Redemption (17 page)

She watched him until he disappeared behind his family’s front door, too stunned to move. Had that actually happened? Had Ryan Taylor leaned over and kissed her in the light of the summer moon?

Kari nearly danced home from Ryan’s house that night, thinking where things might go in the future now that he’d made his feelings known. His kiss confirmed everything she’d wondered about since summer started. They were best friends, but the attraction was there for both of them.

That night when her mother came into her room and sat on the edge of her bed, Kari told her what had happened. “I think I’ve loved him since that day we went to dinner at his house.”

Her mother looked so beautiful; Kari hoped she could be half as beautiful when she was a grown woman. “I know how that feels, sweetheart.” She angled her head as if there were many things she’d like to say. After a pause she ventured, “You know how we’ve always prayed about the man you’ll marry?”

Kari nodded. “Ever since I was a little girl.”

Her mother’s lips parted, and she hesitated a moment. “Honey, you know we like Ryan a lot. But he doesn’t share the same beliefs as you.”

A rush of peace came over Kari. If that’s all it was, then she had nothing to worry about. “He hasn’t missed youth group all summer.”

Her mother raised her eyebrows. “I think we both know why Ryan goes to youth group. It’s not because he believes, Kari.”

She sighed, frustrated. “It’s not like he
doesn’t
believe. Anyway, he will one day, Mom, I know it.”

“Okay.” Her mother smiled doubtfully and took Kari’s hand. “But until then, be careful with your heart, honey.”

For the next ten minutes her mother tried to explain the reasons God wanted a couple to share common beliefs. But for a fifteen-year-old girl living every moment through the filter of a three-year-old crush that was finally coming to fruition, it was difficult to grasp.

Not that it really mattered. She still couldn’t date until she turned sixteen. When school started that fall, she had no choice but to go the entire year without anything even remotely resembling a date. She complained about the rule, but she was secretly glad for it. She knew Josh still liked her, but he was too shy, too quiet for her. And her heart already belonged to the boy three doors down.

Ryan’s senior year was a busy one for all of them, but it was especially so for Ryan. He had sprouted to six feet three inches and weighed just over two hundred pounds. He was good in the classroom and brilliant on the football field. Major universities contacted him daily until he made his decision: He would go to the University of Oklahoma in Norman on a full football scholarship.

A month after his graduation, Kari turned sixteen. It was a day she would remember as long as she lived.

That Thursday morning Kari’s father was already at the office seeing patients when she heard the doorbell ring. Glancing in the mirror and tousling her hair, she ran downstairs. Probably one of her sisters’ friends, she figured. But as she opened the door, her mouth dropped.

Ryan stood on the porch holding sixteen long-stemmed red roses. Kari covered her mouth with one hand, her eyes wide. All she could think was,
He remembered. He actually remembered.

Ryan’s eyes twinkled, and he grinned at her. “Happy birthday.”

She took the roses from him and stood there, too shocked to speak.

“So that’s what I have to do to get you to be quiet. Bring you roses on your birthday.” He touched her cheek with his fingertips. “Come on, Kari girl, do you like them or not?”

Kari looked from the flowers to Ryan and back again. “They’re . . . they’re beautiful.” She knew that red roses meant something different from, say, yellow roses. But she had no idea if Ryan understood the meaning. She looked up and searched his eyes. “Why did you . . . ?”

Her question trailed off, and Ryan took a step closer. “Will you go out with me tomorrow night, Kari? Please?”

And with that question all Kari’s hopes and dreams seemed instantly fulfilled. Of course he’d go to church with her one day. He went to youth group, after all; he’d kept going even through his busy senior year. He was bound to become a believer eventually. Why wouldn’t he? What was there not to believe?

Her parents agreed to the date, but not without warning her. “I trust Ryan,” her mother said. “I like him a lot. Just remember, he’s two years older than you.”

The date was unforgettable. Ryan held her hand and bought her popcorn, and after the movies they went to Lake Monroe and walked out on the pier, skipping rocks and watching the way the ripples grew in the light of the stars. It was wonderful, all the comfort of being with a best buddy along with the excitement of finally knowing for sure that he didn’t see her as “just a friend.”

All night she wondered if he was going to kiss her. She wondered how it would take place and when it would happen and how she would respond. Her head was so filled with images of what it would be like—her first kiss, with the boy she really loved—that she almost didn’t notice how quiet he had grown as the night progressed.

But when they pulled up in front of her house, Ryan cleared his throat and removed his baseball cap. “I’m not going to kiss you, Kari. I can’t.”

In that instant everything good about the night came to a sudden, grinding halt.

“What?”

“You’ve been my friend through the best years of my life.” She noticed he was trembling, and she couldn’t understand why. Why was he telling her this now?

He must have read the bewildered look in her eyes because the muscles in his jaw flexed, and he gripped the steering wheel, his arms locked into position, his gaze straight ahead. “Look, I’m leaving for college soon. Training starts early.” He looked at her over his shoulder. “And you’re . . . you’re too young. Where could it possibly go?”

The lump in Kari’s throat kept her from speaking. After that, their good night was hurried, and Kari said little to her parents before turning in and crying herself to sleep. Why the roses? Why the date, after all . . . ? Kari couldn’t come up with any answers for herself. And she couldn’t ask Ryan—couldn’t even bring herself to face him.

He called a few times, but she wouldn’t talk to him, and she dropped her eyes to avoid her mother’s questioning gaze. She stayed inside when she thought he was likely to be in the yard, and she made a point of spending her time where she thought he wouldn’t be. Her efforts just made everything worse because she desperately missed his company, missed their times at the lake, missed talking with him in the evenings under the stars. That was the worst part—not only did he not want to be her boyfriend, but she also felt uncomfortable around him. And that meant he couldn’t be her friend either.

