Love Inspired June 2015 - Box Set 1 of 2: The Cowboy's HomecomingThe Amish Widow's SecretSafe in the Fireman's Arms

by Carolyne Aarsen

  As Lee had.

  Maybe it was a good thing you ended up in jail.

  Guilt seized her midsection. How could she have said that? How could she have thought that?

  Lee had spent three years of his life in prison because of her father’s mistake and years away from his home, struggling to repay his family because he was so ashamed of what he had done. And now? What would happen now? What would Lee think of her now? How would he react?

  The unanswerable questions swarmed through her mind, taunting her. She had been so wrong about Lee in so many ways. He hadn’t asked her out on a bet as Mitch and David had told her, and now he hadn’t been the one who had injured her father.

  She waited a moment, trying to find a solid place, trying to find her footing in this new reality.

  You can’t tell him.

  Abby shook her head, unable to process that thought. How could her father not think Lee needed to know? She had to tell him.

  And what would he think then? What would happen between them? Would he have as difficult a time forgiving her as she had forgiving him?

  “Abby? Is that you?”

  Her mother’s voice drifted down the hall. She hurriedly stood, smoothed down her hair, the awful knowledge her father had just given her dragging her down.

  “I’m here,” Abby said, hitting the light switch for the main room.

  We can’t afford to pay him back.

  The reality of what her father said was made even clearer as she looked around her mother’s apartment.

  But how could she not tell Lee? The guilt of what he had done had been such a burden on his shoulders.

  Abby felt bile rise in her throat. Three years of his life and all that money. Gone. For nothing.

  “Abby, honey, are you okay?” Her mother was tying up her bathrobe as she came into the living room.

  Did her mother know the truth?

  “I’m not okay,” she gasped.

  “I can see that. Did you get sick at the wedding?”

  Oh, dear Lord, the wedding. That moment of utter bliss and contentment. Happiness and anticipation.

  What would Lee think of her and her family after she told him?

  Couldn’t she just keep it quiet? Keep it to herself as her father suggested?

  “No. I didn’t get sick.” Abby squeezed the heel of her hand to her temple, trying to push away the headache that threatened. “But...I saw Dad.”

  “Today? When? I thought you were at the wedding.”

  “I saw him just now. He said he wanted to talk to me.” Abby’s stomach did another dive as she thought of the topic of that conversation.

  “What about?”

  “Lee.” Abby set her backpack with her camera on the dining table and turned to her mother. “Did you know about the accident? I mean, did you know the truth about the accident? Did Dad ever talk about it?”

  Her mother’s puzzled frown gave her some encouragement that maybe she didn’t know. “What truth about the accident?”

  Abby folded her arms over her stomach as she leaned back against the table for support. “Dad just told me... He just said...Lee wasn’t the one who was driving when he got hit. Someone else was.”

  “What are you saying? I don’t understand.”

  Abby eased out a sigh. Then, in a dull monotone, she relayed to her mother what she had heard from her father. “And, on top of that, he told me not to tell Lee,” she said.

  Ivy pressed her fingers to her lips, her shell-shocked gaze darting around the apartment, as if mentally sizing it up just as Abby had done only a few moments ago. “If you tell Lee...the money...we were wrong...I can’t pay that kind of money back.”

  “I know. Neither can Dad. It’s gone.”

  “And the Bannisters could sue us. For libel. Or something. Your father could be charged.”

  Her mother’s despair created a storm of second thoughts. Lee seemed content. He had made his peace with what happened. He had found his way through all this. Nothing could be changed by his knowing.

  “Are you going to tell him?” her mother asked, her voice shrill.

  “I have to,” Abby said quietly. “It’s not fair.”

  “But if he finds out what will he do?”

  “I don’t know.”

  And that was the truth.

  “I’m tired, Mom. I need to go to bed. We’ll talk about this tomorrow.” She gave Ivy a quick kiss, then grabbed her purse and trudged to her room, worry and fear and anger with her father dogging her steps. Why had her father lied and, even worse, kept up the deception all these years?

  That wasn’t hard to figure out, she realized as she closed the door and tugged her shoes off. He saw a chance to get some money and he took it.

  And Abby had been right beside him, urging him on, her own rage with Lee entwined in with what she saw as a gross injustice done to her father.

  Instead, it was the other way around and she had been a party to it.

  Help me, Lord, she prayed, dropping her head into her hands, squeezing her eyes shut as if trying to hold back the emotions that threatened to swamp her. Help me.

  She was so confused she didn’t even know what to ask of God anymore.

  She lifted her head and saw her Bible sitting beside her laptop. She dragged it across the desk, opening it to Lamentations 3, a passage that she had read over and over again after her father’s accident.

  Because of the Lord’s great love, we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.

  She would require more of the Lord’s faithfulness in the coming days. Because one thing was certain, as hard as it had been for her to forgive Lee, he had much more to forgive. She had pushed the lawyer so hard to fight for what she thought of as a reasonable settlement. And now, looking back, she knew her motives weren’t exactly pure. Some of her insistence had to do with the “bet” that she thought Mitch and David had made with Lee. She had thought if she could get back at him she would feel better.

