Blind-Date Bride (15 page)

They fell silent, afraid to say what they were both thinking. That girls like them didn’t have the chance for happy-ever-afters. She had asked God the same question over and over again.
I’m not destined to be alone, right, Lord?

Tonight, she’d received her answer.

“Do you think that’s him?” Brandi asked in the dark confines of the passenger seat as the phone began to ring. They were driving home, too late for Brianna’s comfort. “Want me to see who’s calling?”

“No.” Her fingers tightened on the wheel.

“What if it’s Max? He might want to talk to you.”

“Are you kidding? He drove off with Dad. He’s spent time with him. There’s no way he’s going to want to talk to me now.”

Brandi bowed her head, falling silent, unable to disagree.

Yes, it was truly good and over with Max.

She stopped for a red light, waiting as no other cars crossed the intersection. The rumble of the engine and the whir of the heater sounded loud in the silence. She knew Brandi wanted to talk about what happened, to somehow try to change the outcome. But there was no changing the truth. This relationship had never been going to work out, not really. He was always going to figure out that the way he wanted to see her and the way she was were two entirely different things.

Although losing him did hurt more than anything she’d encountered yet in life.

The light flicked to green and she checked both ways before pulling out, motoring up to the twenty-five-mile-an-hour speed limit. For the first time ever she felt drained and empty, without hope. She had never realized before all the little ways hope had crept into her life like tendrils of roots clinging to the earth, determined to grow. How she always looked to the future and to God for something better.

Like a little girl clutching to her books of fairy tales, dreaming of a castle and true love instead of an unkempt trailer and parents passed out in the next room. How she had to believe that God meant something better for her and Brandi. That belief had gotten
her through her childhood and through fighting for her life in I.C.U.

And now that was gone. She had a clear view of her future without Max. Grief scored through her more painfully than any bullet. She hadn’t realized her hopes had gotten so big. She’d let herself imagine—just a little—what life could be like spent at his side, in his arms, in his heart. She could picture a proposal with him on bended knee, a wedding with yellow roses and a long white gown, and every day privileged to see Max’s lopsided grin, laugh at his wry humor and stand tall with him through good times and bad.

Not gonna happen, Bree. Forget it.

But those wishes had obstinately burrowed into the tenderest places of her soul. Everything she was ached for those impossible dreams. Dreams she could never have. Her eyes burned, and she focused on the street in front of her. The yellow and black lines rushing in front of the car guided her home. When those lines blurred, she blinked hard and brought them back into focus.

The phone chimed, signaling a text message, the tone muffled by the confines of her handbag.

“I’m going to see who that is.” Brandi leaned forward against the seat belt to unzip the bag. “Dad wouldn’t leave a text. He doesn’t have a phone.”

“Please, don’t.” A few raindrops speckled the windshield, making it harder to see. She felt like the night, desolate and cold, starless with a storm moving in. “There’s no way Max is going to forgive me.”

“Forgive you? Wait, I don’t get it.” She didn’t stop digging around until she came up with the cell. She cradled it in her hand, as if debating. “I thought this is about Dad.”

“It is.” All the feeling drained out of her. Numbness set in, the same way it had after she’d been shot. For a brief moment, she’d felt nothing. Her system was too shocked. When her brain caught up with her nerve endings, she was going to be in horrible pain. “Either that message is him rejecting me, or he wants to get together face-to-face to do it.”

“He’s a really great guy. He’s a lot to lose.”

Bree nodded, her throat closing up. He was everything. Last time she’d hurt like this, she’d been in I.C.U.

The phone chimed again.

“Don’t get that, Brandi. Please.” She nudged on her turn signal and turned onto their street.

“But it’s from him. Can I at least see what he said?”

“No.” She answered too late. Her twin had already punched through the scroll list to open a message.

Brace yourself for another emotional bullet, Bree. She pulled up every shield she had, every defense around her battered heart. How could it be enough? She loved him so truly, there was no protection. No refuge. Not even now.

“Don’t tell me what it says.” She slowed as rain began to fall in earnest, obscuring the stretch of the street in front of her. It was like driving into the worst darkness without a light to guide her way. “I’m better off not knowing how badly I messed this up.”

“This is Dad’s fault, not yours. He’s supposed to be in jail. How could they let him out on parole?” Brandi fell silent, studying whatever was on the screen. “Do you know what Max sent?”

