Chapter 9 #2
“Look, Ellie, I know you care about your sister,” her father said. “But I think your mother is right. Katie is a grown woman, and she’s entitled to make her own choices about who she dates.”
“So you two don’t mind if she goes out with an older man?”
“An older man might be good for her. Might help her settle down.”
“Even if he’s an older man who wants to take advantage of her?”
Dad’s eyes widened at this. “You know for a fact?”
“I know it from a feeling.”
His face twisted. “In my experience, feelings don’t tend to fly as much as cold hard evidence.” He shifted higher in his seat. “Look, if you’re that worried about her, then pray for her.”
“Who are we praying for?” Katie asked, entering the room.
Great.
“You.” Mum beamed at her youngest child. “Ellie is concerned that this Jason fellow might be taking advantage of you—”
“Mum!” That was hardly helpful.
“Ellie!” Katie screeched. “Don’t you trust me?”
“Exactly what I said,” Mum said, completely missing the point of what they’d talked about before.
Mum smiled sympathetically at her. “I think Ellie might even be a little bit jealous, am I right?”
“Jealous? Of Jason? No way.”
“I really don’t understand why you don’t like him,” Katie snapped.
And they were back to this. Saying she didn’t trust the man when she had nothing to go on but a feeling didn’t seem like a recipe to be heard. She found a tight smile and stood. “Sorry for upsetting people. I need to have a shower and go to bed.”
“Are you not going to do the sister chat tonight?” Katie snipped.
Oh glory. The sister chat. “I forgot. I’m really tired.”
“But it’s the only chance EJ—I mean Emma-Jane—has this week before she goes away. And I really want to tell her about Jason so she doesn’t feel like she has to throw Dream Match at me again.”
Dream Match. Emma-Jane’s matchmaking website for Christians where, as she constantly reminded them, she could find them a perfect match for free.
“Fine. I can talk a little while, but not too long.”
Thanks to time zone differences, they had to catch Liv in the early evening hours while they were all awake. Complicating matters was Emma-Jane’s Dream Match workload, which often saw her schedule meetings at strange hours of the day.
Ellie heaved out a breath and turned on her computer, settling on her bed with her laptop on a pillow on her lap.
Her nose wrinkled. She really didn’t want Emma-Jane throwing Dream Match at them, like she thought them all dating castaways who needed a lifeline in the sea of life.
And while they’d all resisted—and even Emma-Jane had found happiness herself with her childhood best friend, Jordan Knight—it was more a pride thing than because she didn’t think it would work.
Hundreds of people had married over the past few years thanks to Dream Match.
Even their cousin Annabelle had suggested she might give it a go since the pool of viable Christian men in Wattle Vale and surrounds was low to zero.
But not Ellie. She’d rather move to the city—or England—instead of feeling forced to give Dream Match a try. And with Ethan, she’d really thought she might’ve found a man who could be a potential dating candidate.
Oh, she hoped he was doing okay and not overrun with work. Lord, be with him.
For a moment, a smidgeon of peace settled on Ethan’s soul, before the horror of what he’d just heard rolled in again, like a king tide hitting the shore.
“Are you for real?”
Far from being an opportunity to bring comfort, the evening had quickly progressed into one that felt more like a snare had been set. And he was the fly caught in the spiderweb of obligation.
Lucinda smiled again. “It would make Mum so happy. You know that this is what both your mum and mine wanted.”
He barely refrained from shaking his head. No. No, he did not know. Mum might’ve mentioned something about wanting him to find happiness and to look after Lucinda, but had she really meant what the Steeles obviously believed?
He glanced at Christine now. Well, if she was going to embarrass him by insisting on this, then he had every right to ask difficult questions. “Christine, do you remember talking with my mum about salvation?”
She blinked. “I, er, don’t know if now is quite the right time to talk about this.”
“It is if we’re going to be continuing this other discussion.” He didn’t want to embarrass her, not on such a fateful day, but neither would he let himself be manipulated into something that was not what he wanted to do. “You know that God is real, right? You’ve seen Him answer prayers.”
“He didn’t answer prayers to heal my mum,” Lucinda sniped.
He ignored her. “Christine, now is the time to really lean into God, to ask Him to give you peace and comfort and strength for what lies ahead.”
