Kept (29 page)

His eyebrows lowered. His shoulders pulled back.

“And you wonder why you’re still single.” She smacked his arm, catching his flinch. “Well, pay attention!”

He stared at her.

Oh, honestly. “Just so you know, this is where any sane man grabs the girl who’s confessed her feelings and lays one on her. But no, not you, because she has to be perfect—from the day she was born. Newsflash, Dillan. That isn’t realistic. Not for me, not for you, not for anyone. So get over yourself.”

His mouth fell open.

There it was. He knew how she felt. Still he stared at her, and her shoulders sagged. Now he’d avoid her for sure.

Like Kendall. Like Mark. Now Dillan. “And they say the third time’s the charm.” She turned for home. “See you.” Not likely, but as he’d said, walking away would be rude. She trudged past the fountain, listening for his footsteps, waiting for him to say something.

Did he ever think about their kiss? The way she did? Did he ever wish things could be different?

She stopped and turned.

Dillan still stood where she’d left him, but he faced the lake now, both hands on his head.

What did that mean? That he was doubly embarrassed?

With a sigh, she turned back. Never before had she been ignored when she’d told a man how she felt. But it figured. The one man she wanted more than any other—he’d be the first to let her walk away.

News about Relentless Hearts came out Friday. Adrienne texted about an editorial opening at her house, but the pay wasn’t nearly enough.

It was time to be honest. Man-money had kept her living on Michigan Avenue. There wasn’t an editing job out there that could keep her here, not without Mark and Kendall.

The plan for the evening had been for Miska to meet Tracy at her place to go over that John book, but when her morning walk resulted in pain and stiffness, Miska texted Tracy.

She agreed to come over but would be praying feverishly that she didn’t see Garrett.

Please, God. Don’t let Garrett see Tracy.

“Are you feeling better?” Tracy asked after successfully avoiding him.

“Some, if I’m not moving.”

Tracy pointed to her own cheek. “That bruise must be a doozy.”

“It is. Honestly, though, the visible stuff hurts the least.”

Tracy nodded, face sober. “I understand.”

She did, didn’t she?

They reached for each other at the same moment. Dillan’s arms hadn’t felt nearly this good. Being with someone who understood soothed like nothing else.

Tracy pulled back, wiping one eye. “I’m so sick of crying, you know?”

Oh, did she.

“I get so nervous before church. I’m afraid I’ll fall apart in front of him and everyone else. How embarrassing would that be?”

Probably quite like Miska’s confessing her feelings to Dillan.

“So far I’ve been okay, but seriously it’s been by the grace of God.”

The grace of God? After Garrett betrayed her for meaningless sex?

“I lost you, didn’t I?” Tracy laughed. “My brothers say I talk too much, but talking things through helps me.”

“So talk. How are you? Other than before your church meetings?”

“Work is fine since I’m busy. It’s after work that’s hard, when I come home and don’t have plans for the night. No texts from Garrett. No wedding details. Nothing.” She waved her words away. “But enough about me. What’s going on with Mark?”

“Nothing. He ended it.”

Tracy nodded.

“You think it’s good he dumped me.”

She sighed. “I hate that you’re hurting. And I’m sorry for how things ended, but he wasn’t good for you.”

“Just because he’s married—”

“Miska, he stood in the hall and
listened
while Kendall beat you. Dillan told me they could hear you, clearly, all the way out there. That he refused to let them in. He didn’t even call the police. Kendall got off because Mark didn’t call. How can you miss a man like that?”

“Can you blame him? He walked in, thinking he’d surprise me, and here was this other man. What would you have done if—”
Oh.

Tracy toyed with her fingers.

Miska’s face and neck heated.

“What I would do, Miska, is go to the person who betrayed me and call them on it, then end it. Don’t justify how he acted. A good man doesn’t do that.”

“But you thought Garrett was a good man.”

“To be honest, I had considered pushing the wedding back and evaluating things, but I told myself he was just tired of waiting, you know?”

“How do you think Dillan does it?”

“Does what?”

Why had she gone there? “How he waits? Do you think there’s any chance he’s messing around?”

