Forgiveness

by Marianne Evans

  “What could possibly be her angle? Pyper’s as clean as can be.”

  “After catching wind of you two at the anniversary party, she’s on a mission.”

  So that was it. Disappointment wiped away the joyful buzz that had accompanied him along Highway 65. “I see. Petra figures there’s a romance brewing between the devil and an angel, so she’s after—”

  “Actually, no.” Kellen flopped into place at the other end of the couch and scrubbed his face. “That’s not her angle. She’s uncovered information that’s much more tantalizing—some history concerning Tyler’s wife Amy and her first marriage.”

  “What?” Chase spat the word.

  Kellen simply nodded.

  “Pyper told me there was abuse involved—for her and for Amy. I never pushed her beyond that because the topic was obviously painful. What’s going on?”

  Kellen steepled his fingertips and rolled his head, seeming to release a few tense kinks from his neck. “I’m glad you’re ahead of the curve here, because things are even more complicated than that.”

  “How so?”

  Kellen seemed to give up trying to relax and launched to his feet, pacing to his desk. It was a large glass and chrome number free of paper and distraction except for three items: a brass framed photograph of Kellen and his wife Juliet, a phone, and a docking station where a laptop hummed.

  “Did she ever tell you the name of her father?”

  Chase did a memory peel and came up empty. Surprisingly, the topic had come up, but never the name. Again, by mutual design and in deference to obviously painful history, neither one of them had pushed the topic. “No, why?”

  Kellen groaned and pinched the bridge of his nose while he closed his eyes. “Your sponsor. His name is Mark Samuels, right?”

  “Yeah.” Chase was completely and thoroughly lost. “What does he have to do with—”

  “Chase…he’s Pyper’s father.”

  15

  Shock, fear, rage mixed to a boil that threatened to explode through Chase’s body. “Mark…Mark is what?”

  “You had no idea.”

  Fortunately Kellen didn’t phrase the words in the form of a question. With a few simple words positioned against the framework of Pyper’s past, Chase experienced the sensation of watching a tidal wave bearing down, arcing toward shore in a furious curl of destruction based on nothing more than water, and sand, and the rhythm of the earth. God, help me. Please. Right here and right now. I’m begging you. “I had no idea, Kellen. None at all.” Still, Chase went defensive. “Do you honestly think for even half a second I’d keep something like that from her?”

  “No!” Kellen paced the length of the room. His footfalls were silenced by plush carpet, yet remained no less urgent or forceful.

  “As for Mark’s connection to Pyper, what reason would I have to know that kind of personal background information about him? I was his patient. Reach counselors are short on personal detail but long on philosophy and therapy, which is as it should be.”

  “Agreed, and I’m not accusing you, or him, of anything. I’m simply trying to understand the timeline so I can protect Pyper and the Brocks. And you. That’s my job. I had no idea who your sponsor was, didn’t care much as long as you emerged from rehab clean and sober, but around ten this morning, I got a call from Petra Goode. She sprung this on Pyper at breakfast and wanted to know if I had an official comment to offer on behalf of my clients Tyler Brock and Chase Bradington. I wanted to throttle the woman for ambush.”

  “Get in line.” Chase’s voice was a rough growl. Walls closed in, caging him tight. His senses thrummed.

  “Once I got the call from Petra, I knew I had to get you involved, especially since everyone will be coming together at the Reach event next week. Worlds are about to collide, Chase, and like it or not, you’re the guy standing in the middle of the blast zone. I want you to be prepared. You know and care for them all, so you’re going to have to help them get through whatever happens next. You’re the only one who can.”

  “How, Kellen? How can I possibly be there for her when I’m a mess myself? Mentor or not, all I want to do right now is plant my fist in his jaw for ever—ever—hurting her.”

  And who knew, really, what Mark’s intentions were in returning to Nashville. The man was far from stupid. He was far from uninformed. He was on Pyper’s trail just as surely as Petra Goode. Chase thought about the gossip rag he had found buried in Mark’s groceries. He thought about the standoffish behavior his mentor…his mentor…had exhibited when Chase helped him move in. Fog cleared, revealing an uneven, treacherous pathway ahead. Chase’s trust disintegrated.

