Matter Of Trust (16 page)

“Lean on Me.”

Slipping into the turn lane, he swung a right toward his apartment. He still had no clue what the future held, but for the first time in weeks he knew he didn’t have to go through it alone.

Kayla thanked Hillary for staying late, then walked the older woman to the door. Locking it behind her, she slumped against the wall. The last couple of hours had played out like a bad movie. She’d been certain Ty’s visit to her mother would end with a proposal tonight … then everything changed in an instant.

Turning off the lights, she walked down the hall to check on her mother who’d gone to bed early and was snoring softly in her room. Kayla stood in the doorway of the bedroom and smiled at the look of peace on her mother’s face. Her left eye still drooped, and the road ahead wasn’t going to be easy, but her mother would make it.

Kayla sat down on her bed, wishing a good night’s sleep would erase the weeks of fatigue that were piling up. Picking up her Bible from the bedside table, she flipped open the pages. Between running the business and taking care of her mom she couldn’t remember the last time she’d had a quiet time with God. Or how long she’d been trying to handle everything on her own. Somehow she’d let her spirit become a dried-up well in the middle of the desert.

I just can’t do this anymore, Lord
.

She opened to the first chapter of second Corinthians, a recent passage in one of Pastor Jenkins’s sermons, and started reading. The apostle Paul had always been a superhero in her eyes. The list of things he endured for the sake of the gospel read like a
New York Times
bestselling thriller.

Pulling her legs up under her, she stopped at verse six. Paul wrote how suffering produced patient endurance. How could suffering produce patience? Kayla rubbed her temples with the tips of her fingers. She’d never been shipwrecked or left in prison or even gone without a meal. Her struggles were real, but in the scope of what many had to endure she wasn’t sure they even counted as trials. On top of that, patient endurance read more like an oxymoron than a word of encouragement.

She reread verses three and four. “‘Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles.’”

All our troubles. Her mom’s stroke. Ty’s betrayal. The load of running the business while caring for her mother.

She continued reading the chapter, stopping again at verse nine. “‘This happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God.’”

The truth seared through to her heart like a hot iron. That was what was missing in her life. How long had she spent her time relying on her own efforts to take care of everything? She claimed to follow Christ but was all too quick to grab the steering wheel and head off in her own direction. Controlling the business. Controlling her mother’s recovery. Controlling Ty.

Tears she’d held back for weeks poured down her cheeks like healing rain, and the love of her heavenly Father enveloped her. The future was still uncertain, but one thing wasn’t anymore. This time she was going to put her trust in the One who created her.

Ty parked his car in his spot, then locked the doors before heading up the sidewalk toward his apartment.

“Ty Lawrence?”

Ty stopped short of the small patio and turned around. “Yes?”

“My name’s Samuel Lance. I’m a law enforcement officer for the State of Massachusetts.” The man flashed a badge beneath the bright street lamp as he took a step toward him. “You’re under arrest for accounting fraud and other illegal activities in connection with our recent investigation into Abbott Financial Services.”

twelve

Kayla combed out a section of her mom’s hair, then clamped it into the curling iron, wishing she could spend the rest of the morning in bed. She’d finally fallen asleep around one, but her dreams had been filled with Ty. Already she missed him, torn between her heart’s longings and the common sense that constantly reminded her she needed to stay away from him. Even putting her trust back into God’s hands had become a minute-by-minute effort.

“Are you almost done?”

Kayla’s focus switched back to the task at hand. “One section left.”

Her mom worked to fasten the top button of her blouse that had come undone. “You know you don’t have to do my hair every morning, Kayla.”

“I know I don’t have to, but I want to.” For once she was thankful for the distraction. Between her mom and the business, staying busy would make the pain of letting Ty go easier. Or at least she hoped it would.

Her mother’s hand shook as she fought with the shirt.

Kayla reached down to help. “Let me do that—”

“No!”

Kayla drew back her hand and bit her lip as her mom continued to struggle. Her fingers fumbled with the buttonhole. It was all Kayla could do not to finish the chore herself. Finding the balance between helping her mother and letting her struggle to relearn simple tasks had proved to be difficult. The stroke had added depression to the list of symptoms her mom had been forced to accept. All of which added up to a new dimension of tension between them.

Her mother jerked the button off and threw it onto the floor. For a few seconds neither of them moved.

“I’m sorry.” Her mom let her good arm drop into her lap defeated.

“It’s okay.” Kayla moved the curling iron to the last section, deciding to leave the button on the floor for now.

“No, it’s not.” Her mom’s leg shook. “Since when do I have to rely on—on my daughter and nurses to button my shirt?”

Tears pooled in her mother’s eyes. Kayla set the curling iron down and wrapped her arms around her. Frustrations over her relationship with Ty seemed minimal compared to the life-changing challenges her mom faced.

Kayla bit back her own tears of empathy. “I remember when I was in third grade, and I wanted curls like Abigail Mentor’s. You must have spent an hour fixing my hair every morning before school.”

“And your curls were much prettier than Abigail’s … weren’t they?” Her mother’s smile emphasized the droop on the left side of her face, but at least she seemed to have forgotten the button for now. “I wanted to see you last night. How was your dinner with Ty?”

