Topaz Heat (Christian Romance) (The Jewel Series) (14 page)

THE
rain from a few days before ended any false hope that the mild autumn weather gave of a perpetual summer. Now a wind howled, blowing the remaining leaves from trees and sending people scurrying indoors. Several miles outside Boston, a cold, foggy mist settled around the mountains, making the world gray and dark.

Derrick looked straight up the imposing wall of rock in front of him and secured his backpack around his waist. He rolled his head on his neck and shifted his shoulders, shaking his arms and loosening up the muscles. Settling his gear comfortably, he stepped forward and started the climb.

Up and over, finding purchase for his fingertips and toes and sweating as he pulled his body upward and upward. Thankful for the unwelcoming weather, he had the mountain to himself. Derrick gripped a slate outcrop with the fingers of his right hand and pulled himself up, finding a toehold on the wet rock. The wind picked up a bit, shooting a misty rain against his face. Angry at the slip of his tongue the night before, he barely felt it and just kept moving up the mountain, gradually finding purchase on the wet rock as he made slow progress.

An hour later, he realized that he couldn’t feel the rock beneath his hand anymore. The cold had numbed his fingertips. Despite the riskiness of coming out alone in this weather in the first place, he wasn’t going to push his luck any further. He found a crevice in the small outcropping and stopped to put on a pair of gloves. He slipped his pack off his back and pulled out his thin cold-weather jacket. In each pocket, he had hand warmers, and he broke them open and shoved his hands into his pockets, immediately feeling the relief of the chemically generated heat.

He sat with his back against the rock wall and leaned back on his heels, temporarily sheltered from the icy mist outside. He needed to head back down before this rain turned to sleet, but he decided to just take another moment, get a little warmer.

Without the concentration of the climb, he thought back to the night before at Tony’s house. Hope, horror, humiliation – strong emotions waged a battle inside his chest. He had prayed for Sarah for so many years that as he delved into the prayer the night before, he forgot himself. While he was certain God appreciated that kind of dedicated focus, the slip of the tongue destroyed just about any dream of the kind of future he had always hoped to find in Sarah. Not that he really harbored too much confidence that she would eventually come around to at least liking him a little bit, but there had always been that slim, sliver of hope. Maybe just a small glimmer – but hope nonetheless.

Derrick would never forget that first week with Tony. He would never forget appreciating the clean smell of the sheets and the warm room that greeted him when he got out of bed in the mornings, bitter cold ice and snow blanketing the city below him. He would always remember the shopping trip Maxine took him on, clothing him in good, brand new clothes – never before had he worn new shoes. Never had a pair of fleece-lined leather gloves warmed his hands.

It took him a long time to quit expecting the Viscollis to stop all this bluffing and play their real hand. It took him a long time to realize their love was real, genuine, and his for the taking. Their faith gave him a life, and once he started trusting them, he started trusting the one they called God. Once he started trusting God, his life had significance, their love had meaning, and he recognized that he had a purpose. He fell in love with Sarah gradually, deeply, and truly.

Late one Saturday night, he had stood in the kitchen of Tony’s penthouse apartment wearing nothing but cotton pajama pants and a white T-shirt while sipping ice water and making a tuna fish sandwich on toast. Sarah had walked in and studied him from head to toe like he was some kind of anomaly for which she couldn’t account.

Very precocious in appearance at perhaps half his size and at least a foot shorter than he, she had not smiled. Instead, her honey golden eyes – eyes the color of the richest topaz – had looked large and somewhat critical behind her glasses.

She wore an ankle length plaid skirt and a simple white blouse beneath a long sleeved button down sweater. She had an overnight bag slung over her shoulder. He remembered her reddish hair looking like it had a will of its own. “Hey,” He stuck a thumb in the direction of his chest. “Derrick. Derrick DiNunzio.”

Derrick was years away from elocution lessons and speaking in full and grammatically correct sentences. By contrast, the girl before him spoke with a cultured diction and nearly perfect inflection, sounding rather more like a Cape Cod Kennedy than a South Boston nursing student. “I know who you are. I’m Sarah. What on earth are you eating? It smells like an outdoor dock market in here.”

Derrick shrugged. “Just tuna. Want I should make you a sandwich?”

Sarah had shuddered and her face had fallen in disgust. “Certainly not.”

Her haughty tone nearly made him laugh aloud. Derrick had recently discovered a love for classic films. The teenage girl standing before him reminded him of a 1930s film noir movie matron, offended at the notion of this or that and uninhibited in communicating that offense to the world. He snapped his fingers. “Sarah. Right. Going to church with us tomorrow, yeah?”

“I’m going to church with my half-sisters, yes. Why?” Her chin jutted out.

Her arrogance made him want to tease her even more. He nodded and said, “Well, Sarah, it’s just peachy keen to meet ya.” He took an enormous bite of his tuna on toast and a spot of mayonnaise remained at the corner of his mouth as he chewed. With a cheek still full, he spoke, “I mean it. I’ll remember it always.”

