Chapter 22

Misty drew a deep breath and smoothed her hands down the front of her body to get her dress to lay where she wanted it. Everything in her life seemed to be coming up daisies and sunshine, and she wanted it to keep going that way.

A knock sounded on the door, and she turned away from her reflection. "It's Link," she called to Janie, but her roommate made it to the door first. Janie squealed and stepped outside without even acknowledging Misty.

"I guess it's not Link," she said, but Janie hadn't said she had a date this fine Sabbath morning. She hurried to the window and pushed the gauzy curtain aside to find out who Janie was going out with. She sucked in a breath at the baby face she found smiling at Janie as he opened the passenger door to his truck so she could climb in wearing her own sundress.

"Brandon Rhinehart." Misty straightened and turned in a circle, looking for her phone. "I can't believe she didn't tell me she was going out with Brandon Rhinehart." She started typing in all caps, shouting at Janie for hiding such a thing from her. She'd never withheld a single thing from her about Link. Well, at least not the trivial stuff.

Janie hadn't answered before Link knocked on the door, and seeing as how Misty had been pacing in the living room of her new rental, she only had to spin and open the door. "Did you know Janie is going out with Brandon Rhinehart?"

Link blinked at her, then his smile took over his face. This morning, he wore a pair of sunglasses with his sexy cowboy hat, and he might as well have been a bodyguard in those things. They gave him a sense of mystery and intrigue, as if Misty needed another reason to like him.

"No, ma'am," he said. "I tend to talk more to Dawson than Brandon." He stepped up into the house. "She didn't tell you?"

"She did not." Misty huffed out her breath and shoved her phone in her dress pocket.

"That's kind of odd, isn't it?" Link asked.

"It is," Misty said." And you know what else? It hurts. I have this pinching inside, like someone has reached through my ribs and is squeezing my lungs."

"I'm sorry, sweetheart." Link didn't make fun of her for her feelings. He simply gathered her into his arms and held her while something stomped and stormed through her. "You sure look pretty today," he murmured. "I really like you in flowers."

"Thank you." Misty stuffed everything that had spilled out back into its rightful place. She backed away from Link. "I'm ready." She swiped at her eyes, but she hadn't shed any tears, so her makeup should be fine.

Link took her hand and led her out to the passenger door of his truck, and he drove them over to the church. "Aunt Willa's speaking about having the long view again today," he said. "I had my nephew over for breakfast this morning, and he told me so." He flashed her a smile. "Should be good."

"Yes," Misty agreed. "It should be."

"Hey, I wanted to ask you." Link kept his eyes out the windshield, not that she'd have been able to see them anyway. "My family does this big thing every year. For Christmas." He glanced over to her then, and the only indication she had of his nerves was the way both hands gripped the steering wheel, almost to the point of his knuckles being white.

He wore a pristine white shirt too, with a brilliant tie in orange and gray paisley, and she marveled that he could be so put together in his Sunday best one moment, and in blue jeans and cowboy boots at another.

Misty reached over and took his nearest hand off the wheel and into hers. "You're nervous."

"This is a big celebration in the Glover family," he said. "For Shiloh Ridge. We put up a family tree every year at the homestead—the one where Ranger and Oakley live. We decorate it with my great-grandmother's homemade ornaments, and it stands for a couple of months, reminding anyone who comes to the ranch about our heritage."

He swallowed, and Misty thought about her own family traditions. Had they even had any? If so, she couldn't remember them. Once she'd realized that she couldn't count on her mother to protect her and Danny, she'd done the best she could. She'd helped him dye eggs at Easter, and she'd hidden them around the house while her mother was passed out drunk.

She made pancakes every Saturday morning. For Christmas, she'd hung the stockings for her and Danny, and she'd filled them with whatever she could trade for at school. Tears pricked her eyes at the awful memories, and especially at how her feeble attempts to make a normal life for her brother had failed so spectacularly.

"I want you to come this year," he said. "We have a big family meal. We vote on our investments during our annual ranch meeting. Then we decorate the tree. Eat dessert. It's really amazing, and I'd really like you there."

Misty pulled herself out of her past and looked at Link in her present. A great, booming voice in her head told her that this man could also be her future, and that made her throat dry and her palms sweaty.

"I'd love to come, Link," she said softly.

He blew his breath out, as if he'd been holding it since he'd awakened that morning. "Great. It's the last Sunday of October."

