Cecily had met Kara ten months ago, the first week the other woman had shown up at her church on Sunday morning.

After the service, Cecily had been chatting with a few friends, and Kara had intentionally come over to introduce herself, full of smiles and bubbly small talk.

Cecily had been slightly surprised since most people didn’t make a point of getting to know her in that way. When Kara had asked if she wanted to have lunch sometime, Cecily had agreed, and eventually her instinctive politeness had turned into genuine friendship since Kara seemed so sweet and enthusiastic and appreciative.

Her friendship with Kara had never been the most important thing in her life, but she’d valued it—more and more since her old friends all seemed busier than ever with their families and their lives.

On Wednesday, when Kara arrived with the photographer she’d hired for the shoot, Cecily found herself observing her friend more closely. Kara was exactly the same as she always had been—smiling and giggling and giving out compliments like they were candy.

But Cecily was starting to wonder if she’d missed something in the other woman’s character all this time.

She’d always been smart about people—and also realistic. No one was perfect. Everyone had their own best interest at heart, even in a friendship. But that didn’t mean people couldn’t share a genuine relationship. Humans were capable of good as well as bad, and she’d always been happier looking for the good.

But still…

She made a point of looking for undertones that afternoon, when she never had before.

She and Kara had agreed that the photographer could cover the lobby and the outside areas of the center. It took a couple of hours for them to make their way through the lobby and the pool and beach areas before they finally ended up in the garden.

Zeke was there when they arrived. He’d evidently been putting the last touches on the shrubbery. The garden looked lovely in bright, autumnal colors with immaculate bed and perfectly manicured bushes and small trees.

Cecily gazed around in pleasure, feeling a swell of appreciation for Zeke, who must have half killed himself doing so much work to get the garden ready.

She glanced toward him, saw he was watching her, and she smiled at him warmly.

His mouth gave a little twitch of response before he looked away.

Kara was chatting endlessly, instructing the photographer and telling him about how amazing Cecily was.

Normally, Cecily liked being given compliments. Everyone did, whether they admitted it or not. But she’d been paying attention this afternoon, and this was the eighth compliment Kara had poured out on her in two hours and fifteen minutes.

It did seem like a lot.

She glanced back over at Zeke and saw that his eyes were focused on Kara.

Kara was short and pretty in a soft, curvy way—with big eyes and perfect makeup and nails. Zeke’s fixed gaze might have made Cecily wonder, had his expression been different.

But he wasn’t liking what he saw when he looked at Kara. Cecily could see that very clearly behind his thick beard and stoic features.

He didn’t like the other woman. At all.

If Cecily was reading him correctly, he looked almost resentful.

The knowledge made Cecily’s stomach twist with more nerves. Maybe he was right about Kara and she was wrong.

Cecily hated the idea—not because it meant she’d been foolish, but because it meant a friendship she relied on had never had a real foundation. And she wasn’t yet convinced that was true.

Kara was one of those intense people pleasers who used flattery to gain a position with others. Cecily didn’t have to like that particular trait to still see Kara as a whole person and a potential friend.

Cecily had her own flaws, and she’d be in pretty bad shape if other people rejected a friendship with her because of her worst characteristic.

So she told herself not to let Zeke’s suspicions infect her. She smiled and chatted with the photographer, who seemed to be a nice guy and good at what he did.

After a few minutes, when she looked back over toward Zeke, she saw that Kara was standing in front on him, her hand on Zeke’s chest, batting her eyelashes at him.

She was flirting with Zeke. No doubt about that.

Cecily swallowed over an immediate and unavoidable flash of annoyance.

Kara wasn’t here to flirt with Zeke. She was here because Cecily was doing her a pretty big favor in order to help boost her blog.

Kara shouldn’t be touching Zeke like that.

No one should be touching Zeke like that.

Cecily had touched Zeke in exactly the same way the other night, when she’d gone over to Zeke’s cottage to fix the tension between them. She’d put her hand lightly on his chest.

She’d wanted to touch him even more, so she was trying not to think about it.

But that didn’t mean she wanted to see Kara flirting with him that way.

Cecily was trying to control her emotional response when Zeke’s eyes moved unerringly to meet hers over Kara’s shoulder.

The look in his eyes was knowing, purposeful, significant.

