by Jillian Hart
“Come walk me to my truck.” Max’s hand waited for hers, palm up, trembling a little, an invitation of everything she longed for.
Dad and Colbie were arguing now, anger growing fiercer until it drowned out Lil’s sobs.
“I can’t.” This chaos was just the start of things. The upset Dad could cause within a few minutes of saying hello would be getting worse any minute. “Go, before—”
“Bree, that nice young man of yours has quite a truck there. He must have money. Think he can float me a loan for just a few days? I—”
“That’s it.” She grabbed Max by the elbow and pulled all two hundred pounds of him toward his open door. “You have to go. I can’t imagine why you aren’t running away from me.”
“Bree, I don’t know what’s going on here but—”
“Go.” She couldn’t look at him. She was that little girl standing in the living room while Brandi cried inconsolably, listening to their parents fighting in the kitchen. The crash of a beer bottle. The shattering wine glass. The overdue bills unpaid and no food in the cupboards. She was the little girl with shoes from the charity store at church, and the state-sponsored school lunches. The girl too ashamed to go to school the entire week after her Dad was caught shoplifting at their small-town grocery store. The past came crashing back, when she felt least able to fight it. And now Max would know.
“Goodbye.” She turned her back on him so he wouldn’t see the tears fall. Every breath cracked her into pieces. Every second that passed was like slowly dying until his truck turned over and the cab lights flared on.
“Brianna.” His baritone fell low, hard to hear over the idling engine. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
His question told her everything she needed to know. She was simply another woman who had lied to him. Another woman who could bring ugliness into his life.
How could she answer his question? She couldn’t tell him the truth. How did she explain she wanted the life beyond the fairy tale so very badly? That she had tricked herself into hoping that a good life well lived, full of love and caring family could be meant for her.
“Why aren’t you leaning on me?” he asked.
She couldn’t answer. Aching for what she did not have, for what she was afraid she could never find, she prayed for him to go. Relief filled her when she heard him put his truck in gear and slowly backed into the road. Surely he saw it, too—that she was not the perfect princess he’d made her out to be. It didn’t matter that she’d tried to tell him. She knew without him saying so that it was over. He couldn’t love her now.
Devastation wrapped like a lead blanket around her. She’d known from the first time she’d laid eyes on him that he couldn’t be meant for her.
As if to prove his honor, Max pulled closer to the argument and hopped back out of his truck. He must have gotten his badge out of his glove box, because after he stopped to speak to Lil, he flashed it at her dad. Colbie was rigid with anger, Brandi was crying. Bree closed her eyes so she wouldn’t watch the man she loved escort her father to his truck.
“Max’s great. He’s taking Dad away.” Brandi rushed to her side. “Can you believe he came here?”
“I can believe anything.” She could hold the tears inside. Really, she could. She listened to the truck’s engine fade into the night. She couldn’t seem to take her gaze from the darkness, as if waiting for Max to drive back down the road, as if he might change his mind. As if he wanted to tell her he could not live without her, in spite of everything she was.
Not happening, Bree. Odds were that he would never think of her as a storybook princess again. She blinked hard against the strange blurring of her vision—it was blurring, not tears—and was grateful when Brandi took her by the hand.
“C’mon. Lil’s pretty upset. She needs all the comfort we can give her.”
“Right.” Her feet were disconnected from the rest of her, but somehow she got them to move her forward. The metaphoric balloon she’d been dangling from popped, and she hit the ground so hard, her soul shattered.
“Do you think Max will understand about Dad?” Brandi asked.
“Would you?”
“No.” Her twin’s voice sounded very small, aware of the truth neither of them could say.
Max was a great guy. But maybe as fantastic as he was and as thoroughly as she’d fallen in love with him, he wasn’t the guy. Maybe he wasn’t her man. Sometimes you didn’t get what you wanted. Sometimes the girl didn’t get her hero. There weren’t enough happy endings to go around. Life was proof enough of that.
They fell silent, afraid to say what they were both thinking. That girls like them didn’t have the chance for happy-ever-afters. She had asked God the same question over and over again. I’m not destined to be alone, right, Lord?
Tonight, she’d received her answer.
“Do you think that’s him?” Brandi asked in the dark confines of the passenger seat as the phone began to ring. They were driving home, too late for Brianna’s comfort. “Want me to see who’s calling?”
“No.” Her fingers tightened on the wheel.
“What if it’s Max? He might want to talk to you.”
“Are you kidding? He drove off with Dad. He’s spent time with him. There’s no way he’s going to want to talk to me now.”
Brandi bowed her head, falling silent, unable to disagree.
Yes, it was truly good and over with Max.
She stopped for a red light, waiting as no other cars crossed the intersection. The rumble of the engine and the whir of the heater sounded loud in the silence. She knew Brandi wanted to talk about what happened, to somehow try to change the outcome. But there was no changing the truth. This relationship had never been going to work out, not really. He was always going to figure out that the way he wanted to see her and the way she was were two entirely different things.
