Heart of the Family

by Margaret Daley

  “Four.” Meg scooted over for Nancy to sit next to her while she worked on the popcorn garland.

  “Maybe I should just go to town and buy new ones.” Jacob squatted next to her.

  “No. No, I’ll figure this out. No sense in wasting money.”

  Fifteen minutes later Hannah finally untangled one strand completely and was on her way to freeing another.

  Jacob bent down and whispered in her ear, “Ready to call uncle.”

  “No way. Here’s one. By the time you’ve got it up, I should have the second string ready.”

  The doubtful look Jacob sent her as he rose fueled Hannah’s determination, but the puppy’s yelps from the utility room rubbed her nerves raw, pulling her full attention away from her task. “Nancy, please check on Abby.”

  Hannah had almost finished with the second strand when Abby came barreling into the room and raced toward her. The white puppy leaped into her lap, licking her face, her body wiggling so much it threw Hannah off balance.

  “Nancy!” Hannah fell back with Abby on her chest now, one hand caught in the snarl of lights.

  The little girl charged into the room. “Sorry. She got away from me.” She pulled the puppy off Hannah.

  Jacob offered her his hand, a gleam glittering in his eyes. When she clasped it, he tugged her up. “Okay?”

  “Sure. Abby just gets a little enthusiastic. Laura’s teenage son is going to help us with her.” Hannah glanced down at the lights and groaned. The second string was twisted in with the other two.

  “Uncle?”

  She picked up the snarl. “Uncle.”

  “Let me see what I can do before ya head into town.” Lisa sat next to Hannah. “I’m good at stuff like this.”

  Ten minutes later the lights were ready to go. Hannah purposely ignored the merriment dancing in Jacob’s eyes. She corralled the remaining children who weren’t working on the popcorn garlands.

  “Let’s get the ornaments out, so when the lights are up, we’ll be ready to put them on the tree.”

  Three kids fought to open the box. With two fingers in her mouth, Hannah whistled, startling them. They shot up with arms straight at their sides.

  She waved her hand. “Shoo. I’ll unpack them and give them to y’all. Lisa, want to help me?”

  Andy’s mother nodded.

  “There. We’re done with our part.” Jacob stood back from the pine and gave Terry a signal to plug the lights in.

  Nancy leaped to her feet, clapping her hands. “It’s beautiful.”

  “Yes, it is. Just wait until the ornaments are on it. It’ll be even better.” Hannah peered toward Jacob who plopped into the lounge chair nearby. “And don’t think your job is done. Look at this huge box of decorations.”

  Jacob shoved himself up. “Kids, remind me to find out what my duties are before volunteering next time.”

  A couple of the children giggled, setting the mood for the next two hours while everyone worked, first decorating the tree, then the rest of the house. Andy rode with Jacob to take Lisa to work. When they returned, Jacob brought large pizzas for dinner.

  By the time the cottage quieted with the kids tucked into bed, exhaustion clung to Hannah, her muscles protesting her every move. “Getting ready for Christmas is tiring work.” She collapsed on the couch in the living room.

  “I know you may be shocked, but I have to agree with you.” Jacob gestured around him at the myriad of decorations in every conceivable place. “Where did all this come from?”

  “From what Laura told me, most of it was donated.”

  He picked up a two-foot-high flamingo with a Santa hat on its head and a wreath around its neck. “What’s a flamingo have to do with Christmas?”

  She shrugged. “Beats me, but it’s kinda cute. Nancy sure liked it.”

  “She liked everything. We couldn’t put it out fast enough for her.”

  “She’s never had Christmas before. She told me her mother didn’t believe in the Lord.”

  “Now, why doesn’t that surprise me.” Jacob eased down next to Hannah on the couch, grimacing as he leaned back. “After yesterday and today, I think I’ll rest tomorrow.”

  “I think Terry said something about needing your help to build the manger Sunday afternoon.”