"You decorate a Christmas tree in October?"

"Yes," he said simply. "It's our Angel Tree."

"An angel tree," she murmured. "It sounds nice. Like you have people watching over you."

"We do," he said. "Our family members who've passed. You—they could watch over you too."

She smiled at him, the movement of her mouth a little too wobbly for her liking. "I'd like that, Link."

He pulled their joined hands back to his lap and raised her wrist to kiss it. "Great," he said. "Now I can really enjoy the sermon and the picnic."

"You forgot the dancing."

"I never forget about dancing with you," he said.

She grinned into the sunshine pouring into the truck. "Remember that time when you held me as the sun went down? And we danced to the sweetest, slowest song as a whole, glowing herd of fireflies came out. Remember that?" She whispered the last two words, because she really needed some of her dismal, gray, miserable memories to be replaced with more vibrant, colorful, and meaningful ones.

"Yeah," Link said wistfully, as if they'd already lived through tonight's picnic, dance, and firefly sighting. "That was such a great night."

"Link," she said, an idea flowing into her mind. "Would you ever want to meet my mom and my brother?"

"Of course I would," he said. Just like that. Without missing a beat. Without asking her another single thing. Just, of course I would, like she didn't even need to ask.

"Why?" she asked, twisting to look at him now.

"Because they're part of you," he said slowly. "I know you didn't have a happy childhood, and I know you've put distance between them and you. But they still shaped you, and yes, if you wanted me to meet them, and it was important to you, then of course I want to meet them."

"They might think you're special," she said. "I've never introduced them to anyone in my life. Not even a girlfriend."

"They might," he said. "It's a risk." He grinned at her, but she couldn't quite get herself to return it.

"Hey," he said, sobering. "It's okay if they think I'm special, because they'll only have to look at us once to know that I think you're the special-est in the whole world."

Misty's eyes watered then, but she didn't let any tears out. "I don't think you used the word special-est right in that sentence."

His big hand around hers tightened. "You don't, huh? Well, good thing there are no Grammar Police in this truck." He pulled into the church parking lot and jogged around the front of the truck to open her door for her.

He took her into his arms and asked, "Can I have my pre-church kiss, please? You were mad at your house, and I missed out."

She didn't tease him, or smile at him, or do anything flirty. She simply eased herself into his arms, a place she'd always fit, and pressed her lips to his. The fire in his touch licked through her body, and Misty didn't mind the way it burned some of the bridges she'd been afraid to knock down.

She'd once worried that Link would force her to burn everything she knew about herself, her family, her life, to the ground. Now, she was willingly lighting matches and tossing more fuel onto the dirtiest, dustiest corners of her existence.

Now, she was falling in love with this gentle giant of a cowboy.

Now, she was seriously considering becoming a permanent resident of Three Rivers—and a Glover.

Misty sure did like Pastor Glover's sermons. She had a way of standing at the pulpit and inviting everyone along on the same journey she was on. Today, she'd limped a little more as she'd taken her place behind the mic, and Misty had already silently begged Jesus to help her through this sermon.

She'd started talking about having what she called "a long view" last week, and this week, she'd expounded more on that.

"It's having eternal perspective," Willa said. "When Jesus Christ came to the earth, do you think He only saw the few decades He'd live here?" She shook her head. "No. He had the long view. The bigger picture."

She surveyed the congregation, but Misty couldn't look away from her. Willa smiled then seemed to look right at the rows of Glovers, who all sat front and center in the chapel. Today—and on other Sundays—Misty sat with them. Link's family had always been welcoming, with smiles and secret looks to one another. But they never made her feel like there wasn't room for her on the benches they normally filled themselves, just like they'd never acted like there wasn't room for her and Janie up at Shiloh Ridge.

"Life is a series of good and bad," Willa said. "Ups and downs and some strong curves that can leave you reeling, breathless, wondering if you're doing the right thing or not."

"My cousin Mitch should hear this," Link murmured in Misty's ear.

She leaned in close to hear him, then turned her mouth toward him. "Maybe she could send him her notes."

"She doesn't speak from notes."

No wonder she was so good, and Misty focused on her again. "Maybe we could send him some notes," she whispered.

Link nodded, and Misty stayed cuddled close to his chest. She liked how warm and strong he made her feel. How loved and cherished. No one before him had ever given her such a sense of safety and security—not that she'd let anyone try.