With Ty on the top ten list of topics to avoid, Kayla hadn’t expected the subject to come up and wasn’t sure how to approach it. Another argument was the last thing she wanted. “I understand he came to visit you yesterday.”

“He did … and we had a nice time. What happened at dinner?”

Kayla quirked an eyebrow at her friendly tone. “There’s nothing to tell.”

Her mom strained to look up at her. “Don’t tell me the two of you … got in a fight?”

Kayla shook her head, confused. Even after her mom had agreed to keep her opinions of Ty to herself, nothing had really changed. The stroke had just postponed the inevitable explosion she was convinced was coming. Genuine interest in their lives wasn’t what she’d expected.

Kayla began to comb the short curls into place. “Why the change of heart, Mom? You’re acting as if you like him. But he’s the bad guy, remember. The one who’s stealing your daughter away, bound to break her heart.”

“Not according to everything … I’ve ever heard from you.” Her mom pointed to a gold-foil box on the bedside table. “You’d be amazed how far a box of chocolates goes when you’ve been living on hospital food.”

“He said something about that.” She still didn’t get it. Since when did peace break out? “He was going to ask me to marry him, wasn’t he?”

Her mom reached up to push a curl into place on the side of her head. “I’d say that’s between you and Ty.”

“Mom. I need to know.”

“He came to ask my permission to marry you.”

“And you agreed?”

Her mom nodded slowly. “Lying in a hospital bed for almost three weeks makes … you look at things differently. He’s good to you. And as much as I haven’t wanted to admit it, he’s been … good to me as well.”

Kayla sprayed some hairspray to set her mom’s hair in place, making a mental note to schedule an appointment with the hairdresser for a perm. Her mom did have a point. Making sure the outside of her mother’s house was ready for winter was only one of the things he’d done to help ease Kayla’s load. He’d fixed the garbage disposal, insulated the windows, changed the smoke detector batteries, and the list went on and on.

Her mom slid on her glasses. “He also mentioned how easy it is to blame God for our mistakes. I can’t say … I’ve ever really thought about it that way.”

Kayla squeezed her eyes shut for a moment and sent up a prayer for wisdom. If she was going to rely on God for His wisdom and help in her life, now was as good a time as any to start. If her mother was opening her heart to God, what she needed to tell her about Ty was going to make things worse. How many people had been turned off from God and consequently church because of the behavior of the very people sitting inside?

“There are some things you need to know about Ty, Mom.”

Kayla sat down on the edge of the bed beside her mom and told her everything. From Ty’s involvement in the government’s investigation into Abbott Financial Services, to the strange phone calls, to the woman at the restaurant. The emotional weight she’d carried home the night before had shifted from anger to sadness. Maybe reality would hit her at some point. Right now she still felt numb.

“I’m so sorry you’ve had to go through this.” Her mom reached out and grasped Kayla’s fingers. “And I know this is going to sound … crazy coming from me, but I think you need to consider the fact that Ty’s innocent.”

Her brow pinched together. Those were the last words she’d expected to hear from her mom. “Whether or not he’s innocent isn’t really the point. He kept the truth from me. That’s not a relationship to base a healthy marriage on. And it goes back to the same problems we dealt with a year ago. It’s a matter of trust.”

“What if he was simply trying to protect you?”

Kayla shook her head. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Unplugging the curling iron, she marched across the room and opened the heavy, mauve drapes. Outside, dark storm clouds reflected her mood. Why was her mother defending Ty? A box of chocolates wasn’t nearly enough incentive to blind a person to the truth of the situation.

Her mom struggled to add blush to her cheeks. “I’m serious, Kayla. Even after everything you’ve told me … something’s not right.”

“It seems pretty straightforward to me.” She folded her arms across her chest, resisting the urge to take the makeup brush away from her mom to finish the job herself. “The bottom line is, whether or not he was involved, the fact remains that he didn’t trust me enough to tell me what was going on. How could he hide the fact that he’s one of the government’s suspects? It doesn’t get much bigger than that.”

“I’ve kept things from you throughout the years to protect you.”

“I’m not a child anymore, Mom. I don’t need to be protected.”

The doorbell rang, and Kayla fled from the room, grateful for the interruption. Since when did her mother defend Ty and his underhanded actions? If anything, her mom should be on her side; but instead it was as if she’d fallen into Alice in Wonderland’s rabbit hole and ended up in the twilight zone.

The doorbell chimed again. Kayla glanced at her watch as she hurried through the living room. Eight in the morning was too early to expect company, and Hillary wasn’t coming for another hour.

Kayla paused at the door. If it was Ty, she didn’t want to see him. She might have realized she couldn’t do things without her heavenly Father’s help, but that didn’t mean she was ready to deal with the emotional tsunami Ty was certain to evoke.

Leaning forward, Kayla glanced through the peephole, then let out a sigh of relief. Chloe stood on the porch, dressed in a red jacket, with a matching knit hat and gloves.

Kayla unlocked the door and flung it open. “Hey, this is a nice surprise.”

Chloe stepped out of the cold and into the warm entryway before giving Kayla a hug. “Honey, I need to talk to you about something.”

“And how are you this morning? You always were one to get straight to the point.” Kayla caught Chloe’s frown, and a shot of adrenaline flashed through her. “What’s wrong, Chloe? Is it Nick or Jenny? Or the boys?”