River's Edge

by Terri Blackstock

  Lassiter sounded amused. “She said she was too busy, but I’m guessing it was because of her scars. Who could blame her, really? She doesn’t exactly have a face for television.”

  White-hot anger whipped through him at the remark, and he ground his teeth and thought of telling the man that he wouldn’t know beauty if it bit his nose off, because if he had the slightest taste he’d realize that Blair Owens was the most beautiful woman in the entire state, and she didn’t need some screaming news show to elevate her self-esteem.

  Instead, he slammed down the phone. How dare he say that about her? Cade hoped Lassiter hadn’t said those things to her face. She didn’t deserve that.

  He thought of all the things he’d said to her himself, when he’d chewed her out about her special edition that had wound up saving the day.

  And he realized that solving the murders and closing the case meant little to him, after all, if he didn’t have Blair to share it with.

  CHAPTER 82

  Morgan felt a little shaky when she came back to herself after the laparoscopy. She had been awake through the whole procedure, but couldn’t remember a moment of it. The hypnotic drug they gave her in the place of anesthesia had an amnesiac effect.

  Jonathan helped her get dressed, and they waited for the results.

  Dr. Anderson looked sober as he came into the room. “How you feeling?”

  “Fine.” She clutched Jonathan’s hand. “Did you find anything, Doctor?”

  His smile was tentative. “As a matter of fact, I did. Morgan, the results of all of your tests—including your FSH—were normal. I’m afraid it was as we thought. Dr. Sims falsified the results he gave you.”

  Morgan caught her breath. “But if that’s true, what caused my miscarriage? My infertility?”

  Dr. Anderson’s eyes had a pleasant twinkle as he regarded her. “It may be due to the small fibroids I found in your uterus.”

  “Fibroids?” Jonathan asked. “Tumors, you mean?”

  “Benign tumors.”

  Morgan got tears in her eyes. It was structural, then. Physical.

  “I’d like to schedule you for a procedure called a hysteroscopy. We can do it next week, if you’d like. We’ll go in and remove the fibroids with lasers. I can’t promise that this will solve your fertility problem, but the chances are very good that it will. It’s worked for quite a few of my patients.”

  Morgan stared at him for a moment, letting the hope sink in. “Really, Doctor?”

  Jonathan wanted to make sure he understood. “Are you telling us that this could be resolved in one minor surgical procedure? That after that, we might be able to have a family without problems?”

  “Again, I can’t guarantee anything, but that’s my hope.”

  Morgan started to laugh and threw her arms around Jonathan. And the bright light of joy began to shine on their lives again.

  That afternoon, Morgan came home to an early dinner cooked by the residents of Hanover House. Even Sheila had helped.

  Sheila attended to Caleb over dinner. He had warmed up to her now, and sent her frequent smiles and giggles. The mother-son bond was renewing itself. It was a miracle of grace to Sheila, and as difficult as it was for Morgan, she found herself happy for Caleb.

  When Blair burst in, everyone stopped what they were doing.

  “I was just at the courthouse! The judge made his decision about the mayoral race!”

  Jonathan groaned. “Don’t tell me, let me guess. He’s going to put us through another election.”

  “Wrong!” Blair crossed the room, took hold of his shoulders, and looked him squarely in the face. “Congratulations, Jonathan. You’re the new mayor.”

  Morgan’s mouth fell open, and she gaped at Jonathan. He stared at Blair as if he didn’t believe. “But…how can that be? Sam was elected. I wasn’t.”

  “The judge cited the city’s bylaws, which say that if something happens to a candidate-elect to keep him from serving, a new election would be held, unless another candidate had gotten at least forty-five percent of the votes. In that case, that candidate would win the race. Jonathan, you got forty-six percent!”

  The residents sent up a loud cheer, whooping and hollering and congratulating the new mayor. Even Caleb joined in the celebration.

  CHAPTER 83

  There was so much to celebrate, yet Blair found herself wanting to be alone later that evening. She left Hanover House as everyone fluttered into action preparing for Karen and Gus’s wedding on Saturday. Church members filled the house to help decorate, insisting that Morgan not lift a finger after her procedure that morning. Karen seemed to walk on a cloud.

  Blair wondered if that day would ever come for her.

  The sun was dropping over the horizon, but it would still be light for a couple more hours. What was Cade doing? Was he floating in the aftermath of solving the murder? Had he heard that Jonathan was going to be his new boss?

  Was he still nursing his anger toward her?

  She went to the boathouse and fired up the boat. She hadn’t used it in quite a while. They’d used it as a ski boat during her teenage years, but mostly her father used it for fishing. Jonathan kept the motor well maintained, so it started right up. She guided it down river, out toward the sea, and headed through the waves to Breaker’s Reef. It was one of her favorite places on earth—a cavern you had to dive under water to get into. The payoff was inside, glorious in its beauty. Her father used to love anchoring his boat there and enjoying the quiet—and the occasional glimpse of a sea turtle—when he needed to think or pray. He used to bring her here sometimes to fish, and they would sit for hours in perfect stillness, listening to the whisper of the breeze stirring up frothy waves that hit the rocks of the cave. Sometimes he would forget she was there—or maybe he hadn’t forgotten at all—and would talk aloud to Jesus, as if he sat in the boat with them. She hadn’t recognized the value of that then, but now, as she looked out over the brilliant horizon, she knew it was true. Jesus had a thing for boats, after all.

