Stay with Me (Misty River Romance, A Book #1)

by Becky Wade

  A tall woman glanced at him, then stepped to the side, revealing the person at the center of their attention.

  Sam’s progress came to a sudden stop. Gen. The celebrity in his restaurant was . . . Gen.

  She hadn’t seen him. Her attention was currently focused on a brunette who was talking passionately about Gen’s Bible study on courage and how much it had meant to her.

  As he took in the details of her profile, affection for her stole around his heart. He tried to block it, to stop it. But failed.

  Gen was ruining the peace at his farm. Now she was ruining the peace at his restaurant.

  All the women were watching her with round-eyed adoration, hanging on every word. All of them, anyway, except a woman who looked so much like Gen that she had to be Gen’s sister. She’d positioned herself on the outside of the gathering with her purse over her shoulder and a look of friendly patience on her features.

  He’d learned that Gen’s studies were successful, but how had she generated this kind of fandom in the middle of his restaurant? Weren’t all but the most bestselling authors anonymous? It wasn’t like he spent a lot of time looking at photos of his favorite author. He wouldn’t recognize the guy if he passed him on the street.

  “I wept,” the brunette told Gen. “After the final day’s homework, I got down on my knees and wept before the Lord. You’ve changed my life. Seriously! You have. Thank you so much for what you do.”

  “You’re welcome,” Gen said. “I’m really honored to hear how the study impacted you.”

  “May I hug you?” the brunette asked.

  No, Sam almost said, but he caught himself. What was the matter with the brunette? Didn’t she have any respect for Gen’s personal space?

  “Of course,” Gen replied. She and the woman hugged.

  It had been years since he’d witnessed this much feminine emotion on display. “Good morning.” Sam kept his focus on Gen but spoke with enough volume to be heard by all her fans.

  Gen’s hair tumbled over one shoulder as she quickly faced him. Her eyes met his and immediately warmed. “Good morning.”

  Everyone was waiting for him to say something further. “Nice to see you.”

  “Nice to see you, too.”

  “It seems your readers have found you.”

  “We’re having a girlfriends getaway at a cabin nearby,” the brunette explained, gesturing to many of the nearby women. “We couldn’t believe our eyes when we spotted Genevieve Woodward two tables down. I mean . . .” She extended both hands palms-up toward Genevieve. “Genevieve Woodward.” She and her friends grinned.

  “Yes,” Sam said dryly. “Genevieve Woodward.”

  “Genevieve Woodward!” the brunette repeated.

  He gave Genevieve a small lift of his brows.

  The humorous expression she gave him said, “It’s bizarre that I have fans. There’s no accounting for taste.”

  “To celebrate Genevieve Woodward, I’d like to shout you all some of our scones,” he said.

  “What does shouting have to do with scones?” Gen asked, amused.

  It took him a split second to understand the reason for her question. “In Australia, when we say we’ll shout something, we mean we’ll offer it for free.”

  “You’re offering us free scones?”

  “I am. Also, let me lead you to our side patio. The weather’s warming up, and I think you’ll be more comfortable there because it’s quieter and there’s more space.” Plus, you’ll be out of everyone else’s way. “Follow me.”

  He stopped to ask Star to bring out scones, then led them through the side door.

  “I admire your crowd-control skills,” the one with the family resemblance to Genevieve said as she took up a position beside him on the patio. Everyone else closed around Genevieve. “I’m Natasha MacKenzie, Gen’s sister, former attorney-at-law, wife, mother of two.”

  “Sam Turner, half brother to people you don’t know, restaurant owner, farmer, father of none.”

  “Delighted to make your acquaintance.” She shook his hand with a confident grip. He remembered that she, too, was one of the Miracle Five. She’d been buried under the rubble with Gen.

  “The casserole I just ate was excellent,” she said. “I respect you hugely.”

  “And I respect you hugely because you have a good palate.”

  She laughed.

  “Does this happen often?” Sam inclined his chin toward the adoration session.

