Coming Home: (Contemporary Christian Romance Boxed Set): Three Stories of Love, Faith, Struggle & Hope

by Debra Ullrick

  “What are ya gonna have, Olivia?”

  She peered over the menu at Camara. “I’m not sure. Erik,” she turned questioning eyes at him. “What do you recommend?”

  Her eyes connected with his for the briefest of moments before her gaze fell to her menu.

  “The fried trout and morel mushrooms is really good. So is the grilled Alaskan salmon with roasted red potatoes and southern style green beans. And if you’re really adventurous you can try the wild boar ribs.”

  “Wild boar ribs!” Her wide eyes flew back to him. She knew that a fly could land on her tongue if she didn’t shut her mouth, but the idea of eating wild boar ribs grossed her out “Ew. Ew. Ew.” She shuddered.

  His smile did little to calm her repulsion. “I’m just teasin’ ya. They’re really good.”

  Olivia set aside her menu. “I’ll take your word for it.” She wrinkled her nose and pressed her lips tight.

  The waitress returned to their table with pen and pad in hand and smiled coquettishly at Erik. “May I take your order?”

  “Go ahead,” Erik said to Olivia.

  Miss Red’s smile dropped when she faced Olivia.

  “I’ll have the sliced ham with apples, a cup of bacon potato soup, and lemonade, please.” Olivia flashed the woman her most winsome smile.

  The waitress’s eyes narrowed, then brightened when she turned toward Erik. Flirtatiously, she smiled at him and lowered her eyelashes in a sultry manner. “And for you, Sir?”

  The woman’s blatant wantonness sent shockwaves throughout Olivia’s brain. Flashbacks of Hammond and how he used to openly flirt with every pretty waitress right in front of her, assaulted her mind. Confusion fogged her brain. Years ago, when her life had felt as empty as a black hole, Hammond, her knight in shining armor, had ridden up on his white steed, or in this case, his white Corvette, had scooped her up, and taken her on a trip to fantasyland. Or had he? Yes. Yes he had. Hammond was the biggest sweetheart ever. His only major flaw was he loved to flirt.

  Olivia pulled her thoughts back from the past and fastened them onto the present. Onto Erik to be exact.

  “I’ll have the Alaskan Salmon,” Erik said, instantly looking away from the woman. He seemed impervious to her, even though she was clearly not impervious to him.

  After all of their orders were taken and the waitress left, Camara laid her arms on the table and leaned toward Olivia. “Erik says you’re from Wheeling.”

  “Yes, that’s right.” She braced herself for the dreaded questions that were certain to follow.

  “Do you ever go to any mud bog races out there?”

  Well that wasn’t what she expected. “No, I’ve never even heard of mud bog racing until I moved here. Besides, Hammond wasn’t into auto racing and stuff.”

  “Who’s Hammond?” Erik asked, completely ignoring the waitress who paused longer than necessary while placing Erik’s drink in front of him. When the blue-eyed woman realized he wasn’t paying any attention to her, she finished serving the others their drinks and left.

  Olivia made the mistake of looking at Erik’s expectant face. A silent battled warred inside her. Stalling for time, she grabbed her freshly made lemonade, brought it to her lips, and slowly sipped the sweet and sour drink. Sooner or later, she knew people would ask about her past, but she just wasn’t sure how much to tell them. If she said he was her fiancé, would they want to know more? And anything other than that would be a lie. Not one to speak falsehoods, she opted for the truth. “He was my fiancé.” She focused on the moisture dripping down her glass, then took another drink. The ice-cold beverage, slid down her throat as she gulped several swallows, nearly giving herself a brain freeze.

  All eyes were on her. Desperate to get the spotlight off of her, she set her drink down and picked up her cloth napkin. “Camara.” She wiped her hands, then spread the napkin on her lap. “What made you decide to become a mechanic and race bog trucks? Had you always enjoyed messing with vehicles, or what?”

  Everyone’s attention turned toward Camara. Everyone’s, she noticed with some disconcertedness, but Erik’s. Olivia fought not to notice that it took him a full minute to shift his focus off of her and put it on his sister.

