A Love Like Ours Page 32

  “I’d like for you to.” She guided him through the house so that she could scoop up her purse and keys.

  It looked like the Color the World Happy, which would count as the third of her three dates, was going to be a very happy event for her after all.

  For years she’d been trying to convince herself that God really had forgiven her completely for her past mistakes. She’d had doubts and insecurities about it. But she’d also had enough faith to resist temptation and wait on God’s timing where men were concerned.

  It seemed that God had forgiveness and generosity to spare. He also had a funny sense of timing. Because on the one day that she’d dressed in striped tights and a tiara, Will had shown up to tell her right to her face that he liked her just the way she was.

  She probably could have floated outside to round up Jayden, purely on the strength of the delight buzzing through her. The past four years of working on her degree, concentrating on mothering, focusing on building her relationship with God had led her here.

  They walked into the backyard, toward the hero house.

  “Do I have to run the 5K?” Will asked.

  “No.”

  “Do I have to wear orange?”

  “No.” She glanced sideways and up at him, her smile full of joy. “Remember? I like you just the way you are.”

  Five days had passed since Jake had broken up with Lyndie. They’d been the worst five days of Jake’s life. Which was saying something.

  All the light and air and warmth had been sucked out of his world. All of it—gone. Because she was gone.

  Sweat ran down him in streams as he worked the seat of his rowing machine forward and backward along its track. At a time of day when most people had finished dinner and were about to turn on prime-time TV, Jake had shut himself into his loft’s exercise room. He pumped with his legs, heaving the bar toward his chest. Bent his legs. Extended the bar. Then did it all over again and again. Other than the Led Zeppelin he had playing, he could hear nothing except the machine’s rhythmic wh-oosh wh-oosh.

  Since the day of Silver Leaf’s race, he’d been going through the motions like someone who had a body but no soul. The alarm clock still went off each morning, and he still got himself out to the barns at Whispering Creek and Lone Star. In fact, he worked almost all day long, training horses his employees could have trained in the round pen, burying himself in desk work, putting in long hours at Lone Star, overseeing the progress of his recovering horses.

  He worked, and he worked out. But he couldn’t eat or sleep or think or . . . stand himself.

  His T-shirt had plastered to him. His lungs were burning, his muscles were blazing, and he kept going because he actually preferred the physical agony to the agony in his head when left alone with thoughts of Lyndie.

  He had horses in Florida. He could go there or he could take some Thoroughbreds to New York earlier than planned. He should leave Holley. It might do him good.

  Yet he didn’t want to go any more than he wanted to stay. At least here, she was near.

  A dull banging noise came from the front of his loft. Jake paused the motion of the rower, panting. More banging. He cursed and went back to rowing. Whoever it was could hang for all he cared. He wasn’t in the mood for company.

  The banging didn’t stop. Finally, Jake lunged from the machine and flicked off the music. He crossed through his kitchen and living room, both mostly dark now that the sun had gone down. Irritated, he pulled open his front door.

  His younger sister, Dru, stood in the hallway holding a pistol. Apparently, she’d been using the gun to do the banging.

  Dru raised an eyebrow at him as she holstered the gun beneath the black jacket of her suit. “Training for the Olympics?”

  “No.”

  “Then why are you working out so hard? You’re already in painfully good shape, Jake. If you ask me, you could use more time watching football and eating Fritos.”

  He didn’t move to let her pass. She slid by him anyway, turning on lights as she made her way to the leather chair near the sofa. She sat on the chair’s arm and studied him.

  It still surprised him to look at Dru and see a full-grown adult looking back. The Porters had sent a restless, daring, determined eighteen-year-old girl off to the Marines. The Marines had returned a woman. Jake was the third child in their family and she the fourth, but they were ten years apart in age. Until recently, she’d always been a kid to him.

  “Mom’s worried about you,” she stated.

  “And?”

  “And it’s become my problem because she keeps calling me to talk about it.” She cocked her head. “Are you holding things together, or do you have a screw loose?”

  “I’m holding things together.”