  But it hadn’t done anything for her. And now not only had her father lied, but her own twisted motives had saddled Lee with a financial burden that, by his own admission, had been part of the reason he stayed away from the ranch.

  What if she didn’t tell him the truth? Wouldn’t it be easier?

  Abby shook that thought off even while it was formulating. She couldn’t do that. Lee carried the burden of guilt so heavily. She needed to release him from the lie that hung over his head with the truth.

  But what would he do? How would he react?

  How could he forgive her father and, by extension, her?

  * * *

  Lee pulled up to the Grill and Chill, curiosity and expectation thrumming through him. Abby hadn’t been in church this morning. Though he and his family had been up until 3:00 a.m. cleaning up after the wedding, he still got up to get to Sunday services on time, looking forward to seeing her. When she didn’t show up, he thought she was having second thoughts. But her text, asking him to meet at the Grill and Chill afterward, balanced out the concerns.

  He stepped inside the café and glanced around.

  George Bamford was standing at the till, dealing with a customer.

  “Hey, Bannister,” the man said, giving him a cursory nod as he closed the drawer of the antique cash register. “So. Wedding went good?”

  “It was great. Lots of fun. Brooke looked gorgeous. Too bad you couldn’t have come.” Lee had heard via Keira that Brooke had asked George to come with her as her escort, but he hadn’t shown.

  “Allison was at the wedding too. One of us had to stay back and keep the grill going,” George said, glowering at Lee as if it were his entire fault he couldn’t attend.

  “Well, maybe next time...” Lee said.

  “Next time being yours?” George asked slyly, looking over his shoulder to the back of the restaurant, where Lee saw Abby sitting.

  “No. Heather’s, for now,” Lee countered, then added a quick lift of his
eyebrow as if letting the other man know that there might be another one in the future.

  “Go get ’em, cowboy,” George said. “I’ll be by with coffee.”

  Lee grinned, then headed to the booth at the end, where Abby sat, looking down at the coffee in front of her as if it held the secrets of the universe.

  “Hey, you,” he said, slipping into the booth. He wanted to kiss her but figured he’d hold off. Plenty of time for that later.

  She simply looked up at him. Lee couldn’t stop a twitch of concern at the haggard look on her face.

  “You okay?” he asked, reaching over and laying the back of his hand against her cheek. “You look exhausted.”

  She didn’t reply, but she reached up and caught his hand, holding it against her face, her slender fingers curled around his wrist. Then she lowered her hand, still holding his, her fingers like ice.

  “What’s wrong, Abby?”

  She gave him a smile, but Lee could see her heart wasn’t in it. George came by with a pot of coffee. She declined a refill, but Lee nodded at George. When he left she pushed her cup aside, sitting back in the booth, her arms clasping her middle, and Lee had a nagging suspicion that she was about to tell him something he didn’t want to hear.

  “I saw my dad last night,” she said, her voice so quiet he had to lean forward to hear her. “He was parked in front of my mom’s apartment. I saw him when I came back from...from the wedding.” She stopped there, teeth worrying her lower lip, her eyes still averted.

  “How is he?” Lee asked, his heart faltering. Had seeing her father given her second thoughts?

  “He’s okay. He came to give me his blessing. On our relationship.”

  Lee felt his breath leave him like air out of a balloon. “That’s great. That’s good to know.”

  However, Abby didn’t look as happy as he felt. “But while we were talking, I found something else out. Something important.” She bit her lip again, then looked up at him, her eyes brimming with tears. “My dad told me that you weren’t the one driving when he got hit. That there was another person in the truck when it hit you and he was the one driving. He was the one who hit my dad. Not you.”

  Lee narrowed his eyes, trying to keep up. “I don’t understand what you’re saying,” he said, truly bewildered as he tried to process what she was saying. “I was the only person in the truck when Sheriff McCauley came by. Just me.”

  “According to my father, after he was hit, he saw the truck hit the tree. That’s when he saw two people in the cab. He said he saw the driver get out and pull the passenger—you—over to the driver’s side. Then the driver ran over to my father.” A deep frown creased her brow, but she pushed on. “My dad couldn’t see who it was, but he could see that it was a guy with blond hair, kind of long. Obviously not you. But he couldn’t see his face. Then whoever it was ran off into the bushes and minutes later the police were there.”

  “There were two people in my truck?” Lee repeated, trying to make sense of what Abby was telling him. “And your dad is actually saying I wasn’t driving when I hit him?”

  “Yes, that’s what he said. You don’t remember any of this?”

  “The last thing I remember was walking with Mitch and David to my truck after the party.” Lee stared at Abby. “Is he absolutely sure about all this?”

  “I had to drag the truth from him, but yes,” she whispered. “He was quite sure.”

  Lee fell back against the seat, feeling as if he’d been punched in the gut. Too vividly he remembered sitting with his father at the lawyer’s office across from Abby, her mother and Cornell’s attorney while they laid out the terms of the settlement.

  It was the lowest point in his life. Not only finding out what he had done, but realizing that his father would be paying for his mistake as well when the insurance company refused to pay up because this was Lee’s third DUI. But the worst was seeing Abby glaring at him as if he was even less worthy than scum.

