Unexpected Wedding (11 page)

She pulled a clipping out of her bag and unfolded it before him. “Have you seen this?”

He put his fist to his mouth as he tried to cover a choking sound. “Can’t say I have. This is from a paper several counties away. It’s not usually delivered with my neighbor’s
Houston Chronicle
. Not that I steal his paper. He doesn’t always pick them up. It’s really a matter of tidying up the driveway, but wow. No, I have not seen this.”

“I was shocked when it turned up at camp.”

“I’m sorry, Gia. It’s my fault. I’m the one who talked you into that.”

“Yes, but he took advantage of the situation. And you don’t truly look concerned.”

He wasn’t concerned. Not in the least. He was on the front page of a newspaper with his lips pressed against the most beautiful woman in the world. If anything, he wanted to beat his chest and howl about it. Probably not an appropriate response.

He tried to pull it closer. “Can I have this?”

“No. This one’s mine. You’ll have to find your own. Besides, that sneaky cameraman said he’d e-mail us a copy.”

“I’m guessing he’ll e-mail us a link to buy one from the newspaper. I’m ordering poster size. What about you?”

She narrowed her gaze.

“Don’t answer that. Didn’t mean to make fun. If this bothers you, I’m sorry we were exposed like that, but I can’t feel bad about it. I thought we had a great time.”

“We did,” she agreed. “And uh... About that kiss. I’m sorry if that was a little forward. I—”

“Don’t say another word, Gia. If you tell me that kiss was a mistake, I’ll stab myself with this little shrimp fork. Or maybe these chopsticks.” He looked around the room. “C’mon, people, are these the best weapons you’ve got?”

For the first time she laughed. “Don’t hurt yourself, Rocky. It wasn’t a mistake. It was more like bad timing.”

That worried him more.

“All right, Gia. I know you don’t feel well. Something’s on your mind. Is it your health? What did the doctor say?”

“They took blood and ordered some tests. I go back Friday, but I got some answers today.”

“So... you’re OK?”

She lifted the hunter green napkin from her lap and then put it back down. “I have something to tell you, Rocky, and I want you to know I never meant to hurt you.”

He flinched in his chair. Anger flashed inside him and then simmered to a slow burn. “I can’t believe this,” he said with as much control as possible. “You’re dumping me in my favorite restaurant before I’ve had my spring rolls. You couldn’t have said something earlier?”

“Let me explain. This is because of me. Because of a problem I’m having. Not you.”

“The ‘it’s not you it’s me’ thing is not going to help me here, Gia. We’ve had one and a half dates and a handful of conversations. Tell me, how did I mess this up already?”

“Please, Rocky, if you’ll let me talk a minute you’ll see it is not my intention to dump you, but I’m fairly certain you won’t want to see me again after you hear what I say.”

The waitress approached. He tried to wave her away nicely. “Give us a minute, please.”

Rocky held his composure and waited. Tears shimmered in Gia’s soft brown eyes, but she refused to let one slip away. Something was wrong. Bad wrong. And it was killing her.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m listening.”

“Oh, Rocky.” Her hand trembled. She steadied it on the table. “I’m not sick. I’m pregnant.”

7

Gia nearly choked on the last word and said it again as if trying it on for size. “Pregnant. Yes, I’m pregnant.” It was the first time she’d said it out loud.

Rocky sat across from her, frozen. He looked stunned and hurt, but mostly confused. She expected him to take off for the door any second.

He didn’t look straight at her when he spoke. “I
really
wish you would have told me you were involved with someone else.”

“I’m not.”

“Well, then, maybe you should be having dinner with the father of that baby instead of me so you two can be figuring out what to do.”

She kept her voice low. “That’s not going to happen, Rocky. He doesn’t need to know. He never will.”

“Every man deserves to know something like this,” he said with an edge to his words, “and every child deserves to know where they came from.”

“Not always. Not this time.”

Gia braced for his response. He had that same look her father wore during one of their intense discussions at the dining room table. Veins bulged, muscles twitched, and all this happened right before he slammed his fist on the table and ended the meal amidst the rattle of dishes and clanking silverware.

Rocky strangled his napkin instead.

