Love, Honor or Stray: New Day Divas Series Book Three

by E. N. Joy

  “Oh, Deborah, once again you’ve made me the happiest man in the world.” Elton released Deborah then stood up and headed to the bathroom.

  “Wait. When are we leaving? I need at least a month to close down shop here.”

  “I was thinking we’d leave as soon as possible, possibly next week. I can pay people to get you moved, to get your house on the market, and whatever else you need to do.”

  “Next week? But what about getting married? I thought you wanted to go to Vegas or something and—”

  “I do…and we will. But first there are a couple of things I need to get in order before we do all that.” Elton entered the bathroom.

  “A couple of things like what?” Deborah sniffed.

  “You know, just the regular things an athlete like myself needs to take care of.” He shrugged and added nonchalantly, “The prenup.” He went to close the door, but right before it closed, he opened it again and stated, “And get my divorce finalized.” Then he closed the door.

  Chapter Thirty-two

  The two male hospital workers rolled Paige’s stiff body down the corridor and into the assigned room. It was cold in the room, very cold. Cold enough to keep a dead body from decomposing.

  It had been more than an hour since the police had found Paige’s unresponsive body on the side of the road. When the police first arrived on the scene of the accident, where they found Paige’s car practically wrapped around a tree, they were very suspicious. It was apparent that the vehicle had somehow veered off the road right into the tree. From what they could determine in the late night hours, there were no skid marks or anything, which meant the driver hadn’t even thought about pumping the brakes. It was as if the tree was the target: final destination. As if the driver had purposely hit the tree.

  The ambulance got Paige to the hospital within a half hour of the accident, where doctors immediately worked on her, drawing blood and whatnot. After doing all they could do, she was now in the hands of the two gentlemen.

  As the two men entered the room with Paige in tow, they anchored the bed to the floor by putting the brakes on each wheel. They then left the room, giving the woman one last look. She looked so peaceful. Though neither man spoke on it, from the way in which the severity of the accident was described to them, they couldn’t believe her body hadn’t suffered more than just a couple of bumps and bruises.

  “Excuse me,” one of the gentlemen said to Blake, who was entering as they were exiting.

  “They said it was okay for me to come see my wife,” Blake told them. It was difficult for him not to get emotional in front of the men.

  “She’s right in there.” The other man pointed as the two left through the same route they’d come.

  Closing his eyes and then taking a deep breath, Blake whispered a prayer. “Lord, I come to your throne of grace as humble as I know how to be right now. Forgive me for all of my sins and for all the times I have fallen short of your glory. More importantly, Father, forgive me for not making the things first in my life that should be first, starting with you, oh Lord. Secondly, my wife.” Trying to keep from crying, Blake continued. “I love her so much. She means the world to me, and this is what I should have been telling her. As her lord on earth, the way you are her Lord in heaven, you are more than a provider; I should have been more than a provider to her. She needed more from me, God, and I didn’t give it to her. So, I’m seeking forgiveness, Lord, and that you’ll make me a changed a man. In Jesus’ name, amen.”

  “Amen,” he heard the soft voice repeat after him.

  He opened his eyes and looked over at his wife. He’d passed the scene of the accident on the way to the hospital and didn’t know what to expect when he saw her. The car was a total loss. He was just happy that his wife wasn’t.

  “Hey, sweetie,” Blake said as he walked toward Paige. He looked her up and down. “How are you feeling? You don’t look so bad.”

  She looked down at her arms that just had a couple of bruises on them. “Yeah, I know, praise God. Jesus must have definitely taken the wheel,” she joked using the lyrics of the song by Carrie Underwood, former American Idol winner.

  “Jesus had the wheel all along,” Blake stated. He stroked his fingers through Paige’s hair. He’d never realized how soft it was. He thought that perhaps he hadn’t been stroking it enough to find out. “So, what did the doctors say?”

  “Well, nothing yet, but hopefully someone will be in to tell me something, because one minute I’m driving down the street, and the next minute I’m in here. I can’t remember anything in between.”