  “I don’t believe you.” Among Dru’s many faults: Her blue eyes missed nothing, and she could be extremely blunt. “When did you eat last? Have you slept? Have you said more than ten words to anyone lately?”

  “Thanks for the fun visit, Dru. But I’ve got some splinters I need to stick into my fingernails—”

  “Plus, this loft is really dark and depressing. And your plan to exercise yourself to death doesn’t give the best impression of sanity.”

  “Giving the impression of sanity isn’t my strong suit.”

  “All that to say, I don’t really feel like I can call Mom when I leave here and give her a glowing report.”

  He’d been ignoring calls from the rest of the Porters for days. They were all concerned. Some, like Meg and Bo, were both concerned and puzzled. Lyndie had warned him that Meg and Bo wouldn’t be pleased with him for firing her. They hadn’t been. He’d taken Meg’s favorite jockey off her favorite horse without an explanation.

  Thing was, after what had happened with Lyndie, his life couldn’t go any further downhill. He was brutally sorry that he’d hurt Lyndie, that he’d taken jockeying away from her. It wrecked him that he’d lost her and made her hate him. But Lyndie was safe and he was alone, and that was how things should be.

  “Hey,” Bo said as he and Ty let themselves in.

  Jake groaned, anger climbing inside him.

  “You’re looking sweaty,” Ty said.

  “Very sweaty,” Bo agreed. “Did you just complete an Iron Man?”

  “Is this a court-martial?” Jake asked tersely.

  “I called them,” Dru said, “after the first ten minutes of knocking on your door. I figured I might need them to smooth things over if I had to shoot my way inside.”

  “Everybody out,” Jake said.

  “He’s grumpy,” Dru told Bo and Ty. “He’s in love with Lyndie James, but he ruined it somehow and now he’s about an inch from a breakdown.”

  Bo leveled a look on Jake that Jake had become familiar with over their many years of working side by side. The look held both assessment and worry. Jake had always hated it.

  “What did you do to ruin it?” Bo asked.

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Ty and I both had ups and downs with our wives before we got married,” Bo said. “We get it. The downs are bad.”

  Jake swung his frown on Ty.

  “Don’t look at me.” Ty shrugged. “I was brought here under false pretenses. Bo told me there’d be donuts.”

  “That’s helpful, Ty,” Dru said.

  “And all your confrontational crap is making Jake feel better?”

  Dru stood, her hands on her hips. Even wearing high heels, Dru was shorter than all three of her brothers. However, she’d been studying martial arts for a decade and could shoot with deadly accuracy. From the age of six onward, she’d been able to hold her own against any of them. She faced Jake directly. “Do you love her?”

  None of his siblings could hide their hope as they waited for him to answer.

  He wanted to deny it, to say that he didn’t love Lyndie.

  He’d gotten good at lying. He’d gotten good at lying to himself, even. He’d told himself while he and Lyndie were dating that their relatio
nship had a small chance of turning out well. He’d told himself that he was solid enough to handle his feelings for her, that he could deal with having her jockey for him.

  As good as he was at lying, though, he couldn’t make himself lie to Bo, Ty, and Dru about his love for her. To do so would be a further betrayal of her, so he remained silent. Even without words, his brothers and sister would be able to read the answer on his face.

  What remained of his pride burned. Stupid, hopeless love.

  “Go see her,” Dru said. “Tell her that you love her and apologize for acting like an idiot.”

  “In my experience,” Bo said, “that actually does tend to work pretty well.”

  “Mine too,” Ty agreed. “Huh. Dru just said something that made sense. Surprising.” He aimed a challenging smile on their sister. “I’m not used to hearing anything that makes sense come out of your mouth, Dru.”

  “God knows I’m even less used to hearing sense out of you, Ty.”

  Ty glanced toward the kitchen. “Are there any donuts?”

  Dru stepped into Jake’s line of sight. “Listen, Jake. Every woman I know is scared of you. By some miracle, Lyndie isn’t. Which means she’s not just brave about horses, she’s brave about you. You’re not an easy person to care about. Is he, guys?”

