by T. K. Chapin
“You going to see Chet while you’re out there?” Chet was an old friend of Tyler’s he had met at Wendy’s when Tyler was working his first job as a burger flipper. They hadn’t spoken in about two years, and Tyler wasn’t sure if Chet would welcome him in if he showed up at the cabin.
He shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ll see how things go.”
Seeming hesitant, Jonathan didn’t speak for a moment, then he set down the pamphlet on the coffee table and turned to Tyler. “What’s eating your soul, Brother? You’ve been different for months.”
His brother could see right through him, but it was no surprise to Tyler. He and Jonathan were close. They shared every good and bad thing with one another, and running a business side-by-side had only intensified their closeness. Tyler rose from the couch as his brother’s words penetrated through his chest and struck right where it hurt the most, his heart.
“I know this might sound dumb to you, Jonathan.” He stopped and turned toward him. “But I want a wife, a family, a life outside of myself and the business. Really, I want what you have. I see the way you are with Rose, Peter, and Kylie. I’ve been craving that life a little more each day that goes by.”
“Ask God for it. If it’s in His will, He will do it.”
A sardonic laugh worked its way out of Tyler’s lips as he crossed the living room floor and over to his bookcase. He picked up a picture frame that held Jonathan’s family photo. “God’s will. Do you ever wonder if maybe God’s will doesn’t match our own? Like what if He doesn’t want me to have a wife? To have kids and all that. Maybe it’s not in the cards for me. I know God’s will is most important and what I should strive for. I just don’t know if His will matches my own on this. I’m not sure how I’ll feel giving up that dream if that’s what He wants me to do.”
Jonathan was quiet for a long moment. Then, he stood up and walked over to Tyler and rested a hand on his shoulder. “Those desires you have for a family are God-given, Brother. Trust in His timing.”
“You know how impatient I am.” He turned to his brother. “I’ve been waiting on God to do this and it’s just not happening. My desires for it are intensifying, as well as my discontentment.”
“Trust God, Brother. Listen, I’m starving and Kylie will have dinner ready in twenty. I’d better start heading out.” Jonathan walked over to the table and started loading his laptop. As Tyler watched his brother collect his things, he thought about that day in the restaurant when they were eating and they happened to meet Kylie. She ended up becoming Jonathan’s wife, and now they had a beautiful life together. It came out of nowhere, but God wasn’t surprised. It had shown Tyler that God does work things together for good, but that had been two years ago now, and his own wife hadn’t come.
Tyler approached his brother. “Thanks for always being there for me. You’re a good brother.”
Winding up the laptop power cord, Jonathan stopped and looked at Tyler. “You were there for me after I lost Marie. When the world turned its back on me, you never did, and I’ll never forget it. Have a fun, relaxing time at the lake, Bro.”
A couple of hours later, after Tyler had finished up the last bit of work he needed to do so he could relax on his trip to the lake, Tyler went into his bedroom to pack a duffel bag. As he did, he could hear noise from the bowling alley below his bedroom floor boards. It was starting to get late, and on Friday, that meant cosmic bowling and large crowds. He had meant to move out from the apartment above the bowling alley a while back, but he still hadn’t pulled the trigger. Every time he thought about moving, he’d feel anxiety and stress, resulting in finding excuses not to do it. The mere thought of packing everything he owned in a moving truck made him uneasy.
Once his bag was packed for his trip, he headed out the door and down the narrow stairway to exit the bowling alley. As he pushed open the door and arrived out on the sidewalk, he peered down each direction of the road. There were people walking up and down the sidewalks on both sides of the road. It was Friday night and it was downtown Spokane. The city was alive and bustling with activity. In his younger days, he’d be joining in on the fun, hitting every little bar up and down the boulevard, but not anymore. He’d left that life behind him a long time ago.
Crossing the sidewalk to his car, he opened the trunk and tossed his bag in, then went around and got into the car. Turning the key over, he headed for Diamond Lake. He had told the inn he’d be arriving late because of work, probably by ten o’clock.
