The Blind Date Continues!

The car Ryan owns is a red Sunfire. My son, Philip, has the same type of car, which he got when he was a carefree bachelor (like Ryan). Now Philip is married and has a son, and this is definitely not a family car!

Let's continue with our story, Romance by Design.

Chapter Four

Ryan glanced at Goldie’s house as they drove down the street. No car in the driveway. Had Brian stood her up?

That rat!  

Goldie sat on the passenger’s seat, talking about nothing in particular. Nothing in general, either. Something about the neighbors.

“And the Reinharts have lived in that house for the past seventeen years.” She turned to look at him. “Have you met them yet?”

“Uh, no, I’ve only met Mrs. Schuler and Mr. van Groot.”

“Oh, I love the Schulers! And aren’t the van Groots nice?” With a happy sigh, she leaned back against the seat. “I love old people.”

Ryan cocked an eyebrow and then grinned. No matter how long they lived, he would never have to wonder what Goldie was thinking.

Whoa! Where had that thought come from? He was only taking her to the Kaffee Klatch. One date, one evening, and that was it. Then Brian could date her.

But as she expounded on the history of Oak Street and its residents, he had to admit he enjoyed her company. He liked her optimistic attitude, and she was certainly pretty. Maybe he would take her out again. 

It beat staying home alone on a Friday evening.

However, if another date looked promising, he would have to explain about the blind date mix-up. He couldn’t let Goldie keep thinking he knew her brother, or that he attended Mike’s church.

Ryan didn’t attend church, and he wasn’t planning to look for one in Knotty Pine. He and church had parted company a year ago—at the same moment Elisa Hartwell broke up with him.

He and Elisa had been engaged, keeping it secret until he could afford a ring. But at a missions conference, Elisa surrendered to God’s call to become a missionary. She pressured Ryan for weeks to echo her decision, but he felt no such calling—and wasn’t the woman supposed to follow the man? But he couldn’t dissuade Elisa. God was calling her to Africa, and she was determined to go­.

         He sighed.

         “Am I boring you?”

         “Huh?” He glanced at Goldie, her blue eyes wide. “Uh, no, not at all. Your conversation is…is stimulating.”

         “Liar.” Goldie folded her arms, although a smile curved her lips. “Now you sound like my brother. He’s always flinging big words at me.”

         Ryan grinned, determined to concentrate on Goldie and throw Elisa out of his mind. “Is Mike your only sibling?”

         “Yes, just the two of us. We grew up in New York City, and our parents still live there. My mother—” With a shake of her head, she pressed her lips together and looked out the window.

         Ryan was no psychologist, but something wasn’t right there. He waited, barely noticing the leafy wooded hills that surrounded them as they drove up and down the Pennsylvania road.

He cleared his throat. “So, New York City. That’s a big place. How did you end up in Knotty Pine?”

         “Mike and Anna moved here after they got married about four years ago. He had just graduated from medical school and wanted to start his practice in a small town.” She turned to him. “I’m sure Mike’s told you the story since you’re friends with him.”

         “Um, no. I never heard what happened.”

         “Oh. But you know that Mike’s an endocrinologist, right?”

         “He is?” Ryan didn’t even know what an endocrinologist was.

         Goldie huffed out a breath. “Don’t you and Mike ever talk?”

         “Not really.” In fact, he’d never met the man. “But I figure, since Mike lives in Stroudsburg…” He left the sentence hanging.

         Goldie took up the story, just as he hoped. “Knotty Pine was too small for an endocrinology practice. There just weren’t enough people with gland problems here.”

         He nodded. Glands. Okay.

“That’s why he moved his practice to Stroudsburg, and then Mike got tired of the commute, so they moved there. And that’s how they ended up at the church you attend. But in the meantime, I moved to Knotty Pine and fell in love with this town. Then I found the church on McGrath Lane, and they needed a church secretary, so I applied. The rest is history.”

“That’s quite a history,” Ryan murmured.

The woods ended, and he pulled up to a stop sign on Main Street. Making a right turn, he drove the car down the center of town. He’d only driven this road twice, and he’d never noticed the Kaffee Klatch. Plenty of other old-fashioned shops with quaint names lined the street. The Back Burner Restaurant, The Knotty Quilt, The Creative Needle. One shop displayed tombstones beside the walkway. Ryan rolled his eyes at the name: Take Me for Granite.

Goldie pointed out the window. “There’s The Gallery Connection. I rent a booth there to sell my pottery.”

He raised his eyebrows. “You’re a potter?”

“It’s an avocation. I make the pottery in my garage and sell it at the Gallery.” She sighed. “But two other potters rent booths also, so my pottery doesn’t sell very often.”

“Another small town problem.”

Goldie’s shoulders drooped. “A glut in the pottery market, and not enough people to buy. I wish I could get my pottery in a big department store in Boston or Philadelphia. Sometimes buyers from those cities come to look for product lines they can sell, but they’ve never bought a line from me.”

“Keep trying.” Ryan saw the sign for the Kaffee Klatch and an empty parking spot in front of the building. “Sometimes we have to wait for what we really want.” Pulling the car in front of the spot, he turned the steering wheel to parallel park.

“That’s one of God’s ways, isn’t it?” Goldie’s voice was soft. “He gives us a desire, then makes us wait on Him to fulfill it.”

Ryan straightened out the tires and turned off the ignition. God had given him a desire once—a desire named Elisa Hartwell. But Ryan hadn’t heard from her since she left Cleveland eight months ago. She must be traveling around the country, visiting churches to present her work in Africa and trying to drum up support, as missionaries often did. Maybe it was time to let her go—as Elisa had obviously done to him. Maybe Ryan should look for someone else.

He glanced at Goldie. Hmm…he would see how their date at the Kaffee Klatch panned out.

* * *

We'll see what happens next week!

Until then, have a good weekend and God bless!