The Calling Read Online Free Page A

happen?”
    “I’m sorry,” she stepped back. “I do love you, but I love Justin more, and he wants to marry me.”
    “So, do I.”
    “Yes, but I want to marry him ,” Cate confessed, a wellspring of tears filling her eyes. “David, I tried to tell you that I wasn’t cut out to be a pastor’s wife, but you wouldn’t listen. I know you don’t believe that I love you, but I do. That’s why it’s been so difficult for me to tell you about Justin. I didn’t want to hurt you. I knew you’d react this way.”
    “How was I supposed to react, Cate?”
    “I don’t know,” she clenched her fists and wiped at the tears on her cheek, “but please believe that I never meant for this to happen. It just did. I’m sorry. Please believe how sorry I am,” Cate tried to take him by the arm, but he refused.
    “Well, I guess, there’s nothing else to say, but have a good life.” He quickly walked from the room.
    Cate shook her head, knowing that she’d hurt him deeply. She told herself it couldn’t be helped. As she continued to think about what had happened, she found herself experiencing a sense of profound loss and sadness. She was confused as to why, and decided to deal with it by hurrying to see Justin. That seemed to work, at least for a while, but the whole episode left Cate very unsettled. The memory of the hurt look on David’s face haunted her, and she continued to feel sad and guilty.
     

Three
     
    She was jarred back to the reality of the present by David moving in his seat as he slept. Cate watched him; after what had transpired that night seven years ago, she’d never imagined that she would one day be on the way to Ecuador-with him, that she would be serving as his daughter’s caretaker when he was away on mission business, or that she would become a teacher at the mission school. She thanked God for His grace.
    As she continued to watch him, her thoughts again drifted slowly to the past. First one, then the other came, vying for her attention. She felt as if she was careening through the kaleidoscope of her life after her rejection of David.
    After she had been painfully honest with David, she refused to face the sadness and guilt that she felt. She chose, rather, to stuff those feelings deep inside. When she began to have reservations about her marriage to Justin, she ignored them.
    She refused to acknowledge anything that would deter her from achieving her desire to marry the type of man whose goal would be to make her happy; Justin was that type of man. He confessed to her that he came to Kansas City not to go to school, but to win her. She liked that attitude; Justin putting her first, being the center of his attention.
    Her parents had reservations about her marriage to Justin, but she assured them that everything would be fine. Her father interviewed both of them before he would give his blessing and agree to marry them. Justin gave all of the right answers, as did Cate. Her father and mother acquiesced and withdrew their reservations.
    She and Justin were married in her home church; her father performing the ceremony. Everything that day seemed to foreshadow a happy marriage. It was on the honeymoon, when Cate began to be aware of things that she should have been aware of, and would have been, had she taken time to get to know Justin before she married him. Justin had hidden his attitude toward alcohol and Christianity.
    Cate remembered the argument that she and Justin had as they sat down to enjoy their first honeymoon dinner.
    “Bring us your best bottle of champagne,” Justin told the waiter.
    “Champagne?”
    “Sure this is a celebration. We’ve got to have champagne,” he replied.
    “Justin, I don’t drink. I never have.”
    “You don’t drink?” Justin cocked his head, his brow furrowed. “Everybody drinks.”
    “Not everybody. I was brought up to believe in abstinence concerning alcohol.”
    He shrugged, “Your parents’ idea. Cate, you’re a married woman now; you can