John had been having a very bad week.

First, he’d had to make it through a painful car ride across the state to Willow Park with Mark, who was clearly unhappy with him.

Mark didn’t say anything for the first couple of hours of the trip. He’d just kept shooting John frustrated and questioning looks.

John had felt numb, almost frozen, as if the slightest blow would crack him. He couldn’t talk. He could barely keep taking even breaths. Betsy’s devastated face when he’d told her he’d never been serious about them kept materializing behind his eyelids, every time he closed his eyes.

He wasn’t even going to be able to see her at work anymore.

He wasn’t going to ever see her again.

It wasn’t a truth he was able to fully process and still hold onto his control, so he kept pushing it from his mind as he stared out the window of the car at the changing scenery. Beach to hills to mountains. Plus a thousand other cars on the interstate, all of them living their lives, going about their business, unaware that John’s heart had been utterly shattered.

Finally, Mark burst out without warning, “Damn it, John!”

John jerked in surprise. “What was that for?”

He knew what it was for. He just didn’t want to have the conversation.

“You’re an idiot.”

“You don’t know what’s going on.”

“Betsy told me. I know exactly what’s going on. You fell in love with her and now you’re scared of actually being happy for the first time since Mom and Dad died.”

John felt his face grow pale and a chill tighten in his chest. “She told you that?”

“No. She told me you dumped her. I just extrapolated the rest because I’m clever that way.” His tone was sharply ironic.

“I didn’t dump her. We were never really going out.”

“That’s a flimsy excuse, and you know it perfectly well. You had something good, and then you threw it away because… I don’t know… because you’re still eaten up with guilt for no good reason.”

“It’s not that. Not really.”

“Then what is it?”

“I don’t really have time or emotional energy for a relationship. My job is too important.”

Mark rolled his eyes. “Do you have any idea how ridiculous that sounds?”

“I don’t care if it sounds ridiculous.” John’s tone had an edge to it, but he needed this conversation to end very soon or he would totally lose it. “It’s the truth.”

“It wasn’t your fault that Mom and Dad died.”

“I know that,” John growled. “I’m not a fool.”

“Yes, you are. Because you know it in your head, but you’re still acting on it like it’s true. You can do your duty, you can serve God, you can be the person you want to be, and still be happy with Betsy.”

John wished that were true. He’d believed it was true for a few days.

But it wasn’t.

There was no argument he could give Mark, though, so he sat in stony silence.

“You’re an idiot,” Mark muttered.

That could very well be true. But John still knew he was right.

***

It would be easier to be right if it didn’t make him so miserable.

For the next three days, he spent his time visiting with Mark and Sophie, hanging out with their friends, doing some work around the charming old Craftsman house in a pleasant Willow Park neighborhood they’d just bought, and he pretended that everything was all right.

He knew Mark wasn’t convinced, and he suspected Sophie was worried about him because she kept trying to coddle him with good food and creature comforts. But he assured himself that no one else he encountered knew that every moment without Betsy felt like a loss.

On Thursday morning, he took a long walk alone, spending most of the time praying and trying to get his mind and feelings back under control. He was on his way back to the house when he paused on seeing a little fair-haired boy on tricycle riding furiously in his direction. John wasn’t any good at guessing children’s ages, but he supposed this boy was maybe three.

If the boy didn’t stop, he would run right into John.

“Nathaniel!” a voice called out from farther down the block. “Slow down and watch where you’re going. The whole sidewalk doesn’t belong to you.”

The boy stopped pedaling and turned to look back to his father.

His father was Daniel Duncan.

John smiled and waved to the other man as he approached.

“Sorry about that,” Daniel said, turning the boy around so he was riding in the opposite direction.

“No problem. He’s doing pretty good for his age.”

“Yeah. He’s begging to ride a real bike, but he’s a little too young yet, I think.” Daniel seemed to assure himself that his son was still in sight and then walked over to John. “How’s your week been going?”

“Good. Fine. Good.” Okay, that didn’t sound very convincing.

Daniel didn’t comment on the dubious answer. “How long are you staying?”

“For two weeks.”

“And then back to the field after that?”

“Yes.”

Daniel’s expression was casual, but John suspected the other man knew more than he let on. Maybe Mark had talked to him, or maybe he was just good at reading people.

This suspicion was confirmed when Daniel continued, “How’s Betsy?”

“She’s fi—” John broke off his automatic reply because he wasn’t at all sure it was true. He didn’t know if Betsy was fine. He didn’t know if she was hurting as much as he was. He didn’t know if she hated him now, if she never wanted to see him again.

He didn’t know anything.

Daniel cocked an eyebrow at him.

John shrugged. “I don’t know how she is. I haven’t talked to her lately.”

