Free The Truth Seeker by Dee Henderson

the natural thing to do.”
    “For someone you’ve met three times, you’ve got a definite opinion of him.”
    “The flowers he sent from his greenhouses were picked on the optimal day to last as long as possible in a vase, and did you notice the patch of yard they were getting ready to sod? Someone took the time and care to leave a twelve-inch patch of grass around a wild violet in an area otherwise stripped and prepped for the sod. I have a feeling that was the work of the boss.” Lisa bet the flower would be taken home and potted at the end of the day. It showed the business was more than just a job.
    She reached for her coffee and wondered if she had the endurance for a half day at work. She hoped she did. She was pushing it to return to work this early, but it was the one place she could lose herself and put the accident behind her. She needed her life back.
    “Have you thought any more about what we were talking about last night?”
    Kate was watching the road. There was nothing offhand about the question even though Kate’s body language was trying to convey that impression.
    Kate had been her usual direct self last night, wanting to talk about the Bible passage in John she had been reading. Half the family had become Christians in the last three months—Jennifer, Kate, Marcus—
    and it was making for some sincere, heartfelt, but awkward family conversations.
     
    Kate was passionate about her new faith. Excited. Like most new They had all tried to answer her, surprised by her questions and When she had probed to ask why, each said the other perspectives Kate, Jennifer, and Marcus becoming active in a church hadn’t been
    Christians, she was trying to convince everyone around her to believe too. Lisa didn’t have to wonder what motivated her actions. Kate cared.
    Lisa couldn’t fault her for that. But she wasn’t interested.
    In another month the excitement would fade, the subject would get dropped.
    In a family with few secrets, there were still some things about her life before Trevor House that Lisa had kept private.
    During her years in various foster homes she had attended Lutheran, Catholic, Presbyterian, and Baptist churches. As a child she had been exposed to religion more than most of them. A typical Sunday school teacher did not expect to get grilled on the various points of theology by a fourth grader.
    the depth of what she wanted to know. They had all given good answers based upon what their denominations taught. Lisa’s problem had been that while the answers were similar, they weren’t the same.
    were well-meaning but wrong. Trying to end the confusion had only increased it. Even as a child she had hated feeling like she was being humored. And over the years, adults tended to dismiss the confusion as just a fact of life
    she had never been able to accept that.
    that big a deal before the accident. Lisa had listened and watched the three of them, respecting the change yet keeping her distance from the topic.
    Since nearly getting killed, there was a conspiracy ongoing among the three of them to get her to believe too, and she was getting tired of it. About the only one who hadn’t been pushing the subject of religion recently was Quinn. He believed, but it was different when she was with him. The few times the subject of religion had come up it hadn’t felt like she had to be defensive. She frowned slightly at that thought
    and forced her attention back to Kate. “No, I can’t say I’ve thought about it.”
    “It’s important.”
    “I know it’s important to you. And I’m happy that you’ve found something you and Dave can share. But it doesn’t mean I have to share it too.”
    “Why are you so absolute in not talking about what the Bible says?”
    Lisa didn’t want to have this conversation. She didn’t want to pit herself against Kate, against Marcus
    against Jennifer. A conversation with Quinn was one thing, but family
     
    She understood like no one else in the family what it meant to die, to return to dust.