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

by Debra Ullrick

  Mr. Ferrell’s gaze fell to the desk. “Well, Devonshire and Ayer Industries have several intertwining interests as well as several competing interests. The power grid that a dovetailing of their mutual assets, a thinning of the competition between us, coupled with your future wife’s connections could be very shall we say convincing.”

  It was literally as if the devil was sitting across that desk saying, “You can have all of this…” The problem was, this devil had leverage like none other.

  The legalities alone were enough to crumple Keith’s knees, and he fought not to squirm under them. “Well, sir. I don’t know if…”

  Ferrell lifted his chin, his eyes flashing with malevolence. “Don’t forget, your father-in-law has a lot riding on your answer. I am personally a large contributor to his bid for re-election. So please consider carefully.”

  “I…” Keith’s gaze fell to his hands.

  “We can negotiate your salary. I’m quite sure your contributions will be worth whatever you ask.”

  A million dollar car and a house the size of Vermont flashed through his mind. This could be well be the answer to the question of how he would ever pay for Dallas’ dreams. However, his spirit was screaming that this was wrong, horribly, horribly wrong. To accept a job that he would hate forever, a job that would put his character, honor, and integrity in jeopardy, a job that would erase who he was from the planet forever? How much money was worth that?

  His father would be furious, not to mention Dallas and Mr. Henderson. Then, like a sojourn in an oasis amidst the chaos, Keith’s mind traced its way to a little church, in a little pew, standing next to the only one in the world who made him never apologize for who he was. What she would say was a question that didn’t even need to be asked. His heart told him the answer. This wasn’t right, and it never would be—no matter how much they wanted to convince him that it was.

  He stood slowly, knowing this decision would cause a chain reaction he couldn’t clearly see the end of. However, he knew this was a door he couldn’t afford to open. “I’m sorry for taking up your time, Mr. Ferrell, but I’m going to have to decline the offer.”

  The little man’s eyes narrowed to the point that he was glaring at Keith. “Son, declining this position is not in your best interest. Your father-in-law…”

  “Well, sir, I think accepting this position is not in my best interest, and if my father-in-law has any integrity at all, he will understand why I cannot accept your offer.” Keith held his hand across the desk, but Mr. Ferrell never moved. Finally he let his hand drop, and he walked to the door.

  “You are making a grave mistake, Mr. Ayer.”

  At the door, he stopped, breathed through the thoughts of each fork in this particular road. The thought of taking the job coiled around him, sucking the air from his lungs so that suffocation seemed likely. Then he pulled in a full breath as the thought of opening this door that led to a thousand unknowns went through him. There was no challenge, no barrier to that breath. It was the only confirmation that he needed. With that, he opened the door, stepped out, and never looked back.

  Maggie knew as well as anybody what today was. She and Keith had talked about it, under the tree on Sunday. Today he took another step away from her into his new life with Dallas. It hurt, but all day long, Maggie had prayed for Keith, that the right doors would be open to him so that he and Dallas could have the best start in life possible.

  Just before dinner, Patty Ann showed up at the door to the playroom with a woman whose eyes were so dark, they were almost black. The rest of her was small—small shoulders, thin arms, hands with long, spindly fingers. Across the room, Peter took one look up and shrank back against the cabinets.

  “Ms. Montgomery, Mrs. Haga is here to relieve you for the evening.”

  Maggie stood there, stunned into speechlessness. Mrs. Haga? Why had she not remembered this was a possibility? “Oh, I…”

  Mrs. Haga stepped into the room. “Come, children. It’s time for dinner. We must get washed up.”

  “Oh, they’ve already been…”

  There was no hesitation as Mrs. Haga glared at Maggie. “They are children. No amount of washing will make them perfectly presentable, but we shall try. Come, children. Now!” She clapped her hands with the words, and Peter scrambled to his feet.

  The look on his face ripped through Maggie with such force she could hardly breathe. “Mrs…” But they were already being marched across the hall.

