Betwixt Two Hearts (Crossroads Collection)

by Amanda Tru

  “Actually, I’m not interested in buying anything right now. Are you Fiona Maxwell?”

  “Yes, I am,” she answered, surprised.

  Camden extended his hand with a charming smile in place. “Hi, I’m Camden Hutchins. I’m sorry if this sounds weird, but I’m one of the owners of the Betwixt Two Hearts matchmaking website. Your profile came up as a strong match for one of my other clients who is here at the game this evening. When I saw that you actually worked here, I thought I’d take the chance to find you. My client friend just survived a nightmarishly bad date. He’s currently visiting with someone he just met, but on the off-chance that you wanted to meet one of your matches, I thought I’d just mention that he was here.”

  What is he doing? Bailey tugged on Camden’s sleeve. When that didn’t work, she leaned into his arm, trying to get him to back off and leave. Everything was perfect with Jeff and Julie, and now he was going to ruin it!

  Fiona’s eyes grew wide. “He’s here? I mean, I signed up for the site, but I haven't actually dared to contact anyone. Maybe it would be easier if I just kind of ran into him. But you said he was already meeting someone?”

  Camden nodded. “He is. His name is Jeff. There are no guarantees, but there also isn’t a problem with you taking some concessions by where he’s sitting and slipping him your number or telling him to contact you on the website. Maybe he will. Maybe he won’t. Looking at your profile, I saw that you signed up on the first day but haven’t even contacted your free match.”

  “No, I haven’t,” she acknowledged nervously. “Is this Jeff a nice guy?”

  “A very nice guy.” Camden turned to Bailey and captured her hands in his. The gesture probably looked affectionate, but it was really to stop her from pinching his arm. “Bailey here knows him better than I do. You want to add anything, Bailey?”

  Bailey scowled. She was not helping him with this. Not trying to hide her reluctance, she reported unapologetically, “He has glasses and is a bit of a nerd. He gets extremely nervous around pretty women and may not even speak to you.”

  “Not because he doesn’t want to,” Camden assured quickly. “You just may be too pretty for him to feel comfortable right away.”

  Fiona’s face lit up with a beautiful smile, not seeming to be scared off in the least. “That’s really cute. Okay, I’ll do it. Where is he sitting?”

  Much to Bailey’s dismay, Camden happily gave Fiona the section number and also provided a thorough description of where the seats were located and Jeff himself. The entire time, he held tightly to Bailey’s hands, preventing her from inflicting any more physical proof of her objections.

  “He’s sitting with a woman and her friends,” Bailey added sternly. “He might not even notice you.”

  “I understand,” Fiona said brightly. “I really don’t have any expectations. It probably won’t work, but at least I tried! Thanks for the tip, Mr. Hutchins.”

  Camden nodded and headed back the way they came while Fiona worked to put together a last-minute concession tray. Dragging Bailey along with one of her hands still trapped in his, he didn’t turn to her until out of Fiona’s sight.

  “What did you do?” Bailey demanded, finally managing to wrench her hand away only to reach over and use it to lightly smack him in the chest. “Jeff and Julie were perfect. Now you’ve wrecked everything! There’s no reason to do that!”

  Camden captured both her hands in his once again. Holding her still, he looked earnestly into her eyes. “Bailey, it will be okay. I mentioned it to Fiona because she needs someone, too, and I believe she would appreciate Jeff. Obviously, Jeff was impressed with Julie, but it wasn’t clear that Julie felt the same about Jeff. A little competition for his affections might make the whole situation better. Besides, Jeff seems like the type of guy who really deserves to have two amazing women vying for his affections. I just did him a big favor, and I don’t understand why any of that is wrong.”

  Bailey opened her mouth to respond, but then she closed it when words failed her. Camden made a lot of sense. They’d been honest with Fiona about the situation. Maybe it really wouldn’t be the train wreck Bailey feared. In fact, presenting Jeff with a choice actually seemed like an awfully good idea.

  Bailey looked at Camden, feeling a little lost in his blue-gray eyes as she spoke. “I’m sorry, Camden. I guess I jumped to conclusions. It’s been a really rough night, and it’s easy to assume you’re always trying to sabotage me. Yet tonight you really saved the day. Thank you. You have no idea how much I appreciate it.”

