Free A Mother's Gift (Love Inspired) by Arlene James, Kathryn Springer Page B

explosion and the ensuing darkness. He couldn’t deny that he’d obsessed over that a good bit. Why Dixie? Why that particular photo?
    On the other hand, if he was going to hold one beautiful face before his mind’s eye for the rest of his life, why not Dixie’s? Was he wrong to think that God had singled her out for him? He’d tried not to spin dreams, to make assumptions, to limit God in any way, but then she’d told him about her amazing dream, and it had seemed so very obvious that they belonged together, that they were meant to be. But even if that was God’s plan, and not just his own blind obsession, who was to say when it came into being? Before Mark’s death? After? Was it God’s perfect will or Plan B? And what if Dixie never saw it that way?
    Joel didn’t have the answers. He didn’t know why he and Dixie couldn’t have gotten together from the beginning, or why Mark had died and he had lost his eyesight. He didn’t know if Dixie would ever adjust to her loss and be ready to move on with her life, to love again. If not, then he had to believe that God would have someone else for him, because he definitely did not want to spend his life alone in the dark.
    Then again, he was never alone. He had begun to actually feel God’s presence in the hospital after the explosion. Trembling in fear, raging in anger, horrified at his loss, confused with his surroundings, he had begun to sense, within himself and apart from the chaos, that Greater One Whom he had accepted as a boy. He wished he had felt God’s physical presence sooner, that it had been more real to him before he’d lost his eyesight, but he had been more blind then than now.
    Sam began to grouse about not getting the wood stacked. Apparently, he’d cut the fallen tree into logs for a wood-burning fireplace. Joel hadn’t even realized that Dixie had one, though it made sense. Most newer homes did these days. He thought about how nice it would be to sit before a crackling fire with Dixie snuggled against him, Clark playing quietly on the rug at their feet. He wished, suddenly, that he could see Clark, really know what he looked like now. His mother had told him to picture himself at that age but with curls. Joel was afraid to do it. That would make Clark seem too much like his own son. That would be risking too much of his heart if Dixie never came to care for him.
    Sam grumbled about the stump in Dixie’s backyard, and Joel knew that it was just a way to keep his mind off his pain. Nevertheless, he quickly sought to reassure the older man.
    “Don’t worry about any of that,” he said, hearing footsteps in the passageway outside. “I’ll get over to Dixie’s and stack the wood. We can deal with the stump later.”
    Suddenly, Dixie’s hand grasped his arm and gently towed him out of the way as someone entered the space, several someones, actually.
    “Okay, Paul Bunyan,” a woman’s cheery voice said, “let’s get you sewed up. You folks can wait in the family lounge.” While metal parts clanked and clunked, she told them how to get there. “Doc will be out to talk to you as soon as he’s finished. Then someone will come and get you when the lumberjack here is out of recovery and heading for a room.” Wheels whirred and screeched on slick flooring as she spoke.
    “Careful,” a man said, and then they were out of the space. Joel heard the nurse joking with Sam as they wheeled him away.
    “Didn’t anyone ever tell you juggling chain saws is dangerous?”
    “There goes my plan to join the circus,” Sam rumbled, and Joel chuckled.
    “Thank God you were with him,” Vonnie said, momentarily throwing Joel off-kilter.
    “But I wasn’t,” Dixie replied shakily, “not all the time. I left him there alone when I brought Clark to you!”
    “You were there when it counted,” Joel remarked soothingly, reaching out for her. He wondered if she even knew what she was doing when she stepped forward and let him slide his arm around her