(Editor’s note: Each weekend we’ll publish one chapter of the new Christian novel Which One of You? here at Christian Heartbeat.)

When I watch Becky working in the fields or in the big greenhouse, my mind never goes all the way back to the first time we met. To put it plainly, she was a mess that day. I don’t think I’d recognize that woman. Now she moves through the day like she knows just what God intended for her, as natural as the rows of organic tomatoes she ministers. That first day, in the social worker’s office, the strain of giving Sagan up to foster care emptied her face, her eyes vacant, deliberately vacant I believe, as if she’d left her body to escape her own judgment of what she was doing.

Now she’s a woman of the moment, happy inside and out, her slender fingers working quickly but delicately through the bushy plants, her cheeks and eyes glowing like the ripening fruit.

When I see her now, if I remembered the woman in the social services office it would be almost impossible to fathom how we got to this place.

So I let my memory travel back only so far as that first day after Carolyn left, when I visited Becky at work to tell her why Sagan was back in the hospital’s behavioral ward. I think it’s her hands that make the connection easy for me. She has such graceful hands and they moved with confidence among the glasses and bottles at the bar as they do now among the tomato plants.

I took a seat near the end of the bar. She caught sight of me out of the corner of her eye but didn’t acknowledge me at first. She soon made her way over with a smile. I hadn’t spoken with her since Saturday’s incident put Sagan back in the hospital lockup and didn’t know if she’d heard some other way.

“Well, hey there pastor,” she said. “What brings you into this den of iniquity.”

My smile felt forced. “Just checking out the denizens,” I replied. “We can always use a few fresh sinners.”

“You’ve come to the right place,” she laughed.

An awkward pause. “Did you hear what happened with Sagan?” I asked.

Her levity was gone. “No? What’s wrong?”

“Don’t worry, he’s O K,” I assured her.

“Tell me.”

“We had to Baker Act him again.”

“Oh no.” I thought she might cry.

“Don’t worry, I’ll bring him home tomorrow. It really is no big deal.”

“If it’s no big deal, why is he locked up?” she demanded.

“It’s not exactly a nothing deal. We had a little altercation at the house and he accidentally bumped into Scott.”

“An altercation?”

“Sagan’s a pretty big kid and Scott got knocked down.”

“Was he hurt?”

“No, we all were just … a little shaken up.” How many times had I thrown out that phrase in two days? “A little shaken up.” My way of saying “it was nothing and maybe we overreacted.” She seemed to buy it.

“Iced tea for you?”

“You know,” I said, “I think I’ll have a beer.”

“A draft?” she asked, reaching for pint glass. I nodded yes. “Any particular flavor?“

“Something dark.“

“In a minute I’ll be off and I’ll come around and join you.”

She set the glass before me and moved down the bar to wait on another customer. Two women in their 50s, nicely dressed, entered and sat to my left. Their conversation told me they were realtors. That was Carolyn’s mother’s field. Actually, Mrs. Roe was a developer and realtor. But no matter, the real estate talk irritated me.

I sipped my beer, tried to tune them out, and stared over the bar through the open sliding windows and beyond the outside deck at the Atlantic rhythmically rolling to shore. The sound and image repeated again and again began to calm me. The tide was out and quite a few people and cars remained on the beach. The parked cars were west of the traffic lanes but the mothers with their children had followed the receding tide to the east. From there the kids could splash in and out of the water without having to cross in front of the cars of high school and college students cruising the beach in search of adventure. A lean bike rider, fit for 60, flashed into view, gaining speed as he turned and pedaled up the approach ramp and off the beach.

To work here at the Ocean Deck Lounge was to be at the heart of what defines this town, I thought. I could see by the way the patrons -- men and women -- vied for her attention that Becky was very much a part of it. Over the years I had spent less and less time on the beach, more and more on my work. I promised myself I’d spend more time with the ocean, not realizing I’d soon have time on my hands to do just that.

So beautiful, so tempting, such a curious mix of natural beauty and sexual tension: the white sand, summer heat and tranquil waves, coupled with wanton promise of near naked young bodies and the pulsing music of the beachfront bars.

Up and down the beach, afternoon shadows were beginning to appear from the tall condominiums and hotels. Inside the lounge, the happy-hour crowd was gathering. Out on the deck beachgoers were stopping in swim attire for a drink or two, maybe a burger, before heading to beachside condos, over the bridges to mainland homes or even back to Orlando. Becky returned and placed a tall glass of dark liquid on the bar next to me.