“I told you, no. I don’t want to hear it. I already know.” Rain battered the windshield, and her spirit felt
the cold hard strikes. She spotted a white pickup parked along the curb in front of their duplex, and the shock wore off. Endless grief tunneled through her, leaving her weak. Shakily, she turned into the driveway, looking straight ahead, grateful for the dark that hid him from her sight. For the dark that hid the tears in her eyes.

There was no hope left. No one speck within her. All the years of her life, she had managed to grasp tightly to it no matter what. The blows in her life simply had not been hard enough break her hold. But the realization that Max was never going to really love her, that it couldn’t be her future was the biggest blow she’d ever taken.

“He sent a chapter and a verse.” Why wasn’t Brandi giving up? She had to have spotted the truck. She knew Max was here.

“Hebrews 11:1. You know that verse. It’s one of your favorites.”

The car crept into the utter darkness beneath the carport, the beating rain deafening. Bree turned off the motor, wishing she could turn off her feelings as easily. But they crashed through her like a tidal wave hitting the shore, obliterating everything, knocking down and dragging the pieces of her shattered hope out to sea. There was no way to get them back. They were forever lost, never to be found and made whole again.

“Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see,”
Brandi quoted as Max stepped out of the dark.

S
eeing her again brought it all back. How Brianna had hid the truth about her dad. Of her standing with her back to him, her head bowed, her slender shoulders trembling, closing him out. Rain drenched him, and the night’s chill had crept deep beyond the skin. Cold and hollow, he approached her car, waiting for her to come out and face him.

Her window zipped down, revealing her. She was little more than a shadow in the confines of the car, her features as hidden to him as her feelings.

“I took your Dad to the Y.” He winced at how terse he sounded, harsher than he’d meant. “That was about all he could afford.”

“I hope he didn’t try to get you to loan him money. He’s not good for it.” She was cold as the night, as impenetrable as the shadows. Impossible to know what she was feeling. If she was going to reject him again or hear him out.

“He tried, but I had the man figured out.” He jammed
his hands in his pockets. Rain hammered the roof overhead, echoing in the confines of the carport, reminding him of a certain night long ago. Sweat broke out on the back of his neck. Tingles shot like fear into his bloodstream. “I deal with people like that all the time.”

“Yes, I know.” He’d never heard a deeper note of sadness. The door opened, and she slowly stood like someone gravely ill. She leaned heavily on the door. She took forever to straighten. Cloaked in shadows, all he could see was the hint of her profile and the dark pools of her eyes.

“I’m sorry. I should have told you about him—Dad.” She stayed where she was, gripping the car door. She seemed so distant, she was like a stranger. “Back when you told me about Nancy, I should have opened those memories I keep closed and told you.”

“I have eyes. I saw what happened tonight. He couldn’t tell you and Brandi apart. Colbie’s upset. Lil’s tears. You all have been through so much because of that man.”

“That you understand is all the proof I need. You are too good, Max. You’ve come here to let me down easy. I know this because—” She hiccupped, but he suspected it was a sob she tried to disguise. “Because you try to do the right thing. You’re that man. You are going to end this the correct way. But I don’t need that. What I need is for you to have mercy and walk away.”

He’d been battling hurt and doubt all the way downtown, with Mick trying to buddy up to him and Marcus chattering on the phone in the backseat. She’d turned away from him, and that hurt. “You and I have differences, Bree.”

“Too many. I’m glad you see it, too. It’s one of the
reasons I don’t think about Dad. Don’t you see?” She released her hold on the door and gave it a push. The thud resounded against the concrete and the walls of the house, flashing up memories he couldn’t seem to stop.

“You haven’t seen me at all, Max. Until tonight.” She took a step closer, but her voice began to sound far away, tinny and echoing over the sound of the rain in his memory drumming harder, muffling a crack of thunder. “That girl you saw when you looked at me, the way you looked at me. You made me believe, too. Deep down, I knew better, which makes this all my fault. So you can go, guilt free. You’re off the hook.”

Her words registered, but what he also heard was a revolver’s report. The rush of the paramedics, their rubber-soled shoes splashing on the cement, and the strobing flash of sirens. He felt again the terror of telling his body to get up off the ground and finding himself still flat on his belly, unable to move anything but his right hand. The deadening whirlpool of betrayal had sucked him down. He’d lost his ability to truly trust in anyone. He didn’t know how to get it back.

