sky dotted with stars breaking through the receding clouds.
Angela spoke first. “So? Did you find a path?”
“I did, but it’ll obviously require off-roading.” He turned his focus to Eva. “You going to be able to manage that, Eva?”
“Yes.” She had to. The road here had been too long—literally and figuratively. And what was the alternative? To go back? To stay here, stuck in between the mountaintop and the valley, never knowing which place she’d end up?
“All right, then. Who wants to go first?”
36
They’d be lucky if Eva’s ankle survived the day.
Angela downed a gulp of instant coffee as sunlight broke over the mountain. She sat cross-legged on a vista not far from the midway checkpoint they’d finally reached at two in the morning after crossing the ridgeline above the mudslide. With careful steps, Marc had led them to the other side. They’d rested awhile and then, despite Angela and Marc’s protests on Eva’s ankle’s behalf, had continued on until the next checkpoint, where her sister-in-law had secured some ice.
With no tents to stay in, they’d clustered together in their sleeping bags for a few hours.
Now, with the dregs of lukewarm coffee dribbling down her throat, Angela warred within herself, torn between the desire to finish this race strong and to see that Eva didn’t cause herself any sort of permanent damage in getting there.
“What should we do, God?” The question had been resonating in her spirit all night, but this was the first time she’d expressed it outwardly. A tiny thrill ran up her spine at the idea of reconnecting with the Lord. Kylee had been right—she’d been avoiding anything spiritual for a while—but now her spirit felt freer than it had in a long time. There was still much healing to be done, but her former methods hadn’t been working. Maybe this could.
A breeze brushed across her cheeks, a gentle stroke that rustled her hair and the collar of her jacket, spilling in her soul a joy that told her she wasn’t alone. That maybe she never really had been.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?”
Angela turned to find Marc standing just a bit behind her, hands in the pockets of his red hoodie. Weariness edged his eyes, and his hair lay flat—the same hat head she probably had after wearing her beanie for so many hours over the last few days.
“It is, despite the chill.” All the fog from last night had cleared, leaving a crisp view of the landscape, but a nip remained in the air. She pointed to the highest of the mountains, brushed with snow. “I keep thinking we are going to end up there somehow. But the road is always unpredictable.”
That used to scare her. It still did sometimes. But this experience was opening up her mind. She never would have thought that off-roading like they had last night would have turned out okay. But it had.
Sherry’s words from their last night together floated to her mind: “But when you’re worried about the future . . . trust that God has something wonderful planned, even if our definition of ‘wonderful’ might not be the same as his.”
Angela still wasn’t sure how her husband’s death could be categorized as “wonderful” in any universe. But then again, she was slowly finding herself for the first time in decades. And that might not have happened if she hadn’t loved and lost Wes.
Marc squatted, his left forearm flung across his left knee, his hands looped together. “Everything about this journey is unpredictable.”
“Like falling in love with Eva?” The words were out before she had a chance to consider them, but she didn’t doubt their truth.
Marc lifted an eyebrow. “Like falling in love with Simon?”
His words both squeezed her insides and lit them on fire. “You fight dirty.”
“You started it.”
Look at them—friends together on a journey, linked indelibly by tragedy. And yet both had found more than they’d ever bargained for.
Marc cleared his throat. “It’s strange, isn’t it? I keep thinking it’s a dream. Like I’ll wake up and Brent won’t really be gone. Like I won’t have to shoulder the business alone anymore. Like I’ll have my best friend back. But then, there’s Eva. And if Brent were here again, I’d be . . . and of course she’d choose him. As she should.”
Angela touched his arm. “But Brent really is gone.”
“I know. And as you said . . . I’ve fallen in love with his wife.”
His rough voice tore at Angela’s sympathies. “You’re a good man, Marc. Brent would be glad