  Camara’s eyes lit up as she explained how she’d gotten started. Her arms told the story right along with her voice. “It was all his fault, ya know.” She jerked her thumb toward Erik, knocking her sweetened tea glass over. At once, all four of them tossed their napkins on the brown liquid spreading across the table. Olivia’s thoughts flew back to that first day in Erik’s office. Again with the déjà vu. Only this time, Camara was the one sopping up the mess and not her.

  After the drink was corralled, Olivia faced her boss. “Okay, Erik. It’s your turn.”

  One of his eyebrows spiked. “My turn to what?”

  “To spill your drink.”

  “Huh?”

  “Remember the day of my interview whenever I spilled coffee all over your desk. Your secretary said you are forever spilling your drink. Well, now’s a perfect time.” Mirth danced in her eyes and lips. “By the way, did she ever buy you that spill-proof cup?” She pressed her lips together to keep from laughing.

  Erik dunked his fingertips in his water and flicked it at her.

  “Hey, no fair.” Olivia dipped her fingers in her lemonade and flicked it at him.

  “Okay, you two. Behave,” Chase warned.

  Guilt colored her cheeks as she shot a glance at Erik, Chase, and Camara.

  “Yeah, behave.” A smirk twisted Camara’s lips. “Don’t y’all know that it’s poor table manners to do,” she dipped her fingers in Chase’s tea, “this?” She flicked her fingers toward her husband.

  “Oh, yeah?” Chase imitated his wife by flicking his drink at her.

  A giggle formed in Olivia’s stomach. Gaining momentum, it turned into a full-blown belly laugh. The waitress stepped up to the table with their food and looked at them as if they were insane. Everyone straightened in their chairs and feigned innocence. Everyone but Olivia. She covered her mouth with her napkin, tilted her head down, and strained her eyes upward. Although no sound came out of her mouth, her shaking shoulders were a dead give-away that she was still laughing.

  As the waitress set their plates in front of them, she noticed the spill and gave Olivia a dirty look before she started gathering up the soiled napkins. That did it. Olivia lost it. A case of the giggles overtook her, and there was nothing she could do to stop them. Nor did she want to. It felt wonderful to laugh again. Several moments later, with everyone still watching her, she excused herself and headed toward the ladies room. Standing in front of the mirror, palms resting on the burgundy marble countertop, she leaned forward to examine her eye makeup. But her makeup wasn’t what she noticed. Staring back at her was something she hadn’t seen in years. A radiant, happy face.

  She grabbed a napkin out of the basket lying on the vanity and dabbed at the moisture in her eyes. So was this what true joy felt like?

  Chapter Eleven

  Olivia was grateful Erik offered to drive her to the airport outside of Beckley to pick up Audra. Getting lost in the dark was not her idea of fun. She sat quietly in Erik’s pickup, marveling at her newfound happiness. Only three weeks in this man’s presence had her experiencing more joy than she had in the last sixteen years of her life. Amazing what one sensitive, kind man could do.

  Hammond had been like that too. Especially after her Aunt Hattie had disappeared. He never once criticized Olivia or judged her for not caring about the old bat. Cruel as it sounded, the only thing Olivia had cared about was that she didn’t care at all. Hardness of heart frightened her. And yet a hard heart was exactly what she’d gotten over the years. But then again, anyone who had to live with the likes of her wicked aunt wouldn’t care either. Of that fact, Olivia was certain. She had lost track of the number of times she’d ended up in the emergency room with broken bones.

  Whenever the doctors had taken her into another room, away from her a
unt’s earshot, to question her, her aunt’s threats had ticker-taped through her wounded soul. Like her aunt’s trained parrot, Olivia mimicked everything her aunt had programmed her to say. It was safer that way.

  Several times over the years she’d thought about running away. But then her aunt’s warning that if she ever tried to run away she’d find her and make her “pay dearly” kept her from actually doing it. Without a doubt, Olivia knew her aunt would follow through with her vicious threats.

  “Penny for your thoughts.”

  Saved from taking more of the depressing trip down the black corridors of time, she felt Erik’s low tone wrap around her like the safety of her mother’s arms used to.

