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

by Debra Ullrick

  And then one name crowded the others out. It was a face so gentle, it brought a moan of anguish up with it. “Maggie…”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  The barn door was much easier to open now that she knew the secret. Carefully, Maggie drove the little Chevette out into the sunlight, threw it into park, and climbed out to close the door. Patty Ann had added a few items to her list—a “decent outfit for the rehearsal and shoes that don’t look like they’re from the dollar store.” Where she was going to find anything like that, she had no idea.

  Just as she made it back to her car, she heard the unmistakable rumble of the Dodge. Her gaze went to the trees. The pickup didn’t break through, so she got in her car and drove up to them. At the trees she stopped, noticing the pickup sitting in the garage parking place. The garage was opened, but no one was around.

  Next to the pickup sat the pewter Jaguar, and Maggie knew what that meant. She turned her gaze to the drive and purposely didn’t look back.

  “Who’s that?” Dallas asked as the navy car went by the front window.

  Keith looked up from his sandwich, and his heart fell into his shoes. “Probably Ike.” He didn’t want to think about who it really was. He didn’t want to say her name or hear her voice or so much as see her face even in his dreams—although it was there in every one. As much as that hurt, Maggie Montgomery was better off without Keith Ayer or anyone else in his disgustingly wretched family. They had wrecked her life, and now she was scraping by, trying to prove to them she deserved to work in their mansion.

  If life was fair, it would’ve been the other way around.

  Sunday morning Keith had a plan. Dallas might never want to go with him, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t go. He got up early, showered, and dressed. He wasn’t out to impress anybody, but he needed some sanity in his increasingly insane existence. Easing out of the house lest he wake Dallas, Keith got into his pickup and made his way down the driveway and past the mansion. If he was lucky, Dallas would think he’d gone to work.

  Work. The word itself was kind of funny in a parallel universe kind of way. He showed up every day, fed the horses, fixed what needed fixed, but he wasn’t really a part of it anymore. Hodges had wiggled and strong-armed his way back into the feed contract, and although Ike ranted and raved about it, Keith knew it was he that had signed the final order.

  The other side of work was the question of what he would do when all this was a memory. Dallas was pushing him to get a desk job. Mr. Henderson had offered him a job with his re-election campaign. His father’s Galveston branch had called three days before requesting an interview. However, nothing in Keith wanted anything to do with any of them. His heart said they were all wrong, and so he did nothing about them.

  The Dodge rounded the last corner in Pine Hill and slid up into a parking space outside the little church. This was it. If God couldn’t help him make sense of this, no one could.

  Maggie’s thoughts traveled down the little trail to the beautiful guesthouse beyond. Dallas was the luckiest girl in all of Texas if not the world. To be one week away from being Keith’s wife, it must be Heaven on earth.

  “Gie. Gie,” Isabella said as she fell into Maggie’s arms.

  “Oh, I love you, baby girl. You know that?” Maggie buried her face into the little curls, fighting not to cry. If it wasn’t for the kids, she would’ve already turned in her resignation. This next week was sure to kill her. Watching them get married. A front row seat just in case she had any thoughts of skipping out. Why did Patty Ann and everyone else insist on smearing her face in the coming heartache? They with their schedules and their seating charts and their reminders about how important this is to the Ayer family’s standing in the hierarchy of Texas and the nation.

  As if she needed any more pressure.

  “There is a hole in each and every one of us,” the preacher said as Keith sat in their normal spot, feeling the emptiness of the space around him. “A hole that only God can fill.” He paused. “I picture this hole as a kind of vertical pipe that goes from our head to our heart and all the way through us. This hole is not something we created but rather something God created in us.

  “The purpose of life, the journey of life is meant to show us that nothing other than God can ever successfully fill that hole. Not money, not things, not ourselves, not our work or our accomplishments. Not our success or our awards. Nothing else can fill that hole.

  “When we try to fill it with other things, we put them in the hole, but they slide right back out again, and we know we must fill it with something else. So we find another goal, another thing that’s out there, and we think, ‘Yeah, that’s it. If I can just get that, then I’ll be happy.’ But it doesn’t work that way. Because stuff is not what will fill the hole.

  “It is just as Jesus says to the Samaritan woman at the well. ‘He who drinks of this water will get thirsty again and again, but he who drinks from the water that I give will have a well-spring arising from his very being.’”

  Keith knew that hole very well. He’d stood at its mouth and shouted into it, hearing the echoes of his own loneliness come back at him. Others more so than him had tried to fill his hole with other things—activities, work, chores, games, and when he was older, he had tried to fill it himself with parties and alcohol and women. But the truth was, it was still empty. In fact, it was emptier now than it ever had been.

  “So how do you fill this hole, this vertical abyss that seems so unfathomably empty? You realize how inadequate you are to fill it on your own. Then you begin a quest to find the One who can. Jesus Christ came into our empty, wretched world to show us how to fill that hole. He came to show us how to be whole, and how to be holy. Filled and whole so that we are not condemned to live our lives scattered and empty.

