From the moment he had laid eyes on Charity O’Connor, he knew he had never seen a more beautiful woman, and something in that assessment produced a guilt that annoyed him greatly. He had done nothing wrong, he told himself, except admire the beauty of his fiancée’s sister. And yet, inside, Mitch felt uneasy.
As much as he would have liked to, he knew he couldn’t discuss it with Faith. Over the months he had known her, he quickly learned of the intense rivalry between the two, a rivalry that had already inflicted too much pain on the woman he loved. No, he would never even mention it to her. He wouldn’t if he could. He didn’t doubt he could explain the concern he felt that her sister might be flirting with him. But how could he ever let on about the desire she provoked in him every time she did?
Mitch dragged his fingers through his hair. Blast it all, it was one thing to stop seeing other women now that he had Faith, but it was something else altogether when the temptation was right under your nose, so close—and so willing—you could almost touch it.
Mitch sighed. There had been a time when he might have welcomed this—the rival affections of two pretty sisters, but the notion did little to thrill him now. He loved Faith, he knew it. He didn’t relish the thought of anything interfering with a long engagement that would keep him at bay longer than he could handle. For pity’s sake, it was almost July. They’d been seeing each other for six months now, and only God knew when the war would end and they could be married. He worried celibacy would take its toll, and that her sister was more than well aware of it. Something told him these sisters didn’t share the same beliefs, a suspicion that made him skittish as a cat whenever Charity was around.
He glanced quickly at the clock and sighed. Well, there was little time to dwell on it now. He was to pick Faith up in an hour and didn’t want to be late. He couldn’t worry about it; he would simply have to take it one day at a time. After all, each day had enough trouble of its own. He smiled at the Scripture that came to mind. It didn’t surprise him; Faith filled his ears with Scriptures a lot lately, all lovingly extracted from the now dog-eared Bible Mrs. Gerson had compelled her to take when she’d left Boston. Although he’d always believed, he’d never felt close to God until he saw him through Faith’s eyes. There were times now that he even found himself occasionally reading the Bible she had given him, and with little or no prompting from her. He closed his eyes. What was the rest of that verse?
Be not therefore anxious for the morrow: for the morrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. Mitch opened his eyes and smiled. That Bible said a mouthful.
20
Collin was shell-shocked. Not so much from the war, which had been raging around him for months now, but more from the letter he held in his hands while lying on his bunk in the dark. He heard Brady’s quiet snoring beneath him as he stared into the rafters of the billet they shared, and knew sleep would not come easily tonight.
Charity’s letter had been light and breezy, as always, filled with the adventures she enjoyed in her job or Katie’s antics. She was always good about passing on news of Patrick and Sean, whenever their letters were received. He could tell she worked hard at sounding cheerful, something he needed after days buried in a trench reeking of urine and sweat and fear.
But he hadn’t expected this, and he laid there, a numbness settling in his brain as he realized what it meant. Faith was engaged, Charity had written in a brief paragraph tagged on at the end of the letter, almost as an afterthought. His name was Mitch, and they planned to marry as soon as the war was over because Faith wanted her family together. The words had stunned, and he found himself reading them again and again, as if he couldn’t comprehend their meaning. He closed his eyes, and her face swam before him, along with the memory of her words.
“You are something, Collin McGuire. All you think about, care about is your desire for the moment. Well, I want more, much more. I’m looking for something you don’t seem to know a lot about—genuine love, like the kind between my parents. And yes, Collin, the kind of love where God is at the center. That’s the only thing I’m going to settle for, and I guarantee it’ll have more passion than you’ll know in a lifetime.”
“I doubt that,” he had sneered. “And who’s gonna give you this passionate love—God?”
“Someone will … someone who loves God as much as I do. I’m saving it for him, Collin. All the passion you provoke in me, it all belongs to him, wherever he is.”
