To Bring You Back

by Emily Conrad

  His forehead knotted. “But you said he doesn’t believe the tabloids, so why the speech about me not being qualified to lead worship?”

  Oh. So Gannon had been offended by that comment, not convicted by the devotional as she had been. She gripped her hands together, hanging tight through the disappointment and embarrassment. “He probably wanted the kids to pay attention to God, not you.”

  “They were paying attention to me, regardless.”

  She nodded and shrugged.

  Gannon watched as if he knew he’d lost her somewhere along the line.

  Maybe she should just face it. The embarrassment, the vulnerability. Why carry her burning conscience any longer? If she didn’t deal with this, she’d never fully enjoy time with Gannon, even if their attraction was mutual. “I don’t think Drew was trying to give either of us a hard time, but passages like what he talked about tonight always leave me feeling unsettled.”

  “Why?”

  He didn’t know? Looking for something to focus on other than him, her gaze landed on the guitar case across the room. Drew must’ve forgotten it.

  “The way I understand it,” he said, “that passage is about ongoing sin, and you told me you haven’t had any relationships.” His eyebrows lifted as if to ask if he was correct.

  “True.” And in more than the way he meant. She hadn’t slept with anyone, and she hadn’t had true friendships either. Only recently had she started talking with Tegan.

  “So this unsettled feeling is because what we did nine years ago is still separating you from God.”

  Tears jumped to her eyes, but she shook her head. “That seems like a strong way to put it.”

  Gannon pressed his elbows on his knees and massaged his thumbs against his temples. She blinked and blinked, but the tears wouldn’t evaporate. He and her emotions were taking this so much more seriously than she’d intended. Why couldn’t this not be a big deal? Why did she have to be on the verge of crying? When she’d found him in her living room tonight, she’d wanted this evening to go so very differently.

  Gannon cleared his throat, then brushed her wrist, bringing to life every nerve within three inches of his touch. “I’ve made a big assumption.”

  “What?”

  “I assumed you thought you were right with God.”

  “I am. I just …”

  His hand covered hers. “You’re not, Addie, and I think you know it. That passage is about who gets to be with God eternally and who doesn’t. If it leaves you unsettled, you must feel some degree of separation that even you sense is a problem.”

  The burning in her throat ate her oxygen. She struggled for calm breaths, clenching her fingers into a fist under Gannon’s hand.

  “Tell me the story.” He pressed his thumb gently against the side of her fist until she held his hand instead of digging her fingernails into her own palm. “What happened between you and God after that night?”

  She didn’t want to get into this, but Gannon wouldn’t give this up. She’d already said enough to ruin their night. She might as well confess all.

  “I avoided church. I told my parents I was sick. The next week, I said I was going to a service with a friend, but I went to a park instead.” A park on the small lake that bordered their hometown. She’d stared at the other shore and wished she could move to get away from her mistakes, her messed up life. Maybe all those hours spent gazing at the water had been the reason she’d chosen Lakeshore when she finally relocated. “I did that for months. I felt like a complete failure. A fraud.”

  He flinched, and his hand felt heavier around hers. “And when Fitz died?”

  “I switched. I’d been playing bass up until then, but when he died, the bass went in a closet, and I went back to church. Just to be there. To do what God wanted.”

  “You didn’t think He’d want you to play anymore?”

  “He wanted me there—at church. He wanted me to be a better person. But He wouldn’t want praise from someone like me, and I had no right to ask Him for anything.”

  Gannon waited, and the last confession burned its way out.

  “I stopped praying too.”

  “You still don’t?”

  “Except when I was up on that ladder.” She laughed.

  Pathetic.

  His smile wilted as soon as it rose. “The only time in years?”

  “Why would He want to hear from me? Because I know it’s not so much about one sin or another, but what if my heart isn’t in the right place? Can we ever be repentant enough or loyal enough to God?”

  “No, I don’t think so.”

  She’d expected him to say yes, to tell her she just had to believe. At his unexpected answer, her fingers tightened around his.

  Another smile flickered, his gaze on their hands, before his expression sobered again. “I don’t think our hearts can be right on their own, but we can follow David’s example and ask God to create clean hearts in us. He can do for us what we can’t do for ourselves.”

  “That seems like a lot to ask.”

  “Asking is the only way. And He’s happy to rescue us.”

  She nodded, though she hadn’t thought of God as happy in ages and still couldn’t picture it.

  Gannon rubbed his forehead, and she glimpsed the Hebrew script. He’d said it essentially meant, Forgive me, and I’ll sing your praises. A fitting verse for a lead singer, and a prayer God had obviously answered. But would He answer a prayer from her? She didn’t deserve it. She couldn’t offer anything comparable to the huge platform Gannon had.

  She ran her finger over one of the symbols and then checked his face again. Did her touch do to him what his had to her? If so, the timing probably wasn’t appropriate.

  But he stared at the tattoo too. “The clean heart passage and this one are both in the same psalm. Psalm 51. David wrote it after having Uriah killed to cover up what he’d done with Bathsheba.”

  “Oh.” Shock lifted her hand.

