Abide With Me (The Barn Church Series Book 3)

by Shellie Arnold

  “Almost six-thirty. Your alarm hasn’t sounded.”

  “I turned it off for church. Guess I forgot to reset it.”

  She shifted, placing her head and a hand on his heart. “Tell me again you love me.”

  “I love you, Angelina. I hate it’s taken me this long to learn how to show you.”

  She raised her head to look up at him. “I love you, too, Nicholas. Always and forever.”

  She wanted him to stay. She wanted to become one with him again and feel all the things she’d always wanted to feel.

  But asking. Reaching. Being the first to touch was so risky.

  He studied her.

  The gift she wanted was within reach. If only she dared.

  She touched his face. “Will you love me now? Be with me now?”

  “Are you sure? I don’t want you to do something because you feel pressured or because you’re afraid I’ll get mad and revert back to how I was.”

  “Not everything from before was bad.”

  He kissed her with tenderness and hunger. “I’m as nervous as I was our first time,” he said.

  “It is our first time.”

  “Tell me what you need.”

  “I want us to focus on each other,” she said. “I want to feel every moment, every touch, and know we’re thinking only of each other.”

  They took their time. Spent time. He whispered against her skin and made her tremble. She touched and stole his breath.

  Wanting to be one with him, she reached for him. He loved her with a reverence that brought tears to her eyes, and she didn’t try to hide them.

  After, they lay in each other’s arms.

  “Will you stay tonight?” she asked.

  “Does any part of this couch convert into a bed?”

  “We are kind of squished together, aren’t we? No, this isn’t a sleeper sofa. We could toss all the cushions on the floor, sort of make a mattress.”

  “That might work.”

  She propped up on an elbow and drew images on his chest with her fingers.

  “Let’s hide here for the next few days,” she said. “Just us. I’ll call Laurie and Lorenzo and tell them we don’t need them until Thursday. You call Julius and ask him not to schedule anything. Please?”

  “Whatever will we do with all that time, Mrs. Rousseau?”

  “Sleep in.”

  “Ugh.”

  “Take a walk.”

  “Better,” he said.

  “You can teach me to make an omelet.”

  He shook a finger and rolled on top of her. “Oh, no. No cooking for you tomorrow. If we’re taking the day off, I won’t risk you getting miffed at me telling you how to do something.”

  “Then you’ll have to cook me breakfast again.” She twirled the curls at his brow. “I’ll need lots of pancakes.”

  He kissed the tip of her nose. “I’ll be more than happy to make you lots of pancakes.”

  “Then I’ll be more than happy to eat them.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Ican’t believe I let you talk me into teaching you how to cook a turkey.” Nicholas spoke over his shoulder as Angelina entered the butler’s pantry.

  “I did okay with the omelet this morning. Let’s keep going. The oven is preheating, and I’m ready.”

  He turned and saw she’d donned latex gloves that reached to her elbows. He laughed and leaned back against the counter where the turkey sat.

  “What are those for?” he asked.

  “I don’t want to touch it.”

  He laughed again. “But you want to cook one?”

  “I’ve always wanted to know how to cook a turkey.”

  “Is that why you had one in the freezer? Hoping one day, you’d be able to cook it? How old is this thing?”

  “I don’t know. Do frozen turkeys expire?”

  He checked the label but found no “best by” date.

  “I guess we’ll find out. If it stinks up the house, we probably shouldn’t eat it.”

  She came close and raised her gloved hands like a surgeon preparing to operate. “Where do I start?”

  “Go grab the kitchen scissors.”

  She scurried away, and he pulled out his phone. When she returned, he snapped a picture of her with her gloves and the scissors. She gasped. He leaned over for a selfie with her and snapped another.

  “You said we didn’t have photos of the two of us,” he said.

  “So you took one now? Should we have included the turkey?”

  “If you want.”

  She cringed. “Only if it turns out to be edible.”

  “Lower it into the sink. Trust me.” He showed her how to remove the wrapping and the metal wire at the neck. “Now, reach in and remove the giblet bag.”

  “Excuse me?”

  Her eyebrow winged up, as did the corner of her pretty mouth. He couldn’t help but kiss her.

  “Will you kiss me like that every time we cook together?” she asked.

  “I just might.”

  He turned away, fighting guilt.

  “We should have more memories like this,” he said. “I shouldn’t have let so much time pass apart from you.”

  After the entire weekend with no trip to the prison, no new news, he couldn’t shake the feeling he was now living on borrowed time.

  “And I should’ve been grateful when you were home,” she said. “There. We were both dysfunctional idiots. Something else we have in common. Let’s move on.”

  She stood there with the giblet bag in one gloved hand, the scissors in the other. He’d never loved her more.

  He took her face in his hands and kissed her again. “My brave, fierce Angelina. Brave enough to tackle a turkey. Fierce enough to keep me on track.”

  Her eyes filled with surprise and innocent joy. “I’ve never been brave.”

  “You’re the bravest person I know. I keep thinking about your art. How you traveled alone. How you put so much emotion into your paintings. Only the bravest of the brave can do that.”