  Camden looked surprised, almost as if he’d never heard her apologize before. But, of course, she had. Hadn’t she?

  “Bailey, I would never try to sabotage you,” he said, his eyes shining with sincerity. “I know I don’t do a good job of communicating, but I really only want good things for you. You should know that I didn’t step in and find Jeff a match because of Jeff or for the sake of the website. I don’t know Jeff, but I assume one bad date wouldn’t kill him, and I’m totally fine with the website getting an occasional bad review. I don’t even care about the stupid contest. I did it for you, Bailey. I couldn’t stand you being unhappy, and I couldn’t enjoy the game knowing you were miserable.”

  Bailey swallowed with difficulty, intensely aware of his presence and the warm hands still holding hers. Everything around them seemed to fade away, and she longed for something. The sparks in his eyes drew her like magnets, and she wondered if his lips were warm, too. Mesmerized, she reached up to touch the stubble on his cheek. At the contact, electricity shot from her fingers all the way through her body, ending with her lips tingling in anticipation.

  Camden turned his head, lightly brushing her hand with his lips.

  Bailey stood to her tiptoes, longing for those lips to meet hers.

  A loud ringing shot panic through her heart, and she stumbled backward, the spell broken.

  Camden fumbled for his phone and pulled it up to his ear. “Hello?” he asked, clearing his husky voice even as he spoke.

  “Hi, Gen,” he greeted. Suddenly his voice changed, fear threading through it. “Yes, I’m in Brighton Falls. What? Gen, slow down.”

  Camden’s fear was contagious. Bailey watched him in concern, instinctively knowing something was wrong. She knew Camden’s sister, Geneva, was a doctor. If she’d called with bad news, then it could be serious.

  “Ok, give me fifteen minutes,” Camden said tightly. “I’ll be there.”

  He hung up the phone, grabbed Bailey’s hand, and took off running down the hallway.

  “Camden, what happened?” Bailey asked, panicking. “What’s wrong?”

  “Israel needs me,” he explained shortly. Reaching the stairs, he hurried down, Bailey barely managing to keep up with his legs on fast forward.

  “Where’s Israel? Camden, please tell me what is going on!” she begged.

  Reaching the bottom of the stairs, Camden suddenly stopped and turned to her, his eyes so filled with pain that they took her breath away. “Israel is working late at his office, and I need to go be with him. That was Geneva on the phone. Israel’s wife, Marissa, is there at the hospital. Bailey, Marissa is dead.”

  Camden watched the lights blink over the elevator door and clenched his teeth tightly. Lord, help me! I don’t know how to handle this! Help me to be there for my brother!

  He hadn’t stopped praying since Geneva had called, and still he didn’t know what to do when those elevator doors opened.

  Marissa was dead. He knew that for Israel, it wouldn’t matter that she had left months ago and he hadn’t even heard from her since. His grief in losing her would be just as intense, just as fresh, and only compounded by guilt.

  Camden glanced at his watch, catching Bailey’s gaze as she stood beside him. Thankfully, she hadn’t asked a single question since he’d told her what happened. She’d simply held his hand tightly before and after he’d driven like a maniac to get here.

  Geneva would be calling in about four minutes. He’d
made the drive from the stadium to his brother’s office in record time, and he’d be there when Israel heard the news. Geneva had called Camden first. She hadn’t wanted Israel to get the news when he was alone and had purposely bypassed hospital procedures to make sure someone was there for her brother. Strangely, Camden had been her first call. Maybe their mom had mentioned that he and Bailey were headed to Brighton Falls for the evening. Maybe she knew that no matter what, Camden would drop everything and move mountains to be there for the brother who seemed to despise him.

  Whatever her reasoning, Geneva hadn’t called Mom and Dad. She hadn’t called Dallas or any of their other siblings. She’d called Camden. Though he didn’t know how to do any of this, he would be there in the room when Israel learned his wife was gone.

  The elevator doors opened, and Camden and Bailey stepped out into the plush office waiting room.