  “And how did Jesus say to fill the hole? By seeking to grow in love—love of God, love of our neighbor, and love of ourselves. When we grow in love, when we honestly want what’s best for the other, then and only then can that hole begin to be filled.

  “So we are called to go forth from this place and to seek God out in all situations, to bring His love to a fallen, dying world, to each of our worlds that need it so desperately. Find those who are hurting and show them God’s love. Come to know His love, breathe it into your being so that you may then breathe it out upon others. In doing so, your hole will be filled.

  “Let us stand.”

  Although he stood, Keith’s mind was no longer on the service. It had traveled back in time to a day many years before as he and his mother sat under a tree watching the falls cascade over the hard rock.

  “I thought Dad was going to come today,” Keith said, his voice much higher pitched.

  His mother looked at him softly. “He wanted to.”

  “Then why didn’t he?”

  “Because he’s busy loving us.” Her glance said she knew he didn’t understand. “Your dad is a good man, Keith. It’s just that sometimes he gets what’s important and what’s urgent mixed up.” She knew this lesson was going over his head, yet she continued. “We all do that sometimes. We let the urgent things like meetings and making a living crowd out the important things like spending time together and loving each other. That doesn’t make us bad, just confused.”

  “But can’t you explain it to him? Make him understand?”

  She smiled. “I’ve tried, Keith. I really have, but sometimes you have to let people be on their own journey, to find out what’s important in their own time.”

  “But what if he never figures it out?”

  In his memory, Keith could see her gaze fall, and he knew now she was struggling with that herself. Then her gaze met his. “We just have to pray that he does.”

  The ride home was the shortest of Keith’s life, and before he knew it, he was turning in to the estate. However, he couldn’t go back just yet, so he turned down the stable road and drove until he came to the rocky pass that led out to the falls. He needed them right now, their peace, their
hope, so he turned that direction. When he’d gotten close enough, he got out and walked the last 100 yards.

  There, he sat down by the tree and let his gaze drift out over the falls. He was alone now, and for the first time in ages, he gave himself the permission to let everything he had bottled up inside himself out. Disbelief was the first thing to punch through the numbness he had clamped over everything else.

  “God, why did you let this happen? I don’t understand. There was so much hurt and anger unleashed by my dad’s selfishness. He hurt Mom and me and everyone else who got in his path.” Then a vague memory of a wreck he had never even seen drifted through him. “He even ruined the lives of good people, people who loved You, people who trusted You. They didn’t deserve to die like that. They were going to get their little girl, sleeping at a friend’s house…”

  The words trailed away from him as anger and pain smashed into him. “God, Maggie didn’t deserve that! Why? Why did You let Dad live and take the other three? They deserved to live so much more. Why would You choose to take them and leave him? Why? I don’t understand.”

  He sniffed and ran his wrist under his nose. “It’s not fair, you know. It’s not. You should’ve taken him. He should burn in hell for all the grief he’s caused.”

  We have to pray that he figures it out, Keith. The words slid through him, but Keith fought them with a grip on both fists.

  “I’m not praying for him.”

  Find those who are hurting, and show them God’s love.

  His father’s face crumpled with hurt the last time Keith walked out of his office traced through his consciousness. At that he yanked himself to his feet. Looking out over the falls, he let the anger take over. “You know what, God? He deserves to be hurting for all the heartache he’s caused the rest of us. He deserves it. You hear me?” And with that, he went back to the life that was laid out before him.

  Friday night Keith didn’t know how he and Dallas would ever make it to Sunday in one piece. She was a basket case, and he wasn’t much better. Her flowing white sheath dress hung perfectly around her lithe body, but she wasn’t at all pleased with the fit.

  She stood in the bedroom at the mirror, yanking and pulling and readjusting all the while muttering to herself. “Do you think we should show up together or separate?”

  “Why wouldn’t we go together?” Keith asked from where he was shaving in the bathroom. The razor took an unscheduled zag which left blood trailing behind it. “Crud.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I just cut myself.” He examined the blood in the mirror. “Great. As if I needed one more thing to go wrong today.”

  “I knew I should’ve had the seamstress take these shoulders up. I look like a bag lady.” Dallas appeared at the bathroom door looking anything but a bag lady.

  Keith glanced over at her, trying to get gratefulness for his position in life to come over him. “You look beautiful.”

  She twisted her mouth. “You have to say that.”

  “Would you rather I said you look hideously awful?”

  She smiled slightly. “At least you’d be honest.”

  Tenderness for how vulnerable she sounded went through him. Knowing they would only make it through this together, he turned and took her in his arms, oblivious to the remaining streaks of shaving cream still on his face. “You will have every guy jealous of me all night.”

  “Are you sure?” Her gaze spoke of genuine concern.

  “Positive.”

  The shoes hurt, but Maggie couldn’t worry about that. Too many other issues were more important, like the fact that Izzy’s bow wouldn’t stay in her hair, and Peter kept fidgeting with his tie. Her nerves hit the overload button when the limo rolled to the front of The Silver Rose. This place wasn’t just fancy. It was lavish.

