Precious Blessings (Love Inspired)

by Jillian Hart

  The question was, how did he fix this? How did he assure Katherine that he adored her, he was committed to her two thousand percent? That he thought she was beyond compare, and perfection on earth? How could he do all that to reassure her of his devotion and not scare her off?

  He tried her cell again. Nothing. He called the bookstore. The cousin who was the cashier answered, the one who’d rung up his purchase yesterday. “Hi Kelly, have you heard from Katherine?”

  “No. Isn’t she there with you?”

  “Not anymore. Can I leave a message for her to call me?”

  It didn’t seem like enough. He called her home phone. When her answering machine came on, and the gentle dulcet tones of her voice reached him, he felt the first hit of realization kick in. She’d called it off. She’d said it was wrong.

  Maybe she’d meant he was wrong.

  “Katherine.” He fought to keep calm, to keep his mix of hurt and confusion and angst from turning into all-too-easy anger. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what I did or what I said. Or if it’s just me you think is wrong for you, but I’m asking you to call me.”

  He stopped short of saying too much. Like “I love you. No, I don’t just love you. It’s like from here to the next galaxy and back. Big time, real love.” He didn’t know if that would scare her further or hurt her more. “Just…call.”

  He hung up and left his phone out where he could reach it fast if she should call. He didn’t know what to do. He was stuck here until Hayden’s group was done. Maybe, by the time he got her settled at home, he could run out and make sure Katherine got home safely. See if he could get her to talk.

  See if there was a way to fix this.

  The waitress returned with the soup in a container, his sandwich boxed and a new pot of tea.

  This couldn’t be happening. It just couldn’t. He poured a cup of tea, feeling the steam rise against his face. The shock was starting to wear off, he could feel the heat from the steam and the chill from standing outside without a coat in a snowstorm. Desolation spread through him.

  What if there wasn’t a way to fix this? What if Katherine meant what she said, that it was wrong and she was done seeing him? He wasn’t going to be okay. Not by a long shot.

  He stared out the window watching the snowfall, preferring the numbness of shock to the pain of losing a dream like Katherine.

  Katherine stumbled into her lonely kitchen, feeling her way through the dark. Turning on the light wasn’t going to help her. She felt blind, deaf and numb inside. Paralyzed from the inside out. She dropped her keys on the tray by the back door, hung her coat on the wall hook, unlaced her boots and just walked. Without thought or direction. Completely shut down. Because if she felt anything, even the carpet beneath her feet, then everything might pour out, like a floodgate being opened, and the rush of pain would be too much.

  Don’t think about him. Don’t think about anything.

  She found herself in the living room, facing the drawn blinds over the bay windows. She sank onto the cushions, staring at nothing. Feeling nothing.

  Images welled up, images she blinked hard against. Kevin gazing at his wife like the paragon she probably was, the paragon he’d wanted. How that was similar to what Jack wanted.

  Stop remembering, Katherine. It’s only going to hurt, and for what reason? The past can’t be changed. Wrongs done to you cannot be undone. There’s only now and moving forward. And moving forward meant leaving Jack behind. Just letting him go. And trusting that there had to be another man out there somewhere who wasn’t looking for perfection. A paragon, as Kevin had told her he’d wanted when he’d proposed.

  Had she known that Jack had been thinking this all along, then she never would have encouraged him. She never would have gone on that date with him. She would have politely turned him down, just like the copier guy. Just like she’d done with a handful of men over the years. The ones who’d looked as though they might not accept her if they knew.

  Or, maybe, just maybe, she was the one at fault. She’d run tonight without telling Jack the truth. And what did that make her? Tears burned behind her eyes. A failure? A coward? A liar? She didn’t want to be any of these things. She believed in facing life honestly and as straightforwardly as possible.

  She was trying to protect her heart. That was all.

  A knock rapped against her front door, jarring the silence. Jack. Her pulse jackhammered and she spun toward the door. No, she couldn’t face him right now. She was just too vulnerable. Every protective layer needed to be put back in place first. Her calm, her faith, her polite veneer, so she could be sensible, predictable Katherine again. Back in her rut.