  Bailey squeezed his hand and murmured. “I’ll wait here if you need me.”

  “I need you to pray,” Camden whispered.

  Bailey nodded soberly and took a seat on one of the chairs overlooking a view of the city.

  Camden walked to a large door in the corner behind the front desk.

  Lord, I don’t know how to pray. Please help me and comfort Israel.

  Camden knocked firmly. Without waiting for a response, he turned the knob and opened the door.

  Israel looked up from his desk in surprise and immediately stood.

  “Camden?” He suddenly turned and looked out the wide windows behind him, shielding his eyes as if searching for something in the city lights of night. “Wait just a minute, Camden. You’re stepping foot in the office, which means I need to make sure pigs aren’t flying around out there.”

  “Israel,” Camden said, his voice cracking painfully.

  At his tone, Israel turned around, and his face blanched as he took in Camden and his hesitant steps toward him.

  All of the oxygen left the room. Camden couldn’t breathe.

  “Camden, tell me. What’s wrong?”

  Camden didn’t answer, looking helplessly at his brother. Geneva should be calling now. Why wasn’t she calling?

  “Tell me, Camden,” Israel begged.

  Camden hesitated.

  “Tell me!” Israel shouted, the noise stark and startling in the empty office.

  Camden swallowed, then he spoke quietly, his voice raspy. “Israel, Geneva called. Marissa was taken to the hospital. Israel, she didn’t make it. She’s gone.”

  Israel let out a choking sob and shook his head adamantly. “No. You lie. Marissa isn’t dead.” He reached out and shoved Camden hard, sending him stumbling across the room “You’re lying. Do you hate me that much?”

  Tears squeezed out of Camden’s eyes, and he couldn’t speak.

  Israel’s phone rang.

  He stared at Camden as it rang one, two, three times.

  Finally, he picked up and answered hoarsely, “Hello.”

  After listening about ten seconds, Israel’s face crumpled, and the phone dropped from his hand. He would have fallen to the floor if Camden hadn’t met him with open arms, catching him and holding him close.

  “No!” Israel screamed as sobs claimed him, shaking his body in great convulsions.

  Camden supported Israel’s weight, getting him safely to a couch against one wall. He then retrieved Israel’s phone and held it to his ear while he knelt before his brother.

  “Gen, it’s me,” Camden said. “I’ve got him.”

  Though Geneva struggled mightily to maintain her professional composure, her thin voice was difficult to understand, and Camden knew without seeing that silent tears coursed down her cheeks.

  “He needs to come down to identify the body,” she said tightly. “I recognize her, of course, but it’s still a formality.”

  “Ok, I’ll see that he makes it,” Camden assured. “Give us a little time.”

  Geneva spoke brokenly, “Camden, there was nothing we could do. They found her in her car at the side of the road, and she was gone long before then.”

  “I assume it was—”

  “Drugs,” Geneva confirmed. “I don’t have toxicology reports back, but it’s a classic overdose. There were drugs in the car beside her. Even knowing her history, I doubt that makes it any easier for Israel.”

  “No, I doubt it does. We’ll be down as soon as we can.” Camden signed off, set the phone down, and wrapped his arms around his brother’s hunched-over, shaking shoulders. Right now, it didn’t matter that Marissa’s drug problem was well-known, or that her death by overdose wasn’t shocking. It didn’t matter that she had left Israel and Chloe months ago and hadn’t bothered to keep any contact or let anyone know where she was. Drugs had consumed Marissa’s life, and even though it wasn’t surprising that it ended with an overdose alone in her car, that didn’t make the reality of it any easier.

  “It’s all my fault. It’s all my fault,” Israel murmured over and over.

  “No, it isn’t,” Camden said firmly, pushing his brother upright so he could look him directly in the eye and make him understand. “You didn’t make Marissa’s choices, she did. You weren’t the one who left, she was. You didn’t refuse to go into rehab or turn your back on everyone who cared.”

  “You don’t understand,” Israel moaned. “I’m not saying that her choices from the past few months were my fault. I’m talking about before that. If I had handled things better back when her drug problem started, I could have prevented everything.”

