Fortress of Love

by Ann Nichols

  “Probably so,” she agreed.

  “How did you get involved with studying about Greek castles, anyway?” he asked with genuine interest. After all, they were the reason she had come to Greece.

  “Because of you.”

  Such a simple answer, and exactly what Luke would have hoped to hear if he had given it any thought. He didn’t know what to say next, so he didn’t say anything.

  Melissa was quiet, too, but it wasn’t an awkward silence. Instead, it was a silence wiser than a million words and more healing than a thousand apologies. In the absence of conversation, the earth played a loving tune around them. The scratching of the cicadas, the children romping on the beach, the sheep bells clanging in the distance, combined into a lullaby, a sweet symphony of sound that was simple and basic and exactly what they needed.

  With a casual sweep of his hand, Luke reached out and caressed Melissa’s cheek with the back of his hand. “Look, Melissa, there’s a lot that we need to talk about, but I think—” he paused. “I think this time—we have the time.” Her eyes widened at his choice of words, but she remained silent.

  For a moment longer, Luke stared at the horizon—still hazy and undefined in the summer heat. “I don’t know, Melissa. I was probably wrong. I should have given you the time you asked for that night.”

  Joy as bright as an exploding star filled Melissa’s heart. She hadn’t expected him to admit he was wrong—at least not right away. Maybe reconciliation would be easier than she thought. She smiled at the thought that they could be back together and discussing their future—together—maybe as soon as this afternoon! She squeezed her eyes shut in thankfulness, not realizing that he was watching her—and was totally misreading her reaction.

  To Luke, it looked like she was reveling in self-righteousness, perhaps even gloating over his admission. Something burst inside of him, a deep and ugly wound that had been festering a long time. Slamming his fist down on the railing, he snarled, “Why, Melissa? Why?”

  Her eyes popped open.

  “Why?” he repeated. In a voice that was low and ominous, like a growling German shepherd, he continued, “I went to your house on the day we were supposed to get married to tell you that I would give you your precious time.”

  “You came. . .to see me?” Melissa shook her head, bewildered. The thought flashed through her mind that her aunt might have contrived to keep them apart. But nothing had ever been mentioned at the Kincaid mansion about Luke stopping by.

  “Oh, yes, fool that I was, I came. But you,” his lips thinned, “you had already moved on.”

  “Huh?” She took a startled step back. She hadn’t moved out until six months after Luke’s disappearance. The gnawing suspicion that her aunt was somehow involved became more intense. Her throat went dry as she tried to respond. “Luke,” she rasped. “What are you talking about?”

  A muscle twitched in his jaw. “On the day of our wedding, I came back to you—”

  She shook her head vigorously, denying that he had.

  “Don’t tell me I didn’t!” he snapped angrily. “I drove up and saw you at the gate of your uncle’s home hugging another man. You didn’t even look up when I pulled the Jeep up to the curb. That was all I needed to see. I left.”

  “I. . .was hugging. . .a man?” she repeated, totally baffled. There had not been another man in her life since Luke. And if she had her way about it, there never would be another. She searched her brain for what he could have seen, and when she remembered, she felt herself go cold all over. Rubbing her hands up and down her arms, she asked, “Luke. . .do you mean, we’ve been apart all this time because. . .of what you think you saw that day?” Her voice was high and tight.

  “I didn’t think I saw anything. You were standing there with this guy in broad daylight—and I don’t need glasses.”

  “Luke. . .” she fairly wailed. “He was the pastor from my new church. The pastor,” she repeated the title. “He and his wife had just driven me home. She was sitting in their car with their two children. Luke, it was a comforting hug.”

  It didn’t surprise Luke to hear that there was a reasonable explanation. Still, it had made his blood boil to see her in the arms of another man—whatever the reason—and he had used his anger at that moment as an excuse to leave her behind. But he wasn’t going to apologize. She had called off their wedding and changed their lives, and that is what he had focused on for the past eighteen months—her fault, not his own. “I see,” was all he said, his jaw hard and unyielding.

  “Maybe you see,” she fired back. “But I don’t ‘see.’ Why did you leave Ridgedale without at least saying good-bye? And why didn’t you ever write to me?” She hadn’t wanted to land her two main punches, like a cornered prize fighter, quick and hard, but she couldn’t stop herself. Those questions had plagued her far too long, and his stubbornness made an inviting target.

  “Like I said,” a mask seemed to slip over his features, “I think we have time to talk about the past,” he paused, “and the present—later. Let’s get you unpacked.” He slammed the car door shut to emphasize the end of the conversation.

  Melissa shrugged and opened the car door to retrieve her purse. She would wait for the right moment before opening the discussion again. Patience was something she had learned while waiting to hear from Luke for all those months.

  Luke was surprised when she calmly dropped the subject. He had thought that she would fight him, but when she turned from gathering her purse, all she did was push a few stray hairs behind her left ear and stand up straighter, as if on the alert. It was a familiar gesture that reminded him of before.

  Almost, but not quite.