  “When the nurse called me, I thought it was some joke. The last I remembered, you were laying next to me in bed. So, when I looked over and saw that you weren’t there, I nearly lost my mind. Couldn’t think straight trying to get here.”

  Paige looked down and chuckled. “Well, does that explain your mismatched shoes?”

  Blake looked down at his feet and burst out laughing. “Oh, wow. I hadn’t even noticed.” He stopped laughing then turned his attention back to his wife. “All I could think about was you.” He swallowed hard, as if swallowing back emotions. “I… I didn’t know what to expect when I walked into this hospital room. I didn’t know how bad…” His words trailed off. He couldn’t finish; he was so overcome with emotion. “I love you, Paige. I really do. If I’d lost you, I might have… I don’t know what I would have done. Probably kill myself.”

  “Blake Dickenson! I rebuke that in the name of Jesus!” Paige declared. “No god-fearing husband of mine will talk like that.”

  “I’m serious, honey. That’s how much I love you,” Blake told her, grabbing her hand. “And I’m sure if anything ever happened to me, you’d probably feel the same way. Wouldn’t you?” Blake tightened his grip on her hand, almost to the point where it was painful. “By the way, what were you doing out driving in the middle of the night? Where were you going?”

  Paige broke down and told Blake exactly how she’d been feeling since their wedding. What she didn’t tell him was that she was possibly on her way to Norman’s house before the crash. She couldn’t help but wonder if the accident had been God’s way of keeping her from making one of the biggest mistakes of her life. But, Lord, couldn’t you have just let me run out of gas? she thought, but then she realized she probably would have called Norman to come to her aid, and the two still would have ended up together.

  “How is our miracle patient?” the doctor said as she entered the room.

  “I’m fine, Doctor,” Paige said, a little uneasy as she wriggled her hand from Blake’s grip. He’d been gripping her wrist the entire time she spoke.

  “You do know that you coming out of such an accident alive was nothing short of a miracle. You must have God on your side,” the doctor continued.

  “We do.” Blake spoke for Paige with a smile. “I was just telling my wife, Doctor, that I don’t know what I would have done if I had lost her.”

  “Well, you don’t have to worry about that.” She looked down at the chart she carried in her hand. “Mr. Dickenson, your wife is going to be just fine.” She shot Paige a discerning look. “For now.”

  “Wha–what do you mean?” Paige asked her, getting a little nervous.

  “Well, looks like you blacked out, the result of very low blood sugar. If we don’t get this diabetes under control—”

  “Diabetes!” both Blake and Paige said in unison.

  “But I’m not even diabetic,” Paige replied.

  “According to your blood work and the tests we ran, you are,” the doctor confirmed. “Ironically, the accident saved your life. Had you been home in bed asleep and your sugar level dropped as low as it did, you might not have woken up.”

  “Jesus!” Paige said as her eyes watered.

  “When was the last time you’d seen your family doctor for a checkup?” the doctor asked Paige.

  “Uh, I don’t know. Never, that I can remember. All I pretty much have is my gynecologist. I mean, I never get sick,
so I really don’t have a family doctor that I see on a regular basis.”

  “Hmm, that’s a problem I run into quite often. We grownups only go to the doctor when we get sick. Just think about how much sickness we could prevent if we’d at least just go for an annual checkup. I mean, we don’t wait until all the oil leaves from our cars and the check engine light comes on before we give our cars an oil change, do we? So, we should at least take care of our bodies to that same degree; get it checked out before the warning lights start flashing.”

  “I hear you, Doctor,” Paige said, “but what do I do now?” There was fear evident on Paige’s face. “How do I know I won’t be driving around again and end up in another accident? And maybe that time I won’t be so lucky. Even worse, what if I hit and kill someone? A pedestrian walking across the street? Somebody’s child?” Paige shuddered at the thought as a tear dropped.

  “The first thing we’re going to do is change your diet, your eating habits,” the doctor informed Paige, while Blake rested his hand on her shoulder to calm her down. “Unfortunately, I am going to have to put you on insulin.”