While slowing his car down in the right turn lane on Highway 395 to turn onto West Dennison-Chattaroy Road, he spotted the faint glow of taillights in a field further north. His heart skipped a beat as fear gripped him in the worst kind of way, and he wasted no time. He turned off his blinker and floored the gas pedal, speeding further down Highway 395, and then whipped his car around in the middle of the highway. He pulled off to the side of the road and jumped from his car, his heart hammering in his chest. There was hardly any traffic at that time of night, and he wondered how long the car had been lying there upside down. He called 9-1-1 to report the wreck and hung up as the voice on the phone asked more questions. Tyler sprinted through the knee-high grassy field and to the car.
“Hello! Can you hear me? Anyone there?” His words came out loud and commanding. Walking along the back side of the car, he pressed his hand against the car and moved to the driver side. A fire ignited toward the front end of the undercarriage of the car. If someone was still in the car, he had to move quickly. He got down in the darkness and grass and tried to see inside. Using the flashlight on his phone, he peered in through the broken driver side window.
A woman hung upside down in the car, unresponsive. His heart feared she was dead.
“Ma’am!” he shouted. “Can you hear me?”
Her eyes opened slightly, life flickering in them. She didn’t respond but let out an aching groan. Blood was smeared across her face, and she let out a cry before losing consciousness again. He was relieved, but he knew he had to get her out of there in case the car was to explode. Ripping off his button-up blue shirt, he used the shirt to push the shards of glass in the window out of the way and then placed the cloth over the rigid glass shards left so they wouldn’t hurt her on the way out. Partially maneuvering himself into the car, he strained his arm to reach her seat belt buckle, praying it wasn’t jammed in the collision. Luckily, it clicked open. She fell, but he caught her in his arms. Then, he shimmied himself and her out through the window.
Panting as he exhausted every ounce of energy from his muscles, Tyler pulled the unconscious woman through the tall grass toward the road and away from the car. Hearing the paramedics getting closer, but still off in the distance, he caught his breath and then tried to get the woman to respond to him.
“Ma’am, are you awake? Can you hear me?”
Tears started to stream down her face, mixing with the blood smears on her face. Her eyes opened suddenly and went wide. Her voice cracked and she pushed out, “What happened?”
Thankful she was responsive, relief flooded him as he smiled and wiped blood and sweat from his brow. “You were in a wreck, but you’re going to be okay. You’re safe now. What’s your name?”
“Olivia. Olivia Montgomery. I’m scared.” She tried to sit up. Easing her back down, Tyler looked her over and noticed her hands were bloodied and a gruesome sight. He turned away, not wanting her to see his reaction and get scared.
The car exploded in the distance without warning, startling both of them. Tyler flinched, knowing that a few moments slower and they’d both be dead. Sending a prayer to God with thankfulness, Tyler bent over Olivia and shielded her in case some of the debris were to fall on her. None hit either of them, and he relaxed and peered into her sea-blue eyes once more.
“Olivia, the paramedics will be here soon. Try not to move and don’t worry. I’m not going anywhere.”
Seeing her eyes begin to close, he came close to her face and held her cheeks between his palms. Tapping his hands o
n her cheeks, he stared into her eyes.
“Look at me, Olivia. Stay with me. Stay awake!”
Her eyes opened and they held one another’s gazes.
When the ambulance finally arrived, the paramedics went straight to work on the woman and Tyler watched them intently. He worried about how bad her injuries were, especially her hands. The paramedics communicated what they were doing to help her and commented on his timing as far as rescuing her. The man went as far as to call Tyler Olivia’s guardian angel, coming when he did. He denied it and attributed it to an act of God and His divine timing.
As they loaded her into the ambulance a short while later, a police officer stopped Tyler and had a few extra questions about his statement. Then, after he was done with the questions, the officer looked at Tyler for a moment, most likely noticing the concern in his face.