“Oh. That’s too bad. I like her a lot.”

“Yeah.” He had too. John had more than liked her.

He’d loved her, and he’d broken her heart just the same.

“Do you ever think about getting out of the field?” Daniel asked, still casual, as if this were just normal conversation and not twisting John’s heart into a vice.

He blinked. “No. Why would I?”

“I don’t know. It’s pretty normal, I’d think. After so many years, that kind of work starts to beat people down.”

“I guess. But not me. This is… this is who I am. This is what I’ve been called to do.”

Daniel nodded. “I know how that feels.”

“Do you?”

“Of course. Why wouldn’t I?”

“Has anyone ever suggested you get out of the ministry because it’s hard on you?”

Daniel gave him a little smile, evidently unaffected by the blunt question. “Yes. A lot of people. The church I was in before this one folded. It completely fell apart. It was hard not to blame myself, and a lot of people told me I should just do something else—at least temporarily.”

“But you didn’t.”

“No. I didn’t. But it put me in a really bad situation—spiritually and emotionally. My first wife had died a couple of years earlier, and with that plus the church falling apart, it felt like God was punishing me, like I deserved to be unhappy. Then I started to fall in love with Jessica, and all of those underlying spiritual issues came to the surface. Being happy with her made me feel horribly guilty, and so I kept pushing her away.”

John knew why the other man was telling him this story, but he was interested anyway, so he asked, “So what happened?”

“I got myself right with God, and then I got myself right with Jessica. Or rather, she forgave me.” He chuckled. Then noticed that Nathaniel had reached the end of the block. “Nathaniel! Back this way!”

They both watched as the little boy turned around and started back toward them.

“Things aren’t right all the time now, of course, but I’m really happy. And I can be happy without guilt, so that’s definite progress.”

John couldn’t even remember what it felt like to be happy without guilt.

But he wanted it.

He wanted it desperately.

“Mine’s not a spiritual issue,” he heard himself murmuring. He was mostly speaking to himself, so he didn’t know why he’d said it out loud.

Daniel gave him a quick look, although he was still smiling. “We tell ourselves that. It’s just a circumstantial issue. Or a vocational issue. Or an emotional one. But they’re all spiritual issues at heart. I know you already know this, but sometimes it’s good to hear it again. When Jesus came to do his duty—I’m not even sure it was his duty, it was ours and we just couldn’t do it—but when he came to do the will of God, he didn’t just do a job. He lived out his love. He died out of love.” He paused for a moment before he concluded softly, “His work was love.”

The words hit him hard, making his hands shake, but John frowned anyway. “Do you always pretend to tell personal stories when you’re really trying to make a point to someone?”

Daniel laughed out loud. “My first instinct is always to give a theological lecture, so just  be glad I’ve gotten past that.”

John chuckled too—it was really hard to stay annoyed with the man—and then waved goodbye to Daniel and his son.

He kept walking back to Mark and Sophie’s house, and his mind was filled with questions.

Betsy had told him he had spiritual issues to work out.

Mark had told him the same thing.

He’d actually come to the same conclusion himself on the boat with Betsy last week. He’d felt what it was like to take joy in life, in God, in creation, without an overpowering sense of guilt and responsibility.

But then he’d fallen right back into his old way of thinking.

Maybe there was some way to get back there.

He really wanted to.

***

He kept thinking and praying about it for the next three days until he couldn’t think of anything else.

On Sunday, he was sitting at the kitchen table with Mark, drinking coffee. Sophie was in her room getting dressed, so the two men were sitting alone, in silence.

Mark said without warning, “So have you finally figured it out yet?”

John looked up at his brother, blinking in surprise. “Figured out what?”

“Look, I’ve tried to be patient because I know how long it sometimes takes to work through things. I took way longer myself. But I’m really getting annoyed. You know you’re wrong. You know it. You just don’t want to admit it.”

A week ago, John would have been so angered by this pronouncement that he would have just gotten up and left the table. But today it simply crystalized what he’d been chewing on for the last few days. “I think it’s too late,” he said at last.

Mark’s eyebrows lifted, as if he hadn’t expected this response. “No, it’s not. It’s not too late.”

“I treated her… terribly.”

“She loves you. She’ll forgive you.”

“What if she doesn’t?” He couldn’t believe he was asking that. He couldn’t believe he was talking as if he’d already made his decision.

But maybe he had.

Mark was right. John knew he was wrong. He knew he’d been letting fear and guilt blind him into pushing away the best thing that had come into his life in years.

He knew he’d been trying to earn God’s favor so he wouldn’t make him suffer again the way he’d suffered when his parents had died. He knew how wrong that was. How utterly irrational.

He wanted to live out his faith for real.

He wanted to love.

