Outside Jo’s window, bright yellow sunlight sliced between the tree trunks. Dove drove slowly, following the beige cloud of dust Mike’s vehicle kicked up. The asphalt had quit, as if someone had given up on this roadway. It was dirt and gravel now.
She sighed deeply. “I’m praying something exciting happens on this trip.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. Something…different—a little dramatic, so I can show Mike that I’m really not this dull—not all the time anyway.”
“Don’t you think last summer was enough excitement?”
“I don’t mean a calamity—I mean something out of the ordinary—and, maybe,” she rubbed one finger and a thumb together, “a tiny bit dangerous.”
“Let me get this straight, you want your life endangered just to impress a guy?”
“No,” she said dismally, “of course not. I just want a chance to be…noticed.”
Dove was silent for a moment. “God sees you, Jo.”
Jo glanced at her friend. “I know. And that should be enough.” Her gaze pierced the back window of Mike’s truck. “But honestly, sometimes…it’s just not.” She waited for Mike to turn his head towards Lary who was riding shotgun, but Drew, in the back seat with Ben, kept bobbing around and blocking her view. She slumped against the car door and leaned her head on the cool glass. The cold air from the AC blew softly on her face. She closed her eyes.
The car’s engine whined in the thin air. Vertical bands of light flashed over her eyelids. She opened them and lifted her head from the window, grimacing at the sight of her reflection: streams of dish-water blonde hair and swooped bangs. For the millionth time, she flicked them away from her eyes—eyes some people had told her were very unusual, eyes of indeterminate color. Big deal. Just like my indeterminate purpose.
Dove’s image appeared in the top of the glass, like a wavy apparition. She had the slightest of overbites, a dimple in her chin, and crystal blue eyes. But underneath her obvious beauty was a beautiful soul that drew the displaced and broken to it, like a magnet.
“April and Galen must be having quite a conversation,” Dove said, looking in the rearview mirror. “You know, he can’t be all that bad. He’s very nice to her.”
“Everyone’s nice to April.” Jo spoke with affection of her frail friend. She was sorry that April, with her sunny, gentle nature, had to be trapped in the same vehicle with Galen and his sour demeanor. “Maybe he has a crush on her.”
“I don’t think so. I know he hasn’t asked her out. He doesn’t hang around her or keep his eyes on her when we’re all together.”
“That’s because he’s too busy glaring at me. And how would you know? You’re too busy ogling Lary!”
The side of Dove’s face turned bright pink and her smile overflowed her face.
Jo laughed.
“Yeah, speaking of hot…” Dove attached her gaze to the blue truck.
They both did.
Jo smiled at a glimpse of Mike’s cheek. The girls were quiet in their reverie, then suddenly, they glanced at each other and broke out in giggles. But Jo’s merriment didn’t last.
Dove and Lary’s growing relationship was no secret, but Mike was just a prayer and a daydream. And why should a guy so handsome and athletic want anything to do with her, a data entry clerk with nothing exciting to recommend her? Even the incident in the ocean last summer only served to point out her weakness. It had left her with a fear she couldn’t overcome, a debility that someone like him would never understand.
She closed her eyes, picturing him in church with his head bowed and his eyes closed behind long, brown lashes, his lips moving as he prayed silently, his heart revealed in the earnestness of his expression. He was funny and sweet, always a gentleman. He treated her politely, with the same regard he showed everyone. The girls he dated were pretty, for sure, but more than that, they were outgoing and adventurous—everything she was not. Oh, stop whining.
“You’ve gone all silent again,” Dove remarked. “Hope you’re not thinking about Galen.”
“Eww!” Jo scrunched her face up to show her repulsion. “I was daydreaming about Mike, but not now. Thanks a lot.”
“Oh, come on now. We just need to get to know him,” Dove insisted. “He needs our friendship. We need to accept him and show him God’s love.”
“Well, that’s fine, but if he snaps and kills us all, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
Dove shook her head.
“I wish he wasn’t coming, and I wish April was with us, and you didn’t have to go back early.”
“I know. Me too. But, here’s a silly thought, maybe you guys’ll find a way to be friends on this trip.”
“Yeah, maybe. But, it’s kinda hard to do when he won’t even have a conversation with me. When he does say something, it’s derogatory.” Jo frowned. “He doesn’t do that to you guys.”
“Well, he doesn’t say much to any of us. But we’ll all be in the same cabin for a few days. Things could change. It could happen.”
“If anything’s going to happen, I pray it happens with Mike.”
“I do too.” Dove patted Jo’s leg. “Just be yourself, Jo. He’ll see it, and…he’s gonna fall in love with you.”
Jo smiled in appreciation and nodded for Dove’s sake. She leaned over to her window and tilted her head up, raising her eyes to the blue sky, blue like glass, above the tops of the pines. Please, Lord, I pray for a wonderful adventure and that Mike will see me differently. And then she threw in: Please help me deal with Galen—and don’t let him kill us.
They rounded a bend and the close-put trees thinned out. Jo squinted as sunlight cast the glow of a new summer on the tall, green grasses, orange and yellow flowers, pine and broad-leaved trees—all so incredibly and artfully created. But something unseen hovered over this place. She chocked up this foreboding to the interloper—and her deep-down awareness that nothing short of a miracle was going to change Mike’s feelings about her.
“Finally.” Dove’s excited voice snapped Jo out of her melancholy.
They followed Mike’s truck up the slope of a dirt driveway.
Jo was pleased—and relieved. Their cabin was much more welcoming than the ones she had seen from the road. Built with light-colored wood, it had a porch that ran across the entire front of it. Four wooden chairs matched the hunter-green color of shutters framing a large picture window.
“It’s so cute!” Dove squealed.
“Adorable,” Jo agreed. She climbed out of the car and read the plaque nailed to the front of the porch covering: Enchanted Chalet. Her eyes shifted over to Mike stepping down from his truck. “I sure hope so,” she said, under her breath.
Chapter 3