Chapter 4

in which our heroine begins to regret some of her choices.

She should never have come here.

She should never have come to Langford, she should never have gone to Adam’s house, and she certainly shouldn’t have come to Creekside.

Everyone was staring at her. Everyone was going to have questions. What could she answer? In the best of circumstances it would be awkward. With Adam and his pacing and his shoulders and his general being a brute… what could she possibly say? She could barely talk to him. How was she going to talk around him?

She sank back further into the pew and stared at the Bible in her lap. Adam had left it with her when he went to sit near the front.

Flashing back a decade and a half, she could never have imagined Adam having a Bible this worn. Sure, he’d gone to church. He’d shaken all the right hands and stood at all the right times and eaten his way through all the right socials. But it was duty, not worship. Responsibility, never reverence. She’d seen him open a Bible many times, but she was pretty sure he’d never read the words inside.

She tried not to fidget but she felt like she had a neon sign above her head. The stares were making her crazy. Under normal circumstances, the people around her wouldn’t stare – too well-mannered, don’t you know. It’s rude to stare. Don’t point, sweetie. Yeah, she knew the drill. But in this case, they could get away with it. Because they weren’t pointing, they were waving. And waving doesn’t count, right? They’re being downright friendly.

Too many eyes. Too many people. She hadn’t been in crowds like this in… a long time. He could be anywhere.

It was different on a busy street. People were moving. They had places to go. You could blend in. Subway trains were packed, but they felt anonymous. This felt like a nightmare, being on a stage, silenced, and wearing less than you planned to.

The music stopped and the pastor rose to speak. He was new, young and seemingly able-bodied, not at all like old Pastor Richards. She turned to Ben and whispered. “He’s new.”

He nodded. “Nice to have some fresh blood around the place.”

She bowed her head but could barely hear his prayer. Closing her eyes felt like wearing a blindfold.

“May the Lord and His community bring you peace on this day.”

Peace. That would make a change.

Stephanie scanned the faces around her as the pastor got his pleasantries out of the way. From her vantage point in the second to last row, she should only be seeing the backs of people’s heads, but enough people were glancing her way that she made eye contact with several.

“I would like to extend my warmest of welcomes to any new seekers among us today, and to those who have been gone, you are always welcome back in the house of the Lord.”

She had her doubts about that. When she was growing up, Stephanie used to dream of a close knit community. She’d seen the little church jokes – our church is like fudge, sweet with a few nuts – and had craved it. Creekside had been… well, it had been a church. There wasn’t much more to say about it than that. Then when she’d gone to New York, it was different still. Very multicultural. Lots of festivals, and lots of strangers.

She’d tried out a few, but first it was morning sickness that was more of an all day sickness. Then she was the size of a large apartment complex. Then she was the size of a small apartment complex and wasn’t getting any sleep. Sundays became days to pick up extra shifts, not to commune with God. Eventually it was a distant memory. Besides, not many churches were putting out the Unwed Mothers Welcome mat. Sad, but reality usually was.

“Now, did any of you read the sign?” A chorus of quiet chuckles spread over the room.

Ben leaned over close to her ear. “He’s a sign guy. Last week it was Free Bread and Juice Inside.”

She smiled. The sign out front today had caused quite a sensation in the parking lot. Don’t judge others because they sin differently than you. Ouch. When the laughter died down, the pastor continued.

“Stop me if you know this one.” He paused to clear his throat. “Two guys walk into a… wait. Wrong speech.” More laughter. Stephanie didn’t know what had happened to this place, but it was far from the dry den of hand-shaking and flimsy worship that it had been in her youth.

“Okay, how about this one? ‘He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone.’ Ever heard that one?”

Stephanie caught Adam’s eye and the corners of his lips turned upwards causing an unpleasant flutter in her stomach. She tried to smile back but it came out limp. The muscles in her face felt stiff, like moving would take too much, like smiling was something at which she was sorely out of practice. He seemed to smile just fine.

It had been so long and he had changed so much. Was he dating anyone? If he was, it probably wasn’t serious. It didn’t look like the living arrangement with Ben and Jackson was temporary, and that would be tough to pull off if there was a woman in the picture.

She stopped herself. Why was she thinking like that? It’s wasn’t like she was going to make a suitable candidate, even if she wanted to be, which she didn’t. Adam was too married to responsibility for there to be any room left over for a flesh and blood woman.

But what if he was? Jessie would have to meet him soon. She didn’t like the idea of Jessie getting a father and a stepmother in close succession. Stepmother. The word sent a chill all the way up to her hair. She’d never really considered that before. What if introducing Adam wasn’t just introducing Adam, but someone else as well?

Motion captured her attention and she realized people were opening their Bibles. The sign on the wall said Deuteronomy. She opened the book in her lap absently and searched for the right page.

The pastor was speaking but her mind was drifting. Something about forgiveness and unintentional sin. Her eyes lingered on the weathered pages and as she looked down the muscles in her neck and shoulders moaned in protest. She should get a massage or something. She should do a lot of things. She’d stopped doing anything lately. She was a shell. A sore, anxious shell.