  Mark Samuels, abusing Pyper. Mark, one of Chase’s most treasured confidantes, had lashed out at an innocent child with words and hands while in the grip of an alcoholic stupor. Pyper had hinted at it all along, in cryptic descriptions of her life with Amy in Michigan. She seemed unwilling to revisit anything having to do with her father, or the first five years of her life; Chase had respected that measure of distance, knowing the best and truest revelation of her past would come to the fore when the time was right.

  Now, truth struck home like a lightning bolt to the center of his chest. This was Mark. The man who had taken hold of his hand and, with God’s help, yanked him out of an abyss. A man he respected and admired. Cared about.

  A caldron of mixed emotions continued to explode into hot bursts of fear and uncertainty. Chase’s world went into a freefall, spinning downward until he couldn’t think straight any longer, because this was also the man who had nearly ruined Pyper’s life.

  “I’ve got to talk to him. And I’ve got to talk to Pyper.”

  He stumbled to a stand, reaching blindly for an exit from Kellen’s office. This meeting was over.

  

  Chase sped from the business district. A headache twitched behind his eyes. An unholy, rip-your-guts-out level of thirst built to a dance that slipped and slid against his taste-buds, prompting temptation, eliciting that familiar need toward a cooling, numbing dose of alcohol.

  His mind raced—weakness quirked its dastardly finger in his direction. He craved a shot of whiskey. An easy taste. Just this once. Just enough to help him push through the smog and the fear that shrouded his mind. It’d be OK. Really.

  Chase pulled his pickup to a fast stop in front of a low-slung, non-descript retail center. When he threw the vehicle into park, when he came eye-to-eye with what he was about to do, his chest began to heave.

  But that didn’t stop him.

  The third shop from the left sold liquor. That’s all that mattered. He yanked on a baseball cap and marched inside the store like he owned the joint. He hunched his shoulders beneath a light windbreaker he had nabbed from the back of his cab and slid into place as an added bit of camouflage. Not making eye contact with anyone, he stepped straight to the counter, tossed a twenty across its faded, chipped surface. “Need a bottle of Jack. A pint.”

  The store clerk didn’t pay him any mind; bored, visibly eager to move on, the guy bagged the bottle, handed it over, and Chase booked from the shop without even gathering his change.

  A raging battle didn’t stop—not even when he landed in the kitchen of his condo. Stuttered breaths caused his entire body to tremble. God help him, he craved this shot of whiskey. A couple fingers would ease his nerves, clear his mind. It would provide such relief. It would soothe, and fortify…

  No, son. The answer is no. Heed Me. Trust Me in better things—even now. Trust.

  Chase braced, squeezed his eyes shut against the pull of God’s call versus the pull of temptation. The facts ripped him apart all over again. Mark Samuels. Pyper Brock. Father and daughter with a white-water river of pain flowing between them. And here he stood, strapped between the two with nothing and no one to blame but fate. Temper blasted through his system in pyrotechnic explosions. Chase whacked at the right hand water spigot, the one etched by a bold, cursive ‘C.’ He slammed the whiskey bottle onto the counter to
his left and leaned over the sink, breathing hard, waiting for the temp to turn bracing cold before dipping his hands beneath the stream and splashing water across his face.

  Over and over he threw the clear liquid against his skin, gasping and trembling. Before long, the water would go no colder and the shock value wore off.

  Only then did he look up to meet his own ghosts and demons. He stared at his reflection in a small, oval mirror positioned on the wall above the sink, shocked into sickness by the naked display of need he discovered. On one side of the sink rested the fresh bottle of whiskey, seal not yet broken, its familiar promise sending his pulse pumping. One sip. Maybe two…or three. A finger. A double, maybe.

  On the other side of the sink there was nothing. Empty space. A clean slate.

  Pyper.

  He shook to the core within the hammerlock of a choice that loomed, a choice only he could make. Good or bad. Angel or devil. Victory or ruination.

