“Why couldn’t my own PI find out anything? I wonder if she was with her parents all this time. He would’ve known if she and Ricky were there, no matter what names they were going by. Ricky has my last name but she could’ve changed that, too. Just the same, her parents’ place would’ve been the first place he looked.”
The way he was rambling on made it hard to keep up with what he was saying. Reaching out, she took his hand. “Maybe this is the answer to your prayers.”
He said nothing.
“If that call hadn’t been important, it would never have come through. There’s never been reception up here, John. God had to allow it to happen.”
He kept walking.
“John?”
He didn’t answer.
“What if Sheila comes with her father?”
He swallowed. “I – guess I’ll deal with that if it happens.”
“You can’t let the fear of what may or may not happen rob you of your joy. You can rise above the fear that Satan throws on you, John. I lived with it almost all my life and it was the most blissful feeling when God finally enabled me to let it go. That’s what you need to do. Give it to God.”
“I need to go home and pray.”
“What better place to talk to God than right where you are, in the wide open spaces He created? I’ll leave you, unless you want me to stay and pray with you.”
When he met her eyes, his were filled with astonishment. “You’d do that, pray with me, right here?”
Without answering, she tugged at his hand and they fell down on their knees together in the soft warm grass that was just starting to turn into its lovely spring green color.
God watched. And listened. And smiled.
∞ TWENTY-FOUR ∞
SATURDAY MORNING. Taryn pranced the floor until Sharris, sitting on the sofa across from her, said she was making her dizzy and told her to stop.
“This is all crazy, you know,” her sister said when Taryn sat down beside her. “You need to forget the idea that you’re so much in love with John and let him go. Everything you find out about him is worse than what you knew before. Now he has an eight year old son that he never even told his family about. That doesn’t do a thing but make me suspicious about what other secrets he might be keeping. His life before coming here may have been a total mess that he’ll never get out of, and you might wind up finding yourself right in the middle of it.”
“I believe in him.”
“You’re gullible.”
Taryn said nothing.
“So what if he gets the boy back? What if he’s been through so much trauma that he’s uncontrollable? Does John expect you to be a mother to him? Maybe that’s it. He just needs a mother for his son and you’re convenient.”
Without a thought, Taryn reached out and slapped her sister’s face.
Both sets of eyes widened.
“Oh, Sharris, I’m sorry……” Never in her life had Taryn struck either of her sisters.
Sharris stood up. “I just hope that’s the worst of your sorries. I love you, and I don’t want you hurt. Think about it. Pray a whole lot about it. Please.” She left the room.
Taryn couldn’t hold back her tears. Her nerves were on edge. Had John received the call yet? How could she have slapped her sister? She knew Sharris only said what she did because she was concerned about her. Wouldn’t she feel the same way about her if she was sure she was making a grave mistake that could affect the rest of her life?
Was it a mistake to have such a deep trust in John? The answer to the question of her mind was immediate and adamant. No, it wasn’t. You could not love someone without trusting him, and she loved him.
When the doorbell rang, she ran to answer. It had to be him.
“He just called. He wants me to meet him at the motel lobby where he’s staying in an hour. Taryn, please come with me.”
She hesitated, even though she knew what her answer would be. She didn’t even have to think about it. “Are you sure you want me to?”
“I want you to.” He pulled her close to him with his good arm. “I need you.”
Holding him, she could feel his body trembling.
As they stood there, she heard her sister entering the living room, pause for a moment and then leave again quickly. Sharris had seen them, but Taryn didn’t care. If it were possible, she would have stood there in John’s arms for the rest of her life, if everybody in the world was looking at them.
“Do you have some coffee?” he whispered in her ear.
Pulling away, she couldn’t keep from smiling at him. “I think we could both use some.” She reached for his hand and they walked together toward the kitchen.
“I’m sorry,” he said softly as he sat down at the table while she poured the coffee. “I must seem like a real ninny to you. I know I do, because I feel like one to myself. I don’t know when I’ve been so nervous about anything.”
As soon as she’d placed his cup in front of him, she leaned over and kissed his forehead. It seemed like the most natural thing in the world to do. Then she sat down across from him.
“I wish I’d met you before I screwed up my life so badly,” he said.
“We can’t undo what we’ve done in the past. All we can do is learn from our mistakes and try to do better in the future.”
“I’m afraid my son will hate me when he sees me again. What if he doesn’t want anything to do with me? What if he’s sure I ran off and left him because I didn’t love him? I’m scared.”
“If any of those things turn out to be true, we’ll love him so much that he’ll forget all his fears.”
He smiled. “Did you hear what you just said?”
Her eyes narrowed.
“You said we’ll love him.”
“And I meant it. I already love him. He’s a part of you, John. How could I not love him?”
He took a sip of coffee, saying nothing.
“Did Mr. Cantrell tell you anything else?”
“He won’t say a word until he sees me face to face. That’s his words. He won’t even tell me if Ricky’s with him. I just have to wait and it’s killing me.”
“But this way we’ll find out everything together.”
“I like the sounds of that. I wish I could promise you it’ll always be that way with us, but…..”