  “You are officially off-duty, Ms. Montgomery,” Patty Ann said, and with that, she closed the door.

  Slowly Maggie sank to the window seat. How could she go back now? How could she tell them what that monster had done to Peter? The thought of leaving them here like this threatened to annihilate every sane thought she could manage to think. And yet, what was the alternative? Marching downstairs to take them back? Telling Patty Ann? Calling Greg to tell him no when he was probably already on his way?

  “Oh, God,” she prayed softly. “They are just babies. Please protect them.”

  Dallas made the connection on Keith’s cell phone ten minutes before he got back home. He had stopped at Wal-Mart for supplies, and something about just walking and thinking had kept him there far longer than he should have stayed. It was almost seven when he got to the last turn before the gate. He’d even decided against going to the stables. Surely Tanner and Ike and Jamie had been able to handle everything.

  “So, how did it go?” Dallas asked in anxious excitement.

  The first hurdle. “Well, he made me an offer I couldn’t refuse.”

  “Fabulous!” Dallas squealed. “Tell me all about it. I want the details.”

  He was far more casual than he ever thought he could be. “Well, there’s only one that really matters.”

  “What’s that?” She had never sounded more excited.

  “I refused it.”

  That stopped her. “Refused it? Refused what?”

  “The job. The offer. All of it.”

  “Wh…?” She laughed, kind of. “Keith, that’s not funny.”

  “I’m not laughing.”

  “You… You told them no?”

  He let out a solid breath. “Yes, Dallas. I told them no.”

  “Are you out of your mind?” She was shrieking now, and Keith had to hold the cell phone away from his ear lest he go deaf. “Dad put his reputation on the line to get you another interview, and you turned them down!”

  Well, her father had put someone’s reputation on the line, but it wasn’t his. Keith turned into the gate, and his heart slammed into his ribcage. There, sitting at the base of the mansion’s steps sat Greg’s little silver sports car. For one reckless moment, Keith thought about stopping, but instead he gunned it to get behind the trees before they came out. Seeing them, together, would’ve been more than he could take.

  “I cannot believe this! How stupid can you possibly be? That was the job of a lifetime! What were you thinking? You couldn’t have been thinking. You couldn’t have! You turned down an offer that would have set us for life!” She was still shrieking when he turned the pickup into his own driveway and punched the garage door. She was shrieking, but he was no longer listening.

  Keith’s mind went to where they were going on a Thursday night—the movies, a play, dinner, dancing? There wasn’t an option he liked. Just the thought of them together was enough to toss his sanity overboard into waves of helplessness and hurt.

  “Keith!” The incessant diatribe stopped. “Keith!”

  His name brought him back as he put the pickup in park and got out. “What?”

  “Are you listening to me?”

  The correct answer was no. The prudent answer was… “Sorry. What did you say?”

  “I said we could still get you another interview with Ferrell. Maybe he would believe there was just a misunderstanding, and you were playing hardball.”

  “Dallas.” He stopped her. This discussion was becoming annoying. “I’m not going back. I don’t want to wo
rk for Lee Ferrell. I don’t want to work at some firm that sucks your life out to inflate their bottom line.”

  “Keith, wake up. This is the real world we’re talking about here—not some dinky, little pet farm. Now, we are a month from walking down that aisle, so you’d better get your head pulled out and start thinking like a man instead of like a little kid, or we’re going to have a serious problem on our hands.”

  “Look. I’m not cut out for office life. I never have been.”

  “You have an MBA! What were you going to do with that? Feed horses your whole life?”

  He didn’t have the sanity to explain that the MBA was his father’s idea nor that feeding horses all day was what had kept him from throwing himself off a cliff for all those years. Instead, he shook his head. “I’ve got to go.”

  “Go? We’re not finished yet.”

  “Yeah? Well, I am.” And he clicked the phone off, threw it to the counter and went to take a shower. Trapped in this monkey suit, he felt dirtier than he had his whole life.