Her words circled in his brain like a drunken dizzy spell, making him sick. The passion that belonged to him had finally slipped through his fingers. The same passion that had gotten him through the last month since Brady convinced him he could have her. Now, someone else would have it. The realization was like a knife in his chest. He would have given anything at the moment for one of those mind-numbing drunks he had so readily given up. And for what? So another man could have the only woman he had ever loved. The old anger at God flared as he stared up, his eyes burning with fury. “What good have you done me?” he whispered bitterly. “I give you my life, and you take away the only thing worth living for. What am I supposed to do?”
Delight thyself also in the Lord: and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart.
“She is the desire of my heart!” he hissed. He heard Brady rustle in the bunk below. Collin squeezed his eyes shut and tried to remember exactly what Brady had said. Something about delighting yourself in God and seeking him first. That when you did, your desires became one with his, and he gladly gave them to you. Unfortunately, Collin had learned that too late. He had spent his whole adult life seeking his own desires—in alcohol and women—and in the end, it had been nothing more than a chasing after the wind.
Collin vaulted off his bunk and bent in to where Brady slept, reaching for the Bible he always kept by his side. He clutched it to his chest and hurried outside the billet, the moonlight cutting shadows around him like the noon of day. His fingers fumbled the pages in a rush, seeking the Scripture he had read before his last shift in the trenches. His hand stilled as he found it, and for the first time, he understood its meaning with frightening clarity.
“For he giveth to a man that is good in his sight wisdom, and knowledge, and joy; but to the sinner he giveth travail to gather and to heap up, that he may give to him that is good in God’s sight. This also is vanity and pursuit of the wind.”
The verse pierced his heart. Overwhelming grief brought him to his knees in the dirt. He didn’t care who might see or who might hear. He had spent his whole life chasing after the wind, and it had never yielded anything more than emptiness that blustered cold in his heart. No more, he thought. It was over. The life he led was over, and with God’s help, a new one would begin. He had allowed the prayers of Faith and Brady to go forth on his behalf but had never uttered them himself. And looking up into the heavens, he cried out to their God, and in the instant it took for him to speak, that God became his. Like the shaft of moonlight washing over him, a holy peace flooded his soul. For the first time, he understood the fervor he’d seen in Faith, the peace he saw in Brady, and he was filled with awe. Every conversation he’d ever had with Brady convinced him he would never be happy until the desire of his heart was one with God’s, just like Faith had said. Only, his heart had heard it too late to have her.
Slowly Collin rose from the dirt, astounded at the serenity he felt. He breathed in deeply to fill his lungs with the cool night air. He couldn’t have her, but she would always be a part of him. He knew to the depth of his soul that it had been her prayers that had saved him. It was a debt for which he would always be grateful. He wished her well. No, he thought, there was no wishing to it. He would pray that God would bless her with the marriage she deserved. He owed her that. Quietly, he entered the billet and returned the Bible to Brady’s side. He crawled into his own bunk, closed his eyes, and slept, finally, the slumber of a man with peace in his heart.
Faith stared at her friend’s letter, absently toying w
ith the ring on her finger as she thought about what Maisie had written. Maisie was, of course, overjoyed that Faith was engaged. Had they set a date yet, she wanted to know, and suggested, in not so subtle a manner, that the friendship would be dissolved if the wedding took place anywhere but Boston. Faith smiled, reminded of just how much she missed her friend.
Did Collin know? Maisie had inquired. The smile wilted on Faith’s lips. She stared out the window into her grandmother’s garden, which had burst from the soft colors of spring into the full-blown vibrancy of summer. She wondered how the news would affect Collin. She had purposely chosen not to let him know, specifically asking Mother and Charity to refrain from telling him in the newsy letters they both frequently wrote. She had been afraid. He was embroiled in the devastation of war; she didn’t want to inflict further desolation, if he cared at all. If he didn’t, well, he would find out soon enough anyway, and he and Charity could get on with their lives.
