Chapter 11
Eli’s eyes opened at two in the morning and it wasn’t because an Acacia client up in Atlanta had called at ten last night about a failed structural inspection on the St. Germaine project.
He lay in the dark of his bedroom, staring at the ceiling fan making its slow rotation, and let the truth settle over him like a weight. Kate had been pulling away.
Not dramatically. Not in any way he could point to and say, There, that’s the problem.
She still smiled at him across the kitchen.
She still leaned into him on the deck when they watched the sunset.
She’d kissed him goodnight tonight—briefly, on the cheek, the way you’d kiss someone you were fond of rather than someone you were in love with.
It had been days—maybe a week—since they’d had a substantive conversation.
Somehow, she’d been too busy—Tessa’s wedding plans, Emma’s healing, Vivien wanted to have lunch, and, of course, the constant pull of Atlas.
Kate was dodging something—filling every hour with tasks so there was no room left for the thing she didn’t want to face.
Kate, he knew, was avoiding him.
And that’s what woke him up at two AM.
If he was being honest—and he knew no other way—he’d talked with Emma more than Kate these past weeks. At least, the conversations they’d shared had more weight.
Emma had found him on the deck after dinner one night and chatted with him over her Pop-Tarts and soda while he made eggs a few mornings later. He recognized a seeker when he saw one—a person kind of shyly interested and curious about the Lord.
She’d asked questions—earnest, curious inquiries from a girl who was genuinely trying to understand something new. She’d asked where to start reading the Bible, and he’d steered her toward the Gospels. Matthew first, then John.
A strong student who often reminded him of his own daughter, Emma had wanted to start at the beginning and read straight-through. He knew that rarely worked. Nothing killed a new reader’s momentum like Leviticus.
He’d told her if she wanted to try the Old Testament, she might enjoy the Book of Ruth. He promised her he’d explain why this random story of a Moabite with a goodhearted and meddling mother-in-law mattered enough to make the pages of the Bible.
He was actually really looking forward to that conversation—it would help Emma in so many ways—but he hadn’t even told Kate he planned to have it.
So maybe this “distance” he felt went both ways. No wonder he couldn’t sleep.
He threw back the covers, pulled on a T-shirt, and grabbed his Bible from the nightstand. If he was going to recommend Ruth, he should reread it himself to help better explain it to Emma.
The kitchen was dark except for the moonlight streaming through the windows, the Gulf a black mirror beyond the dunes. He filled the kettle, set it on the stove, and leaned against the counter while it heated, his Bible on the island.
The house was silent but for the tick of the hallway clock Vivien had hung and the distant hum of Atlas’s white-noise machine bleeding faintly from the ground floor. Sounds that meant everyone he loved was here, under this roof he’d built, and yet he felt alone in a way that unsettled him.
He brewed the tea, sat at the island, and opened to Ruth, already anticipating some of his favorite scripture, which he couldn’t quite quote from memory, but he knew the essence.
I’ll go where you go. Your people will be my people. Your God will be my God.
Wasn’t that the order of the Lord? Why couldn’t Kate…go where he went, with shared people, and shared faith?
He opened the Bible, but closed his eyes in thought.
Was he asking too much? Even Naomi had backed off and encouraged Ruth not to follow her, but follow she did. And look how that turned out.
He’d told Kate he’d never ask her to convert, and he’d meant it. It wasn’t his job to bring her to Christ—all he could do was throw a few seeds, show her what a life with Him could look like, and let God do the rest.
He looked up from the page he still wasn’t reading when he heard footsteps on the stairs, leaning back to see who was coming down from the top floor.
Kate appeared at the bottom of the steps, barefoot in an oversized Cornell T-shirt and striped sleep pants, her glasses on and her hair tangled from a pillow, as sleepless as he was.
“Hey.” He pushed off the counter stool to greet her by holding out his hand. “You okay?”
“Can’t sleep.” She looked at the kettle. “Is the water still hot?”
“Should be.” He guided her toward the stool next to his. “Let me make you a cup of that lemon-ginger you like.”
Under his hands, her shoulders loosened. “Thanks. That should do the trick.”
He made her tea in silence, feeling the distance between them like a physical thing, three feet of kitchen island that might as well have been a canyon.
When he brought the steaming mug to her, she wrapped both hands around it.
