A Virgin River Christmas (Virgin River #4)(39)

Then came the star—guiding them. Leading them.

“Is there something,” the pastor asked his congregation, “we feel compelled to do in this season of giving, this season of rebirth? Do people around us suggest we mind our own business or let matters rest?”

His words began to run together and Marcie wasn’t sure how much of what she heard was the minister’s sermon, and how much her own mind, her own heart. Is there something you are inexplicably driven to complete and you can no more stop yourself than you can turn back time? Is this a mission of mercy, meant for goodness and healing? For love and kindness? Because you have to ask yourself that. This is not a season to heal your own wounds at the expense of another—but a time for rekindling love and moving ahead into a better world. Isn’t that what the birth of Christ promised? A better world?

Then we have to ask ourselves—do I see the way? Do I see—do I feel the star in the east? Am I being led?

Marcie felt tears on her cheeks and clearly heard the pastor say, “Let’s all say a little prayer that gives God permission to guide us in the right direction, in doing good, mending hurts, healing hearts, asking for forgiveness. And then we’ll sing.”

But she was already praying, and not to God as she was supposed to be. Her prayer went out to someone else.

Oh, Bobby, help! Am I meant to be here? To do this? Because he’s everything you said he was—he’s strong and invincible, and yet so tender, so sweet. So complicated, so simple. Sometimes I think of irrational things—Jesus whipping the money changers in the temple in fierceness, in battle, and then feeding the hungry masses from five loaves and five fish…. If you could have seen him roar at me like I was the biggest threat, then feed that big buck right from his hand…I swear, the day the mountain lion came to the property, he shot over the cat so as not to harm it, though he could have killed it and maybe should have. He’s good, Bobby, and he just can’t do something like that without really…Oh, Bobby, if it’s wrong for me to invade his world, disrupt his life and make him unhappy, please give me a sign. It’s true, I want to bring him home, but I need him to bring me home! I swear to God, I only want to do the right thing, to feel that things are finally settled so we can all go on to the kind of lives you would have wanted for us. Please, Bobby, tell me! I’ll pay attention….

And while her head was bowed, beseeching her dead husband instead of God, as she’d been instructed, the congregation stood and belted out a hymn. It took her a moment to wipe her eyes and think, I’m crazy as a loon. Praying to a man who’s been dead for a year, who was lost to me years before that. Do I really think Bobby’s going to give me an answer faster than God? What kind of nutjob am I?

She surreptitiously stole a look across the aisle at Ian. He stood straight and tall, all bushy and proud. And he wasn’t singing! Of all the crazy things. This was one place his voice could not only be exercised but appreciated, yet he didn’t sing. What a horrible waste. She was filled with a longing to hear him amaze the rest of this congregation with his glorious voice. Yet he was silent.

She sniffed back her tears. Maybe he wasn’t all that wonderful. Maybe he was just plain selfish.

She had no idea why this whole episode—so spiritually emotional for her—would make her angry. And she didn’t brood over it; she just told herself to get over it and go along as she’d promised. At least until she figured things out.

When the hymn was finished, the benediction read and the pastor led the recessional, she was one of the first out of the church. She shook the pastor’s hand and thanked him for a moving sermon.

“Moved you a little much, I think, sister,” he said.

“Touched me, yes,” she said, guarding herself not to sniff.

“Come here,” he said, pulling her into his arms and giving her a hug.

Oh, bad idea. If she didn’t steel herself, she’d start sobbing. It was his arms around her—it weakened her. She’d had a million comforting hugs since Bobby finally left them, but her hug tank had been on the low side lately. She desperately needed some reassurance, and as ridiculous as she felt about her prayerful plea to Bobby, it would have come as a comfort to feel his hand on her shoulder, telling her to move ahead, follow her heart….

“Thank you, pastor,” she said, withdrawing herself. “Beautiful sermon.”

“Then, I thank you. I lack confidence in getting them ready. They’re a struggle. Come back and see us.”

“Sure,” she said, removing herself.

She went and waited by the truck, and while she was there, she watched Ian make his way to the pastor, shake his hand, speak to him, even laugh with him. And she thought—there are two of him! He is that guy who seems so alone and a guy who’s made his way in the world just fine. It’s just that his world is a different kind of world; it’s not that rushing, heavily populated world of demands and connections so many of us have. His is mostly a quiet world and his relationships seemed to be the same. The way he seemed to like it.

When she’d been looking for him, she had asked probably a hundred people if they knew an Ian Buchanan and the answer had always been the same. “Name doesn’t ring a bell.” Ian probably made his way through life, friendly enough, without anyone asking his name, without him ever offering it.

When Ian got to the truck and fired it up, she asked, “Did the pastor ask you your name?”