The stupidity of it all was that he should have known from his own mother’s experience that leaving wasn’t the answer. His father had left the year he’d turned ten. And Mom had nothing but struggles after that.
But he’d deceived himself into believing that he was doing the right thing for Zaire because they didn’t have any kids yet. He wasn’t leaving Zai with three kids to take care of. He’d told himself it was better that he leave right away and give her a chance to find a guy who wouldn’t fail her.
And then he’d had that fall. As he picked up a plate at the head of the line, a shudder swept through him at the memory.
He’d been hired by the Wyoming Parks and Recreation to climb some of their toughest peaks for a series of promotional advertisements they’d started running last summer. He’d been halfway up Devil’s Tower with his cameraman, Byron Shelton, when a perch had broken off beneath his foot and his whole life had flashed before his eyes. He’d been saved by an anchor, but not before he’d dislocated and fractured two fingers. And not before he’d tossed up a prayer that if God would save him, he’d come back home and try his best to do right by Zaire.
Scooping the last spoonful of salad that his plate could possibly hold, he chuckled to himself now as he and turned to see where Jett had seated himself. Landon hadn’t known how much that prayer would change his life. Never one to go back on his word, he’d spent the days leading up to the surgery that had saved his fingers reading the Bible his grandmother had given him when he graduated high school. The book had sat untouched for years, buried at the very bottom of one of the trunks that he’d never unpacked after leaving home for college. But in its pages, he’d discovered a God who valued so much more than money and “perfection.”
He grinned at that, as he sank down across from Jett. What he’d thought of as perfection had been so far from God’s idea of perfection that the two could barely be spoken of in the same sentence.
Jett eyed him. “You seem to be feeling better suddenly?”
Landon shook out his napkin. “Just pondering how far the Lord has brought me in the last couple years. And believe me”—he held up one hand in a scout’s-honor pose—“when I say it is far.”
Jett smiled, but his gaze dipped to the scar Landon knew creased his palm between his third and fourth fingers. “Looks like the scar I have on my foot. Had to have surgery one year after a cleat from a three-hundred-and-fifty-pound Panther lineman crushed my third metatarsal.” There was a knowing look in his assessing scrutiny.
Landon rubbed the offending palm against his pant leg. “Yeah. Climbing injury. Two fingers fractured and dislocated.”
Jett tilted his head. “You going to be able to go back?”
Landon felt his jaw tighten. “Going through PT now. I’m sure it will be fine. But I didn’t renew the contract on my show. Not really because of the injury, but because I felt the Lord telling me to come home and try to patch things up with Zai. But…if she never comes around…” He shook his head, unsure how to finish the thought.
Jett’s look said he understood the ramifications of that. “Glad to hear you can go back if you want to. I can’t. Mine was my knee. Didn’t know what to do with myself when the doctors said I’d never play football again. But with lots of prayer, and some intervention from God that brought me here to Riversong, I’m going to be just fine.” He paused for a beat. “You will be too. Even if she never takes you back. Because”—he shrugged as though to say he’d learned this lesson the hard way—“Jesus is enough.”
Landon wished he could believe him.
CHAPTER 2
Friday morning Zaire woke up with a smile on her face. Today was going to be a good day. She stretched her arms over her head and relished in the golden sunlight spilling through the lace curtains at her window.
Looked like Shiloh had picked the perfect day for her fieldtrip to the local Indian Caves.
The word “caves” had at first given Zaire a big measure of pause, but Shiloh had promised her that the caves were more like concave niches worn by wind into a large cliff face. Assured that she wouldn’t have to be protecting children from flying bats, Zaire had released all her unease. In fact, she was excited about it. Because she really did enjoy hanging out with kids. Also, the nature around her hometown of Riversong was unparalleled, and hiking was one of her very favorite pastimes. Plus, she’d never seen the famed Indian Caves, so…bonus!
But it wasn’t just that, she was honest enough to admit to herself. This little field trip would get her out of town—where she couldn’t seem to go for a full day without bumping into her ex-husband, Landon.
The thought of Landon made her growl. She rolled out of bed and stomped to her bathroom. Why couldn’t she go for even twenty-four hours without thinking about the man? She slapped on the faucets to the shower. He was the one who had left her. So why couldn’t he just keep his heartbreaking self as far from Riversong as possible?
This was her town! A town she’d never left. He had no right to come back and make her feel uncomfortable on her own turf. Especially since he’d never even said why he’d come back. Maybe he’d returned just to torment her. To dredge up all the pain that she’d only recently been to the point of being able to forget for a few hours at a stretch.
“Gah!” The man made her crazy. And all this angst wasn’t doing her a bit of good.
So she just wouldn’t let him make her feel that way. That was all. She was a big girl, all grown up. People got divorced and had amiable relationships all the time. She and Landon could do that too. She gave herself a definitive nod in the mirror and blew a long blonde hank of hair out of her eyes as steam started to fill the room. Her focus softened into a blur of memory against the mirror as she envisioned him as she’d seen him yesterday. Glimpsed once more the pain in his expression when she’d so succinctly dismissed him.
