by Lois Richer
“I know.” Dylan lifted his head, nodding at the officers. He glanced at Jason. “I’m sorry.” He held out one hand. “Forgive me?”
Jason took it, squeezed hard. “Of course. After all, God forgave me.”
“Thanks.” Then it was Piper’s turn. Dylan’s face fell as he stared at her. “I’m so sorry, sis.”
“It’s okay.” She hugged him, then sniffed. “You go with Dad. He’ll take care of you. I love you.”
The police walked him out of the room to a waiting squad car outside. Jason moved to one side, giving father and daughter space.
“I’ve got to go with him, honey. He’ll probably go to jail but I have to help.” Baron’s eyes begged her to understand.
Piper smiled, touched his cheek. “I know. You go, Daddy. Do what you can. When you want to talk I’ll be here. Waiting.”
They embraced then Baron hurried away. Jason stepped forward, eager to get Piper to himself. But the police had other ideas.
“If you’ll come with me, Jason, I’d like to get your statement. Piper, you go with this officer.”
“Sure.” She looked at him directly, summoned up a smile. “Talk to you later?”
“Count on it,” Jason confirmed.
Epilogue
By ten o’clock, Serenity Bay lay in a pool of darkness with only a small, yellow flicker here and there.
Seated on the deck, Piper’s gaze rested on the surrounding forest. She ignored the chilly breeze whispering across the land.
Waiting was the hardest part.
“Piper?” The warm hand on her arm made her smile. “Are you all right?”
She turned her head to look at Jason and nodded. “Yes.”
“What are you thinking about?” he asked, sinking down beside her.
“God. My father and Dylan. Love. Forgiveness. His leading.”
“God led me here to teach me how to trust.” His fingers grasped her chin, urging her to face him. “I believe He led you here, too.”
She nodded.
“I came for the wrong reason,” she murmured. “But He turned that into good, showed me a side of fatherhood I’d never seen before.” She threaded her fingers with his, staring out across the water. “God is like the bay, I think. Ever changing, ever new. Sometimes demanding but always there, always waiting to wrap you up and hold you close.”
Tears rose but she ignored them.
“I saw God in my father today. Tina’s been filling me in on what Dylan’s done to Wainwright. To my father. Dad knew everything, Jason.” She blinked away the tears and smiled. “And yet when the time came he wiped it away, loved my brother in spite of it all.”
“He did the same for you,” Jason reminded.
“Yes. I misjudged him so badly and yet he forgave me. Dad was there, waiting for me all along. Just like God. Only I couldn’t see it, I couldn’t experience the love because I wouldn’t trust in it. I guess He brought me here to teach me trust, too.” She smiled at him as the peace settled like a blanket on her heart.
“I love you, too, Piper. I think it began the first day you showed up at the town office. You looked like a winter rose to me.”
“A rose?”
“Mmm.” He laid his index finger against her cheek, let it glide across the skin. “You were wearing red and I remember you reminded me of a long-stemmed rose, the kind a man gives a woman he loves.”
Jason leaned over, plucked a deep-burgundy rose from her grandmother’s arbor and brushed it against her cheek.
“I love you,” she whispered, sitting very still as he tucked the bloom in behind her ear. “When I thought there was a chance you might drown out there, I knew I couldn’t go another day without telling you how much you’ve meant to me these past months. Everything I’ve worked to achieve, I couldn’t have done any of it if you hadn’t been there.”
“Even though I pushed you too hard?” he asked with a lopsided grin.
“Even though you constantly challenged me to try harder,” she agreed.
He slid an arm around her waist, drew her so close only a whisper separated them.
“We make a good team when we work together, Piper. Will you keep working with me, keep reining me in, keep teaching me to trust? I think God has lots in store for Serenity Bay. Together we’re strong enough to accomplish whatever He sends.” His lips brushed hers. “Someday soon I’m going to ask you to marry me, be my partner for the rest of our lives.”
She tilted her head a fraction to the right, tracing the lines of his face with her eyes.
“Someday soon I’m going to say yes. After we help Dad with Wainwright Inc. Think you can work with me there?”
“Think I’ll love it.” They kissed, sealing the promise of a thousand tomorrows. Across the bay a shower of gold sparks lit up the night sky.
“What’s that?” Piper asked, blinking as one after another, an array of fireworks dazzled them.
Jason groaned.
“I forgot to tell you. We were invited to Ida’s for ribs again. She caught me just as I was coming over here. She knows I love you, Piper.”
Piper burst out laughing.
“After today, I’m pretty sure she knows I love you, too.”
Another boom resounded across the valley and the sky filled with a soft, golden glow. Jason picked up Piper’s hand and squeezed it.
“What’s next on your Serenity Bay calendar?”
“The Summer Splash will be over soon, but then we’ve got the Fall Fair.” She reached up, pulled his head down and told him wordlessly how much she loved him. “Then it will be time for the Winter Festival.”