  When he’d known her before, an insecure look would always accompany the straightening of her spine, as if she wasn’t quite sure that she could stand up to him. But now, even with their disagreement fresh in the air, there was openness and light in her eyes. She wasn’t fazed by his outburst. Luke suddenly realized that she was a mature woman, who knew who she was and what she wanted out of life. He knew that he should feel glad, but her new confidence only made him feel uneasy.

  He took the keys from her hand and went around to the trunk of the car to remove her luggage. He’d spent the past year and a half immersed in bitterness, while she had been doing exactly what she had asked for time to do: figuring out who she was and what she wanted. He realized that he was completely unprepared to face the woman Melissa had become.

  He slammed the trunk lid much harder than he had the door.

  “Hey,” she laughed, trying to make light of the situation, “I have to give this car back in one piece!”

  “Sorry,” he murmured. She reached into the backseat and pulled out a pink guitar case. He raised an inquisitive eyebrow and asked, “When did you start playing?”

  “Shortly after you left.”

  His sharp look made her wish she had been more diplomatic. She knew what he was thinking: Another change.

  “Do you play well?” he asked, and covered his eyes with his sunglasses.

  “I’ll play for you later and let you decide,” she bantered, but he didn’t pick up on it. His face was grim and strained. He wasn’t in the mood for chitchat. Lifting her two suitcases, he motioned for her to follow him up to the veranda.

  As they climbed the steps, Luke was lost in his own thoughts. He was amazed by what Melissa had done. All the changes made him very uncomfortable, but he had to admit they were good changes, healthy changes. The Melissa he had known before would never have volunteered to play for him. She would have coyly dismissed her abilities and gone on to another subject. He couldn’t help but wonder if she realized how much she had changed.

  Melissa knew. And she knew that the cynical change she saw in Luke was because of her. She had hurt him. He thought that she had rejected him that day in the cabin, and then again when he had come to see her at the house, even though she hadn’t seen him. But she hadn’t rejected him. She had only begun to accept God and she hadn’t known e
nough then to explain it to Luke. And he’d left before she could.

  But she had the opportunity now and she was confident that her Lord—her Rock—had directed her steps to this man for just that reason. Looking up at the little fortress of rock and stone on the hill above her, she thought about what the prophet Isaiah had written: “Trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord, the Lord, is the Rock eternal.” Melissa nodded. She would always remember to trust. The reminder brought a peaceful smile to her face.

  Luke chose that moment to turn around to look at her. Her serene expression nearly knocked the breath out of him. She seemed to glow from emotions that were light and clean and good, and the contrast with his sour disposition was not lost on Luke. He wanted to be happy, and to feel good about seeing her, but an overwhelming sense of failure, of deficiency, swooped in on him. He wanted to be the one to bring her such joy. But she had done it without him—perhaps even in spite of him.

  He considered the possibility of another man in her life. She had the look of a woman in love and jealousy hit him like a boulder. All the pain, bitterness, and anger that he thought he had put away, now slithered out of the distant closet of his soul as he wondered who had given her what he hadn’t been able to give.

  Melissa saw his shoulders tense and she knew that something was tormenting him. She was about to ask him a question, when the distant ringing of a phone interrupted her sentence before it even started.

  Over his shoulder Luke called out, “Soula, I’ll get it,” and when he turned back to her, Melissa was certain that he was glad for the excuse to get away from her.

  “My housekeeper will show you to your room, where you can bathe and rest,” he said. His tone was clipped and hard, the voice of an adversary, not a friend. Not waiting for her reply, he dropped her suitcases and turned and walked away.

  She watched until the darkness of the house’s interior swallowed him, and then, sighing, she placed her guitar next to her suitcases. Wearily, she reached out for the wrought-iron lounge chair in front of her and sank her tired body into the soft, floral printed cushions.

  She was spent. She suddenly felt the fatigue of thirty-five hours since she had seen a bed in every moving part of her body. The emotions she had sensed in Luke just now had tipped the balance. The long air trip and the long drive were nothing compared to the dosage of raw anger he had just measured out.

  It was as if his soul were tormented, which she had never seen before, and a shudder passed through her as she realized that she had most likely caused him to become like that. Guilt, like a sudden storm, swept through her. But she knew it was guilt that she had to get rid of.

  Dear God, she prayed. Dear God, what did I do to that man? Instinctively, she reached inside the neck of her dress for the cross. What did I do to him? Her feelings of guilt made her heart beat too fast and her skin flush in panic. The last thing she had ever said to Luke was to ask him for more time. Granted, two weeks before their wedding date was poor timing. But she hadn’t wanted to break up. She’d just wanted more time. And she hadn’t left town. He had.

  But still, reason didn’t add up to what she had just witnessed in him. He was tormented by something. But what?

  Dear God, she breathed out a plea for help. Twisting her head to the side, she spied the little castle on the hill and the words from Psalm 46 ran through her head.

  “The Lord Almighty is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress.”

  God was her fortress. He had been with her in the United States and He was with her here, an ocean and a continent away. She didn’t understand what she had done to Luke to fill him with such anger—but God did. And that was good enough for Melissa.

  She would give the feelings of guilt—which were about ready to consume her—over to God. And she would run to His arms, to her Fortress in times of trouble. She would take refuge in Him just as the people of this land had once sought safety from the enemy in the little fort on the hill.

