by Leah Atwood
Zach left the truck and pulled the battery from the bed. He came to her door. “Are you coming in?”
The temptation to hand over her debit card and let him take care of it burned hot, but she needed to prove to herself she’d grown in strength. She exited and took a deep breath. I can do this.
She opened the storefront door for Zach since he carried the battery. An old-fashioned bell rang above them.
“Zach Kellar, as I live and breathe! What wind blew you back to our neck of the woods, boy?” That deep, chortling voice belonged to a landmark Hope Springs citizen.
Amiable Henry Smith had owned the auto parts store for as long as anyone in town could remember. He was a fixture around Hope Springs and a well-respected businessman. Well-known for his generosity, he often hired high school students and young adults in need of money, even when he didn’t need the help.
Zach had worked for him as a young teenager as soon as the labor laws allowed. Upon graduating high school, Zach had stepped into the role of supervisor and was then promoted to manager only two years later when the then-manager moved to Ohio.
After Zach had left, Henry had confided in her that Zach had given notice, but never mentioned the reason for quitting, nor that he planned to leave town. Henry had assumed she knew and hadn’t mentioned it to her until after the fact. In the months following Zach’s departure, Henry had expressed guilt for not telling her, but she’d assured him it hadn’t been his place. An unlikely bond had formed between them, and since her father’s death, Henry had taken on a fatherly role.
“Back for good this time, Henry.” Zach plopped the battery on the counter.
Realizing she’d missed a few lines of conversation, Melanie sat on a stool with a shiny red vinyl seat that spun. As a child, she’d often been fussed at for spinning on it.
“Glad to hear.” A crooked smile revealed a line of teeth, whiter than any Melanie had ever seen on a man of Henry’s age.
“I saw the world and more then realized this is where I want to be.” Regret infused Zach’s voice. “Do you have a new battery to replace this old one?”
Henry looked down at the battery, scurried to the store room, and came out carrying the needed battery. He ran the transaction through the register, and Zach was about to pay when Melanie jumped to his side.
“My battery, I’ll pay.” She pulled her wallet from her purse, elbowing Zach in her haste.
She signed the receipt and finished the transaction.
“Don’t be a stranger. I’m mighty glad to see you’ve come home.” Henry slapped the back of Zach's shoulder in a fatherly gesture. “Stop by the house when you get a chance, Mel. The missus found some curtains she thought you’d like for your guest room.”
“I’ll give her a call this afternoon and see if she’s home.”
***
Zach hesitated before opening Melanie’s door, worried he’d offend her again. Her abrupt change of attitude when he’d started to pay for the battery confused him. Pride, self-admittedly, had always been an issue with Melanie, but never so where he was concerned.
She’d been perfectly content to let him play the role of male protector and supporter. He always paid for their dates, opened doors, and so on. They both embraced those traditional values, and he doubted she’d strayed far from them.
He wouldn’t give in to ungentlemanly behavior and opened her door.
She slid in with a mumbled, “Thanks.”
Discouraged, he dropped off the new battery in the bed, and then took his spot behind the wheel.
Too many wasted years had been lost between them already. He wasn’t about to let something come between them now.
“Mel, what’s wrong?” He traced the outline of the Ford emblem on the steering wheel. “What happened back at the store? What did I do wrong?”
“You can’t go around paying for me. That was acceptable when we were engaged, but now we’re just… well, I don’t know what we are, but we definitely are not engaged.” Her face contorted to a scowl. “You ended that on your own five years ago.”
“I’m sorry, and you’re right. I only know being here with you. From the day my family moved here, you were here beside me. Paying for your battery came as a second nature I didn’t think twice about.” From his shoulders to his toes, his muscles tightened. “I know I made that choice—it’s impossible to forget—but coming here makes old habits fall right back into place.”
“I shouldn’t have snapped. My mind and heart are speeding at full steam, and my nerves are frayed. I never stopped hoping you would return, but I also never really believed you would. For five long years, I created every scenario I could of what would happen at that moment I first saw you again. Most of them involved me yelling at you, telling you every horrible thing I could think to say.” She paused her monologue only long enough to catch her breath.
Clenching a fist to her chest, she continued. “I forgive you. I honestly do. Last night I finally released the anger I’ve held onto for far too long, but I am struggling with forgetting. Nothing in me understands how my best friend and fiancé could leave without a word and never contact me in five years. My world crashed that day when I realized you were gone.”
“I’m sorry.” A million apologies couldn’t fix what he’d done to her, but he wouldn’t stop trying.
“Losing a fiancé is bad enough, but losing my best friend was worse. For fifteen years, you were my best friend, my shoulder to cry on. Always there to walk me home and be by my side. You stood by me when my mother died, and everybody else let me push them away. You helped me stand up to my father when he didn’t want me attending college. You were my everything.” She dabbed at her eyes. “Maybe God was showing me I needed to rely more on him, but I just don’t understand, Zach. Please, tell me why you never said a word and waited so long to come back.”
