by Arlene James
He wasn’t sure later how he managed to steer the bike safely to the church. The ride seemed to take seconds and, at the same time hours. Cocooned in the rushing wind, they sped through the quiet city streets. When they pushed through the chapel doors and slipped into the back pew, they were but a quarter hour late to the meeting. The music portion of the meeting had finished, but the pastor had not yet begun the Bible reading to prepare the gathering for prayer.
Drawing his Bible from an inside pocket, Garrett followed along, his concentration fierce, but when the moment for silent prayer came and he closed his eyes, he found that the words flowing from his heart were not what he’d planned. Rather than lifting up the concerns that had been listed in the distributed program and spoken aloud by those in attendance, he found his thoughts turning to selfish concerns.
Has she avoided me because she feels this attraction, too? Is she afraid or simply uninterested? Help her see how greatly I admire her strength and determination, he asked his Lord. More importantly, if she can somehow be within Your will for me, help me deserve her.
That was his greatest fear, really, that the mistakes of his past made him unfit for a woman of such strength, bravery and determination. He wished his mother had been more like Jessa, but perhaps she had been and he just hadn’t seen it. He had longed to give her a way out of her marriage to Doyle, but had he unwittingly been the very reason she had stayed? Had she tried to protect him and his sister from her husband’s brutality by staying with him? Was that why she had gone back to him time after time, even after Doyle had hospitalized her, only to die in a broken heap of bones and bruises? Because of him? Even if it hadn’t been to protect him, he was still the cause of it all.
How could he think that he could ever deserve a woman like Jessa?
Folding her hands, Jessa stared down at them. When the pastor had asked for those with prayer requests to speak up, she had very nearly done so, but how could she ask others to pray that God would give her the strength not to fall in love with the man sitting next to her? How could she ask that God grant her the Monroe place so that she need not worry about making a fool of herself over him? Again.
She should never have gone into the greenhouse that night. She should never have stayed once she’d realized that he was there. She should never have let herself feel safe and comfortable with him, enough to drop off to sleep on his shoulder! She hadn’t known what to say to him after that, hadn’t known how to act. She still didn’t. Nevertheless, she’d climbed on that bike and she’d let herself feel that she belonged there with him, if only for a little while.
What was wrong with her? A romantic complication was the last thing she needed, especially with him. He seemed to know her too well, and that horrified her.
Wayne had known her better than she’d known herself. He’d known exactly how to manipulate her, how to keep her bound to him. He’d even used her faith, her conviction that God had ordained marriage and meant it to last a lifetime. She knew Wayne had ignored his own wedding vows because he’d rubbed her nose in his infidelities, claiming that he’d strayed because of her. Already pregnant, she’d clung to her belief that God would change him.
Eventually she’d come to understand that God would not change those who did not wish to change. By then she had a child with the man, and Wayne had threatened violence to their son and even her mother to keep her at his side. Ironically, that very violence, and the small legacy left to her by her late mom, had finally allowed Jessa to escape.
She couldn’t imagine that Garrett would actually harm her, which was probably why he drew her so strongly. But how could she know? Marrying Wayne had proved how poor her judgment was in such matters. It was safer simply not to allow any man into her life. Yet Garrett Willows tempted her.
He tempted her to trust him, perhaps even to love him, and she dared not. Even if he did happen to be interested in her romantically, she dared not let herself trust that it could work out for them.
Please, Lord, she pleaded, don’t let me make the same mistake twice. I know that cannot be Your will.
She roused herself to pray for the requests of others, those with illness and financial need, those in nursing homes and at the end of their lives. Those needs far exceeded her own, yet she continually wandered back to her concerns.
Help me be wise, she prayed at one point. Protect me, Lord, from myself!
By the time the meeting came to a close, Jessa felt exhausted. While she longed to ride back to Chatam House with Garrett, she knew that she should put distance between them. Why couldn’t she find a way just to be his friend, especially as that was what he seemed to offer?
“An innocent thing,” he’d called it, her falling asleep so easily on his shoulder. He couldn’t know how many nights she’d lain awake in fear with Wayne breathing easily beside her. Or how many times her fears had been realized.
An innocent thing? No, not to her.
The Chatams greeted her warmly, and told her where to find Hunter. She hurried off to fetch her son. To her surprise, he lingered a few moments, giggling with another boy, before running to her.
“Hi, Mommy. Miss Magnolia said we might get a treat at the drive-through on the way home.”
Jessa looked down at the shining, happy face of her child. “Well,” she capitulated easily, “if Miss Magnolia said so, I guess that’s all right.”
“Cool!”
He led her out to the foyer, babbling about his friend Tucker and the horses that he supposedly owned.
“Next year, when I get to go to real school, I can see ’em, right? ’Cause then I can go to Tucker’s house and he can come to mine. When we get one. Right?”
“Right,” Jessa confirmed, vowing that one way or another, she would get him a home. He would have his friends over, and she would find the courage to let him go to their homes to visit, and he would have the life he deserved, a life without fear. “Just don’t let me mess it up, Lord,” she whispered. “Don’t let me mess it up.”
