More Than This: Contemporary Christian Romance Novel (34 page)

Down the hallway she slid like an ebony shadow concealed by the darkness. Her heart hammered in her chest as every other inconsequential thing in her life disappeared. She wasn’t at all sure what she would do if evil really was on the other side of that door, but she had to find out. Just as she got to the frame, the knock sounded again, this time louder— or maybe it just sounded louder to her nerves. Either way, she jumped and only barely caught the shriek that threatened to escape.

“Liz. Hey. You in there? Open up. It’s Jake.”

Horror and surprise jerked her upright. “Jake?” Knowing whatever it was must be critical, she flew to the door and yanked on the chain, her shaking fingers barely able to manage to work the thing. Fear dissolved into worry as she pulled the door free of its confines. Light flooded in around her as he rushed inside, looking as panicked and worried as she felt.

“Jake? What are you...?”

With no more than that, he grabbed her and buried her in his embrace. “I’m so sorry, Liz. I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.”

“Jake? What in the— ?” She pushed him back, fighting to keep some sanity about her. “What’s going on? What are you doing here?”

He backed up, but his eyes were wild and his motions aberrant and uneven. “I’m sorry. I just... I had to see you, to tell you in case you thought...”

“Thought what? Jake, slow down. You’re not making any sense.” Finally breathing again, she closed the door softly, hoping her neighbors would think it was all a dream and go back to sleep. Then she turned, summoning calm although nothing about her felt that way. She reached over and flipped on the light for good measure although that did little to make him look any less frantic.

“Let’s sit down,” she said, motioning for the couch, and after only a second, he nodded.

Following him, she started praying for the wisdom to get through this. He was really beginning to worry her. On the couch, he sat on one side, and she on the other. Strange how not thirty hours before they had been locked for what had felt like an eternity in a passionate embrace. Now they felt more like strangers. “What’s going on? Is... is everything okay?” she asked, venturing out which felt a lot like walking on water. What if she wasn’t equal to this?

His gaze jerked up to hers and then fell again. He shook his head. “No. It’s not okay.”

She was one second away from asking the next question when he came back up and nailed her with his eyes.

“You’re not alone.”

That threw her completely off-track. “What?”

“You’re not,” he said more vehemently than before. He slid across the couch in one motion, practically pinning her to the side. “Not anymore. Okay? I’m here, and I’m not going anywhere. I know what you said before about what happened and everything, but I’m not leaving. I’m sorry I wasn’t there before. Here. I mean, I’m sorry I didn’t understand.”

None of this was making any sense. “Jake, what is wrong? What happened?”

Finally he took a shaky breath, and his gaze fell. When it came back up again, thankfully, it was a little more calm. “Liz, you mean everything to me. I don’t know what I would do if I lost you, not because of what you did for me or what you’ve done for me, but because of you. You’re so strong, and I guess I thought you had it all together and what would you need me for. But I realized tonight, you act strong because you think you have to. You put on this face like everything is okay and you can handle anything and like you don’t need anybody when I’m starting to see that’s not the whole story.”

Liz couldn’t hold his gaze, not and lie. Hers fell because she knew that being strong was a lie in her life more than anyone else had ever fully known. “Jake, I’m...”

“No, Liz.” Gently, he reached over and slid his fingers over her cheek and through her hair. “I know, and it’s okay. You don’t have to pretend anymore.”

Tears stung her eyes and heart. She shook her head to get them to leave her alone. “Jake, it’s not...”

Then she felt his entire spirit fall into peace even as hers drifted toward chaos.

She lifted her gaze, wanting to get him to understand. “I don’t...”

But his gaze was soft, a pillow of down and feathers just waiting for her. “You’re not alone anymore. You don’t have to do this, act like it’s all okay, like you don’t need anybody. I’m here. I’m right here, and I’m not going anywhere.” And with that, he gathered her into his arms as her tears began to fall.

Without her permission, her hand came up and clung to his jacket. It was soft and still cold from being outside.

“I’m so sorry you had to go through that alone,” he whispered.

A moment more and she sniffed, let go and sat back, but he wasn’t backing up. His gaze followed her all the way to her side of the couch.

“Will you tell me?” he asked gently. “I want to know about all of it.”

Liz could hardly pick her head up. It felt like it weighed a million pounds. “It was a long time ago.”

“That’s okay,” he said settling in next to her with his arms wrapped this way and that around her. “I want to hear it. As much as you remember.”

She laughed softly and sniffed. “That could take all night.”

He laid his head on hers. “That’s okay. Take all the time you need.”

And then she told him. Slowly at first and then more solidly. It was strange how the details slid from her mouth and her heart though she had sworn she didn’t remember most of them. He held her as she cried and sat with her after all the tears were dry. Finally, she just had to know. “So what brought this on anyway? I’m not used to guys just showing up asking me to spill my guts at 4 o’clock in the morning.”

He sat, not saying anything for a long moment.

“Jake,” she said as if in warning, “I told you. Now spill.”

Putting his head back on the couch cushion, Jake wondered how to tell her without sounding like an idiot. “Well, it all started when I had this dream...”

For a split second she looked like she was going to say something, but she just nodded.

He swallowed, carefully lining up the words. “It was about Jasmine.”

“And the book.”

Thinking through that, he shook his head. “No. Not this time. This time I found out she has a partner.”

“A partner?” Liz backed up in surprise. “I thought she worked alone.”

He smiled. “So did she.”

When he left for the docks at five-thirty, Liz considered crawling back in bed, but when she sat down on the edge of the mattress, her gaze snagged on her jeans lying on the floor. Remembering, she reached down to them and pulled the little ring from the pocket, and she smiled. It was perfect. Just like him. Carefully, reverently, gratefully, she slipped it on her finger and held out her hand as the breath slid through her.

