“I take it the bubble bath was a hit,” he said from his position on the floor where he was removing Peter’s clothing.
“You could say that.”
Once again Izzy started squealing and whacking the water. Suds flew in all directions.
“Grr. Okay, you. That’s enough fun for one night.” Maggie stood and grabbed a towel; however, still sitting in the tub, the child was covered with suds from every angle. “Oh, great. Now how are we going to get you cleaned off?”
“Here.” Keith stood and reached up to release the removable showerhead. “You pick her up. I’ll hose her off.”
Seeing no better way to do it, Maggie did as instructed. “Okay, but you be careful with that.”
He grinned. “Me? I’m always careful.”
“Uh-huh. Yeah, right. Well, you remember that.” She lifted Isabella who was even more slippery from the suds than she normally was. Holding the child up, Maggie shrank back so he wouldn’t get her completely soaked as he angled the water at the child. Isabella squealed and kicked. “Hey, now. You’re hard enough to hold onto when you’re not doing that.”
The spray from the hose drizzled up onto Maggie’s glasses. “Hello. Now I can’t see.”
“Oh, here, let me fix that.” Keith angled the hose around Isabella so that it sprayed Maggie’s arm higher, drizzling water all over her.
“Hey! Are you kidding me? I’m not the one taking a bath here!”
“Isabella,” Keith said as if he was mad. “You shouldn’t get Maggie all wet like that.”
Isabella squealed and kicked, and on the floor Petter giggled. Maggie’s heart lifted at the sound even as she fought to be mad at him.
“Finished.” Keith shut the water off. He stepped back, but Maggie was still covered with water droplets and holding a dripping wet, kicking baby.
“Hello. Some help here. Towel please.”
He laughed as he pulled the soft taupe towel up from her knees. However, when it was in his hand, he stopped as he looked at them. “Who should I dry off—you or her?”
“Let’s start with her.” Maggie turned, and Keith covered Isabella in the towel.
“How you ever manage to do this without me every night is beyond me,” he said with a wink.
“Yeah, it’s completely unbelievable.” But she wasn’t mad. She was having the time of her life. She took Isabella, wrapped in the towel, in her arms.
“Oh, here. You’re wet.” He put his fingers on either side of her glasses and removed them.
“I wouldn’t know why.” She rubbed her face in Izzy’s towel. Then she lifted her face for him to replace the glasses.
When they were on, he gazed at her. “Perfect.”
The moment froze, and it was as if suddenly she couldn’t move. Her breath filled her throat as she gazed into his soft hazel eyes. Move! her brain screamed, but she couldn’t. It was as if her body had short-circuited. “I’ll… I’ll just go get her ready.”
“Yeah. I’ll give Pete a bath.”
However, neither one of them moved. His eyes held so much that she couldn’t get enough of them. Hope, happiness, an offering of a life different than any she had ever lived. Then Isabella kicked in Maggie’s arms, and Maggie’s attention dropped to her. “Okay. Okay. Let’s go.”
As Maggie walked out, Keith watched her. That was it. Her. That’s all he ever wanted. Every second he was with her confirmed that fact, and every second he was without her was spent wondering how long it would be before they could be together again.
Shaking off the thoughts, he bent down and swept Peter from the carpet. “Come here, you. It’s your turn.”
Chapter Sixteen
Isabella was asleep on her little pallet on the floor. Peter was tucked into the big bed. Maggie stepped over to the bed, and Peter’s gaze drifted to her.
“Where’s Keith?”
“Oh.” The question took her off-guard, and she glanced back at the door. “I don’t…”
“I’m here,” Keith said, pushing the door to gently. “You didn’t think I’d miss prayers, did you?”
Maggie couldn’t get all the emotions lined up in logical order in her heart. It would’ve all been so easy if he had just not been Keith Ayer, and minus the hat and the bandana, it was hard not to notice that he was. Pushing those thoughts away, at the bed she knelt on one side, and her heart flipped over when Keith knelt on the other. He reached across the mattress for her hand, and with her heart doing somersaults through her, she laid her hand in his. Strength and safety flooded through her spirit as he held her hand, his thumb gently stroking her knuckle.