  “Ma’am,” the gentleman outside the restaurant said, offering her his hand. Maggie let him help her out, hoping she didn’t look so out of place that he would notice. The once over his gaze did down her dress didn’t help. Was it that bad? She helped the kids out and marched them up the stairs.

  Choreographed to the second, the Ayers’ limo pulled up just as she and the children got to the top step. With everything in her she wished she could reach down and fix her shoe, but she smiled like everything in life was wonderful as they waited for the Ayers to climb the steps and walk first into the restaurant.

  The rehearsal at the mansion had been blessedly short, but this fiasco of a night threatened to be the longest of her life. Inside the restaurant Maggie found a quiet corner for her and the kids. She sat Izzy on her lap and put an arm around Peter.

  “Why can’t we just go home?” Peter whined. “I don’t want to be here.”

  “Shh.” Maggie leaned down to him. “I know, but Keith’s coming. You want to see him, right?” She was at the end of her rope and fully intended on using every trick she knew—even those that might take her out permanently.

  “Oh, don’t you kids look so precious!” Jamie walked up, and Isabella squealed her delight. “Come here you.” It took just that long for Jamie to be holding the little girl. Tanner walked up behind Jamie, and he smiled at Maggie.

  “You made it, huh?” He extended his hand.

  Maggie took it and stood. “Barely.”

  Greg stepped up to the little group. “Well, fancy meeting you all here.”

  Illogically he put his hand on Maggie’s back, and trying to think of some way to steer the conversation so Tanner and Jamie wouldn’t notice, she glanced around the room. “They sure do things up right, don’t they?”

  “You can say that again.” Tanner pulled at the tie at his neck, and Maggie had to keep herself from laughing because he looked just like Peter. “If I’d have known about all this when Keith asked me, I’d have told him, ‘No way!’”

  “That makes two of us,” Greg said.

  They all laughed as Tanner’s gaze slid past her. “Well, speak of the devil.”

  Without thinking, Maggie turned, and her heart lurched forward with a falling thud. White shirt, smoke-colored pants, no hat or bandana. Keith Ayer had arrived.

  “They make such a good couple,” Jamie breathed behind Maggie, and it hurt to agree.

  Why it was so hard to play along, Keith would never be able to figure out, but he was exhausted from the effort. By the time dessert was over, his nerves were frayed to the point of snapping. All night the angel in the soft blue dress had played tag with his gaze. He was glad that Greg, Tanner and Jamie seemed to be keeping her company and helping with the kids, but it was all he could do not to trash everything and join them.

  Twice he almost had. Once when his father cornered him with a sixty-second lecture on how he had to smooth things over with Mr. Henderson or else, and once when he saw Greg lean in so close to her that they might as well have been swapping air.

  Finally Vivian announced to all that they had better get home so they could check on the final preparations. With his arm around Dallas, Keith watched Maggie make her way to the door. Isabella was asleep on her shoulder, and Peter was cradled in Greg’s arm. It killed Keith not to go ask what their plans were. Was Greg going home with her too? Would they put the kids to bed and then pray over them?

  “We’re staying at the Crowne Plaza tomorrow night,” Dallas said to the two bridesmaids that Keith didn’t know all that well. From what he could tell, they were the giggle brigade. “Keith wanted our night to be special.” Dallas’s gaze slid over his face. “I’m the luckiest girl in the world.”

  When he looked back to the door, Maggie was gone.

  The whole night Maggie had been dropping hints for Greg to leave her alone, but still he was there. When they made it back to the mansion, he was right there to help her from the limo. He, of course, had driven his own car, insisting that he wanted to see her home even if they couldn’t ride together.

  “Here, I’ll get him.” Greg took Peter from Maggie, and Maggie gathered up Isabella. Up first one set of steps and then the others in
side, Greg followed her. “This place always amazes me. It’s like a museum with all the statues and stuff.”

  “Yeah,” Maggie agreed. There was a blister on her heel that was taking up all the brain power she had left. She took Isabella and changed her, then put her to bed. Then she joined Greg in Peter’s room to get Peter ready for bed. She felt Greg watching her as she worked, and it unnerved her. Her hands were shaking with the stress of the day and the trepidation of now.

  In minutes Peter was sound asleep in bed. She kissed her fingers, said a soft prayer, and then pressed her fingers to Peter’s forehead. “Good night, little prince.” With that, she turned, and Greg followed her out. “These heels are killing me.” She removed one, then the other. The process left her much shorter than she had ever seemed next to him. She glanced back at him. “You know, Greg. I’m really tired.”

  “You’re so good with them.” He sounded as if he wasn’t really there. “I guess I’ve never really been around kids much before. They always kind of scared me.”

  “They’re kids. What’s so scary about them?” Kids were a snap compared with this. She wanted him to leave so she could go to bed, but he didn’t leave.

  Instead he stood there, looking at her. “Look, Maggie, I know I messed up, and I’m really sorry. Please give me another chance.” His gaze was drilling through her although her head was down. “Please.”

  It took all the courage she had, but Maggie dragged her gaze up to his. “Greg, I like you. I really do. Just not like that.”

  His gaze dropped from hers to the carpet.