"But one hairpin curve is not what life is entirely," Willa said now. "One sudden drop doesn't mean you get to stay down forever. And yes, I know it can feel like all God has dealt you is bad cards. A losing hand. A curve here, and another there, and then a steep drop-off, and then an impossible hike back to the top. Oh, do I know that."

She stopped there, and the last note in her voice spoke of hurt and pain and difficult past times. Misty didn't know all of them in Willa's life, but in that moment, she realized that everyone—absolutely everyone—needed the master physician at some point. Probably a lot of points. Continually.

"There is no better friend than the Lord Jesus Christ," Willa said, and Misty pulled in a sharp breath. The words could've come from her in that moment, as the realizations continued to spiral through her. "He has suffered for all you're going through. For all I'm going through. For all I've been through; for all you've been through. For each one of us. Not only the things we've done wrong and need to repent for, but for the pain."

Again, that tone of understanding, of pure agony, rang in Willa's voice on the last word. She paused again, and Misty understood she needed a moment to solidify her emotions. Misty's felt like wobbling gelatin that had sat too close to a boiling hot burner. The fire flickered too close, and she was about to lose all composure and let everything she felt blubber from her.

She took another breath, trying to hitch things back where they belonged.

"For the disease and discomforts in your physical body," Willa said now, her voice quiet. "For the emotional and mental hurt others inflict upon you. For the burdens you carry." She seemed to look right at Misty then, and her head cocked. She too had reddish-blonde hair, and perhaps that was why Misty had always felt such a strong connection to her.

Either way, Willa smiled softly then. "Jesus has already carried those burdens, my friends. Perhaps it's time you set them down. Put them at His feet, where they belong. Don't carry them with you anymore." She drew a breath and switched her gaze to somewhere else in the church.

Misty felt utterly exposed, like every eye from every congregant had suddenly zeroed in on her. She even glanced around as if to throw off their gazes. No one had looked her way.

But she felt perfectly seen by God.

"Have the long view," Willa said. "Expand your perspective. If you don't know how, kneel down tonight, and ask God to help you see the bigger picture, and where you belong inside it. For my brothers and sisters, we all belong inside the family of God."

She might as well have invited Misty to move to Three Rivers permanently, marry Link, and become a Glover. That alone would provide such a sense of safety and belonging—two things Misty had given up on over two decades ago. But to belong to the family of God too?

It felt incomprehensible, and yet, perfectly right at the same time.

Her mind took off on a different path then, and Misty started discarding some of the bigger loads she'd been carrying for so long. It was never her responsibility to make sure her mother was comforted, or got to work on time, or paid the rent. She'd done those things, but she didn't have to carry the guilt that she hadn't done it well enough.

She shouldn't have had to raise her brother. While she had, she'd done the best job she could've possibly done as a ten-year-old. She didn't have to shoulder the responsibility of his incarceration any longer.

Perhaps she'd gone too far in the opposite direction by refusing to date, assuming all men would be as horrible as the previous ones she'd had in her life. But she didn't even have to keep packing those feelings, or that worry, guilt, or shame.

She truly could lay all of it down, for Jesus had already carried these troubles, trials, and turmoils for her.

By the time they rose to their feet to sing the closing hymn, Misty did so without thousands of pounds of her past burdening her. Link looked over to her and blinked. "Hey, are you all right?"

"Why?" she asked as the organ and piano began to play together. "Do I not look all right?"

"You look…different," he said.

Misty smiled at him, experiencing a true miracle—one where her Lord and Savior had done what He'd always promised to do. He'd walked with her. "I feel different."

Then she faced the front and sang along with everyone as they lifted their voices in praises—for the good, the bad, the evil, the pain, the heartache, the mental anguish, and the absolute saving power of God the Father and his son Jesus Christ.

She grinned as she stepped into Link's arms afterward, the congregation breaking ranks and streaming up and down the aisles. "All right, baby," she said, noting how his face lit up with her term of endearment. Today was a day of revelations, because Misty realized in that moment how very much Link needed to be told how amazing he was.

Her memory fired at her, reminding her that he often felt overlooked in his family, and she had the power to make him feel seen. Make him feel appreciated. Make him feel loved.

"You promised me an amazing dance."

"That I did," he whispered as he pulled her close and hugged her. "Let's hope we don't melt before those fireflies swarm us."