Return to Me (14 page)

“Roxy Burke? Is that you?”

She looked up into a somewhat familiar face. The guy was blond, square-jawed, and broad-shouldered. Good-looking
⎯
and he knew it.

“You don’t remember me, do you?” “Sorry.”

He sat on the stool next to her. “Don Forsythe.” She drew a blank.

“Sixth-period English. Mrs. Brubaker’s class.”

Now she remembered. The football jock who’d dated the most popular cheerleaders throughout high school.

“We missed you at the ten-year class reunion.” He leaned toward her. “I heard you were in Nashville.”

“I was. Now I’m back.” She took another drink from her glass.

Go away. Just . . . go away.

“Are you alone?”

Oh, no. She knew both the question and that look. She’d fallen for them numerous times. First she fell for them. Then, more often than not, she fell into a bed too.

Her stomach churned. Bile stung her throat.

Look at her. Hadn’t she learned
anything
from those years in Nashville? Was she going to play the same games in Boise? Would she continue to drift, to live a life without purpose?

Roxy placed her fingertips on the base of her drink glass and slid it away. “I’ve gotta go.”

“Hey, don’t leave yet. I just found you.”

She gave her head a slow shake. “You haven’t
found
me, Don. I’m a single girl in a smoky bar, someone who was in high school with you fifteen years ago. Nothing more.”

“Well, I’d like to get to know you. Give me a chance. I’m not a bad sort.”

She stared at the liquid in the glass on the table, her fingers itching to draw it close again. One more sip. What could it hurt? A sip to wash away the sick taste in her mouth.

A sigh escaped her lips.

“Roxy, you look like you could use a friend.”

A friend. Was that what Don Forsythe wanted to be? She doubted it.

He slid his stool closer to hers. “What about it? Stay awhile. Let me buy you another.” He pointed toward her half-full glass.

“A friend,” she said.

Friendship was a good thing. A friend listened when you were down. A friend told you the truth, even the painful truth, when it was needed, but they did it with kindness, with love. A true friend was there when you called. Always.

Roxy frowned. “Did you know Moses was called a friend of God?”

“What?” Don’s handsome face crinkled.

“Do you think a person can be God’s friend?” In her mind she heard the old children’s song, telling her that Jesus loved her, this she could know. “Can we know Him? Does He know us?”

“Maybe you
have
had enough to drink.”

“Wyatt’s a friend of God.” She spoke to herself now, the man at her side forgotten.

She pictured Wyatt, an earnest expression on his face, his eyes bright, excited. He’d told her why he believed, how asking Jesus to take control of his life had changed everything.

She pictured her father, worn Bible open on his lap, reading words that he must know by heart but never tired of reading again. How often had she seen him like that? Too many times to count.

She pictured her sister, all those years ago, standing at the front of the church, pledging to remain chaste until marriage, doing so by choice and without reservation.

She pictured Grandma Ruth on her knees beside the bed, pray- ing for her son, her granddaughters, their church, their city, their country. Grandma Ruth prayed about everything.

She even remembered her elementary Sunday school teacher, standing in front of the class, week after week, reading a new verse they were to memorize. Roxy was good at memorizing.

“There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ

Jesus.”

It had been two decades, yet the words were still there. She’d forgotten them for a time, but now they were back.

“If you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your

heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”

Instead of trying to block out the words, she listened to them, welcomed them. Her heart slammed against the walls of her chest. Her skin tingled and her throat was tight.

“I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he

is born again.”

Martina McBride belted out “Independence Day” through the speakers. A woman laughed, the sound high-pitched, strained. Ice clinked in glasses filled with alcohol. Smoke filled the bar with a blue-tinged haze.

Roxy’s breathing slowed. A calm swept over her, encompassing her, enveloping her from head to toe.

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son . . .”

Was it possible?

“For God so loved the world . . .” You. I love you, Roxy.

A frisson traveled up her spine.

“That he gave his one and only Son . . .”