He wanted to love Betsy.

“Then at least you tried. Do you really want to live the rest of your life having just let her go?”

John shook his head, staring down at his coffee. “No. I really don’t.”

“So go get her. Do whatever you need to do to prove to her that she’s more important than your guilt and your fear and your hang-ups. That she’s more important than who you were before.”

John looked up, staring at his brother blindly as an idea came into his mind. A crazy idea. A ridiculous one.

But Betsy didn’t believe her old romantic daydreams could ever come true. She didn’t believe she was that kind of person.

She’d never thought she was the kind of woman that men would love so much.

And he wanted to prove she was wrong about that—and right about everything else.

“You have an idea,” Mark breathed, starting to look excited.

“Yes.”

“Then do it. Do it right now. Because, I swear, if you don’t stop stewing about this soon, I’m going to kick you out of this house.”

***

So that was how John ended up in front of Betsy’s mother’s house, riding a gray horse on a street in a quiet neighborhood like an absolute idiot.

The horse was a fairly gentle one, since it had been years since John had ridden, but it was nervous on the street, even in the neighborhood where no one was driving by. It stepped restlessly, while John did his best to speak nice and calm it down until Betsy appeared.

When she came down the sidewalk and burst into tears, the horse obviously decided it was a crisis. She jumped into a trot, and John almost fell off in his attempt to get the horse to stop.

He was aware that Betsy’s tears had turned into laughter by the time he’d barely kept his seat and then finally slid off the saddle.

Betsy threw herself into his arms, and he concluded that all of the hassle and embarrassment was worth it.

He hugged her back, as tightly as he could, and it was a few minutes before she stopped laughing or crying or the combination of both.

She pulled away, beaming up at him. “What on earth are you doing with that horse?”

He was trying to maintain some degree of composure, but it was a hopeless effort. He was smiling as much as she was, and it felt like his heart might just beat out of his chest. “You wanted a knight on a horse. I’m a pretty lousy knight, but at least I could try to manage the horse.”

Still sniffing, she went over to rub her hand on the horse’s muzzle. Naturally, the horse grew still and let out a happy little huff.

Everyone loved Betsy. Even those of the equine variety.

“She’s lovely,” Betsy murmured.

“She’s the best steed I could come up with on short notice.”

She turned back to meet his eyes. “You didn’t have to do this, you know. You could have just showed up. I would have been just as happy. I mean, if this means…”

When she faltered, he knew he’d been so distracted he hadn’t even told her the most important thing.

He’d planned the whole thing out for twenty-four hours, but now that he was put on the spot, he felt awkward and tongue-tied. “Of course it does,” he muttered, rather gruffly.

She peered at him through tear-filled eyes, as if to verify he meant what she thought he meant.

He cleared his throat. “I love you. You now that, right? I love you so much it makes me crazy, as you’ve probably concluded from my pathetic behavior.”

She took a deep breath and let it out, something washing over her face. Relief. Joy. The slightest bit of amusement.

“Damn it,” he grumbled. “I’m obviously terrible at this. But I was wrong—incredibly wrong about everything. I was scared and guilty and caught up in my own spiritual… spiritual wrongness that I couldn’t even see what was right. But loving you can’t be wrong. It can’t be a distraction from my calling. It has to be one of the things I was put on earth to do because it’s what I want to do more than anything else.”

Her mouth dropped open slightly at this earnest declaration, so he figured he must have started to pull it together a bit.

He went on. “And I totally understand if you’re not ready to forgive me—or you are ready to forgive, but just not jump into a relationship yet. I messed up. Big time. I let myself… I let myself start to take your heart and then I just threw it back when I got scared. I’m not going to do that again. If you ever feel like you can trust your heart with me again, I’ll never let it go. I promise I won’t.”

Her features started working as if she were fighting off tears again, so he closed the gap between them and wrapped his arms around her once more. She was warm and soft and shaking and Betsy. She was everything he wanted, everything he’d believed he could never have.

“I love you too, John,” she mumbled against his shirt.

At this admission, he tightened his arms so much she whimpered and he had to soften his grip again.

She looked up at him. “I do still trust you. I really did understand what you were going through. I… I would have been okay if you’d decided this wasn’t what was right for you. But… but…” She sniffed a couple of times. “I’m really glad it is.”

He took her lovely, beaming face in his hands and kissed her. She kissed him back, and he was filled with such joy, such feeling, that it might have gotten out of hand if the horse hadn’t stepped restlessly in their direction.

Then he remembered they were on the street, and Betsy’s mother was still standing on the stoop of her house.

He turned and waved at her ruefully, his arms still around Betsy.

“Glad you made your decision,” her mother called out. “But let’s keep things to G-rated in my front yard, please.”

