Love Inspired January 2016, Box Set 1 of 2

by Carolyne Aarsen

  “So how did you and your ex-husband meet?”

  “Not my best moment. We met in a bar. He seemed nice.” She grew quiet and he sensed an underlying disconnect.

  “Seemed nice?”

  She released a short laugh. “I was impressionable.”

  Which only made him more curious. He knew he had to stop. He was moving into places in her life he had no right to go.

  So why did her terse replies only raise more questions he wanted the answers to?

  He watched her, letting his feelings for her rise up, wondering if he dared act on them.

  Then she looked over her shoulder at him and it was as if an electric current hummed between them.

  He felt as though it wasn’t a matter of if he would give in to the appeal she created, but when.

  CHAPTER TEN

  “You did good today,” Chloe said to Grady as she poured a cup of coffee for him. “Your second day of therapy and I can see some progress. Couple more weeks of this and I’m sure you’ll notice the difference.”

  Grady just groaned his response, his eyes closed, head resting on the back of the leather couch he had dropped into after supper. He had just come in from feeding the horses for the night.

  The storm, now in its second day, still raged outside, still cut them off from everyone else. Chloe and Grady had gone out this morning to check on the horses and then, when they’d come back, Chloe had put him to work.

  She had managed to get in another session this afternoon, but now they were done for the day.

  A fire crackled in the fireplace of the living room, sending out blessed warmth. The lights had been turned low, creating a cozy, intimate setting. Mamie sat on the couch across from Grady, reading a book, a blanket wrapped around her legs. For someone who was supposed to be ill she looked quite perky, Chloe thought.

  “The second day of therapy is always the hardest,” she said. “Mamie, did you want more coffee?”

  Mamie looked up from the book she was reading and pulled off her glasses. She released a heavy sigh. “No. I’m still not feeling well. I think I might turn in.”

  “I still think we should call a doctor,” Grady said, lifting his head to frown at his grandmother.

  “I’m not that ill. I just need rest.” She gave Chloe a wan smile. “I’ll check on Cody before I go to bed. You two just stay here.” She set her book down on the small table beside the couch, glasses neatly on top, set her blanket aside and made a show of getting to her feet.

  Chloe watched her little performance, and her feeling that Mamie wasn’t being entirely truthful was borne out when she got a faint wink from Mamie as she walked past.

  Was she deliberately leaving the two of them alone?

  The thought made her flush again. She wasn’t sure what to do about her changing feelings for Grady, and she knew being alone with him would make it harder to keep herself aloof from him. In fact, the past few days her determination to stay focused on her job had been more difficult the more she got distracted by attraction she sensed growing between them.

  She placed her hand on her stomach, as if to remind herself of the single reason she had to keep her heart whole. The secret she knew she couldn’t keep quiet much longer. Sooner or later she had to tell Mamie at least. But it was her innate sense of self-protection that made her keep her secret. Thankfully she could wear looser clothing today while she worked with Grady so she could demonstrate some of the exercises she wanted him to do. But her clothes were getting tighter. She was getting close to five months now. She knew she would start showing soon.

  “I should get to bed, too, but I’m too lazy,” Grady said, easing out a sigh as he reached for his coffee. “I figure I’ve done enough work today that I should be able to sit around.”

  Because Grady had no other obligations, Chloe had extended the afternoon session as long as she dared, working different muscle groups each time. He had willingly gone along, even though she knew it had to be hard for him. “Like I said, you did good today.”

  “It will be a long while before I can climb into a saddle.”

  “You won’t be roping any time soon, but riding is certainly not out of the question in time,” Chloe said, hoping to encourage him. She guessed it was difficult enough for him to feel disabled. To not be able to ride must feel horrible. Of all the things she’d missed while living in the city, the ability to go out for a ride was one of the biggest.

  “If I can get on.”

  “You’re only limited by yourself,” she said, taking a sip of her coffee. As soon as the words left her mouth she realized how trite they sounded. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be mouthing platitudes at you. Occupational hazard.”

  “Do you enjoy your job?”

  “When I’m working, yes. I do.”

  “How did you get into that line of work?”

  “I think part of it was a reaction to what happened to my father.”

  “He was injured riding his ATV, wasn’t he?”

  “Which is ironic. He got the thing because he had been thrown from a horse once and didn’t want that to happen again.” Chloe cradled her warm mug, her thoughts melancholy. “He never got over the injury. I think after losing my mother, and his accident and divorce from Etta, he lost all will to do anything. He just stayed at home, started drinking and things just went downhill from there. Including the ranch. I always wished I could have helped him more, but unfortunately I had—” She stopped herself there. Grady didn’t need to know all the sordid details of her past.

  “You had what?” Grady prompted.

  “Doesn’t matter.”

  “Does your ‘doesn’t matter’ have anything to do with your ex-husband?”

  He was far too astute, Chloe thought.

  “Why do you want to know?” she asked, looking down at her cup of coffee, avoiding his direct gaze. Part of her wanted to tell him, to let him know precisely what Jeremy meant to her. Precious little. Even though they had been married for three years, she had felt alone in their relationship for most of that time.