  Jacob’s forehead furrowed. “And when were you going to tell me that?”

  “Tomorrow when you came to help with the rehearsal.”

  His mouth twisted into a grim line that his sparkling eyes negated. He tried glaring at Hannah, but laughter welled up in him. He lay his head on the back cushion. “I haven’t enjoyed myself like that in…” He slanted his gaze toward her. “Actually today has been great. Thank you again for including me.”

  The wistfulness in his voice produced an ache in her throat. “It was fun.”

  “It’s what I think of a family doing during the holidays. The only time I had anything similar was when I lived with Paul and Alice. For three years I was part of something good.” A faraway look appeared in his eyes as he averted his head and stared up at the ceiling.

  Hannah dug her fingernails into her palms to keep from smoothing the lines from his forehead. She felt as though he had journeyed back in time to a past that held bad memories.

  “That first Christmas with the Hendersons I was determined to stay in my room and have nothing to do with any celebration.”

  “Why?”

  “Because in December the year before, I had killed a friend.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Hearing Jacob say he’d killed her brother out loud tore open the healing wound. A band about Hannah’s chest squeezed tight, whooshing the air from her lungs. Her mind raced back twenty-one years to the day she’d been told Kevin died in a car wreck. She heard her mother’s screams then her cries all over again.

  “I’ve shocked you, Hannah. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything but…” He looked away, his jaw locked in a hard line.

  His apology pulled her back to the present. She managed to shut down all memories and focus on Jacob next to her on the couch. “But what?” There was no force behind the words, and for a few seconds she wondered if he even was aware she had spoken.

  When his gaze swept back to hers, the anguish in his was palpable, as if it were a physical thing she could touch. “Over the past month we’ve been getting closer. We’ve spent a lot of time together.” His eyelids slid halfway closed, shielding some of his turmoil from her. “I’m not sure where this…relationship is going, but I felt you needed to know.”

  “What happened?” She knew one side of the story, if she could even call it that. She needed to hear his side.

  “It happened twenty-one years ago, but I’ll never forget that day. Ever.” He reestablished eye contact with her, a bleakness in his expression now. “Kevin borrowed his parents’ car one night, and we went riding. We were bored, and he wanted to practice driving. Because we were fourteen, we drove in the country so no one would catch us. After he drove for a while, he let me get behind the wheel and try my hand. Everything was going along fine until…” Jacob pressed his lips together and closed his eyes.

  “Until?” Hannah covered his hand with hers, his cold fingers mirroring hers.

  Sucking in a deep breath, he looked directly at her and said, “Until I lost control of the car when it hit a patch of black ice. My friend didn’t put on his seat belt when we changed places, and he was thrown from the car.”

  Her own pain jammed her throat like a fist. It was an effort even to swallow. “What happened to you?” She’d known little about what injuries he had sustained in the wreck.

  “I had a concussion, some cuts and bruises, but otherwise I was okay—physically. But after that night, nothing was the same for me. At the time I didn’t believe in the Lord and had nowhere to turn.” Leaning forward, he propped his elbows on his knees and buried his face in his palms.

  Her heartbeat roared in her ears. She reached out to lay a quivering hand on his hunched back, stopped midway
there and withdrew it. Words evaded her because she was trying to imagine dealing with something like that alone, without the Lord. He’d only been fourteen. A maelstrom of emotions must have overwhelmed him.

  “How long before you went to the Hendersons to live?”

  He scrubbed his hands down his face. “Too long. A year.”

  All the agony of that year was wrapped up in his reply. This time she touched him.

  “I still have nightmares about the accident.”

  Her heart plummeted. All these years she had thought she and her family had been the only ones who had suffered. She’d been wrong—very wrong. “It was an accident, Jacob.”

  “Do you know one of the reasons I wanted to be a doctor? Kevin did. That’s all he’d talked about.”

  Beneath her palm she felt him quake.