Her shoulders slumped. Who was she kidding? She loved that man way too much to ever pretend like everything was okay between them.
So, yes. A day out of town would be good for her—maybe help her get her head on straight once more.
Landon braced his forearm on the lintel of the door, curled his coffee cup against his chest, and stared morosely across his mother’s lawn toward the wind-kissed waves of Wintergreen Lake.
It was a gorgeous day for Shiloh’s sixth-grade class’s field trip. He was glad that she had asked him to come along at the last minute, when she had been informed of an unknown-to-her-cave that would require the children to do very minor rock climbing. He’d been in that cave a number of times and the kids were going to love it. There was really nothing dangerous in the cave. The most rock climbing any of the kids would have to do was to scramble up a little rocky shelf that was no higher than his chest, but the school board had required that she have an expert along because the obsidian and stalagmites in the cave were very sharp. She’d been thrilled when he agreed that he would go.
Last night he’d helped her hand-deliver the required permission slips to each of her student’s homes, and the parents—most of whom had been in the cave themselves at one point or another—had all been excited about the idea.
Getting to be an instructor for the children and a safety guide should have him ecstatic—not to mention the fact that he would get to spend the day with Zaire. But all he could think about was that Zaire didn’t know he was going to be there.
His gaze wandered to where he could see her dock—their dock at one point in time—around the curve of the lake toward the west. The dock sat empty, curls of steam wisping up from it in the early morning sunlight. But their little rowboat was still tied up to the end. Her rowboat, he corrected himself.
It was probably going to annoy her to no end to have to spend the day with him. The last thing he wanted to do was to rub her the wrong way. But he hadn’t felt like he could decline Shiloh’s request that he accompany her class.
The truth was that he hadn’t told Zaire why he’d come back home, yet. Maybe that was part cowardice
. But it was also part patience on his part. He’d known that he didn’t dare waltz back into town and tell her outright that he wanted her back. He also hadn’t known if she’d started seeing anyone in the years he’d been gone. Thankfully, that didn’t seem to be the case because he wasn’t sure what he would have done. His plan had been to let her know he was home and simply give her time to get used to the idea that he was here to stay for a few days. Those few days had turned into a few weeks. The time had never seemed right to approach her about reigniting their relationship.
He had tried to work up his courage last night to give Zaire a call, but once he had finally dialed, he realized that she had changed her number since he had last called her. He thought about calling information but then decided that if she’d changed her number, it was most likely to prevent him from being able to easily get hold of her. So now there was nothing for it but to just show up and hope that the surprise didn’t ruin the day for her.
He angled a glance toward the sky. “Lord, maybe this is just what we need to start building that bridge again. Just help me to love her, and not to push for my own way.” He gave a wry chuckle. “I guess You know better than anyone that I’ve certainly done plenty of that in our relationship. But You also know that I’m aiming to change that. So, I’m begging for a little extra measure of patience and perseverance, because I know it’s going to take a lot of both for me to reach her again.”
And what if she never wanted anything to do with him ever again? The thought was like missing a hand-hold on a cliff face—breath-seizing, jolting, terrifying.
With a heartfelt sigh, he pushed away from the door and ambled down the hallway toward a hot shower.
He’d figure out how to deal with that if and when the time came, Lord forbid.
Zaire pulled her SUV into a parking spot at the elementary school and scrambled from the front seat. She was late, as usual. As she hurried around the front of her CX-5, she frowned at the baby blue truck across from her. Immediately, a sinking feeling settled into her stomach. She would recognize that partially refurbished 1956 F100 of Landon’s anywhere. What was he doing here today? Surely…
Just then Shiloh spotted her and waved her over to where she stood near an excited group of milling children. Several parents chatted at the edges of the crowd, and Zaire remembered that Shiloh had said she needed to have parents shuttle all the kids to the hiking area because the school’s available buses were being used for sporting events today.
Zaire resumed her forward momentum… And then sure enough, her every suspicion was confirmed when she glanced over to see Landon chatting with Pastor Duncan and his wife Molly, who must be one of the families shuttling children today.
Shiloh pushed past a group of girls whispering to each other behind their hands, and slung an arm around Zaire’s shoulders. “I’m so glad that you made it. This is going to be an awesome day.”
Zaire nailed her with a glower. “Please tell me that Landon is not joining us on this trip.”
Shiloh cringed a little, but looked like she felt only slightly guilty. “I discovered that there are even older caves up there with pristinely preserved Indian paintings in them. But they are a little further back and just dangerous enough that the school board required me to bring an expert.” She shrugged. “Landon with his rock climbing experience was the perfect solution. Plus, he’ll be a good leader for the kids.”
Zaire grunted. “You could have told me he was coming.”
Shiloh arched eyebrow. “First, I didn’t know till yesterday. But I also didn’t want to risk losing one of my chaperones. You know you would have backed out.”
“Maybe.” Zaire released a grumpy sigh. “Yeah, probably.”
Shiloh only arched a brow.
