The first bite was halfway to her mouth when she heard Chad’s truck barrel into the yard and stop short. She’d recognize the sound anywhere, although it had been weeks since he’d come this close to the house. Before she could stand to order him from the property, he filled the doorway.
“Look. You can hate me. You can blame me for everything that has gone wrong in your life. I don’t really care. Well, that’s not true, but I understand. But the one thing that I asked you to do is keep your phone on and—”
She was on her feet by the time he finished speaking. “I don’t have—”
Chad took two steps and their shoes nearly touched. “Yeah, ya do.”
“Who do you think—”
“I’m a friend. A real one. I’m that one in Proverbs that’ll hurt you if it’s best for you and apparently, it is! You cannot live here alone without any way to call for help. Period.”
“I did for nearly twenty-three years.”
Chad stuffed his hands in his pockets in what she recognized as an attempt to keep them from throttling her. “And if you hadn’t had the—” He swallowed and Willow wondered if he’d swear. He never had before, but... He continued without sullying their ears. “—thing with you, you’d be dead now. Dead. Do you get that? Do you realize you would have died if you had lain out there for hours? That was an artery you cut, woman!”
“It’s my life to lose!” she flung back at him.
His voice, quieter and gentler than she could have imagined, and much more so than he’d ever been, broke a tiny hole in the wall she’d erected around her. “No it isn’t.”
“What?” she whispered, confused and weary.
“It’s not your life anymore. You gave it to Jesus.”
“I don’t want to hear that.”
A trace of a smile hovered around the corners of Chad’s lips. “Where’s the phone?”
“In the basket on my bedside table.”
“Eat your dinner. I’ll go get it.”
Willow watched, stunned at his interference, as Chad strode from the room and out of sight. She sank into her chair and lifted the same spoonful of stew to her lips. She couldn’t taste a thing. The rich gravy, the carrots, potatoes, tomatoes, and onions—she tasted none of it.
Chad stopped in the doorway, saw her bowl, and went to get her other one. He ladled himself a healthy amount of stew, grabbed a slab of sourdough bread, buttered it, and sat down at the table next to her. “I wondered about that. Your minutes lapsed.”
Confused and somewhat annoyed, Willow watched as he ate her stew, pulled a new minutes card from his wallet, and added them to her phone. As if to be certain that everything was in working order, he grabbed his own phone and dialed. Her phone rang, and he pushed it across the table.
“Answer it.”
“That’s crazy.”
He cocked one eyebrow at her. “Answer it.”
She glared at him as she picked up the phone. “I’d say hello, but what’s the point?”
“The point is that you can give me the silent treatment. You can wail, kick, scream, and fight me every step of the way, but I’m not leaving you alone anymore. You’re not thinking clearly. No one should hurt alone.”
“I have Lily.”
“When she has time and until you decide you don’t want her around either. I know what happens, and it’s not happening anymore.”
“I’ll call the police.”
Chad grinned as he took his last bite and stood to rinse it in the sink. “That’ll work just great, because they won’t have to send anyone out.”
Past Forward Volume 1 Page 38