“Rum and coke,” she said. “I always have one to unwind at the end of my shift.”

She lifted the hinged panel at the end of the bar and slid into the seat to my right. One drink emptied half her glass.

“I needed that,” she said. “Wow, we were busy today.”

A husky man looking 60 and a bit soused waddled up behind us, smiling, his hand extended. Becky pivoted on her stool and he pressed a 10 dollar bill into her palm. “I guess if you’re done, so am I,” he said. “I wanted to make sure you got this.”

She hugged him, cooing, “Thank you so much baby; you be good now and go straight home.”

Becky watched him shuffle to the exit, his feet spread wide to avoid stumbling. She shook her head and turned back to the bar. “He’s a sweetheart but he drinks way too much,” she said. “Course he’s not the only one we have here. Some of these guys retire and don’t know what to do with themselves.”

“They should volunteer somewhere.”

“I told this one dude that and my boss Jerry heard and jumped all over me. They drop a lot of cash in here.”

I shrugged. “Well, let me give you the scoop on Sagan,”

“OK,” she said, taking small sip from her glass.

“We took Sagan …”

“Have you been working out today? Sorry to interrupt. I just noticed …”

She put her hand on my upper arm. “Hitting the heavy bag is all.”

“I guess I’ve never seen you dressed like that -- the shorts and tee shirt. I didn’t realize you were so … fit.”

Her attention warmed me. I didn’t know how to respond. I glanced down at her. “Well, you’re pretty … fit looking yourself,” I said. My face felt red.

She smiled at me and pushed out her chest, stretching the material of her knit shirt. “My stock in trade,” she said. “You didn’t think the guys came in here for my charming conversation did you?”

“I didn’t mean that!” I tried to laugh but felt feverish, at least 103 degrees. I imagined my face as red as her lipstick.

“My blessing and my curse since I was 12 or 13.” She laughed, threw back her head and shook her dark hair.

I quickly glanced again as she turned her eyes to sip her dark drink. I was so out of my element here. Besides, I was married and a preacher. These thoughts were so off limit. Girls like her had always been a mystery to me, working class, physical girls so unlike the smart and witty women of my family. Third generation ministers, both me and my sister. My mother the southern charmer, attractive in her own way but with her sexuality kept well below the surface. No, girls like Becky were the ones cocky football players dated, not the egghead preacher’s kid.

Pain rolled back on me in memories from my senior year. My friend Roger … why was it just me? I mean Roger, his father and mother were both college professors, and he could make the girls giggle like kittens with a ball of yarn. It was a mystery to me but Roger insisted it was no big secret. “They just like to have fun, Dietrich. Loosen up; laugh and have a good time. Say something stupid, whatever pops into your head, the stupider the better, then laugh like it was hilarious man; there’s nothin’ to it. They just want to laugh and have fun. Then when she‘s laughing, lean in and kiss her. Laugh again and kiss her some more. Nothin’ to it man. Just stay loose.”

But I tightened up like a twisted rope. Roger fixed me up with this girl Sharon, his date‘s best friend. We’re at the drive-in movies and he’s in the front seat laughing and kissing his girl. I’m in the back feeling like I’m dangling from the gallows. And Sharon? She’s laughing alright but at me, not with me. “You really don’t know how to talk to a girl like me, do you Dietrich,” she said. I didn’t, and pretty soon she seemed to be in charge but not happy. I squirmed in my seat, unable to say anything, feeling small in every way. I was so witty with my family in our living room, making our jokes about politics and such. Desperate, I tried one out of the blue but it was lost on her. How was I supposed to laugh hilariously? We watched the movie awhile and Sharon said she was bored and wanted to go home. Everyone was mad at me -- Roger, his date and especially Sharon. My face may have been even redder that night than it was now. Later that evening long ago, lying in bed, I thought about Sharon and wanted her worse than I’d ever wanted anything.

A few days later Sharon told her friend I was “conceited” and Roger reported it back to me. “Conceited!?” I cried out. Well, maybe I was but that sure wasn’t what I felt that night. I felt dinky. Like I was a boy and Sharon wanted a man. College was waiting for me, and manhood was still a few years off. Girls like Sharon, and maybe Becky too, they mature a little faster.

“So tell me about Sagan,” Becky said, the sexy bartender replaced by Sagan’s mom, which was a relief to me.

“Some kids suckered Sagan into using the parsonage for a party while I was gone. The cops came and he ended up being taken in.”