Page 28 of Mistletoe Dreams
His brows lifted. So that's what had happened. "I wondered what caused it to change from my first phone call to my second. Because after the first, I got the impression that they were not going to allow it, and then something shifted. It must've been you." He owed her far more than he had even realized.
She waved it off again. "It's not a big deal. Mason was born to practice medicine."
"I love the way you see that in him. Most people just see a kid who's bent on getting in trouble." He was talking about himself there too. Because that's exactly how he'd been seeing his son lately. As someone who wasn't interested in anything but causing problems. When had he lost that vision? He wasn't sure, but he knew that he owed Hannah for giving it back to him. And for seeing the potential rather than focusing on Mason's faults.
"When I look at someone, I try to see the good. After all, I don't want someone to look at me and just see my faults. I don't want them to see all the problems and all my flaws. Because there are a lot of them."
"I don't know about that," he said, even though he knew he was kind of arguing with her.
"Trust me. They're there. But isn't that what we usually focus on? The problems? I do that in medicine all the time. I look at someone, and I'm looking at whatever health issue they have. That's the biggest thing. And I forget to look at them and see that they're a mostly healthy person. We're just trained to see the faults. The flaws. The problems."
"But you don't."
"I had to realize that was what I was doing. I suppose a school teacher needs to do the same thing. After all, she spends her day correcting the kids who are wrong and disciplining the children who don't behave in class. We forget to focus on the good. But that's what the Bible tells us to do."
"It's always amazing to me how the Bible has the recipe for a happy life, but we've glossed over it over the years and thought thatwe need to go somewhere else for our mental health, for psychology or whatever, when the answer is right there in scripture. Focus on the good."
"'Whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are of good report,'" she quoted.
He finished the verse for her. "'If there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.'"
They stopped for a moment and smiled at each other.
"It's all there."
There was something going on between them. He felt it. At least for him. Maybe not for her. And he wasn't sure he wanted that. He was already having enough trouble with Mason after the divorce. He didn't want to go through that again. But at the same time, he felt a connection, some kind of thing with Hannah that he hadn't felt with anyone else. She seemed to see him in a way that no one else did. Maybe that was because of her tendency to focus on the good.
"So that's how you did it? You just realized you weren't and made sure you started to?"
"It's not easy to change your thinking. But yeah, I knew that that was what I was doing, constantly focusing on the negative, and that's not good for your mental health, and it's not good for the people around you either. So I stopped. Little by little, piece by piece, which is also in the Bible. 'Line upon line.'"
"'Precept upon precept, here a little, there a little,'" he finished.
He liked the way they said verses together. Both of them knowing the same ones. That was something else he didn't share with anyone else.
It felt like there was something in the air between them, and he wanted to ask if it was just him or if she felt it too.
Instead, words he hadn't even been thinking about came out of his mouth.
"I remember you from when we were kids."
"Really? I didn't think you did."
"Yeah. You were always pretty studious, sitting around with yournose in a book or a notepad and pen," he said with a glance at the notebook that she had taken out of the bag and set on the table. A ghost of a smile swept over her mouth, but she still hung on his words. "You were always with your grandma too. And I got the impression that you were one of those goody-two-shoes, teacher's pet kind of things that if we were in school together, I would be the bad boy in the corner, and you would've been the goody-goody sitting in the front and getting A's."
Her brows lifted. "I had no idea you saw me like that."
He lifted his shoulder. He hadn't meant for any of those words to come out. He wasn't sure why they did, other than that was the connection that he felt with her. That he had known her for years, even if they had never really talked.
"I didn't know you even noticed me. You were so busy with your cheerleader girlfriend and all of your other friends that I can't believe you even remember."
He remembered. He remembered her honey-blonde hair, pulled back away from her face, falling in curls down her back, her dreamy eyes behind her glasses, and the way he'd thought that she was way too good for him. So he hadn't even paid attention to her.
He supposed he was right. Here he was, a sheriff in a small town with a troubled son, while she had gone on to become a doctor.
"Why are you practicing in our small town? You wanted to come back?"
Clouds covered her face, and the smile that had been hovering around her lips completely faded. She looked down.
