Blessed Child (36 page)

Jason slapped the book closed.

“So where's all the miracles? Where are all the believers with faith doing what Christ did? Or for that matter doing even greater things? I don't see them in the church. You think I should ask a preacher what God is like? How do I know he has a clue what he's talking about? Especially if he's not doing what Christ did.” He shrugged. “Just a question.”

He had a point. “You ask Caleb. He's doing what Christ did.”

“Exactly.”

“Or you ask Dr. Paul Thompson. I can't believe he doesn't know what God's like,” Leiah said.

He nodded.

“Or the people from the church yesterday. You can't believe they don't know God.”

“They think they know him. They know a part of him. But do they do what he did? Did the people that prayed for Stephen do what Christ would have done? Where was their power? They were nothing more than a bunch of rednecks jumping around, hooting and hollering.”

He had come back to his son.

“Hooting and hollering? Sounds kind of like what we did yesterday.”

“I know. I became a hooting and hollering redneck Christian yesterday, and it makes me cringe. I don't have a clue what that means.”

“It means you will follow Christ.”

“And what does following Christ look like? That's the point: most Christians I've seen do their thing in the church maybe, but they don't follow the teachings of Christ. Do they?” He shook the Bible. “They don't do what he did.”

She thought about that. He was right, but his line of reasoning bothered her. She'd spent the day yesterday releasing all the voices that questioned God, and he was bringing them back.

“So not all people who call themselves Christians follow the teachings of Christ. So every movement has its pretenders. I'll give you that. Are you saying that just because a person doesn't walk around healing everyone they touch like Caleb does, they aren't a true believer
?
”

“Of course not. Dr. Thompson doesn't walk around like Caleb, and I have no doubt he follows Christ. But how many Christians have you met that show any power at all? I mean
any?”

“Depends what you mean by power. Dr. Thompson seemed to suggest that what we see with our eyes isn't the half of it. Whoever said that a straightened hand—”

“—is any greater than a healed heart,” he finished for her. “I know.”

“And yesterday we saw some of that, didn't we?”

“Yesterday was just a bit unique.” He cocked his head, challenging.

“I've seen other good people who call themselves Christians.”

“Some. In a nation supposedly half filled with them. And how many of those showed any power at all that couldn't be explained by a third grader?”

She didn't have an answer for that.

“All I'm saying is that it casts questions on the whole crowd. God is real, and I've met him. He's Christ. But who is he? And where are all his followers? Besides Caleb and Dr. Thompson and a few dozen others?”

“It all comes back to your son, doesn't it?”

He sat back and sighed. “Maybe.”

His face looked haggard in that moment, as if a load still hung around his neck. He diverted his eyes and took another sip of cola. It occurred to her that she had become quite used to his company over this past month. She almost enjoyed a good argument from him. He was as sharp as she, and they complemented each other well. And in these last two weeks his bright blue eyes had been speaking a language that was totally unfamiliar to her.

Well, not totally. She'd nearly married once, before the accident. But it had been long enough ago that she hardly remembered. And the thought of being intimate with anyone now brought a shiver to her spine.

If there ever were a person, though, it would be someone like Jason.

“I'm surprised you don't feel the same way,” he said.

At first she didn't know what that meant. And then she did.
He's talking about your burns, Leiah
. She stiffened.

“Not just you, of course, but anyone who's felt pain or suffering.” He had seen her stiffen and was digging himself out. Leiah picked up her glass and crossed her legs. Heat washed down her back, and she wasn't sure why. What he said wasn't wrong.

“I mean especially people like you and me who've faced pain.” He followed her lead by picking up his glass.

Leiah felt herself slide into a place she hated being. A cocoon that made no sense. A place of anger and fear and strange comfort.

“Don't you agree?”

She wanted to turn to him and answer, but her mind was suddenly swimming in its own brew of self-pity. Because he was telling her that she was no different than Stephen, wasn't he? She, too, had been passed over.

