A Thousand Tomorrows & Just Beyond the Clouds Omnibus (41 page)

Frantically she scrolled through them. Each one was from Trace. Her head was spinning and she could barely concentrate. She sat on the edge of a desk chair and put her head down. Anything to get the blood to flow to her brain so she wouldn’t pass out.

“Elle… what is it?” Her mother knelt by her side, her hand on her shoulder. “Talk to me, sweetheart.”

“It’s Trace.” She lifted her head. “He’s called four times.”

“Okay, then.” Her mother nodded to the phone. “Call him back. He’s probably just running late.”

Elle couldn’t stop the spinning in her head. Running late? She clung to the idea. Yes, that had to be it. He had gotten stuck in traffic or his car had broken down, or a pipe had burst beneath his sink. Or maybe he’d stopped to help someone in trouble. There had to be a reason.

She tried to swallow but her throat was too dry. She lifted the cell phone, but she was shaking too badly to dial his number. “Here.” She handed it to her mother. “Call him for me. Please.”

Her mother looked as frightened as she was. She took the phone and scrolled through the missed calls. Then she hit the send button. After a few seconds she handed it back. “It’s ringing.”

On the third ring, Trace answered. From the beginning she could tell he was crying. Weeping, even. “Elle… I’m sorry, honey. I’m so sorry.” Every word was another sob.

Her heart pounded so hard she was certain it would burst through her chest or stop altogether. She gripped the phone and paced to the window. “Talk to me, Trace. What happened? Were you in an accident?”

“No.” He had never sounded so distraught. “I can’t do it, Elle. I can’t marry you.” He moaned. “God, why do I feel this way? Why is this happening?”

She was seeing black spots now. Was he praying? And why now, why his doubts at the very hour they were supposed to be saying their vows? “Trace…” She steadied herself against the window sill and closed her eyes. “I… I don’t understand.”

“I’ve fought it all my life, Elle.” He stopped crying long enough to explain himself. Even so, his words were punctuated with quiet sobs. “I’m in love with someone else. Another teacher. I tried… I tried to let him go, but I couldn’t.”

Elle’s breathing grew shallow and she gasped for air, grabbed at any way to understand what he’d just said. “
Him?
You’re… you’re in love with a man?”

Across the room, her mother dropped to another chair. “Dear God, no… no.”

Trace was going on, saying something about it being wrong. “All my life I’ve had to choose. God and His goodness, or the desires of my flesh.” He let out a cry that cut through her. “I can’t promise you forever when… when I’ll be looking for every chance to be with him. Oh, Elle… I’m so sorry.”

It wasn’t happening. The only way Elle was able to fill her lungs, to keep from passing out or having a heart attack, was
by convincing herself that what she was hearing was all a lie. It was impossible. Trace Canton, her one true love, wasn’t leaving her stranded at the altar for a man. No way.

She let the shock work its way through her body, through her heart and soul. He was still going on about getting counseling and knowing it was wrong and wanting God’s will, when she interrupted him. “I have to go, Trace.” Her voice was cold, unfeeling. “Good-bye.”

Her phone felt like a burning piece of coal. She closed it and dropped it at the same time. Then she turned to her mother, but the words wouldn’t come. Not that she needed words. Everything that could’ve been spoken had already been said. Her mother, too, looked ready to pass out. Always in their growing-up years, Elle had been the strong daughter, the one who rubbed her mother’s back when the task of raising four daughters without the help of a husband seemed daunting to her.

Elle was the daughter who took responsibility for Daisy, helping her with kitchen tasks and reading to her when their mother was busy with the other girls, and she was the one who, of course, had gone into teaching—just one more way she could help people. But here, with three hundred wedding guests sitting in the sanctuary down the hall, Elle couldn’t take another step.

Her mother must’ve known. Because she stood and drew a long breath. “I’ll talk to them. I’ll say there’s been a change of plans.”

The shock was still exploding through her, but Elle had never loved her mother more than in that single moment. An
hour later, when the wedding guests were long gone and she and her mother and sisters had wept together until they had no more tears to cry, they went back to Elle’s apartment.

She stayed the summer with her mother and Daisy, unwilling to talk about Trace or the disastrous wedding day. In July, she received a letter from him. He had quit his job as principal of Pinewood and had relocated to Los Angeles. He was still seeking God’s will, still aware that acting on his passions was sinful. He asked her to pray for him.

A year later, on what would’ve been their first anniversary, she pulled the letter out and realized that God had been healing her heart even when getting up every day had been a struggle. Because on that day, with tears streaming down her face, she did the thing she couldn’t do until that moment.

She prayed for Trace Canton.

And then she folded up the letter and tucked it into a box with the invitations and napkins, and the guestbook that had never been used.

People who knew her well said things intended to make her feel better. “Better to find out now, Elle. Better than living your life with him and having him leave you three years from now.” Or, “You’re not the first one to be left at the altar. It’s not a reflection on you, Elle. It was his problem, and it’s his loss.”

The truth about why he left never came fully to the surface, although the whispering in the lunchroom at Barrett Elementary must’ve been only a fraction of what it was at Pinewood. People talked, and she assumed they knew. But no one ever said a word to her.

No one but her mother and her sisters. “It’s a lie,” her mother told her one evening, a week after the broken wedding. “Trace is believing a lie. The truth is we all struggle with sin and we all have a choice whether to live life for God or against Him.” She ran her fingers over Elle’s hair. “Don’t let this change how you feel about yourself or about love, Elle. Please, sweetheart.”

But there was nothing her mother could say or do to undo the damage. If the devil was lying to Trace, he was doing the same thing to her. Because from the moment Trace explained himself on the phone that day, from the moment she stepped out of her wedding gown, sobbing so hard she could barely breathe, she became convinced of one thing.

