To Heal A Heart (Love Inspired)

by Arlene James

  Piper let happiness settle over her, aware that it would be fleeting, but all too glad to soak up what she could for the present. Such was all, it seemed to her, that this life had to offer. It was enough, surely, to sustain her, and yet she was vaguely aware of a certain exhaustion lately.

  It was as if she fought demons in her sleep and the demons were slowly winning.

  When they finally wandered back to the picnic spot, Scott and Melissa were gone with the blanket.

  “Think we should go look for them?” Piper asked, but Mitch didn’t see the point.

  Piper seemed troubled, though, so he put his arms around her. More and more lately she seemed to be sinking into a funk. One moment she would be laughing and happy, tossing out clever lines with amazing wit and ease, and then a cloud would pass over her eyes and she’d grow quiet and morose. He had the awful feeling that the real Piper, the vibrant, witty, engaging one, was slowly dying, leaving behind a hollow husk. It had to do with her family, he was sure, but he couldn’t imagine what had taken place to drive them apart.

  “Don’t worry,” he said lightly. “Scott and Melissa will be around in a bit. It’s not like they can or would leave without us, after all.”

  “True.”

  They strolled over to a table and chairs on the veranda of the DeGolyer mansion, which functioned as the centerpiece for the park, and settled down to gaze out across White Rock Lake. Mitch tried to get it out of his head that Piper was hiding some terrible secret, running from something traumatic, perhaps. He was beginning to fear that it might be something that could come back to bite them both, something that might keep them apart. All that stuff about the “PK phenom,” as she called it, no doubt had merit, but it couldn’t be just that bothering her.

  How could he lose his heart to her without knowing what she was hiding from? Yet he was in danger of doing that very thing. Maybe it was time to push a little, let her know that running and hiding would only make matters worse in the long term. He searched for the right words and found what he felt was a good opening to a subject that had been on his mind again lately.

  He was ashamed to admit that he’d let the issue of the letter fall by the wayside, allowing all his energies and attention to be taken up by the woman at his side. Now he hoped that one might prompt the other to open up a little.

  “Listen, Piper, did you by chance get a letter from the airline telling you that someone had found a personal item that they were trying to return to the owner?”

  Her brow furrowed as she thought about it. “Yeah. Yeah, I think I did, now that you mention it. Why?”

  “Well, that someone is me.”

  “Oh?”

  He nodded. “You remember that day when we bumped into each other on the sidewalk and I asked if you’d lost a piece of paper or if you’d seen anyone else lose something similar?”

  “Sure. What about it?”

  “It was a letter, a page out of a letter, really, and I’m still trying to find whoever lost it. Or I should be.” He hadn’t exactly been following up leads lately—not that he had many to follow. Some pretty little copperhead had distracted him completely. He made a mental promise to get back to the search.

  “Is it really that important?” she asked.

  “I think it could be. See, the person who lost that letter is running from something devastating—the loss of a son, perhaps.”

  Piper shivered, and he naturally dropped an arm around her, but his mind was taken with the letter again. The eloquent words came back to him, sifting through his memory like an almost forgotten sigh.

  “It spoke of pain and crosses to bear, and it begged for this person, whoever it was written to, not to leave.”

  She quaked against him, and he glanced up, realizing suddenly that the sun had gone behind a cloud. Though it wasn’t particularly cold to him, he linked his hands together, trying to warm her within his embrace even as the letter took shape before his mind’s eye.

  “I recall one phrase especially,” he said, and went on to quote from the letter. “‘To forget our dear boy would be to rob us of all the delights he brought into our lives.’” That passage still moved him, and he took a deep breath to help clear away the emotion. “It went on to say how he would hate it if his loss tore apart their family. It’s heartbreaking, really, because that’s what seemed to be happening. The writer begged this other person not to leave.” Mitch tried to remember the exact phrasing. “Something like, ‘To lose you, too, is surely more than I can bear.’”

  Piper suddenly lurched forward, yanking herself from his grasp and bending at the waist. She promptly threw up her lunch, barely making it to the grass.

  “Piper! Honey?”

  Shocked, he sprang up belatedly and hurried toward her, but she turned and ran. He went after her, appalled that he hadn’t realized that the poor girl was sick. It quickly became obvious that she was heading for the rest room in the rear of the building. He let her go, fighting the urge to follow her into the ladies’ room just to be sure that she was all right.

  “Piper!” he called out. “Baby, are you okay?”

  When she didn’t answer, he began to pace, wondering what to do. A young mother with a little girl came along a few moments later, and he didn’t think twice about approaching her.

  “My girlfriend’s sick in there. Would you check on her for me? Her name’s Piper.”

  “Piper,” the woman repeated, and he inanely heard himself explaining, “For the bird.” That didn’t seem to make much sense to the woman, but she nodded kindly and went in with her little girl.

  After what seemed like an eternity, Piper came out, mopping her face with a paper towel. Her eyes were red and watering, but he threw his arms around her and hugged her tight with relief.

  “Sweetheart, you should’ve told me you were ill.”

  She put a hand to her abdomen. “Guess something I ate didn’t agree with me.”