  When he’d told her the reference of the verse at the wayside, she hadn’t bothered to look it up.

  “Remembering how God restored David was the only way I could live with myself after Fitz died.”

  She slid her hand back over the symbols, maybe to absorb their truth. They were a link across the ages to someone who’d found hope in a situation similar to the one that had been drowning her for years. And it didn’t hurt that the inscription was on Gannon’s forearm.

  “Addie, I’m sorry.”

  She lifted her gaze. His pained expression startled the tears from her eyes.

  “I had no idea what I was doing to your faith that night.”

  “I made my own decisions. I think there was a fault in my faith all along.”

  “Whatever fault was or wasn’t there wouldn’t have turned into what you’re experiencing now if not for me. To know what I did cost you so many years of peace …” He shook his head. “You said you were ready to live with the living. How can I help you do that?” The plea in his expression told her that she could ask anything.

  Like a piccolo straying from the score, the idea to ask for a kiss screeched through her mind, but she quickly quieted it. Hormones had gotten her into this mess.

  “You already have.” Who else could she have had this conversation with? Drew had knowledge and faith, and Tegan could listen, but only Gannon had walked the same road she had.

  He withdrew his arm and stood. Bruce lifted his head, watching, as Gannon crossed the room and kneeled before the guitar case. The latches snapped up, and he lifted the instrument.

  Her pulse roared. “It’s been a long time since I’ve heard you play in person.”

  “Just don’t tell Drew.”

  “He’s not a bad guy. He probably honestly didn’t want the kids distracted.” The words tumbled out, nervous chatter. She closed her mouth lest something else pop out—something about the mosh pit of excitement that had broken out in her when he’d picked up the guitar.

  “There’s no way they weren’t distr
acted.” He returned to the couch and pulled the guitar close. “When I’m in a room with another human being, my job is in play. There are very few exceptions. John, my mom, and you.”

  “I make the shortlist?”

  He already held a pick, though she hadn’t noticed him find one. In high school, he’d usually had one in his pocket. Maybe some habits didn’t change.

  The first notes rose as he adjusted the tuning. “Do you have your bass?”

  Bruce nestled his head back down into the fleece of his bed, settling in as Adeline’s breath, already shallow, caught. She swallowed. “My upright, not the electric bass guitar anymore.”

  “Let’s make a deal.” He adjusted a peg. Even before starting a song, he was in his element, coming alive in ways he didn’t any other time.

  “Sure.” As if she could say anything else to him right now.

  “I’ll play something for you, and then we’re going to get the bass out, and you’re going to play too.”

  “With you?” Her voice rose an octave. She remembered the fingerings, didn’t she? But she’d never be able to feel her way through a song as she’d done back when she’d practiced hours every day. Did she even remember the music they’d played at gigs? He’d be as disappointed with her skill as he’d been with her confession that she no longer prayed.

  “With me. Alone. Whatever you want. But you have to play.” He ran the pick across the strings one more time. Apparently satisfied with the sound, he fixed his gaze on her. “Deal?”

  The last chord he’d strummed faded from the room. Her heart beat such a fast tempo, she might never find a sense of rhythm tonight. Was that at the prospect of listening to him or at the prospect of having to play?

  Both, and then some.

  To get him to put his fingers back on those strings, to hear his voice in person after all these years—singing just for her, no less—she’d agree to almost anything. She nodded.

  Gannon returned his attention to the guitar. The strings responded to his touch the way her nerves had, singing. The air filled with music. She breathed it in as she tried to commit the moment to memory, the sound, the shifting muscles in his arm, the way his shoulder blade moved under his shirt, his eyes slanted toward the guitar as if it were a partner and not a tool.

  Then his chest rose with a breath, and his voice came in strong, like when she’d listened to “Yours,” only now she could watch the way he winced at painful words. And the song was painful, a breakup song from the perspective of a man whose failure had cost him the woman he loved. The lyrics pleaded with the woman’s new lover to do for her all the romantic things the singer thought she deserved.

  But this was Gannon, who wrote his own songs and only from a place of deep feeling. The lyrics weren’t some random man’s perspective. They were his. And he’d chosen this song for her. For tonight.

  The meaning fell into place.

  This was his version of what happened after that night, and it was entirely different than hers. He’d written this song to commit her to God’s care.

  The chorus circled one more time. Gannon really thought God would hold her each night as she fell asleep? And that God would always greet her with a smile? That He’d sing for her, and He’d protect her heart? That He would love her like no one else ever could?

  No uncertainty dimmed the delivery, but what he described wasn’t at all what she had experienced. How long had he been singing this? Did everyone know this like they knew “Yours”? More importantly, was he wrong about God, or had she shut out the greatest lover she could’ve had?

  Gannon let the last note fade before glancing to gauge Adeline’s reaction. Her eyes were wide, but her gaze pointed away, toward the painting. She started to open her mouth, then bit her lip. When she raised her hand to scratch her neck, her fingers trembled.

  She couldn’t keep up her end of the deal shaking like that, but she’d understood the song, and that was enough. He picked the strings in a quieter melody.