  The phone rang. She didn’t move. She sat like a shadow in the dark as the answering machine kicked on.

  “Hey, Kath.” It was Holly, her voice warm and gentle with understanding. “I’m standing in your walkway. I know you’re home. There’s wet tire tracks disappearing beneath your garage door. Can I come in? I want to make sure you’re all right.”

  No. Yes. Katherine didn’t know what she wanted, but she couldn’t turn away one of her dearest friends. Especially when it was snowing so hard outside and Holly had come to comfort her. So she stumbled her way through the room, turned on the small foyer light and unlocked the front door.

  Holly tumbled in, dripping melting snow. “Hi. When I was done with my delivery at the gift shop, I hunted you down, but no you. Just Jack sitting alone in the dining room.”

  “Jack was still there?” Katherine woodenly took Holly’s coat and hung it up to dry. She tried to take comfort in the fact that he hadn’t come after her. And not to read it as a sign that he hadn’t bothered.

  Holly rubbed her arms. “It’s freezing in here. Let me just turn up the heat. Oh, and you’re sitting in the dark.” She disappeared around the corner, flipping on lights on her way to the thermostat. “I had wanted to swing by and make you introduce me to him, so I could grill this guy, you know, see what I think he was made of.”

  “Not necessary.” Katherine crossed her arms in front of her heart, the only shield she could manage. “Let me put some tea water on.”

  “Forget tea.” The heat clicked on with a whir of air from the floor vents, and Holly strolled into sight. “I’m here because I can guess what happened. Jack was alone at that table, and he stayed that way. You were supposed to be there with him, so obviously something happened. He looked like the world had ended.”

  For her, too, Katherine realized.

  “You don’t look much better. I can’t believe that he pulled a Kevin on you. Marin really thought he was a good guy. That he had his heart in the right place. C’mon, come sit down. Tell me what happened.”

  “You’ve got it all wrong.” Why did that rip her apart even more? “I called it off. It was all me. I thought if I did, then I’d be saving us both more hurt down the line. But I don’t know, this hurts much worse than I thought it would.”

  “But you told him, right? Isn’t that why you’re in tears?”

  Katherine shook her head, collapsing onto the corner of the coffee table. “I couldn’t make myself say the words.”

  “Why not?” Kindness. Comfort. Friendship. Holly sat down across from her on the couch. “Was he mean?”

  “That would have made it easier. Do you know what he said? He thinks I’m a stellar role model for Hayden. I’m a prayer answered. That I’m perfect.” Katherine hid her face in her hands, bleeding from the soul. “He doesn’t see me at all. He’s imagined the woman he wants and has confused me with her. It’s what Kevin did. He saw what he needed, not who I am. And it was so the opposite of what he’d decided I was, that when I finally told him the truth, he couldn’t accept it. I hadn’t been honest with him soon enough.”

  “That isn’t something you tell any stranger up front.”

  “But a boyfriend? Someone I’m in love with? Yes, it is. But it doesn’t matter now.” She didn’t have to open up that painful chapter in her life and go back over it. “Enough. I
can’t stand to think about this.”

  It was like going under for the third time, knowing it was her last breath of air. Some things, even far in the past, hurt too much.

  Holly was silent for a while and Katherine was grateful for that. It gave her time to battle down the sobs rising up in her throat. To will down the tatters of memories and the pieces of her heart. To lean on her faith and pray, asking for the strength to get through this the right way.

  “Let me get this straight,” Holly finally said. “You ended this because you thought he wouldn’t understand? You rejected him because you thought that’s what he was going to do to you?”

  “It doesn’t sound so good when you say it.” She swiped at the pooling tears blurring her vision. “He’s not going to think I’m such a fine example for his daughter if he knows.”

  “You don’t know that. Besides, that doesn’t make sense, Katherine. You didn’t choose what happened to you.”

