by Deb Kastner
“I’m happy to hear it went well for you. What did Vince say when you told him?”
Nate shrugged. “I haven’t told him yet.”
He wanted to add that he’d waited because he’d hoped she would be with him when he told his brother the good news. She had more than a vested interest in this, after all. It had been her idea in the first place.
But she’d already flashed him a distant smile and was jogging in place.
“Good to see you,” she murmured, and then pulled herself up as she started to jog by him.
Nate’s hands snaked out of their own accord, blocking her way. He didn’t know what to say, but he knew he had to keep her here with him, so he blurted out the prominent thought on his mind.
“Have you been avoiding me?”
It was a rhetorical question. Of course she’d been avoiding him. The question was, why?
As he hadn’t given her room to run by him, she stopped and took two steps backward, crossing her arms in the age-old line of defense. He wanted to reach for her and erase the tension on her face, but he knew that was probably the last thing she would want him to do, so he jammed his hands in the pockets of his gray sweatpants.
Jess stared at him for a long moment without answering him.
“Does it matter?” she finally asked, her voice so low Nate could hardly hear the words.
Her question angered him. And flustered him. And frustrated him. His pulse pounded in his ears.
What did she mean, does it matter? Did she think he was stringing her along in some way, toying with her emotions? “You matter,” he replied gruffly. “Jess, what’s wrong? Talk to me. Whatever is bothering you, we can work through it together. Just please don’t shut me out of your life. Please.”
The fight instantly went out of her, and she physically drooped before taking a seat on an old log that had fallen along the side of the path.
“Okay, Nate,” she said softly. “You’re right. It’s time you knew the truth about me.”
Jessica sighed and folded her hands in her lap. This confrontation was inevitable. She’d known that since the moment she’d walked out of Nate’s embrace a week ago. But that didn’t make it any easier.
How would she ever find the words to make Nate understand what she didn’t really comprehend herself? How could she tell him that she couldn’t go forward without moving back?
“I think—” she started, and then stopped and cleared her throat. “That is, I—”
She stared down at her hands, unable to find the courage to look Nate straight in the eye. He crouched before her and gently lifted her chin with the crook of his knuckle.
“Know this,” he whispered raggedly. “Whatever it is that you need to say to me, it won’t change the way I feel about you.”
Jessica wanted to exclaim in disbelief, but his warm, gold-flecked gaze stopped her. He really believed in what he was saying.
He believed in her.
And she trusted him. Not because she had to, or because he was pressuring her to come clean with whatever was bothering her. She just did. When he smiled at her, she felt as if she could see right into his heart. And she liked what she viewed there.
“There are some things about my past I haven’t told you about. Things that make me nervous about a new relationship.”
Nate nodded. “I know. Go on.”
“You know?”
Nate nodded again and smiled in encouragement. He brushed his thumb along her cheek. “Nothing specific, of course. But I’ve been around you long enough to know that something’s been bothering you, and I’m glad you want to talk to me about it.”
The deep end wasn’t going to suddenly become shallow, no matter how much she wished it to be so.
Jessica swept in a breath to calm herself before she could speak, and then dove in. “I feel really close to you and Gracie.”
“We like you, too, Jessica Sabin.”
“That’s just it,” she muttered.
“What? I don’t understand.”
“Jessica Sabin is my married name.”
Married? Jess was married?
Whatever Nate had thought she was going to tell him, this was not it. His heart dropped through his shoes and his mind struggled to catch up.
“I didn’t know,” he breathed raggedly.
He reached for her left hand, gently uncurling her fingers and staring down at them.
Just as he thought. No ring.
“You aren’t wearing a wedding band,” he pointed out softly.
“Oh, no. I’m not married now,” she clarified briskly. “I was married. It ended.”
“I see,” he said, although he wasn’t really sure he did. He didn’t know whether or not to be relieved at her words. “I’m sorry.”
He was still struggling to mesh the mental picture he had with the Jess he knew with the woman who was sitting before him now, telling him she’d had a whole other life before him that he knew nothing about.
“I had a baby,” she said, her voice cracking under the strain of emotion. “A baby girl. Her name was Elizabeth. Sweet baby Elizabeth.”
Nate reached for her other hand and pressed them both to his lips, and then close to his heart. He couldn’t bear to hear the agony in her voice. He wanted to erase the suffering from her countenance.
When she hurt, he hurt.
And he hadn’t missed the tense she’d used in reference to her daughter. Had a baby. Her name was.
When she didn’t elaborate, he slid onto the log beside her and put his arm around her shoulders. She had to know he would be there for her, no matter what.
Still secured in the backpack, Gracie hadn’t hollered or squirmed, so he thought she must have fallen asleep as she usually did from the rhythmic rocking movement of his jog. He was glad for it, since at the moment, Jess required his full attention.
“Was?” he asked gently.
“Elizabeth was eight months old when she passed,” she said, her breath ragged. “I put her to bed one night as always. I checked in on her before I went to sleep myself, and she was fine. When I woke up the next morning, she wasn’t breathing.”