“Dillan? No way. He wouldn’t be able to look anyone in the eye.”

“What if he just kissed a woman?”

“What, like some random woman?”

Did he consider her some random woman?

“Enough about Garrett. Did you read the first chapter of John?”

“I did.” She picked up the paperback from the end table. “Trace, I’m just going to say it. This made me feel dumb. I don’t get it.”

“I remember. That’s normal.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re looking at God’s wisdom for the first time in your life. You’ve spent thirty years listening to the world’s wisdom, and God and this world are enemies. What God says is right and honorable, the world says is wrong and disgusting. It makes perfect sense that when you first come to the Bible, it’s going to confuse you. Even the Bible says it will seem like foolishness to those who don’t believe.”

The open book drew her eyes. “I don’t know that I saw it as foolishness. Just confusing. Some of it made me stop and think, but I didn’t think it was dumb.”

“Show me what you connected with.”

“Okay.” She drew in a deep breath.
God, if you’re real…
“There’s this idea throughout of the world not knowing this light. Verses four and five—that the light shone in the darkness but that the darkness didn’t get it.”

Tracy opened her mouth.

Miska held up a hand. She had to get this all out if she was going to make sense of it. “But then verses ten and eleven really hit me. ‘He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him.’” Miska lowered the book. She’d read those words over and over, wondering, then needing to understand them. “What does it mean?”

“It’s talking about the world—all people—rejecting God, the one who created them. Then Jesus came, specifically in those verses you read, and his own people, the Jews, rejected him.”

Miska read the words again. All these years, she, Mom, Wade, and Zane had scoffed at the idea of God. Was this talking about her? Had she rejected him? She certainly didn’t know him.

But one comment from Dad, a month of friendship with Tracy, with Dillan, and she was beginning to wonder if her family had been wrong. “Can someone who hasn’t known God, who hasn’t received him, change that? Is it too late?”

“You’re talking about yourself.”

She nodded.

Tracy sucked in a breath. “Miska—”

“I’m just thinking.”

“As long as you have life, you can have reconciliation with God.”

Reconciliation? Had she wronged God?

“What else struck you?”

Miska scanned the verses. “Okay, this one—the language was beautiful. I don’t understand it, but as a writer it spoke to me.”

“Which one?”

She began to read, aware of the awe in her voice. “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.”

“Do you know who the Word is?”

“That’s one of the things that threw me. But when I read it here—” She closed her mouth and shook her head. How did she put into words this feeling she didn’t understand, that these words were of utmost importance? “So the Word is a person?”

“It’s Jesus, God coming to earth and taking on human form. Living on earth with us. Going through all the things we go through.”

“Christmas.”

“That’s ‘the Word became flesh.’ But then it goes on. The Word dwelt among us. John’s sharing his story. He was one of Jesus’s closest followers. He spent three years with him, day after day. Eating with God in the flesh, talking to him, listening to him, learning from him. And what did he think of that experience? ‘We beheld His glory,… full of grace and truth.’”

“So John and Jesus, the Word, were friends.”

Tracy’s voice rang with wonder. “Can you imagine?”

“What does it mean? Why is it so special?”

“It means that God loved us so much that, even though we’d ruined the world he created, he lowered himself to become like us. Think of it. A perfect God taking on the form of a lowly human, someone people didn’t pay attention to. It’s like—I don’t know—Prince William taking a job cleaning toilets without the paparazzi following, without it being broadcast on the news. It was a great sacrifice, something God didn’t have to do, something he was so far above.”

“And he lived with them.”

“He did. He ate, slept, was hungry. The Bible even says he cried over the death of a friend and the family’s sorrow. He went through all the things we go through, quite possibly even the death of his earthly father.”

Miska wet her lips.

“And then there were his own brothers who rejected him while he lived on earth. He was just their brother, they thought. He couldn’t be God. So they didn’t believe him until after he’d died, risen, and returned to heaven. Which means he understands rejection too.”

Miska curled her toes.
The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.

