When Joy Came to Stay by Karen Kingsbury

see her face, the way it was cloaked in discouragement, as though she were holding back a very deep, dark secret. What did she mean he didn’t know her?
Of course
he knew her.
    Didn’t he?
    Now, alone in his office, he wasn’t so sure.
    He remembered the first time he saw Maggie, when their churches had joined a handful of others in Cleveland for a statewide prayer rally. The event had lasted all weekend and had included numerous activities. It was during the tug-of-war competition, when his church’s college group was about to beat the group on the other end of the rope, that Ben spotted her.
    She was without a doubt the most gorgeous woman he’d ever seen. He would never forget the way she’d made him feel that day, all tingly inside as if something magical had happened. Both hands securely on his team’s end of the rope, Ben had leaned to the side for a better view of her. In the process, the rope slipped and he fell to the ground. He could still close his eyes and see Maggie grinning at him as she and her team doubled their efforts and won the event before Ben could get up.
    His attraction for her increased daily after that, despite the fact that he was dating someone else at the time. Ben sighed. Those first years for he and Maggie were rough. They wroteand talked on the phone, and in his heart he knew there was no one else he could spend the rest of his life with. But the girl he was dating came from a family that his parents had known all their lives. There was no easy way to break things off—especially after the accident.
    If I could do one thing over again…
    Ben let the thought hang there. When he had been unable to end things with his girlfriend, he and Maggie agreed to go on with their separate lives. Of course after only eighteen months apart, they had found each other again and began dating exclusively. But somehow Maggie had seemed different than before, older than her years, less willing to share…
    He frowned. Was it possible she could have held that time against him? Harbored anger because he had chosen another girl for that period in his life?
    Ben shook his head.
Ridiculous.
Whatever was happening to Maggie now it was a phase, nothing more. All that had ever mattered was how he felt about her when they found each other again. How he’d felt about her ever since. If he could do anything over again he would have broken things off with the other girl immediately. Maggie had to know that. But he’d been so young, so confused. After the accident it seemed that staying with his old girlfriend was the right thing to do.
    Ben turned his attention toward the work on his desk.
Impossible.
Whatever was troubling Maggie couldn’t be rooted in something that had happened so long ago.
    Still, as he set about dealing with the tasks at hand, trying to put Maggie’s hurtful words out of his heart and head, Ben was troubled by one very serious suspicion:
What if…
    What if, despite living a pure life and being devoted to God, Maggie had turned into someone else, someone who had hidden her real feelings from him for months or years. Ben hated himself for even entertaining the thought, but it was possible that Maggie was right. Maybe she
was
pretending around him. And maybe somehow, no matter how much he had alwaysloved her, Maggie had changed, become someone Ben didn’t even know.
    He glanced at his watch and saw that it was four o’clock. One more hour and he would wrap things up. He picked up the telephone receiver and dialed a number he’d long since memorized. “Hi, this is Ben Stovall.”
    A woman answered on the third ring. “Hello, Ben.” He could hear the smile in her voice. “What can I help you with today?”
    He grinned, sure this was the answer he was looking for. “I need a dozen long-stemmed red roses for this evening.”
    “Very good, and a white ribbon like usual?”
    “Yes, like usual.”
    Ben felt better when he hung up the receiver. Maggie was wrong; of course he knew her. She was