  It was that loneliness that made her vulnerable to Grady’s attention.

  That and the fact Grady was one of the first men in her life to hold her heart. Though she had tried to dismiss her initial attraction to him as a silly schoolgirl crush, images and memories of him had stayed with her the entire time she’d been gone from Little Horn. When she’d found out he had signed up for the army, she’d guessed that she would never see him again. So she had put him out of her life.

  Then she had met Jeremy.

  “I’m guessing the fact that you, of all people, are now divorced makes it pretty clear that things weren’t right between you and your ex-husband. Plus, I’m curious.” Grady put his coffee cup down, got to his feet and hobbled over to the fireplace. He knelt and threw on a couple of logs on the fire. Sparks flew up the chimney. He stayed there a moment, looking at her, the fire casting a glow over his handsome face, creating interesting highlights in his sandy brown hair.

  For a few precious moments the only sounds were the crackling of the fire in the fireplace and the sighing of the steady wind outside.

  “I also want to know what I’m up against,” Grady continued.

  Chloe’s breath caught in her chest like a knot. “What do you mean?” The question was superfluous. She knew exactly what he meant, but she felt she had to try to keep a distance.

  Then, to her shock and pleasure, Grady moved to sit beside her on the couch.

  “I mean that I want to fill in the gaps between then and now in our lives.” He brushed a strand of hair back from her face. His hand lingered on her cheek and she swallowed the attraction she felt building.

  “I’m not that interesting and my life with Jeremy—” She stopped there.

  “Was what?” he asked. “What w
as your life with Jeremy like?”

  Chloe looked down, her eyelashes shielding her eyes, her lips pressed together.

  “Tell me,” he whispered, his fingers lightly caressing her cheek.

  Shame suffused her at the memory of her marriage, but she also felt a need to unload. To let someone know. Her years with Jeremy had been so lonely. She’d had no mother or father to confide in, and all her friends had been either gone or busy with their own lives.

  “He was nice at first. Very charming. But I found out afterward that he was very charming to more women than just me.” As she had throughout her marriage, she struggled to separate Jeremy’s actions from her life. “I tried to make it work, but it was a failed effort from the start. Jeremy never had any intention of staying faithful. I’m still not sure why he married me.”

  “Because you’re a sweet, caring person,” Grady said.

  Her heart tilted and she put her hand to her chest as if to hold its errant beat still. Grady was growing harder to resist.

  “And that’s kind of you to say, but I think he simply saw me as a challenge. I told him the first time we met that I didn’t think he was the marrying kind, and he seemed determined to prove me wrong, and I eventually fell for his shtick.” It still embarrassed her to admit she was so gullible.

  So weak.

  “Sorry, I have to go.” She swallowed down a sob as shame suffused her.

  But Grady’s hand was still curled around her neck and he didn’t release her.

  “What’s wrong, Chloe?” His hand was warm, his voice soft and encouraging. “Tell me what’s wrong.”

  Don’t look at him, she thought. Don’t give in again.

  “Please?”

  It was that single word that broke down her defenses. That word spoken so softly she might have imagined it but for the way his arms tightened around her as if letting her know she was safe.

  A word she’d never, ever heard from her ex-husband.

  So she gave in.

  “Like I told you, we met in a bar,” she said. “He was charming. I had just gotten a new job working at a physical therapy clinic, and I had just found out that two of my good friends had gotten engaged. Two others were already married. I guess I wasn’t in the best frame of mind to have an attractive man flirting with me. He asked me out and I accepted and soon we were seeing each other regularly.

  “Like I said, I made the mistake of telling him I didn’t think he was the marrying kind. That’s when he turned on the charm. We were married six months after we started dating. Of course it was too quick, but what did I know? I was flattered and I thought he cared about me.” She stopped, memories she had suppressed for the past few months returning with a vengeance. Confrontations about his cheating. His lackadaisical attitude. His assurance that if he hadn’t married her, no one would have. “It was a mistake that I’ve regretted ever since.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s embarrassing.”

  Again he said nothing, as if waiting for her to fill the silence. So she did.

  “Jeremy cheated on me most of our relationship. I found out afterward that this was going on even before we got married. Information that would have been helpful before I said ‘I do’ and made promises that I had every intention of keeping and he didn’t.” She knew it wasn’t her fault, but the shame that had filled her when she’d found out how she had been duped returned too easily.

  Thankfully Grady said nothing, just held her as if giving her statement weight.

  “So you divorced him?”

  “I should have. But when I confronted him about his unfaithfulness, he told me he was filing for divorce. He was good friends with a judge and hustled our divorce through the courts. I think he couldn’t stand the idea that I might actually divorce him first.”

  She stopped, thinking of the reason Jeremy had divorced her. He had never wanted children. And she had gotten pregnant.

  “The divorce was finalized only two months ago,” she continued. “It wasn’t what I wanted, but I realized, afterward, it needed to happen.”

