring at the sky.

“What?”

“I don’t want to tell you.”

“Seth.”

“It’s silly.”

“It’s me. I’m not going to laugh at you.”

He turned to her, his eyes suddenly rich with unshed emotions. “I used to dream that I’d build us a house out here. On Poplar Lake. I even drew it, had plans made.”

She sat up. “You wanted to build us a house? Here?”

“
Want
to, and brace yourself because I already own this patch we’re sitting on.”

“Seth!” She stood and turned to survey the sloping hill down to the lake, covered by towering birch, white pine, and poplar.

He stood next to her, settled a hand on her shoulder. Pointed. “I’m going to put the house there, with a deck that overlooks the lake. The house is open and big, so we can fit your entire family and more, and it has two stories, lots of bedrooms for our kids. It’ll be easy for me to get the logs
 
—I thought I’d skin them and build it myself. It might take a couple years, but we can live in town until then, right?”

Amelia swallowed, the vision too vivid
 
—the sound of kids jumping into the lake, the smell of campfire. The life she’d grown up with, for the next generation. She looked at him, and her eyes blurred.

He thumbed the corner of her eye. “What is it? Did I say something wrong?”

“No. It’s so . . . right. It’s perfect.”

A muscle pulled in his jaw. “Except I have a feeling that’s not a good thing.”

“It’s a great thing!” She looked away. “It’s just
 
—”

“You don’t want it. At least with me.”

She closed her eyes. “I
do
want it with you.”

“Then what’s the problem?” He turned her. “Help me understand what you want!”

She couldn’t put it into words, this simmer inside, a sort of ethereal sense of something bigger. “I want Jesus. I want that passion, that vision Barb Gunderson talked about today. I want to know what ‘Thou in me dwelling, and I with Thee one’ feels like.”

She’d rendered him silent.

She bit her bottom lip, shook her head. “I know I don’t make sense, but I think that girl who longed to be a Bible smuggler is still inside me. Maybe that’s why I went to Prague.”

“Okay, fine. I get that. I know you wanted to leave Deep Haven, have some kind of grand adventure. But, Amelia
 
—you had it! And came home, remember? Isn’t that enough? What more do you want?”

“I want all of it. All that God has for me. All the vision, in faith. I
 
—”

“And that doesn’t mean me.” He was trembling, and she hated herself for destroying this perfect evening.

“It might. I just don’t know yet.”

He raked his hand through his hair. “Silly me for thinking you could have Jesus and me.”

“Seth
 
—”

“Fine. When will you know? A week? Two weeks? A month? A year? You have to make a decision, Ames. You can’t just wait around for your life to happen. You have to
make
it happen.” He reached out and took her hands. “I’m trying to be patient
 
—”

“I know you are.”

“But you’re killing me here.” He put his forehead to hers. “For the record, I want what God wants too. I just happen to think it’s you.”

He started to kiss her, a whisper against her lips, and for a long
second
 
—too long
 
—she ached to simply lose herself again in Seth’s embrace. To lounge on the blanket with him under the twilight and accept his words as her answer.
I want what God wants.
Wasn’t that a man after God’s heart?

Maybe
 
—but her hand came up anyway against his chest.

“Ames!” He tore away from her, his eyes reddening. “What?”

“I can’t kiss you. I mean, of course I want to, but I can’t kiss anyone until I know. It’s not fair.”

“You mean it’s not fair to Roark!”

“No! It’s not fair to me! It just confuses me. I love kissing you, Seth. Too much. So . . .” She shook her head, started to pick up the picnic supplies. “I think I need to go home.”

“Ames, c’mon . . .” His voice held too much pleading, but she steeled herself against it.

“I’m tired of wandering, Seth. I came home from Prague because I lost my vision of why I was there. And now I don’t have one. But I’m going to figure it out. I promise.”

She heard his intake of breath, then his quiet movements as he packed up their picnic. He wrapped it all in the blanket and carried it to the truck, dumping it in without ceremony.

Then he climbed into the cab, both hands on the wheel, driving her home in stony silence.

When they reached the resort, she got out but paused at the open window. “Seth
 
—”

“Call me when you figure it out,” he said sharply and drove away.

Amelia stood there in the dust a long moment before she went inside. Her mother sat on the deck, reading, most of the weekend guests departed. She guessed that Darek had gone home for the night, and through the window she spied Grace and Max teaching Yulia to fish off the end of the dock.

She headed upstairs, sat on the bed, pulling her computer to her lap and inserting the SD card from her camera. Then she uploaded the pictures from the picnic
 
—the loon, Seth, the sun ablaze across the lake. Editing a couple of her favorites, she uploaded them to Facebook, tagging them to Evergreen Resort. Darek would be thrilled.

She couldn’t help but notice the contest link, still on her home page.

Give yourself the opportunity to choose.

She closed the computer before she did something foolish.