  “The shots? In my stomach. Oh God, I can’t do it!” Paige buried her face into her husband’s stomach.

  “You are going to have to do it. It’s a matter of life and death: your life and death. But I’m telling you, Mrs. Dickenson, if you change the things you eat, then you can get yourself to the point where you won’t even need those shots. I’ve seen it done.”

  “You can do it, honey.” Blake kissed Paige on top of her head. “You’re just going to have to make the sacrifice.”

  “Not to downplay anything,” the doctor chimed in, “but when we are talking about extending your days here on earth, giving up donuts and fried chicken isn’t really a sacrifice.”

  “I’d have to agree with the doctor, honey,” Blake said to Paige. “Lord knows I’m not getting up on a soap box or anything, but what Jesus did…now, that was a sacrifice. God’s not asking you to do that. All He’s asking you to do is to treat your body—His body, really—like the temple it is.”

  The doctor nodded. “Not that you are a very big woman, Mrs. Dickenson, but you are a bit overweight.”

  “I know.” Paige sniffled. “And gluttony is a sin. I gotta come out of sin. Sin truly is death.” She looked up at Blake. “And I want to live, Doctor. I want to live.” Wiping her eyes dry, Paige composed herself, then with determination and her head held high, she said, “So, tell me, Doc, what do I have to do to live?”

  Chapter Thirty-three

  “Are you okay? Do you need more water?” Edward asked his ex-wife.

  “No, I’m fine,” Tamarra told him as she finally allowed herself to fall from his arms and lay back on the bed. She rubbed her hands through her hair. “Oh my God, I must be a sight.”

  “Oh, stop it. You know you look good in any state. To this day, you’re still the only woman I know who can wake up in the morning and look better than some women do smack in the middle of the day.”

  “Such flattering words coming from my ex,” Tamarra said. “Guess I didn’t look good enough, or else—”

  “Hey, hey now, we’re not going to go there. It’s all about you right now, and why I found you laid out on the ground over there outside of Family Café.”

  Edward was right, Tamarra thought. They’d been divorced for two years now. She was over it—really over it. No need stirring up and rekindling past hurts. She was healed and delivered from that situation, and that’s how she wanted things to stay.

  “I, uh, I’ve been having these panic attack episodes lately is all,” Tamarra said, downplaying it. “It’s nothing.”

  “Well, it sure looked like something to me. You were out cold when I found you. That’s why I called 911.”

  “I was out cold, because evidently when I passed out, my head hit the cement and it knocked me unconscious. Thank God you showed up when you did, or I don’t know what might have happened. I might have ended up like Sister Lorain. God only kno—” Tamarra thought for a minute. “As a matter of fact, what in the world were you doing there, on the side of Family Café’s building?”

  “Well, you know I’ve been the accountant for Family Café for years now. I was there to go over a couple of things regarding their finances. You know I work special hours, for their convenience, around closing time, so I can get their undivided attention.”

  Actually, Tamarra had forgotten all about the fact that Edward was the accountant for the business. When she and Edward were married, they always got to eat free when they would go to the restaurant together. And she also remembered that whenever he was there for official business, to go over the books in the back with the owners, he always used the service entrance on the side of the building.

  Edward never really cared for the food at Family Café, not even the famous chili. Tamarra, on the other hand, enjoyed the family-owned restaurant. So, after the divorce, Edward never really patronized the place anymore, but still maintained his business relationship as the accountant there. Tamarra realized that’s probably how Zelda knew where she lived: she’d looked at some old paperwork with her and Edward’s address on it.

  “I didn’t expect to find my ex-wife lying flat out on the side of the building,” Edward told her.

  “And I didn’t expect to find my ex-husband standing in my hospital doorway.” She looked over at the bouquet of flowers he’d set on the table. “With my favorite, a spring bouquet.”

  “Oh, yes,” Edward said, turning his attention toward the flowers. “I almost forgot. Those are for you.”

  “You don’t say.” Tamarra smiled. “Thank you, Ed.”