Sarah had spun around muttering the word, “Disgusting,” under her breath. Derrick had grinned, his teeth covered with tuna and bits of pickle, feeling nothing but mirth at the exchange as he watched her leave.

From the first moment they met, that initial dynamic had set a tone for their relationship that had only escalated through the college years and the years that followed. Through all that time, no other woman ever compared to her. Sarah had a fire and she never backed down. She never abandoned her principles and she never once, in all the time he had known her, stepped down off her high horse. While everyone else seemed to coddle her or tolerate her attitude, Derrick did whatever he could to throw her off balance and relish her discomfiture.

And he pined for her since the second they met.

The grief he experienced at his mother’s death surprised him and nothing seemed to comfort him for weeks. Sarah continued to ignore him through the funeral and the days that followed.

In prayer he came to a place of equilibrium where he no longer experienced any feelings. The world turned silver and black and white like the old movies he watched and his heart beat a hollow rhythm in his chest. He started working more than he ever had before – sixty, seventy, even eighty hour weeks just to drown out everything else around him.

Tony, in his wisdom, sent Derrick away, with a new job, lots of new responsibilities, and new scenery. Derrick, knowing how much Sarah despised him, hoped that his absence would make her grow distant in his mind and, hopefully, his heart.

She had not.

He abided in her, prayed for her daily, and ultimately began to pray that God would soften her heart and let her feel the same way for him that he felt for her.

Now she knew his secret – now the whole family knew. His heart gave a painful twist at that thought. Would they treat him differently? Would they see him as an interloper, a predator in their midst all these years? Would he still be accepted as one of them?

He shifted and leaned forward, moving from a crouching on his heels position into a kneeling on his knees position. He felt he ought to talk to the One who got him into this mess in the first place. Hands still in his pockets to warm his numb fingertips, he bowed his head.

“God, I’m trying to trust my future to You, but I’m finding myself at an impasse…” As he prayed, the cold bit his cheeks. The wind whipped violently around him and the mist froze to little hard pellets of ice. He felt very alone and a little bit afraid. A part of his mind wondered if this is how David had felt waiting to see which way Jonathan’s arrow would fall.

Finishing the brief but emotional prayer with a steadfast, “Amen,” Derrick rose to his feet. He slapped his hands together and rubbed them hard, then stepped away from his temporary shelter and started, carefully, climbing back down the mountain face, racing the dropping temperature, while on the icy rock slipping too often for peace of mind as he made his retreat.

TONY
met Derrick in the parking garage. He glanced into the back seat and spotted the climbing gear. His eyes shot angry daggers as Derrick pocketed his keys. “Tell me you weren’t out in this weather.”

“I came back down as soon as it turned bad.” He stomped his feet and nodded toward the elevator. “Let’s go inside. The heater’s out in the car for some reason, and I’m freezing.”

They rode up to the apartment in silence. Derrick kept his coat on, but shed his gloves and led Tony into the kitchen. He’d pre-loaded the coffee pot, so all he had to do was turn it on. Listening to the machine grind the beans and spit them into the basket made him already start to feel warmer.

“So, that was quite intense last night,” Tony said without preamble.

“That’s certainly a word.” Derrick pulled two mugs from the cupboard and set them on the counter next to the coffee maker. He moved to the refrigerator and dug around inside, pulling out the makings of a turkey sandwich.

“Good thing you were there with her.”

Releasing a breath, Derrick set the sandwich makings on the counter and leaned his hands against it. “I agree. I think I was supposed to be there.”

The only sign Tony gave that he understood the deeper meaning was a slight purse of his lips. “Barry took her home after you left.”

Derrick closed his eyes. “Tony…”

He felt the slap of his friend, of his brother’s hand, against his shoulder. “Do you think for a minute that your feelings were not already known?”

Relief flooded his chest, choked his throat. He cleared his throat and opened his eyes, busying his hands with the twist tie on the bag of bread. “I thought I hid my feelings pretty well.”

“Big giant pining brown eyes cannot be hidden.”

Laughter bubbled up from the tightness in his chest, loosening the tension. “Okay. Okay.” He pulled out two slices of bread and raised his eyebrow quizzically at Tony. At his nod, he pulled out another two. “Why didn’t Sarah see it?”

“Derrick, for years and years, Sarah didn’t see the love her own sisters had for her. God is still working on her.”

Derrick pondered that. Then his hands abandoned their mundane efforts. “Tony, is this what it’s like for Jesus? Does He just love us and love us from the time we are born and we disappoint Him over and over and just shun His love – and He never stops? He just never stops loving us even when we push Him away over and over again?”

Tony’s fingers tightened on the younger man’s shoulders. “Can you imagine how much it pains Him?”

Derrick felt tears threatening. “I don’t have to imagine.” His head hung and he changed the subject. “She knows, now. How many times have I baited her and teased her for no good reason? Just trying to get a rise out of her so she would think about me for the rest of the day. I’ve been so childish.”