“Try not to worry about her, sir. We’ve called her husband and he’s on his way down from Colville. She also has some family in Spokane. Everything is going to be okay, and she’ll have her family with her soon.”
Tyler paused. Husband? His insides shrank. Why’d he feel so uncomfortable with the thought of her having a husband? He pondered it for a moment and then the ugly truth came forth from his heart. You thought saving her life could turn out to be the beginning of your beautiful love story. She would be eternally grateful, and you would live happily ever after.
He beat himself up internally as he returned to his car to leave and for the rest of his drive to the inn. You selfish, selfish man. How could he be so self-centered to think he could benefit from the horrific situation at hand? He knew he was in the wrong, especially as the adrenaline from the rescue left him. Tyler knew he didn’t pull over at the wreck to get a date out of it. He pulled over to help whoever was in that car regardless of their beauty or gender, but that fact did little to settle the uneasy feeling he had. He felt uncomfortable with the reality of his own selfishness that he had felt when he heard she was married. Though all the guilt weighed on him heavily, he couldn’t get the image of her face out of his mind. Despite all those scrapes, despite all the blood, and despite the fact that she was married . . . Tyler found her breathtakingly beautiful.
Chapter 3
FLUTTERING HER EYES OPEN, OLIVIA didn’t move her head, but she surveyed the ceiling above her and what she could see out of the corners of her eyes. Between what she saw and the sounds of machines beeping nearby, it didn’t take long for her to realize she was in a hospital room. She tried to move parts of her body, but pain shot through every area that she attempted to move. She relaxed and quickly fell back to sleep.
Sometime later, she awoke again. Finally able to turn her head, she peered out the open blinds in the hospital room window and saw Bruce standing on the other side, talking with a nurse. He ran his hand through his hair and shook his head. She ached, not just physically but emotionally as she watched her husband. She knew that even if Bruce was at the hospital right now, he’d be gone soon. He didn’t care about her. She’d never felt so alone, so isolated as she did right there in that moment. Soon, the conversation between Bruce and the nurse concluded and he came into the room, shutting the door behind him.
“Oh, you’re awake.” He sounded more annoyed than relieved to hear himself say it. He took a few steps closer to the bed, surveying Olivia with a look of pity. His voice was void of care and already gone from the hospital. “You really got yourself banged up. A few cracked ribs and two badly broken hands and wrists. You have a bunch of nerve damage in the right hand and they had to operate on you. Do you have any idea how worried you made people?”
With a pained effort, she pushed out a question. “What happened, exactly?”
“You were in a wreck on your way to Spokane. I assume on your way to your parents’?”
She closed her eyes, a sudden pain rippling through her shoulder blades. Fragments of the wreck skipped through her mind like a charred rolodex retrieved from a fire. There was a person there, a man. She remembered his arms around her as he pulled her through the grass, the blades of grass pressing against her face.
“Who got me out of the car?”
“What do you mean?”
A single tear escaped her eye, and she couldn’t hold the image anymore as the pain became too much to bear in her hands and ribs. Olivia looked at her husband and longed for his touch even now, after all he had done. She clung to the thought of him just brushing a finger against her skin to make her feel okay in this painful moment, but he never did. She started to cry, her words breaking apart. “I hurt so badly, Bruce. Why’d this have to happen? What did I do to deserve it?”
He glanced at his cell phone and nodded. “You’re a fighter. You’ll get through this just like you get through everything life throws at you, Olivia. Your parents will be here tomorrow. They are over in Montana right now and couldn’t get a flight in until the AM.”
When Bruce turned around and walked away from her hospital bed, Olivia’s throat tightened and her chest contracted, tears spilling down her face despite her best attempts to fight them. She never thought Bruce could hurt her more than he already had, but he’d managed to do so without even so much as a goodbye. She had given him all of herself, and even now, with her whole body in pain after being in a wreck, he still didn’t have even an ounce of care in his body for her. Did he ever care?
