Precious Blessings (Love Inspired) (14 page)

“Yeah.” Wistful. A little confused. And she was gone.

It wasn't easy to let go of grieving, he knew. Sometimes grief was the only way to hold on to a loved one who had passed. Hayden was a smart, good girl. She was going to get through this. He'd make sure of it.

The past and those we've loved would always be a part of us, he thought, in this room with a few pictures
and photo albums of the past. But it was the future that gave him hope now. A future where his daughter was happy and growing up and living a good, quality life.

As for his future, that had been a huge question mark for many years. Until now. Whatever steps he chose had to be good for Hayden; there was no question about that. Maybe the trials he'd been through, and those numerous first dates that had never worked out, had happened for a reason. To bring him here. To Katherine. To perfect Katherine.

He turned to the Bible he still held, weighing it in his hands. Comforting. Sure. Eminently thankful, he bowed his head, grateful for his blessings.

 

Katherine woke up, the scream dying in her throat. The sounds of her panicked breathing a ghostly echo in the room. The nightmare shredded into a thousand pieces and disappeared as she flicked on the bedside-table lamp. The sudden light felt too bright. Her eyes hurt as it spilled over the tabletop and her Bible, chasing back the darkness.

She dragged herself into a sitting position and her arms felt weak. Her hands shook hard as she grabbed the covers and shoved them away. She felt nauseated, sick. Wet with sweat. The taste of fear lingered in her mouth. Emptiness had hollowed out her soul, just the way it had over fifteen years ago.

Everyone has wounds in their lives. It's not so much that you erase that wound from your heart, as much as you learn to move past the pain. To live and learn to trust others even with that old wound.
Why did her
words come back to her, the ones she'd said to Jack a while ago?

Maybe because tonight she'd reopened the wrong that nothing could make right. Making light of first-date disasters as if the only kind of dating disaster would be funny, and not dangerous. Worrying about what Jack would think if he knew she'd been date-raped as a college freshman. What he would think of the nine months following that…oh, that was a time she could not bear to allow into her consciousness.

The simple act of remembering tore through her soul.

All the years of counseling, of help and understanding from her family and pastor had helped her learn to cope and heal enough to live her life. But the emotional wound would never go away. It haunted her on nights like this. She'd given this up to God, but it still haunted her. It still felt like a brand on her spirit. Kevin had rejected her because of it.

Would Jack?

In the wee hours of the night, when the dark was so suffocating and powerful, it dimmed the brightness of their emotional connection and of the good, positive experience of simply having dinner with him.

The darkness made the shadows inside her deeper and harder to see past.

T
he shadows from the nightmare seemed to stick in the light of day. Church service had helped, and having lunch with her sisters and brother had, too. But now that she was back home, alone with the silence of the house surrounding her, she noticed the shadows again, lurking just below the surface.

Maybe some noise would help. She slipped a CD in the player, hit Play and hoped that the “Moonlight Sonata” would ease some of her anxiety. She plopped on the couch, put her feet on the coffee table and picked up her book. Even with the soothing music, she couldn't concentrate.

The phone rang. What were the odds that was one of her sisters? Ava had called twice, Aubrey once. Danielle had called. Stepsister Rebecca, who'd been out of the loop being busy with college, had called, all wanting the scoop.

In the last two hours Katherine had dodged so many
questions about Jack, she didn't know if she had enough energy to do it one more time. At least, not without fortifying herself with chocolate first.

She found enough oomph to check the extension, but the ID screen said it was Jack. Her hand was reaching to answer the phone before her mind had made the conscious decision. “I hope this means you made it home last night without disaster on those spare tires.”

“Roger that. I'm not calling at a bad time, right?”

“Right. I'm just trying to read a book.”

“Trying?”

“My phone keeps ringing. My sisters, mostly.”

“Your sisters are a big part of your life.”

“I would disown them, but then who would look after them? What can I say, they need me.” Since she was up, she wandered into the kitchen. Surely she had some chocolate somewhere. “Why are you calling?”

“I wanted to make sure you weren't starting to think over last night and getting dater's remorse.”

“We've both been there before. Fortunately I've had the syndrome often so I recognize the symptoms, and I haven't noticed any so far.”

“That's good.”

“Of course, it's early yet. We'll see how this call turns out.”

“Sure, add to the pressure.”

“How about you?” She tugged open the pantry door. “Are you experiencing any signs of dating remorse?”

“Only that I spilled my personal stuff and you didn't. You stayed mysteriously silent.”

“Probably because I was eating.”

“Notice how that didn't stop
me?
”

This man made her laugh. The more she wanted him, the more real it was that she would have to tell him about… Don't think about it yet, Katherine. She scanned the pantry—the only chocolate she spied was a package of baking chips. “I like that you think I'm mysteriously silent. I think that's how we'll keep it.”

