Chapter 13
Allison
I’m having a great time with Luke. If you would have told me that at the beginning of the evening, I would have thought you were nuts. But he’s gone from looking like a stuffy, stuck-up businessman to wanting to buy this inn? It’s so run down and off the beaten path, it’s going to take a load of money to fix it up and then a lot more to market it.
But this is his business, and I wouldn’t be telling him anything he didn’t already know. But he seems to have been struck by the stories that Jim told and the lives that had been brightened and even changed.
“You know how sometimes you leave the things you value, because you think other things look better?” Luke says as we head back to the storage room for one last box. It was a box that simply said “special” on the side, and we decided to save it for last.
I nod but don’t say anything, wondering what he means.
I don’t know why we’re both walking back to get this box. It wasn’t heavy, and one of us could have gotten it, but we work so well together, and neither one of us seems to want to leave the other. At least it makes me feel better to think he feels the same way I do.
“What do you think it is?” he asks.
“Well, we didn’t get a star for the tree,” I say. I hope it’s that. I’ve always loved trees with stars.
“I bet it’s some other kind of antique,” he says as he carefully lifts the box, and I hold the door while he walks through.
We walk to the sitting area and set the box down on the coffee table.
“Do you want to do the honors?” he asks, even though he’s opened every box so far.
It’s so sweet of him to offer to let me. I really am curious, and I do want to know.
“No, you go ahead.” I’m not going to take over after he’s already started.
“Let’s do it together,” he says with a grin that makes my heart flip.
I can’t keep my smile from spreading across my face. “Thank you,” I say as I lift my hand up and put it on the flap at the same time he does. Our fingers brush.
My eyes open wide and shoot to his.
He’s disconcerted too, and his gaze has automatically found mine.
He opens his mouth and says, “I didn’t mean—”
“Sorry about that,” I say at the same time.
Then we laugh. I shake my head. “We’re just delaying the inevitable,” I say, and he smiles at the laughter in my voice.
“I don’t know if I’ve ever had a more enjoyable evening,” he says softly, and suddenly I forget about my interest in the box and about the idea of not touching his fingers again, and instead, I look into his face.
“I’ve never enjoyed putting Christmas decorations up more,” I say, the strains of “Beautiful Star of Bethlehem” coming out of my phone speakers softly in the background. The smell of hot chocolate is in the air, and the room has been transformed from drab and sad to bright and cheerful and decked out for Christmas.
It could grace the cover of a magazine, if I do say so myself.
“I suppose I owe you a thank you. If it hadn’t been for you, I would be sitting in my room right now, on my laptop, working. But now, I’m really looking forward to seeing Jim’s and Judy’s faces as they walk in tomorrow.” His words are slow and thoughtful, and then he looks at me. “I owe you.”
I shake my head. It’s an automatic denial, but I also can’t take credit where it’s not due. “This was in you all the time.”
“Maybe I just needed you to bring out the best in me.”
The air feels heavy, charged, and I realize that our fingers are touching again. I want to move my finger, to feel the friction of our skin sliding together, but I’m afraid to move, afraid to even breathe. I don’t know that I’ve ever felt this way before, and I’m not sure what to do.
It seems like a spell has fallen over both of us. Maybe it’s the snow. But more than likely, it’s the inn. It seems to specialize in bringing people together.
That was whimsical and silly. I know it’s the Lord who has orchestrated everything. What were the odds that both of us would be traveling in this direction and stopping right here, in this out-of-the-way place, at the same time of evening, so that we met together and were able to agree to share a room and then decorate together?
“Do you think God orchestrates every little detail of the universe?” Luke says as the strains of music swirl softly around us while the snow falls outside.
“Absolutely. If he can make something as tiny as an atom and something as huge as our universe, which we haven’t even found the end of, He could absolutely orchestrate my life and yours.” I believe that with my whole heart, without a doubt.
We look at each other for just a bit more, and then Luke shakes his head.
“I guess we’re really drawing this out, aren’t we?” He looks at the box and then back up at me, and we laugh together.
The moment is gone, but it was definitely there, shimmering in the air between us, and it makes me curious as to how he feels and what he’s thinking. He had offered for us to...go into business on the inn together? I kind of think that is what he meant, but it doesn’t seem like a good night to talk business, and I am not brushing it aside exactly, I just assumed he was talking business.
Maybe he wasn’t. Maybe he’s feeling the magic in the air or the love at first sight... Could that be what it is?
I don’t want to do anything crazy. That’s not my way. I’ve certainly never done anything like this, but it’s not like I’m just working on attraction. I like the character that he’s displaying, the compassion that he has shown, and the way he is moved by the stories of changing people’s lives through serving them with the inn as a backdrop.
Did God orchestrate tonight for this particular purpose?