Emerald Fire (Christian Romance) (The Jewel Series) (17 page)

He flipped the page and paused, staring at his own face drawn four different times on one page, showing different angles and expressions. She captured the details of his face so perfectly that it was like looking in a mirror. The next three pages were of him, lifting weights at the gym, sitting in that impossibly little metal chair at their breakfast cafe, standing by his Jeep with his skull cap pulled low over his ears while he drank a bottle of water after a morning run. He smiled and turned another page.

His stomach turned while he stared at the drawing. It was a woman, an older version of Robin, with haggard lines on her face and dead eyes. Her stringy, dirty hair crawled up in greasy strands out of a rubber band behind her neck. She sat on a worn couch wearing a T-shirt and jeans, staring down at the inside of her arm while a man with dark hair and hard, mean eyes filled a syringe from a dirty spoon with confidence born of experience. Glasses and a bottle of gin, a few beer cans, and cigarette butts littered the table in front of them.

Barry knew Maxine’s childhood story. He had defended Robin’s father a few years ago against murder charges. He knew enough of the story to know that the woman in the sketch represented their mother and her boyfriend, the man and woman whom Robin’s father had slain.

The next few pages showed more of Robin, Tony, and Sarah. Robin in varying stages of her pregnancy, Tony in different poses, Sarah in various moods.

Then he saw himself again, more close-ups of his face, one of him gesturing at a football game on television.

Eagerly, he turned to the next page. Sick fear churned inside his gut before a slow rage overtook the feeling. A man loomed over a girl on a bed, one hand covered her mouth, the other pawed at the waistband of her pants. He leered down at her, his eyes insane, mean, unspeakably selfish. His unbuttoned shirt revealed a tattoo of an eagle on his chest. Barry didn’t like recognizing it, but the girl beneath him was a very young Maxine. Hatred and tears filled her terrified eyes while she clawed at the hand covering her mouth. She had her knees bent as she struggled against her molester.

He didn’t want to look at the picture anymore, so he turned the page and noticed the tremor in his hand. It was the last page in the book, and it was of him again, but not in this apartment like the others. This was in Vegas, in Maxine’s bed, her head on his shoulder, his arms around her, her hair spread over them like a blanket.

He flipped back to the previous page, then forward again to the last one. So many questions answered from a simple pencil sketch. He had known Maxine’s story. He had known that her drug addict mother had moved her and her three daughters from man to man, pimp to drug dealer. He had known that Robin and Maxine and Sarah’s early years had been the building blocks of nightmares.

After serving fifteen years for dealing cocaine, Robin’s biological father had walked out of prison and promptly murdered Robin’s mother along with her current sleazy boyfriend. That double murder had sent Robin and Maxine into the system and young Sarah to her adoptive parents. He’d known that as soon as Robin turned eighteen, she got a job at Hank’s Place and, with the help of her employer, obtained legal counsel and gained custody of Maxine. When Maxine was fifteen, they’d finally lived together as a family.

He had intellectually known all of that, but somehow had never applied it to Maxine; not to the Maxine he knew. She was so happy, so vivacious, so full of life that it never occurred to him to equate her with the girl who cowered in a closet while she listened to the gunshots that took her mother’s life, to the young teen who clawed at the hands of the man with the eagle tattoo on his chest.

Not ready to face her right now, Barry shoved the sketchbook back into the couch and sprang up. He hurried now, afraid that they’d step off the elevator any moment, worried that they’d cross paths in the lobby. He snatched up his coat and briefcase and left, pushing against the floor of the elevator with the bottom of his feet as if he could make it go faster. Thankful to find a lobby empty of anyone he knew, he mumbled some excuse to the guard and exited the warm building into the icy wet blast of the Boston Christmas Eve.

MAXINE
laughed as she and Robin stepped off the elevator, bags in hand. “You shouldn’t wait ‘til Christmas Eve to go shopping, especially nine months pregnant,” she said with a smile.

“I hate shopping.” Robin set her many packages on the floor while she unbuttoned her coat and slipped it off her shoulders.

“Yes, I know, silly, but it still has to be done and waiting until Christmas Eve isn’t going to make it any better.”

“You’re right. But it’s done now.”

“I just hope we can get them wrapped before Tony and Sarah get here.”

Robin froze. Maxine had a moment of panic thinking she was about to say that the baby was coming. Instead she put her hands to her cheeks and said, “Wrapping paper!”

Maxine hugged Robin, love flooding her heart. “I brought some. I know you, you see.”

“Ugh! I can’t wait to have this baby! I can’t think when I’m pregnant.”

They set up a wrapping assembly line in the dining room, working quickly while they chatted. “You haven’t told me much about your trip,” Robin said, folding the corners of a box that contained an engraved stethoscope for Sarah.

Maxine felt her fingertips get cold. She paused cutting the paper around a new scarf for Tony. What should she say? Should she say anything at all? “It was cool. We took a helicopter tour.”

“Yeah,” Robin said dryly. “You’ve said all that.”

The scissors fell out of her hand and clamored onto the table. Tears welled up in Maxine’s throat then with a sob, poured out of her eyes. Robin immediately put down everything she was doing and wrapped Maxine into her arms, as she had when she was a little girl – when they were both little girls. “What’s wrong?”