  “Relatively often, yes. Among a certain demographic, Gen is very popular.”

  “What demographic is that?”

  “Christian women between the ages of eighteen and thirty-eight.”

  “And these Christian women between the ages of eighteen and thirty-eight found her at my restaurant while she was eating breakfast?”

  She gave a good-natured shrug. “Christian women between the ages of eighteen and thirty-eight need breakfast, too.”

  “Does this bother Gen?”

  She sized him up with a look of surprise. “She lets you call her Gen?”

  “Life’s too short to call someone Genevieve.”

  “Hmm.” She considered him for a long moment, then moved her focus to her sister. “If the attention bothers Gen, she’s never admitted it to me. She knows she’s fortunate to do the work she does, and she genuinely loves the women who take part in her studies. She feels connected to them.”

  Sam eyed the strange scene before him.

  “I don’t typically abandon her when she’s outnumbered,” Natasha said. “But my daughter and son are at Mother’s Day Out and the kid-free hours I have per week are more valuable than crude oil. If you think you’ve got this under control, I might split.”

  “I’ve got this under control.”

  “Great. Thank you. If this goes on for more than fifteen minutes, I suggest that you ask Genevieve if she has to work on one of her studies today. When she says that she does, insist that she get back to it because you wouldn’t want to delay the writing of more amazing studies. That will give her a graceful and truthful way out.”

  “Thanks for the tip.”

  Natasha moved to go, then paused. “I’m glad Gen’s staying in your cottage.”

  Guesthouse. Men did not have cottages. He couldn’t bring himself to reply with the expected response, which was, I’m glad, too. So he said, “She seems to like it there.”

  “She absolutely does.”

  He and Natasha exchanged good-byes, and she left with long strides that communicated how pleased she was to be free.

  “Would you mind taking a picture of me with Genevieve?” a round-faced woman asked him.

  A line was forming for photos. Gen was posing with the first in line, and the round-faced woman was up next.

  “Sure.”

  All of these people seemed fine. None threatening. Yet, as Natasha had said, Gen was outnumbered. Which made her seem in need of protecting.

  As the round-faced woman moved forward for her turn, the toe of her shoe hit one of the brick pavers and she stumbled forward. Sam shot out a hand to steady her before she collided with Gen.

  The woman laughed self-consciously. “I almost fell. Sorry about that.”

  “Got it?” Sam stared at her with seriousness as he began to release her.

  “Yes.”

  Convinced that Gen wouldn’t be crushed and that the woman wouldn’t sue him over an injury caused by his brick paver, he raised the woman’s phone and centered her and Gen in a camera shot.

  He continued to function as volunteer photographer, ready to intercede on Gen’s behalf if she needed him to. Her public persona was more polished than her private persona. With these women, she was “on.” She came across as kind, energetic, gracious. With him, she was funnier, more wry, more pushy, more casual.

  The group ate the scones.

  When no one had left after fifteen minutes, impatience began to grind at him. He needed to get back to work, and he was ready for these people to leave so he coul
d have Gen to himself, just like he had her to himself at his farm—

  He didn’t want her to himself. It irritated him that he’d even thought that.

  These women had probably done all of her studies. They had far more claim to her, far more in common with her, than he did.

  He employed the exit strategy her sister had recommended, and Gen separated from her admirers with three times as many good-byes and hugs as necessary.

  He walked her to her car.

  “That was a sophisticated extraction maneuver you just pulled,” she commented.

  “Your sister’s idea. I don’t think I was as subtle about it as she would have been.”

  “You were even better at it because you buttered everyone up ahead of time with scones and picture taking. The scones, especially, were a very nice touch.”

  He thrust his hands into his jeans.

  “Thanks for stepping in and helping out,” she said.

  “No worries.”

  They reached her car and he waited, then waited some more while she rooted around in her gigantic purse for her keys. He considered the top of her bent head. The part was perfect, her hair beautiful and thick. Her fans hadn’t caught her in sweatpants because, as usual, she was dressed well. Shirt ironed, makeup done, nail polish shining.