  “I’m taking you home,” he said, feeling responsible. He’d handpicked the whole meal, after all. He was going to have a word with the caterers, too, but maybe it wasn’t their fault. He’d never had any trouble before with anything they’d provided for him, and he didn’t feel sick in the slightest himself—unless he counted the fist inside his chest that seemed to have a death grip on his heart.

  Piper was shaking her head. “No, we can’t do that,” she argued, sounding tired. “Not without Melissa and Scott. Would you just go find them first, please? I’ll wait right here.” She pointed to a nearby bench. When he hesitated she added, “Please, Mitch.”

  “Okay, baby, if that’s what you want.” He walked her over to the bench and sat her down before warning her, “But if I don’t find them within the next ten minutes then they’ll just have to wait until I can come back for them. Understand?”

  “The sooner you find them the sooner we can go,” she answered ambiguously.

  He set his jaw and hurried off, determined that he would have his way in this. He’d humor her for now, but he wasn’t taking any chances with her health, period.

  Fortunately, he stumbled across the Ninevers within the first five minutes. He hadn’t even finished explaining the situation before they were all on their way back to Piper. She was sitting right where he’d left her, gazing morosely into the distance.

  “You okay, hon?” Melissa asked anxiously.

  “Just an upset stomach,” Piper answered with a wan smile.

  Mitch swept her up onto her feet. “I can carry you, if you like.”

  She shook her head. “No, no. I’ll be fine.”

  He dug out his keys and handed them to Scott. “Bring the car around, would you?”

  “Sure thing.”

  Scott took off at a run, but Melissa stayed behind to add her support to Mitch’s. Flanking Piper, they coiled their arms around her and walked her gingerly toward the front of the park.

  “Take your time,” Mitch counseled.

  “I’ll be fine,” she said, and she kept saying it, but somet
hing told Mitch that she believed just the opposite. Shaken, he wondered wildly if she had some fatal disease that she was hiding from him, but surely not.

  Please, God, he prayed silently. Oh, heavenly Father, please. You wouldn’t do that to me. Not again. Then he remembered how the letter writer had put it.

  To lose you as well is surely more than God can allow.

  It was a sentiment with which Mitch suddenly identified all too well.

  Piper was ill, really ill. She realized that she couldn’t go to work, and after dragging herself up the stairs to phone her supervisor from Melissa’s apartment, she was almost too weak to get back down again.

  “Maybe you should see a doctor,” Melissa said worriedly, feeling Piper’s forehead for signs of a fever. “I promised Mitch that if you weren’t better by this morning I’d see to it.”

  “It’s just a stomach thing,” Piper insisted, shaking her head in refusal. “Some sort of bug or virus, nothing more.”

  But what sort of virus produced such tears as she’d been experiencing? Buckets and buckets of them, and she couldn’t understand what she was crying about, for pity’s sake.

  “Stay here and let me take care of you today,” Melissa urged, but Piper was determined not to do that.

  “No way. You have to go to work.” If this was some sort of weird bacterial infection, she didn’t want to expose her friends to it any more than she already had. Besides, instinct told her that whatever the cause of her physical distress, she was better off battling her personal demons in private.

  Melissa protested, but Piper held firm, going back downstairs to curl up on her bed in her sweats. Unexpectedly, she fell asleep at once.

  The next thing she knew someone was beating on her door. Feeling as lethargic as when she’d lain down, she struggled up and went to glower at whoever it was, but the instant she opened the door, Mitch enveloped her in a worried embrace, a white plastic bag in one hand.

  “You’re still sick. I knew I shouldn’t have left you alone last night. Melissa says you won’t go to the doctor.”

  “It’s just a stomach flu of some sort,” she argued defensively. “Honestly, I know when I have to see a doctor and when I don’t.”

  Undaunted by her lousy mood, he chucked her under the chin and kissed her forehead. “All right, I won’t nag, but I brought you some canned soup and crackers.” He set the bag on the little bar separating the kitchen from the living area. “If you feel up to it, try to eat.”

  Gratitude mingled with misgiving, both moving her closer to the ever-present tears. “Thanks. I’m sure soup and rest will do the trick.”

  “Just in case,” he said, reaching into his jacket pocket, “I want you to keep this with you today.” He produced a cell phone—his own, no doubt. “For me,” he added quickly. “How can I concentrate if I don’t know that you can get help if you need it? You really ought to think about getting a phone in here, by the way.”

  She sighed, knowing that she was not going to do that. She knew, too, though, that Mitch wasn’t going away until she agreed to take the phone.

  “All right, if it’ll make you feel better.”

  He smiled and folded her close once more. “That’s my girl. Now then, I want you to call if you need anything at all, even if you just want to talk. Okay?”

  “I’m going back to sleep,” she told him, closing her eyes to savor his caring and strength for just a moment longer, “but if I feel worse or discover a great need for more crackers, I’ll phone.”

  He chuckled and released her, moving toward the door. “I’ll be checking in. Take care of yourself.”

  “Promise.”

  “You’re sure you’ll be all right?”

  She rolled her eyes. “If a certain someone will leave and let me get back to bed, I’ll be just fine.”