This was his out. She was giving him the chance to walk away without fault. He could go back to his life, raising Marcus, being a cop, studying his Bible and living without ever having to risk his heart again. He could hold up this moment as the badge of honor. I loved her, but she was at fault. She kept truths from me. She wasn’t right for me. She was recovering from a serious trauma and I couldn’t trust her to know what she wanted.

So easy to take that first step back into safety. Simple to let the darkness and the fear win. He would never have to open the last door into his heart. Never have to
take down the final barrier where no one but God had been. He would never risk hurting the way he’d been hurt tonight again.

“I’m not guilt free in this.” He set his shoulders and steeled his spine. “This is hard for a man like me to admit, but I got scared.”

“Of the trouble my dad can cause, sure.” She awkwardly buttoned her coat, taking a few steps in his direction. The tap of her step rang with uncertainty, but it brought her within reach of the security lights at the end of the carport. Illumination found her, revealing the tears shining in her eyes. Her sorrow held luster that rendered him speechless. Light sifted over her like tiny blessings and wishes come true.

Believe, a voice told him from down deep inside.

How could he? He wanted to. That’s why he had come here. But it was as if he’d hit a wall, an impossible barrier he could not scale.

“There’s something I need to know. Something I’ve always wondered about you.” He gathered his courage. “You said something about the robbery that stuck with me. You said you went on with your life, regardless of how hard it was. You wouldn’t let what happened stop you. That you wouldn’t let them win. How did you do it? I’ve lost sight of almost everything I used to believe in.”

“Like what?”

“Hope. Happy-ever-afters. That the good guy has a chance.”

“That sounds like a lot to lose sight of.” Her voice resonated with understanding. “I feel that way, too, right now, so I don’t think I can help you.”

Last time he had let belief take him over, he’d been
blindsided. He saw now that he had never recovered. He was stuck on that rain-slicked driveway, and he’d never gotten up off it. He’d never done what Brianna had, climbed back on her feet and fought to keep on living wholly, open to all the goodness life has to give.

“How?” he asked.

“Job 2:10.” She set her chin, fisted her hands and seemed so small even with the light tumbling over her.
“Shall we indeed accept good from God, and shall we not accept adversity?”

“My faith in God is one thing that has survived.” That was the honest truth. He felt captivated as she took another step closer.

“2 Corinthians 12:10.
Since I know it is all for Christ’s good, I am quite content with my weaknesses and with insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”

Emotion burned behind his eyes and lodged like a hot, tight ball behind his ribs. He had been right in coming, right in following his heart. Brianna was good to the core, gentle to a fault. She had strength that awed him. Her radiance touched him deep and did not let go.

Unbearable love overwhelmed him. An emotion stronger than any force in the universe came softly, delicately, like spring unfurling the season’s first blossom. The impenetrable, final steel wall within him melted like warm butter.

He believed. True love changed his world like a fairy tale; but it was no fictional story, no moment of make believe. God is love, he knew, as he felt a reassuring touch. Even a man like him deserved a happy ending and someone he could believe in.

“You are the most incredible woman.” His hand cupped the side of her face, lovingly. “Even when I think I’ve got you figured out, you surprise me again. You have made me come alive, Brianna, in ways I didn’t know I could.”

“I don’t understand.” Her violet eyes filled with pure pain. “Didn’t we both agree this isn’t going to work?”

“I never agreed to that.” Gentle, his words. Adoring, his tone. “I said we have differences. Who doesn’t? What we share in common is more important. I need you, Bree. I love you.”

“What did you say?” She jerked from his touch, shaking her head. She could
not
have heard him right.

“I love you, Brianna. From the bottom of my heart. With all I am. With all I have.” He cupped her face in both hands, gazing intently into her eyes as if in challenge, as if to prove the truth.

“But I should have told you the truth.”

“I don’t think you meant to deceive me, Bree. I think it was too painful of a subject to talk about with someone you were just starting to date.”

“Yes.” That was it exactly. “I’m not Nancy. I’m not using you. I would never hurt you.”

“I know that, darlin’.” His tone rumbled low, impossibly tender.

“But what about my dad?” She felt as if she were breaking apart from the inside out, one tiny piece at a time. “I’ve tried, but I can’t escape my past and where I’ve come from. It’s part of me.”

“I know the answer to that, and I learned it from you. Don’t look back at the bad stuff. Choose what you want to take with you from the good things in your past and
keep moving forward.” He did not remove his hands, his touch searing like a brand. He searched her face as if trying to see inside, where she could not let him go. “That’s why I’m here tonight. I’ve come to ask you to move forward with me.”