  “Israel, you can’t know that,” Camden protested. “And playing the ‘what if’ game doesn’t solve anything now.”

  “Marissa first started taking prescription painkillers after Chloe was born,” Israel confessed, struggling to regain a semblance of control. “She’d had a difficult delivery, and prescription painkillers were prescribed as a matter of course. If I had been more attentive when Chloe was a baby, I could have alleviated some of Marissa’s postpartum depression and stress, and I would have noticed that she never stopped taking the pain medicine. She always seemed to give the doctor a valid reason for why she needed it, and I didn’t realize until too late that she was addicted. Even then, I didn’t handle things as I should have. I thought she’d get better when she wanted to have another baby, and she did. But when she didn’t get pregnant right away, she became even more depressed. She quickly went back to her medicine. I got rid of all of the pills and tried to keep track of when she’d go to a new doctor to get a prescription. She wouldn’t consent to treatment, and when I cut off her legal drug supply, she turned to the illegal variety. Things spun out of control from there. I should have forced her into rehab, but at the time, I couldn’t legally do it without having her arrested on drug charges. It got to the point that she couldn’t take care of Chloe, and when I threatened to call the cops and have her committed, she left.”

  Camden had known the outline version of Marissa’s story, as related by his mom, but Israel had never spoken to him about it until now. He didn’t know how to ease the agony straining his brother’s features. It was a pain he couldn’t imagine, and he felt he lacked any words of comfort.

  Camden gripped his brother’s shoulder tightly, and spoke, willing comfort and strength in his touch. “Israel, looking in the rearview mirror, you always think what you should have done. I’m so very sorry you’re going through this, and I have no words to ease your pain. However, I am sure that God knows exactly what you’re going through. He loved Marissa, and He loves you. He’s the one to give you comfort and strength for the days ahead. None of this took Him by surprise, and He has a plan to get you through it.”

  “Camden, I don’t even know that Marissa was saved,” Israel whispered, his eyes wide as if revealing a shameful secret. “At the time we married, I thought she was. But she became so obsessed with getting her next high that she left Chloe and me. She wasn’t the woman I married. The Marissa I loved has been gone much longer than today, and yet no matter what she did, I always hoped that
my Marissa would come back to me. Now that hope is gone.”

  “Israel, you can’t know Marissa’s heart or God’s work in her,” Camden said firmly, bending to keep eye contact. “All you can do is trust who God is. You know He loved her and never abandoned her, even at the end. Because of His faithfulness, you can still have that hope that you will one day get to see your Marissa. Don’t let your hope be in Marissa. Let it be in God. If she ever belonged to Him, He wouldn’t have let her go easily.”

  “But I can’t know for sure.”

  “No, you can’t. But you can hope.”

  Camden prayed with Israel, and after a while, he calmed enough that Camden mentioned that they needed to go to the hospital.

  Israel stood, resigning himself to the task and the one after that—telling his daughter that her mommy wouldn’t be coming home.

  Camden and Bailey went with him to the hospital, and Camden stood alongside him as he said his final goodbyes to his wife. Geneva was her usual professional self and guided them through the process quickly and easily.

  Camden watched her in amazement. He knew Geneva felt the brunt of grief as much as he did, and yet she remained cool and calm, yet compassionate. Though her teasing, fun personality was quite different when not wearing her doctor’s jacket, when on duty, Camden knew there was none better than Dr. Geneva Hutchins.

  Camden offered to drive Israel back to Crossroads, but he insisted on driving himself so as to have his own vehicle in the morning. Camden and Bailey contented themselves with following his brother’s taillights all the way home.

  “Is Israel planning to tell Chloe tonight?” Bailey asked after they’d been driving a while.

  “No. Mom will already have Chloe in bed when we get there. It’s too late tonight. Israel will stay at my parents’ house tonight and tell her in the morning.”

  “Poor little girl,” Bailey said sympathetically, sounding close to tears.

  “It’s difficult to know how she’ll take it,” Camden said grimly. “Marissa leaving really threw her off, and she isn’t the same happy little girl she used to be. I don’t know what this will do to her.”