He turned. “Hey.”
She paused at his door and leaned against the casing. “I was on my way to bed.”
Craig got up then and came toward her. “I was hoping to spend more time with you tonight. Looks like you’re as busy at work as I am.”
She nodded. “Going from a weekly to a daily paper has really ramped up my hours. There are a lot of stories to write.”
“I know the feeling.”
“Yeah, I guess you do. But your work is a little more important right now.”
“We could use your help. If you could come by tomorrow, see our setup and write about our hiring, it would help a lot.” His voice was soft, intimate.
“Yeah, I’ve already been assigned that story. I’ll be there in the morning.” She glanced past him. “What are you doing?”
He looked back at the Bible. “Studying the book of John. Mark challenged me to read it before tomorrow.”
“The whole thing?”
“That’s right. I borrowed a commentary from your dad and I’m working through it.”
She fought her smile. Mark wasn’t going to make this easy. “You know, you don’t have to do this with him. You could say no.”
“Why would I do that?” He lifted his chin. “I can hold my own with him.”
“I know you can, but it’s not necessary. I don’t know why he even suggested it.”
“I do.”
She wished the whole thing had never come up. What had Mark been thinking? “Well, John is pretty self-explanatory, right? You don’t need commentaries for it.”
He went back to the desk and sat down. “You sure? I got bogged down in the first chapter. The first verse, even. ‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.’ I don’t get that.”
She hesitated to engage with him on this. It was probably just a ploy to draw her in. Then again, how could she fault him for trying to understand God’s Word?
“Well, John’s talking about Jesus.”
“Jesus?” Craig asked. “How do you figure that?”
She went into the room and leaned over the desk, pointing to verse one. “Look at the context of the chapter. Verse fourteen says that he — the Word — became flesh and dwelt among us. Who did that?”
“Jesus did.”
“Right. It says we ‘beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father.’ Who was begotten of the Father?”
“Jesus again?”
“Yes. So if ‘the Word’ is Jesus, go back and read it like this: ‘In the beginning was Jesus, and Jesus was with God, and Jesus was God.’ ” Craig sat down and read back over the verses. It was as if a light came on behind his eyes. “Okay, I can see that now.”
Satisfied, she turned and started out of the room.
“One more question,” he said, stopping her.
“What?”
“So in verse six, the man named John who was ‘sent from God,’ he’s the guy who’s writing the book, right?”
She could see how he could be confused. “No, he’s talking about John the Baptist. John, the apostle, is the guy who wrote the book.”
“Two different Johns, huh? That’s confusing.” Craig sat back in his chair and swiveled around. “I graduated law school at the top of my class, and I have a photographic memory. But I can’t get this. It’s hard. And I want to understand.”
Her heart softened toward him. He really did seem to be trying. Maybe it wasn’t a ploy, after all.
“How do you guys know this stuff? Is it from going to Sunday school all those years?”
She smiled. “Partly. But most of what I’ve really understood about the Bible has come in the last year. Just keep reading. Chapter two is not so hard. It’s about the miracles Jesus did, starting with his turning the water to wine. I really don’t think you’ll need a commentary for that. Read it out loud, and it’ll come alive.”
Craig turned the page and skimmed the chapter. “Okay, I see.”
“Don’t sweat it, Craig. This Bible study is not a competition with Mark. He’s not like that.”
He leveled his eyes on her, his lids heavy. “Yes, he is, Deni. We both have the same goal. He didn’t invite me into this so we could become big buddies.”
“He’s not trying to make you look stupid.”
“Then what is he trying to do?”
“Maybe he really wants to disciple you. You’re a new Christian.”
“Why would he care? I was clear about why I put in to work in this area. I came to get you back.”
She met his eyes, and remembered why she’d fallen in love with him before. She also remembered why she’d fallen out of love. Mark’s words to Craig played back through her mind — that he wanted to make sure that whoever won Deni was a godly man.
That sounded just like Mark. Craig might be five years older, but he wasn’t that mature.
“But I’m gonna do this,” Craig said, “and if he is in it to make me look like an ignorant jerk, well, I’ll just pray that I learn something in the meantime. I really do want to learn this.”
“Then pray, and the Holy Spirit will reveal it to you. It’s all good news. Every discovery is going to excite you.”
Craig turned back to the words, and she watched the light of the kerosene flame dance on his face as he read the opening verses with new eyes. He looked up at her. “Will you stay and finish going over this with me?”
She thought of saying yes, but this intimacy was a bit too disconcerting. It would be better to leave this to her father and Mark.
“I’m really tired,” she said. “All you need to do is read it. Let the Holy Spirit teach you.”
He opened his arms. “You sure? I could really use your help.”
“You can always ask my dad if he’s still up.”
He sighed. “That’s okay.”
She thought so. She went to the door. “Well, good night. You have a lot of reading to do.”
“Yeah,” he said, and she heard the hollow melancholy in his tone. “Hope I can get it all done tonight.”