“And I'm trying to politely pry into your story.”

Right here was a good place to tell him about that stubborn but devout seventeen-year-old girl who'd graduated a year early from the local high school and insisted on going away to college. Away from the protective arms of her dad and stepmother, away from the safety net of her siblings and childhood friends. Away from everything she knew. Not understanding that the world wasn't as safe as the one she'd grown up in.

Now wasn't the time to tell him about that, not on the phone.

“Sorry. No prying allowed, mister. I'm mysteriously silent, remember?”

“Mysteriously silent and impervious to interrogation techniques?”

“Absolutely.” Wise in the ways of plastic packaging, she didn't even try to rip the bag open. She went to the top drawer and plucked a pair of scissors out of the drawer organizer. “I didn't see you at the early service this morning. I'm assuming you made the later one?”

“Yep. Hayden and I had some issues to discuss. We made it to the last service just as they were starting the opening prayer.” His baritone dipped, serious.

She could feel the weight of it like a hundred-pound barbell on her chest. Here it comes, she thought as she snipped the corner off the bag. The first real obstacle— Hayden. “How is she doing?”

“Better, I think. It's hard to tell because the male brain cannot wrap around the workings of the female mind. She says she's fine and I know she's not, but I think she means she's doing better than she has been. Our talk started after I got home last night and we picked it up this morning.”

The truth was, she cared about Hayden. She popped a few chips into her mouth. She braced herself for him to say this wasn't going to be good for Hayden. “How does she feel about our date? The last thing I want to do is cause her more problems.”

“You're not. My daughter has some grief issues she's dealing with. They're going to be with her for some time to come. With your mom leaving when you were young, I know you understand. I have to do what's best for my little girl, hands down.”

“I already know that about you. That's what I want, too.”

“I've known that from the start.” His words were warm, his baritone inviting her to relax, to let down her guard, to open up.

And there it was, this intense emotional closeness to him. A connection that could erase the miles separating them and breach the walls of her condo and dig like a fishhook into her spirit, binding her to him.

This is way too fast, she thought as she plopped onto the couch cushion. They'd been on one date. She
could make a two-page list of all the things she didn't know about him. And probably a five-line list of all the things she did.

This wasn't sensible, falling so fast and hard like this. She'd passed the fail-safe point, and if this didn't work out, she knew there wasn't a safe way back. How did she put on the brakes? How did she slow down her feelings? He was like gravity pulling her soul to his and it wasn't practical or sensible or orderly, but frightening and uncertain. She had no way to predict doom or safety.

And that was how she'd been able to come back after the rape and its consequences. Safe, practical, sensible, predictable. She'd built her life on that, and she had thrived. Like anyone, she had her good days and her harder ones, but everyone had pain in their lives. She had her faith to help her. And, she knew, it would help her now. Strengthen her to face whatever came of this.

“Hayden has her skiing lesson this week, so I have a question. How about you meet me up at the lodge?”

“Are you going to try to ski?”

“Not down the advanced runs.”

His words were warm with humor and curled around her heart like the coziness from a wood fire. Oh, she was so in love with this man. There was no way to stop it. No way to hold back such a powerful emotional force. So she took a deep breath and sealed her fate. “I'll see you there.”

 

Her fateful words haunted her into the next day. Katherine zipped her coat as she stepped out into the crisp, blustery day, trying to ignore Marin's and Holly's
question. The one she'd been asked at least six hundred times today.

“I'm seeing him tomorrow,” she told them as they wove their way around the parked cars. “And before you ask another question, no, it's not an official date, we're just getting together for skiing and dinner after or something.”

“Sure, he calls you up the day
after
your first date. Obviously he's
hardly
interested,” Holly agreed, trawling for her keys in her enormous tote. “I mean, how indifferent can a guy get?”

“Exactly.” Marin led the way to Holly's car. “I mean, how many guys call right away? They say they will, and they do. I think it's fairly common.”

“Enough!” Katherine rolled her eyes. How much did she have to put up with? She knew her friends cared. She knew all the calls from her sisters were because they were rooting for her happiness. But a girl could only take so much. “I'm officially out of the hesitant stage, so you can stop now.”

Holly beeped the car doors unlocked with her remote. “Are you serious? You're ready to admit you like him?”

“The uh-oh stage,” Marin said. “I named that stage. It's where the doom of romance really starts. When you start caring.
That's
when they've got you.”

“I feel so much better now,” Katherine commented as she climbed into the back seat. “What if I told you it's more serious than that?”

“The point-of-no-return phase,” Marin said. “Although I call it the doom phase.”

