An Unlikely Match (16 page)

This had all seemed like such a good idea when he’d discussed it with Dallas earlier. He’d wanted to do something fun, something that his exuberant Ellie would love. But maybe she didn’t love him after all. Maybe he’d rushed her. Maybe he’d been so sensible and so stoic for so long that he just couldn’t pull off something this wild.

She stood there with her hands over her mouth, and he started to feel like a fool. What now? Get up and walk away? Try to live the rest of his life without her? He couldn’t even imagine such a thing. Not now.

Clearing his throat, he tried to remember all the eloquent words he’d practiced, but they came only sluggishly to his mind. “You were right. I had let failure mark me, and I wouldn’t let God take it away. Instead, I clung to it, used it like a shield against any possibility of…romance.” There. He’d said it. Silly word,
romance.
Silly, essential, wonderful word. “Then you came. I think I should more rightly say that God sent you. I’ve
learned so much from you, Ellie. Mostly, I think, I’ve learned to love.”

“Ash.”

“I love you, Ellie. I love you.”

Apparently, he got it all right because she dropped her hands, sniffed and said, “I love you, too!”

He breathed a tiny sigh of relief and got to his feet at last. “Without even knowing it, I’ve been waiting for you, waiting for you to grow up. Waiting for God to bring us together.” She stood there staring at him with the world in her watery, violet eyes and a smile on her ruby lips, and he couldn’t resist a quip. “Waiting for you to say yes.”

She burst out laughing. “Yes!”

“Whew!” He started to open the ring box, but suddenly she threw herself at him, her arms encircling his neck. Laughing, he swung her around in a circle to the applause and laughter of their secretly invited audience.

When he sat her on her feet again, she gazed up at him with love in her eyes and exclaimed, “I can’t believe you’re serious!”

“Sweetheart,” he said, keeping a straight face. “I’m always serious. Everyone knows that.”

They laughed again, and he finally got that little box open and the ring on her finger. Every woman within shouting distance ran to see the rock he’d picked out. By the way she kept looking at it and him, he knew he’d chosen well.

Asher shook his head at the wonder of it all as his back was clapped and congratulations rang in his ears. He’d once thought himself too busy for love, but now he realized that he’d kept busy because his life was so empty that he’d had to fill it up. Now that God had
brought the right woman to him, his life and his heart were full to overflowing.

Who would have guessed that it would be Ellie, though? Young, exuberant, absolutely perfect Ellie.

When the crowd dwindled to a select few, Asher couldn’t wait any longer to pull her into his arms and kiss her. He lifted his head a few moments later, happiness swelling his heart, and noticed Dallas standing nearby in tears. He hadn’t expected that from his headstrong little sister, but she was the unrepentant romantic. She surprised him again when she said, “I’m sorry your team lost.” As if that mattered!

“Did they?” he quipped. “Hadn’t noticed. Must’ve had something else on my mind.” Ellie giggled and slid her arms around his waist.

Suddenly, Dallas’s face crumpled and noisy sobs grated out of her. Ellie slipped out of his arms to go to her.

“Dallas?”

“I have to tell you something,” she gasped, holding up a hand as if to hold off Ellie’s comfort. “I did it. The fire. It was my fault.”

“What?” Asher blurted, stunned.

She turned her tear-filled eyes on Ellie. “You told me you were going to be at the storage unit, right after you told me how awful the fumes were in the house, and that if they didn’t get better you might have to move out for a few days.” She gulped and went on. “I was going to go by while you were gone and make sure all the windows were closed so the fumes wouldn’t dissipate, then wait for you to come in and suggest that you stay at Chatam House for a couple of days.”

When she’d found that the door was open, however, she’d gone in, and on her way to check the window,
she’d turned on the lamp. That was when she’d seen the bucket with the can of paint remover and come up with the idea of removing the cap, but she’d dropped the can and spilled the liquid. The fumes had been so awful that she’d opened the window after finding it already closed. The cat had jumped into the room, and when she’d chased him, he’d jumped up onto the table and knocked over the lamp.

“There was nothing I could do!” she wailed in a small voice. “I ran out the front door in a panic and into the street. Garrett nearly ran me over on his motorcycle. The rest you know.”

Asher stood there dumbfounded while Ellie sighed. “I knew I’d shut that window.”

The truth hit Asher like a ton of bricks. “And you knew that she shouldn’t have been at the house. You were protecting her!”

Ellie grimaced and nodded. “In the end, I did try to tell you.”

“And I all but accused you of setting the fire.”

“You didn’t accuse me. You rightly suspected that I hadn’t told you everything.” She looked at Dallas. “Just as I suspected that Dallas had had something to do with it.”

“I’m so sorry, Ellie!” Dallas exclaimed. “I should’ve told you right away, but then you’d have known I was scheming, and I didn’t want you to think badly of me.”

Ellie turned an agonized look on Asher. “The insurance company.”

“We have to tell them,” he said quietly, “but I don’t think it will make any difference. Ultimately, it was all an accident.”