He was very clearly telling her, I told you so. This is what Kara is really like.

Cecily almost believed him this time.

Then she took a deep breath and shook it off.

It wasn’t fair—to judge another person based on the fact that she liked to flirt. Any single woman might be interested in Zeke. He was strong and handsome and mysterious with his gruff manners and stoic silence. Cecily herself had never learned how to flirt, but she tried hard not to resent other women for doing it well.

This didn’t mean anything.

Kara would have no way of knowing that Cecily had been feeling like Zeke was hers. She wasn’t treading on Cecily’s territory. She was just being a normal woman in the presence of a hot guy.

She slanted Zeke a narrow-eyed look in response to tell him to stop sending her silent messages. Then she focused back on the task at hand.

She wasn’t going to doubt everything she believed about Kara and their friendship just because Zeke wanted her to.

Kara might have a few annoying habits, but that didn’t mean everything about her was a sham.

People were people.

And friendship meant forgiving or overlooking the ways in which all people weren’t perfect.

***

That evening, Cecily was still feeling unsettled, restless. She took another early bath, hoping it would relax her enough to still her mind, but when it didn’t, she sent a text to her sister.

Anything going on?

Mercy usually had her phone with her and replied to texts right away. So Cecily waited with her phone in her hand to see if she’d get a response.

Instead of a text message, her phone rang with a call.

It was Mercy.

“Hi,” Cecily said when she’d connected the call. “You didn’t have to call.”

“What’s going on?”

“Nothing. What do you mean?”

“You never text to just to ask what I’m doing unless you want to talk.”

Cecily laughed softly. Her sister was absolutely right. She had felt like talking. “I guess maybe I did.”

“So what’s going on? Is anything wrong?”

“No. Nothing’s wrong. I was just feeling kind of bored and restless and… I don’t know.”

“Lonely.”

“Maybe lonely. Yeah. Nothing bad though.”

“Did something happen?”

“Why would you assume something happened?”

“Why do you keep asking me stall questions instead of answering my questions?”

Mercy hadn’t studied psychology and counseling the way Cecily had, but she might as well have. She could read Cecily like a book.

“Nothing happened. Not really. I’ve just been feeling kind of lonely lately, I guess, and one of the friendships I thought I had has… I don’t know. I’ve just been wondering about it.”

“Is this that Kara person?”

“Yes. How did you know?”

“I didn’t. I just always thought she sounded too good to be true.”

“Yeah. I’m not jumping to conclusions or anything, but even wondering about it makes me feel kind of lonely.”

Mercy paused for a moment before she responded. “I wish you weren’t so isolated out there. If you lived closer to a city, you’d be able to meet more people like you.”

“I know. I know. But Balm in Gilead is what it is because it’s isolated. It’s part of the package.”

“Maybe you should travel more.”

“I’m going to a little town in the mountains next month for a workshop.”

“A little mountain town is not what I had in mind.”

“I know. But it’s something.”

“Yeah. I guess. Why don’t you come out here and visit me? I don’t have much going on next week.”

Cecily sighed, feeling a pang of disappointment because she would have loved to visit her sister in Charlotte for a few days. “I don’t think I can. I’m so booked I don’t have any breathing space for the next two weeks.”

“Well, you can’t just stay there and work all the time and keep being lonely.”

“I’m not that lonely. I have plenty of friends. They’re just all in different situations than I am. It’s part of being single in your thirties in a small town.”

“There’s got to be someone you can talk to. Right now.”

“I’m talking to you.”

“I mean in person. If you look someone in the eye and have a real conversation, you’ll feel better. Who can you talk to right now?”

The first person she thought of was Zeke.

The only person she thought of was Zeke.

“There might be someone,” she said slowly.

It sounded like Mercy was smiling as she replied, “Good. Then go and talk to him.”

Cecily gave a little jerk. “What makes you think it’s a him?”

“Of course it’s a him. I can hear it in your voice. As soon as we hang up, go talk to him.”

“I don’t know if I can. He— This person and I are not prone to just chatting for the sake of chatting.”

“Then that’s your problem. Make that change. If you want to talk to him, go talk to him. Who cares if he works for you? You can still have a conversation with him.”

“How do you know he works for me?” Cecily’s voice squeaked slightly in her surprise.

