Echoes (29 page)

“Let me say what I need to say,” Kenton said, looking at her hard in the eyes, honest and real, face to face.

She could hardly breathe.

“I’m having a difficult time being around you. Please don’t take this the wrong way. I’ll be flat out honest with you because somehow I’m quite sure you can take it. The truth is, I feel drawn to you. Overpoweringly drawn to you.”

A flash of lightening was followed by a distant rumble of thunder.

“But you see, I’ve already given my heart to another, and even though that relationship is …” He shook his head and looked out at the wild bird of paradise blooming around them. “It’s at an unusual place right now. But that doesn’t matter. The fact is, I’m not free. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

Lauren dearly wanted to reach over and touch his troubled face or take his hand in hers. She sat still, her hands in her lap, with an honest and peaceful look on her face. “I understand. Now may I tell you something?” She paused. Her mind had gone blank, and all she could say was, “It’s me!”

Kenton looked as if he had no idea what she was talking about.

Lauren realized she had had time to put all the pieces together. She needed to unveil the truth slowly so Kenton would have time to absorb the unbelievable truth of their situation.

She rose and walked to the center of the gazebo. “Did you know,” she began, her voice faltering, “that sometimes, if you speak directly into the center of a gazebo like this, you can hear an echo? If it’s a good echo, you have a hard time telling the echo from the original source.”

The rain came down harder. Lauren raised her voice.

“Yesterday, right here, I settled some things with God. You see, for a lot of years, I’ve been listening to echoes in my life and thinking they were truth. But now I know the true source is always God.” She stood still, watching Kenton’s expression, which was still clouded.

She grasped her hands together and drew them to her mouth. She realized she was softly crying. “I’m not saying this the way I want to. Let me try to put the pieces together for you. You were the one who introduced me to Irish Breakfast tea. I share your friendship with Robert and Elizabeth Browning. I love playing volleyball. Last summer I bought a kitten at a garage sale, remember?”

An expression of faint understanding mixed with wild confusion ran across Kenton’s face. She wondered if maybe the kitten was a poor clue; he might not remember.

Drawing in a deep breath, she said, “KC, it’s me. I’m Wren.”

For a moment, Kenton didn’t move. He didn’t blink. He didn’t seem to breathe. Then slowly he rose to his feet and came toward her.

“I’m so sorry I left you at the waterfall,” she said, the words tumbling out in a jumble. “I know you must be furious at me for leaving you like that. I was scared. I was afraid of so many things. And then I yelled at you on the phone and hung up, and then when I saw you here, I realized it was you, and I don’t know what happened. I just fainted. I wouldn’t blame you if you despised me after everything I did.”

Kenton now stood before her, only inches away, with tears
in his eyes. He shook his head, wiping her tears with his thumb. “I could never despise you,” he whispered. “You are the other half of my heart.”

Lauren reached her quivering hand up to his strong jaw and caught his runaway tears, feeling the coarse stubble across his chin.

He grasped her hand and, pressing it against his cheek, gently kissed each finger. “I am and always will be yours. Do you know I would have searched for you for the rest of my life? I was frantic with worry.”

“I’m sorry,” she began.

He silenced her by closing his eyes and giving a slight shake of his head. “All is forgiven. I understand.”

Lauren felt a huge weight lifting from her. It dawned on her that they were finally together. How many times had she dreamed of meeting KC face to face? Of looking into his eyes and feeling his arms around her? It had never been like this in her vivid imaginings that obviously were not as creative as God’s.
This
, she decided,
is what falling in love is supposed to feel like
.

Kenton didn’t seem to be able to take his eyes off of her. “You are even more beautiful than I dared to think.” The rain now fell in soft whispers.

Lauren’s eyes scanned his face, memorizing every curve. “You are more everything than I dared to think. Are you sure you’re not disappointed in me?”

“Disappointed?” Kenton threw back his head, and a deep, rumbling laugh rose from his chest and spilled out his lips. It was the first time she had heard him laugh, and she loved it, just as she loved everything about him. “Never,” he said, looking into her eyes. A solemnity returned to his gaze as he said, “You are my echo, Wren.”

Their eyes seemed to shoot electronic messages back and
forth. She imagined he was asking if she wanted to be kissed. Her silent message back to him was, “More than you will ever know!”

But instead of bending to kiss her, Kenton surprised her by going down on one knee. Taking her hands in his, he spoke in a voice rich with emotion. “Lauren …” Then he stopped and said, “What’s your last name?”

Lauren playfully put her hand on her hip and said, “Phillips. Lauren Michelle Phillips. If you’re going to have the boldness to address a woman on your knees, you should at least know her last name!”

Kenton laughed warmly and reached for her hand before she could wiggle away from him. With a tender seriousness returning to his face, he said, “Lauren Michelle Phillips, my Wren, will you marry me?”

Lauren followed the impulse of her heart and went down on her knees so that she was facing him at eye level. “Kenton Carlyle Buchanan, my KC, my answer is …” She squeezed his hands tighter. “No.”

“No?” he echoed.

“No.”

He looked as if he had just had the wind knocked out of him.

“Kenton,” she said, drawing his strong hands to her lips and kissing the fingers that had brought his words to her heart. “You only know part of me.”

“I know your heart,” he said.

“And I know yours.”

“What else is there to know, Wren?”

“The rest of me. And for me to know the rest of you. We know each other on the inside already. I think we need to take some time to get to know each other on the outside. KC and Wren need to spend time with Lauren and Kenton before they
make any promises to each other.”