“Leiah, please. I didn't mean anything offensive.”

“I didn't say I was offended.”

“No, but you are. Either offended or scared or both.”

“I wasn't aware you knew me so well.”

“I don't. You won't let me get that close, remember?”

Oh, Jason. Dear Jason, what are you saying?
“Please let's not take this any further,” she said.

He unfolded his legs and leaned forward. “Why not? I feel different, you know. Ever since yesterday. Pretending isn't sitting so well anymore. I feel like saying what's really on my mind.”

Leiah wanted to leave then. She'd never seen him so open and it did scare her. Not that it should scare her—it should have her laughing. But it didn't.

“You know what's really on my mind?” he asked. “Well, let's start with the fact that I don't know how in the world this happened, but I think that maybe, just maybe, I've fallen in love with you. And I'm tired of pretending that I haven't. Because now that I've said it, I know it's a fact. I'm in love with you. And it scares me to death.”

A chill snaked down Leiah's back. For years she had secretly hoped for just this. For a strong, independent man to love her for who she was, burns and all. She'd dreamed his face a thousand times, smiling tenderly and saying those words:
I love you, Leiah.

And in the last three weeks that face had blue eyes and blond hair and spoke like Jason. Not in a hundred years had she dared to dream her independent man would be so handsome and so kind.

Yet now, hearing him say it, she wanted to shrivel up and vanish. But she wasn't the kind to cower; she was the kind to snap. It came without warning.

“How dare you play with me?” she snapped.

“Playing? I'm not—”

“Do you have any idea how cruel you can be?” She was beyond reason now, and by his wide eyes he knew it as well. “You don't just take salt and dump it into a wounded heart for the sport of it!”

“I . . . this isn't just sport.”

“And you don't toss a woman's heart around as if it were a ball!” She was fairly spitting the words. “How dare you?”

Jason stood and threw both hands up like a policeman. “Stop it! Just stop it. I love you! Do you hear me? I love you, Leiah!”

He was breathing hard. They were both breathing hard. And Leiah had no idea how they'd gotten here, only that they were indeed, right here, in the most uncomfortable place imaginable. Her skin was crawling, and the thought that it was burned and wrinkled strung through her mind.

A tear slipped from one of his eyes. He was crying.

She closed her eyes and tried to grab for reason.
What on earth are you doing, Leiah? He's pouring his heart out for you, and you're screaming at him! You're a fool!

A hand touched her arm and she started. He was sitting beside her now.

“Listen to me, Leiah. I know this is new territory. For both of us. But I'm crazy about you.” His eyes searched hers, and she stared at the black television screen. His hand was on her arm.

“I'm in love with you! Not your arms or your legs or your body. You.”

He couldn't have meant it the way it sounded. He could never be so dense. But it was the fact of the matter, wasn't it? He could never love her for her body. Who could possibly love such a twisted mess of flesh?

Leiah lowered her head and began to cry. All the grief and self-pity she'd stored for so long oozed to the surface and she couldn't contain it. She let her arms go limp in her lap and she started to sob.

“Leiah?”

The poor man had no idea. He might think that he loved her now, but one touch of her flesh and he would be swallowing. One accidental peek at her rippled belly and he would be running for the door.

The sorrow racked her body, and it felt good. In a way it was her only friend. This and God now.

But even God had passed her over.

“Leiah, please.” He was crying as he said it.

She had been in meeting after meeting where thousands around her were made whole. But she? No, not Leiah. Leiah is strong enough. She doesn't need normal flesh. She doesn't need soft, tender skin to make a man melt in her hands, because she will never have a man in her hands. Ha! Leave her with the bark for her skin. God was mocking her. Even Caleb, in his power to heal or not to heal, was mocking her. She was the brunt of their cruel joke. Her skin was.

Leiah suddenly stood, furious. She took three steps and whirled back to him. “You have no idea what it's like to live in my skin! Let me tell you. It's hell! It's hell every minute, every day! I wake up feeling like a monster, and it takes every bit of strength I have to walk out the door to face the world.”