  “No,” Bo and Ty answered in unison.

  “Patch things up with her,” Dru ordered.

  “You can’t go on like this,” Bo said.

  “I can,” Jake insisted, though nothing within him believed it.

  “Lyndie’s good for you.” Ty crossed his arms and gave Jake a look that told him he thought he was a fool for having broken up with her. “Because of her, you were doing better these past few months than I’ve seen you do in a long time. You don’t want to go back to living without her, do you?”

  No.

  “Whatever’s broken between you,” Dru said, “can be fixed.”

  “Not when I’m the broken thing,” Jake said.

  Quiet met his answer.

  “Even you can be fixed,” Bo said, holding Jake’s gaze.

  Jake started to shake his head.

  “Get on your knees in front of God,” Bo said. “See what happens. You might not have the power to fix yourself, but He can fix anything. Even you. Even your relationship with Lyndie.”

  God was the last thing Jake wanted brought into this discussion. He crossed to his door and held it open. “I appreciate the lecture. Now everybody out.”

  “Always the gracious host.” Ty clapped him on the shoulder as he passed.

  Dru gave him the evil eye and exited.

  Bo paused, looking troubled. “Jake—”

  “Please go.”

  Bo had mercy on him and left. Except it didn’t feel like mercy when Jake turned back to his apartment, which echoed with emptiness, loneliness, and that vacuum of light and air and warmth. All of it, gone.

  Because she was gone.

  Past midnight that night, Jake came to a stop at the foot of Mollie’s hospital bed.

  When he’d arrived at the hospital’s parking garage, both Karen’s and Mike’s cars had been there. He’d waited in his truck, knowing that Mike most often took the late shift with Mollie. Sure enough, Karen had eventually gone, exactly as Jake had hoped. Mike could be counted on to fall asleep, and Jake hadn’t wanted an audience.

  He’d waited thirty minutes and entered the hospital in ways that would have made hospital security unhappy.

  Mollie’s room lay in semi-darkness. As Jake had expected, Mike was sleeping. He’d stretched out on the reclining chair next to Mollie’s bed, his face turned toward his daughter as if begging her to get well.

  Jake could tell that Mollie still hadn’t improved. He could hardly stand to listen to her tortured breath. Thirteen days. How could Mollie’s weak body have battled pneumonia so long? Like him, something was eating away at her from the inside. And like him, she was losing.

  “You might not have the power to fix yourself, but He can fix anything. Even you,” Bo had said to him earlier. Jake hadn’t been able to get the words out of his head. Part of him wanted to believe Bo. And that’s why he’d come here, because he’d known that Mollie would prove Bo wrong.

  God could not fix everything. He hadn’t fixed Mollie. He hadn’t even cured her pneumonia.

  Someone, Karen or Lyndie probably, had dressed Mollie in a pair of pale yellow pajamas. Her dark blond hair had been neatly combed into a small ponytail. Her eyebrows were drawn down in what looked like worry. Her mouth hung ajar, her eyes closed. She moaned quietly.

  Jake cut his attention to Mike, but the small sound hadn’t caused Mike to stir.

  Mollie moved her head, then seemed to calm when her cheek came up against her pillow from home.

  Jake stood, unmoving, compassion cutting a path inside him like a river cutting its way down a mountainside. He couldn’t imagine the life she’d led. He remembered what she’d been like as a child, and in all this time, her situation hadn’t changed. She was still trapped in a body that didn’t move like his did, that suffered frequent seizures. She had no sight. What went on in her head? He didn’t know, wasn’t sure what she might think or feel, because she couldn’t speak. Mollie was twenty-seven years old and totally reliant on her family.

  Lyndie thought, or wanted to think, that Mollie had abilities to heal. But the woman in the bed in front of him was frail and sick. She had no magic.

  You didn’t heal Silver Leaf, Mollie. You couldn’t have. And, unfortunately, there’s no one here to heal you. Who’s going to heal you, Mollie?

  The reply stole into his mind like intuition. I am.