  “Give me a good scotch any day. It’s the best way to unwind,” Greg said as they sat at the bar, waiting for their table. “Are you sure you don’t want anything?” He tipped the glass up until the ice cubes clinked against the side when he put it down.

  “No, no thanks.” Maggie’s gaze wandered through the darkened bar area of the restaurant. She’d never been in a place so fancy. She knew she should be adequately impressed; however, the only thing she could concentrate on was how badly she wanted to go home to check on how Peter and Isabella were doing. Dear Lord, please keep them safe.

  The shower hadn’t helped much. Keith knew he should be worried about Dallas and what happened next, but that paled in comparison with the fact that Maggie was out with Greg… again. The sun had dipped below the horizon, and Keith stepped out onto the porch, a beer in one hand, grief filling his heart. He leaned there on the doorpost and gazed across the patio to the swing she had sat on so many nights before with Greg. He couldn’t get a clear picture of Greg, but he could see her as if she still sat there.

  He took a drink, pushed away from the doorpost, and ambled over to the swing. All he wanted was to get closer to her even as it felt as if she was moving away. He sat down hard on the swing and let his mind wind through the memories. That first day—her coming down the stairs and falling into him, her walking with him after they got her car put away. Sitting at the waterfall, riding horses, showing up with the kids at the stables. Praying at Peter’s bedside, sitting amidst a kitchen splattered with pink yogurt.

  Fighting to push the memories from him, Keith took another drink, and then one memory seeped through all the others. It was her, standing at the window looking out into the dark night as the kids slept behind her. That memory tore through him, and ache for her pain clutched him. He remembered her crying in his arms, telling him about her parents and how life would have been so different if only someone she would never know hadn’t made such a horrible choice.

  A horrible choice. Keith’s gaze fell to the can in his hand. How many horrible choices had he made? How many times had he just wanted the hurt to stop so badly that drowning it seemed the only option? As he gazed at that can, he saw with perfect clarity the life it had doomed her to live.

  It wasn’t a hard choice, more one that came of its own volition. Slowly he reached his hand out past the swing to the lawn beyond, and like the water trickling over the sides of the falls, he poured the rest of the liquid out. He closed his eyes, feeling the desire for it go. Then he sat back and let him feel what life was like on the other side of that door.

  A scotch before dinner, two glasses of wine with dinner, and now they were at the bar with Greg’s friends. Thankfully Virginia wasn’t invited to this little soirée. At least that was one thing to be grateful for.

  “Dance?” Greg asked, standing from his chair and offering Maggie his hand.

  She put hers in his and let him lead her to the floor. Once there, he took her in his arms, and she put her head on his chest more so she didn’t have to look at him than because she wanted to get closer.

  He bent his head so his mouth was close to her ear. “You’ve been awful quiet tonight. Everything all right?”

  Her thoughts flashed to Peter and Isabella. They were in bed by now, and her heart panged at the thought of not being with them. “Just a little worried about the kids,” she said softly.

  Greg backed up a little. “The kids?”

  “Peter and Izzy.” She shook her head to keep herself from crying.

  That brought a look of true incredulousness to his face. “Why would you be worried about them? You’re not their mother or anything.”

  Maggie ducked her head and forced herself to breathe. She huddled closer to him because running wasn’t an option. The feel of his arms around her was so different than Keith’s. She fought not to notice that, but she did anyway. Her heart filled her chest at that thought, and the tears came again. Greg was nice, but he would never be what she really wanted. What she really wanted was Keith, but he was so far out of her reach, all hoping would do was end up hurting her more.

  No, she may not like it, but Greg was here, and she was going to have to be happy with that.

  With everything in him, Keith wanted to call the mansion. Just talking to her might make the spinning of his life stop for a while. Still, without even being there, she had guided him through two decisions that he knew would change the course of everything for him. If only he could tell her that…

  “This one, right?” Maggie asked as she pulled the little sports car up through the parking lot to Greg’s space.