Zach inhaled sharply, knowing this moment would come. He’d wanted more time with her before the truth came out. His chaplain had told him he needed to be completely honest, and he knew that was true, but part of him couldn’t shake the feeling that telling Melanie the truth would be the beginning of the end of this tentative, very fragile new bridge being built between them.
Would she want to continue their friendship? Would she be disgusted? Only faith could get him through. However, Sally’s was only a minute’s drive away, with Melanie’s car still sitting in the parking lot, and this was a conversation he did not want to rush.
“Would you mind if I ride along with you to Frederick? I have someone there I’d like to see, and that would give us more time to talk.” He held his breath, waiting for her answer.
Her response came slow and measured. “We can do that. Do you want to take my car, and I can drop you off where you need to go or should we take your truck?”
“If it’s okay with you, I’d rather us take my truck. If there is something wrong other than the battery, I would prefer we find out close to home.”
“Makes sense. That’s fine with me.” She hugged her purse. “We can head there now and put the battery in when we get back.”
She gave him the address of her appointment, and he entered the information into his GPS. He pulled out of the parking lot and eased into traffic, which consisted of two other cars.
From the corner of his eye, he caught Melanie watching him expectantly. He stared straight ahead, fixing his eyes on the horizon. “Nothing I can say will justify my actions. I was wrong, and there is no excuse for what I did, although, in my state of mind, I thought I did what was best.”
“I need to know why. There’s more you’re not telling.” Her voice held little censure but a huge plea. “Did you find your birth family?”
“Do you remember the first time I came to your house? We were outside playing in the sandbox, and your dad came out yelling for us to stop throwing sand everywhere. You got mad and said you hated him…”
“… and then you got mad at me,” she interrupted, “and you said, ‘at least you have both parents.�
�� That’s when I found out your mom had passed away. It was such a foreign concept for my young mind. But that moment helped me through all the bad times with my own dad. He wasn’t perfect by far, but at least he was alive.”
“You didn’t deserve your dad’s wrath.”
“I know that now.” Her lips turned down in a frown. “But he loved me in the only way he knew how.”
“Didn’t make it right. A man should show women respect, from the young to the old.” Nausea rolled in his gut.
“Where’s this leading?” she asked with narrowed, confused eyes.
“My dad wouldn’t tell me anything about my birth parents. It took a lot of rabbit trails to get answers.” A jaded laughed escaped. “Be careful what you search for. You might just find skeletons best left hidden.”
She reached across the seat and laid a hand on his arm. “What happened?”
“My adopted mom was my birth mom.” The bile still rose, even years after finding out. Near-murderous rage toward a man he’d never met threatened to take over his rational mind.
Melanie’s jaw dropped. “And your dad?”
“My parents were engaged when my mom was raped.” His fists clenched the steering wheel until his knuckles resembled a sheet of loose-leaf. “I’m the product of that brutal violation.”
Zach continued staring straight ahead, willing himself not to look at Melanie, afraid of the revulsion he would see on her face. “My biological father is in prison, serving a forty-year sentence for what he did to my mother and two other women.”
“I can’t imagine the shock that must have caused.” Melanie wrapped her slim fingers around his wrist.
“The whole ordeal shook me up. My entire life suddenly became a lie, and I didn’t know who to turn to or what to do next. I was too embarrassed to tell anyone. I could hear the judgments before I even got the words out. But even worse, I felt guilty by association. I couldn’t risk putting you in a situation like that and having you judged because of me.”
“Your biological father committed a heinous crime, not you.”
“Doesn’t mean I wouldn’t be judged, as well. Haven’t you heard of sins of the father?” The insecurities he’d battled hard to overcome danced in his mind. “When people find out, they’ll look at me differently. You too, if you were with me.”
“I would have stood by you because I know the man you are. Pull over.”
Huh? They were on the interstate with no nearby exits, but he saw a wide shoulder and parked.
She tapped his chin. “Look at me.”
“What’s this about?”
“I want you to hear me without any distractions.” Her chin trembled, but she jutted it out with strength. “I’ll grant you, there may be people out there who would judge, but not in our community, not those who matter. And you are not responsible for what your birth father did, nor does that mean you inherited something from him that would make you follow his footsteps.”
“I’m learning that, but it’s a slow process.” He ran his fingers absently over the seatbelt. “The chaplain who came to the truck stop church helped me see that, but it took me several years to accept the truth. It wasn’t that long ago, and some days I still struggle.”
“Thank you for trusting me enough to share now.” She pulled her hand back to her lap. “I’m sorry you had to go through that, and I can’t honestly say I wouldn’t have reacted in the same way.”
“Some good came from it.” He put the truck into gear and drove back on the interstate so they wouldn’t be late for Melanie’s appointment. “It caused me to examine my parent’s relationship and see the deep abiding love they had for each other. Not many couples would have survived, let alone thrived, after experiencing what they did.”
“I never got to meet your mother, but their love for each other was obvious, just by listening to your dad talk about her.” Melanie smiled. “His voice always took on a gentler tone when he shared a story about her.”
“They loved each other unconditionally. It’s the love I want with my wife.”