  She shifted in the truck seat as much as the seatbelt allowed and playfully turned the question on him. “You mean you’d trust me with more of your money after I gypped you out of a dollar twenty-five?”

  Erik raised his finger and shook it at her. “You’ve got a point there, ma’am.”

  “Ma’am?” Her brows reached for the sky. “Lands o’ Goshen, you make me sound like an old lady.” Olivia chuckled at the irony of her words because Lands o’ Goshen was something her Grandmother used to say.

  “Where’d you say you came up with that saying?”

  “It was Mimi’s,” she paused, “my grandma’s favorite saying. It took me a long time to figure out what it meant until Mimi showed me in her Bible that Goshen was where Moses was from. I still didn’t get why she used it, but it’s a part of her and something I remember about her, so I use it.”

  “Where’s your grandma now?” He glanced at her, then back at the road. “Does she live in Wheeling?”

  Olivia turned back in her seat and gazed forward. “No. Mimi died when I was ten. She had a heart attack when she heard the news of my parents’ death—” Olivia’s gaze bolted toward Erik. She couldn’t believe she’d just told him her parents were dead. The risk of someone finding out that she was responsible for their demise made her shudder inwardly with fear. She had moved to Charity to get away from her past and to forget it, not to have it ruin the best thing that had ever happened to her. But really, that was stupid. The past was there whether she wanted it to be or not.

  “I’m sorry, Olivia.” He reached over, slid his hand under hers, and curled his fingers over the top of hers. The warmth of his words, and his gentle squeeze gave her the comfort she desperately needed. And right now, she needed the connection more than she cared to admit. And that scared her.

  As if he sensed her need for silence, he remained quiet. The only connection between the two of them was their clasped hands.

  The closer they got to the airport somewhere off in the darkness, the more fidgety Olivia became. The last two times she’d been at an airport had not ended so well. One of those times, she and Hammond had gotten into a huge fight, and she never saw him alive again. The other time, she and her parents had argued, and when they boarded their friend’s private plane, she had never seen them alive again either. Both times, life as she had always known it had ceased to exist for her.

  At the time of her parents’ death, the only comfort she had in the midst of all the tragedy was that her beloved Mimi would be caring for her. That sole comfort only lasted a few days, however, because after her parents’ death, the sixty-year-old woman’s heart just couldn’t take the shock that her only daughter was dead.

  Memories of crying for days with no rest in sight invaded her mind. Every molecule in Olivia’s body had hurt. Headaches and eye pain were her constant unwanted companions. But the biggest pain came from way deep inside her spirit. God, Whom she had adored, had let her down in her biggest time of need. Didn’t He know that a ten-year-old girl needed her mother? Needed her father? Her grandmother? If He had, He certainly didn’t care because they were all gone within a matter of days. And she alone was left behind with a gaping hole so big that even the entire universe couldn’t fill it.

  She’d cried rivers of tears, but they never brought her loved ones back. A well-meaning neighbor lady told Olivia that the Bible said God puts our tears in a bottle. Was that supposed to comfort a ten-year-old? All Olivia thought was God must have one gigantic bottle with her name plastered on it.

  The real shocker came the day Olivia had discovered that an aunt she didn’t even know existed until the woman read about her parents’ death in the newspaper would be her guardian. Whatever a guardian was. The judge explained to Olivia that her aunt would move in with her because she wanted to take care of her. Boy was he wrong. It wasn’t Olivia Aunt Hattie wanted to take care of. She only wanted to take care of herself…using Olivia and her money.

  Thoughts of her aunt folded over Olivia, smothering the breath from her lungs as the darkness of the pit she’d lived in for so long closed around her. Only Erik’s hand still in hers reassured her that the nightmare might finally be over. Still, the dark memories crowded in around her, pressing ever heavier. Like how years later, Olivia discovered how her shrewd aunt had even fooled the courts. By law, her aunt was to send in a quarterly report to the court, accounting for every penny spent. Aunt Hattie turned in the reports, but she lied about the expenses. Yearly clothing, six thousand dollars? What a joke that was. Olivia wore hand-me-downs from a dumpy old thrift store.