Praying under these conditions was more than she could do. Just to get a word out was impossible. Closing her eyes, she willed her mind to stay with her. “Dear Lord, please be with us tonight. Keep us safe, and help us all have a good night sleep. Please keep all the boys and girls in the world safe, and help them all to have a good night. Amen.”
The two amens blended together, and they yanked tears to her eyes. She sniffed them back and pushed up to her feet. Anchoring her gaze on Peter, she smiled lest it betray her by following Keith up and around the bed. “Get some sleep.”
Peter nodded and snuggled down into the covers. She put her fingers to her lips, kissed them, and put them on his forehead. “Good night, sweet prince.” She was careful not to trip on Isabella on her way to the door where Keith was already waiting. Ducking, she stepped past him and out into the hall.
Her steps took her to the door of her room. Spending more time with him than she had to was dangerous to her heart and to her sanity.
“You going to bed?” he asked, sounding strangely disappointed.
She had her arm anchored to her middle. “I’d better if we’re going to get to church tomorrow.”
He looked as if he was going to protest, but he just nodded. “Okay. See you in the morning.”
As absurd as it sounded, Maggie was a little disappointed he didn’t stop her. But then, that was nuts. She went into her room and pulled her little duffle bag from the floor. The only piece of clothing she had bought on her disaster of a shopping trip was a decent pair of pajamas. She pulled them and the matching robe out of the bag and put them on. The soft blue satin slid across her skin. How life had changed in the last month.
Ready for bed, she climbed into the low-rise sleigh bed. Her prayers slid through her with no effort. Her parents, Mrs. Malowinski, the kids, the Ayers, and then his name as it always did, found its way into her mind. “God, please help me find a guy as nice as Keith. That’s all I ask.” She laid there, replaying the evening in her mind. Start to finish it had been perfect.
Her mind traced over Peter and Izzy sleeping in a strange house, and concern drifted through her. Peter wasn’t the most tranquil child on the planet. He probably hadn’t slept outside his own room ten nights since he’d been alive. She had this horrible vision of him lying there all night, listening to the scary sounds of a strange house as she had in each new house she slept in when she was a child. And he would do that, too, lie there all night, scared out of his mind and never come get her. That was the kind of kid he was.
She listened to the sounds in the house to see if Keith was awake. However, the hum of the dishwasher was the only one. Slowly, quietly, she swung her legs out of the bed and grabbed her robe. It wouldn’t hurt to check on Peter once more. She went to the door and slid it open. She looked up and down the hall. Nothing. A step and she was in the hallway. Two more and she was at the children’s door, her hand securing her robe at her stomach. Softly she twisted the knob and pushed it open.
So she wouldn’t have to risk making noise to get it open again, she left it ajar an inch and stepped into the room. Isabella, thumb in mouth, lay on the floor. Her little eyes were closed with the dreams behind them. Maggie smiled at the sight. Then she stepped twice more and found Peter, too, already asleep. To her, that could only mean one thing—that he felt as safe here as she did. That thought slid through her.
Gratef
ul tears swept over her heart. Peter deserved to feel safe. They all did. She let her hand brush the comforter as she turned, intending to head back to the door, but the glow at the window stopped her. Intrigued, she stepped over to it, trying to determine the origin of the soft glow in the nighttime sky.
The thought hit her. The party. Yes, it would be going on up on the hill beyond. The break in the yard trees allowed the glow to be visible only in pieces but it was there just the same. Thoughts and memories swarmed through Maggie, and she pulled her arms to her chest to deflect them. One hand rubbed slowly up the other arm as she stood there, lost in yesterday, gazing into it as if it was right there in front of her.