  Her boat rocked in the water as she looked up at the setting sun, its red-gold hues bursting across the water. It was glorious, like the grace God had bestowed on her ever since she had given her heart to Christ. She had no right to ask for anything else.

  Still, she did.

  “I never expected to have somebody fall in love with me,” she whispered. “A girl like me with her face all disfigured, is happy just to live a normal life without people gawking and staring wherever she goes. But then Cade came along…and I guess I got my hopes up.”

  Tears came to her eyes and she blinked them back.

  It wasn’t just Carson Graham who had buoyed her hopes. She had hoped it before Graham uttered his predictions. That’s why she wanted to believe him.

  “I thought maybe you were behind this. After all, it was a miracle that Cade would even look twice at me. An act of God. But maybe I jumped the gun just a little.”

  She drew in a deep breath and closed her eyes. The breeze blew her tears dry. “I’ll try to be okay with him not being my long-lost love, the future father of my children, the one I grow old with, if you’ll just let him be my friend. Everyone who knows Cade is blessed to be his friend.”

  The tears came harder then, and she realized that friendship wasn’t going to be enough. Not for her. The pain that would cause would be so deep that she didn’t know if she could stay in town to endure it. Maybe she would have to leave, after all. Maybe she could sell the paper, start over somewhere else…

  Then she heard a motor on the wind.

  She turned, shaded her eyes, and saw another boat in the distance, coming toward her. As it moved closer, she realized it was Cade in the department’s speedboat. Her heart burst.

  He slowed and came to her boat, stopping beside her. “I figured you’d be here.”

  She hadn’t seen him out of uniform since the night they’d gone to Carson’s show. Now he wore a yellow tank top and a pair of navy shorts. He looked younger in the waning s
unlight, more relaxed and at ease. But his face held a trace of tension.

  “Jonathan said you were taking the boat out,” he said. “Can I come on board?”

  “Of course.”

  She watched him tie their boats together, and then he climbed over, careful not to bump his leg. The scar down his flesh was healing, but it would forever remind her of how close he’d come to death, not so long ago.

  As he stepped into her boat, hope fired in her heart like a fourth of July display. He stood there looking at her, the boat rocking beneath his feet. Her heart constricted her throat as she waited for him to speak. Instead, he reached out, slid his fingers through the roots of her hair and pulled her into a kiss.

  She melted into it, realizing that God had answered a prayer she wasn’t even confident enough to pray. The kiss said things they’d never uttered, made promises they’d never made. Could it be that it wasn’t over?

  He pulled back, breathless, and touched those flaming scars as if he didn’t even see them. His eyes were misty as he gazed down at her. “I’m sorry I yelled at you,” he whispered. “Can you forgive me?”

  She tried to blink back the tears in her eyes. It was stupid to cry right here in front of him like this. He would think she was some sappy heartsick teenager. But the mist in his own eyes was glistening. Did he feel the same way?

  “Of course I forgive you.”

  “I had no right to jump on you like that. You saved the day. Instead of fighting with you, I should have trusted you. We’ve always made a great team before.”

  “We have, haven’t we?”

  His eyes were soft as he gazed into hers. “I’m tired of this surface dating game, Blair. I’m ready to put my cards on the table. The truth is, I think of you constantly. I want to be with you all the time, even when I’m mad at you. I want to assume that you’re my girl, and that this is going somewhere.”

  She swallowed and breathed in a sob. “I want that, too.”

  “And the town, they’ll know we’re an item. They’ll rib us, tease us, even try to marry us off before we’re ready.”

  She grinned as a tear rolled down her cheek. “I’m tough, remember? I can take it.”

  He kissed her again, and she melted in his arms, thinking that if she fell over into the ocean and died right then, she would have had almost everything she’d ever wanted.

  He broke the kiss and held her against his chest, his breath gentle against her ear. “I’m taking you to dinner tonight, and I’m going to hold your hand in public and let everyone know that I’m in love.”

  Her heart burst with the sheer grace of it. She started to cry so hard that she could hardly get the words out. “I love you, too.”

  She kept her head against his chest and watched as the sun melted into the water, sending a twilight of gold that beckoned the night.

  It was like a smile from God.

  AFTERWORD

  At this writing I’ve been crafting novels for over twenty years. People often ask me where I get my ideas, and I always tell them that my gift consists of a fertile imagination and an ability to see and hear things around me that others may miss. Like most other writers, I get ideas when I least expect them, then I “what-if” my way to a complete plot.