  Her beach-scented perfume drifted to him, and he tried to draw more of it into his lungs so that he could memorize it. Whenever she was this close to him, his grief and regret loosened their hold on his chest.

  She glanced up, smiling, and her eyes informed him that she might be interested in him as more than a landlord. More than a friend.

  He wasn’t naïve. Women had given him that look—and continued to give him that look—often enough to recognize it.

  But it had been a very long time since he’d experienced a physical response to a look like that.

  Need—simple, instinctive—overtook his body.

  He forced himself to step back. “Catch you around.”

  “Do you have a second?” she asked. “I wanted to talk with you about the Fall Fun—”

  “I’m sorry. I can’t right now. I’ve got to get back to the restaurant.” He thrust a hand through his hair as he strode back to The Kitchen. Sitting at the desk in his office, he opened his email and stared sightlessly at it. He’d run from Gen to escape from this feeling. But it hadn’t worked.

  The need had followed him here. And it wouldn’t let go.

  Sebastian

  My head is killing me. Even so, I’ve been letting the two blond girls and the African-American kid scream for help because we need help.

  “Stop it,” I finally rasp because I can’t stand their screaming anymore.

  They’ve been yelling so long their voices are getting hoarse. Not one time has anyone answered. Everyone else in this building and all the buildings around us is probably dead.

  “Nobody can hear you,” I say into the silence, furious at them for thinking that someone might be able to hear. Stupid, naïve, hopeful kids. They don’t know anything. They’re as dumb as babies. “Does anyone have a cell phone?”

  The people in charge of this trip told us over and over that cell phones were against the rules, which wouldn’t have stopped me from bringing one. But I’m not rich enough to have one.

  There’s a pause.

  Then Luke, face hard and streaked with dirt, pulls a cell phone from his pocket.

  Chapter Nine

  Let’s talk about how you were feeling in the months leading up to breaking your ankle,” Dr. Quinley suggested.

  Three days had passed since Genevieve’s eye-opening trip to Athens. In that amount of time, the weather had turned from sunny to gray and rumbly. Beyond the psychologist’s large picture window, rain tumbled from the sky, light but steady.

  Genevieve tilted her head to the side in confusion. “The months leading up to breaking my ankle?”

  “Yes.”

  “I was doing great. Everything with work was . . . amazing.”

  The doctor pushed a curl behind one ear and observed Genevieve with kind perceptiveness. Genevieve watched the curl slowly spring free again.

  “Do the months leading up to my ankle surgery have any bearing on my Oxy addiction?” Genevieve asked. “I took Oxy to treat physical pain from the ankle surgery.”

  The older woman took a bite out of a ring of dried apple, nodding as her attention focused on one of her pots of hanging ivy. She chewed, swallowed. “Or,” she proposed mildly, “you took Oxy to treat physical pain from the ankle surgery and to dull emotional pain.” Her gaze meandered around the room before meeting Genevieve’s eyes with such forthright knowledge that Genevieve felt the impact of it.

  “I . . .” Her brain whirred. Instinctive denial rose at the idea that she’d used Oxy to treat her emotions.

  “Is there a reason why you’ve been avoiding thinking about the possibility that emotional pain played a role in your Oxy dependence?” Dr. Quinley asked.

  “I suppose I’ve avoided that possibility because it just . . . it feels ridiculous. Everything was going great prior to breaking my ankle.”

  “Was it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why was it great?”

  “Because I’m so . . . wildly fortunate. I mean, dozens of things have gone beautifully for me. Beyond my highest expectations. Before I broke my ankle, I was the luckiest girl in the world.”

  “Were you, though? Let’s think back.” She gnawed on a bite of dried apple.

  The diffuser on Dr. Quinley’s desk hummed and blew a stream of scented mist into the air. At their weekly sessions, Genevieve had taken to sitting in the same chair she’d selected the first day she’d come here, with Sam.