“Crib death,” Nate whispered. He’d heard of the horrible term, but had never known anyone who’d lost a child to it. He couldn’t even begin to imagine losing Gracie that way. Even the thought of it sent sharp stabs of panic through his chest.
What kind of horror had Jess lived through?
“Oh, Jess. I’m sorry.”
“SIDS.” She shook her head. “It was the beginning of the end for me. Or at least that was how it felt at the time.”
Nate pulled her closer, feeling that, if he let her go, she would simply disappear.
“I can’t imagine what you’ve been through.”
“And I can’t even begin to describe it.” She stared off into the distance, somewhere over Nate’s left shoulder. “It was as if my grief for Elizabeth sucked the life right out of my body. I went through the motions of eating and sleeping, but my mind had retreated to somewhere deep inside me, somewhere where my sweet baby girl still lived. There was a big, black pit in my stomach. I kept waiting for it to grow smaller, but it never did.”
Nate tenderly brushed a wisp of hair from her forehead. “That must have been awful.”
His sympathy must have touched her heart, for tears sprang to her eyes and she quickly wiped them away.
“I still grieve for Elizabeth. Every single day. I miss her so much. But life keeps happening whether you are ready for it or not.”
Nate knew the feeling. Ezra’s death had been really hard on him, and Ezra was just a friend. If it hadn’t been for the fact that he had Gracie to care for…
The baby, he realized, had been his lifeline during one of the toughest times in his life.
“How long has it been?” he asked gently and tentatively.
She sniffled. “Elizabeth would be nearly three years old now.”
No amount of time would really be enough, Nate thought. Not ever. And
her wounds were obviously still fresh—too fresh to talk about. At all.
How, he wondered, had he missed this deep of a dynamic in her life when he’d spent so much time with her?
Was he blind?
“And your husband?” he asked as an afterthought. “What happened to him?”
Jess looked away from him. “Russ didn’t deal with his grief in the same way I did. I know I wasn’t looking at things rationally at the time, but I just couldn’t understand the way he wanted to throw himself back into normal life.”
“He did that?” Anger at a man he’d never met surged through him. Jessica deserved strength and support from the man who’d vowed to cherish her, not rejection and abandonment.
“I’ve had a lot of time to contemplate what happened. I know now that he was grieving, just in a different way than me. But at the time it felt like he was in denial, that he had betrayed Elizabeth’s memory. I thought he didn’t even care that Elizabeth’s life had been snuffed out so prematurely.”
“I’m so sorry,” Nate said again. He knew he was repeating himself, but he didn’t know what else to say. He wished with all his heart he was better with words, that he could think of something to say that would bring her real comfort.
But of course he couldn’t, so he simply continued to hold her while she sobbed, gently brushing away her tears with the pad of his thumb.
“Russ tried to find me in the dark space into which I’d retreated. He really did. But I was inconsolable, and he needed someone to be there for him, too.
“That person wasn’t me. Couldn’t be me. And so he left.”
“He left you?” Nate’s voice rose in pitch with every word. He tried and failed to contain the sudden surge of righteous indignation he felt toward Jess’s ex-husband on her behalf.
What kind of a man would leave his wife when she had just lost a child?
“He needed someone,” she explained matter-of-factly. “And I wasn’t there for him. He found someone else who was.”
Nate clenched his jaw. “I still don’t understand how he could—”
Jess cut him off. “We were divorced by then. She got pregnant. Russ married her. Maybe out of a sense of obligation. Maybe because he fell in love with her.”
Honor? That man didn’t know the meaning of the word, Nate thought fiercely. An honorable man didn’t abandon the woman he’d married when the going got tough. That wasn’t love. “Of all the inconsiderate, stupid, selfish—”
She cut him off again, this time with a wave of her hand. “It’s the past, Nate. I’ve set aside my anger toward him. In a way, I kind of understand why he did what he did.”
“He had no right to hurt you that way. Not when you were already suffering. If he were here now, I’d give him a piece of my mind.” And my fist, he added mentally, fuming so strongly he thought he must be having smoke come out of his ears.
“I’m over it,” she snapped, her composure breaking as she broke into a new round of sobs.
No, she wasn’t.
Nate couldn’t see how. No wonder she’d balked at the thought of a new relationship. She must have trust issues a mile long. And rightly so.
If he could stand before Russ Sabin right now, he’d throttle the man. He’d teach him a lesson he would never forget.
But then, he realized suddenly, if Russ had responded as a real man ought to have, nurturing and protecting the woman he’d sworn to love for better or for worse, Jess wouldn’t be here now with Nate.
There was a part of him that was selfishly thankful Russ had turned Jess away, though he felt guilty for having such feelings.
If Jess was his wife, he would cherish and protect her with his last breath. It was the same flare of masculine emotion he felt for Gracie; yet at the same time, what he felt for Jess was completely different.
At that moment, Gracie wailed, kicking at Nate’s back with her amazingly strong little legs and fisting her hands into his hair.
“Ow!” he exclaimed when she gave an exceptionally hard yank. “Take it easy, little one.”
He reached behind him to untangle the baby’s fingers, wondering how she had gotten such a firm grip in his inch-long hair. It must really be getting shaggy.
