Book of Days_ A Novel - James L. Rubart [49]
"What? You're pregnant? You were abducted by aliens? What?"
"Later."
He laughed and pulled her in tight, nuzzling her neck with his lips. "Now."
She tickled right under his arm where he was most sensitive, and he leaped back as if he'd stuck his finger in a light socket.
"I've seen proof. God is real."
"Really."
Jessie nodded.
"If you say so."
"He is."
"If you say—"
"No, Cameron, look at me. I know He's real."
"Uh-huh." Cameron drew her back into his chest and stroked her hair. "You're going to tell about this proof I suppose."
"Yes. I've seen something He made. Something amazing."
"What? The stars? The ocean?"
"Something even better."
"Tell me."
"I will, when it's time." She folded her arms across her chest, dropped her head, and leaned into him hard.
"I love you, Cameron. Always and forever."
CHAPTER 17
The oak door into Taylor's workshop creaked as Tricia opened it just past eight o'clock Sunday morning with one goal pounding through her heart—get her husband to talk. He didn't turn from the crinkled instructions laid out in front of him, but that didn't mean he hadn't heard her come in.
She watched him fiddle with an ancient-looking fly rod, probably from the midfifties, reading glasses perched on the end of his nose. He hated those glasses. They labeled him as middle-aged plus, which he refused to admit to.
The walls were covered with maps and pictures of hidden rivers and fishing holes that took three days of backpacking through the wilderness to reach. Most of the time Taylor took his trips solo, "to escape" he'd tell her, but what he was escaping from was never clear.
Even though they'd known each other since junior high, he'd never fully opened up to her. He held secrets that she'd learned to accept. But ever since Cameron Vaux had arrived in town, Taylor had been escaping from her emotionally as well. It wasn't like him.
The secrets weren't about another woman or some hidden addiction. Something about Cameron had pushed him into his workshop—or as she liked to call it, his cave—more frequently these past seven days.
"Hello, my wonderful Tricia," he said, his head still buried in the instructions, his hands holding two pieces of the rod together. "The glue should be dry here in another forty seconds or so."
Tricia eased up next to Taylor's workbench and leaned on her elbow. "Let's talk." She waited a few seconds for him to look at her, but he didn't budge. "I know you're doing your caveman want-to-be-alone thing right now, but I need to ask you something."
"I'm not caving; I have to get this done by the weekend."
"Uh-huh." Tricia straightened, turned, and leaned back against the workbench. "Are you going to help this Cameron kid?"
"Help him what?"
She would smack him on the head if it would stop him from playing dumb. "I know you better than you think I do."
"I'm sorry, hon. We've just registered ten pounds on the confusion fish scale. That's two pitches over my head, third strike, yer out."
"You're mixing metaphors."
"I know."
"Look at me, Taylor Stone." She placed her forefinger under his chin and lifted till he looked into her eyes. "I think both pitches hit you right in the heart, sweetie." She let his chin go.
Taylor harrumphed. "In other words you think I know something more about this book business than I'm telling him?" He sat up and pulled off his reading glasses.
"Thank you for stating the obvious."
"What gives you that idea? Yes, David says in the Psalms all his days were recorded in God's book before he was born. He didn't say everyone; he said for himself. And I highly doubt David was describing a physical book that just happened to be plopped down in the good ol' US of A and land in little ol' Three Peaks, Oregon. He was speaking metaphorically about God knowing the past, present, and future because God is omniscient. He wasn't talking about a book you can order on Amazon.com with the click of a button."
"Forgive me. I didn't know the depth of your knowledge when it came to that particular passage of Scripture. I'm sure you can tell me