Keith was on his way back to his room from getting a drink when he noticed that the kids’ door wasn’t shut. That was odd. His first thought was Peter. Maybe he had already gotten scared and had gone to find someone to make it better. However, with a glance, he realized that Maggie’s door was shut tight. Something wasn’t right, but he decided to check it out before he bothered her.
With the lightest touch on the kids’ door, it opened, and there in the pale light of the window stood Maggie. The waves of hair, the curves—there was no one else it could be. His heart snagged on the sight. There was something so intimate about it, as if she knew no one knew she was there. For a moment he thought about leaving before she knew he was there, but then he heard the soft sniff of overwhelming ache, and concern traced through him. Wanting not to scare her but to help just the same, he stepped into the room and over to where she stood. “Maggie?”
She turned to him, and the anguish in her eyes overtook his heart with the hard whack of a two-by-four across the chest. Her face contorted, and she closed her eyes, squeezing them to stop the pain, but it squeezed out tears instead. They rolled down her cheeks on the paths others had already made.
“Maggie, what’s wrong?”
She didn’t answer. The words seemed to jam without ever making it to the air.
It was all he could think to do. “Hey. Shh. Come here.” He pulled her into his arms and vowed to hold her there until all the tears were vanquished.
Maggie knew she should pull away. It wasn’t right for her to be here in his arms, soaking in his strength as her grief poured out of her heart. But the truth was she needed him right now, more than she had ever needed anyone. The memories were too much for her to bear alone. They were too heavy, and too overwhelming.
So many nights spent thinking about the one that had changed hers forever. So many days spent trying not to think about it. With her head on his chest, she let her tear-blurred gaze drift out to that glow in the night sky beyond the trees, and the grief hit again. She pulled her hand to her mouth, trying to get her brain to stop thinking. The tears were going to drag her down until she might never get to the top of them again.
Still, gently, solidly he stood, just holding her and letting her grief run its course. Her thoughts bounced back and forth from present to past as waves of anguish gushed over her. It was a night, just like this one. Early spring. It was a party, just like that one. The social event of the season. The man. She’d never had a name for him—just the man. He’d partied, and then he left and changed her life forever.
Sorrow reached up and yanked a sob from her, and suddenly she couldn’t breathe. Thinking ceased, and feeling took over. And oh, the feelings she’d thought were buried so deep—anger, hurt, fear, grief, sorrow. The sorrow was the worst of them because it was the one that couldn’t be controlled. She had known that almost from the very beginning.
It was the one that would never let her go if she ever let it to the surface, and now it was here, dragging her down into its undercurrent, yanking at her with a grip that said it would never let her go. Another sob wrenched free, and Maggie had the horrible sensation that she was drowning in the grief. Her knees went weak beneath her, and the only reason she was still standing was because he was holding her up.
“Shhh,” he said, and she realized he was stroking her hair. “Shhh.” His hand on her hair felt so good, so soothing. His arm around her felt like strength itself.
Every rational part of her said she should pull away that he was going to think she was a complete idiot, but her legs wouldn’t move and her body felt shaky and weak. Tired washed through her spirit, taking rational thought with it. She let her will melt into the fatigue. Life itself slipped away from her grasp, and she let go and watched it leave. They were gone. They were really gone, and they were never, ever coming back.
Her grief gave way to a blank numbness as she sniffed and wiped at the tears. She pulled in air in short little gasps and sniffs. Still, he didn’t let her go.
“Come on,” he said softly, and she nodded, why she didn’t know. All she knew was that, here, with him, she was safe. He would take care of life while she was unable to. That was comforting although she couldn’t really put it all into words as to just why.
His arm never left her as he guided her out the door and down the hallway to the living room. Once there, he sat down with her on the couch. She leaned into him, her grief over-spilling its banks again. He didn’t question it, he just held her until this spasm too had past.
“Do you know what I remember?” she asked, and it was as if she didn’t feel any need to start at the beginning.
“What’s that?”