“No one can make that promise, but it isn’t going to stop me from dreaming about it.”
“So you’re a dreamer?” He grinned.
“Most definitely.”
He looked at his watch. “Maybe we should leave. I know it’s only a ten minute drive to Murphy, but maybe he won’t mind if I’m early. Maybe it’ll be a point in my favor.”
“The only favor you need is through the eyes of God, and right now, I think He’s very proud of you. If you didn’t care so much about your son, you wouldn’t be so nervous and afraid.” She stood up.
He did the same and reached for her hand. “Taryn?”
She met his eyes.
“If he tells you things – bad things – about me…..”
“I’ll tell him that, after he finishes talking, I’d like to tell him all the good things about you.”
He smiled. “I don’t believe you.”
“The only thing you have to believe is that I love you.”
“Enough to marry me?”
Her eyes widened and her heart jumped with both alarm and surprise. “Please don’t joke about something like that.”
“I’m not joking. Believe it or not, I imagined us as a couple the first time I met you. But I couldn’t let my feelings show because I didn’t want to drag you into my messed up past. Then you said you loved me. I couldn’t believe I could be so lucky. But then I remembered that whoever I pledge my heart and life to must be willing to take my son, too.”
She put her arms around him. “How many times do I have to tell you I already love your son? I love children, John. I always have, and I will have no trouble at all being a mother to him.”
“Then you’re saying you’ll marry me?”
“Are you serious?”
“I’m serious. I love you.”
She hugged him tightly, but couldn’t say a word for the happy tears choking her.
“I hope that’s a yes,” he whispered. “But more than that, I hope it doesn’t turn into a ‘no’ after this meeting. We better go now.”
THEY WALKED INTO the motel lobby, having no idea what to expect or who they were looking for. At first, it appeared to be empty. Then they saw him, motioning to them from a far corner of the room.
John couldn’t help but stare. He never expected an elderly man leaning heavily on a cane. In his mind, he’d pictured a big fellow, maybe the age of his father, robust and strong with a head full of dark hair. He took one quick look at Taryn, who merely smiled. Whatever she might be thinking was lost to him.
“John Winston?” the man asked when they met in the middle of the room.
“Matthew Cantrell?”
“Matt will do. Come, let’s sit down.” The old man led him back to the far corner and sat down slowly, as if the effort was almost too much for him. “As you can see, I don’t get around too good anymore, but just the same, I’ve been blessed.”
John and Taryn sat down, one on either side of him. “This is Taryn Cord,” John said quickly. “She’s my fiancée.”
The word was totally new and unexpected and caused a shiver to run through her. He really had meant it when he’d proposed! “Hello, Mr. Cantrell.”
“Taryn. And you can call me Matt as well. Mister is what they call old folks, and as you can see, I’m definitely not old.” He chuckled.
His light-hearted humor quickly relaxed them.
“Is your wife here?” John asked. Even though he knew he was beating around the bush, putting off the inevitable question as to whether Sheila was there, he waited for an answer.
“Evie passed away recently. And to answer your unspoken question, no, Sheila is not with me.”
He couldn’t help being relieved. “You have to know how curious I am. I’ve been looking for my son for a year. I even hired a private investigator, with no success.”
“Too bad you didn’t have the PI that I used. Thomas Mott. He knows his job and he’s good at it. He found you after only a few weeks, all the way from California to here.”
“Why was he looking for me?”
“Because it’s what I hired him to do. If you’ll be so kind as to listen to what I have to say, all your questions will be answered.”
John waited, wishing Taryn were sitting closer so he could hold her hand. There was something about her touch that was reassuring and he needed a lot of it at the moment.
“Sheila came home after she left you. One reason was that she had no place else to go. The other was that she had become a Christian and wanted to ask for her mother and my forgiveness for the way she’d been acting.”"
John swallowed. Sheila had been converted and he hadn’t even known it. Guilt surged through him.
“Evie and me took care of them. We loved our daughter, John. No matter how she’d hurt us, we still loved her. And in the time she was with us, we’ve never been prouder of her.”
John said nothing.
“She wanted to do something special to try to right the wrongs of her past. Seven months ago, she decided to go on a mission trip with the church. She would only be gone for six weeks. She was so excited about it.” Stopping a moment, he wiped a tear from the corner of his eye. “Shortly after she left, Evie suffered a massive heart attack. I was devastated. Sheila arranged to come back early for her mother’s funeral, but……”
John looked at Taryn. It was if they could read each other’s minds. Something had happened to Sheila on the way home.
“The plane crashed. Nearly everyone aboard was killed.”
Sheila was dead. “Matt, I’m sorry,” was all John could say. He’d never loved Sheila and they had fought more than they’d gotten along, but he’d never wanted something like that to happen to her.
A long silence ensued, before the old man took a deep breath and spoke again. “I had to bury them both, and now there was no one there but me to take care of…..”
“Ricky is my responsibility,” John cut in. “If only I’d known! I’d have been there to get him.”
