Out of the Blue Bouquet (Crossroads Collection)

by Amanda Tru

  His daughter—bright, vivacious, energetic, and so frustratingly stubborn Chelsea—was gone.

  Jolene felt like she should feel guilty for ignoring Garcia, but she didn’t. Was it normal to be this relieved after a breakup?

  Or was that just a sign of how bitter she’d become?

  After the divorce was finalized, she was distraught even though she’d been the one to finally call things off. She spent endless nights crying, begging God to change the past, trying to figure out what she could have done differently to make their marriage work.

  She’d been plagued with guilt. Stopped spending as much time with her friends from church. Couldn’t stand the thought of their gossip. Joseph’s affair wasn’t common knowledge, but it certainly wasn’t top-secret either. In a town like Orchard Grove, in a church as small as theirs, speculation is often taken for gospel truth.

  At first, she’d tried to justify it to everyone who’d listen.

  I’m divorced, but I did everything I could to make things work.

  My marriage is a failure, but I tried to get him to go with me to counseling.

  I left my husband, but I had a biblical reason.

  It was so different now. Now, when she could simply turn off her cell phone and ignore her pestering ex-boyfriend. Of course, she and Garcia didn’t have decades of history or the ghost of a dead daughter between them. She could forget him so much easier. Move on so much faster.

  The only problem was the loneliness, but she’d been on her own before. She’d get used to it again. Even when she was married, she and Joseph ran out of things to talk about years before the divorce. What was there for them to say?

  Remember the day you made our daughter nearly miss her senior prom because you got wasted and we had to pick you up at the station for driving under the influence?

  Or here’s a great one. How about when you showed up to her parent-teacher conferences in ninth grade dead drunk and two days late? That’s a story for the history books, isn’t it?

  Of course, when he wasn’t drinking, life wasn’t nearly so hard.

  Maybe even good.

  Remember when we took Chelsea to the Oregon Coast and she caught a cold, and we stayed inside for three straight days cuddling and watching movies?

  Remember that vacation to Disneyland when Chelsea was so little, and she was terrified of the man in the Mickey Mouse costume?

  Remember that cruise we saved up for, the little cabin where our daughter was conceived?

  Well, none of that mattered anymore anyway. Chelsea was gone. Joseph was gone, cut out of her life forever.

  And good riddance.

  Now Garcia was gone too. She really needed her sleep, but seeing Joseph had shot surges of adrenaline through her whole system. She couldn’t get her brain to relax no matter how exhausted her body felt.

  Stupid relationships.

  Stupid romance.

  Stupid men.

  How was she supposed to get some rest when so much anger surged through her body? Anger at Garcia for continuing to pester her when she’d made it clear they were through. Anger at her ex-husband for having the audacity to book a room so near hers in the same hanok. Anger at Mena for dragging her to Seoul in the first place. And for what? For the next couple days, Mena would make Jolene feel like they’d made this great connection, then after the wedding, she and her new husband would go off and forget about her entirely.

  The only reason she was in Korea was to assuage Mena’s guilty conscience. Mena, who had invited Chelsea to Seoul in the first place. Mena, who had taken her to that cursed tower. Mena, who had survived the accident while her daughter …

  Jolene knew she shouldn’t have come here. Like picking scabs off a nearly-healed wound.

  She stormed into the bathroom and turned the shower on to full heat. Then, dumping out every blasted item in her suitcase, she flung them around on the floor until she found her sweats, her pink slippers, and her mud facial cream.

  If she couldn’t get to sleep, she was at the very least going to give herself a proper pampering.

  “It can’t just be a coincidence.” Joseph paced the width of his room while he yelled into the phone at his recovery sponsor.

  Chuck was twelve years older than Joseph, a hundred pounds heavier, and several lifetimes wiser. “How did you feel when you saw her there?” That was his first question. Not did you think about getting something to drink after a shock like that? Not did you figure out how in the world you ended up at the same B&B? Not who’s the punk sending your wife an expensive bouquet of flowers from overseas?

  “I felt …” Joseph stopped himself before he rammed into the bedroom wall. He turned the other way and began marching in the opposite direction. “I felt …”

  “Some men would see those flowers and be jealous.” Chuck’s quiet observation invited a response, but Joseph had none to give.

  Jealous? Of some pipsqueak of a marriage counselor who had to woo his wife with gaudy floral arrangements to stand any chance with her? What was Jolene thinking? Didn’t she know she deserved better than that?

  Better than a man who would mess with her heart, whatever it was this jerk had done to his wife, and then have the audacity to bribe her with expensive gifts until she forgave him?

  Jolene was the best thing that had ever happened in his life, and she deserved so much better.

  Better than that idiot of a marriage counselor. Better than a lousy alcoholic who’d destroyed his life, who’d destroyed his family time after time again.

  Destroyed his wife.

  His wife …

  “It’s natural for you to still have feelings for her, you know.” True to form, Chuck was dishing out truths that were so stinking obvious there was no need to reply.

  “I’m not good enough for her.” With as many times as Joseph had said those words to himself, he would have thought they’d be easier to admit out loud.

