It wasn’t hard for Mitch to believe. It was a nondenominational church, technically, but the majority of folks had Baptist leanings. Bob had always tended more toward Pentecostal.

“It’s my own fault,” Frank continued. “He did ask if he could lead a Bible study from his home, and I said I didn’t see why not.”

“Well, now you see.”

“Yes. It was a rookie mistake. I’ve just been busy and distracted by other things and didn’t think it through.”

Mitch knew Frank had walked this road before. As the pastor of a small church, he got less than half the praise he deserved for everything that went right and more than twice the blame for everything that didn’t.

“So you’re going to ask him to stop the study?”

“I tried that. He says he has the right to do whatever he wants in his own home. And he’s right, of course. He just needs to stop telling people I approve of it. But he’s insisting that I did approve. He’s also convinced that if I just read this book he found, I’ll come over to his side on the speaking-in-tongues thing.”

“Danny still on the church board?”

Frank nodded. Danny was Bob’s wife’s brother. He was also related by marriage to Bob’s daughter-in-law.

“Whose side is he on?”

“Bob’s. He wants me to read the book. Everyone’s quite interested in it now.”

“The people who want your head—they’re strongly against speaking in tongues, I take it?”

Frank laughed. “You wouldn’t know it by how unrestrained they are with their own, but yes.”

Mitch chuckled, too, even as the pangs of guilt in his chest grew in intensity. He’d had a hard couple of years and hadn’t wanted to talk to anyone about God’s will or His “perfect plan”—he still didn’t—but who had been there to check in on Frank? Give him a listening ear?

“I’m sorry.” Mitch dropped his hands to his knees, then put them back on the arms of the chair. “And not just for the tongues situation.”

Frank gave him a similar look to the one he’d given when Mitch first told him about Caroline’s diagnosis. “I’ve been worried about you. It’s a frightening thing to me, to watch someone I care about turn their back on God.”

Mitch squirmed. How could he explain it? He hadn’t turned his back on God. You couldn’t live in Montana and not consider Him. Couldn’t look out over the valley or drive to Glacier without seeing His handiwork. Couldn’t come within fifteen feet of a regal six-point bull elk without being awestruck by the wonder of creation. His relationship with the Almighty was different from what it used to be, but they were still on speaking terms.

“It wasn’t that.”