THIRTY
MARK GOT UP EARLY AND SCRAMBLED SOME EGGS ON THE barbecue pit outside so he’d have something to offer Craig. As he did, he wondered about the night before. Had Craig gotten Deni alone? Had she felt those old feelings coming back? Had they talked tenderly into the night, remembering old times?
He was stupid to have stayed home pouting last night. He should never have given them time to be alone.
He sat down at the patio table. It was still dark out, and a cool breeze blew through his hair. He needed a haircut and a close shave. He should start tucking his shirts in and retire the work jeans with the hole in the knee. Maybe he should use some of his cash to buy a new car. If a Malibu impressed Deni, maybe he could get a Mercedes. A Sportster, with all the bells and whistles.
He must be crazy. He wasn’t poor by today’s standards, but he couldn’t afford such a luxury. He was more of a V-dub kind of guy. Besides, if it took outclassing Craig to win Deni, then he may as well give up now.
He heard the knock on the front door, so he went through the house to let Craig in. Mark had to hand it to him. He was prompt.
Craig stood at the door with his Bible in hand. It looked brand new, hardly used. The silver on the edges of the pages still glistened. Mark shook his hand and brought him in. “I made eggs if you’re hungry,” he said. “And coffee.”
“Coffee? How’d you get coffee?”
“I bought some instant with some of the cash I got out of the bank. It was a Mother’s Day gift. She won’t mind if we use a little.”
Mark led him out back, where he’d lit two lanterns. The dark sky was beginning to recede. The fire on the barbecue pit still burned, providing a little more light. Soon the sun would begin to come up.
“So you live here with your mom?”
Mark didn’t answer for a moment. The question sounded like a slam. He scooped the eggs out of the skillet and onto a plate, then set it down in front o
f Craig. “Yes, I live here with my mother and stepfather. Living is hard, these days. It takes a whole family pulling together to survive.”
“Did you live with them before the outage?”
The fire was hot on his face. “Yes. I was saving up to buy a house.”
“You were in construction work?”
“That’s right.” He was being interrogated, and he didn’t like it. Turning the tables, he said, “So did you read John?”
“I did.” Craig ate the eggs, sipped the coffee. Setting down his cup, he said, “I got a little bogged down last night, but Deni helped me through it.”
Mark’s stomach began to burn. He hadn’t meant for this Bible study to be an opportunity for Craig to bond with Deni. There was an intimacy in Bible study that he didn’t want her to have with Craig. He hoped they hadn’t prayed together.
His throat felt too tight to speak, so he focused on his eggs. He filled his own plate, then sat down across from Craig. He took a rubbery bite. They were already cold.
They ate in awkward silence. When he finished, Craig set down his fork and folded his hands on the table. “Let’s get real here for a minute, Mark. You’re not fooling anybody.”
Mark pursed his lips and stared into his mug.
“You don’t want to do a Bible study with me. You just want to have the upper hand. You want to demonstrate how much more spiritual you are than me. This isn’t about Jesus. It’s about Deni.”
Mark set his cup down and met his hard gaze. “If that’s what you think, why’d you come?”
“Honestly? Because I didn’t want Deni to see me backing down.”
“So this newfound Christianity of yours. Is it real? Or is it just your latest tactic?”
Craig leaned toward him. “Try me.”
This wasn’t getting off to a good start. “It’s not my job to try you. I have to assume that you’re on the up and up. If you’re blowing smoke, that’s between you and God.”
“That’s right, it is.” Craig leaned back. “But meanwhile, I do appreciate the challenge. I’ve never read anything like the book of John. When I became a Christian, I started at the beginning. I’ve read from Genesis to Proverbs, so far.”
“Nothing in the New Testament?”
“Nothing but a passage here and there. I’ve been missing out. Maybe I should have read that first.” He opened his Bible, glanced up at Mark. “So congratulations, you’re biblically superior.”
Mark really didn’t like this guy. “I think that’s an oxymoron, isn’t it? You can’t know and understand the Bible and feel superior about anything.”
Craig looked smug. “Oxymoron? And here I thought you were uneducated.”
Mark got to his feet. “You know, maybe this was a bad idea, after all.”
“Maybe so,” Craig said. “But what will we tell Deni?”
Mark imagined telling her that Craig was too much of a jerk. That he was too competitive to actually learn anything. That his arrogance was an obstacle too high to hurdle.
“We’ll tell her the truth,” he said. “That we couldn’t get along. That the iron sharpening iron thing doesn’t work when it’s two rivals for the same woman.”
“But does yours really need sharpening?”
“Of course it does,” Mark said. “I have as much to learn from this Bible study as you do. I’m not teaching you, you know. I planned on just working through the book verse by verse, to see what God would show us together.”
It looked as if Craig had finally run out of sarcastic barbs.
Mark pulled his chair back in and leaned on the table. “One of us is going to wind up with Deni. It won’t hurt either of us to sharpen our biblical knowledge. Like I said, she deserves a godly husband.”
“And you think that’s what you are? Godly?”