  “No, but not everyone understands that. Even my own father said at the time, ‘How could you let that happen?’” She swiped her hands over her face, wanting to hide, wishing she could remove the pain and confusion by hitting a delete button. One click and it would be all gone. Impossible, she knew.

  “Remember when I told you that love is opening a door in your heart and letting that one other person in?”

  Katherine nodded; she knew her friend meant well. “You said one of the hardest things is to love without defense. I know that’s what you’re going to say I didn’t do. That I pushed him away, and I did, but not for that reason. He said—” She closed her eyes, knowing it was only half the truth. “I panicked. I don’t want him to know what happened. I can take a lot of things, but I don’t think I can stand having him look at me differently. I just…can’t do it.”

  “You don’t know what he would have said. Now you never will. What if you’re wrong?”

  She couldn’t consider that right now. Not at all. She had to make a plan to get through the next few days. That meant life as usual tomorrow. Work, dinner with her sisters, maybe a stop on the way home past the nursery. The climbing roses she’d ordered last fall had come in. Back to her garden. Back to her friends. Right?

  Then why did it feel so wrong?

  Someone pounded at the door. Marin’s voice penetrated the thick wood. “Hey, in there! Open up. I have chocolate ice cream and I’m not alone. Ava brought pie.”

  “The reinforcements have arrived,” Holly rose. “I’ll let them in.”

  “Dad, are you okay?”

  Jack pretended he didn’t hear Hayden over the rumble of the garage door closing. “Leave the skis. I’ll worry about unloading later.”

  He grabbed the to-go bag the lodge’s waitress had been kind enough to provide for him and sloshed through the snow tumbling off the sides of the SUV. He inserted the key, turned the bolt and led the way inside. After turning on lights, he dropped the bag of food on the kitchen counter and kept going.

  No blinking light on the answering machine. No call on his cell. He scrolled through the received calls list to check and see if Katherine called but left no message. She hadn’t.

  There was a rustling of the bag behind him. “Hello? Are you going to answer me?”

  That got his attention. “What?”

  “Are you finally going to tell me the big mystery? I thought Katherine was going to be at the lodge and I had to be all polite an’ stuff. She’s not coming here, right?”

  He shook his head, despair clogged in his throat, and he couldn’t speak. Didn’t trust himself to. There was nothing to say about Katherine. Nothing he wanted Hayden to know.

  She opened one of the containers and then checked out the soup. “I’m gonna take this to my room, ’kay? I gotta study.”

  Normally he was pretty strict about sit-down meals, but he didn’t have the heart for trying to make conversation. Even with his daughter.

  She marched upstairs and he waited until he heard the click of her door shutting before he reached for the phone. He punched in Katherine’s home number and listened to it ring. The machine picked up. No message. He’d already left one.

  Maybe she’s home, monitoring her calls, and she doesn’t want to talk to you, buddy. That was a distinct possibility. Maybe he’d zip over there and try to talk to her. Try to fix this before the sun went down.

  Be real, Jack. There may be no way to fix this. Katherine had taken off on him. She’d been clear that she’d been wrong about them. If he thought about it much more, if he let this emotion settle, then devastation was going to take over. Take him down.

  His pager vibrated. He wasn’t supposed to be on call, but it didn’t surprise him. The roads were a mess, the snowstorm in the mountains was working its way to the valley floor as the evening temperatures dropped. Black ice was everywhere.

  Change of plans. He dialed up Mrs. Garcia, and on his way down the hall, he told Hayden he had to go out. She looked immersed in her schoolwork. A textbook was open. Her computer monitor glowed next to her.

  “Bye, Dad,” she mumbled without looking up.

  Something felt wrong. It was a hunch, that was all, but he couldn’t put his finger on what was off. Probably it was his own turmoil that was behind it.

  He closed his bedroom door and hauled out a uniform. On his way out the door, he took the sandwich and a few cans of soda. It was going to be a long night, he guessed, and he wouldn’t get the chance to stop for a meal, much less for anything else. Dealing with Katherine would have to wait.