  “Good memory,” he said, the words slurring together.

  When the car was parked, he looked over at her with a goofy grin. “Well, we’re home.”

  “Yes, we are.”

  He continued to look at her in a way that was making her very nervous. “I guess you’re coming up to call a cab?”

  “I guess so.” It was not what she wanted to do. Carefully she unwound herself from the car, and when she got around front, he was waiting for her. With his hand on her back, they walked up the stairs to his apartment.

  Once inside, he went to the cabinet rather than to the phone. “Would you like something to drink?”

  She couldn’t believe he could even ask the question. “Uh, no thanks. I’d better get home.” She walked over to his phone and pulled out the phonebook. Across the kitchen she heard the clink of ice cubes. Quickly she pulled the phone up, dialed the number, and asked for a ride.

  However, midway through the phone call, she could feel him right behind her. Even after the cab company was gone, she held the phone, stalling a few more seconds. Finally she knew she couldn’t stand there holding the phone until the cab came, so she hung it up. She turned and tried to smile at him. “Well, thanks for tonight.” She pulled her purse strap up her shoulder and anchored it there with her opposite hand. “I had fun.”

  “You know.” Greg set his drink on the countertop behind her. “You really don’t have to leave. I’m free all night.” He leaned in to her, and the smell of alcohol and smoke on him was overwhelming.

  “That’s nice.” She pushed him away. “But really, I have to get home. It’s after two.”

  “So?” He leaned in again, this time more forcefully.

  “So. I have to be up in four and a half hours.”

  “All the more reason to stay.” His breath, hot and sticky, grazed her neck as his hand brushed her hair back off her neck.

  Maggie shrank back from his advance until she was pinned to the counter. “Hey. Greg. Listen. Not tonight, okay? I’ve really got to go.” She was breathing heavily, but not for the reason he obviously thought.

  Still he advanced. “The cab’s not going to be right here. We could at least finish off the night right.”

  “Greg! Hello!” She used both hands and arms to get a wedge between them. “Stop it.”

  “Maggie.” He pawed the back of her head. “Magg
ie, I want you so bad.”

  The sound of the horn out the front was the best thing she’d ever heard. “The car’s here.” She pushed to get free of him. “Greg. The car’s here. I’ve got to go!” And with that, she broke free and fled.

  The trip home was the longest ride of her life. It compared only to the moves she had made to different homes—only this ride was different than those. This time, she was trapped not by someone else’s mistakes and decisions but by her own. How could she have been so blind as to trust Greg? Sure he was a nice guy, but nice guys tended to not be so nice when the alcohol took over. She’d learned that frightening fact more than once. It had happened often enough throughout her life to make her leery of the next time it did.

  Lest she drown in the memories, she forced herself to think of something else. The kids were her first thought, and that too brought a slap of pain. She’d left them in the clutches of a monster, why? Because she didn’t want to let Greg down? How stupid was that?

  She leaned her head back on the seat and watched the lights of Houston stream by. So many, many things she would change if she could. So many heartaches she never wanted to feel again. As her mind wound to the one that could change everything, a single tear escaped her eye, and she didn’t even reach up to brush it away. He had his life, and as scant as it was, she had hers. That was how it was, and she had to either accept it or let it kill her completely. The trouble was, she couldn’t decide which would hurt the most.

  Friday morning Maggie awoke with a start. Her first thought was how badly her head hurt. Her second was that the sun was up and brighter than normal. With a jerk she looked at the alarm clock. They had fifteen minutes to be downstairs for breakfast. In the next breath she was up and grabbing for her clothes. It took less than four minutes, and with no make-up coupled with a ponytail corralling the hair she hardly brushed, she raced first to Peter’s room to wake him up.

  “Pete. Peter. It’s Friday morning. Time to get up, sweetheart.”