  “Should I know that song?” Her voice sounded wet, as if she’d fished it out of the lake to use it.

  “No. I’d like it on the next album, but I wanted you to know about it first.” He focused on the guitar because that was easier. “I’ve always kept the music about you to myself.”

  “How many songs are there?”

  “Enough.”

  “About how stupid I am?”

  “Not one.”

  “I don’t understand how you could care. All I’ve ever done is alienate people. Fitz, you, God. And apparently all any of you want is for me to be loved and in love.”

  “It’s a lot less selfish in God’s case than mine.” He thought of revisiting a song they should both know from the early days, but how many reminders of Fitz could she take? He stuck with the more recent melody, another of the songs he’d never shared before. But no lyrics. She didn’t need to know yet every thought he’d ever had about her. “You’ve always understood me. You knew me before I got this job. You know the best and the worst of me. That you might find a way to fit me into your life anyway …”

  “Scares you?”

  “No. I told you my greatest fear.”

  She stretched one of her arms and rolled her shoulders. “I read that article about me. They got horrible pictures.”

  “They’re good at that.” He watched her, trying to judge if he could lose her over the rumors after all, or if she was only trying to shift the subject further and further from God.

  She pushed her hair back from her face and looked at the curtains. Her brown irises held more than their share of concern. The article had upset her.

  He set the guitar aside and rested his arm along the back of the couch so he could touch her cheek. “No one else’s eyes do to me what yours do.”

  When she focused on him, he lowered the hand. Even such simple contact packed more of a high than hearing thousands chant his name. But what had he expected? He still remembered the vanilla mint taste of their first kiss. He was as much of an addict as Matt, but he had to operate by a new code. If he kissed her now, he’d have nowhere further to take the relationship when his feelings for her somehow deepened.

  Was such a thing even possible?

  What did it mean that he didn’t think it was?

  She intertwined her fingers with his. “If we’re going to keep being seen together, I’ll have to learn to ignore them.”

  Her hands were so small and smooth compared to his, the crescents of her fingernails delicate. He ran his thumb against the tip of one of her nails. Back when she’d played bass, she’d kept them trimmed down to nothing. She’d have to cut them when she started playing again, but that would be a small loss compared to everything she’d gain. Maybe she’d pulled herself together enough to give it a shot.

  But she waited for him to respond to something. What had they been talking about? Right. The press.

  “A local reporter stopped by to write about the project here. John and I gave her a quote about communities pulling together and the church being a family that pitches in. That should start a story that won’t go bad on you. I posted about visiting my mom to counteract rumors about where we went. As for tonight, if we give them an inside glimpse that tells the story we want, they’re less likely to make up something on their own.”

  “What are you going to say?”

  “Here.” He took the guitar again, angled away from her and took a photo with his phone, him and the guitar in the foreground, Adeline behind him, the soft smile she offered a little blurry, but her hair glinting, as silky as ever.

  Jamming with an old friend and a borrowed guitar.

  Her breath warmed his arm as he typed, so she probably read along as he entered the caption, but he tipped the phone toward her when he finished.

  She rested her head against his shoulder as she read. “So we are just friends.” Her voice was neutral, curious maybe. She angled her face up, the corners of her mouth lifted in a smile that nearly made him drop the phone so he could cup
her chin, close the gap, and show her how much more than a friend he wanted to be.

  She glanced back at the phone. “I suppose it’ll always be true that we’re old friends, even when we’re more than that.”

  She’d said when, not if.

  He fought to stay calm. “We are more.”

  She laced their fingers together and rubbed her thumb over the hollow in the center of his palm. Like a voice carried through an auditorium with perfect acoustics, every circle of her thumb echoed through him. At this rate, his resolve to save kissing at least a little longer would expire in about two seconds.

  “You make it hard for a guy to think.”

  Smile broadening, she leaned away from him and released his hand.

  The distance gave him enough space to breathe. He added hashtags and the filter Lina, the band’s social media manager, insisted he use, then shut off his screen. “I’ll post it on my way out.”

  Adeline rested her head against the back of the couch. Maybe she wasn’t signaling she was tired, but the clock read eleven thirty, and he was headed for trouble if he stayed longer. He returned the guitar to its case. “I’ll send you a recording and the chords to a new song. Play around with a bass line, and next time, we’ll work on it together.”

  She followed him into the kitchen, toward the back door since only the preparations for the new front porch had been completed today. “You’re letting me off the hook.”

  “Not for long.” He wrapped her in his arms and felt her exhale. “I’d like to see what it looks like for you to live with the living.”

  “Me too.” Her touch on his waist was tentative, but she peered at him with such focus, she had to be thinking exactly what he was. One kiss wouldn’t be wrong.

  But this was so new, the hug itself a big step. He’d done so much damage last time. This time needed to be different. So instead of finding her lips, he let her go.

  18

  The flashing reds and blues contradicted the calm of nighttime in Lakeshore and the happy buzz of Gannon’s evening with Adeline. He had planned to get back to Havenridge and work on the recordings for her tonight, but because of the strobing lights, he leaned to see down the road that jutted off Main Street.