Three weeks later, Ryan knocked on the door. This time her mother insisted she talk to him. He was standing in the front room as Kari came down the stairs, his hands shoved deep in his pockets.

Kari looked at him, and it was as if she were seeing him for the first time. He had the kind of looks that were bound to stop college girls in their tracks. No wonder he didn’t want to kiss her. He was right. What was the point, if he was busy dating college women?

“My folks have the truck packed.” He looked at her the way he’d always done, holding her eyes and seeming to see straight into her soul. When she didn’t say anything, he kicked at her foot. “Kari, look, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean . . .”

Kari nodded but couldn’t find her voice. Again, the lump in her throat was too big. She wanted to shout at him, tell him he shouldn’t have asked her out in the first place, shouldn’t have made her think he cared for her that way and then crushed her when the night was over. This good-bye was something they’d known was coming, even a year earlier. It was supposed to be a time when they wrote letters and kept in touch, but now everything felt different.

She swallowed back her tears and lifted her chin. “Good luck. You’ll do great at Oklahoma.”

Ryan sighed and shifted his position. For a moment she thought he might lean forward and kiss her on the cheek again—the way he’d done that summer when she was fifteen. Instead, he lifted his shoulders once and cocked his head. “See you around, Kari.”

The pain of that summer morning felt almost as raw today as it had all those years ago. Ryan had been right, of course—she had been too young. Nothing good or lasting could ever have come from a relationship they might have started that summer.

Still, it had been weeks before she went a day without thinking of Ryan Taylor. Months even. Kari felt the memory fading now and knew there was much more to the story—the best part, really. But either way, she knew that a piece of her—the young-girl part that a woman carries with her—would always think of him that way. Would always remember him standing in her front room and telling her good-bye for what felt like the last time ever.

Kari blinked back the memory and sat up on the bed. Why was she lying here reliving her past with Ryan when she needed to be thinking about her future with Tim? When she moved to get up, her hands fell on the directions for the pregnancy test. She stared at them and steeled her resolve. She couldn’t wait another minute. She had to know, had to take it and find out for herself. If there was any doubt, she could always do another one later. But right now she had to do something.

She hurried to the bathroom, locked the door, and performed the necessary steps. It was easier than she remembered from the last time she’d been this late, and when she was done she set the test stick on the bathroom counter.

One minute for early results, three minutes for a conclusive answer. She waited a full three minutes, then reached for the stick and brought it close, purposefully avoiding the test result window. If she was pregnant, then there was no doubt that somehow, someway, she and Tim would one day work things out. God wouldn’t have let it happen otherwise.

If not . . .

Thoughts of Ryan crowded about in her mind again, and she ordered them silent.
I’m sorry, Lord. . . . Help me not to think that way. Help me know what your perfect will is for me because that’s all I want. I love Tim, really, Father. Keep my mind from wandering where it shouldn’t.

Without waiting another moment, she focused her eyes, and there it was, clear as day. Two plus signs, side by side.

She was pregnant, carrying Tim’s child.

Surely that was a sign. Surely, somehow, she and Tim would get back together. They would get counseling and whatever help they needed, and they’d fall in love again.

Her only hope was that it would happen fast.

First, because she had a limited time to make things work with Tim before the baby came.

And second, because now that she and Ryan Taylor had connected, it would take another miracle to keep them apart again.

Chapter Twelve

Tim Jacobs was lying in Angela’s bed, switching channels on her television set, when he came to a talking-head shot. A conservative-looking man in his early fifties appeared to be holding a book, and Tim squinted in the darkness to make it out. He’d gone through most of a bottle of wine in the past two hours, and he had to work to make sense of the imagery on the screen.

Angela was down on her exercise mat beside the bed doing stretches. She looked up, annoyed. “Hey, c’mon, change the channel. I can’t stand those TV preachers.”

But for some reason, Tim couldn’t bring himself to turn it. The preacher man—if he was a preacher—wasn’t one of those big-hair types. His eyes had a look of compassion and . . . something else. Urgency, maybe.

Tim let the remote fall to his side. “I was gonna be a preacher once.” His words slurred together, and his eyes struggled to focus. “Gonna tell the worl’ about Jesus.”

Angela sat up and stared at him, her eyes mocking him as a single burst of laughter broke through her pursed lips. “You? A preacher?”

Something in her tone irritated Tim, set his teeth on edge and brought his pain close to the surface. He reached for the wine bottle and poured himself another glass. Some of the liquid sloshed onto the bed, and Angela grimaced. “Hey, babe, you’ve really got to back off on the wine. A little bit’s good for you—not this much.”

Her words were measured and in control. Though she drank with him now and then, she did not share his urgency for alcohol, an urgency that seemed to grow with each passing day. She had even tried to limit his drinking in ways he found profoundly annoying. Who did she think she was, anyway? His drinking wasn’t a dependency or an illness like Uncle Frank’s problem. It was a life preserver. Every drink did a bit more to keep thoughts of Kari from suffocating him.

Tim looked around the room. The walls seemed to be closing in on them. Angela’s bedroom had always been small, especially with her exercise equipment in the corner. Now it was getting claustrophobic. He downed half the glass in a single, practiced gulp and shook his head, trying to clear his vision.

He hated the way his words ran together when he drank, hated the nausea and headaches and the way his body demanded more whenever the effects of the drink wore off. As a way of proving to himself that he was in control, he’d kept his drinking down to three or four nights a week and an occasional swig from the flask in his desk drawer at work.