“Okay, sweetheart. That’s enough of that, thank you very much.”
To Nate’s surprise—and relief—Jess laughed. “I think she’s trying to tell you she’s tired of being in the backpack.”
“Or maybe that I need a haircut,” he suggested with a grin, shuffling the backpack off his shoulders. Jess leaned in to help shuck it off, and soon baby Gracie was wiggling on Jess’s lap.
He didn’t consciously decide to slide his arm around her shoulders. It was as natural a move as the breath he took, and completely in line with the cacophony of his feelings for her.
“I don’t know how you did it. I don’t think I could have. And then you went to work as a day care director,” he mused softly, running a palm over the baby’s soft, smooth curls.
“Not that you aren’t the best at what you do,” he hastened to add, squeezing her shoulder. “But I’d imagine that would have been hard for you to work with children, given the circumstances.”
“It was. And it wasn’t. I’ve been working in day care since I graduated from college, and there was nothing else I’ve ever wanted to do, career-wise.”
She paused, her gaze distant. “It was tough to go back. I have my good moments and my bad moments, but all in all, it’s been kind of therapeutic for me to continue working with children. It’s my passion and my ministry. I can’t really imagine doing anything else with my life. And Morningway Lodge has been good to me. I’ve found peace here.”
“I’m thankful you were here when I arrived,” Nate said earnestly. “I know I would have been at a complete loss with Gracie if you hadn’t been here to help us.”
Jess nodded and kissed Gracie’s forehead, laughing when the baby squirmed in protest. “Gracie is extraspecial. In many ways she reminds me of Elizabeth, but always in a good way. Maybe that’s why I feel so unusually attached to her, as I have from the very first moment I laid my eyes on her that first day you came to the lodge.”
Nate could see the strain on her face as she spoke. None of this had been easy on her, and he realized he had inadvertently bounded into her life and played a part in causing her pain.
“I’m sorry,” he said aloud.
Jess smiled tenuously. “So am I. But God was faithful even when people weren’t. When I was in the blackest part of my grief, God reached out to me and pulled me through it, put me back on my feet again. Don’t get me wrong. I still struggle. I still worry.” Her eyes took on a luminous quality as they met his gaze and held.
A burning lump of emotion lodged in Nate’s throat and, for a moment, he could not speak. He stared at her, his heart full of longing.
“You really believe that, don’t you? In spite of everything you’ve been through, your faith in God is strong.”
He couldn’t relate. He’d persistently turned away from God, using every bad thing that happened in his life, every worldly tragedy he saw, as an excuse to go his own way. And yet the sum total of all of that was nothing in comparison to the personal agony Jess had gone through.
Jess shook her head. “No, that’s not quite right, I don’t think.”
“What?”
“Not in spite of everything I’ve been through. Because of what I’ve been through, my faith is strong,” she amended thoughtfully. “But it wasn’t until I looked back on my life that I could see how God had carried me through the dark times, even when I cast the blame for my circumstances squarely at His feet. It’s a long road. It took me a long time to accept that God loved me unconditionally, no strings attached, but when I finally did, He gave me the courage to go on.”
Nate envied her that courage. He had faced IEDs threatening to blow up in his face with less fear than he had about facing his Maker.
He shook his head. “I don’t know, Jess. You’re a stronger person than
me.”
Her gaze widened. “Why, Nathan Morningway, I think that is the most foolish thing I’ve ever heard come out of your mouth,” she teased.
“Well, it’s true.”
“No, Nate. It isn’t,” she replied softly. “All of us are weak. It’s only when we realize our limitations that God can reach us with His strength.”
Nate felt a sense of panic surge through him and he didn’t know why.
She reached out a hand and laid it on his forearm. “Stop running,” she encouraged him. “In our weakness, He is made strong.”
Chapter Thirteen
Jessica didn’t know what to expect after she and Nate talked, so she was more than a little surprised when Nate showed up bright and early Sunday morning, offering her a ride to church.
Relieved and surprised.
She’d never known a man like Nate Morningway. Even yesterday, as the words had burst out of her mouth that wiped her past clean, she knew Nate would never judge her for it.
She trusted him. She cared for him. And heaven help her, she was starting to see a future with him and that darling baby girl he now called his own.
The notion of offering herself up to any kind of relationship, any form of commitment, still frightened the socks off her.
But Nate himself, not so much.
She felt a lot of things for Nate, but not fear. As she’d learned the hard way, no one was completely faithful and unchanging, except for God. But Nate, she knew, would always do his best not to let her down.
As she would him.
While Nate’s presence at church Sunday morning was a surprise in itself, his introspective attitude was even more confounding. Usually boisterous and outgoing, Nate had acted peculiarly quiet and thoughtful after the service and all during the drive home.
She’d remembered catching his gaze several times during the service. She thought he looked as if he was wrestling with something inside himself, and by the time they’d reached the car and Nate had yet to say a word, she was sure of it.
She hoped he might reveal to her what it was he was thinking so seriously about, but he continued to be silent, and she didn’t ask. He was polite, but distant, and Jessica began to doubt herself and her earlier assurance that everything was working out between them.