“Please let me finish. Sheila told me before she left that if anything happened to her………none of us thought anything would. Everyone says things like that. But if anything should, she insisted, she wanted me to find you. She said she knew you loved Ricky and if she’d had any choice, she wouldn’t have taken him away from you. She wanted me to find you and find out if you had ever straightened up your act. If you hadn’t, she made arrangements with an aunt…….I’m getting ahead of myself. If you’d changed and would be able to…..”
When the old man started choking with emotion, John put his hand on his arm gently. “She wanted me to have my son but only if she knew I would raise him the right way. Otherwise, she was going to let her aunt have him. That’s what you’re saying, isn’t it?”
“Mostly.”
“Mostly?”
John waited but when Matt remained silent, he spoke again. “Why couldn’t I find him?”
“Maybe the Lord didn’t want you to find him yet. Maybe He was like Sheila and wanted to be sure you could handle the situation first.”
John’s eyes flashed. “I don’t believe that. God knows I’ve been off drugs and haven’t drank a drop for over two years now. I was clean a long time before I became a Christian. He knew I wanted my son and He knew I’d take care of him. It was Sheila who didn’t want me to have him. Maybe you, too? Did you purposely hide him?”
“Did you hear what I said a minute ago, that ‘nearly’ everyone on the plane was killed? There were three people that survived – the copilot, a male passenger – and – Ricky.”
“Ricky! My son was with her?”
“He wanted to go so badly. She finally gave in and took him.”
John said nothing. His emotions were raging too strongly for him to speak.
For the first time, Taryn spoke. “I’m sorry about your daughter, Matt, but I’m so thankful that Ricky was spared. You have to know how much John wants to see him. Is he here with you?”
Matt shook his head. “He’s in the room.”
John jumped to his feet. “Which room?”
“Wait, John. You don’t know everything yet.”
John stood very still.
“What I am going to say next is going to be a total surprise……”
‘You’re going to find your little boy, but you’re also going to get a surprise’. Ottie’s words filled his mind. When he looked at Taryn and saw the expression on her face, he knew she was thinking the same thing. “What do you mean?”
“When Sheila left you, she was pregnant.”
John sat down. If he hadn’t, he was afraid he would’ve fallen down anyway. “No.”
Taryn’s eyes were as wide as saucers.
“She didn’t know it yet. She found out after she got home. Your daughter was born seven months later. She’s a year and a half now.”
A silence as hollow as death filled the space surrounding them. John couldn’t raise his eyes from the floor he was staring at, even though he felt Taryn’s eyes on him, begging him to look at her. What must she be thinking? This would certainly change her idea about marrying him. She might be willing to take on one child to raise but he could never expect her to take two.
“What’s her name?” Taryn finally asked.
“Sheila named her Evie, after her mother.”
John still didn’t speak. Never in a million years had he expected anything like this. He loved his son. He’d known him since he was born, but he’d never even seen his daughter. He didn’t even know he had one. Finally, he said very softly. “What if she isn’t mine?”
Matt smiled. “It’s understandable that you might think like that. First of all, she looks just like you, John, bu
t I know there are lots of little dark-haired, dark-eyed children in the world. I’ll willingly pay for you to have a paternity test.”
He didn’t think it would be necessary. Sheila had done a lot of things he didn’t like, but before she left him, she had been drug free and she’d been faithful.
Matt spoke again. “I can’t take care of them, John. Look at me. I can barely care for myself and I’ll probably eventually wind up in a nursing home. When Thomas told me what a great person you were, how everyone he talked to thought highly of you….and especially when a certain young lady told him you were going into the ministry….”
Taryn swallowed. That young lady had been her.
“….I knew I couldn’t keep your children from you any longer, and it saddened me to know that I’d done it as long as I had.” Matt paused a moment. “A friend of mine made this trip with me, to help me out. Ricky’s great with Evie, but he’s still just a young boy and doesn’t need all the responsibility put on him.”
John stood up, walked a short piece away and then returned quickly.
Taryn stood up as well, went to him and put her hand on his arm. “We need to see them, John.”
He looked directly into her eyes. “I didn’t know, Taryn. I swear, I had no idea.”
She smiled. “Evie needs your love every bit as much as Ricky does.”
He pulled away from her, walked to the window and stood looking outside for what seemed like forever. Finally, he returned and looked at Matt. “Does Ricky remember me?”
“He does, and he misses you. He talks a lot about the time you went on a boat ride.”
John smiled, remembering, but sobered immediately. “What about – Evie?”
“Sheila told Ricky that you were Evie’s daddy, too, but she’s too little to understand. I’m the only father figure she’s ever had.”
“She’ll miss you a lot.”
“I won’t be here much longer anyway. It’s better if she gets used to it now.”
“What do you mean, you won’t be here much longer?” Taryn wanted to know.
“What I said about the nursing home - it’s not quite true. I won’t be going anywhere but to heaven. I have cancer.”
A pang of compassionate sorrow ran through Taryn’s heart. Everything was coming together. Matt had searched for John because he was dying and wanted to be sure the children were cared for. Whether or not Sheila had actually asked him to find John if anything happened to her might remain a mystery. What she knew for sure was that this old gentleman sitting there in the chair, leaning on his cane, loved his grandchildren and was willingly giving them up because of that love.
Above the Fear Page 14