More laughter. She looked up and the pastor was smiling. “Now, if you don’t happen to have a bull without defect lying around – I know some of you do, but the rest of us are not so blessed – what can you do?”

What could you do indeed? Stephanie had been asking herself a version of the same question for years. She had sinned, yes. She had repented. She had certainly done her time. Not that Jessie was a punishment, but natural consequences meant her sin had cost her a youth that was never coming back. She had sacrificed. She had studied. She had tried to right her wrongs. But it seemed that no matter what she did, punishment kept following her. Maybe she needed a bull.

The pastor continued. “You know what I like best about this chapter? You have to do some hard, painful stuff to atone for your sins, even the ones you didn’t mean to do. It’s rough. Nobody’s going to tell you it’s not. But it says right here in this book, four times in this chapter alone, that if you atone for your sins, you will be forgiven.”

He paused for a long time and looked around. “You will be. Not you might be, not you could be, but you will be. Pretty cool, huh?”

She liked this guy. From the looks on their faces, it was clear that the rest of the parishioners did, too. Maybe this was turning out to be a bit of a community after all.

“Now, for your homework. You didn’t think you were going to get out of here without homework, did you? The free coffee isn’t free, people. You’re going to have to work for it.” He put his Bible and papers to the side and readjusted his microphone. “So, if God forgives when atonement has been made, it stands to reason that we should probably do the same. It doesn’t seem very fair to me that we sit around throwing stones at everybody when God and Jesus are doing all the forgiving.”

People were starting to put their Bibles away. This was going to be the part of the show where Adam sang and she tried to figure out where to look.

“So this week, I want you to think about who could use some forgiving in your life. Don’t make God do all the dirty work. Think. Think hard. Maybe your husband or your wife. Maybe your parents. I could probably stand to forgive my brother for a few things.”

Stephanie had always liked homework. She’d been strong in school. But this homework seemed a little much.

“Or maybe you could do something really crazy and forgive yourself. If it’s good enough for God, it’s probably good enough for you.” The church was silent.

The pastor smiled. “Now. That’s pretty heavy stuff. Let’s sing and drink coffee.”

The organ started up and the choir stood. She’d been dreading this moment. Adam’s broad shoulders and strong chest seemed to take up the whole stage. All of her plans to look down, or look away, or pretend to be somewhere else dissolved and the only thing she could do was stare.

His voice swelled up, filling the room easily with no help from a microphone. Her breath caught in her throat as his haunted baritone washed over her. He didn’t sound like he was singing the hymn – he sounded like he was living it.

She couldn’t take her eyes away and when his met hers again her mouth fell open and her breathing came ragged. Even all those rows apart, his worship and devotion were so big and so raw that it was like he was inches away. Pain and torture and ache pulsed out from him as he sang of his faith in the Lord.

Her face felt hot as the rest of the room, the rest of the people, the rest of the world fell away. Whatever had happened to him since that last terrible summer, whoever he was now, Stephanie knew one thing for sure.

Adam Chase believed.

Adam shifted in the driver’s seat and wished he was anybody else but here. The cab was too small for three people. Well, it was too small for these three people anyway. Rolling the window down hadn’t helped the heat that hung in the air. It was too hot for this time of year. If the heat was making people crazy, he just might be one of them.

Singing in there had just about killed him. He’d tried to pay attention, tried to focus, tried every trick in his book to stay alert to the task at hand. But there she was, looking at him and then looking away, and his heart didn’t seem to want to stay lodged in his chest.

It was too much. The memories were coming too thick and too fast. Steph, laying in the back of his father’s truck, staring up at the stars with hair spread out like a sunset. Steph, sitting in a little boat, feeling like beauty itself wrapped in his arms while he came out with excuse after excuse to keep “teaching” her to fish. Steph, opening her door and her arms the night of his father’s stroke.

He couldn’t keep the memories out. He felt like he was trying to bail water with a busted cup. The harder he fought, the stronger they got. He couldn’t think straight. Her smell was everywhere. She didn’t even smell like anything, but she smelled like… Steph.

He couldn’t do this. If he let his mind roam he was a goner. If he thought about the past, the pain of her leaving would sear him. If he thought about the present he’d have to look at her frightened and alone and tiny and in danger and that was even worse. Everywhere he looked, there she was. A man couldn’t live like this.

Don’t start getting sentimental, Chase. She didn’t want you.

He gripped the steering wheel a little harder and drove a little faster. He’d get her back to the diner, put her in her car, and follow her back to his place. Then at least she wouldn’t pressed up against him the whole way home. A few minutes and he’d be able to breathe again. Probably. Maybe. Hopefully.

“When’s your ride getting fixed again?” he said to Ben, his voice coming out as a choke.

“They said four o’clock,” Ben said from the other side of Stephanie. Adam didn’t dare turn to look. Her hair alone was going to undo him.

“Four o’clock when?”

“Four o’clock last Thursday.” He could sense, rather than see, Ben shifting to give Stephanie a bit of space. The lady herself was obviously trying to shrink to half her normal size which only made her more adorable. “They got the wrong part. Had to send it back and start over.”