  She smiled the killer smile that knocked him back and made him think of beaches and long nights in a private room.

  “What?” she asked.

  “Your smile always gets me.”

  “Really?” She smiled again.

  “Really.”

  His cell chimed.

  “Abide with me,” Angelina said. “I enjoy abiding with you like this. I don’t need this house. All I need is you.”

  “It’s not the reminder. It’s a text.”

  He read the screen. Polygraph this Thursday morning. Pick you up at 11 A.M. Will update as I get more info. Relax.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked. “Is it Julius? Bad news?”

  “I have to take another polygraph this Thursday.”

  She tossed the giblet bag and scissors into the sink. Snapped off her gloves and wrapped her arms around him.

  “I should go back through all the documents I have,” he said. “The emails. Find something he can use to clear me.”

  “Julius is doing everything he can. I know the waiting and uncertainty are unbearable. They are for me, too. Don’t close off from me. Don’t leave me.”

  “Angie, I don’t want to have to leave you. That’s what’s driving me crazy.”

  ***

  Angelina slipped the turkey into the oven, then set aside the oven mitts.

  “Want to set the dining room table for us to eat in there?” Nick asked. “We’ve hardly ever done that.”

  “True.” She thought of the crystal and china, the copper chargers she’d purchased years ago but never used.

  She shook her head. “How long will this take to cook?”

  “Hours.”

  “I need to show you something.”

  She led him to the dining room. From the china cabinet, she removed the copper chargers, napkin rings, ice bucket and tongs. She added the mugs, challises, the colander and cookie cutters, spreading all across the massive table.

  “I bought all th
is the day you came home for our seventh anniversary.”

  “That’s a lot. That’s before we had this house.”

  “I didn’t need them. Didn’t even want them, really, although at the time I thought I did.”

  She lifted a mug. “All this time, I’ve told myself I never cared about money. Still, I used it to comfort myself even when I knew better. I have a lot of things like this—not what I purchased for the house while working with Rita—things I bought, no, indulged in. Will you help me sell them?”

  “If that’s really what you want to do. It kind of makes me feel bad.”

  She lay her head on his shoulder. “You shouldn’t feel bad about these. I knew I spent too much money. We both lacked self-control, we simply manifested it in our own unique way.”

  They took pictures of the items. Then they worked in their master suite. Nick packed a few things to bring back to the carriage house. She set aside designer purses she knew could be sold quickly through a specialty website.

  She opened and took pictures of the handmade quilt and pillow shams they’d purchased in Gatlinburg. “We never used this, either.”

  When the turkey was done, Nick carved it into thin slices for sandwiches they ate over paper towels. She didn’t miss the chargers, the crystal, or the china. They returned to the carriage house, bringing leftovers and Nick’s small bag of essentials. He placed ads on eBay while she put the finishing touches on her desert painting.

  “The bedding is sold,” Nick said from the couch.

  “Told you. Buy it now always works.”

  Angelina laid aside her paint brush and checked her watch. “Too late to go to the post office now. I can ship it in the morning.”

  “I’ll go with you. We can send the notification right away.”

  Dear God, she prayed. Can we keep this closeness? This life?

  “Selling the bedroom furniture wouldn’t be difficult,” she said. “I bet we could do it locally on Craig’s List.”

  “But that’s one of the few things we chose together.”

  “True. Giving it up would sting, but not as much as the Bev Doolittle painting. We’d have trouble fitting the furniture in a smaller master bedroom. The painting, we can hang anywhere.”

  “Good idea. Whoa.” Nick set aside his laptop and rose.

  “What?” Fear rippled through her. She lunged for the computer. “What?”

  “Angie. Don’t. Why didn’t I see this coming?” He wiped a hand over his face. “I’m sorry.”

  A local news clip video played in the top corner of the screen. The background a split screen of The Barn Church there in Rowe City, and Fairchild’s gallery in Mobile. She turned up the volume.

  “… the couple attended church together yesterday morning. Speculation ranges from the local artist being an innocent bystander to an accomplice in a regional real estate scam. In either case, only time will tell if the related press over her husband’s arrest and legal troubles will benefit or hinder Angelina Rousseau’s premier exhibition, Fairchild’s first event of the season.”

  The image changed to her headshot beside Nick’s mug shot.

  “To date, this reporter has been unable to confirm Mrs. Rousseau has retained a criminal attorney, although confidential sources state she might be in the market for a divorce lawyer. It appears she moved out of the couple’s mansion before Thanksgiving. Since Mrs. Rousseau never traveled abroad with her husband, many wonder if his intent was to hide criminal activities from her or to remove her from suspicion in the event he was caught.”

  She went back to her painting, drank from a nearby bottle of water.

  Their eyes met.

  Why hadn’t he taken her with him?

  The question and the old hurt that accompanied it seemed to jump at her. Important? Or at this point, petty? Others obviously wondered, but for different reasons.

  Dear God, to move forward, do we have to talk about every single mistake we made? And if we miss one, will that be the one that comes back to bite us?

  She didn’t want to always put Nicholas on the defensive. Still, if the wound was deep and stopped her from moving forward ...