Maxine fought to control her voice long enough to blurt out, “Robin, I love Barry.”

Robin had been rubbing her shoulder blades, but her hands froze. “What?”

Putting both heels of her hands against her eyes, attempting to stop the flow of tears, Maxine backed away. “I do. I love him. And I’m in love with him.”

“Maxi.” Robin said the word on a sigh and Maxine immediately felt defensive. She almost knew what her sister would say next. “You’re in love all the time. Men come and go …”

The tears dried as a touch of anger wormed through. “Stop.” Robin stopped with her mouth open, obviously unaccustomed to Maxine’s anger. Maxine continued, “Stop talking. I have never come to you crying over any man. I’d appreciate it if you would respect my feelings.”

“I …”

Maxine held up a hand. “No. I know you’re opinion about my relationship with him. I’ve listened to every word you’ve said. You don’t approve. I get it. You think I will chew him up and spit him out. He’s been hurt. Blah blah whoopity blah. The fact of the matter is that I am the one crying. I am the one hurt. And what you’re not going to do is try to make me into some frigid, man-eating black widow who just leaves remnants of past relationships in her wake.”

Robin reached out and touched her shoulder. “Maxi, I don’t think that about you. I love you and admire your spirit and your nature. I’ve never thought that about you. But you have regularly professed love for one man or another since you were in high school.”

Maxine took her sister’s hand and looked her in the eye. “I’ve always hoped that the next guy, the next relationship, would make me forget. But they never have.” More tears filled her eyes, spilled down her cheeks. “I kept thinking that this one could hold my hand and I wouldn’t feel terrified that he’d pull me down, or that one with his arm around me in a movie wouldn’t make me feel like I was drowning in fear.”

Robin cried now. Few could relate the way she could. “I understand.”

“But with Barry it’s different. This weekend I realized how much I care for him. And I realized I am in love with him.”

Robin paused and tilted her head. “But?”

With a sigh, Maxine squeezed Robin’s hand and let it go. She picked up the scissors again and went back to cutting. “But – his wife has been dead for less than a month. But – he’s twelve years older than me. But – he’s your husband’s best friend. But – he’s undergoing a spiritual crisis right now.”

Maxine heard Robin clear her throat. “Speaking of that,” she said, picking up the tape again. “You haven’t been to church since Jacqueline’s funeral.”

With a sigh, Maxine finished cutting the paper and started folding it around the box. “I know. That’s what I mean. Now isn’t good for Barry.”

“So what will you do?” Robin held a piece of tape out on the tip of her finger.

Maxine took the offered tape. “I don’t know what to do. I’ve never been in love with a man before. I guess give him some room.”

“Why don’t you pray about it?”

Her fingers paused on the package and she looked at her sister. “I know you get something out of that, but honestly, Robin, I never have. I don’t understand how you do it. I don’t know what to say or how to hear an answer.”

Robin tilted her head and looked at her very seriously. “Do you believe God answers?”

“I don’t know.” She quit messing with the package and pulled a chair out to sit down, suddenly feeling very tired. “I don’t know.”

Robin pulled the chair next to her out and sat down, angling so that their knees touched. She reached out and took Maxine’s hands. “Matthew seven promises us that God will answer our prayers. What you need to do is relinquish that final hold you have on the control in your life to God, trust Him, and you will find an amazing whole new world out there with direction and purpose and security.”

Maxine felt a longing in her heart, a physical tugging. Her breath caught so suddenly that she had to clear her throat. “I don’t know how.”

Robin smiled. “Let me pray for you. Just relax and close your eyes and let me pray.” Robin bowed her head and after a moment, Maxine followed suit. Robin’s voice very gently washed over her as she began praying. “God, thank You for my sister. Thank You for saving us, thank You for bringing us together all of those years ago. Thank You for Your son, Jesus.”

Memories flooded Maxine’s mind, of stench and drugs and screams and blood. She smelled gunpowder and felt hunger pains and fear. “Lord, I would like to pray for her right now. I’d like for You to guide her to You, to give to her what You have given to me; peace that passes all understanding, love beyond all measure, deep and abiding joy over anything else. Help her to trust You like she has never trusted another person. Teach her how to find in Your Word the direction she seeks, and answers to the questions that plague her.”

The memories that assaulted Maxine faded into the background and a mantle fell over her, as if someone had laid a blanket over her shoulders. She felt her hands tremble in Robin’s as a warmth flooded her body.

“If her love for Barry is what You would have, Lord, give her wisdom in how to handle the situation so that Barry returns to Your arms and they can worship You together. Thank You, God, for allowing us to come to You this way, for being our Father, for loving us so much. Thank You for the gift of your Son, and for our salvation. It is in Your Son’s holy and precious name that I pray, Amen.”

Sobs shook Maxine’s shoulders as she fell out of her chair and onto her knees at her sister’s feet. She lay her head in Robin’s lap, against her sister’s ample pregnant belly, and cried while Robin soothed her with hands running through her hair and her voice speaking calming, soothing words.