Chapter Seven
The truth hit Melanie hard. Her heart filled with a heavy ache for Zach. In her wildest dreams, she never would have imagined his true reasons for leaving. Hearing the angst in his voice left no doubt he told the truth.
However wrong and misguided his actions had been, his goal had been to protect her. She needed to process all he’d told her before deciding if he’d been right or wrong. Or did it matter at this point? That was in the past, and he was here in the present.
All those lonely nights, she’d believed Zach hadn’t loved her. Her heart had broken into tiny shards she couldn’t imagine piecing together again, but all that time, Zach hurt as well. Possibly more than she had.
They sat in uncomfortable silence for several minutes. Melanie tried to put her thoughts into coherent sentences before she attempted to speak. Once they pulled into the realtor’s parking lot, she opened her mouth, but no words were spoken, and laughter rang out. Horrified at her inappropriate response for the situation, she clamped her mouth as to not offend Zach.
She wasn’t making less of the circumstances, but she saw the situation in a new light. Not only did she experience colossal relief that there never had been anyone else, but she could also see clear as day how God worked in the whole ordeal.
Her laughter started anew at Zach’s startled expression. Laughter was surely the last thing he had expected from her. She reached for his hand and began to speak once she calmed down.
“I’ve spent five years convincing myself you’d found someone else. I had no evidence, but nothing else made sense to me, and not knowing the truth held me captive. Part of me never wanted to know because I didn’t think I could handle it, but another part of me desperately needed answers.” Her inhale and exhale mimicked his. “I convinced people I had moved on, but those closest to me knew I hadn’t. Until I knew the truth, I was hostage to myself.”
“No one could replace you.” He glanced down at her hand on his. “Never.”
“How was I to know?” Her mirth disappeared. “Knowing there wasn’t another woman makes me feel a hundred times better, yet I feel worse because you had to experience all that. Alone.”
“I made it through, and like you said, God worked good from it.” He slid his hand from under hers and squeezed it. “Only He knows if I would have found him otherwise.”
“In an odd way, you did us a favor. Our marriage never would have worked without us both knowing Him. I don’t know where we go from here, but let’s put the past behind us and concentrate on today.”
Melanie breathed a sigh of relief. A deep peace washed over her, and she felt God’s graciousness envelop her. Zach’s hand still covered hers, and he intertwined their fingers. His deep cocoa-hued eyes were aglow. Was that anticipation she saw in them?
He brushed a wayward strand of hair from her temple. The temptation to kiss him grew exponentially, but that wouldn’t be wise, would it? She didn’t want to rush anything and risk scaring herself away. Her heart raced. She whispered his name, granting permission.
He leaned his head down gently brushing his lips against hers. When she acquiesced to his touch, he took the kiss deeper. She relished the connection with him after a five-year denial. They pulled back at the same time before they crossed the line of impropriety, both out of breath.
“I better get to my appointment,” Melanie finally managed to croak out.
All Zach could do was nod. He slid to his side so he could leave the truck and open her door for her. He smiled at her, and she gifted him one in return.
She boldly stood on her tiptoes to give him a hug and quick kiss on his cheek. “I’ll be done around eleven.”
“I’ll be waiting.”
Three simple words, full of promise.
She didn’t remember walking into the building, but somehow, she’d made it in and sat in the office unaware of her surroundings. Her entire being was lost in thoughts of Zach. Being in his arms
was a homecoming she had lost hope in. She touched her lips that still tingled at the memory of his kiss.
Emotions exploded between them, intensified by the burgeoning friendship built from exposing their vulnerabilities. Forgiveness, grace, and humility were powerful tools in rebuilding broken relationships, and by God’s grace they could heal the gap between them and restore a lost love.
“Ms. Richards, you are to be seen now.”
Melanie looked up to see the receptionist standing in front of her. Her face burned as she realized her name had likely been called several times already if the receptionist had come out from behind her desk.
She ducked her head to hide the inevitable blush and walked down the hallway to her realtor’s office. She sat down on the client side of the large mahogany desk as Mr. Renault, her realtor, pulled her file from a stack and read over the notes.
“Thank you for coming, Ms. Richards. We received your completed property disclosures. Would you like to offer a home warranty? We do recommend it to lure potential buyers, and with the age of your home, we believe it would be a great asset to your listing.” Mr. Renault handed her several pamphlets.
Melanie browsed through them, and she decided the low cost was worth the benefit. “Let’s go ahead and add it. I think the minor cost would pay for itself.”
“A wise decision, in my professional opinion.” Mr. Renault gave her a nod of approval and slid papers over the desk to her. “I need your signature here on the highlighted line, and on this paper, I need you to initial the highlighted spots and sign at the bottom.”
Melanie took his pen and signed the papers after reading them to ensure nothing had changed. Dragging in a deep breath, she wondered if she was making the right choice. Her decision to sell the family home occurred several weeks ago, before Zach returned. Now, everything had changed in the blink of an eye, and she hadn’t had time to contemplate what effect, if any, Zach’s return should have on selling her home.