Faith gently touched the diamond shimmering on her finger and reflected on Collin fighting a war somewhere in the south of France. In a sense, she fought a war as well, and her heart ached for an armistice of her own. She believed she loved Mitch, more than she dreamed possible with Collin still in her heart. And yet, she knew he was, even now. Daily she wrestled with her own personal war within, wanting him gone but afraid to let him go. And she worried that somehow, some way, Mitch would sense it.
The thought of Mitch coaxed a smile to her lips. He was … wonderful. Sometimes cantankerous, frequently impossible, but incredibly warm and caring, and Faith was grateful for him in her life. She thought of the kiss he’d given her the night he asked about Collin. In the months they’d been courting, he had never once crossed the line and been so passionate with her. Although she had been angry at the time, she was, in fact, almost grateful he had done so. It convinced her that once they were married, after they explored the depth of each other’s love without restriction, it would, once and for all, extinguish any fire that still burned for Collin.
Faith picked up the pages of Maisie’s letter and reread her question. Did Collin know? No, he did not. And she prayed that by the time he found out, she would be irreversibly in love with the man with whom she would spend the rest of her life.
She was, simply, the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. It was, in fact, his depth of gratitude for her love that had brought him so completely to his knees before God. Patrick watched from afar as Marcy glided around the dance floor in his arms. He never felt it strange at all that she could dance in his arms as he observed the scene distantly at the same time, as if in a dream. Her flaxen hair fell about her shoulders like shimmering gold glinting in the moonlight as he spun her around. His heart ached to hold her, even as he whirled her through the mist, his sturdy arms grasping her tightly.
All at once the music stopped, and against his will, his strong arms dropped limp at his sides. In the catch of his breath, a stranger stood beside her, taking her hand in his as the silence gave way to an eerie melody. He could see them dance in the moonlight, and the anguish was so brutal that the breath left his lungs …
Patrick jolted up in his bed in a pool of sweat, his heart racing with fear greater than that extracted by the pain of war. God help him, he missed her to the point of excruciation, and it took all the strength of his soul to renounce the despair that washed over him. He couldn’t lose her! No—never! She was his joy, his strength …
He dropped back on his bunk and closed his eyes. No, she was not his strength. He had said that once to her. Now the very words mocked him as he himself lay in a bed of hopelessness, not far from men who were dying, in a country ravaged by war. She was … the love of his life, but she was not his strength. Not since she introduced him so completely to her God, who now claimed him for his own. He would not fear, he told himself. “God has not given me the spirit of fear,” he quoted, sweat dripping down his neck into the infested bed of hay beneath him, “but he has given me a spirit of power, love, and a sound mind.”
Patrick opened his eyes once again and breathed deeply. He could feel God’s presence around him as he stared at the rotting roof of the billet that provided respite from days of hell spent in trenches. Even in the trenches, in the midst of men’s screams and decaying bodies, Patrick felt God’s peace, as in the midst of a storm, or a war, or an unspeakable hell.
Whether from the fear of returning to the trenches in the morning, or from the coolness of the night air against his sweat-soaked skin, Patrick shivered. He thought of Marcy, and the aching returned, greater than the fear that barraged his soul. When would it be over? When would he see her again, hold her, love her …
“Oh, God,” he whispered, “help me … it’s been so long. When will it end?” Despair welled within him. How could he go on in the face of such terrifying loneliness and desolation?
“I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.”
Patrick closed his eyes, and as before, weariness filled his soul until he drifted off, once again to dance in the night.
Mitch felt his fingers twitching as he ran up the steps to Bridget’s front porch.
The message had been specific—Faith needed to see him as soon as possible. “Who left it? Faith?” Mitch had asked, but Bridie had just shaken her head. “I didn’t take it, Kathleen did, and she didn’t say. Do you think something’s wrong? Is she sick?”
He grabbed his coat and glanced at his watch. “No, she’s not sick. She took a day of vacation to attend a summer festival at her brother and sister’s school. But I don’t understand why she would want me to come over there, unless something was wrong.” He looked back at Bridie as he headed for the door. “Tell Michael I took a late lunch, will ya?”