  “I became a doctor. I tried to make up for my mistake, but there’s always a part of me that remembers I took a life.” Another tremor passed through his body. “I’ll never forget Kevin’s mother at the hospital. If I could have traded places with him, I would have.”

  Tell him who you are, Hannah thought. No! I can’t add to his pain. Not now.

  “I’m so sorry, Jacob. So sorry.”

  He shoved to his feet. “I’m not the one to feel sorry for. I survived.”

  His rising tone didn’t match the despair on his face. “Yes, you survived. I thank God that at least one of you did. Your death would have deprived these children of a wonderful, caring doctor.”

  “You don’t understand.” Jacob flexed his hands at his sides. “These past few weeks with you I’ve been truly happy for the first time in my life. I don’t deserve to be.”

  She rose. “Why not? How will you living a miserable life change the outcome of the wreck?”

  He started to say something but snapped his mouth closed and stared off into space.

  “Why are you telling me this now?”

  “I thought we could date, get to know each other better, but I don’t think we should now.”

  “Because you are happy with me?”

  “Yes! These past two days getting the cottage ready for the holidays has shown me what Christmas can be like, what it would be like to have a family.”

  “How long do you have to suffer before it’s enough?”

  He plowed his hand through his hair, the tic in his jaw twitching.

  “When will it be enough?”

  “I don’t know,” Jacob shouted, then spun around on his heel and stalked to the front door. She sank down on the couch, her whole body shaking with the storm of emotions that had swept through the room. She couldn’t forget that Jacob had opened his heart to her. She had to do the same. She would pray for guidance and tell him tomorrow after church.

  Hannah stood at the window, watching Jacob help Terry, Gabe and Andy build a manger for the play. The sound of laughter and hammering pounded at her resolve to find some time to be alone with Jacob and tell him who she was. He’d avoided her after church, and by the time she’d gathered all the children together, he was gone. Even when he’d come an hour ago, he’d spent little time with her, as if he’d regretted sharing something so personal with her the night before.

  He lived in a self-made prison, and she was determined to free him. This was why the Lord had brought her to Cimarron City, to Stone’s Refuge—to heal Jacob, a good man who had made a mistake when he was a teen.

  His eyes crinkling in laughter, Jacob tousled Andy’s hair. The boy giggled then launched himself at Jacob, throwing his arms around his middle. The scene brought tears to Hannah. The only time today she’d seen him relax and let down his guard was with the children.

  Hannah pivoted away from the window and froze when she saw Nancy in the middle of the room, watching her with her thumb in her mouth and her doll cradled against her chest. Hannah quickly swiped away her tears. “Hi, Nancy. Have you got your costume finished for the play?”

  The little girl shook her head, plucking her thumb from her mouth. “Susie said she heard you talking to Meg about visiting my mother. Susie thinks you want to get me together with her like you did Andy and his mother.” Terror inched into the child’s expression. “Is Mommy coming to get me?”

  “No, honey.”

  Nancy heaved a sigh. “Good. She isn’t nice like ya and Andy’s mother.” The little girl held up her doll. “Can we use Annie for baby Jesus?”

  “Yes,” Hannah murmured, relieved to see the child’s terror gone from her eyes.

  The child beamed. “I told Annie she could be. No one will know she’s a girl.”

  “We’ll wrap Annie in swaddling and all that will show is her face. She’ll fit perfectly in the manager.” Hannah gestured toward the boys in the court finishing up with the cradle.

  “I’m gonna try Annie in it.” Nancy raced toward the sliding-glass door that led outside.

  “Hannah!”

  Out of the corner of her eye she noticed Nancy carefully lay her doll into the manger. At the sound of her name being shouted again, she turned from the window as Susie came into the living room.

  “I can’t get this to work.” The girl dropped her arms and the white sheet slid off one shoulder. “Can you help me with my costume?”

  “Sure. This won’t be hard to fix.” Whereas she wasn’t sure about her relationship with Jacob.