She reached up and ripped off her scarf. She popped the top two buttons of her shirt and exposed her collarbone. She did it in fury, without thinking. And the moment she realized what she'd just done, she felt the deep pain of humiliation ripple through her body.

“Nobody can love this.” Her voice was failing her, and her face wrinkled with anguish. “Nobody!”

Jason stood slowly. She was suddenly sobbing, staring at him, and he stepped forward. Tears streaked his face, but it wasn't sorrow that flooded his face. It was empathy. And love. Tender love.

Which was not humanly possible.

He walked slowly up to her. He stopped within arm's reach and shifted his eyes to her chest. To Leiah it felt like someone had opened her skull and poured boiling water over her mind. His eyes were as scalding, fixed on the flaps of skin that covered her breastbone. She swallowed. He just looked at her, and she just let him, powerless to move.

Oh, dear Jason, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. You didn't ask for this. I don't mean to hurt you. You can do what you want and I won't be angry. I won't blame you.

Jason lifted his eyes, and they had stopped their watering. He looked at her simply, neither with empathy nor with sorrow now.

“I love you,” he said. “And I love you the way you are. I think you're beautiful the way you are.”

Leiah could barely breathe. How could he stand there and say such a thing? She closed her eyes.
I love you too, Jason. I love you so much
.

“I'm scared,” she whispered. She dared not open her eyes. “I'm so—”

Warm lips covered hers and she gasped.

She froze, desperate and terrified at once. His lips pressed hers lightly, and they did not release her.

His right hand touched her side lightly, and he pulled her to himself. His other hand encircled her back and held her gently.

It wasn't until that moment, when his fingers felt through her thin blouse to the scarred flesh beneath that she began to believe him. And then she abandoned herself to that belief in a sort of mad desperation.

She groaned and kissed him back, surprising herself. She threw her arms around his neck and pulled him tight against her body. He kissed her with an equal passion.

It was like being dehydrated bone dry and then diving into a pool of crystal-clear water. She drank deeply, and for a moment she thought she would spend the rest of her life here, in this embrace.

But then she remembered where she was, and she pulled back, breathing heavily.

They stood staring at each other, dumbstruck.

A grin cracked his lips. “Wow.”

Slowly a smile settled on her own lips, and she felt heat wash over her face. She put her hands together and fiddled with her fingers, unsure what she should do.

“Wow,” he said again.

Wow.
He'd kissed her and said
Wow
.

“Wow,” she said.

Jason laughed like a child and reached for her hand. “Come here.” He pulled her to him and put both arms around her. She rested her cheek on his chest.

Leiah wasn't exactly sure what had just happened, but she did know a few things.

She knew that she was in the arms of a man.

She knew the man was Jason, a man too good for even her dreams.

She knew her face couldn't seem to relax the dumb smile that curved her lips.

And she knew that her heart was beating like a tom-tom.

It was enough knowledge for the moment.

27

Day 31

T
HE GUN WAS A SILENCED
R
UGER MINI
-14, and Banks could pick a cherry off the nose of a rabbit at one hundred yards in his sleep with it. Not an assassin's most obvious choice, but it was light, reliable, and at close ranges, deadly accurate. In some settings the rifle was a perfect killing tool. Settings like the Old Theater in downtown Los Angeles.

The plan Banks had suggested to Roberts was brilliant, not in its execution, but in its preparation. In some kills you had to pull off the perfect hit, in others you had to set up the perfect hit, and in the case of the ten-year-old kid they wanted to knock off, it was definitely the latter.

The plan was almost identical to the one he'd pulled in Rome four years earlier. Then it was a bishop meddling in the wrong affairs, tonight it was Boy Wonder here, but both were cut from the same playbook. The trick was to place motive squarely in one corner and then pop the subject from another corner. Simple. It was the setup that counted.