  Talk about the ones I bring to the surface. And don’t leave Me out of the conversation.

  Remember, for where two or three have gathered together in My name, I am there in their midst.

  “Can we pray?” she asked. “Right now?”

  He came to her. “Yes.”

  “Dear God, I think You just brought up in me a hurt I have to address. So I must ask my husband about it. Help me ask without accusation. Listen without judgment. Bring healing to me, and if at all possible, make us closer to each other and to You.”

  She opened her eyes to find Nick watching her.

  She swallowed. “Why didn’t you ever take me with you?”

  “Too many reasons and none of them are good enough. At first, it was the money, and you were in school.”

  “But summers. I was off in the summer.”

  “Then, I worried I wouldn’t be able to spend enough time with you. I didn’t want you to feel angry and cheated while I worked, and I didn’t want to break another promise.”

  “So you didn’t try.”

  He nodded. “Later, I worried about your safety as terror attacks became more frequent, especially in Europe. In the end, I admit we fought so much when I was home, being away was a relief. Work was something I was good at. If we’d traveled together and fought while I was trying to work, I don’t know if I would have been able to do my job.”

  He sighed. “And of course, I always wanted to make more money for us. That’s all of it. Every stupid reason I had.”

  “Sounds like you had the list ready.”

  “You asked when they let you see me in prison. The look on your face, the emptiness in your eyes—I knew you were gone, and I knew it was my fault. At night when I laid there alone in the dark, I asked myself the same question and came up with the answer in case you ever asked again. Please forgive me. I didn’t know the harm I was causing.”

  “But you knew you were telling me no. Every time you said yes to someone or something else, you said no to me.”

  He placed his hands on her shoulders. “I have many reasons, but no real excuse. Forgive me. I’m asking for mercy, Angie. I was young and stupid, and if I could go back and do it over again, I’d tell you yes every single time. From now on, I won’t leave because I’m distracted. I won’t leave when I’m angry or when there’s strife between us.”

  Forgive. Don’t sow distance this time. Forgive. Like I do.

  How? How do I forgive him?

  He’s already changing and keeping his word. He’s staying, right now, even when there’s strife between you. Don’t close your heart to him or Me. The power is yours. Don’t say no.

  Her heart trembled. For a moment, her breath stuck in her lungs.

  Not all mercy is for you to keep.

  Pressure built in her chest.

  Some mercy is to be given to others.

  “I forgive you.” She pressed her cheek to his. “I forgive you.”

  He wrapped her in his arms. “Thank you.”

  Peace swept through her. Peace that didn’t make sense, yet settled quickly in her heart.

  She breathed it in deep. Clean and clear and fresh.

  Their tears mingled, and they held each other as they cried.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  For the fourth morning in a row, Nicholas walked to the main house to prepare breakfast. Silly, maybe. He could’ve stocked Angie’s small fridge with a few things, but somehow starting the day this way was more fun. Soon, Laurie and Lorenzo would arrive to continue their work. Later, Angelina would leave for Mobile. Tonight, he’d be the one alone in the big house.

  Still, the future lay before them, full of love and possibilities. He was so full of gratitude, he couldn’t help smiling, despite the polygraph looming before him later that morning.

  He rounded the corner of the house to the sound of ap
proaching sirens. He stopped, hoping they would drive past his property.

  The sound grew. Joined now by flashing lights. All coming toward him up the lane.

  He almost turned around and ran back to the carriage house. But if the next few moments were going to be really bad, he didn’t want Angelina to remember him as a coward.

  Four cars stopped in his driveway—two marked, two unmarked— positioned to bar his exit. The sirens stopped, but the red and blue lights still flashed.

  A policeman exited the first car. “Nicholas Rousseau. Stop where you are. Put your hands up. You are under arrest.”

  He complied.

  “Nick? Nick!” His wife’s cries nearly broke his heart.

  She ran straight to him and stopped as the officer lowered his hands to cuff them behind his back.

  “Step back, ma’am.” Another officer blocked her path.

  “What’s happened?” Angelina asked. “Why are you taking him again? Nicholas?”

  “You’re under arrest on suspicion of the murder of Gavin Hawk. You have the right to remain silent.” The officer binding his hands recited the Miranda warning.

  “Murder?” his wife cried.

  “Angie, call Julius,” Nick called over his shoulder.

  “Where are you taking him?” she asked.

  “Straight to the state prison, ma’am. Please stay back.”

  “I love you, Angelina!”

  Nick ducked into the back of the police cruiser. The car lurched forward. He looked out the rear window, keeping Angelina in sight as long as possible.

  Murder?

  If Gavin was dead, Nick’s life might be over, too.

  ***

  Angelina could only stare as the police cruiser carrying Nicholas drove away.

  Dear God, help. Help us.

  Another officer approached. She remembered him from the day she’d returned from Vegas.

  “Detective Niles. What’s going on?”

  “Ma’am, we need to search your property again. Will you let us in?”

  She withdrew her keys from her pocket. “Will you need to search the carriage house, too? Go through my paintings again?”

  “Possibly. We also need to ask you some questions.”

  “Ask me now.”

  “You don’t want an attorney present?”