Mercy laughed uninhibitedly. “Do you really think I don’t know who you’re talking about? Sure, he’s a strange, grumpy, repressed lumberjack of a man who wears the worst clothes I’ve ever seen, but he’s a person and you like him. So go talk to him. I promise you’ll feel better if you do.”

“All right. I’ll think about it.”

“No thinking about it. Do it. Promise me you will.”

Cecily gave an exaggerated sigh. “Fine. I promise.”

“Good. I’ll text back in an hour or two to make sure you followed through.”

Cecily was shaking her head as she said goodbye, but she already felt a little better—just from talking to someone who knew her as well as her sister did.

She wasn’t alone.

At all.

And maybe her sister was right. There was no reason not to take a little walk and see if she ran into Zeke.

It wasn’t like he would be hanging out with anyone else.

She checked herself out in the mirror and decided she looked fine in a pair of capris, a tank top, and a light beige cardigan. Her hair was down, but she didn’t feel like pulling it back up into a bun, so she left her apartment as she was.

She was stopped in the lobby by a couple of guests who had a question about the beach umbrellas. Then she paused to chat with a group who was still hanging out by the pool. The sun was low in the sky now, but it wasn’t yet dark.

When she’d finished the casual conversation, she went to the garden, but it was empty. Then she walked down to Zeke’s cottage, but the blinds were still open and the lights were off, which meant he wasn’t yet in for the night.

She made her way down to the beach, said hello to a few more guests, and then finally spotted Zeke on the pier.

She thought at first he was fishing since he was sitting down with his legs hanging over the side. But when she approached, she saw he didn’t have a pole in his hands.

He was just sitting, staring out at the ocean.

He glanced over as she got near, gave a short nod, and then turned back to stare at the water.

From Zeke, this was a friendly greeting, so she was comfortable enough to sit down beside him, hanging her legs the way he was.

His shirt today was a particularly ugly shade of seafoam green, and he’d paired it with bright blue shorts.

She didn’t care about his clothes though. She liked his vivid blue eyes, his broad shoulders, the dark hair on his tanned forearms, the firmness of his thighs.

When she didn’t say anything, Zeke turned to look at her again. “Did you need something?”

“No. Just taking a walk.”

His eyebrows lowered. “Why?”

“No reason. Do I need to have a reason to walk along the beach and down the pier?”

“You always do.”

She realized he was right. She never took a walk or stopped to talk unless she had a reason. She wondered what that said about her.

“You okay?” Zeke asked after a moment, his voice gruffer than before.

“Y-yes.”

He must have heard the very slight hesitation because he frowned at her.

She sighed. “I’m really fine. Just felt kind of bored and… restless.” She wasn’t prone to hiding her feelings, but she was uncomfortable telling Zeke that she’d felt lonely and had come out intentionally to talk to him.

“Yeah,” he grunted. Then after a long pause, he added, “Me too.”

Her chest relaxed at this admission. She immediately felt less lonely, more understood, as if there was someone in the world who felt the way she did, who wasn’t always distracted by a very full life.

They sat together in companionable silence as the sun lowered in the sky, casting shades of orange and pink onto the clouds and the sea.

When Cecily finally spoke again, it was to ask a question that came out of nowhere. “What was your wife like?”

He gave her a quick look with a jerk of his head.

She’d never asked him about his wife before. They’d never talked about her at all. They’d known each other only slightly in seminary, and Cecily had only seen his wife a couple of times at a few get-togethers. By the time Zeke had started working for her, he’d already been widowed.

The silence stretched out so long that Cecily thought Zeke wasn’t going to answer. Then finally he muttered, “She was… bright. Bubbly. Like Kara but real.”

From those few words, Cecily understood exactly what his wife had been like. One of those sweet, sparkling women with happy spirits and genuine charm. She nodded to show she understood.

“We met in college,” he went on, offering more in response to the question, much to Cecily’s surprise. “We were married in less than a year. I’d never known anyone so… sweet. She was a librarian, and I think she liked it. But what she wanted most was to be a wife and mother. She had her heart set on it.”

Cecily moistened her lips, trying to imagine how he’d acted with his wife. She really couldn’t imagine him with someone like that, but he’d been different back then. “You were married for several years, right? Why didn’t you have kids?”