“I remember waking up the next morning and wondering why they hadn’t come.” She shook her head. “I don’t even remember the night before. I’ve tried, but I really don’t remember them leaving. I was going to stay at a friend’s house, so it really wasn’t a big deal. But I remember waking up on that couch the next morning and wondering why I was still there and not in my bed.”
She let out a soft laugh. “It’s weird. I can still picture that room. Man, it’s like it was yesterday. It was yellow. Not like a bright yellow but a really pale, mustard yellow, and the curtains were white so there was this really intense kind of light everywhere. It’s weird because I thought for a moment I must be in Heaven, and then I realized I wasn’t.”
Her mind let the memories come freely. She felt no need to edit them. “I laid there for like the longest time trying to figure out why I wasn’t in my bed. I don’t know that I had ever not waked up in my bed, so it was weird, you know? And then I remembered they were supposed to come get me. They’d told me eleven or something like that. But here it was morning, and they still weren’t there to get me.”
She squinted into the memories, trying to pull them up, but they’d been buried so long, it was difficult. “I don’t know if I even knew something was wrong at that point or not. I just thought there must’ve been a mix up.” Her heart snagged on the next memory. “But when I walked into that kitchen, and Mrs. Davidson was sitting at that table.” She let out the memory in a slow exhale. “When she looked at me…” Maggie had to take a breath on the memory of the woman, her eyes red and tear-stained. That look. That one look had changed her life.
“Everything happened so fast after that. There were all these people around, and everyone was talking all quiet. I really didn’t understand what was going on. Just that I was alone, and Mom and Dad weren’t there. And then even the other people left. They all left.” She stopped. Thoughts that had been there her whole life although she had never said them out loud came through her. “You know, I’ve always wondered what would’ve happened if he’d have left two minutes later. Just two minutes. Everything would’ve been so different.”
“Your dad?” Keith asked, and the sound of his voice surprised her. She jerked her head up and then lowered it because she was having too much trouble dealing with the past to deal with the present too.
“No.” In a strange way, she’d never thought about the fact that her parents could have left later. Somehow that had never occurred to her. They were right where they should’ve been. It was the other guy who shouldn’t have been there. “The guy that hit them.”
Keith absorbed that blow. For no real reason, he had never realized the
re was another driver involved. “It was his fault?”
On his chest, she nodded. “He was drunk.”
The breath he had been taking vanished. In its absence a hundred thousand pieces of things she had told him and things she hadn’t fell into place. He wanted to say something, but nothing would come. Her world had been ripped apart by someone else’s thoughtlessness, and in the next second the understanding of how many times that could have been him smashed into him. How many times had he told his friends he was perfectly fine to drive when the reality was he really wasn’t? How many bars had he left, never thinking of whose life was between him and home? Too many. That was for sure. “So do you know what happened?”
She was shaking a little, cold he suspected, so he reached over and pulled the little throw blanket from the couch edge. Gently he put it around her, the blanket sliding easily over the soft blue material of her robe. Once it was there, he slid his hand up and down her arm for reassurance that he was still there.
“He ran a stop sign,” she said softly. “There were no skid marks at all. They were both killed instantly. It was just a mess of smashed metal when it was over—nothing recognizable at all.”
“So you saw the car?”
Inexplicably she shook her head. “That’s what everybody said, but they never took me to see it.” Her voice sounded hollow as if there was no feeling beneath the memories. “It’s so weird. I’ve gone through that night a million times in my head. Sometimes I’d wake up in the middle of the night, and I’d try to picture the accident. Who was where. How dark it was. The lights. The sounds. I don’t know. It’s like if I could find something that could’ve been changed, something that didn’t add up, it would bring them back like it never happened. Like if I could somehow find some evidence that God had overlooked that He would have to reverse His decision and let them come back.”
She exhaled at that thought. “Pretty stupid, huh?”
Coming Home: (Contemporary Christian Romance Boxed Set): Three Stories of Love, Faith, Struggle & Hope Page 40