He sat back in his chair and let out a heavy sigh. “What’s going on here, Gia? I don’t know what I’m supposed to say.”

She leaned in and rested her arms on the table. “I’m a victim of a DFSA.”

“What is that? I’ve not heard that before.”

“Drug Facilitated Sexual Assault. That’s the fancy term. They’ve dressed it up to take it to church or something, but it’s date rape, plain and simple. I was drugged and assaulted eight weeks ago before I left college.”

He jerked in his chair and met her gaze. The aggravation and uncertainty etched on his face changed to shock. He started to speak. She didn’t let him.

“I didn’t know for sure until yesterday. For weeks I’ve been having these dreams, thoughts, hallucinations—whatever you want to call them. It was like a demented puzzle I couldn’t put together. Physically, I had good days and bad. I had such a bad day Sunday they wouldn’t let me stay at camp. Then everything started clicking and I knew... It started to make sense in the most horrible way.”

“Your parents,” he mumbled as if trying to match words together to make sense. “Are they on their way?”

“They don’t know.”

“Why?”

“I can’t deal with them yet.”

“They’re your
parents.
”

The pressure took her breath away. “We have a strained relationship. Believe me when I say I can’t deal with them yet.”

He pushed his phone and sunglasses closer to the edge of the table and downed the last of his water. She still thought he might bolt for the door.

“What do the police say? Is this guy in jail?”

“No. No one knows except the doctor. And she only knows enough to order the right tests. She’s not allowed to say anything.”

“You’ve told no one? What about camp?”

“As far as they know I left with a stomach bug.”

He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Back to the police. This is a crime. You have to report it.”

“It was weeks ago. There’s no evidence of assault, no blood test was done when it happened. It’s my word against his. We were seen together on other occasions. No one would believe it wasn’t consensual.” She rubbed her forehead in an effort to stop the sudden throbbing. “I’m working on all this, Rocky. I’m still trying to connect the dots.”

“But you should say something for the record, right? If it happens to someone else, your story could help get him off the street.”

“And what if that comes to light when this baby is five years old? There would be no protecting him. I have an obligation to guard this child.”

“What about your obligation to the other innocents? He’s a rapist, and he’s free.”

And here she thought she couldn’t feel more ashamed.

She glanced around the room. A few more people had come in. “Do you think I haven’t thought of that?” It was hard to not scream. She tried to speak quietly. “I’m trying to work everything out. This is all new. I don’t know what I’m doing.” She tossed her napkin on the table and tried to put her hands on her bag. She didn’t remember which side of the chair she hung it on. He hadn’t run, maybe she should.

“Stop,” he said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make it worse. I’m... I’m beyond angry that this happened to you. I can’t see straight, and I’m way out of my element here. Please wait a minute.”

He reached for her hand. She hesitated and then grabbed it like a drowning child. Nothing felt right in that moment except holding on.

He signaled the hostess and dug in his pocket with his free hand. “Something’s come up and we can’t stay.” He handed her some cash. “Can you put together a couple of my favorites to go? And I need a big container of that creamy soup with the noodles in it, OK?”

“Sure, Mister Rocky.”

Gia’s insides started to unwind. The man was completely beside himself, but he was still trying to take care of her.

She held on tighter.

“Let’s get you to the car and get the air going,” he said. “We can’t do this here.”

Moments later, Gia’s headache started to subside as she relaxed in Rocky’s car with the cool air blowing on her face. The engine rattled beneath her as she put her head back and rested.

Rocky hurried out the front doors and put the box of food in the back before transferring into the driver’s seat and stowing his chair. Then he sat there completely still, looking as though he’d been battered by a passing hurricane.

“I’m sorry I burdened you with this, Rocky, but I had to tell you the truth. I couldn’t, I don’t know, stop talking to you or disappear or something.”

“It’s not a burden. I’m thinking. That’s all. This is a lot to get my mind around. Can’t imagine how you’re doing it.”

She met his gaze. “I’m not doing it very well. I’m exhausted.”