Holly climbed behind the wheel and started the car. “You're not helping, Marin.”

“Sorry. Too many years of marital counseling jades you just a tad. So, Katherine, you must feel pretty serious about this man.”

Serious.
Why did her stomach knot up as if she were facing a jail sentence? “I haven't had a connection like this with anyone before. I don't know what it is. It's very…encompassing. Intense. It's like he just reached in and grabbed hold of my heart.”

“That's seriously serious.” Marin flipped around in her seat. “Are you ready for this?”

“Can anyone be?” Katherine held up her hands, feeling helpless. She couldn't think of a single word to describe how she felt. “I've never felt so strongly before, not even for Kevin, and I was in love with him. It scares me.”

“That's how it is when love is real.” Holly backed the car out of the parking spot. “It's scary because you have to trust that person so much with your heart and who you are. It's like you have to open the most private rooms in your heart and let him in. That is one of the hardest things, to be honest and love without defense. After you've been hurt like you have, Katherine, it's natural to try hard to keep him out of those places. But real love can never work that way. You have to let him in, just as he has to let you in.”

Marin nodded in agreement. “Are you going to trust Jack enough to open up to him the way you did with Kevin? Or not?”

“It wouldn't have mattered if I had told Kevin before
he asked me to marry him. He still would have had the same reaction.” She closed her eyes, unwilling to see Jack reacting the same way. Unable to let herself even imagine such a negative response. It would do more than hurt her, it would devastate her. “I made mistakes with Kevin.”

Mostly in keeping him at an emotional distance. Marin and Holly were right. She'd never trusted Kevin enough to let him in close. For some inexplicable reason, Jack could do that by the simple force of his personality or some heaven-sent design; she didn't know which. She only knew that Jack had gotten beneath her defenses. Every single one of them.

As Holly drove the few blocks to the bookstore, their conversation turned to other things. But Katherine felt stuck in place, as if the back of her mind was working out what her friends had been trying to tell her. What she had been trying to figure out for herself.

When they pulled into the parking lot, she felt her spirit brighten, the way it did when she was near Jack. All it took was one glance to see his state cruiser nosed in at the sidewalk in a parking spot directly in front of the store.

If she was lucky, Marin wouldn't notice or comment. Katherine unbuckled her seat belt, prepared just in case Marin started up again. “Thanks for driving, Holly. Bye!”

The instant her feet touched pavement, Katherine whirled to close the door and caught sight of Jack through the front window, in his uniform. The light
within her brightened. She wasn't aware of moving, but she was at the door, pulling it open with a jingle of the overhead bell. Jack turned toward the sound, looking over his shoulder. Their eyes met and Katherine felt the impact rock through her soul.

I love him. The realization blazed through her like a meteor. The sensible part of her seemed to fade away until there was only feeling. Only happiness. Only certainty.

“Katherine.” He seemed to light up. “Your cousin has been telling me what a good catch you are.”

“Too bad I have to fire her now.” Katherine gave Kelly a death-ray glare, but her cousin and best employee seemed immune to its effects. “Are you on your way to work?”

“Dropping off Hayden first.” He pocketed his wallet, took the plastic bag Kelly handed him over the counter and ambled her way. “You look beautiful.”

She missed a step, staring up at him as if he'd started speaking Swahili. Then she recovered and smiled shyly up at him. “Thank you.”

He had a thousand things he wanted to ask her about. All the things he didn't know and they hadn't shared. Not that he had time at this exact moment. And not that he wanted to get personal with so many members of her family watching. The twins had been changing the display tables in the front of the store and were obviously listening without any attempt to conceal it or even to appear as if they were working.

Kelly, who'd rung up his book purchase, was leaning expectantly over the counter, eyes bright and curious. Even the brother, Spence, whom he had yet to officially
meet, had turned partway from his computer monitor and, while continuing to work, had cocked an ear toward his now-open door.

Not exactly a desirable courting atmosphere. Definitely not a private one. “Walk me to my ride?”

“Sure. Maybe then everyone can get back to work.”

Ava and Aubrey didn't budge. Neither did Kelly.

Jack opened the door for Katherine. She brushed by him, close enough for him to smell the soft floral fragrance of her shampoo, to see the light gold of her hair gleam like platinum in the sunlight. She was so feminine and fragile; tenderness reared up inside him as he followed her outside. She made him feel ten feet tall.

As if nervous or unsure, she folded a lock of hair behind her ear. “I've been meaning to run something by you. It's about Hayden.”

“Uh-oh.” That can't be good. He tried to focus, but all he seemed to notice was the porcelain fineness of Katherine's complexion and the delicate cut of her jaw. A wave of affection rolled through him, filling him to the brim.