  “Going. Going. Gone,” he teased, slipping through the door and pulling it closed behind him. She hurried to open it again, catching him still on her doorstep.

  “Mitch?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Thanks.”

  He adjusted his jacket, tugging at his cuffs. “Any time, sweetheart. Any time at all.”

  Smiling, he kissed her cheek, turned and swiftly strode away. Piper closed the door and pressed her forehead to it. He was so wonderful. She didn’t deserve a man like that and didn’t kid herself for a minute that she could really have a future with him. In which case, she must be a little nuts to punish herself by continuing the relationship. If she had any sense at all, she’d break it off and avoid his company from this moment forward. Obviously she had no more sense now than she’d ever had.

  With tears streaming down her face, she spun and hurried back into the bedroom.

  For hours she lay weeping, and really she didn’t know why. Every time she thought herself cried out, a fresh onslaught would come. When Mitch called just before lunch, she sniffled so much that he worried she was coming down with a cold on top of everything else. She blamed it on the onion she’d begun to chop for the chicken soup that he’d brought her.

  “Onion is good for you, you know,” she told him with a sniff. “Lots of healing properties.”

  “Did they teach you that in nursing school?” he teased.

  “Don’t be ridiculous. They don’t teach anything that useful in nursing school.”

  “Ha! Well, you must be on the mend if you’re cooking.”

  She assured him that was exactly the case and rushed him off the phone. Afterward, determined to get herself in hand, she chopped onion steadily and added it to the chicken soup, making a meal of it with the crackers and some sliced cheese that she had in the refrigerator. With her stomach full, she ran a hot bath and soaked for half an hour before washing and drying her hair and dressing in comfortable jeans and a baggy sweatshirt.

  When Mitch called again, she was able to greet him with a clear nose.

  “That’s more like it,” he said, sounding genuinely pleased. “Those onions must’ve done the trick.”

  “That or it’s just a twenty-four-hour bug,” she said.

  “Either way, I’m glad you’re feeling better.”

  “Thanks.”

  “What would you like for dinner?”

  She bit her lip, torn between wanting his company and fearing that she would make a fool of herself again, given half a chance. “I—I wouldn’t want to expose you to this, Mitch.”

  “Honey, I’ve already been exposed, and I feel fine. I have the constitution of a horse, by the way. Now, what do you want for dinner?” She took a deep breath, stalling, but he pushed. “Come on, what sounds good?”

  She blurted out the first thing that came to mind. “Pizza.”

  He burst out laughing. “You are feeling better. Pizza it is. What’s your preference? Pepperoni? Cheese? Sausage?”

  They settled on half pepperoni and half sausage with, of course, jalapeños. She mentioned putting together a salad to go with the pizza, but he wouldn’t hear of it.

  “If you want salad, I’ll bring salad. You’re to do nothing but eat after I get there. Understood?”

  She reluctantly agreed, feeling exhausted again although she’d done nothing more than dress and speak on the telephone. Once they’d hung up, she turned on the television, attempting to distract herself with other people’s problems on a popular daytime talk show, but the plight of a couple who had lost a child in a tragic drowning accident once more reduced her to tears. She turned on the classical music station and lay down with a damp cloth over her eyes.

  When Mitch arrived promptly at six, as promised, she was still listening to music and was feeling better.

  He lifted a skeptical eyebrow and insisted, “You are not well.”

  “I didn’t say I was,” she defended, following him to the kitchen, where he deposited the flat cardboard box and a clear plastic container of salad. “I said I was feeling better, and I am.”

  He turned to face her, frowning doubtfully, and opened his arms. She walked into them and buried he
r face in the hollow of his shoulder.

  “You don’t feel feverish,” he conceded.

  She turned her cheek to his shoulder, feeling better than she had all day. “By tomorrow I’ll be fine.”

  “You aren’t planning to go back to work yet, I hope.”

  She should. She really should, but she wasn’t certain that she could. Just the idea of trekking all the way downtown seemed utterly exhausting. Finally she shook her head.

  “I’ll wait another day.”

  “Good. Now, let’s get some food in you, and see how it settles. Okay?”

  She nodded and got down some plates while he went to the refrigerator for soft drinks. He shucked his coat and draped it over the back of a dining chair, but they ate tucked up on the sofa watching the evening news, since he’d done an interview with the local media that day in reference to his taxi-driver case. The result was a short piece playing to the political principles of asylum and the difficulties that his client had faced and would face again if deported. He played up the fact that his client was a physician and a family man. About the other individual arrested he said very little. All in all, Piper was impressed.

  “I didn’t want to lay it all on the other guy,” he explained, “because my client actually drew his blade first. Then today, after the interview, he finally told me why.”

  “What did he say?” she asked, taking another piece of pizza.

  Mitch wiped his hands on a napkin and looked at her. “He claims that this guy is some sort of war criminal, that he watched him kill innocent women and children in his village, including his own elderly mother.”

  “Wow. Do you believe him?”

  “I think I have to. He gave me the names of half a dozen other immigrants around the state who will evidently back him up.” He laid a hand on her knee then. “If you’re sure you’re on the mend, I might try to see a couple of them tomorrow—one in Austin, another in Houston.”