An hour passed after Bruce left, and a doctor arrived in the room.
“Mrs. Montgomery, correct?” He flipped papers on the clipboard in his hands as he stared at the papers.
“Yes.” The sound of being called by his name made her skin crawl.
“With you unresponsive, we ran some basic tests before surgery for some answers before we proceeded. Are you aware you’re pregnant? The HCG levels would put you early on, maybe two months, if I had to guess. With no spotting or cramping and it being so early on, I just wanted to assure you your fetus should be fine, but you should schedule an ultrasound with your OB as soon as possible for peace of mind.”
“What? That must be incorrect because I am not pregnant.” Fear panged her heart.
“I promise you, false positives do not happen with blood tests. Congratulations to you and your husband.”
Hot tears welled in her eyes at the news of the pregnancy. No. Please, no.
Olivia’s parents, Dan and Kora, arrived on the first flight back to Spokane and arrived at the hospital by nine o’clock the next day. Though she and her parents hadn’t been on speaking terms in almost three years due to their different beliefs—her choice, not theirs—they didn’t hesitate for a moment when they got the call. They loved Olivia and would truly do anything for her. She couldn’t help but feel relief wash over her as they both entered the room. Tears streamed down her cheeks as all the anger in her heart from their last conversation melted away, leaving only love toward them for being there for her no matter what choices in life she had made.
Showering her with kisses and affection, her parents spoke nothing but words of encouragement and love to her in her time of need. As the minutes turned into hours, questioning gazes shot around the room from both of them. Olivia knew exactly what they were wondering before a word was even uttered about the matter.
“Where’s Bruce?” her father finally asked. Olivia didn’t respond to her father’s inquiry. She couldn’t. The heartache kept her lips tightly zipped.
Her mother wasted no time jumping into the conversation. “He’s probably at work, right? We all know he’s far too busy to take some time off, even if his wife has been in an accident.”
Though her mother was absolutely right about how she had always suspected the worst about Bruce, it didn’t make her right about how she went about discussing Olivia’s husband in such a cold way. It wasn’t very Jesus-like of her. Her mother didn’t even know the half of it, not a clue about Lisa or Michelle. Olivia didn’t dare share Bruce’s sins with the two of them while she was married. She didn’t want to give them more reasons for hating the man than they a
lready possessed. I guess hiding the truth is all over now, she thought to herself, knowing she and Bruce would never be together again. Mustering strength from deep in her soul, the same strength she had relied on to find the courage to finally leave Bruce, she looked at each of her parents.
“I left him.”
Both of her parents looked genuinely shocked and glanced at one another.
Olivia flinched from a surge of pain as it burned in her right hand. She adjusted in her hospital bed, trying to make herself more comfortable with not only the physical pain she was enduring, but the emotional pain as well. Once she got the pain managed to a tolerable level, she spoke again. “I was on my way to Spokane to your house when the wreck happened. I was coming home.”
A doctor walked in and went over the details of the injuries with Olivia’s parents, then turned to Olivia.
“You’re ready to be discharged.”
Her dad came over and touched her shoulder. “We’re going to grab some coffee before we leave. We will be right back.”
“Okay, Dad.”
Dan and Kora left to go get coffee from the cafeteria on-site. The doctor stayed in the room. After they were out of the room and well on their way down the hall, the doctor came closer to the bed and to her side.
“You’re going to be okay. A nurse will come in shortly and give you the at-home care papers along with the prescriptions you need to pick up from the pharmacy.”
“Great. Thank you. Hey, there was a person last night who pulled me out of the car. Do you have information on who he was?”
His lips curved into a frown. “I’m afraid I don’t have that kind of information, but maybe the police do?”
“Okay. I just want to thank him. I’ll try them. Thanks for everything.”
“You’re welcome. Be sure to follow up in a week at my office, and get an appointment with an OB.”