“Okay, fine. Yes. I would have.”
Shiloh assessed her with a bit of worry around her eyes. “But you’re not going to renege on me now, are you?”
Zaire squeezed the base of her neck and tipped her head back to study the sky in despair. So much for getting away from Landon for the day. But tempted as she was to walk away, she wouldn’t do that to Shiloh at the last minute like this. She narrowed her eyes at her friend. “You owe me big time. I don’t care how long you were away from home or how happy I am to have you back in town.”
Shiloh gave a relieved little bounce and released a breath that was so loud she must have been holding it. “Great. Thank you. I’m blessed to have your help. I’ll try to keep you both at opposite ends of the menagerie.” She swept a gesture across the gathering that could, indeed, have been mistaken for a circus.
True to her word, Shiloh had thankfully kept Landon far from Zaire all day long. But now Zaire tried not to let her jaw gape as she looked at the tiny hole in the side of the cliff that she was expected to crawl through. Who was the town idiot who had informed Shiloh about this cave? The other caves they had been exploring for the past two hours had been more like wind-carved indents in the cliff face than actual caves, just as she’d been assured. But this…
Her heart pounded in her throat. All around her the children were jumping up and down with glee at the prospect of crawling through a tiny tunnel under the huge mountain of dirt that could cave in on them at any moment. Zaire’s gaze swept from the small round opening of the tunnel up, up, up the mountainside to the beautiful azuline blue of the clear sky above.
She swallowed.
Would this be her last glimpse of sky? Her last breath of fresh mountain air? Her eyes fell closed. Don’t be silly. You can handle this just like you’ve handled everything in your life lately. It’s just one more challenge to get past. Besides, all the kids are thrilled. Lots of people have probably gone into these caves. And at least one lived to tell about it, because whoever they were, they told Shiloh.
She snorted.
Her little self-pep-talk hadn’t change her fears one iota. Just the thought of the dark cramped space made shivers squirm down her spine and a clammy moisture break out on her palms and forehead.
At the front of the group, Shiloh placed two fingers in her mouth and whistled loudly. “Listen up, guys! Line up here behind Anna.”
The excited children, freshly hyped up from the lunch break they’d just taken, blithely ignored her, running willy-nilly like the menagerie she’d labeled them earlier that morning.
Zaire absentmindedly recognized that she should be helping. But all she could do was stand in frozen panic.
Shiloh waved her hand for one child to be silent, snaking out her other to grab the overall strap of a little boy darting past her. “Jeremy, stop!”
“Aw man!” Jeremy slouched to a standstill, clearly disappointed to have been betrayed by his overall straps.
Shiloh raised her voice another octave. “Now children, everyone must calm down! I know we’re all excited.” Still holding onto the first boy, and now in full-blown teacher mode, Shiloh snapped her fingers at another one. “Donny, get in a line there behind Anna.” Her tone brooked no challenge. She pulled Jeremy in front of her and turned him so that her hands rested on his shoulders as she waited for the rest of the children—who must have recognized the change in her tone, because they were all suddenly scrambling to obey—to form into line. Everyone hustled as fast as they could, and there were only a few minor tussles over who had reached the line first.
Zaire caught Shiloh’s attention, and pointed to the back of the queue. “I’ll just take the rear guard.” She hurried to the far end like the coward she was, feeling Landon’s gaze on her from where he stood in the middle of the line as she rushed toward him and the little girl who was holding his hand. She glanced up and met his look for the briefest of seconds. Sympathy softened his expression and made her heart warm to him by several degrees, but she hurried past before he could sense it. He knew her fear of tight places all too well.
She lifted her chin. She would just show him how courageous she’d become since he left. She could and would do this. If only to prove to herself that she was stronger than she re
alized.
“Good job, kids!” Satisfaction rang in Shiloh’s voice as she offered the encouragement. “Everyone have your flashlights?”
Little hands shot into the air, each holding flashlights of varying sizes and brightness.
Shiloh gave them all a thumbs-up. “Alright, I’m headed in. Jeremy, you’re right behind me. Anna, you follow him, and everyone stay in a straight line and crawl in after Anna. Once we get inside, I will light some lanterns so it will be a little bit dark for just a few seconds.”
Zaire swallowed. Here we go.
The line started moving forward and Zaire dragged her feet, willing herself to breathe, pray, concentrate on anything but her fear of having a mountain of dirt come crashing down to crush her, the entire sixth grade class from Riversong Elementary, and all their chaperones. Wouldn’t that be one for the history books!
Ahead of her, Landon coaxed two boys to stop scuffling and follow the child ahead of them. The little girl, Sophie, was still holding his hand. Sophie appeared to be clinging to Landon as though her very life depended on him. In fact, several of the children in line just ahead of Zaire seemed about as excited over the prospect of crawling through that hole as she was.
One little girl in particular had large tears welling on her lower lids. She looked up at Zaire, bottom lip trembling. “Do we have to go in there?”
Soft Kisses and Birdsong (Riversong Book 2) Page 2