The doubts and fears were gone now. Yes, the past was still there, but even it didn’t hurt like it once had. She slid from the bed to the floor and knelt there in the still silence of the room. “Thank You, God, for Jake. Please help us to learn how to be partners, real partners, in everything. Thank You for sending him and for not letting him give up on me. I needed that.” She smiled. “But You already knew that, huh? Yeah. You already did.” She shook her head. “Keep him safe for me today. Let him see You, so he knows not just how much I love him but how much You do too. Amen.”

“So how was your day off, McCoy?” Arnold sat down at the lunch table next to Jake as his mind drifted back and forth from the present to the night before. It was all so strange as if it was some surreal dream that hadn’t really happened. Except he knew it had.

“Oh. It was okay.” It seemed so very long ago. He bit into his sandwich, hoping the man would drop the subject.

“So what’d you do? Sleep in all day?”

Jake’s mind jerked back to the conversation, and he batted all of the rest of it out of the way. “Uh, no. I...” He had no clue where to go with that statement. “Um...”

“I... um?” Arnold laughed. “Didn’t know you had a lady friend to I-um with.”

That snarled Jake’s train of thought further. He was tired of being the butt of the jokes, and he was even more tired of hiding everything about himself that was real. “Well, if you really want to know, I was at the hospital getting some tests done.”

Horrified panic slipped into Arnold’s gaze. “Oh, dude. Sorry. I didn’t know.”

“No.” Jake shook out of that and rolled his eyes. “I’m not dying or anything. It’s just...” The words reached up and got caught in his throat. He had never said them out loud before, not like this, to people who didn’t already know. “Well, the truth is I’m getting some help with reading, or I will be once we get through all of this blasted testing.”

Arnold said nothing for a very long minute during which Jake wished he could completely disappear or take the last four minutes and erase them from the record of time. Then just before he made an excuse to leave, Arnold looked around and ducked in a little closer. “You had trouble in school?”

The quiet pleading in the man’s voice surprised Jake enough to keep him planted on the bench. “Well, truth is, yeah, I did. A lot of trouble actually.” He was already on the track, what sense did it make jumping off the rails now? “But there’s this new program thing they have over at the college. They’re testing people to see if they can figure out what causes it and how to fix it.”

“Fix it?” Arnold’s eyes lit up and then misted over. “They can fix it?”

There was such a note of praying there might be hope in those words that Jake swallowed before he could answer. How had he gotten here again? “I don’t know... yet. I... I hope so.”

At that moment two other guys from the floor came in and sat at their table, talking about the Jets game from the weekend and how if they didn’t get it together, they were going to be out of the playoffs. Jake ducked his head over his meager sandwich and dissolved back into his own little world. Arnold did the same, and the rest of lunch was eaten in complete silence between the two.

It was crazy to be so nervous about just walking in to work, and yet Liz could hardly keep herself going that direction. New Yorkers streamed by her seemingly not even noticing she was on the same planet. Her thoughts spun as they had for most of the day to what Mia would say, what she would think. Liz knew what her friend thought of Jake. What would she think of this?

Her heart skipped yet another beat as she dug her hand into her pocket and pushed through the door into the warmth of the space she had come to know so well in the last few years. Yes, she was going to miss this place come Friday. It was hard to believe this chapter was coming to an end so quickly.

“Oh, well, look who decided to grace us with her presence,” Mia said, looking up from the counter, but there was a smile rather than a sneer attached to it.

“I told you I’d be here tonight.” Liz fought to smile, to act normal as she shrugged out of her coat. “Looks like they’re beating down our door to get in.”

There wasn’t a single person at any of the tables.

“You should’ve been here last night. It was a mad house.”

In the back Liz hung her coat on the hook and her scarf as well. She grabbed her apron, spun it around her waist, and tied it. Then she took one more look at the little ring, closed her eyes to say a prayer for strength, and headed back out front.

At the counter she snagged a rag and started wiping things down. On the opposite side by the cash register, Mia stood, counting and glancing her direction.

“So are you okay?” her friend finally asked after several glances.

Liz nodded, her chest wondering if she would live through this. “I am.”

Mia half-nodded and kept counting. “Finals are good?”

She nodded again. “They are.”

“And everything else?”

This was it. With a deep breath, Liz laid the rag to the side and faced her friend. “So how do you look in blue?”

“Blue?” Mia’s gaze came over to her filled with worry and puzzlement. “Why?”

A moment and Liz lifted her hand to her chest, the one with the tiny, little sparkly diamond. “Because I’m thinking maybe a summer wedding, maybe early June.”

Understanding slid across Mia’s face, followed by a very small, almost sad smile. Then she nodded as if accepting the shift the world had just taken. “You know that boy is the luckiest guy on the planet, right?”

Who met who? It didn’t really matter for in the next second they were hugging right there behind the counter. Liz’s heart burst with love and gratefulness for her friend. She didn’t deserve to be standing here, and yet she was. That had to be a God thing. Mia’s hug spoke of friendship and hope, something Liz hadn’t felt in a very long time. For others maybe, but never for herself.

When she stepped back, she swiped at both her eyes, knowing she would be a raccoon if she didn’t get a handle on the mascara quickly.

“So let me see it,” Mia said, taking her hand and examining the rock.

Liz slipped backward a bit into her spirit. “It’s not very big.”

“Hey, girl,” Mia said as she looked into her friend’s eyes. “It’s not the size of the rock. It’s the size of the love.”

With a smile she could hardly contain, Liz nodded just as the bells jangled behind her. Mia looked up first as Liz continued to swipe at the tears, and when she got her gaze back up, she saw the look of acceptance on Mia’s face.