“Piper, the mayor probably shouldn’t say this, but you are the number one priority on my to-do list.”
She laughed, snuggled her head against his shoulder and thought how wonderful it was that God had planned for her to love this man.
“I think I might be free on New Year’s Eve, Mayor Franklin. Does that fit in with your schedule?”
“It’s pretty far away.” His chin rested on her head. She could hear the rumble of laughter from deep down in his chest. “But I’m learning that good things come to those who wait. I’ll wait for my winter rose.”
*
Dear Reader,
Welcome to Serenity Bay. Though this pretty tourist town is a total figment of my imagination, it’s as real to me as my own backyard. That’s because it’s not so much a physical place on the map as it is a destination for the soul, a place where wounded hearts can run to find healing, help and friends who will be there no matter what.
I hope you’ve enjoyed Piper’s search for forgiveness and the revelations it brought. Jason had his own quest to learn to trust. That’s not an easy thing when those to whom you’re committed most have betrayed so deeply. Isn’t it good to know that no matter how many mistakes we make, our loving heavenly Father is there with open arms and a heart brimming with tenderness to show us He never gives up on us?
Please join me for Ashley’s story in Apple Blossom Bride. I wish you peace in your relationships, joy in your everyday life and the fullness of a love that grew in the heart of God to be shared with His children on Earth. I pray you find an abundance of it, enough to pass on to those you touch today.
Apple Blossom Bride
I am holding you by your right hand—
I the Lord your God—and I say to you,
Don’t be afraid; I am here to help you.
—Isaiah 41:13
This book is dedicated to my dad. I love you.
Dear Reader,
Welcome back to Serenity Bay. Don’t you just love getting away for a while, escaping the phones and duties and just relaxing, enjoying life? Serenity Bay is that kind of place. Small town, lake, lots of beach. But for Ashley, it also held dark places, trepidation and fears she could never quite escape.
Our lives mirror Ashley’s in many ways. Each of us has dreads and terrors we choose to live with, adapt to and work around. Instead of fa
cing them we often choose to deny their existence. And our lives are poorer because we refuse to live fully, in the moment. We miss out on some of God’s richest blessings.
As you search your own heart and pull out the weeds of fear, I pray you’ll find hope and comfort in knowing that nothing is ever hidden from God. That He sees, He knows and He loves you anyway. I wish you renewed faith, everlasting hope and a love that spreads through your life and brings you true serenity.
Contents
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Epilogue
Excerpt
Prologue
Seventeen Years Ago
“How can they do it, Pip?”
Ashley Adams scrubbed at her cheek, struggling to eradicate tears that wouldn’t stop flowing. Sobbing made her hiccup. She had to pause to catch her breath before she could get out her next question.
“My parents promised to love each other until death parted them and now they’re getting a divorce. How can they do that?”
“I don’t know.” Piper Langley sat down cross-legged beside her on the fresh spring grass, her forehead creased in a frown of perplexity. “I don’t understand adults at all, Ash. I wish I did.”
“Me, too. We’ll be teenagers pretty soon. We’re supposed to get smarter about this love stuff but I don’t get it. I don’t want to have two homes. I don’t want to leave my dad or Serenity Bay.” She wept. “I just want my family together.”
Piper, good friend that she was, silently shared her grief.
“At Bible study last week Mrs. Masters said love is a decision.” Ashley sniffed as she plucked the tumbling apple blossoms off her sweater. “My parents could decide to love each other, they could decide to stay married.”
“If they told you about their decision today, it doesn’t sound like they’re going to change their minds,” Piper warned. She checked her watch. “I’ve got to get home. Gran told me not to be late today. I want to stay with you,” she hurried to explain, “but if I’m any later they’ll worry.”
“It’s okay.” Ashley sniffed, managed a weak smile. “I understand. You go on. I think I’ll stay here for a little while.”
“Don’t stay too long or you’ll be completely covered in apple blossoms.” Piper jumped to her feet, black pigtails bobbing. She bent, hugged Ashley once in a tight squeeze, then grabbed her backpack, climbed on her bike and pedaled down the road toward her grandparents’ home.
Ashley wished she could follow. Pip was so lucky. Her grandparents loved each other, and her. They would never make her choose between them.
You’re away at school most of the year, anyway, honey. You’ll spend the summers with me, and Christmas and Easter with your mother. Or would you rather have it the other way around?
Who cared? The point was she wouldn’t have a home. Not a real one.
A moment later her friend had disappeared from sight and Ashley was all alone in the churchyard with only the tumbling blossoms to listen to. Behind her, the woods rustled as the wind tickled newly sprouted leaves, but she paid no attention.
“I trusted you, God. I prayed and prayed, but they’re still getting a divorce. I’m scared.”
The words sounded worse when she said them out loud. She laid her head on her arms and wept for everything she was about to lose, uncaring that the afternoon sun weakened, unseeing when it let fingers of gloom creep in.
A rustle behind her drew her attention. But, before she could check it out, hard fingers locked on to her arm, pinching so tight she dropped her tissue.