  The doctor liked to vary her location. Today, she’d brought out a brown velour beanbag. She was ensconced in it, legs crossed casually, like a white chocolate chip embedded in the center of a mound of chocolate frosting.

  “As you know . . .” Genevieve started slowly, trying to order her thoughts so she could order her words. “Ever since the earthquake, I’ve believed that God had big plans for my life. Even so, to watch Him fulfill those plans the way that He did right after I graduated from college was mind-blowing. I mean, I was a design major. There’s no way to explain the success of my first study except to say that God orchestrated it.”

  “You found yourself the recipient of a miraculous blessing for the second time in your life.”

  “Yes. For several years after that first study everything was so very . . .” She hunted for the right word, then shrugged. “Rosy. I existed in this state of—of euphoria and amazement. I threw myself into my work, writing and speaking with everything I had.”

  “There must have been struggles.”

  “There were. But the satisfaction was far, far greater than the struggles.”

  “And then?”

  Genevieve hesitated. “I can accept sympathy over the broken ankle, but I’ll feel like a whiner if I complain about the few things in my life, before I broke my ankle, that weren’t perfect.”

  “I’m a professional at listening to whining.” The doctor grinned. “It’s what you pay me for.”

  Genevieve laughed. How she loved this doctor’s slightly irreverent sense of humor. It cracked icy chunks of awkwardness and pain more quickly than a blowtorch.

  “I prefer to focus on the positive,” Genevieve said.

  “An admirable trait.” Dr. Quinley rolled to her feet and extracted a small spray bottle from a drawer. “And yet, that trait can get us into trouble when we focus on the positive in lieu of dealing with the pain.” She approached one of her plants. She sprayed it in time to a musical beat only she could hear, swaying her hips.

  “You were on the verge of telling me about the pain,” Dr. Quinley prompted. “Take a moment. Remember. Put yourself back in the place where you were when the work became less rosy.” Dr. Quinley continued her task, moving from plant to plant.

  “At some point along the line, I may have st
arted overscheduling myself. As people became more familiar with my name and my books, I was invited to more and more conferences, webinars, worship events.”

  “To which you said yes and yes and yes.”

  “Not to all. But to as many as I could. I had a hard time turning down opportunities to glorify the Lord.”

  “I remember that flying on planes was scary for you when you were in middle school. Are you still a nervous flyer?”

  “Yes. It’s gotten worse over time, to be honest.” She hated flying. While in the air, she hovered on the verge of inner panic the whole time. “Are you familiar with the verse ‘Lo, I am with you always’?” Genevieve asked.

  “I am.”

  “I take that literally.” She ran her hand an inch above her arm rest. “Low, I am with you always.”

  “Ha!”

  “Every time a plane takes off or hits turbulence, it makes me incredibly anxious. I spend most of the flight counting down the minutes until we land or solving the crossword puzzle in the airline magazine in an effort to distract myself from thoughts of fiery crashes.”

  “Yet you fly all the time.”

  “Sometimes as often as four times a week.”

  “The travel also deposits you in hotel rooms, which can be lonely places for some. Are they for you?”

  Genevieve nodded.

  “Tell me more about what was going on before the broken ankle.”

  Genevieve pulled her hair forward and combed her fingers through the last few inches of the strands. “The stress of the deadlines sometimes feels heavy. I’m contracted to write one study per year, which means I have to write and research at my maximum pace.”

  “Anything else?”

  “I have a difficult time absorbing criticism. I’ve received lots of criticism from the secular market. Far worse, I’ve been criticized by fellow Christians who disagree with me.”

  “Mmm.”

  “I often feel like I’m caught in this weird place, feeling proud about the studies on one hand and feeling sheepish and undeserving about the studies on the other hand.”

  The older woman put away the spray bottle and hoisted herself so that she was sitting on the edge of her desk. Her Teva sandals swung back and forth beneath the hem of her long prairie skirt.