Mark almost laughed. “Actually, if you judge me by the conversation we’ve just had, no, I don’t. And you’re not, either. We’re a couple of giant egos trying to one-up each other. But if we come down from our lofty heights, maybe we could both learn something.”
Craig stared down at his Bible, chewing on the side of his lip. For a moment, Mark thought he was going to get up and leave. He almost hoped he would.
But Craig threw him another curve. “All right,” he said. “Let’s start with chapter one.”
THIRTY-ONE
DENI RODE HER BICYCLE TO THE CHAMPLAND INSURANCE building, which the government had purchased for the recovery team’s command center. The parking lot was still full of stalled cars that had been there for the past year. Double-parked behind some of them, she saw Craig’s Malibu, some other cars with government tags, and five power trucks.
She envied the drivers. If she could only drive again, she could accomplish so much. Half of her time working for the paper consisted of getting from one place to another.
A year ago, she’d felt like a little kid riding a bicycle. But she’d come to appreciate it. Her legs had grown stronger, and she could ride miles without getting out of breath. She could scoot around town fairly quickly on her ten-speed.
But she still longed for the privilege of driving again.
She got the chain out of her backpack and laced it through the door handle of one of the abandoned cars. Because the building hadn’t been used since the Pulses began, they hadn’t yet installed bicycle stands. Several other bikes were locked against cars, so she supposed no one would complain. It had become a good way to secure bicycles, since these cars weren’t going anywhere.
As she padlocked the chain, she heard the hum of a generator somewhere in back of the building. Holding her backpack and digging through it for her clipboard, she stepped inside. The activity surprised her. It had been difficult to tell from the parking lot how many people were here, but now she saw about a dozen men and women sitting in the waiting area. Across the large, cubicled room, she saw a glass conference room where a roomful of people sat listening to a man who was writing and drawing on a huge dry-erase board. The days of PowerPoint presentations were long gone.
She wandered through the cubicles until she saw Craig talking to several men. She caught his attention and waved.
His face lit up.
What a strange thing, to have him react to her that way. Though she was over him, it did her heart good. She’d craved that attention from him for so many months when they were dating. Even the night he’d put the ring on her finger, he’d rushed off to work immediately afterward. She hadn’t rated in the top five on his priority list.
He held up a hand for her to wait, then finished his conversation. He walked the men toward her, shook their hands, and said, “We’ll see you at eight in the morning.”
The men looked delighted as they left the building.
“Hey, babe,” Craig said, leaning down to hug her.
She bristled at the word babe. “Don’t call me that,” she said, but she accepted the hug, patting his back platonically. “So do you have time for an interview about the hirings?”
“Of course,” he said. “We have to get the word out ASAP.” He glanced at the others waiting and said to them, “Someone will be with you guys in a minute.”
He led her through the building. “Those were job applicants. They’ve already started showing up. And over there — ” he waved toward the glassed-in conference room — “they’re briefing the power company employees. We have our work cut out for us, but things are moving along.”
He glanced back at her as she clicked her pen. “I’m really glad to see you here. Maybe I can lure you into working for us.”
She smiled. “I have a job.”
“Making what?”
Not much, she thought. She got a dollar a day, and occasionally her boss at the Crockett Times paid her in food — a jar of beans, a head of lettuce, a bag of peanuts. Her job was more a labor of love than a working wage. It was enough to help her family, but not enough to live on her own. But she didn’t want Craig to know that. “I do okay,” she lied.
“But you can d
o better than okay. We’re starting our workers out at a dollar an hour.”
“What?”
“Yes. Your parents didn’t tell you?”
“I didn’t talk to them much last night. A dollar an hour? Really?”
“You could get in on the ground floor, work here in the offices helping coordinate things. I could give you a nice title and a lot of responsibility.”
She had to admit, it was tempting. “What kind of jobs are available?”
“We have a ton of things we’re hiring for. But I’ve been thinking you would be excellent to head up our Communications Department. We need people to handle public relations, write press releases, answer questions from reporters, keep the public informed. That may not sound like much right now, but trust me, it’s huge. And I’ll need you to help me coordinate that and help me with job applicants.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Are you serious about a dollar an hour?”
“For that job, it’ll be more like $1.25 an hour. Come on, Deni. This is right up your alley. You love the excitement of this kind of thing. You’ll know everything before anyone else does. And you’ll be helping your country.”
He knew her too well, and he was pushing the right buttons.
“Besides, it’s a great résumé enhancer. A fast-track to the career of your dreams. After a job like this, you can write your ticket.”
She looked around at all the activity. She would love to be a fly on the wall in that power company meeting. Her heart rate sped up at the thought of being in the government loop on matters so important to the nation. And the money — how could she turn that down?
“You’re the one making hiring decisions?”
“That’s right. And babe, I’m offering you the job.”
She sighed. “If you quit calling me babe, I’ll think about it.”
He didn’t let that get him down. “Think fast. I can’t hold the job forever. We need someone yesterday.”
She did want to take it, but first she should talk to Mark and make sure it was okay with him. Guilt surged through her at the thought of telling Harriet, her editor. What would the paper do without her?