“Get up. Slowly now. Don’t make a sound.”
Ashley blinked, startled by the command of a man who looked like a storybook hermit. She obeyed automatically, thinking she must know him. A friend of her father perhaps?
But when they reached the curb and he opened the door of a battered station wagon, her confusion gave way to uncertainty, concern, then full-bodied fear. She opened her mouth to protest but he thrust her inside, then climbed in beside her.
Panic gripped her so fiercely she couldn’t breathe or make her legs work. The sensation of spiders crawling over her skin made her scratch at her arms. But that was nothing compared to the wave of dizziness that rose inside when she glanced over her shoulder and saw two suitcases on the backseat of the man’s car.
You have to be careful, Ashley. Her mother’s constant refrain accompanied the warning bells that were filling her brain.
She hadn’t been careful. Now she was being kidnapped.
“Stop!”
But he didn’t stop, and before she could scramble out of the car he’d already shifted into gear and roared past the church, past the apple blossom tree where she’d always found sanctuary.
“Let me out,” she whispered, pressing herself against the door. Her throat was so dry she could hardly speak. “Please let me out.”
He didn’t seem to hear her. His attention was on his rearview mirror, his foot heavy on the gas pedal. He was moving too fast for her to jump out of the car.
They neared the center of town. Surely someone would notice that Ashley Adams was in a strange man’s car?
But the stores were closing, the streets almost deserted. Only the coffee shop still shone its bright neon lights onto the street, welcoming people into its cozy interior.
“Let me go!” she pleaded. “I’m supposed to be at home now.”
He ignored her. Perhaps he knew that her parents were too busy with their divorce plans to notice she hadn’t been home all afternoon. Maybe that’s why he’d taken her—maybe people could take one look at her and know that she was going to be like the kids in school she’d always felt sorry for.
As the car whizzed over the road Ashley tried to pray, struggled to think about God and those loving arms Mrs. Masters always talked about. But she couldn’t feel them. All she felt was alone and very scared.
The man hunched over the wheel, his face set in a forbidding angry mask. Every so often he’d glance in his rearview mirror. Then his lips pinched together and his fingers squeezed the wheel so tightly they turned pasty-white. Anger emanated from him like smoke from a fire ready to ignite.
She had to get out of this car!
They approached the only traffic light in town, a yellow light which quickly turned red. It was now or maybe never. Ashley slid her fingers around the door handle and prepared herself. When he jerked to a stop she yanked the door open, hurled out of the vehicle and raced across the street to Mrs. Masters’ coffee shop.
“Hey! Wait. I’ll take you home,” the man yelled after her.
Fat chance!
Ashley didn’t look back nor did she stop running until she reached the coffee-shop door. Using both hands she dragged it open, burst into the pungent warmth that surrounded her as she drew deep gasping breaths into her lungs. She glanced from face to face, searching for an ally.
There were two customers at the counter. Mrs. Masters was laughing with them, but she stopped when Ashley locked the café door. By the time her sobs gurgled out, her Sunday school teacher was there, holding her.
“What’s the matter, honey?”
“A man.” Ashley clung to her capable hands as if to anchor herself. “A man tried to take me away. In his car.”
“What man?” Mrs. Masters peered through the coffee-shop windows, shook her head. “I don’t see anyone.”
“He was there. I was at the apple tree by the ch-church and he grabbed me. He was trying to k-kidnap me.” She was shaking and didn’t know how to stop.
As if through a fog she heard Mrs. Masters speaking, felt hersel
f being pushed down onto a chair. Someone pressed her hands around a cup. It warmed her icy fingers so she clung to it while people came and went.
“She said a man took her.” She felt their stares and looked away, locking her gaze on the table, the chair, anything but the street in front. A while later her father came and took her home. To the home she wasn’t going to have anymore.
That night the dreams started: nightmares so real Ashley could feel those bony fingers pressing into her skin, hear the gravel rattling beneath her feet as he pulled her across it, feel the biting odor of freshly cut spruce sting her nostrils and the hard metal pressure of the window handle against her back when she crouched in the car and waited for a chance to escape.
And every time she’d wake up, shaking, crying, knowing that some time, someday, somewhere he’d come back.
And that when he did, she wouldn’t be able to leave.
Chapter One
Ashley shoved open the door of her Vancouver condo with her crutch and hobbled inside, absorbing the stale odor of a place too long uninhabited. She let the door swing closed behind her, made sure it was locked, then concentrated on inhaling deep breaths.
She was home. She was safe.
The mail sat neatly stacked on a side table, thanks to her landlord. But Ashley ignored it, coaxing her body to move a little farther into the room.
All she really wanted was to run. Which was sad when she’d spent so much time and effort dealing with her panic attacks, making this her safe haven. The accident with Kent had only proven what she already knew—there was no safe place. As if to emphasize that point, the fear that had assailed her in the elevator a few moments ago now ballooned and wouldn’t let go.