“Can I sit with you?” he asked.
She gave a sleepy smile. “I’m the one who crashed your party.” Her gaze slipped to the Bible. “Or…reading time.”
Her voice hitched a little on the last two words, making them sound like a question.
Without answering, he walked around and sat next to her, sliding the Bible to his left so it wasn’t between them—at least physically.
“Kate.”
She looked up.
“I can tell something’s wrong.”
Something flickered across her face—surprise, maybe, that he’d been so direct. “No, no, I’m just…” She let out a half-groan, half-sigh. “Yeah. You’re right.”
“What is it?”
She blew into her mug without taking a sip. “I thought I was hiding it better than that.”
“And maybe a different man wouldn’t notice,” he said. “But I know you and I…”
“You notice,” she finished for him. “Which is one of the many things I love about you, Eli.”
The declaration warmed him more than the tea, giving him a jolt of hope and the bone-deep knowledge that they were about to have a very serious conversation in the middle of the night, whether he wanted to or not.
And he did want to. So he sat still and let her collect her thoughts, since his were pretty much lined up, in order, and clear.
Kate took her glasses off and set them on the counter, suddenly looking younger and more exposed. He could see the tension she’d been carrying in the slight frown between her brows.
“You gave Emma a Bible,” she said, the words coming out just shy of an accusation.
He sort of suspected that was at the heart of things. Hoped he was wrong, but he wasn’t surprised.
“Actually, Seamus Donahue gave it to her,” he said. “And there’s a connection to your father.”
“She told me that, but…” She slid him a look, then let her gaze fall on the Bible. “I’m not sure she’d have actually read it if not for you.”
And that was a problem? Eli didn’t know how to respond to that.
“She’s literally reading it,” Kate said, as if this stunned her.
“Well, it is a book,” he said, trying to keep any sarcasm out of his voice. “And I don’t think she’ll get through all of it over the rest of summer break, so I suggested some…key passages to read.”
“Passages? She told me all of Matthew and John. And Ruth. That’s one I’ve never heard of. Ruth?”
His heart folded a little at the question and maybe the tone, both of which reminded him just how far apart they were on something so significant to him.
“It’s a beautiful story of love and loyalty,” he said softly. “One that many young women relate to.”
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, adding a touch to his hand to show that she meant it.
“I don’t want to denigrate what’s important to you, Eli, I really don’t.
And what you told Emma on the boat was exactly what she needed.
You helped her see that her body has value and is so worthy of protection and respect.
I’ve watched my daughter come back to life because of what you gave her, and I am so grateful for that. ”
He heard the word before she said it.
But.
“But she’s reading scripture now and that’s…”
“That’s not where you wanted the good message to come from,” he finished for her. “So, you like the concept, but not where it comes from.”
She winced and took a sip of tea. “I guess.”
“Kate.” He turned his hand over to thread her fingers through his. “What are you so afraid of? That she might feel something for God? That she might seek more knowledge about Him? That she might go to church or read all sixty-six books or…or…give her life to Christ?”
“I don’t know,” she confessed. “I don’t even know what any of that means or how that looks on a person.”
“You can look at the one next to you and see it. At least, I hope you can.”
She gave a hint of a smile, squeezing his hand. “Eli, she’s so vulnerable right now. She’s hurt and ashamed and grasping for anything that makes the pain stop, and the Bible is filling that void because it landed on her lap at exactly the right moment.”
“Because that’s God’s timing—exactly right, every time.”
She let her eyes shutter, as if she had no way of responding to that or maybe thought it didn’t merit a response.
She turned to him, looking directly into his eyes. “I’m asking you to see what I see—a seventeen-year-old who’s been through something awful, and a man she trusts and admires who’s showing her a worldview that I can’t—” Her voice caught. “That I can’t share with her.”
“And that scares you.”
“It terrifies me. Because if Emma starts building her life around a faith I don’t have, then I’m standing outside. Outside my own daughter’s most important conversations. Outside the thing that’s healing her. I’m left out of the whole circle of her life.”
The raw honesty of it hit him harder than anger would have. Kate wasn’t a scientist building a case. Kate was a mother, afraid of losing her daughter to something she couldn’t follow.
“Then maybe you should step inside that circle, Kate. Maybe you should…read a chapter or two with her.”
“No, no, I…no.”