to be enjoying the experience more than CJ.
Artie prepared to cast again. CJ watched the man’s technique, thinking he might pick up a pointer or two. As he watched, he started to reel in his own line, paying no attention to the fly. Which was why it took him by surprise when he felt a tug on the line.
The phone was ringing when Julie walked into the house, so she hurried into the kitchen and set the grocery bags down on the counter. A half gallon of milk toppled when she released her hold on the bags, but she ignored it as she removed the phone from its cradle.
“Hello,” she said.
It was Meredith, and Julie could hardly hear her for the crying.
“Slow down, Mer. I can’t understand a word you’re saying.”
Meredith did slow down, at least enough so Julie could pick out the big pieces, even as the milk trickled onto the counter and tile floor. When Julie had heard all she needed to hear she hung up the phone and stayed at the counter for a while, allowing it to brace her. She often wondered if she’d gotten the best of the Bax-ters when she married Ben. Before he had come back to Adelia, she’d wondered about CJ —how the kind, sensitive, intelligent boy she’d known had turned out. It was one of the reasons she’d read his books, to see if she could ascertain what sort of adult the boy had turned into. With his return, she’d found him to be everything she’d hoped he would be, if a little misguided by his present circumstances. Weren’t all of them misguided to some degree? Would someone fully vested in the faith have succumbed so easily to the wiles of a youthful romance? She was the last person who would throw stones.
What she would always be thankful for was a husband who possessed the faith that she would do the right thing, and a God who also knew, and who would work to ensure it. That was the most magnificent part—that she could, while seeking God’s direction, also know that she was the one being led, and it was down a road that He had already cleared for her.
She’d always wondered, though, if Graham might be the other Baxter whose apple had rolled far down the hill from the family tree. She’d heard the stories, of course. Who hadn’t? But like many in Adelia, she’d come to accept the fact that it had been a horrible accident—that with a single errant shot he’d claimed the life of his best friend. And what supported that belief was that, unlike most of the other men who shared the Baxter name, Graham was thoughtful, intelligent, and kind—much like his younger brother.
But when a man hit a woman, there was a certain mantle he was then forced to wear. And when Julie placed Graham in that mantle, she found that it carried the trappings of the past.
She sighed as she went about cleaning up the milk. Jack was at football practice and Sophie at ballet. Julie had time to drive over to Meredith’s house, to offer whatever comfort she could. Before she did, she would thank God for the man who was her husband—and also for CJ, the man who might have been but for God’s mysterious providence.
Thor stood attentive watch over the lunch fire, his eyes never leaving the pan in which the fish fried that Artie had pulled from the river.
“I think your dog is eyeing our lunch,” Artie remarked.
CJ looked over from where he was rooting around in his backpack, saw his dog focused on the sizzling trout.
“Yeah, he’ll do that,” CJ said. “He’ll eventually stop.”
Artie glanced over at the dog, then back at CJ.
“Let me guess. When the fish is gone?”
“Exactly,” CJ said. He pulled a fresh pair of socks from the backpack to replace the ones that had wound up wet from the river. He returned to the fire and stripped off his wet socks, placing them on a rock near the heat. He looked back at his dog.
“Where are your manners?” he asked the dog sharply, but if Thor was bothered by either the question or the tone, it didn’t seem to register.
“You can’t blame him,” Artie said. “There are few things that taste as good as trout fresh from the river.”
That was a sentiment with which CJ could agree. And depending on how magnanimous he was feeling while eating the fish, he might even let Thor try