They met the Chatams and Garrett on the front steps of the building. Amber lights lit the proud downtown of the graceful old city, softly illuminating the circa 1930s storefronts of the businesses that surrounded the square on three sides. The church took up the entire fourth side of the square. The ornate county courthouse, constructed of rose granite, occupied its center.
Oblivious to the grandeur, Hunter ran straight to Magnolia, all but jumping up and down in his exuberance when Chester pulled up to the curb in the town car. Garrett stood apart, holding a helmet in each hand. She waited for him to offer her one. He did not, and when Magnolia offered to bring him his favorite treat, a strawberry milk shake laced with chocolate syrup, he politely declined.
“No, no. You all go on and enjoy yourselves. I’m going to take a ride on the bike.”
So, that was that, then. Jessa piled into the car with the others, but as it pulled away, she couldn’t resist looking back. The sight of him standing there alone with those two helmets, his inky hair gleaming in the lamplight, made her heart turn over. He looked so strong, with those broad shoulders encased in leather, and yet oddly vulnerable. She told herself that it was her imagination. Had he wanted her to ride back with him, he’d have asked her to do so. Wouldn’t he?
She told herself next that it didn’t matter. She could not afford to care for him or feel more for him than mere friendship, but deep in her heart, she wished… Oh, how she wished!
That unexpressed wish followed her into sleep that night and embossed itself permanently on her heart.
Much, it seemed, as Garrett Willows himself had done.
Chapter Nine
“You’re right,” Jessa said to Hunter the next afternoon, flipping the textbook closed. “That’s enough for today.”
Hunter pushed back the desk chair and hopped out of it. “Yay! Can I go outsid
e?”
Jessa considered his request. They hadn’t seen Garrett last night after the prayer meeting or this morning at breakfast. She had to wonder who was avoiding whom now. If she let Hunter leave the house alone, though, he’d head straight for the greenhouse. Still, she couldn’t keep a healthy boy cooped up in the house, not on a beautiful day in early May.
“Okay. Why don’t you get the truck that Magnolia gave you? We’ll go out to the rose arbor for a while.”
“Cool!”
He raced off to get the toy dump truck while she tucked in the tail of her simple aqua T-shirt into her jeans. She decided to go down in her flip-flops and leave her hair caught in a ponytail at the nape of her neck. She wouldn’t join the household for dinner dressed in such a fashion, but surely her outfit was adequate for playing outside.
Hunter returned with his toy, and they quickly walked down the stairs, across the foyer and out the front door. The balmy temperatures of an early summer greeted them. Sunshine as bright and clear as crystal surrounded the graceful old house, casting the generous porch into deep shadow. A grouping of wrought-iron furniture stood to one side of the daisy-yellow door and beyond that a white porch swing swayed lazily in a gentle breeze, inviting them to sit. Hunter missed the invitation, running across the porch and down the steps to the walkway.
Jessa followed, smiling indulgently. He left the walkway and ran across the grass toward the rose arbor, heavy with drooping red blossoms. As he drew near the flowery bower, Garrett stepped out from behind it, carrying a small, white, lacy wrought-iron bench. Bending, Garrett placed the bench beneath the arbor, then he stepped over it and opened his arms to Hunter, who literally launched himself into Garrett’s embrace.
Catching her breath, Jessa stumbled. Her heart cracked at the look of delight on her son’s small face. She hurried toward them, torn between following suit by flinging herself at Garrett and snatching her child away. In the end, she did neither.
Garrett took a seat on the bench, the boy on his knee, and ruffled Hunter’s hair. “Finished your school work already?”
“Yessir. I memered all my sight words.”
“Memorized,” Jessa corrected automatically.
“Memorized,” Hunter repeated.
Garrett chuckled. “Good for you. You’ll have to read them all to me sometime.”
“Okay.”
Garrett looked at the battered dump truck in Hunter’s hands and said, “You know what you could do with that? You could haul off all these rose petals on the ground.”
“There’s a bunch of them!” Hunter exclaimed, sliding off Garrett’s knee.
“Yep. The roses are fading.” He turned a tentative smile up at Jessa then, adding, “Roses do best with cool nights, and we’ve passed that time now.” Nodding, she watched as Hunter scooped up the bruised, curling petals littering the ground. Garrett told him to dump them in a pail on a corner of the patio, saying that Magnolia would gather them later and use them to make sachets.
“What’s sashays?” Hunter wanted to know.
“Sweet-smelling stuff,” Garrett informed him. “Like what’s in the gold bowl on that long table in the foyer.”
“Oh. I thought that was trash.”
Jessa found herself sharing a smile with Garrett over that.
“No, that’s Magnolia’s special recipe to keep the house smelling great.”
“Huh. It works.”
“Yes, it does,” Garrett agreed. “I’m sure she’ll appreciate your help with it.”
Hunter went to work with a vengeance. Garrett moved over on the bench and addressed Jessa. “Won’t you sit with me for a minute?”
Wandering over, she gingerly took a seat, keeping as much space between them as the narrow bench allowed. They sat in silence for several minutes, watching Hunter pick up petals, place them in the bed of the dump truck then drive the toy to a new spot. When the petals threatened to spill over the sides of the little truck, Hunter began driving it toward the patio with much revving of imaginary engines and shifting of gears.