  “You weren’t good enough for her,” Chuck corrected. “But you’re a changed man now, brother.”

  He slowed down his pacing. Those abrupt turns each time he nearly plowed into a wall were making him dizzy. “She won’t see it that way.”

  Chuck’s response was as simple as everything else he’d said so far. “So you gotta wait for her to see it.”

  These platitudes would work for a recovery sponsor who was telling a man to keep away from the liquor store. Not so helpful when you were dealing with issues as complicated as Joseph’s failed marriage.

  Or the depth of his remorse for the ways he’d hurt Jolene.

  Or how willing he’d be to do penance every single day of his life if it only meant a chance to make things right with her again.

  With her facial dried and caked onto her parched skin, a soothing eye mask blocking out the harsh overhead light, and her newly pedicured toes drying while she rested, Jolene leaned back and visualized peace and relaxation flowing into each and every part of her body. At some point tomorrow, Mena was taking her out for a three-hour trip to the spa. A hot tub for soaking, a sauna for relaxing, and a masseuse for spoiling each and every tight muscle and ligament in her body sounded like just the treatment she needed to melt her cares away.

  Or at least deaden her senses.

  She’d have to ask Mena how to block Garcia’s number on that app. Any issues with him would have to wait until she got home to Washington. There were far more pressing things for her to focus on now.

  Like the fact that her ex-husband was staying practically next door.

  She tried to remember how long it had been since they last spoke. Nearly all of her other divorced friends complained about the way their kids forced them into constant communication with their exes.

  That wasn’t a problem for her and Joseph.

  There had been a time when creating a family had been the most important of all of Jolene’s life goals. So many of her other friends were settling down, having babies. With each new pregnancy announcement she received, each new baby shower she attended
, she’d fought the disappointing realization that she was missing out.

  It was that miscarriage halfway through her first pregnancy that finally brought her back to the Lord. Back to the God she’d never outright rejected but certainly hadn’t paid much attention to during her carefree college years. Was God punishing her by taking away her child?

  As she mourned the loss of that precious baby boy, she realized that what she’d really been missing wasn’t a family of her own but a relationship with her Creator. The God who was big enough to shoulder all her burdens. Soothe over all her sorrows.

  And then he blessed her with a second pregnancy.

  They had still been so young, she and Joseph. Young and so happily in love.

  It was Joseph’s steadfast devotion that sustained her through her second pregnancy when the trauma of her previous miscarriage and the chaos of her raging hormones convinced her that she’d never be able to carry a healthy child to term. She still had a homemade video of Joseph cradling their newborn daughter in his arms, singing Brown Eyed Girl to their sweet and perfect Chelsea.

  She couldn’t have asked for a better father, at least not at the beginning. Joseph was doting. The way he’d babble to Chelsea, make up little nursery rhymes to whisper in her ear, the way he’d turn the stereo up and dance with her in his arms … Had Jolene ever realized how good she had it? Or had she been too busy changing diapers or turning herself into some kind of humanoid dairy cow to notice? To appreciate what was right in front of her eyes?

  Then came Joseph’s work promotions. The long days at the office. The weekends spent holed up in the den poring over paperwork. The good news was all that time alone, when it was just her and her daughter, gave Jolene the chance to fall in love with the heavenly Father she’d previously only known by name.

  But that spiritual growth came at its own cost.

  Like her dreams of a perfect marriage.

  All of a sudden, Joseph’s numerous shortcomings grew far more evident. The way he never prayed before meals or took any initiative in talking about spiritual matters. How he’d only go to church if Jolene made such a big fuss about it that everyone was grumpy, even the baby, by the time they arrived.

  Maybe she shouldn’t have pestered him the way she did. Back then, she’d thought she was encouraging her husband to do the things she knew he was supposed to be doing from the start, but all it did was tear them farther apart.

  As if work hadn’t done that enough.

  And then, of course, the drinking.

  Jolene was never going back to that kind of life. Which is why she never touched alcohol, even socially, and refused to let Garcia drink when they went out together. Not that it did anything to save their relationship.

  Cursed in love. That might explain it.

  Or maybe God was punishing her. Punishing her for loving her daughter so fiercely. How many times had she feared that she’d made Chelsea her idol? How many times had she asked God to forgive her because she couldn’t truly say that he was the most important part of her life?

  Is that why he’d taken her away? Had God murdered her daughter because Jolene was certain life would stop altogether without her?

  She had been right, now that she thought about it. Life had stopped five years ago. Stopped and never resumed.

  She was older now. With more gray in her roots. More wrinkles on her face. More heaviness in her heart, but she still hadn’t started living again.

  Meeting Garcia brought her closer than she’d been. There were times early on in their relationship that she thought she’d finally found true happiness, but those were all illusions. Illusions and wishful thinking.

  She let out her breath. It was time to wash her face mask off, but she was too tired and weighed down by all these memories. Sadness and regrets that sank into her bones one by one. Whatever masseuse she ended up with when Mena took her to the spa would have her work cut out for her.

  Tomorrow couldn’t come fast enough.