  “Jacob, you aren’t going to stay for dinner?” Hannah moved out onto the porch that evening and closed the front door behind her so the children couldn’t listen.

  He stopped on the top step and faced her. “It’s been a long day. I have a busy week ahead of me.”

  He’d made sure they hadn’t had a minute alone to talk. She wasn’t going to let him flee, not after working up her courage to tell him everything so there were no secrets between them. “I need to talk to you.”

  He stiffened. “Can we another time?”

  “No.”

  He glanced around him as though searching for a way to escape. When he directed his gaze back to her, resignation registered on his face but he remained silent.

  She pointed toward the porch swing. “Let’s sit down.”

  He strode to it and settled at one end. Hannah sank down next to him. He tensed.

  “This is about what I told you last night.”

  The monotone inflection of his voice chilled her. She hugged her arms to her and shored up her determination. “Yes.”

  She tried to remember what she had planned to say, but suddenly there was nothing in her mind except a panicky feeling she was wrong, that she should remain quiet. That she would only add to his pain.

  “I understand if you don’t want to see me.”

  “Is that why you told me?” She twisted toward him so she could look into his eyes. With night quickly approaching it was becoming harder to read his expression.

  “I—I’m not sure what you mean.”

  “It’s simple. Did you tell me about your past to drive me away?”

  “You have a right to know.”

  “Why?” A long moment of silence eroded her resolve.

  She started to say he didn’t have to answer her when he said, “Because I’m falling in love with you and…”

  His declaration sent her heartbeat galloping. “And?”

  “Isn’t that enough?” He bolted to his feet and took a step forward.

  She grabbed his hand and held him still. “Don’t leave after telling me that.”

  He whirled around, shaking loose her hold. “Don’t you see, Hannah? I carry a lot of baggage. That’s why I don’t think it’s a good idea for us to become involved.”

  She tried to look into his eyes, but the shadows shaded them. “We all do. Please sit.”

  “I can’t ask someone to share that.”

  “Why not? It’s in the past. Over twenty years ago.”

  “I’ve tried to forget. I can’t. I’ll never be able to.”

  “Forget or forgive?” She stood, cutting the space between them.

  “Bo
th! My carelessness led to another’s death. That may be easy for someone else to dismiss, but not me.”

  She desperately wanted to take him into her arms and hold him until she could erase all memories of that night twenty-one years ago—from both their memories. But the tension flowing off him was as effective as a high, foot-thick wall—insurmountable and impregnable.

  “Earlier you said you’re falling in love with me. That’s how I feel about you.”

  “How—”

  She placed her fingers over his mouth to still his words. “No, let me finish.”

  The tension continued to vibrate between them, but he nodded.

  She lowered her hand and took hold of his. There was no easy way to say this to him. “I need to tell you who I am. Before I married, my maiden name was Collins. I was Kevin’s little sister.”

  Several heartbeats hammered against her chest before Jacob reacted to her news. He yanked his hand from hers and scrambled back, shaking his head. “You can’t be.”

  “I am. I was eight when Kevin died in the car wreck. My parents split not long after the accident and Mom and I moved away. Actually we spent many years running away.”

  “What kind of game are you playing?”

  “I’m not playing a game.”

  “I killed your brother! Why are you even talking to me?”

  The fierce sound of the whispered words blasted her as if he had shouted them. “I’m not going to kid you. For many years I blamed you for taking my big brother away from me. I hated you.”

  His harsh laugh echoed through the quiet. “And now you don’t hate me.” Disbelief resonated through his voice.

  “No, I don’t. I didn’t lie when I told you I was falling in love with you.”

  “Please don’t. I don’t want to be responsible for you betraying your family on top of everything else.”

  “I’m not betraying them.”

  “I’ll never be able to forget your mother yelling at me that I had destroyed her life. I dream about that.”

  “This isn’t about my mother. This is about you and me.”