I came for you, Roxy. I went to the cross for you.

That voice. That wonderful, awesome, fearful voice.

Jesus.

For the first time, she didn’t try to run from it, to silence it.

Jesus, I hear You. I’m listening.

“That whoever believes in him shall not perish . . .”

How was it possible for a heart to be shattered and full of joy at the same time? She wanted to weep. She wanted to laugh.

Lord!

It was true. All of it. Jesus came for her. He died for her. She knew it beyond a shred of doubt. She knew it in the deepest, most secret place in her heart. Jesus died for her, but even more, He rose again. He lived again.

For her.

And He’d been waiting right here, in the Pale Rider bar, for her. Because He loved her and would pursue her anywhere
⎯
even into this smoky, lonely place
⎯
in order to bring her home.

All she had to do was open her eyes and her heart. And so she did.

R
OXY

August 1988

Butterflies swarmed in Roxy’s stomach as she waited backstage at the Boise Little Theater.

It was opening night of
Annie
. Actors and actresses dashed

about. Stagehands readied props and checked lighting while musi- cians warmed up in the orchestra pit. Beyond the curtains, the audience rustled pages of their programs, their voices rising and falling in waves.

Roxy had tried out for the part of Annie, but it went to a girl who’d been in several previous BLT productions. A good thing since she couldn’t remember a single line from any of the show’s tunes

despite weeks of rehearsals. Her throat felt dry and scratchy. Maybe she was coming down with a cold or the flu. Maybe she would open her mouth and nothing would come out but screeching.

“Roxy.”

She turned at the sound of her sister’s voice. When she saw Elena’s smile, all her fears vanished — just like that — and she remembered the words to her first song.

“You look great, Rox. Love your wig and that makeup.”

“The stuff’s so thick, my face feels like it’s gonna crack. It’s called greasepaint.”

Elena held up the small Kodak camera. “Dad asked me to get a few more pictures before the show starts.”

“He took a bunch before we left home.”

“He still wants more. You know how he is. You’ll have a whole scrapbook from the show before it’s done.” Elena held the camera up to her eye. “Come on. Give me some attitude.”

Roxy grinned as she posed with one hand behind her head and the other on her hip. Elena snapped a picture. In rapid succession, Roxy changed positions and expressions again and again; her sister kept snapping. The two of them giggled. Roxy loved it. She and Elena seemed to fight a lot these days. This was better. This was more like it used to be.

“What are you doing?” Mrs. Tanner, one of the show’s produc- ers, demanded in a stage whisper. She glared at Elena. “Only the actors are allowed backstage, Miss Burke. Return to your seat at once. The show is about to start.”

“Okay. I’m going.” Elena winked at Roxy. “Break a leg, kid. You’re gonna be terrific. You’re the best singer in the whole cast. See if the papers don’t say so in the morning.”

Roxy loved her big sister more in that moment than ever.

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F if teen

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!”

Lying in bed, her head propped with pillows, her knees bent, Roxy closed the Bible she’d taken from her father’s library late last night and hugged it to her chest. When she lifted her eyes, she was surprised to find the fingers of dawn reaching around the edges of the bedroom curtains. It was morning, and she hadn’t slept a wink.

She smiled. She wasn’t tired. Who could sleep at a time like this? There was so much she wanted to know, so much she wanted to understand.

Throughout the night, she’d remembered Bible verses, verses from her Sunday school memorization, verses spoken from the pul- pit, verses her father and sister used like a kind of code — or so she once thought. Now those Scripture verses had come back to her, and she’d stayed up, searching for them with the help of the index in the back of the Bible, reading them, seeing them come alive with new meaning.

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has

gone, the new has come!”

As of last night, Roxy was in Christ. She wasn’t quite sure how it happened or how she even knew it was true. There hadn’t been an altar call in that bar. She didn’t pray a sinner’s prayer, the type she’d heard when she was growing up, the type she’d been invited to pray at youth camps and in church services.

