Page 18 of The Summer We Kept Secrets (The Destin Diaries #4)

Jonah sat stone still for three, four, five heartbeats. Then, with slow deliberation, he slid off the bed and placed the sleeping infant in the bassinet.

“I need to take a shower and get dressed,” Jonah said, voice shaky but stronger. “Oh, and I need to borrow a car.”

“You can have mine,” Meredith and Eli answered in perfect unison, making Jonah smile.

“I’ll take your truck, Dad.” He notched his head to the Bible. “Can you leave that here? I didn’t realize that was Mom’s and, well, do you need it?”

He needed it more than his next breath, but he just smiled. “Got one on my phone. You keep it.”

“Thanks.”

As they all walked to the door, Kate turned and looked at Jonah. “I’ll be with Atlas today,” she said softly. “Everything will be fine.”

“I know. Thanks.”

They slipped out quietly, closing Jonah’s door and standing in the great room together.

Meredith broke first. She turned to Eli and hugged him fiercely, dropping her head on his shoulder. “Good work, Dad.”

“I didn’t do a thing,” he replied, pressing a hand to her back. “Let’s go upstairs.”

They started in that direction, but Kate hung back. Eli turned and tried to read an unreadable expression. “You okay?”

She nodded slowly. “That was…intense.”

“It was, but…he’s going to be fine.”

She gave a faint smile. “I saw you comfort your family. That matters.”

She walked upstairs with Meredith, leaving Eli with the sense that she had so much more to say. He followed, glancing outside to see the clouds had deepened to an ominous gray.

After the conversation, he felt both the weight of peace…and the shadow of a storm.

The sky did open up that day, drenching Destin in a downpour that lasted for hours, but left the beach glistening and fresh.

The weather and lack of a car forced Eli to concentrate on work, so he and Meredith battled the drawings, fixed the arch, and helped one of the other designers at Acacia Architecture put the finishing touches on a new business pitch.

By four o’clock, the world looked much more inviting than the computer screen and when Kate came up and announced that Atlas was well and truly napping, he didn’t hesitate to ask her to take a walk.

“Yes, please, but?—”

“I’ve got him,” Meredith said, sliding her own laptop into a case. “And I’m not alone.”

“You are not,” Vivien said, swooping into the room from the deck where she’d been on a call. “I’m done for the day and would love some baby time.”

“Then let’s go.” Eli draped his arm around Kate. “I’ve been cooped up all day.”

A few minutes later, they hit the boardwalk in a familiar beat, heading off for their favorite activity. He and Kate had fallen for each other on beach walks back in the spring, and they hadn’t taken enough since she’d been here this time.

When they walked in the dark, they usually wore sneakers, in deference to the possibility of stepping on a shell. But today, they both kicked off their shoes and let their feet sink into the cool sand.

The Gulf was restless, though. Not stormy, but churned up—like something beneath the surface had been stirred and couldn’t quite settle. It matched Eli’s gut, sensing this might be a difficult conversation. He’d felt it ever since Jonah left.

They headed down to the shoreline to walk in the firm, wet sand, their bare feet leaving twin trails in the amber-lit beach. The waves reached for their ankles, retreated, tried again. The sun was still above the horizon but had lost most of its power.

“Good day of babysitting?” he asked, taking her hand.

“Exhausting,” she admitted on a laugh. “For such a little guy, he keeps ya hoppin’. How did the architecture world treat you?”

“Good, good,” he said. “Meredith is a little…odd.”

“Really? I don’t know her well enough to notice. She seems fine to me.”

“She’s fine, yes. But Mer doesn’t really do ‘fine.’ She’s more…fire.”

She chuckled. “It’s the beach, the old Destin magic. She’s relaxed, I imagine, and taking a break from being a world-beater.”

“You’re probably right,” he said. “I didn’t know she could relax, but yeah.”

They walked for a few steps, then he tightened his grip on her hand and eased her closer. “Thanks for your help this morning with Jonah.”

“I didn’t do anything but call in the big guns,” she said. “You handled it.”

“Well, I certainly had help.” He looked toward the sky. “He never lets me down.”

He felt, rather than heard, her sigh.

“You don’t like that, do you?” he asked after a beat.

“What I like or don’t like isn’t important. We’ve discussed it before.”

“In other words,” he said slowly, “there’s no need to rehash it.”

She didn’t answer right away, but slowed her step and looked out toward the turquoise water.

“Nothing you say is going to make me…believe.” She stated that last word very softly, as if it terrified her. Well, it did terrify a lot of people.

When she didn’t continue, he gave her hand another squeeze. “And?”

“And nothing. I just don’t believe the same things you do, at least as far as religion and…

God. I believe in the same family values and principles, though.

I believe in showing up for the people you love, and you certainly did that for Jonah today—and in every moment you have with him.

You love deeply—something I find infinitely attractive—and if that is a credit to your God, then good.

I believe that’s also a credit to…science. ”

He gave an easy laugh, choosing not to jump on the “ your God” comment. He was everyone’s God, but he knew better than to try and correct that. But science and love? That he had to question.

“How is love something you can credit to science?” he asked.

“Brain chemistry. Hormones, dopamine, synapses…science.”

He had to bite his lip to keep from moaning in disappointment. “That’s…clinical.”