After a bit, Garrett softly said, “He’s a wonderful boy. You have every reason to be proud of him.”
“Thank you. I am.”
“It kills me to think that you might worry that I would hurt him,” Garrett went on, pitching his voice lower still. “Or you.”
She fought to keep her gaze from meeting his but lost. “I don’t.”
“I’m glad,” he said, but the sadness did not leave his eyes.
They sat again in silence, until suddenly Garrett blurted, “You’re not like my mom, you know. You’re not desperate for some man to take care of you.”
“I used to be,” she admitted.
“Maybe,” he conceded, “but you were young then, and you learned better. When my mother met Doyle she was worn down from years of scraping by and making do on one minimum-wage job after another. She thought he would give us financial security again, and he did. But at a very steep price.” Garrett shook his head. “I could never understand why she was willing to endure his abuse just so the bills would be paid.” His hand reached toward Jessa, but he quickly brought it back and sat on it, tucking it beneath his thigh. “You’ve given me a better perspective on that.”
“What do you mean?” she asked, drawing down her brows in confusion.
“When you told me that your ex had threatened to kill your mother if you went to her, I started to think that maybe Doyle made similar threats, you know, against me and my sister.”
“Abusers always look for leverage,” Jessa told him.
Garrett nodded. “My stepfather had me and my sister. Your ex had your mom and Hunter.”
“He used to threaten to take Hunter and disappear with him,” Jessa revealed. “Once, when I pointed out that he couldn’t cope with an infant, he swore he’d kill Hunter if I ever left him.”
Garrett closed his eyes, a muscle working in the hollow of his jaw. Looking away, he sucked in several deep breaths. Finally, he turned back to her. “Thank you for trusting me with that information. I hope you know that I would never betray your whereabouts. I would never intentionally do anything to hurt you or Hunter. Never.”
Jessa gulped. “I appreciate that.”
“I hope you know, too, how much I admire you,” he hurried on. “Unlike my mom, you found a way out of that abusive relationship, and you’re making a life for you and your son. I’m glad for that.”
Hunter ran up just then. He dropped to his knees and began gathering more petals.
“Time for a second load?” Garrett asked cheerfully, sliding off the bench and into a crouch beside the boy. “Here, let me help.”
He picked up a handful of petals then cupped his hands over the bed of the truck, pretending that they were metal claws dumping a load. Hunter mimicked him, making so many metallic screeches that Jessa had to laugh. Soon the dump truck was again on its way to the patio with a full load. Garrett rose and turned, his gaze following the boy and his truck with a fond smile.
“Does Hunter swim?” he asked suddenly. “The public pool will open soon.” He dropped his voice, adding softly, “I’d like to take you both to—”
“Exactly what I wanted to talk to you about!” announced a hearty voice.
Jessa looked around Garrett to find Kent Monroe trundling up from the general direction of the front of the house. She felt both disappointment and relief, disappointment because Garrett had been about to suggest an outing with her and Hunter, relief because it wouldn’t have been wise. Surely, God had arranged this interruption to save her from herself.
Garrett turned to greet the other man, who pulled a folded hanky from his shirt pocket and mopped his perspiring brow. “You want to talk to me about the public pool?” Garrett asked, surprise straining his voice.
&
nbsp; “No, no,” Kent said, shaking his head so hard that his jowls jiggled. He leaned closer to Garrett and said, “A private pool. Here.”
“A swimming pool at Chatam House?”
“Odelia’s always wanted one, you know,” Kent confirmed authoritatively.
“Has she?”
Kent nodded. “Oh, my, yes. I remember that as a girl she used to beg her parents for one. They thought it would be ostentatious,” he confided. “I suppose, in that era, it would have been. But now, everyone has backyard pools, and with the greenhouse moving soon, well, I thought I might have one put in just there on the other side of the patio. What do you think? Is that an appropriate wedding gift?”
Garrett cleared his throat and shot a glance at Jessa. “I’m no authority on wedding gifts, so I couldn’t say, but a pool would fit nicely in that area. Have you spoken to her sisters about it?”
“Not yet. I thought I’d consult you first.”
“Well,” Garrett said carefully, “if they’re all right with it and she wants it, I don’t see why not.”
“Ah,” Kent said, drawing himself up so that his belly seemed to protrude even farther. “Excellent. Excellent. This is just between us, though. Yes?” He brought a finger to his lips, nodding at both Garrett and Jessa.
“Of course,” Jessa said.
“My lips are sealed,” Garrett promised.
After pounding Garrett on the back, Kent turned once more to the house and waddled swiftly toward it. Garrett shook his head, his hands parked at his waist. Finally, he switched his gaze to Jessa.
“I wonder just exactly how he expects to hide something like a swimming pool from Odelia,” he said.
Jessa shook her head, smiling wryly. “On the other hand, Kent would do anything for her.”
“Obviously.” He tilted his head. “They deserve each other, don’t you think?”
“I do, yes,” Jessa answered.