Adam sighed and gripped the wheel a little tighter. “This just keeps getting better and better.”

“Why are we dropping Ben off again?” Her voice was so close it was practically inside his head. “I thought he was taking the truck. You could just come in my car.”

We’re not going in your car because I cannot be in the same vehicle with you for one more minute. “Ben’s getting a ride home later.”

“I thought – ”

“Does it matter?” he snapped back. He was not interested in having this conversation.

“Wow. Testy.”

He wasn’t testy, he was running out of air. Ben was conspicuously silent. Didn’t he have some kind of boring anecdote he could be sharing right now? Some piece of useless trivia? His supply seemed unending on a normal day. Why the dry spell now?

He had never been so happy to see a diner in his life. They pulled into the parking lot and he barely had his keys out of the ignition before he was bursting out of the door. If he didn’t get away from her soon he was going to lose his mind.

His senses went into soldier mode as he scanned the scene. Normal Sunday noontime – nothing out of place. Not that there would have been anything out of place. He didn’t even know what he was looking for.

People asked him sometimes why he didn’t become a cop. Apart from the obvious reasons, he liked the certainty of knowing who he was tracing. Sitting around staring at the wall and playing guessing games with unwilling witnesses wasn’t his idea of a good time. At least with a bail jumper you knew who you were looking for and what they were capable of.

“You were right. They didn’t tow me.” Stephanie’s voice jolted him out of his thoughts.

“Doesn’t look like they did.” Adam’s jaw was starting to hurt from keeping it clenched. He hated the sound of his own voice. He sounded strangled, like he was playing Sullen Cowboy Number Four in a bad Western. He was going to start putting on an accent if he didn’t watch himself.

Pull yourself together, man. She left you. Never even turned back. Right when you needed her the most.

Well, he might have thought he needed her then but he didn’t need her now. He straightened his shoulders with something that felt like resolve and took her keys out of his pocket. Something caught on his belt and he looked down to see a keychain he hadn’t noticed when he’d taken them from her. Beaded in two colors of pink, it looked like a kid’s gift. WWJD.

What would Jesus do? He would’ve called when he got to New York for starters.

He didn’t want to get bitter, but if he had to get bitter to stop thinking about her like some lovesick teenager, bitter was what he was going to get. It wasn’t like he didn’t have a right to it.

He threw her the keys, not daring to get close enough to put them in her hands. “You drive in front. We’ll go to the office, drop Ben off and follow you back to the house.”

“You can take the front. You know where you’re going better than I do.”

She’d know exactly where she was going if she’d stayed home where she belonged. None of this would be happening if she’d stayed home.

“I’m not letting you take the back. I want to be able to see you at all times. I don’t want to give anyone the chance to get between us.” Okay, that hadn’t come out right at all. He wished he had his hat so he could mess with it. In the absence of it, he shoved his hands in his pocket and messed with his keys instead. “Just drive. You know where you’re going. Nobody’s going to die if we take a wrong turn.”

The words weren’t all the way out of his mouth before he regretted them. Someday he was going to learn to keep his stupid mouth shut. Maybe he should stick to silent Westerns.

She stiffened and stared at her keys. “Sure. Okay.”

Was he this much of an idiot with all women or was it just Stephanie? “Are we good to go?”

“I want to stop by the motel as well and pick up my things.” Her voice was brittle.

“Don’t have time.” He was not running a taxi service.

Her eyebrows shot up. “I don’t have any clothes.”

“You seem dressed to me.”

“Adam, no. I’m filthy. I need my stuff.” Her hands were on her hips now, which only served to emphasize the slim line of her waist. Some women turned matronly once they’d had a kid. It would have been nice if she’d been one of them.

He gulped and wished he had some water. “I have a washing machine in the house.”

“I’m very happy for you. And in the meantime?” The combination of heat and frustration was making her skin glow. Why was he having this conversation again?

“You can wear something of mine.” And look utterly irresistible? Scratch that. “Or Ben’s.”

Or his mother’s. Or the neighbor’s. Or he could go online and buy her a whole new wardrobe. He didn’t care. He just wanted to get back on his own home turf with air conditioning and some space. This did not seem too much for a man to ask.

She threw her hands up. “This is ridiculous.”

He didn’t want to antagonize her, but at least she was ready to move. “Tell me about it. Let’s go.”

He hauled himself into the truck and watched her get organized in her rental car. In a way it was good that she was frustrated. On her way to the diner she’d been skittish, nervous. He couldn’t blame her. The last time she’d been in this parking lot she’d had the shock of her life. Darkness and shadows made it feel more dangerous, right up until you were in broad daylight and you realized you didn’t feel any better at all.

All the more reason to get out of here quickly and get this issue sorted out permanently. Get something out of her, get the Duck to put a cruiser in front of her door, and get on with something else. He wasn’t too picky on what else he’d get on with, as long as she was out of his truck, out of his house, and out of his life.

<< previous chapter - next chapter >>
index