  As if all of that wasn’t bad enough, one day shortly after her sixteenth birthday, Olivia arrived home from a particularly hard day at school, only to find a large moving van parked in her driveway, and people moving furniture into her house.

  Fear propelled her forward. “What are you doing?” she demanded with a boldness she didn’t even know she possessed.

  The elderly man’s eyes widened. He smiled. “I’m moving into my new home.”

  “Your new home.” Olivia gulped in several breaths as she stood there clutching her books. “This is my home.” She dashed past the man and raced into the house. Frantically running from room to room, she discovered everything, including all of her personal belongings were gone.

  That morning when she’d left for school, she had a whole houseful of furniture and things. Her things. And by the time she got home, everything was gone. All of her mother’s china, her mother’s jewelry, her mother’s books, their family photo albums, everything—gone. Not one memento of her parents remained anywhere in the house.

  The elderly gentleman walked up beside her. “Where—where’d my things go?” Her voice cracked under the strain.

  The man shrugged, looking as confused as she was. “I saw one of those non-profit organization vans removing stuff earlier. I’m sorry I didn’t pay attention to the name or you could call them and see if they know where your stuff went.”

  The floor collected Olivia into its cold arms. Tears poured from her. As if she were reliving her parents’ deaths all over again, pain sliced through every part of her being… spirit… soul… and body. Not only were her parents gone, but their things were gone as well. She had no home, no clothes, and no money.

  Desperate to get away from all the painful memories, she forced strength into her legs, jumped up, steadied herself, and fled from the house.

  Mindlessly wandering around the neighborhood, she questioned everything—especially the sanity of believing in a loving, caring God. Her words to Him at that moment still echoed in her battered heart. “God, I begged You to forgive me for what I said to Mom. I didn’t mean it. I don’t know what else I can say or do so that You’ll stop punishing me. Pastor Mannon said You punish those You love.” With the back of her hand, she swiped the tears trekking down her cheeks. “I don’t want You to love me anymore, God. I can’t take any more pain. So do me a favor, and please leave me alone.”

  Tired and hungry, she finally made her way to Audra’s house. When they found out that she would be placed into a foster home until she turned eighteen, they convinced the courts that they would love to have her stay with them.

  Even after she got a job and found a decent place to stay, she spent hours at their house until Audra bought her hair sa
lon and moved into her own tiny apartment.

  Later on, when Olivia lost her job after Hammond’s disappearance, she could no longer afford her two-room flat. Audra had offered for her to come and stay at her place, but it was already crammed full with Audra’s belongings.

  So rather than burden her friend by adding even more stuff to the already over-crowded place, Olivia had moved into her rundown apartment, where she had stayed despite the horrible conditions. Olivia knew if Audra ever saw where and how she lived, her friend would personally pack her up and move her in to her apartment, regardless of how cramped it would be. So Olivia had always managed to meet Audra somewhere or the two of them ended up at Audra’s place. No matter what, Olivia refused to let Audra see that apartment even though many nights she’d awakened to find ginormous cockroaches crawling on her or her aching stomach growling from hunger. Audra would have been appalled to know that Olivia had gone for days with very little to eat, but she didn’t want her friend to bear the responsibility for her rotten life. It was her problem, not Audra’s.

  Besides, crummy living conditions were only part of the horror that life had become. Nightmares about plane crashes and dead bodies invaded many a sleep. That same hellish dream replayed through her mind more nights than not.

  “Mommy, Daddy, don’t leave me. Please don’t leave me.” Fear thrashed at her mind.

  A witch suddenly appeared, flying about on a broom, zipping past her. Olivia whirled, desperately trying to follow the black-cloaked woman with the pointed hat. Her tiny heart raced, feeling like it would explode. Her eyes snagged onto the woman’s face. She opened her mouth to scream, but no sound came forth. Aunt Hattie’s wicked smile and devilish eyes flashed in front of her. Poof! The image evaporated.

  Olivia whirled trying to find her, but all she saw through the darkness were dead bodies appearing, then disappearing. She pinched her eyes shut and pressed her small hands against them hard, hoping to blot out the horrific images.