Love was a lie.

And she could live the rest of her life without having anything to do with it.

That was her determination. Yes, she could love her mother and her sisters. And over the next two years she threw herself into getting a master’s degree in special education so she could help Daisy find a better life.

But she would never open her heart to a man again.

S
HE AND
S
NOOPY
finished two full laps around the park, and Snoopy started whining again. He didn’t like to walk more than two laps, not this close to suppertime. She stopped at a bench and he took the spot on the ground next to her, his warm body pressed against her ankles.

Once in a while, when she felt particularly close to God,
she would allow herself to imagine that if love burst through the doors of her heart some far-off day, she wouldn’t stop it. She wouldn’t pursue it, but she wouldn’t resist it, either. Not if God had a plan for her to find love again. Even that was a stretch. She thought about the past few days, and the visitor who had plagued her classroom and her thoughts. Yes, God might bring love into her life again. But not in the form of a married man. The one thing she could never, ever do was allow herself to have feelings for Cody Gunner. Because the first time her heart was broken, she was lucky to escape with her life. Elle had no doubt that the next time wouldn’t merely set her back a few years.

It would kill her.

Chapter Thirteen

C
ody had planned to make his mind up about his brother’s involvement at the ILC before the Friday field trip. But the closer it got to Friday, the more he knew he wanted to attend the trip with Elle and her class. He loved her compassion, loved the way she worked with her students.

Or maybe he just loved watching her.

Whatever it was, he didn’t want to stop spending time with her. The days with Carl Joseph at the center had given him the distraction he’d been looking for. Even if he hadn’t been looking for a girl with hazel eyes.

After watching her work with the young adults at the center every day that week, he couldn’t deny the obvious. She was helping them. Even if a person with Down Syndrome lived at home in a safe, loving environment all his life, it wouldn’t hurt for him to know how to cook or eat correctly, how to shop on a budget or take the bus.

Elle Dalton was dedicated to her students in a way that surprised him. He had studied her all week, trying to see past her beauty. Whatever drove her, it wasn’t a temporary incentive. She was committed to changing the lives of handicapped people, and she went about it as if that alone were the purpose of her life.

At the end of class Thursday he found her in the break room again. Most of the students were gone, but Daisy and Carl Joseph and Gus were outside taking turns at the tetherball pole. “Mr. Gunner”—she was making copies of something, probably the bus route—“thanks for not scaring me this time.”

“You’re welcome.” He smiled, but he was careful to keep the moment professional. “Look, Ms. Dalton—about your field trip tomorrow. I was wondering if I could join you. If it wouldn’t be too much trouble.”

Elle stopped and put her hands on her hips. She studied him for a moment before she answered. “You’ve already made up your mind about me”—she waved to the room beyond—“about the work I’m doing here at the center.” She wasn’t angry, merely pointing out what she clearly thought was a fact. “Why come with us?”

“Because—” He wanted to look away, but he couldn’t. She had that effect on him. “The truth is, I’m impressed by your work here. You’re giving your students skills they wouldn’t have otherwise.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Really? I changed your mind that easily?” There was teasing in her tone.

He smiled. “You haven’t changed my mind about putting
people like Carl Joseph out in the world to fend for themselves. But”—his voice grew more serious—“your work, your passion for these people, is a great thing. A very great thing.”

“Thank you.” She glanced down at her feet. Her cheeks grew red and she turned back to the copy machine and pressed a few buttons. When she spoke, it was hard to hear her. “You can come with us, Mr. Gunner.” She faced him once more. This time her expression was no-nonsense. “But I take these field trips very seriously, and so do the students.”

“I know that.” He hated how she thought of him, critical and ogre-like. Maybe that’s why he needed to spend more time with her. Not so she could change his mind about the purpose of the center, but so he could change
her
mind about him. “The Subway thing… it won’t happen again.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Do you know where we’re going tomorrow?”

“To a dance class downtown?”

“A dance class and then to an old church. One of the oldest in Colorado Springs. It has a midday Friday service.”

Cody clenched the muscles in his jaw. He and God had been on a roller-coaster since Ali died. She had faith enough to move mountains, but it hadn’t helped her in the end. After her death, there were times when he wanted nothing to do with Ali’s faith, and other times when it made perfect sense, when he was thankful beyond words to Ali’s God for giving them as much time as they had.

Even so, over the last few years he’d fallen away from even thinking about faith. It hadn’t been a part of his life before
Ali, and truthfully it hadn’t helped much to believe there was a higher power, a Great Being who watched over the moves of His people and helped when He was called upon. Cody crossed his arms. “Carl Joseph has never been to church. Our family, we’ve never been churchgoers.”

“I know that.” She no longer seemed flustered. “I talked to each of the students. Every one of them wants to go.”

“Because prayer is a life skill.” It wasn’t a question. He had seen Elle remind them about prayer time and again during the week.

Elle drew a long breath. “Yes, Mr. Gunner. Because prayer is a life skill.” She studied him. “Are you opposed to God in some way? Do you want to keep Carl Joseph from attending the church service?”

“No.” He shrugged. “I guess I haven’t seen a lot of proof of God, that’s all. If you want to take your students to church, I won’t stand in the way.”

“And you won’t mumble under your breath or give angry looks to the pastor, rolling your eyes, that sort of thing?” The hint of teasing was back in her voice.

He was beginning to understand Elle Dalton, at least the public Elle. She hid behind a layer of professionalism and mild sarcasm. He understood that. But the time he spent with her left him no closer to knowing the real her. Not in the least. He considered her question. “I’ll sit in the back. You’ll never know I’m there.” He angled his head. “I might even learn something.”