  And what about now?

  “Did you know this all along?”

  “No. No, I didn’t,” Abby said, shaking her head vehemently. “Like I said, I had to drag the truth out of my dad. He made some vague comments and when I pushed him he finally told me. I had no clue. No earthly idea.”

  “I spent three years in jail,” he snapped, his brain scrambling to absorb what Abby had just told him. “Three years of my life thinking I was nothing but dirt. And then another three years trying to pay my dad back.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Abby said. “So sorry. I should never have pushed my dad to ask for a settlement.”

  “You were the one who wanted to sue?”

  “I encouraged him to,” she whispered brokenly. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Sorry?” Lee shook his head, his confusion morphing into an irrational anger. “You’re sorry. I spent years paying my father back the money you pushed your father to sue for. Money that your father squandered.”

  He stopped himself, though the stricken look on Abby’s face made him realize he couldn’t take back what he said.

  But he didn’t have room for her right now. All he could think about was what she and her father did to him. The guilt that had dogged him. The look of disgust on her face when they had faced each other across the lawyer’s table as they hammered out a deal. The money they had sucked out of his parents.

  “I gotta go,” he muttered, grabbing his hat, slipping out of the booth.

  Then he turned and strode out of the diner, shoved open the door and walked blindly to his truck. He got in, twisted the key in the ignition, then pulled out of the parking spot, his tires squealing, his foot pressed to the accelerator.

  He had to get out of here. He couldn’t be here right now.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Abby sat back in the booth, her eyes stinging with tears, her heart heavy as a stone as she watched Lee stride away from her, each footfall like a hammer blow to her chest.

  She leaned her elbows on the table, pressing the heels of her hands into her eyes, willing back the tears that even now spilled past her hands and down her cheeks.

  Be with him, Lord, she prayed. Keep him safe.

  She wanted to pray that he could forgive her, but she remembered how angry she had been with him over what she thought he had done to her father. It had taken her years to get to the point that she could forgive him.

  How long would it take him?

  She blindly fished in her backpack for a tissue. She wiped her eyes, but new tears flowed down her scalding cheeks. It didn’t matter how long it would take Lee to forgive. She guessed that anything they had before had been destroyed in the aftermath of this particular storm.

  She pulled a few bills out of her wallet and dropped them on the table. Then she struggled to her feet, grabbing her backpack, and made her way out of the café, hoping no one would notice her streaked makeup, her red eyes.

  She wasn’t sure how she made it back home. Her mother was waiting for her with a pot of tea, but Abby declined, retreating to her bedroom.

  She dropped into her chair and turned on her laptop. She had spent the entire weekend editing pictures and writing up the article for the magazine. She had gone over it so many times, trying to catch the right nuances, give it the right due.

  But the hardest part of all was seeing the pictures of Lee.

  And there were so many of them: Lee on a horse. Lee with their dog, Sugar. Lee with the calf. Lee standing on a hill overlooking a valley. Lee smiling at her, his eyes twinkling.

  Each picture hurt to look at. Each picture a reminder of what might have been.

  And now she had the wedding photos to go through, as well.

  She loaded them onto her computer, hoping, praying she could be dispassionate about them as she sorted through them all, discarding and narrowing the choices to her top picks.

  She pulled up the last pictures she had edited and felt, again, that clench in her heart as Lee’s smiling face stared back at her.

  So close, she though
t, her heart aching. They had come so close.

  All the while, as she edited the wedding photos—softening, shading, adding highlights, enchanting and vignetting—Abby kept her phone beside her. She had tried to call him a few times, but he didn’t answer and she didn’t blame him.

  What could they possibly have to say to each other now?

  But each time she saw Lee’s smiling face, it was like another bruise on her battered soul. She had been wrong about him twice. She wasn’t worthy of him.

  Not anymore.

  * * *

  “So let me get this straight, you weren’t the one driving when your truck hit Cornell Newton?”

  Monty sat back in the leather chair of his office, his incredulous look echoing the anger that had twisted Lee’s gut when Abby told him.

  “According to Cornell, there was another driver,” Lee said, turning to look out the window over the ranch he would become a part of. “He didn’t know who, but from the description, I’d guess David. He’s the last person I remember being with that night.” Lee pinched the bridge of his nose, his brain still reeling from the information Abby had dumped on him an hour ago. “I don’t know what to do. What to think.”

  He heard the squeak of his father’s chair and then a hand resting on his shoulder. “This is hard news, son. Very hard news.”

  “I keep thinking of how guilty I felt. When I saw Abby at the lookout point when I first came back home, she was so angry with me and I felt I deserved every bit of it. But now...?”

  He closed his eyes and rested his forehead against the window, thinking of the furious words he had thrown at her in the café. The guilt on her face. It destroyed him and at the same time he felt suddenly exonerated. He had thought himself worthless for so long. Unworthy of Abby. When she had accepted his apology, granted him forgiveness, he felt as if all the self-condemnation he had put himself through was eased away.

  But all those emotions were for nothing. Everything was different now.

  “Now you have to find a way through all this,” his father said. “A way to redeem this.”