Although losing him did hurt more than anything she’d encountered yet in life.
The light flicked to green and she checked both ways before pulling out, motoring up to the twenty-five-mile-an-hour speed limit. For the first time ever she felt drained and empty, without hope. She had never realized before all the little ways hope had crept into her life like tendrils of roots clinging to the earth, determined to grow. How she always looked to the future and to God for something better.
Like a little girl clutching to her books of fairy tales, dreaming of a castle and true love instead of an unkempt trailer and parents passed out in the next room. How she had to believe that God meant something better for her and Brandi. That belief had gotten her through her childhood and through fighting for her life in I.C.U.
And now that was gone. She had a clear view of her future without Max. Grief scored through her more painfully than any bullet. She hadn’t realized her hopes had gotten so big. She’d let herself imagine—just a little—what life could be like spent at his side, in his arms, in his heart. She could picture a proposal with him on bended knee, a wedding with yellow roses and a long white gown, and every day privileged to see Max’s lopsided grin, laugh at his wry humor and stand tall with him through good times and bad.
Not gonna happen, Bree. Forget it.
But those wishes had obstinately burrowed into the tenderest places of her soul. Everything she was ached for those impossible dreams. Dreams she could never have. Her eyes burned, and she focused on the street in front of her. The yellow and black lines rushing in front of the car guided her home. When those lines blurred, she blinked hard and brought them back into focus.
The phone chimed, signaling a text message, the tone muffled by the confines of her handbag.
“I’m going to see who that is.” Brandi leaned forward against the seat belt to unzip the bag. “Dad wouldn’t leave a text. He doesn’t have a phone.”
“Please, don’t.” A few raindrops speckled the windshield, making it harder to see. She felt like the night, desolate and cold, starless with a storm moving in. “There’s no way Max is going to forgive me.”
“It is.” All the feeling drained out of her. Numbness set in, the same way it had after she’d been shot. For a brief moment, she’d felt nothing. Her system was too shocked. When her brain caught up with her nerve endings, she was going to be in horrible pain. “Either that message is him rejecting me, or he wants to get together face-to-face to do it.”
“He’s a really great guy. He’s a lot to lose.”
Bree nodded, her throat closing up. He was everything. Last time she’d hurt like this, she’d been in I.C.U.
The phone chimed again.
“Don’t get that, Brandi. Please.” She nudged on her turn signal and turned onto their street.
“But it’s from him. Can I at least see what he said?”
“No.” She answered too late. Her twin had already punched through the scroll list to open a message.
Brace yourself for another emotional bullet, Bree. She pulled up every shield she had, every defense around her battered heart. How could it be enough? She loved him so truly, there was no protection. No refuge. Not even now.
“Don’t tell me what it says.” She slowed as rain began to fall in earnest, obscuring the stretch of the street in front of her. It was like driving into the worst darkness without a light to guide her way. “I’m better off not knowing how badly I messed this up.”
“This is Dad’s fault, not yours. He’s supposed to be in jail. How could they let him out on parole?” Brandi fell silent, studying whatever was on the screen. “Do you know what Max sent?”
“I told you, no. I don’t want to hear it. I already know.” Rain battered the windshield, and her spirit felt the cold hard strikes. She spotted a white pickup parked along the curb in front of their duplex, and the shock wore off. Endless grief tunneled through her, leaving her weak. Shakily, she turned into the driveway, looking straight ahead, grateful for the dark that hid him from her sight. For the dark that hid the tears in her eyes.
There was no hope left. No one speck within her. All the years of her life, she had managed to grasp tightly to it no matter what. The blows in her life simply had not been hard enough break her hold. But the realization that Max was never going to really love her, that it couldn’t be her future was the biggest blow she’d ever taken.
“He sent a chapter and a verse.” Why wasn’t Brandi giving up? She had to have spotted the truck. She knew Max was here.
“Hebrews 11:1. You know that verse. It’s one of your favorites.”
The car crept into the utter darkness beneath the carport, the beating rain deafening. Bree turned off the motor, wishing she could turn off her feelings as easily. But they crashed through her like a tidal wave hitting the shore, obliterating everything, knocking down and dragging the pieces of her shattered hope out to sea. There was no way to get them back. They were forever lost, never to be found and made whole again.
“Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see,” Brandi quoted as Max stepped out of the dark.
Chapter Fifteen
Seeing her again brought it all back. How Brianna had hid the truth about her dad. Of her standing with her back to him, her head bowed, her slender shoulders trembling, closing him out. Rain drenched him, and the night’s chill had crept deep beyond the skin. Cold and hollow, he approached her car, waiting for her to come out and face him.
Her window zipped down, revealing her. She was little more than a shadow in the confines of the car, her features as hidden to him as her feelings.
“I took your Dad to the Y.” He winced at how terse he sounded, harsher than he’d meant. “That was about all he could afford.”