“We were waiting until I’d finished seminary. I worked so she could get her masters in library science, and then she worked while I went to seminary. We were going to have kids after I was done. So she never got to have them after all.” He almost never spoke this much, and his voice was hoarse, as if from disuse. He wasn’t looking at her as he spoke. “Sometimes I wonder…”

He didn’t finish the sentence, but he didn’t have to. She knew what he’d been about to say. “I guess it’s hard not to wonder what life might have looked like if we’d made different decisions.”

It had to be an ache for him—the knowledge that his wife had never gotten her heart’s desire because they’d made the decision to wait.

“What do you wonder?” Zeke asked, turning his head to look at her again.

She met his gaze for a moment but glanced away when it felt too deep, too significant. She told him the truth though. “I wonder what my life might look like if I’d gotten married young, if I’d had kids and a family like all my friends instead of focusing on my work.”

“You could have done both.”

“Maybe. But maybe not.”

“Did you have the chance to get married?”

“Yes,” she said with a little smile. “I’ve had two marriage proposals.”

“Yeah?” His eyebrows had gone up, and there was a strange look in his eyes.

“Yes. One was… Well, it was hard to take it seriously because I didn’t know the guy very well. We’d gone to church together, and he said he’d been watching me and thought I’d be an ‘estimable’ wife, and he asked my permission to ‘court me toward marriage.’ He said God was ‘calling’ him in my direction.” She laughed. “Those were his exact words. He didn’t have a ring or anything, so maybe it wasn’t a real proposal. But it felt like one to me back then.”

“What did you say?” Zeke had relaxed, and he was almost smiling now.

“I tried not to giggle as I told him very kindly that I didn’t think God was calling me in his direction.”

“He got angry, didn’t he?”

“Yes. He was trying to act all cool, but I could tell he was angry and offended, as if I were an infidel for feeling a different calling from God than he did.”

“And the other guy?”

“He was more serious. I dated him for about six months in seminary.”

“Charlie Cooper.”

Cecily sucked in a little breath. “Yes! How did you know?”

“I was there when you were dating him.”

Of course he’d been there. They were in seminary at the same time. She just hadn’t known Zeke well back then, and it had never occurred to her that he’d notice whom she’d been dating.

“He was crazy about you,” Zeke added.

Cecily felt her cheeks warm, which was absolutely ridiculous. “Yeah. He was really sweet, and I liked him a lot. But…”

“But what?”

“It just never felt… right. It always felt like I was playing a part, being the kind of girl who would date him. I’m not sure I can even explain it. By the time he proposed, I’d already starting discussing plans with Pierson for this place, and I was more excited about focusing on what we could build here than I was in getting married. so I couldn’t have done both. So I said no, and I felt terrible about it since he was so hurt afterward. I do sometimes wonder what my life would be like—without Balm in Gilead, as a pastor’s wife.”

“Do you regret it?” Zeke asked, a rough texture in his voice.

“No. This is what I’ve always wanted to do. This is what I still want to do. I’ve never been like your wife was. I’ve never really been able to see myself having kids.”

“Yeah.”

Cecily felt a little pang at the soft word, wondering if he was agreeing with her that she was nothing like his wife.

He’d wanted to marry his wife.

He wasn’t likely to ever want her.

Not that it mattered, of course. He was completely unavailable to Cecily in every way. She shouldn’t even be thinking in that direction.

The sun had reached the horizon now, exploding in waves of color across the sky and water. Both of them sat and watched it without speaking.

When the sun finally disappeared, leaving the world in darkness, Cecily became aware of the intensity of her feelings for Zeke. She was feeling close to him. She wanted him to touch her. She wanted them to really be together—the way it almost felt they were right now.

Those were very dangerous thoughts and completely inappropriate.

She cleared her throat. “I better get back.”

He nodded, his eyes meeting hers in the dim light.

She reached over and touched his beard—unable to stop herself—but then pulled her hand back quickly. She got up, murmured good night, and hurried back to the main building.

She did feel a lot less lonely now. Mercy had been right.

But she would really need to be careful. She couldn’t use Zeke to fill what seemed like an emptiness in her heart.

It wouldn’t take long before she wanted him for real.

And he was one man she could never have.