“Don’t you think God can heal my mum?” Lucinda demanded.
“I know God can heal your mum, but whether He chooses to do it this side of heaven, I can’t be so sure. I’m not God.”
Lucinda huffed and rolled her eyes, then picked up Christine’s hand. “I don’t think it’s healthy to be talking about things like heaven right now.”
He coughed. “So when is a good time? We all die, Lucinda.”
“Oh my gosh.” Her eyes filled with tears. “Must you be so insensitive?”
This was going nowhere. Nowhere good, anyway. He’d need to get an Uber. He couldn’t stay. He pushed to his feet. “Christine, you’ll be in my prayers, and if there’s anything I can do, please know I will do my best. But I can’t—I won’t—do what Lucinda requested.”
“Not even if it’s my last request? My dying wish?”
His fingers clenched. “I’m sorry, Christine. But marrying your daughter is not something I’d do for any reason other than I felt it was right before God to do. I’m sorry if that disappoints you.”
She turned her face away.
His heart panged. Looked like his declaration had disappointed her. It certainly seemed to have disappointed Lucinda, who had tears rolling down her cheeks as she followed him from the room. “Why do you have to be so stubborn? Marrying me wouldn’t be so bad, would it?”
“Lucinda, I know you think this might be a good idea right now, and that you might want to please your mum, but marriage isn’t about making other people happy. It’s supposed to be about making each other happy.”
“But you make me happy.” She flung herself at him, pressing in and squeezing him in a way that was borderline inappropriate.
He gently grasped her arms and unwound them from his neck. How to say this next bit without offending her forever, he didn’t know. Lord, give me wisdom. “Lucinda.” He waited until she looked at him. “Lucinda, you know that I care about you, but I don’t love you. Not in that way.”
“Do you love someone else?”
“No.”
“So, you’re saying there’s a chance you could love me one day?”
Good grief. “Lucinda, today has been a very emotional day, and I really don’t think you’re in a fit state to be making decisions about your future. I need to go now.”
“I’ll drive you.”
“No, I’ll call an Uber. You need to stay here with your mum.”
“But, but—”
“Lucinda, the kindest thing you can do right now is to let your mum know that you are okay about this.”
“But I’m not okay about this.” She stamped her foot.
“Not when it would mean so much to be able to spend the last few months of her life giving her hope to see her only daughter get married. She’d be so happy to be distracted by planning my wedding, knowing that I’ll be okay, that I’ll be looked after all my life. ”
“I’m sure she would. But that doesn’t have to be with me.”
“But it does,” she insisted. “You’re the only one who could ever make me truly happy. You’re such a gentleman, after all.”
“I appreciate that, and I can understand that you might be confusing being friends with something more, but I don’t feel that way and don’t want to feel backed into a corner like this. Good night, Lucinda.”
For a moment, she stared at him; then she launched herself at him, clutching his face between her hands and kissing him full on the lips.
It took him a second to realise what was happening; then he dragged her fingers from his face and pushed her away, holding her at arm’s length in case she decided to launch herself at him again. “What the heck was that?”
“I love you.”
“No you don’t.” He doubted she knew what the word love actually meant. “You need to go inside.”
“But—”
“Goodbye.”
He turned and stalked away and was all set to call for an Uber when he realised he didn’t have his phone.
Shoot. How could he get away now? The night, which already felt way too long, was only going to take longer while he tried to find a taxi and flagged it down—or at least found a willing passerby who might let him use their phone.
But who’d do that at this time of night?
Ugh. He should never have come. What kind of idiot was he to drop everything and come at Lucinda’s bidding?
At least he’d had the sense to walk away before getting further caught up in her sticky web of obligations.
He hurried down the street, under the jacaranda trees with their overspreading branches of purple blooms. But he had no time for noticing this pocket of beauty, not when he felt like he’d just received a sledgehammer to the chest.
Seriously? Marrying Lucinda to keep her dying mother happy?
Call him callous, but he’d want to make sure Christine was definitely dying before he even contemplated something like that.
Not that he would contemplate that. Okay, so once upon a time, the thought had crossed his mind, but that was before he met someone who he actually thought could make him happy.
Someone whom, he dared to believe, he could make happy too.
Ellie.