“What matters right now, Miska, is that you understand who God is. That he’s this perfect, holy, wonderful, unchanging God who humbled himself to live with us so we could have a future with him. He’s not a god who hates us, who relishes being a dictator. He’s a just God who loves us more than anyone on earth ever could. And it wasn’t just talk, Miska. He
showed
it.”

He’d shown it?
Show me,
she begged. Her fingers trailed down the page. “Can we read it again? Now that I understand more?”

“Absolutely.” Tracy began with that first verse, that the Word was there in the beginning, that the Word was with God and was God. That all was made through him and that he was life. And light.

And this time, it made sense.

The parking lot at Tracy’s church wasn’t as full as it had been on Mother’s Day. Miska parked near the entrance. Evidently Father’s Day didn’t carry the same church status.

Tracy hurried down the main stairs as Miska stepped from her car. “You made it. Any problems getting here?”

“Nope. Boringest drive ever.”

“Yay, I think?”

Miska followed her into the auditorium which was starting to fill.

Tracy chose a row close to where Dillan sat on Mother’s Day.

What would he say when he saw Miska? Anything? She looked around for him.

Instead, a guy in his mid- to late twenties walked into the row ahead of them, his eyes—and his smile—on her. He was a new face, someone she hadn’t seen at the Fosters’ home or at Dillan’s party. His dark hair set off bright blue eyes. He stopped and shot Tracy a charming smile. “Hey, Tracy. How are ya’?”

“Fine, Ethan.”

Miska shot her a look. She sounded annoyed.

“Thought I’d say hi to your friend.” He held out his hand. “Ethan Doebler.”

She shook it. “I’m Miska.”

His smile widened, leer-like as if her name meant something. “Garrett and Dillan’s neighbor?”

Who’d told him that? “I am.” More importantly,
what
did he know?

“Cool.” He nodded rhythmically. “I’ve heard about you. Plus Tracy mentioned you the other day.”

“So you remember.” Tracy glared at him. “I thought you forgot.”

“Nah, but we have to make our guests feel welcome.”

His smile reminded her of Eric. Of Kendall. She couldn’t look at him. “What am I missing, Trace?”

Ethan shrugged. “She asked us men to leave you alone when you came.”

What?

“Ethan!” Tracy’s mouth hung open, her eyebrows fighting to connect.

“You didn’t want her to know?” He winked at Miska, like they shared some secret. “Tracy’s a bit extreme, isn’t she?”

He was definitely in the category of Tracy’s first Ethan. “I’m good with her extremeness.”

“Yeah, well.” He dropped his palms against the top of the pew. “We all love Tracy. She knows that.”

Tracy snorted. “Did you need something?”

He flashed Miska that foul smile. “Wanted to invite you two to join us for lunch, if you don’t have plans.”

“Like I want to eat with Garrett.” Tracy rolled her eyes. “Go away, Ethan.”

He sent Miska another practiced smile. “I’ll be in the back later.”

“Mmm. Okay.” No thanks.

When he was gone, Miska turned to Tracy. “He’s appropriately named, isn’t he?”

Tracy slapped a hand to her mouth. “Oh, wow. That never dawned on me.” Giggles took over, and she slouched in her seat.

“He’s awful.”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

“Is he why you told the guys to leave me alone?”

“Miska, dear, you are drop-dead gorgeous. You are—” She held up a hand. “Let me wax poetic. You are the ultimate fly zapper, and men are flies who cannot ignore you.”

“Fly zapper? Really?”

“You don’t like it?”

“Not much.”

Across the auditorium, Dillan entered from a side door. Someone stopped him to talk.

“I wondered what was going on. I assumed they all had virgin radar.”

Tracy choked. “Had what?”

“They all said hi and backed off.”

But Dillan hadn’t left her alone. He’d sat beside her, talked to her, run down the field with her on his back. “Every time Dillan talked to me at his parents’ house, the other guys were watching, like something was going on. I get it now. He wasn’t leaving me alone.”

“Miska, I just wanted you to be able to focus on God. I didn’t want some guy with romance in his eyes to distract you.”

They wouldn’t have, not with Dillan nearby. She glanced back at him.

He was gone.

She searched the auditorium.