Your Chariot Awaits Read Free Page A

few.”
    â€œFindley specifically asked for me, which is probably what did it.”
    â€œAre you taking the transfer?”
    â€œI’m not wild about working with ol’ Freaky Findley, that’s for sure. He’s lazy and self-important and . . . well, you know. But I don’t see how I can turn it down. It’s a promotion, actually, with more money. So it’s really an awesome opportunity.”
    â€œAwesome,” I echoed. I wanted to feel glad for him. And one nice part of me did feel glad. A transfer and a promotion. The problem was that the self-centered what-about-me? question loomed like a skyscraper on a desert island. I cast around for nice things to say, but all I came up with was a lame, “The weather should be great down there.”
    â€œRight. I’ve never been fond of western Washington’s rain.”
    My world is falling apart, and we’re discussing the climate.
    â€œHow soon will you go?”
    â€œProbably within the next couple weeks. I’ll be going down ahead of Findley to get things set up.”
    I felt a peculiar hollowness inside. A strangely large hollow, which made me wonder if I wasn’t in love with him.
    â€œBut it makes for a problem, of course,” he added.
    â€œThe condo?”
    Jerry’s condo was in one of the newer complexes in town, and he’d owned it less than a year. It had what the real estate people called a “forever view” out over Vigland Bay and Hornsby Inlet. He could even see the jagged Olympic Mountains to the north.
    â€œNo, not the condo. All the F&N people out of work may depress local prices for a while, but I can hang on a few months before putting the condo on the market if I have to.” He reached across the counter and pulled me around the end of it. “The problem isn’t the condo. The problem is us. ”
    I nodded as I stood within the circle of his arms and echoed the word. “Us.”
    â€œThe thing is, I don’t think it’s practical to carry on a long-distance relationship, do you?”
    I caught my breath. We’d talked around marriage in a generic way, but we’d never really discussed it on a you-and-me basis. Jerry had been married when he came to F&N five years ago, but they’d divorced, and his ex had taken the two kids and moved back east somewhere. I had the impression he wasn’t totally disillusioned with marriage, but wary, which was about how I felt. Was now the time to let the past go and look at a future together?
    Sure, I’d had some doubts about Jerry. Sometimes I had the feeling there were parts of his life he wasn’t sharing with me. And sometimes that almost ten-year difference in our ages loomed higher than the Olympic Mountains. But did anyone, with our unhappy past experiences, go into marriage 100 percent sure?
    â€œYes,” I agreed with a catch in my voice at the looming possibilities. “Long-distance relationships can be a problem. How do you think we should handle it?”
    Quick ceremony before he left for San Diego? Or a settling-in time for him there, and then a trip to a wedding chapel in Reno or Vegas? Or maybe even a little church somewhere? Yes, a church. I’d like that.
    â€œI’m thinking you’ll agree that making a clean break would be best for both of us.”
    A jaw can drop. It really can. “ What? ”
    â€œThe thing is, I’ve been in contact on the Internet with a woman in the San Diego area for a while. In fact, she’s looking for a nice apartment for me down there right now. She’s a fitness instructor at a health club, and she loves sailing and surfing. And we just discovered we’re both interested in skydiving too. It seems like we really click.”
    I was stunned. I’m thinking about the possibility of closing the long-distance gap between us with a wedding ring, and he’s thinking skydiving with a fitness instructor. No doubt with