“Now I have to say something,” Ellie told him, stepping close again. “You suspected that my grandfather
and I were involved with the fire, and I took great offense at that, but all the time I was guilty of the same thing with Dallas.” She looked at her friend and admitted, “I actually thought you might have done it on purpose.”

Dallas parked her hands at her waist and threw out one hip. “Well, thank you very much.”

“It wasn’t that unreasonable of an assumption,” Asher told her. She rolled her eyes, but her teeth worried her bottom lip.

“You’re sure this isn’t going to set back things with the insurance company?”

“Don’t worry about it,” he said. “I’ll take care of every thing.”

She laughed, that incorrigible redhead, and wiped her eyes. “Don’t you always? Boy, that’s a load off my shoulders.”

Ellie turned her gaze up at him then. “You do, you know, always take care of everything. That’s why you wouldn’t let up about the fire. You knew I’d held back information.”

“And I was afraid for you,” he admitted softly.

She brushed a hand across his chest. “I want you to know that I wasn’t angry so much as I was hurt that day,” she said. “I was hurt because I so desperately wanted you to care about me.”

“I care,” he said, wrapping his arms around her. “I cared then. I was just so bound up in the armor I’d created to make myself impervious to love that I couldn’t admit it, even to myself. But you’d already worked your way into my heart. I think you’ve been there all along. I couldn’t let you go.” He pulled her closer. “I won’t let you go.”

Squaring her slender shoulders, Dallas exclaimed,
“Wow! I’m even better than I thought I was at this match making thing.”

His sister the matchmaker. Asher shuddered at the thought, but then he looked down at Ellie and smiled. Maybe she did have a kind of instinct for the job.

“Just think,” Dallas went on. “The aunties have two weddings to plan now!”

“Let them have at it,” he said, gazing down at his Ellie. “So long as they do it quickly,” he amended.

Laughing, she lifted up on tiptoe and pressed her lips to his.

Odelia and Kent might have had fifty years to fool around, he thought, but he was a busy man, a man in a hurry to claim all the joy that God allowed.

Dear Reader,

You’ve surely met those with whom you seem to have “everything” in common. Conversely, you must’ve met those to whom you could barely relate. Background, age, ethnicity, language, social status, politics, religion…so many things can come between us. Often, however, if we give ourselves an opportunity to get to know someone with whom we seemingly have little in common, we find that a very special relationship forms.

Such is the case with a young lady who wrote me from her native Zimbabwe as a twelve-year-old. After years of correspondence, we were able to meet in person. I still marvel that a girl born and raised in another culture on another continent could come to occupy such a large place in my heart! I pray that you will give yourself a chance, like Asher and Ellie, to know such “unlikely” joy.

God bless,

1. Asher Chatam is a man who sincerely tries to do what is right. He lives by a strong ethical standard—one does not date a client; a man must not be attracted to his baby sister’s best friend; and so on. Why don’t others (for instance, his cousin Chandler and the aunties) feel as strongly about his convictions as he does?
   
2. Asher believed himself to be unsuitable for marriage. Do you know individuals who are clearly meant to remain unmarried? Is it possible, then, that some—even those not involved in “church” occupations—are
   called
   to singlehood? Explain.
   
3. Have you ever been tempted, like Ellie and Dallas, to “assist” God in working out His will? Is this a good idea? Why or why not?
   
4. Dallas schemed to get Odelia and Kent together. Ellie reasoned that she was merely “facilitating” that romance. Is “facilitating” different from “scheming” in this case? Explain.
   
5. Psalm 20:4 reads, “May He give you the desire of your heart and make all your plans succeed.” Ellie prayed this prayer on behalf of her grandfather. Have you ever prayed this prayer on behalf of another individual? If so, why?
   
6. Psalm 21:2 reads, “You have granted him the desire of his heart and have not withheld the request of his
   lips.” This verse appears to show that God answered the prayer of the psalmist in the previous chapter. If you have prayed a prayer similar to Psalm 20:4 (see above), what happened?
   
7. How do you define
   romance?
   
8. Asher felt that romance created problems and interfered with life. He just didn’t have time for it. Is this premise valid in any way? If so, how?
   
9. Is romance necessary for marriage? Is it desirable for marriage?
   
10. Odelia feared that she and Kent were too old for romance. Asher agreed. Ellie did not. What is your opinion?
    
11. Ideally, marriage is a partnership in which two people join forces and build a life together. This often includes acquiring a home and possessions, having children, making mutual friends, setting and achieving mutual goals. Why, then, do you think
    older
    individuals marry?
    
12. Does age “matter” when it comes to marriage? Explain.
    
13. In your opinion, should older (elderly) couples marry? Why or why not?
    
14. Asher is fifteen years older than Ellie. He felt this would be a problem; she did not. What is an acceptable age difference for marriage partners and why?
    
15. Ellie and Asher have two major commonalities. They are both Christians, and they both enjoy soccer. How important do you think this is? Can you identify other commonalities?