“It doesn’t make love any less real,” she replied quickly. “In fact, I would argue it makes those emotions more real. Instead of being some vague, kind of out-there feeling, love is based on physiological events in the body and brain. Very real.”

He nodded, swallowing the ache rising in his throat. “Fair enough.”

But inside, he felt a tiny tear in the fabric of his soul. He knew that his faith—the very foundation of his life—might be the thing that eventually broke them apart.

They walked a few more steps. A lone gull cried overhead, and the wind seemed to pick up.

“It’s an issue, isn’t it?” she finally asked, looking up at him.

“An…issue?”

She gave a light scoff. “I can read your every expression, you know. You’re gloriously transparent, which is yet another thing about you I find infinitely attractive. But we—if I can be so bold as to call us a couple—have to face what is and what isn’t an issue. I did with Jeffrey.”

“And look how well that worked out,” he said dryly, making her laugh.

“It was a very logical way to end a marriage. That’s how I roll. Hey…” She elbowed him, lightening the mood. “You fell for a lab rat, so that’s what you get. Logic. Science. Studies. Physical proof and unwavering facts.”

He laughed again, wrapping an arm around her. “Okay, okay, doctor. How I feel about you is a fact.”

“And so is how I feel about…faith,” she added, easing the conversation back to the core point.

“I get that your faith brings you comfort, Eli. And peace. I’m not knocking it.

If it makes you feel good—helps you cope with everything you’ve been through—then I think that’s a beautiful thing.

It just can’t and will never be my source of comfort. ”

Eli stopped walking and turned to her, needing to be very still to make his point.

“Kate,” he said firmly. “I’ve heard that a hundred times. But that’s not what faith is. Not real faith. It has nothing to do with being a ‘source of comfort’—that’s a side benefit. I don’t lean on Jesus like a crutch. That’s not what it is.”

“Then what is it?” she pressed.

“It’s…not about feeling good,” he said after a breath.

“It’s not a fairy tale to help me sleep at night.

And it sure isn’t easy. In fact, having faith in this world, in this culture, is way harder than walking away from it.

But I know He has a plan and a purpose for my life, and some of it is awesome and some of it actually sucks—like losing the wife I loved in a plane crash or Jonah’s girlfriend getting hit by a truck.

Faith is not a choice to me. It’s part of my soul, which you probably don’t believe we have because it can’t be found on an X-ray. ”

She winced at that. “I get having a soul.” But she didn’t sound so certain, and turned to look out at the water.

“But the Bible? Eli, you have to know how it looks to someone like me. A book written over centuries, passed through countless hands, languages, cultures…edited, changed, politicized. And you think it’s the absolute truth?

You don’t find that a little… questionable? ”

“There’s historical backing, Kate. Plenty of it. Archaeology, written records, early manuscripts?—”

“Written by people who believed the story,” she countered. “That’s not fact. That’s confirmation bias. People recorded what they wanted to be true, and three hundred years after Jesus died, they decided which books made the cut and which ones didn’t.”

He crossed his arms. “And science doesn’t have biases? You think researchers aren’t influenced by funding, or ego, or politics?”

“Science changes with evidence. It grows. That’s the point.”

“So does faith,” he said.

“No, Eli,” she replied, gentle but insistent. “Faith resists change. It demands you hold the line even when logic says otherwise. Science is my religion. I trust what can be proven.”

He looked at her, searching her face.

“But you do have a religion,” he said. “You just said it. Everyone worships something. God puts a hole in our hearts and we choose how to fill it. I think the longing, the questions, the need to make sense of the world—that’s not random. It’s divine design. It’s a pull toward Him.”

Kate faced the water again, quiet for a long time. The breeze caught one more sad sigh as she finally turned back to him.

“I have to ask you something,” she said in a low voice.

“Anything. I just hope I can answer.”

“Could you…” She took a breath and looked hard at him. “Could you really fall in love with someone who doesn’t share your faith?”

“Well,” he said with a smile. “I guess the answer is yes because…I already have.”

She exhaled, a mix of relief and sorrow. “Eli…”

He stepped closer and took her hand. “Kate, I think about you when I wake up. When I fall asleep. When I see a beautiful sky, or hold that baby, or sit at my desk or take a bite of food. You’re becoming as much a part of my fabric as…as God is.”

She looked up at him, her eyes shining but unreadable. “I feel exactly the same way.”

His smile wavered. “I sense a ‘but’ on the end of that declaration.”

She tipped her head in concession. “But I’m not going to wake up one day and start believing just because it would make things easier between us.”

“I know,” he said.

“And I don’t want to change you either. Your faith is…honestly, it’s beautiful. But I can’t fake something I don’t feel.”

“I don’t want you to fake anything.” He reached for her, pulled her close, and kissed her—long, deep, slow. When they pulled apart, her forehead rested lightly against his chin.

They stood there for a long time, waves brushing their ankles, the sun dipping close to the horizon. Then they walked back toward the Summer House, quiet but close, as Eli thought about the immutable fact he had to face.

He was falling in love with a woman whose heart didn’t match his own—and no matter how much he wished faith alone could bridge the gap, some divides could be too big and too wide and too far to cross.

Was this one? He didn’t know but, like always, he had to trust God.