A Couple is Three: The Beginning (book 1 & 2 Completed)

Chapter 46 - A Happy Surprise

Thursday Morning, 1st Week of August, Winnipeg, MB, Canada

Samantha had been home for almost two weeks. She had loved her trip to Gillette with the boys and the time that they had spent together only drew her closer to them. But again, now that she was away from them, the questions and doubts started to surface.

It didn't help that the combined bible study that she had been doing with the college and careers group had been talking about godly marriages. While she knew at the beginning of the summer that that was the topic, she hadn't realized that a few of the specific studies were going to deal with polygamy. She would have almost thought that someone knew about what was going on in her life and was trying to say something about it, but she knew that her friends wouldn't do something so underhanded as that.

Another thought would have been that God was answering her prayers about what she should do with her feelings for both Josh and Jake, but she didn't figure that that was the answer either. So far they had been discussing what was wrong with the polygamous relationships, but as she had pointed out in just this past week's study, the flaw in the relationship had actually been how the husband had treated both his wives. Even if he had had only one wife, if he had treated her the same way, he would not have treated her like a godly wife. To her, that point meant something, but she just wasn't sure of the significance of it yet.

Samantha came in from her morning run to find her mother waiting for her in the kitchen. Her mother held out a glass of room temperature water for her in one hand and a fruit smoothie that Samantha had started drinking after her workouts in the other.

"I just received a phone call from Sharron," her mother started as she took the empty water glass from Samantha. "She was calling to invite us to a girl's day today. It seems like she is coming into the city today with Lily and Sherry to do some back-to-school shopping and beauty appointments."

Samantha smiled as she moved over to the table with her smoothie. She had been able to increase her distance this morning in her run and was starting to feel it. She sat down and tried to hide her joyfulness. Lily and her had been talking about this trip for almost a week. Initially Sharron had wanted to bring Cheryl into the city with them, but for some reason Lily didn't want that to happen. She had been working on her mother for a few days to try to stop her from inviting Cheryl along.

Barb looked at Samantha and tried to hide her smile. "Well...?"

Samantha looked up at her mother and swallowed her mouthful of smoothie. "That's sounds like a wonderful idea. It was nice of them to invite us. Did you say yes?" Samantha wasn't sure how to play this. Did she become all excited in hopes that her mother said yes or was she to low key her response in case her mother said no. She tried to keep her tone neutral and quickly filled her mouth back up with smoothie.

"Well, I had hoped that you would be more excited, but I did agree to the trip on Monday when she first called me." Barb started to laughed as Samantha's mouth popped open.

"Yuck, Gross, Samantha," called out her brother as he passed through the kitchen on his way to the basement family room.

Samantha quickly snapped her mouth shut, but it wasn't before some smoothie had escaped down the side of it. Her mother just laughed as she threw a damp dishcloth at Samantha so that she could wipe her face. "I guess that you are surprised and happy?"

Samantha nodded as she wiped her face. She tried to quickly swallow while grinning. Finally her mouth was empty. "I'm so excited. I can't believe that you kept this from me." She jumped up from the table and ran to give her mother a big bear hug.

Her mother laughed and continued to hug her until..."Ugh, Samantha, maybe you should go take your shower now, hun. You really stink after your run and they will be here in an hour."