  His brow knit.

  I am.

  A chill bolted down Jake’s spine. Mike and Mollie continued to sleep. Mollie’s IV dripped steadily. He was the only one awake in the room. Except, it didn’t feel that way any longer. He didn’t feel alone.

  Resentments, deep and old, stirred within Jake. Your world, he wanted to yell, is unfair and screwed up. He’d never been able to make his peace with the lack of justice God allowed. Mollie had done nothing wrong, nothing to deserve the life she’d received.

  And you, Jake? What do you deserve?

  He deserved hell. Death. Jake had always had a strong sense of right and wrong.

  Standing at the foot of Mollie’s bed, he saw exactly what he’d come to see. He saw Mollie, innocent. Yet she’d not been given a healthy body or a future. He saw himself, guilty. Yet he did have a healthy body and a future. They had not been given what they each deserved.

  Deserve meant something to Jake. But God did not operate based on what or who was deserving.

  See? Jake cried out within his mind. Unfair. Wrong. He couldn’t accept it.

  Even so, he knew what Lyndie and Karen would say. They’d say that the fact that God did not give what was deserved was cause to praise Him. Instead of giving what was deserved, they’d say, God offered something far better. Grace.

  Was grace better? He didn’t see how. And he definitely didn’t see how God could offer grace to him.

  Silently, he exited the room. He’d go home, he’d try to get some sleep and go on about his life—only he didn’t have Lyndie anymore, and without her, he hated his life. His exhaustion and disgust and misery were catching up to him. He didn’t know how much further he could carry them.

  He rounded a corner into a short hallway that ended with elevators on one side and a door leading to a stairwell on the other. His arms and legs began to shake. He stumbled slightly and had to catch himself by bracing a hand against the wall.

  Lyndie. His heart broke at the thought of her. When they’d been together, he’d hoped she was enough to make him better. But even she had not been. And now she was gone. And God was using her absence to show him that no human person could ever be equal to his flaws. God was using Lyndie’s absence to take him to rock bottom.

  “No,” Jake whispered, still fighting. He didn’t want what God offered. God’s perfection and ho
liness only made Jake feel all the blacker.

  He opened the door to the stairwell. Cement stairs led up and down from the landing. Industrial lighting hung above.

  He’d go home—

  No, he wouldn’t. Couldn’t. His legs were giving out. He managed to get his back up against the wall, then lowered into a sitting position. He planted his elbows on his upraised knees and bent his head. He struggled to hold himself together, but it was no use. He couldn’t do it anymore. He couldn’t shoulder all his fears and sorrows for one more step. He’d come to the very end of himself.

  Jake had turned from God long ago. But not so long that he didn’t remember what he’d once been taught. The punishment that he should have received, they’d told him, Jesus had received in his place. And in so doing, He’d paid Jake’s ransom and set him free.

  It had been easier to believe that when he’d thought of himself as a good person. Harder to believe that now, when regrets pressed down on him like dirt on a buried coffin.

  I’m messed up, God.

  But I’m perfect.

  I’m a failure.

  I am not.

  I’m filled with darkness.

  I am the light.

  He only had brokenness to offer—and very little faith. But he directed what faith he had toward accepting that Jesus’ death could pay for his mistakes. “Forgive me,” he whispered, so quietly the sound barely reached his ears.

  And then he let everything else fall. His unbearable guilt. The blame he’d put on himself. His self-hatred. His endless fear for Lyndie’s safety. His fury toward God. His outrage that he had lived when his men had died. His wounds.

  Jake worked to bring it all up and in turn to release it all.

  In answer he could almost . . . almost feel God’s readiness to take his burdens from him.

  Gradually, Jake’s shaking stilled. His stomach unknotted. His tiredness began to pull back. For the first time since the day of the IED, he felt as though his past had been lifted from him.

  Slowly, like mist moving into a valley, peace began to come over him. Thin strands at first, then more and more. It had been so long since he’d experienced the stillness of true inner peace that he began to sob. Silent sobs without tears racked his chest.