  He cleared his throat at the sound of his ex-wife referring to him by the name she’d always called him. No one else called him by that name. Eddie, maybe, but not Ed. “Uh, no problem. And, I, uh, didn’t mean to catch you so off guard or anything by being here. I mean, I knew I’d get a reaction out of you, but whoa!” He chuckled, referring to the way Tamarra was reacting when he entered the room. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Oh, no need to apologize.” She shooed her hand. “It wasn’t that. I mean, of course I was shocked to see you standing there, of all people. But it wasn’t just that.”

  “I know. You were scared as well. I don’t blame you. I was scared. I had no idea what was going on. But I’m glad you’re going to be okay.”

  “Yeah, me too.” Tamarra lowered her head. There was silence.

  “Well, I guess I better get going.” He looked down at his watch. “Although it’s way too late for me to go over Family Café’s books now,” he joked. “Anyway, take care of yourself, you hear me?”

  Tamarra nodded and smiled.

  “Good-bye, Tamarra.”

  And Edward was gone, leaving nothing behind but the flowers. No stirred-up feelings or emotions; no regrets or temptations; no bitterness or anger that he was probably headed off to the arms of the woman he’d cheated on her with and their love child. Tamarra thought that maybe everything was just too fresh, Edward’s being there, and maybe it all needed some time to register. But she gave it a couple more minutes, and still nothing. She really had been delivered from the anger, bitterness, and regret toward Edward, his infidelity, and his child. There really was love after divorce, and for Tamarra, it went by the name of Maeyl.

  “Maeyl,” slipped through Tamarra’s lips in a whisper. “Where are you? I need you.” Tamarra knew she would need him more than ever to cope with the reality of what she’d witnessed on the news. Thank God Edward had been there during the initial shock to take her mind off things, but now Edward was gone. She needed Maeyl.

  Tamarra flicked to a couple more channels to see if there was any more coverage about the suspected suicide, but she saw nothing. She had to see it again: the face, the name. Just one more time to make sure she hadn’t been seeing things, to make sure she hadn’t been dreaming—having a nightmare was more like it. She surfed through the channels again: nothing. Tamarra knew she wouldn’t be able t
o think straight until she found out more details. But who could she call?

  She picked up the hospital phone and dialed Paige’s number only to receive no answer, either at home or on her cell. That was peculiar. Then again, Paige was a married woman. Perhaps she and Blake had finally started to minister to one another in the bedroom. Next she tried Maeyl. She didn’t get an answer on either his home phone or his cell. Now, that was peculiar…period. Where in the world could Maeyl have been this late?

  A worried look covered Tamarra’s face as her mind suggested all types of scenarios as to where Maeyl could be. But then she relaxed as her lips spread into a smile thinking that maybe, just maybe, he was on his way to see her.

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Deborah lay there in the bed as if someone had just slapped her across the face…twice. She was stunned. Had she really heard Elton say what she thought she’d just heard: he was getting a divorce? Even worse, he was married? Elton was a married man?

  “Oh my God!” Deborah jumped up out of the bed. “I’ve been… I’ve been sleeping with a married man? Not only have I been fornicating, but I’ve been aiding this man in committing adultery too? Oh, Lord, forgive me.” Deborah fell to her knees next to the bed as she prayed in tongues, her prayer language.

  She cried freely as she repented for everything. She should have never lain with Elton in the first place. Hadn’t she learned her lesson already? God had forgiven her, and now here she was putting herself in a position to relive the nightmare all over again. “I’m so sorry,” she cried for the next few minutes.

  Her tears seemed to drop at the pace of the shower water Elton was running, only when his shower stopped, her tears didn’t. When he exited the bathroom, he found Deborah still kneeling next to the bed.

  “Little Debbie, what’s wrong?” Elton asked in a worried tone as he dried himself off and slipped on some boxers he’d grabbed from the top drawer of Deborah’s dresser. Yes, she’d given him the infamous single drawer at her place—that and a wee little bit of closet space. Oh yeah, and a spot for his toothbrush in the bathroom.