Oslo Overtures by Marion Ueckermann Page B

and a smile appeared on the side of his mouth.
    “I mean, Adam. I really need your prayers. Anjelica told me she’d heard that when you pray, things happen. I’m desperate not to feel this way about her. And I really need prayer for safety on Saturday.”
    “Why don’t you call off the flight? It seems dangerous.”
    You have no idea. “Because I’m a man of my word. Luke’s here tonight. I owe it to him to stick to our agreement, no matter how foolish.”
    “And Anjelica? Was she a foolish choice, too?”
    Kyle clasped his hands together and lowered his head. “Much as I try to convince myself that she is, I can’t.”
    “You know, my story is not so different from yours. I, too, fell for a girl from the other side of the world. Literally. My year-long mission in Finland had just begun when Eveliina and I both landed up at her grandparents’ summer cottage in Helsinki, each expecting to have the place to ourselves. Two strangers on a tiny island, neither of us prepared to leave.” Adam chuckled. “Although she did try everything to get me to go. A few days later, I was helping her paint the cottage when it started to rain. Pour was more like it. It was a deluge. I should’ve stopped and gone inside, but I was eager to finish. There wasn’t much more to be done and the roof overhang kept the area I was painting dry. I don’t know if I slipped off the ladder, or passed out, or the ladder tipped, but I fell and hit my head against a rock.”
    Kyle cringed. “That had to hurt.”
    “Landed myself in the hospital in a coma.”
    “My fall wasn’t so spectacular. I landed on the floor after kissing Anjelica. Slipped right out of my chair. The only thing that got hurt was my ego. Not sure which injury is worse though—yours or mine.”
    Adam chuckled, louder this time. “Yours, I think.” He leaned forward. “Anyway, I had suspected Eveliina was in a relationship, which it turned out she was. For that very reason, I didn’t want to pursue her, no matter that I’d fallen in love with her the moment I first saw her. It went against what I believed. Like you.”
    “But you obviously recovered—from your injury, your obstacles—and went on to live happily ever after.”
    “God brought good out of my accident. When I was in hospital, she realized it was me she loved. She broke it off with her boyfriend right away. A month later we were married in a small ceremony at the place we met.” Adam shook his head and smiled. “Man, I love that summer cottage. Point I’m trying to make is this: God directs our steps, and He might use strange, even frightening events to fulfill his purposes for us. Maybe this daredevil flight of yours is part of that plan, like my fall and coma.” He patted Kyle on the shoulder. “As for Anjelica, make sure what you saw between her and Erick is true. It’s often easy to misinterpret things when you view them from a distance.”
     
     
     
     

7
     
    After dinner in the city, Anjelica parked her car in the hotel lot at the end of a row of tall trees. In front of them, a large grass square, with a concrete circle in the middle, covered the earth.
    “Ah, the drop zone.” Erick smiled as he hoisted his backpack onto his back.
    Anjelica slipped on her cardigan. The night cooled as the earlier heat wave eased. She should’ve dressed warmer. She hadn’t banked on hitting the sights of Oslo after church when she’d dressed this evening.
    Up ahead, the hotel loomed. The four stared at the thirty-seven floor skyscraper. The evening sun reflected off the glass wall. Surrounding buildings mirrored their images on the hotel’s face. Soon it would be dark, and the pictures would change.
    Not soon enough for Anjelica. Even though part of her wished she’d brought her suit along, she was far happier for the opportunity to be alone with Kyle—even if only for a few minutes. She turned to Luke. “You should’ve brought a bag as big as Erick’s so you could hide your