“Beautiful and wise,” Kenton said, rising to his feet and pulling Lauren up with him. “You’re right. That’s what we’ll do. We’ll give ourselves time to get to know each other ‘in real life.’ Convenient, isn’t it, how God is moving both of us to Glenbrooke in a month?”

“Convenient,” she murmured. Her silent invitation for that kiss flashed once again from her eyes.

Kenton let his affectionate gaze cover Lauren. She felt a veil of invisible peace on her face as she tilted it up toward him. He drew in a deep breath and placed his hand behind her head, weaving his fingers gently in her hair. With the other hand he traced her lips with his forefinger, his eyes studying each curve as if to memorize it for an exam.

“ ‘How say you?’ ” he whispered the familiar Browning line. “ ‘Let us, O my dove, Let us be unashamed of soul, As earth lies bare to heaven above! How is it under our control, To love or not to love?’ ” Before the last word was out of his mouth, his lips had met hers in a lingering kiss that was full of love.

As they slowly drew apart, the sun returned, immersing their gazebo in glimmering crystals of light. Lauren breathed into his ear a line from Elizabeth’s sonnet that she had memorized months ago, hoping it would one day come true with KC. “ ‘And I who looked for only God, found thee! I find thee; I am safe, and strong and glad.’ ”

Kenton wrapped his arms around his Wren and drew her head to his chest where, for the first time, she heard with her own ears the beating of his oh-so-familiar heart.

Lauren and Kenton shared a love for Irish Breakfast Tea. If you try a cup of this delightful, distinctive brew, be sure to add a bit of sugar and some cream in order to sip it in true Lauren and Kenton style.

Any cup of tea is better with a companion, such as a cookie or cake.

Here’s a recipe for the sponge cake that Gordon caught with his plate and deemed, “Light as a feather, these.” (
this page
) The recipe came from my sweet grandma who has always been good at making “light as a feather” cakes.

Light as a Feather Sponge Cake

Beat until light: (30 seconds to 1 minute)

3 egg yolks (five eggs may be used in this recipe to make a richer cake)

Sift and add gradually, beating constantly:

1 cup sugar

Add:

½ tsp. grated lemon or orange rind

3 tbsp. lemon juice

1 tsp. vanilla

½ cup boiling water

Sift before measuring:

1-⅛ cups cake flour

Resift three times with:

2 tsp. baking powder (Grandma says, “Make sure your baking powder is fresh! Young people don’t bake often enough these days and their baking powder can sit in the cupboard for years. This does not make for a fresh, light sponge cake!)

Add the sifted ingredients gradually to the yolk mixture. Beat the batter until they are well blended.

In a separate bowl, whip until stiff, but not dry: (about two to three minutes “And don’t beat the egg whites until you are ready to use them!” says Grandma)

3 egg whites

¼ tsp. salt

Fold them lightly into the cake batter.

Bake the cake in an ungreased 9-inch pan in a preheated slow oven, 325 degrees, for about 50 minutes. The cake should be lightly browned and should spring back from a gentle touch of the finger. Let the cake cool completely, then sprinkle with powdered sugar.

Dear Reader:

Last spring I found a treasure: two volumes of
The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Browning
, bearing a copyright of 1899. These unassuming books, each nearly two inches thick, were tucked away on a dusty shelf in a used bookstore. What had caught my attention was the beautifully embossed gold trim on the faded green covers.

I took them home, sat down with a knife (many of the pages weren’t cut yet), and opened to Robert’s first letter to Elizabeth, written January 10, 1845. It began, “I love your verses with all my heart, dear Miss Barrett, and this is no offhand complimentary letter that I shall write.”

I was hooked. For days, and then weeks, I peeked over the shoulders of first Robert and then Elizabeth as they crafted words with quill and ink and trusted the London postal service to return the echo of each other’s hearts. After more than a year of nearly daily correspondence, they eloped and stole away to Italy, where Elizabeth, a thirty-nine-year-old invalid, was in many ways given a second lease on life. For almost sixteen years she lived under the canopy of Robert’s adoring love. She even gave birth to a son at the age of forty-three.

In her
Sonnets of the Portuguese
, Elizabeth wrote:

Unlike are we, unlike, O princely Heart!
Unlike our uses and our destinies.
Our ministering two angels look surprise
On one another, as they strike athwart
Their wings in passing.

What do you think? Do “ministering angels” still pass each other with surprise as God brings together two unlikely people?
I think so. That’s why it was easy to write the story of Kenton and Lauren.

In a grander sense, I believe that’s what happens with us and Christ. We’re his bride. He has written his love letters to us and trusted the Holy Spirit to deliver them to our hearts. He woos us, patiently waiting for the day when we will be completely his, and we can steal away to the place he has prepared for us.

Let us then be unashamed of our souls. Let us love him and each other with abandon. And may we say, when his love canopies us, giving us a second lease on life, “I am safe, and strong, and glad.”

Always,

P.S. You are invited to come visit me online at

www.robingunn.com

Write to Robin Jones Gunn
c/o Multnomah Books
12265 Oracle Boulevard, Suite 200
Colorado Springs, CO 80921

A P.S. from Robin:

Thanks for all the letters you’ve been sending! I’m delighted to hear from so many moms who say they’re glad they can share these novels with their teenage daughters.

It occurred to me that some of these readers might get the impression from this story that it’s good and/or safe to try “surfing the Net” in hopes of finding someone like the hero of this book, KC.

Perhaps it goes without saying, but the newspapers are full of tragic, true accounts of young people who have been taken advantage of through such Internet connections.

Echoes
is, of course, completely fictional.

So to all my young-hearted readers, if your mom hasn’t told you already, I will.
Don’t try this at home!