“I hope he didn’t try to get you to loan him money. He’s not good for it.” She was cold as the night, as impenetrable as the shadows. Impossible to know what she was feeling. If she was going to reject him again or hear him out.
“He tried, but I had the man figured out.” He jammed his hands in his pockets. Rain hammered the roof overhead, echoing in the confines of the carport, reminding him of a certain night long ago. Sweat broke out on the back of his neck. Tingles shot like fear into his bloodstream. “I deal with people like that all the time.”
“Yes, I know.” He’d never heard a deeper note of sadness. The door opened, and she slowly stood like someone gravely ill. She leaned heavily on the door. She took forever to straighten. Cloaked in shadows, all he could see was the hint of her profile and the dark pools of her eyes.
“I’m sorry. I should have told you about him—Dad.” She stayed where she was, gripping the car door. She seemed so distant, she was like a stranger. “Back when you told me about Nancy, I should have opened those memories I keep closed and told you.”
“I have eyes. I saw what happened tonight. He couldn’t tell you and Brandi apart. Colbie’s upset. Lil’s tears. You all have been through so much because of that man.”
“That you understand is all the proof I need. You are too good, Max. You’ve come here to let me down easy. I know this because—” She hiccupped, but he suspected it was a sob she tried to disguise. “Because you try to do the right thing. You’re that man. You are going to end this the correct way. But I don’t need that. What I need is for you to have mercy and walk away.”
He’d been battling hurt and doubt all the way downtown, with Mick trying to buddy up to him and Marcus chattering on the phone in the backseat. She’d turned away from him, and that hurt. “You and I have differences, Bree.”
“Too many. I’m glad you see it, too. It’s one of the reasons I don’t think about Dad. Don’t you see?” She released her hold on the door and gave it a push. The thud resounded against the concrete and the walls of the house, flashing up memories he couldn’t seem to stop.
“You haven’t seen me at all, Max. Until tonight.” She took a step closer, but her voice began to sound far away, tinny and echoing over the sound of the rain in his memory drumming harder, muffling a crack of thunder. “That girl you saw when you looked at me, the way you looked at me. You made me believe, too. Deep down, I knew better, which makes this all my fault. So you can go, guilt free. You’re off the hook.”
Her words registered, but what he also heard was a revolver’s report. The rush of the paramedics, their rubber-soled shoes splashing on the cement, and the strobing flash of sirens. He felt again the terror of telling his body to get up off the ground and finding himself still flat on his belly, unable to move anything but his right hand. The deadening whirlpool of betrayal had sucked him down. He’d lost his ability to truly trust in anyone. He didn’t know how to get it back.
This was his out. She was giving him the chance to walk away without fault. He could go back to his life, raising Marcus, being a cop, studying his Bible and living without ever having to risk his heart again. He could hold up this moment as the badge of honor. I loved her, but she was at fault. She kept truths from me. She wasn’t right for me. She was recovering from a serious trauma and I couldn’t trust her to know what she wanted.
So easy to take that first step back into safety. Simple to let the darkness and the fear win. He would never have to open the last door into his heart. Never have to take down the final barrier where no one but God had been. He would never risk hurting the way he’d been hurt tonight again.
“I’m not guilt free in this.” He set his shoulders and steeled his spine. “This is hard for a man like me to admit, but I got scared.”
“Of the trouble my dad can cause, sure.” She awkwardly buttoned her coat, taking a few steps in his direction. The tap of her step rang with uncertainty, but it brought her within reach of the security lights at the end of the carport. Illumination found her, revealing the tears shining in her eyes. Her sorrow held luster that rendered him speechless. Light sifted over her like tiny blessings and wishes come true.
Be
lieve, a voice told him from down deep inside.
How could he? He wanted to. That’s why he had come here. But it was as if he’d hit a wall, an impossible barrier he could not scale.
“There’s something I need to know. Something I’ve always wondered about you.” He gathered his courage. “You said something about the robbery that stuck with me. You said you went on with your life, regardless of how hard it was. You wouldn’t let what happened stop you. That you wouldn’t let them win. How did you do it? I’ve lost sight of almost everything I used to believe in.”
“Like what?”
“Hope. Happy-ever-afters. That the good guy has a chance.”
“That sounds like a lot to lose sight of.” Her voice resonated with understanding. “I feel that way, too, right now, so I don’t think I can help you.”
Last time he had let belief take him over, he’d been blindsided. He saw now that he had never recovered. He was stuck on that rain-slicked driveway, and he’d never gotten up off it. He’d never done what Brianna had, climbed back on her feet and fought to keep on living wholly, open to all the goodness life has to give.
“How?” he asked.
“Job 2:10.” She set her chin, fisted her hands and seemed so small even with the light tumbling over her. “Shall we indeed accept good from God, and shall we not accept adversity?”
“My faith in God is one thing that has survived.” That was the honest truth. He felt captivated as she took another step closer.
“2 Corinthians 12:10. Since I know it is all for Christ’s good, I am quite content with my weaknesses and with insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”