“Move forward?” Was he talking about moving on? And why was he towering over her with his dark hair dusted with light and close enough to kiss her? “I don’t understand at all. You want to break up.”

“No way, beautiful.” His voice vibrated pleasantly through her, a coziness like nothing she had known before. “We have to stay together.”

“We don’t.” She wanted to pull way, but she couldn’t move. “I can’t go through this again, Max. My heart broke utterly. Totally. There’s nothing left of it. I can’t let myself hope. I can’t let myself go through that again, needing you so much and then losing you again.”

“Now see, we have that in common, too.” The fury of the rain lessened, as if sensing the world was suddenly not quite as bleak. “I learned one thing tonight. I don’t want to live without you. I can’t be without you. My life would be empty, my days spent existing instead of living. I need you, Bree. I love you.” He brushed his lips across her forehead. “Yes, I said I love you, my beautiful, strong Brianna.”

“Right there is proof this can’t work.” His amazing words were cruel: everything she wanted; everything she could not have. “There you go again, seeing someone who isn’t me.”

“Oh, I see you. When I look at you, I see everything.” His reverent tone was like the sweetest assurance, the brush of his lips to the tip of her nose the purest caress.
“I see a woman who has pulled herself up by her bootstraps. Who does well in school, who loves her family, who handles adversity with grace and strength. She treats everyone with kindness and is true beauty, inside and out. This is what true love is, Brianna. Seeing the best in someone, and cherishing that above all else.”

Tears seared her, burning behind her eyes and tangling behind her larynx. She didn’t trust her voice. She didn’t know what to do with his sweet words. Trust in them? She wasn’t that naive. She could no longer let herself believe, didn’t know if she could. She had no hope left. Every piece, every sliver was gone, as if washed away, no longer within her. When she needed it most.

“I have to work late some nights. Whenever my pager goes off, I have to drop whatever I’m doing and answer the call.” He kept chipping away with his words and his outpouring of tenderness. “I leave my wet towels on the bathroom floor. I get caught up in sports shows and forget what day it is. And that’s just the start of it. Can you accept these thing about me?”

“Yes.” What was happening to her? Her ribs felt as if they were breaking, her entire being as if tearing apart. “I’m scared of the dark. I have post-traumatic stress. I double check every lock on every door every time.”

“Flaws are what makes a person lovable.” In the darkness he brushed his thumb over the cut of her bottom lip, the most tender of gestures. His gaze softened, as if he were about to kiss her again. As if he could breach the distance that had fallen between them. “Flaws are the dear things that make someone unique. One of a kind. Impossible to replace.”

“Am I those things to you?”

“Absolutely, beyond a doubt, yes.” His loving sincerity sucked all the sense from her brain and obliterating the entire world. The rain silenced. The cold night vanished. She stood as if in summer sunshine as his calloused fingertips gently scraped against her lower lip. The briefest stroke, but it held her captive. “Bree, you are what I never thought was possible. You are my one true love.”

Hope should be lifting her up, but her feet were solidly planted on the ground. Maybe it was too late for them. Maybe her heart had been broken too much. His touch was warm comfort, but nothing more. There was no zing of emotion binding them together. No unspoken understanding as soul mates should share.

What had happened? Had she lost him? And how, when he was saying everything right, as if out of her dreams?

“I’m waiting for the words, Bree.”

She laid her hands on his, feeling the rugged texture of his male skin and something vulnerable behind the strength and steel. Tiny pain needled deep within, as if what was left of her wishes were struggling to live.

Believe, her soul whispered. Just believe.

“Do you love me?” he asked with amazing tenderness. He dominated her senses; he seemed to shrink the night, his endless affection was all she could see.

“Yes,” she answered, as if standing in full light. It was hard to make herself vulnerable one more time. “So much, I could never stop loving you.”

“That’s how I love you, too.” A reverent grin stretched his dimples into full bloom.

Unable to move, totally captivated, she could only watch as he bent closer, bringing with him the scent of
March rain and aftershave. His lips met hers in a sweet, velvet caress. Unstoppable love filled her soul with enough power to chase away every shadow and fear. As she clung to him, emotion snapped between them like an electric shock, binding them heart to heart.

She rested her cheek on his chest, savoring the reliable beat of his heart and the shelter of his arms enclosing her. She could not believe that she was here with him, her soul mate—but it was true. How could she ever thank God enough for answering her most sincere prayer?