  Melissa knew that Luke wasn’t her enemy, but guilt was. If guilt had its way, her life with Luke would never become what she wanted it to be. And only God could protect her from guilt.

  She closed her eyes and with the lulling sound of the cicadas soothing her, and the words of the psalm running through her head, she fell into the deep, undisturbed sleep of a child who knows that her loving Father is close by.

  Eleven

  Soula completed snapping the beans she was preparing for supper and hurried onto the veranda as fast as her arthritic legs would carry her. She was prepared to meet a sophisticated woman with high heels and pearls, stylishly sitting in wait and coolly surveying the sea, like the few friends who still came to visit Anastasia.

  What Soula found instead was a sleeping girl so innocently beautiful that the maternal instincts in her blossomed. Lowering her large body onto the stool beside the lounge chair, she sat and stared at Melissa.

  She finally understood some of Luke’s pain. To have been engaged to this exquisite creature and then have it called off would have been torture for any man—even one who had a loving family to fall back on. But Luke had only Anastasia, and after the accident, she needed more understanding and support than he did. His parents had given him money—plenty of it—but that was no substitute for their love and concern, which had always been lacking.

  Melissa stirred and Soula hastily stood, not wanting to be caught staring. But when Melissa’s hand relaxed its grip on the object that hung around her neck, the housekeeper gasped, a loud sound that echoed across the marble veranda.

  “Soula? What is it?” Luke asked, as he walked up behind her.

  “Shhh. . .” Soula put a warning finger to her lips. “Kemate.”

  “She’s sleeping?” He stood next to Soula and looked down at Melissa. He liked having the opportunity to look at her with her eyes closed; he liked not having to confront the shining radiance that spoke so plainly of another love. But as he searched the soft contours of her face, the peacefulness became almost more than he could bear. It sent his blood pounding and he wanted to gather her in his arms, wrap her close, and awaken her with a million kisses.

  He shook his head and glanced at Soula.

  He was startled to see her looking him right in the eye. Her hands were planted on her ample hips and her blue eyes bored into him like they had when he was ten years old and she had caught him and her son Kostas lying about where they had gone to swim. She had been almost like a mother to him and right now he felt like he was ten years old all over again.

  “Soula?” His brows drew together. “What’s wrong?”

  “You told me that you lost it,” she accused in a loud whisper.

  Not understanding, Luke’s frown deepened. “Lost what?”

  With a jut of her chin and fire in her eyes, Soula indicated the gold cross that Melissa still clutched.

  Luke’s eyes widened when he saw the heirloom that his godfather had given to him. It lay nestled in Melissa’s hand, mocking him, haunting him with memories of Lake Breeze. “I’ll give it back to you when I can tell you the meaning behind it,” she had said. The pain of that day was suddenly as fresh as if it had just happened.

  “Did she steal it from you?” Soula demanded from his side.

  Luke quickly clicked his tongue and tilted his head and eyebrows upward—the Greek sign for “no.” “No, Soula. She didn’t steal it.”

  “No?” Luke heard doubt in Soula’s voice and he sighed, knowing that he owed her an explanation.

  “No. . .” He paused to choose the right words. “But I did tell you the truth. The symbolic truth,” he qualified.

  Soula shook her head. “I don’t understand.”

  “I did lose the cross,” he turned back to Melissa, and he felt his chest tighten. He could almost believe that she was still his Meli. His eyes flicked to the cross. Except for that cross, she would been his wife. But how could he explain the situation to Soula? He didn’t want to tell her that Melissa had been much more in love with his cross than with him.
Somehow he knew that wouldn’t sound right to the older woman’s ears. In fact, Soula would probably think that Melissa had been right to choose the cross and what it stands for over him. And that thought wasn’t something Luke wanted to consider. He had always valued Soula’s simple wisdom, but this time, he didn’t want to hear it.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I lost it at the same time I lost her.” He wondered what else he could say. But he didn’t have to say another word. True to her trusting personality, Soula was satisfied with his explanation.

  “Well, I have some beans to attend to,” she said. Gently squeezing his upper arm in the comforting way she had done since he was a boy, she turned and waddled on her arthritic legs back into the house.

  Luke watched her go and then turned his attention back to Melissa. In the lingering heat of the early evening, her cheeks had grown rosy and a tiny rivulet of perspiration tickled the lobe of her ear. She began to stir and Luke took a step backward to avoid the impression he had been hovering over her.

  He watched as her hand—the same hand that had once worn his ring—moved over the cross, hiding it, a split second before her eyes opened. When she awoke, she had the foggy look of one who isn’t quite sure where she is. Luke wanted nothing more than to lean over her, to kiss her, to remind her. But he didn’t.

  “Luke?” There was question in her voice, as if she didn’t quite believe her eyes.

  He swallowed the lump that had formed in his throat. “You fell asleep.” His voice was raspy. He tried to clear it.

  Smiling, Melissa extended her arms and stretched. Luke wished that they were reaching for him. “I’m sorry. I guess traveling straight through finally caught up with me.” She breathed out as she finished, and Luke forgot about the lump in his throat as fear sent a shot of adrenaline coursing through his system.