  Joseph stopped his pacing. Chuck had been right. Chuck was always right.

  He needed to tell her.

  Tell Jolene how he felt. Explain how he’d changed. It sounded so simple coming out of his sponsor’s mouth.

  Simple until he got off the phone with Chuck and realized how terrifying that kind of conversation would actually be.

  He resumed his march up and down the floorboards. If he kept his routine up much longer, he’d start the day off tomorrow with shin splints.

  It didn’t matter. Anything to get his mind off Jolene. Anything to get Chuck’s advice out of his head.

  Tell her? Tell her what?

  Hey, hon. Remember when I went behind your back and slept with the company intern for five months right after our daughter died? Yeah, good times, weren’t they?

  He could try to explain to her how he’d changed, but what reason would she have to believe him? Besides, she was in another relationship now—and why shouldn’t she be?—so what reason on earth could possibly compel her to take another chance on Joseph, the addict? Joseph, the deadbeat father, who was so stone-cold drunk he missed an entire decade of their daughter’s life.

  Joseph the adulterer who’d been more heartbroken when his mistress dumped him than he’d been over the fact that he’d ruined his relationship with his wife of twenty-five years.

  Joseph the alcoholic, the workaholic, the man who would be forever in recovery because his mind and body were both so sick he wouldn’t ever find true healing.

  That was the most depressing fact to face about his sobriety. He’d never stop being in recovery. He’d never stop wanting to drown his pain in liquor. He’d never escape the temptation.

  Day after day, decade after decade, he’d remain addicted to alcohol until his death.

  There’s some real optimism for you.

  And Jolene deserved so much more than that. As much as he hated the thought of another man in her life, he had to confront the truth.

  She needed someone to love. She’d wasted two and half decades already. He wasn’t going to ask her to take another chance on him.

  It wouldn’t be right.

  With newfound determination, he pulled out his phone and sent his office assistant a text. He was checking out of this B&B and spending the rest of his trip in a hotel.

  He couldn’t risk making Jolene’s life a nightmare again. Couldn’t risk running into her and letting his mouth spout off all the apologies he’d been storing up.

  Jolene didn’t need him hanging around like deadweight.

  For her own good.

  He had to let her go.

  Now that she’d taken off her eye mask, she couldn’t get that ostentatious flower arrangement out of her line of vision. What had Garcia been thinking, sending her flowers like that? Didn’t he know how badly geraniums would stink? Besides, their relationship was past the point of recovery. He was the one who messed around, and now he was expecting her to take him back?

  Did he think she was some love-struck rookie fresh out of high school?

  A college student whose infatuation clouded out her better judgment?

  Disgusting. There was no way she could relax as long as that bouquet was in her room. She threw on her shoes. It didn’t matter if it was still raining outside. What was it that Joseph always said? A little rain never hurt nobody. Nobody died from getting wet.

  There were at least a dozen or more homes in this little hanok. They had to keep a dumpster somewhere, right?

  Or maybe that had been wishful thinking, she realized after finding nothing outside. How could a city this size stay so clean without trash bins? She walked down another alleyway. Nope. Turning back toward her room, she heard someone opening a door. She kept her face buried behind the flowers. Thankfully Garcia had been feeling guilty enough that he purchased an impractically large arrangement. She wasn’t in the mood to interact with anybody.

  Especially not …

  “Jolene?”

  Not her ex. She peered out from behind th
e flowers, completely unprepared for his expression of surprise and then bemusement.

  “What’s so funny?” She hated the way she sounded so crabby. As if running into Joseph here in Seoul was anything to get riled up over. He was out of her life now. A splinter couldn’t hurt you anymore once you gouged it out.

  He meant nothing to her.

  So why was he trying to swallow down a laugh, and why did his expression irritate her so much?

  A drop of rain fell on her cheek. Why did her skin feel so scaly and dry?

  She nearly dropped the bouquet when she realized what she’d done. Had she seriously stepped foot outside her hanok with that mud caked onto her face? Had Joseph’s presence and Garcia’s stupid flowers gotten her so riled up she stopped thinking clearly?

  How could she not have noticed?

  She held the vase closer, doing her best not to gag from the overwhelming stench. What kind of florist would willingly throw these weeds into a bouquet? Sure, they looked nice until you had to try sharing a room with them without succumbing to the migraine of the century.

  “Where are you going with the flowers?” Thankfully, he didn’t make any comments about her appearance, but the jocular twinkle in his eye remained.

  Her ex-husband had always been an attractive man. Which was why he could easily have his choice of office interns, and did. Why was she still thinking about all this five years later? Why were such old wounds so close to the surface now? Maybe because of what she’d just gone through with Garcia.

  Yeah, that must be it.

  She’d cut Joseph out of her life like an infected appendix. Sure, their breakup had left its share of scars—what divorce wouldn’t? But they were scars that had years ago healed over. At least that’s what she’d thought.

  Until now …

  “You know, you’ve always looked great. You don’t need the beauty treatments.”

  She tried to stammer out some sort of reply but couldn’t make herself coherent.