And yet, without a word spoken or an altar to kneel before, she had given herself to Jesus. He’d become her Savior. She’d accepted

His love. She was a new creation. She wasn’t the old Roxy. She wasn’t the things she’d done. The old was gone and the new had come. She felt like standing on her bed and jumping up and down like an eight-year-old who’s learned school was canceled for a snow day.

“Thank You.” She flopped her arms open wide on the bed. “Thank You. Thank You. Thank You.”

She tossed aside the sheet and comforter and got out of bed. She wanted to tell her father what happened to her. The desire to speak of it aloud was an urgent need, deep in her belly. And her father must be the first to know. He’d prayed for her without ceas- ing. Because the prayer of a righteous man — and that described her father — is powerful and effective, Jonathan Burke managed to pray his youngest daughter right into the Kingdom of God.

She grabbed her robe and left her bedroom. At this hour, she should have found him in his home gym, but he wasn’t there. She headed for the kitchen, and only when she saw that the coffeemaker had yet to switch on did she remember him mentioning an early- morning breakfast meeting with a man from church.

Quelling her disappointment, she returned to her bedroom to shower and dress. Her joyous secret would have to wait awhile.

She hoped she wouldn’t burst from holding it in.

=

Elena sat with her desk chair swiveled toward the office window, staring outside without seeing. Her eyes felt dry, and her body ached from lack of sleep. Worse still was the dull pain in her chest.

She’d been so sure Wyatt would call and apologize last night, but he didn’t. Was he
that
angry with her? Was he trying to wait her out, let her be the first to apologize?

I should apologize. I was awful to him.

She drew a deep breath and released it as she turned her chair toward her desk. Her gaze fell on the telephone, then rose to the clock on the wall. It wasn’t yet seven thirty. Too late in the morning to reach Wyatt at home, too early to call him at the office.

I’ ll wait until nine. If he hasn’t called me by then—

Someone rapped on her door. Another early bird. “Yes?”

The door opened, revealing Wyatt. Elena’s heart leapt at the sight of him.

“Good morning.” From behind his back, he pulled a bouquet of mixed flowers. “I’m sorry.” He offered them to her, along with a penitent smile. “Truce?”

She breathed her relief on a sigh, returned his smile, and stood. “Truce.”

“I didn’t mean to lose my temper.” “Me neither.”

He gathered her into his arms and kissed her on the lips. “I should’ve called to say I was sorry as soon as I got home.”

“I should have called you. Then I wouldn’t have felt miserable all night.”

“I’m sorry you had a bad night, Elena. Really sorry.” He kissed her again, his lips lingering upon hers. “But there was a good reason for me not calling right away. At least, I think so.”

“A good reason?”

“When I got home, Roxy was there.”

A chill cut through Elena. “What did she want?” “To talk.”

“About what?” She sank onto her chair, feeling brittle enough to break in two. There couldn’t be a good reason for Roxy going to see Wyatt.

He stepped to the window and looked at the street below. “About why I became a Christian.”

She suppressed a humorless laugh. “Why was she asking? So she could mock you? So she could mock us the way she always has?”

“No, she seemed to really want to know, to understand.” “I’ll bet.”

He frowned. “You need to cut her some slack. She’s hurting.” He paused a moment. “She needs your love. She needs
you
.”

If she needs me, why didn’t she come to me? Why did she go to you?
Had someone turned down the thermostat? Why was she suddenly freezing?
And why can’t you see through her the way I do?

=

Struggling to concentrate on the open policy manual, Roxy waited for the call from her father’s secretary. The words floated on the page, disjointed and nonsensical. How could she think about busi- ness rules and regulations when she could consider the wonders of God instead?

A little before 9:00
A
.
M
., the door to her office opened and her dad poked his head through the opening. “Morning, honey.” He stepped into the room. “Lindy said you wanted to see me.”

Roxy nodded, her mouth gone dry.

Her father must have seen something in her expression, some- thing that said this wouldn’t be a casual visit with his daughter. “What is it?”