  He looked into the mirror once more and his stomach rolled, nearly rebelling. Was this really him? Was this what he wanted? Was this what would bring him peace? Fulfillment?

  No. An inner voice all but screamed at him. Don’t do it. Honor Pyper. Think about Crash. Think of all the ways she’s touched you, and think about what you want and what you can have. For once in your sorry life make the smart choice. Help her through this. She’s going to need you. Make the Godly choice. The choice that stems not from a black, ashen past but from the heart in all its sweetness and all its vivid, sometimes turbulent hues.

  The revelation struck him hard. That was the kind of poetry Shayne would have created once upon a time.

  A black, ashen past—a heart in all its vivid hues…The words were like lyrics, a forever anthem. He was being given the chance to craft, perform and memorialize a life of music with the woman of his heart. Verses. Melody. Harmony. Peace.

  Forgiveness was no longer just a catchy album name, or winsome song title. Forgiveness was now his reality, an ideal that called through his mind while the internal light of his soul switched from off to on.

  Chase wasted no time. He grabbed the neck of the whiskey bottle and carried it with him to the commercial-grade dumpster located behind his condo complex. There he treated himself to the satisfaction of taking that bottle and smashing it hard as he could into the depths of that rank, wide-mouthed trash receptacle.

  Stillness came at once. His breath went even. Panic subsided. A grin spread slow and sure, because for the briefest instant, the aroma of spilled liquor wafted through the air, stirring revulsion instead of the much more familiar, bone-rattling ache of need. He turned from the garbage bin and escaped, accompanied by bird-song and a sweet combination of floral scents that formed the essence of a late summer day kissed by warm earth.

  Determination pushed him forward—a mission in need of completion. He had work to do, and that work would begin with Mark Samuels.

  16

  The steady rumble of the truck engine soothed Chase’s troubled mind. The rhythm and jostle of the ride from Kellen’s office to the soon-to-be inaugurated Reach branch just a couple miles away afforded him the opportunity to pray. When he angled to a stop and parked to the left of the building, it occurred to Chase that his appeals to heaven centered not so much on Mark, or Pyper, or even the will of his own heart. Rather, he dug as deep as he could, begging God to take his upcoming actions, meager though they might be, and make good use of them.

  The rehab center was housed in a flat, squat facility wedged between a pair of taller office buildings. Chase strode through a set of double glass doors. Behind a frosted glass reception desk emblazoned with the words Reach North, a stout, middle-aged woman with weathered features busied herself unpacking supplies from a banker-box on the floor at her feet. Her kind-eyed gaze earned Chase’s nod of greeting and a smile.

  “G’afternoon. I’m here to see Mark Samuels.”

  “Mr. Bradington, right? He told me to expect you. He’s in the first office to the right, straight ahead.”

  “Great. Thank you, ma’am.”

  At the threshold of Mark’s office, Chase stopped and shored up his strength. Mark’s back was to the door as he dropped a few squares of sticky notes, some paper clips and pens into an open desk drawer, whistling quietly.

  Now…or never.

  Chase walked inside. “Hey, Mark.”

  “Chase.” Focused on the task of assembling his office, Mark hardly broke stride, but he tossed Chase a glance accompanied by a lopsided grin. “Your call couldn’t have come at a better time. Heaven knows I could use some muscle.” Mark tossed legal pads and a batch of manila folders into a side drawer then turned in full. “Or, if you’d rather, you can help me put a few nails in the wall and make this place look a little less antiseptic—”

  Their eyes met and Mark’s conversational track came to a halt. He went still. It didn’t surprise Chase any that his sponsor could read the meaning behind tense shoulders and a stiff, edgy attitude. Chase also didn’t bother to acknowledge Mark’s opening comments, which was just about unheard of.

  A split second passed between them, silent yet full of unspoken recognitions that Chase sensed in full—sorrow, guilt, regret, leagues of sadness. He watched Mark pull himself together, and wondered if there were times like this when even battle-hardened life counselors needed to pause and remember the fundamental truth that no one entered eternity without being tested.