Both he and Betsy laughed, and then he was aware of an unpleasant odor.

He grabbed Betsy before she stepped backward into what the horse had dropped on the curb.

“Shit,” he said, pulling her away from it.

Betsy giggled as she pressed herself against him.

“I don’t know what you were thinking when you were a girl,” he told her dryly. “But horses aren’t exactly the most romantic thing in the world.”

“It was perfect,” she whispered. “All of it is perfect.” She wrinkled her nose. “But maybe we should get rid of this horse now and go inside.”

***

John did get rid of the horse, taking it back to where he’d hired it, and took a hose to clean up the mess beside the curb.

By the time he made it inside the house, Betsy’s mother had declared herself to have a very busy schedule so she had gone out for a couple of hours.

John sat on the couch, Betsy cuddled up beside him, and he was suddenly so exhausted he couldn’t see straight. He could barely even talk.

It would hardly be appropriate to fall asleep on Betsy, after his big romantic gesture and her forgiveness, so he forced the sleepiness away.

He held her hand with one of his and stroked her hair with the other. Everything felt perfectly right, perfectly at peace, for the first time he could remember.

“I can’t believe you didn’t make me writhe and suffer a little,” he murmured. “I would have deserved it.”

“I don’t care what you deserve. I would have hesitated if I didn’t still trust you. But I’ve known you for years, John. I know who you are. The truth is, I knew things weren’t quite right before, that you still weren’t all in, but I ignored those hints and worries because I didn’t want them to be true. I know you’re all in now. I know I can trust you.” She tilted her head to meet his eyes. “I’ve always believed in you, John. I believe in you now.”

He was so overwhelmed that his eyes went blurry. He had to exert more control than he would have expected to lean over and give her a soft little kiss. “Thank you, sweetheart. I still feel like I don’t deserve it, but I guess that’s what love is about, isn’t it?”

“I think so. I think it is.”

He relaxed and closed his eyes.

When he realized he was starting to drift off to sleep again, he blinked and lifted his head from the back of the couch. “So what have you been doing this week?”

“Crying,” she told him with a hint of a smile. Before he could act on the flood of regret, she continued, “Don’t get stupid about it. By the looks of you, you’ve suffered more than I have. I actually had a lot to do, getting ready for my new job and moving to Charlotte.”

“Oh, yeah. I’m glad that worked out for you.” He cleared his throat, almost embarrassed to tell her. “Actually, I’ve talked to Chuck too.”

Her forehead wrinkled. “You have? About my job?”

“No. No! Of course not! I mean, I know I can be bossy and opinionated and all that, but I’d never interfere with your job. I talked to him about my job.”

“Your job?” Her lips had parted, and it was clear she’d never dreamed it was possible for him to come to this decision.

“Yeah. Everyone’s right about me. You, Mark, everyone. I need a break. I need to do something different—at least temporarily. For my own mental and spiritual health. I need… well, the truth is I also don’t want to be traveling all the time because it means I’d have to be away from you. I want to focus on our relationship right now.” He didn’t know why, but he was incredibly self-conscious about telling her. He cleared his throat again and stared at the picture on the wall across from them. “So Chuck and I worked it out for me to be transferred to the main office in Charlotte for a while—a year at least. I may want to go back in the field after that, but we can play that by ear when the time comes.”

Betsy was so surprised she was almost choking on it. “You’re… you’re serious?”

“Yes. Yes. I am. It’s all worked out. I won’t be your boss, of course. We’ll both report to Chuck and do totally different jobs. I’m… I’m actually excited about it.” He finally turned back to look at her awed face. “It’s been a long time since I’ve been so excited about work. That’s obviously a sign that you and Mark were right.”

And then Betsy was crying again, hiding her face in his shirt.

It hurt, to know that she couldn’t believe he would ever prioritize her—or even himself—above his job. And to know she would have been right up until yesterday.

“So we’ll both be living in Charlotte?” she asked, rather hoarsely, when the emotion had mostly dissipated.

“Yes.”

“I can’t wait.”

John couldn’t wait either.

He closed his eyes and thought about it. Before he knew it, he was dozing off, startled awake when Betsy poked his arm.

Her eyes were brimming with laughter. “I can’t believe that here we are in our great romantic reconciliation and you’re there falling asleep on me.”

He blinked rapidly. “Sorry. Sorry.”

She giggled helplessly and cuddled up beside him. “I suppose I should take it as a very good sign—that now you’re finally able to rest. You can take a nap if you need to.”

“I don’t,” he told her.

The words weren’t exactly true, though. He was utterly exhausted from the past few days, the past few weeks, the past few years. And now that he’d finally let go, he couldn’t keep his eyes open.

And so he did end up taking a nap on her mother’s couch.