“Sounds like Evan.” Brad laughed then asked, “How are you doing?”
He pondered telling Brad the news but decided not to. He still had some processing to do. “Honestly? Couldn’t be better. How are you? How’s Valerie feeling?”
Brad glanced at the pool house door. Valerie had gone inside to make sure they had enough plates and cups down there. “She’s mostly okay. Some mornings are worse than others, and she is super tired in the afternoons. I’ve come home twice to find her sleeping.”
Ken nodded. “She worked really hard up to the moment you found out she was pregnant. Between work and your new house, she might need a break.”
As she came back outside, Brad chuckled. “Yeah? Tell her that.”
Valerie walked up, and Brad slipped an arm over her shoulders, hugging her to his side. “Tell her what?”
Ken said, “That you might need to take a break now that your house is done.”
“Oh, really?” She raised both eyebrows. “I see. And are you going to start calling me the little woman, too?”
He grinned. “I might. I might and then say Brad said I should.”
Soon, Alex and Jon arrived. They walked down the path to the pool house, hand in hand. Ken studied Jon’s face when they got closer. He looked relaxed, happy, content.
While Ken manned the grill, they all stood around it and discussed the game. Ken watched Alex closely, mostly out of curiosity. He observed her interaction with Valerie, her reserved manner, the way she sought out Jon. He worried about the red shade of her cheeks when they had arrived. Maybe she needed to go into the pool house. But Jon always paid attention, and Ken knew his brother would insist if it came down to it.
As they all finished eating, Jon stood and said, “Alex and I have an announcement.” A hush settled over the crowd, and he continued, “We decided to get married. We want to make it official as soon as possible, so I’m looking at two weeks from today. If that date is bad for any of you, please let me know right now so we can come up with another date.”
After congratulations ran through the family, Jon disappeared into the pool house with his father. Ken sat, stunned. Jon and Alex were getting married.
His heart pounded, and he felt cold sweat on his brow. They were getting married, and here he sat, trying to work out his place in the life of the woman he loved. He wanted to marry her and bring her home to the house he was building for her. But they’d only had a few weeks together, hardly enough time. What could he consider the right thing to do, the right time to act?
He glanced over at his future sister-in-law and observed her trembling hands and bright red cheeks as she drank half of a bottle of water. He frowned. “You might want to get out of the heat.”
She fanned her face with her hand. “It was so hot today. And I’m usually so sick in the morning. I think I started this adventure off a little dehydrated.”
He gestured with his head toward the pool house. “That building is air-conditioned. There’s a couch in there you can go lie on.”
She stood and put her hand on the back of the chair as if to steady herself. “I feel like their conversation is too important to interrupt. I think I’ll just go back up to the main house.”
He stood. “I’ll walk with you.”
She held up a hand. “Ken, I’m okay. I’m just overheated.”
He shrugged. “Yeah, me too. Besides, I want to get a drink out of the main house fridge. This is a good excuse.” He walked next to her down the brick path. “You settling in okay?”
Glancing at him under her lashes, she said, “I don’t have the words to express my feelings for your family. You have been more welcoming to me in the three days I’ve been here than my family was to me for my whole life.”
Ken pondered just what kind of family Alexandra had for her to say such a thing. Even so, they didn’t speak again. When they reached the back of the house, he opened the door for her, and she preceded him inside.
They went through the mudroom and into the kitchen, where he headed straight for the refrigerator. “See you later, Alex.”
She turned as she reached the kitchen door. “Thanks for gallantly rescuing me, Ken. The cool air feels so good in here. I probably should have come in an hour ago.”
“Just don’t pass out on me. Jon might have something to say about that.” She waved goodbye and left the room. He grabbed a soda out of the fridge then walked through the house. Once he made sure Alex felt better and rested comfortably on the couch in his mother’s den, he went back out to the pool house to help clean up from dinner.
While he cleaned the grill, his mind wandered back to Jon’s upcoming nuptials. Oh, how he longed to make Daisy his. When would that timing be right?
Daisysat in the hard pew next to Ken. He had his arm around her shoulders, and the smell of his aftershave tickled her senses. She had managed to volunteer with the children’s program of her church every Sunday since getting her positive pregnancy test. Today marked the first time she’d sat and listened to a sermon. As the pastor read from the book of John, recounting about Jesus writing in the dirt and the woman actively caught in sin had been dragged in front of him, her mind started spinning.
Why did all of these examples of confronting Jesus with sexual sin have to do with women? She thought of the woman at the well who lived with a man who was not her husband; this woman caught in the act of adultery with a man then dragged through the streets; and then the prostitute who wept at Jesus’s feet, washing his feet with her tears. Why all women and no men?
Where could she find the story of the man who preyed on an innocent woman, told her lies, and seduced her, getting her pregnant then rejecting her and the unborn baby? Where was that story in God’s word?