  But it doesn’t stop with those ideas. Writing a novel is a lengthy, meticulous process that might never end if it weren’t for deadlines that force me to turn the book in. Though I’ve written a number of books over my career, I can tell you that each one is harder than the one before. And the work never gets easier.

  I write each book several times over, printing out copies and writing all over it like a bitter teacher who finds fault with every essay her student turns in. I’m brutal with my own work, and never satisfied, and I spend sleepless nights worrying over plot twists and wondering if the story is too predictable or too boring. My mind wanders when I’m in places where it shouldn’t as I work through problems and conversations and character interactions.

  When I finally turn it in, I practically throw it into the mailbox and run away before I can change my mind. Once it’s gone, I sweat until I hear from my publishers that they like it. But their praise is always tempered with criticism, and so—armed with their feedback—I tear into the book again, striving to take it to another level, to polish yet again, examining every plot device to see if it truly is the best I can do.

  By the time it reaches publication, I practically have the work memorized. I know if one word has been changed in editorial, if one comma has been moved, if one apostrophe has been edited. And for all of my jealous protection of my work and my pursuit of excellence in my writing, I sometimes wind up with mistakes. I’m not the best writer around, nor am I the cleverest. I do the best I can, within the bounds of my own skill.

  So why am I telling you this?

  Because God is an author, too. He is the author of the most important, bestselling book of all time. And I believe that he is even more careful with his work than I am with mine.

  With the advent of cable television, the world is bombarded with documentaries regarding the authenticity of the Bible, whether it’s fiction or fact, whether all of it is true or just some of it. People make a smorgasbord out of God’s Word and choose which things to believe—a little here, a little there. They decide that some of it—the parts they like—are inspired by God, and that the rest is written by flawed men and compiled by corrupt committees with their own selfish agendas.

  In making those claims, they are saying that God is not powerful, that he doesn’t care enough about us to watch over his Word, that he doesn’t care if we’re confused or lied to or misled. That he didn’t even strive for as much excellence as I strive for in my work. That it’s okay with him if it isn’t quite right, because the basic gist of what he was trying to say lies within those pages. That the musings of David and the instructions of Paul and the history of Moses are all just myth and entertainment.

  Proverbs 14:12 says, “There is a way that seems right to man, that in the end leads to destruction.”

  I believe the Bible is true, every word of it—so far as it’s translated accurately. I believe our Lord chose every word with great care and precision, and that each verse holds layer upon layer of meaning, truths so deep it would take us a lifetime to mine them—and still we wouldn’t have seen it all.

  I believe God gave us his Word because of his great love for us and his desire to help us know him better. And I think he also cares about our entertainment. He gave us minds that like to puzzle, uncover, discover things we haven’t seen before. The Bible is available to every level of intellect—it can be as meaningful to the mathematical genius as it is to the little child. It is full of connections, threads that tie one thing to another, prophecies made and revisited (many, many of which have already come true), and signs all along the way that point to Jesus. From Creation itself, to the sacrificial system, to the Law and the covenants, the Cross, and the description of the final days of earth and our entrance into heaven, the Bible has a running theme of God’s sovereignty, his love for those who break his heart, and his plan for our redemption even though we don’t deserve it.

  “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work” (2 Timothy 3:16–17).

  We can choose to discount it if we want, pick and choose the parts we’ll believe, or even ignore it entirely so that it doesn’t interfere with our lives, but our denial doesn’t make it less true. The consequence of being wrong is destruction.

  My prayer for my books is that God will use them to whisper truth into your ear, and stir your soul to a longing for him and his Word. I pray that the next book you open will be the one he wrote for you.

  Then you will be richly blessed, and I will have succeeded.

  May the God of peace, who through the blood of the eternal covenant brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, e
quip you with every good thing for doing his will, and may he work in us what is pleasing to him, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.

  Hebrews 13:20–21

  About the Author

  Terri Blackstock is an award-winning novelist who has written for several major publishers including HarperCollins, Dell, Harlequin, and Silhouette. Published under two pseudonyms, her books have sold over 3.5 million copies worldwide.

  With her success in secular publishing at its peak, Blackstock had what she calls “a spiritual awakening.” A Christian since the age of fourteen, she realized she had not been using her gift as God intended. It was at that point that she recommitted her life to Christ, gave up her secular career, and made the decision to write only books that would point her readers to him.

  “I wanted to be able to tell the truth in my stories,” she said, “and not just be politically correct. It doesn’t matter how many readers I have if I can’t tell them what I know about the roots of their problems and the solutions that have literally saved my own life.”

  Her books are about flawed Christians in crisis and God’s provisions for their mistakes and wrong choices. She claims to be extremely qualified to write such books, since she’s had years of personal experience.

  A native of nowhere, since she was raised in the Air Force, Blackstock makes Mississippi her home. She and her husband are the parents of three children—a blended family which she considers one more of God’s provisions.

  Read a chapter from Book Four of the Cape Refuge series, BREAKER’S REEF, by Terri Blackstock