  The idea left Chase with much to think about.

  Mark cleared vulnerability and any form of personal emotion from his features by relaxing his stance and the tight line of his jaw. He looked steady into Chase’s eyes, but a tell-tale throb against the base of Mark’s throat told Chase everything he needed to know.

  “You seem out of sorts. Everything OK?”

  “No. Not really. I need to talk to you.”

  “That’s what I’m here for.”

  Rule one, Chase? Face life square. Same goes for what you feel. Face it and deal. Untended emotions are like weeds. They overwhelm, then consume. Be open, be true to who you are, then hold fast and withstand the storm.

  With no difficulty whatsoever, Chase called on the memory of those words from Mark—his most trusted ally. It took only seconds for Chase to be swept into the hours upon hours they had spent together in therapy while Mark taught, molded, uplifted, and helped Chase emerge from ruin.

  At one point, Chase had thought his exit from recovery would be the end of the battle. He knew now that wasn’t the case—at all. He didn’t want to feel sympathy for what was about to happen, but all the same an ache built at the center of his chest. He needed to catch his breath before he launched into a confrontation. He needed to tread lightly, do the Christian thing and give Mark time to explain, but he refused to flinch from Mark’s unyielding gaze.

  Chase finally broke their stare-down and took in the small, bright space Mark would call home at Reach. “The place is shaping up.”

  “It’s a work in progress.”

  “Like all of life.”

  “Now, that’s a profound statement.” Mark guffawed, forcing a wedge of humor into the stilted moment.

  Chase bypassed the banter and hefted a framed picture of a dangerous looking precipice painted by golden sunlight that featured the words: ‘Take the leap. When you do, one of two things will happen – you’ll either fly on God’s wind, or He’ll catch you if you fall. The irony left him somewhat dazed.

  “That piece of artwork seems to have caught your attention.” Mark cut in. “Hammer and nails are in the corner, on top of that stack of boxes. Hang it wherever you want. What did you want to talk about?”

  Silence held sway while Chase gauged hanging spots for the photograph. “I’ve been thinking.”

  “About?”

  “About how little I really know about you.”

  When Chase glanced his way, Mark offered nothing but a shrug.

  “Do I remember you saying once you came from Michigan?” Chase turned his back, angled toward
the supplies Mark had indicated.

  “Yeah, but that was a long time ago. I grew up there. That’s quite a conversation starter. Why do you ask?”

  “Just curious. Suburban Detroit, right? St. Clair Shores?” Chase eyeballed a spot on the wall, hammered a nail into place.

  Mark moved in, surrendering pretense. His brows furrowed, he tapped a ruler against the palm of his hand. “That’s right. Why the sudden interest in my past? I’m the one who’s supposed to be looking out for you, not the other way around, right?”

  “Like I said, I’m curious about your background. I got to wondering what’d prompt you to move from South Carolina to Tennessee. To Nashville in particular.” Chase hung and finessed the angle of the picture then refocused his attention on Mark. A dangerous circuit of energy, sizzling and electric, surged through the atmosphere. Chase combated the current by leaning against the wall, waiting a couple of beats, but all the while he stepped closer and closer to the edge of that canyon and made ready to fly—or fall—into the hands of God. Diplomacy ruptured into directness. “Did you come back for Pyper? And Amy?”

  Mark dropped the ruler on his desk; its clatter vibrated through the atmosphere like gunshots. He hefted his chin and looked Chase straight in the eyes. Then he nodded. “You found out. I wondered when you would.”

  “Do you like hiding?”

  “Actually, I don’t like it at all. And I don’t like being judged, Chase. You don’t know the half of what I’m all about, so you best be careful. Let’s keep that straight from the get-go. Hear?”

  “Don’t counsel me, Mark. Not now. Not after what you’ve done. Not after the way you’re sliding into town like a snake, not even announcing yourself or allowing the people who’ll be most affected by your presence to have a chance to brace and deal with the upcoming implosion.”

  Mark’s features fell, emphasizing the tired groves around his eyes. “How did you find out?”