He reached for her. She went willingly into his embrace, across the awkward seat and into his strong arms. Once there, against his broad chest, she couldn’t stop the flow of information that had been whirling around in her mind. “I can’t go back to work,” she said. “I can’t face the camp directors. What do I tell them? I don’t think my student health insurance covers maternity. I have to find a real job.” She took a breath and then rambled on about how she had to stay until the end of the week to see the doctor again, but then wondered out loud why she should bother since she needed to find an OB-GYN as soon as possible. Somewhere in the hail of details that tumbled from her mouth, she referred to Rebekah and the letters at camp.

Rocky, who seemed to have been content to let her vent as he stroked her hair, stopped suddenly. “Where is this guy now?”

“I assume he’s in west Texas somewhere. I’d ended it before that night. I never saw him after.”

“But you said there were letters.”

“I got a few at camp, but not lately.”

“But you don’t know that for sure because you haven’t been there.”

“I’ve only been gone since Sunday. This is Tuesday.”

“What did the letters say?”

“I don’t know. I destroyed them.”

She looked up at him. “Awww, please don’t look at me like that. Don’t you know I’m kicking myself? If I’d realized he’d committed a crime against me, I wouldn’t have burned anything.” She left the safety of his arms and buckled her seatbelt. “I thought it was an attempt to unnerve me. I’m telling you he’s weird and sadistic. That’s why I ended it almost as soon as it began. I’ve thought about this letter thing over and over. It’s not as if he had to sneak around to find out I was at camp. I’m sure I told him in conversation about it.”

“Why would a rapist send you letters following the crime? Is he crazy enough to have incriminated himself?”

“He’s not crazy-dumb. He’s crazy-smart and crazy-warped. I think he was hoping I’d respond. That way he could get a kick out of what he’d accomplished. If I didn’t remember anything, maybe he thought he could get close enough to do it again.” She trembled from the inside out. “He’s sick. And I don’t know what drug or combination of drugs he gave me, but it must have been significant because between that and however my body chemistry held on to it, my brains are scrambled.”

Rocky’s touch was steady on her arm. “OK, OK, stop thinking about it. Your brains are better than most, Gia. You’ll get past this.”

She shrugged. “Well, I’ve given it all to God and asked for a miracle. In fact, I dozed off with my head in my Bible last night. I woke with a start and ripped a page right out because it was stuck to my forehead.”

His sparkling smile returned. “God must have really wanted you to see something.”

“Oh, He did,” she said and pulled the crinkly page out of her purse. “Deuteronomy 27:18 is what jumped out at me.
Cursed is the man who leads the blind astray on the road. Then all the people shall say amen.
”

He snagged his sunglasses off the dash and gave them a swipe with his shirt before he put them on. “Wow, Gia. I didn’t know you’d been giving blind people bad directions. No wonder God felt He needed to speak with you. That’s mean.”

“Yeah, I thought you’d like that.”

Rocky’s phone buzzed. “That’s my reminder for worship band practice tonight. I need to let them know I may be late.”

“Don’t let me make you late. I need to get back anyway. I have tons of stuff to do online.”

He put the car in gear and headed out of the parking lot. “OK. We’ll get your stuff and head to my place.”

“Uh... What?”

“We’re getting your things and you’re coming to my house.”

“No, Rocky, really. I’m fine. Please don’t think I need you to take care of me. That’s not why I shared with you.”

“Look, Gia, I know you’ve had it rough the last few weeks, but you do trust me, don’t you? You know I would never hurt you, right?”

She did know that. She did trust him. Sadly, that only brought to light how many other people she didn’t trust. It never had come easily for her.

“I do, but this is not your problem.”

He blew past her response. “There’s no way I’m leaving you alone at that hotel. You need to eat, you need to think, and you need to rest. And you need to do that in a safe place.”

“A safe place sounds awesome, but I don’t think it’s appropriate that I stay in your house. Don’t want the neighbors spreading rumors.”

“I would love it if my neighbors had a rumor to spread about me.”

“Be serious, Rocky.”

He stopped at the light and looked her way. “I know who I am in Christ. Do you?”

“Of course. Light’s green.”

“That’s enough then,” he said and took off. “I know what kind of man I am. I have a spare bedroom and you need it. It’s between us. Everyone else should mind their own business.”