“Don’t forget you’ve got a meeting with the board at two,” Bridie reminded. “What’ll I tell him if you’re late?”
Mitch flashed her one of his famous smiles. “Tell him Faith called about something important. He’ll understand. He’s crazy about her too.”
Now, as he stood before her door, his fist banged with a heavy thud that matched the pounding of his heart. Seconds passed, but it seemed like hours before the door finally swung open. Mitch stood there, face-to-face with Charity.
“Where’s Faith? Is she all right?” he asked, his voice edged with concern. All at once, Charity came into focus, and he could see she’d been crying. He stepped inside the door. “Charity, are you all right? Has something happened?” He glanced into the parlor, his eyes searching for Faith or Marcy or Bridget, anyone but his fiancée’s beautiful sister.
Charity shook her head and put her hand to her mouth, rivulets of tears streaming her cheeks. Mitch felt his heart twist. He put his hands on her shoulders and looked into her eyes. “Charity, please tell me what’s wrong. Is everyone okay?”
She pulled away and stepped back, wiping the tears from her face. She attempted a smile and failed miserably. “Yes, Mitch, everyone’s okay. Nothing’s wrong, at least not with Faith or Mother or anyone else. They’re running late. Steven and Beth had a festival at their school today.”
Mitch nodded. “I know. Why aren’t you there?” He pulled a clean handkerchief from his pocket and handed it to her.
Charity took it, sniffed, and blew her nose, her tear-streaked face more like a little girl’s than the sensuous beauty she always appeared to be. Mitch’s heart softened.
“Someone had to stay with Mima …” she began, then blew her nose again, causing a smile to pull at his lips.
“Are you going to tell me what’s breaking your heart like this, young lady, or will I have to coax it out of you?”
Charity looked up, her eyes wide and wet. She sniffed, then sighed, causing him to grin.
“That’s an awfully big sigh for such a little girl,” he teased, detecting a glimmer of a smile. “Aha! So it’s not complete heartbreak. I do believe I see a semblance of a smile. What do you say you and I head into the parlor to tell old Mitch exactly what’s bothering you?”
He put h
is arm around her shoulders and steered her to one end of the couch. She faced him and hovered on the edge of the seat. He sat on the other side and rested an arm on the back of the sofa. “So, come on, Charity, spill it. What’s bad enough to ruin that pretty face of yours with a nasty bout of tears?”
She rubbed her face with her hands, then leaned back and closed her eyes. “I’m sorry, Mitch. I didn’t mean to interrupt your work.”
He bent forward. “You called?”
She looked at him with little-girl eyes and bit her lip. “You’re not angry, are you, Mitch? I didn’t mean to cause a problem at work.”
He slumped back on the sofa, then looked up, a spasm working in his cheek. “Okay, Charity, what is so all-fired important that you call my office and pull me away from work?”
“Please don’t be mad, Mitch,” she pleaded. “I desperately needed to talk to someone.”
His lips pressed to stone, like his jaw. “And you call me? Why? You can’t talk to your mother … or your sister? For pity’s sake, Charity, I’m your sister’s fiancé, not your confidant.”
“I know,” she whispered. Her tears welled up, ripping his heart open. “Mitch?”
“What.” His voice was terse, causing her to shiver slightly.
“I needed to talk to a man.”
He glared out of the corner of his eye. “Why not call someone from your crowd of admirers?”
She faced him, and he perceived a spark of anger in those remarkable blue eyes. “I said a man, Mitch.” She sank into the sofa once again and stared up at the ceiling.
He dropped back against the cushion and observed her. She was a study in sensuality—from the wet, doleful eyes to the sad, pouty lips—and he knew in his gut he shouldn’t be here. It was playing with fire, being next to her like this, her hair untamed as it fanned over the back of the sofa and spilled down her shoulders. She had the body of a woman men dreamed about, and she used it to her advantage whenever possible. And never more so than now. She refixed her gaze straight ahead, as if in a daze.