Roark didn’t know what had possessed him to go to church with Seb, but the effect of it lingered all week. Everything from the hymns to the fact that Darek had come up and shaken his hand.

The crazy sense of acceptance by the Christiansen family had clung to him, fueled his week. By the time Saturday rolled around, he’d purchased a pair of hiking boots, a rain jacket, Gore-Tex pants, and a compass for his trek into the woods with the Boy Scouts.

It helped that Amelia stopped in twice for her Becky
 
—a medium caramel-vanilla mocha.

He arrived at the lodge just as the sun edged above the horizon, the day crisp, the faintest hint of breath gathering in the air, lacy dew in the ferns growing in the garden along the stoop. He passed John and his crew of fishermen, on their way to some remote northern lake for the season’s fishing opener.

Darek came out of the garage carrying poles, life jackets, and tackle boxes. He loaded them into the resort pickup, then came over to Roark. “The forecast calls for rain, so we provided
ponchos along with your gear.” He pointed to a collection of lumpy oversize backpacks.

“What are those?” Roark asked.

“Duluth Packs
 
—especially made for canoeing. The scouts packed them yesterday as part of their merit badges. You should have everything you need for lunch. We added some gorp
 
—a kid favorite
 
—and some of Mom’s hardtack with peanut butter, but there’s a hot lunch. You just have to build a fire, heat up water, and add it to the individual packs. I think Amelia packed ravioli.”

“It’s not beans and toast, but it’ll do.”

Darek raised an eyebrow, not getting his humor. “Okay. So Amelia has the map
 
—you’ll take them up to Hungry Jack and Bearskin, onto Rose Lake, let them explore the waterfall, then back. It’s a nice trip and they’ll be worn out by the time they get back. Their leader is named Mike
 
—nice guy. He’s an Army veteran, but I’m not sure he’ll be a lot of help. Amelia knows what she’s doing; just get everyone back safely.” He held out his hand, and Roark shook it. “Thanks, Roark. We appreciate your help today.”

Darek’s clients arrived, and he pulled away. Amelia came bounding outside, dressed in cargo pants and a fleece, her hair covered with an orange bandanna. “When did you get here?”

She looked so cute, it stole his breath for a moment.

She didn’t seem to notice as she walked to the Duluth Packs, picked one up, and hauled it to a trailer stacked with canoes. She threw it in.

Roark grabbed the second one. “I didn’t realize you were such an Amazon woman.”

She offered a muscle and a smile. “Amelia Christiansen in her natural habitat.”

He laughed, but he hadn’t quite thought about that. As she
loaded in paddles and counted life jackets, he realized that she carried herself with a confidence he hadn’t sensed in Prague.

He picked up another stack of paddles, loaded them into the truck. “I’m starting to feel like maybe your brothers were humoring me when they agreed to let me tag along.”

“Oh, you’re going to earn your keep, Mr. St. John, when we start to portage.”

When they did
what
?

She tossed him a green T-shirt, and he held it up, read the Evergreen Resort logo on the front. “Really?”

“Time to earn your Evergreen merit badge.” She winked just as a crowd of boys dressed in brown shirts, jeans, and jackets arrived, their leader in tow. An older man, carrying extra girth and sporting a white goatee, he reminded Roark of his uncle Donovan, if only for the way he trundled along the path, fearful of breaking a sweat.

He introduced himself to Roark as Mike McGuire. “Ah, a Brit. Served with a crew from England in the Gulf War,” Mike said. “Very good, then,” he said, affecting a dreadful British accent.

Roark forced a smile.

Mike opened the van door for the boys to climb in.

“Mike’s been bringing up Troop 126 for the last fifteen years,” Amelia said as she got into the driver’s seat.

Indeed. Mike regaled the eight boys with stories of previous trips, then started a round of “Ain’t No Bugs on Me,” followed by a thousand choruses of “Be Kind to Your Web-Footed Friends.” By the time they reached Hungry Jack Lake, Roark quietly hoped that Mike and his memories would end up in a different canoe.

However, Amelia sang along, seeming joyous. “‘Be kind to your fur-bearing friends. For a skunk may be somebody’s brother . . .’”

Roark offered a grim smile that only made her sing louder.

“C’mon, Roark
 
—‘be kind to your friends wearing stripes . . .’”

When they arrived at Hungry Jack, he launched himself from the van, unloading the paddles, the life jackets.

“Let the boys take the canoes
 
—it’s part of their merit badge requirements,” Mike said as he untied one of the canoes and helped two twelve-year-olds lift it from the rack. Roark cringed as they nearly dropped it, the aluminum hull scraping against the rock with a squeal as they slid it into the lake.

While he tried to untangle life jackets, Amelia handed out paddles and gave the boys a lesson. Then she dispatched them to their canoes, girded up in their flotation devices, and pushed the first two boats out onto the glorious indigo lake.

Mike, thankfully, climbed into the stern of one of the remaining canoes.