  Chapter Seventeen

  After closing and bolting her front door, Katherine watched out the living-room window to see that Marin made it to her car safely.

  “I’m taking a pillow from your bed, one of the squishy ones.” Ava ambled down the hallway in a pair of bright-pink flannel pajamas. “Aubrey wants you to know her electric blanket isn’t working.”

  “I have a new one in the back of the guest bedroom closet,” Katherine answered absently as she watched Marin open her car door and slip inside. “I wish she’d left earlier like Holly did or else stayed here with us.”

  “She’ll be fine. She’s a most excellent driver. Unlike me.” Ava shrugged.

  “You’re just a disaster, sweetie.” Katherine couldn’t help the pang of adoration she had for her sister. Ava was a disaster, but she was the best and nicest disaster in the entire universe. “Does Aubrey need help changing the blanket?”

  “Nope. She’ll have to endure my assistance. Come back after you make sure Marin gets off and we’ll say our prayers together, okay?”

  “Sure.” She listened to Ava pad off, and the muffled voices of the twins from the spare room, which held twin beds for just this sort of occasion. The merry chattering was a comforting sound, a living sound, chasing away all the echoing emptiness that so often filled her little home.

  Thank you, Lord, for the precious blessings of my sisters and friends. Katherine’s heart wrenched, as if grabbed by giant pliers and twisted hard. It wasn’t right that one decision to go on one date fifteen years ago could haunt her still. Make her afraid to trust.

  Holly had been right. Her friends had rallied around her, the twins had shown up for support, Danielle had called and even Spence had made a rare brief stop to make sure she was all right. They had all mistakenly assumed she’d told Jack about the worst year of her life, and he’d rejected her. That he’d pulled a Kevin on her.

  She’d seen the sympathy for her in everyone’s eyes. Even sadness and disappointment. It was so hard for her to trust. Her illusions as an innocent, rose-colored-glasses college student had been shattered one cold night in November, along with her blind trust that a man would automatically respect a woman, value her and treat her accordingly.

  Holly’s question haunted her. You don’t know what he would have said. Now you never will. What if you’re wrong?

  Don’t think about that, Katherine. This was like any other guy she’d been briefly dating that hadn’t worked out. No biggie, right?
<
br />   Except for the tiny fact that she’d fallen irrevocably square in the middle of the point-of-no-return phase, and there was no going back. She could break up with Jack. Tell him it was over. Tell herself she needed to move on, but that didn’t change the fact. She placed her hand over the wrenching agony in her heart. That’s where he was, right here, his love an invincible light still burning. What about that?

  Red lights flashed on the frosty window glass, catching Katherine’s attention. Marin’s sedan hesitated in the middle of the driveway, headlights flicked on to highlight the sheen of icy snow plastered everywhere, and then slowly she drove around the curve and out of sight.

  “Katherine, help!” Ava hollered, her voice echoing down the hall. “We’ve got the control thing all messed up.”

  “You’ve got it messed up,” Aubrey admonished. “I’m doing just fine, if you would let go of it.”

  The twins were cheerfully arguing, as always. For some reason, the damn broke in Katherine’s carefully controlled emotions. Up they welled, despite the fortifications of the bowls of chocolate ice cream and slices of fudge pie, despite the comfort and sympathy of her loved ones. How had Jack come to mean so much to her? Why did it have to be him who’d taken down the walls she’d spent the last fifteen years building?

  Because he was the one. Her soul mate. And Holly was right. She’d blown it. She’d panicked and run because she thought he wouldn’t love her unconditionally. Because she couldn’t trust that he would.

  The problem is with me, she thought. All me. I’m afraid to trust him with all my heart. Him accepting me or not is a separate fear.

  “Katherine!” Ava called again. “Make her stop!”

  She twisted away from the window. “You sound like you’re three years old. Kindergarteners behave better than you two.”