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“I always listen to you. You know that.”
He grinned but didn’t admit that she was right, although she was.
Instead, he said, “Ford wants me to go to Brazil. He has business down there, and it’s not doing so great. He’d like to see it get turned around, and he said that this would be my best opportunity to get experience.”
“Brazil?”
He nodded.
“Do you speak Portuguese?” She tilted her head. “Is that what they speak there?”
“Yeah, although there are some tribal languages too, I believe. Regardless, I don’t speak it, although Ford has sent me several links for software and I’ve started learning. I know how to ask for a beer.”
“Well, that’s helpful,” she said with more than a little sarcasm in her voice.
“Hey. You never know. I suppose if I get captured by headhunters, it would get their attention anyway.”
“Headhunters?”
He kicked himself. He shouldn’t have joked about that. She probably didn’t realize just how much jungle was left in Brazil. He certainly hadn’t until he started looking into it. He figured he would be pretty safe where he was going, but it definitely wasn’t North Dakota.
“There is still some jungle, but nowhere near where I’m going. I was joking.” He lifted his brows and held his hands up to try to get her to believe him as the microwave beeped.
She pressed her lips together, not buying into his protestations of innocence.
“Look, I wasn’t trying to get you to worry about me. Ford wouldn’t be sending me down if I wasn’t going to be safe. You know that.”
“I know,” she said, but she didn’t sound happy.
“And this might surprise you, but God takes care of people in Brazil just as much as He takes care of people in the United States.”
“Wow. I could get offended over that statement, because I know it, except I deserved it. Because you’re right. I wasn’t thinking about God taking care of you at all. I was getting upset because you were going somewhere dangerous, and I thought... I thought you were coming home to stay.” She kept her head down as she used a spoon to stir the mashed potatoes and then lifted the plate and put it back in the microwave. She kept her back to him after she pushed start, as though she didn’t even want to look at him, which hurt his feelings just a little. Surely she wasn’t that mad at him.
“I wanted to. I still do. I... I could tell Ford no.” But he didn’t want to.
He saw her shoulders go up as she pulled in a deep breath, and then she blew it out slowly. Finally, she turned around until she faced him on the other side of the counter as she pulled one of her lips back and then looked at him.
“Ford has done so much for you, I’m sure you have zero desire to actually do that. Plus, he’s been right about everything he’s tried to teach you. You... I’m sure you want to do whatever he wants you to.”
“Would you give me advice? As a friend?” he asked softly.
“Advice?” She lifted her brows and looked at him.
“You’re my friend. You want the best thing for me. What would you say I should do?”
“I say you should do what you think God wants you to do.”
“That’s the right answer,” he said, his eyes narrowing some. And she smiled with a guilty look on her face. She knew she was just parroting what she was supposed to say.
“What do you think I should do?”
“Do you know for sure that God wants you to go to Brazil?” she asked, and he did not miss the note of hope in her voice.
“No. I don’t. I feel like it’s the right thing to do because Ford has been so good to me. Every single thing that he’s asked me to do has been beneficial in ways I hadn’t even imagined. I can’t imagine that this would be any different. Even though, I really, really do not want to go. Not at all. Not even a little.”
“How soon?” She looked at her hands.
“He just told me tonight that he wants me there next week.”