  She stopped there and, as if in response to her declaration the baby she carried moved and Chloe closed her eyes, all the joy in the moment receding. She was carrying another man’s baby.

  Grady tipped her face up to his. “You don’t have to feel ashamed of what happened to you. If anything it has shown me that you are a faithful, caring person.” He stroked her face with his fingers, his very touch seeming to ease away her fears. “I think we’ve both got our stuff to deal with, but I like to believe that we can get through whatever happened. I’ve discovered one thing since I’ve come back here. I’m not alone in what I’m dealing with and neither are you. We’ve got a community and family and support. And we have an amazing life here. I’ve seen some difficult things to make me realize what we have been blessed with.”

  She leaned back, her hand still on his chest, keeping the connection between them. “Do you talk about it much? What you saw overseas?”

  “Haven’t much. I came back to quite a storm of events. Between Vanessa claiming I was Cody’s father and Ben’s coma and the ranch stuff, I felt as if I had to simply dive in and do what came next.”

  “Was it hard to come back?”

  Grady looked away from her, his eyes taking on a faraway look as if he was returning to Afghanistan. “I saw a lot over there that made me angry, sad, guilty and at the same time so incredibly thankful for the life we have here. It was hard seeing what I saw and experiencing what I did. But I made a decision early on in my career that I wasn’t letting my experiences define me. I lost my way from that declaration for a while...” His voice faded.

  “You said it once before that you didn’t believe God hears prayer,” Chloe prompted.

  “I think He hears it but I’m not sure what He does about it.”

  His words bothered her, but she could see that in spite of their harshness he didn’t seem entirely convinced of their truth.

  “I know it’s hard to see God through the storms, but I know He has helped me through many,” Chloe said quietly. “I know you had a strong, sincere faith at one time.”

  Grady sighed. “I did. It’s still there, but I’m not so sure God wants me with all the questions I have now. I have to confess I’m struggling right now. Trying to find my footing. In more ways than one,” he said with a short laugh.

  “‘Even strong men stumble,’” Chloe quoted. “I don’t think God minds our questions. I think He prefers that to indifference.”

  Grady seemed to weigh that, his expression serious. “I know that I miss that closeness.”

  “God is still there, Grady. Maybe you’ll just have to move a bit closer yourself and take your questions along.”

  “I think you might be right,” he said.

  “I know I’ve always had to learn that this world is God’s. He’s ultimately in control. And He’s a just God, so sometimes some of the questions will have to wait.” She felt as if she was speaking as much to herself as to him. “I know in my heart that while I may wonder where my life is headed, I believe that if I hope in the Lord, like the pastor preached on Sunday, that my strength will be renewed. I think you can believe that, too.”

  Grady looked down at her, smiling. “You really are amazing.”

  She tried not to read too much into his comment, into the way his dark brown eyes drew her into their depths, seeming to promise a peace she hadn’t felt since her mother died.

  Part of her called out a warning. Jeremy, too, had promised much.

  But even as the voice reminded her of her past mistakes, she also knew that Grady was nothing like Jeremy.

  She knew she could trust him.

  “I know I’ve had to believe that God would lead me through the valleys I’ve dealt with, as well,” she said. Then she gave into an impul
se and touched his face, tracing a faint scar on his cheek. The promise that someday she might know the story behind it gave her a gentle thrill.

  She wanted to be a part of his life.

  Yet her life was such a jumble. She dragged the weight of what had happened to her and she didn’t know what to do with it.

  She turned to him and as their eyes met she felt as if everything wrong in her life faded away. It was just her and Grady.

  To her chagrin, an errant tear slipped down her cheek. She reached up to scrub it away but Grady caught it with his thumb, easing it away.

  “Why so sad?”

  “Old memories,” she said.

  He gave her a crooked smile. She felt her resistance ebb like sand before a wave, and before she could say anything more, he bent closer to her, blotting out the light. Then his warm lips were on hers and everything wrong in her life dwindled and died.

  * * *

  Grady leaned his forehead against Chloe’s, his eyes closed, his hands resting on her shoulders. He eased out a sigh, then pulled her against him.

  She fit against him as though she belonged, her breath warm on his cheek, her hand resting on his shoulder.

  He leaned back against the couch, taking her with him. She nestled in his arms and he pressed a kiss to her forehead, releasing a sigh weighted with many of the losses of the past year.

  “I feel as if this has been a long time coming,” he said.

  “What do you mean?” Her voice was soft, as if hardly daring to disturb the moment.

  “I think you know what I’m talking about,” he said with a soft chuckle, sensing her question for what it was—a woman’s foray into the examination of relationships.

  “I do, but I like to talk about it,” she said, lifting her head and stroking his hair back from his face, her gesture creating a gentle warmth that he hadn’t felt in a long time. As he looked down on her smiling face illuminated by the firelight’s glow, he felt, for the first time since he had returned, that he was home. That he was in a place he belonged. He brushed a gentle kiss over her forehead and smiled.