by T. K. Chapin
Prologue
THE FIRST TIME I LAID eyes on Kirk was back in our senior year of High School while I was walking the track with Chloe. He was beneath the bleachers lip-locked with Vicky Haggar from the cheerleading squad. This wouldn’t have been an issue outside of the fact that he was dating my best-friend, Chloe. Not exactly a best first impression.
Two years later when I was twenty, I decided to relocate from Albany, New York, to Spokane, Washington. Kirk had found out about the big journey across country through mutual friends and approached me about road tripping together. I quickly rejected him. When he offered to pay for all the gas, I couldn’t help but give in. With over 2,000 miles to reach Spokane and a strong desire not to rely on my parents anymore, I knew his gas money would help me in the long run. I was on my way to Spokane to stake a claim in my independence from my parents and to work at a software company as a receptionist. Kirk had been into hockey and hoped for a chance at the big leagues by trying out for the Spokane Chiefs.
Through the long journey across the country, somewhere between Buffalo and Cleveland, I suspect, Kirk and I became friends. During our time together on the road, we laughed about Mrs. Bovey, our ninth-grade English teacher who hated children far too much to be teaching them in a school. We also shared our hopes and desires for the future.
When we finally arrived in Spokane five days after we left our hometown, I not only had a handful of memories from our road trip but a longing for something more for us. The trip had given me a chance to see past the façade he had put on in high school and see the real Kirk. At one stop along the way, at a gas station out in the middle of nowhere, he opened my car door for me. Then another time, he grabbed me my favorite candy bar without my even having to ask. When I became tired of driving, he’d willingly take over even if he was tired. Beyond those sweet gestures, I learned of a man who held a lot of regret over his checkered past. He had high hopes to start afresh and make a new life for himself in Spokane. Beneath all the muscles, I found a man with a big heart.
I couldn’t give into my desire to see him again, though, or to possibly have a relationship. He was, after all, Chloe’s ex-boyfriend. I dropped him off at the bus stop where his friend was picking him up and said goodbye for what I thought was forever.
Chapter 1-Jessica
FIVE YEARS AND TWO JOBS later, I was on my way to work when I stopped in at a favorite local coffee shop of mine downtown, Milo’s, for an extra boost of caffeine. I had already been running late for work as it was, sleeping through all three of my alarms. There was a reason to the madness. It was all due to my friend Isabella, who had kept me up half the night on the phone. She was like me, single and living on the hopes of someday being swept away by a gallant gentleman who would show us the love we needed. We talked last night about how miserable she was being single in a world full of married men, the only single ones being creeps. I understood the pain of loneliness, but only to a certain degree. My singleness was part of who I was. It had almost become a friend. Sure, I wanted someone to love and hold, but I had to trust the fact that God was in control and knew my heart. Plus, I had my work, which filled much of my time.
Standing in the coffee shop near the counter, I waited for my order. I had on my new white pea coat I had just picked up the other day at the mall. When I saw it hanging on the rack on my way through Macy’s, I instantly fell in love with it. It went perfectly with my red bucket hat, which I was also wearing. Scrolling through emails on my phone as I waited for my coffee, I felt the pressure of the day catching up with me. Already several new messages. Two from Micah, my boss, one from the graphics department on a design mock-up, and a reply from a pastor I had interviewed a couple of months back. Working at a startup magazine was anything but easy, but I loved every second of it. Not only was I a writer and reporter, but my boss, Micah’s, go-to person for whatever he needed. Sometimes, it meant donuts and coffee on my way into work, and sometimes, it meant writing ten articles in five days and spot-checking the print run at two o’clock in the morning, four hours before it went to print. It was hard work, but it carried purpose and I thrived on purpose.
“Kirk,” the barista said behind the counter, setting a cup down.
It took a moment for the name to register in my mind, but when it did, my heart leapt as I lifted my eyes to find the face that went with the name. I didn’t think about him often, but when he did brush across my thoughts, it was always with fondness for the time we’d shared together on the car trip five years ago. Over the years, the man had stayed with me in the depths of my soul, along with regret. Regret over the fact I hadn’t pursued him the day I dropped him off at the bus stop. We hadn’t spent time together before our car ride, but the time we did share over the trip was something special and close to my heart still to this day.
Surveying the coffee shop, I held onto the short string of hope I had carried all these years. It was like a loose thread from a piece of clothing that I knew if I pulled, it would unravel the whole thing. I refused to part with it. There was no certainty that Kirk still lived in Spokane, but it didn’t stop me from holding onto the possibility. My friend Chloe, back in Albany, hadn’t spoken his name in years, understandably, and I’d never found his name on the Spokane Chiefs’ roster (I checked every season), but still . . . I refused to part with the string.
“Thanks,” a man said, his voice rugged, worn.
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One Thursday Morning (Click/Tap here to view on Amazon)
Prologue
To love and be loved—it was all I ever wanted. Nobody could ever convince me John was a bad man. He made me feel loved when I did not know what love was. I was his and he was mine. It was perfect . . . or at least, I thought it was.
I cannot pinpoint why everything changed in our lives, but it did—and for the worst. My protector, my savior, and my whole world came crashing down like a heavy spring downpour. The first time he struck me, I remember thinking it was just an accident. He had been drinking earlier in the day with his friends and came stumbling home late that night. The lights were low throughout the house because I had already gone to bed. I remember hearing the car pull up outside in the driveway. Leaping to my feet, I came rushing downstairs and through the kitchen to greet him. He swung, which I thought at the time was because I startled him, and the back side of his hand caught my cheek.
I should have known it wasn’t an accident.
The second time was no accident at all, and I knew it. After a heavy night of drinking the night his father died, he came to the study where I was reading. Like a hunter looking for his prey, he came up behind me to the couch. Grabbing the back of my head and digging his fingers into my hair, he kinked my neck over the couch and asked me why I hadn’t been faithful to him. I had no idea what he was talking about, so out of sheer fear, I began to cry. John took that as a sign of guilt and backhanded me across the face. It was hard enough to leave a bruise the following day. I stayed with him anyway. I’d put a little extra makeup on around my eyes or anywhere else when marks were left. I didn’t stay because I was stupid, but because I loved him. I kept telling myself that our love could get us through this. The night of his father’s death, I blamed his outburst on the loss of his father. It was too much for him to handle, and he was just letting out steam. I swore to love him through the good times and the bad. This was just one of the bad times.
Each time he’d hit me, I’d come up with a reason or excuse for the behavior. There was always a reason, at least in my mind, as to why John hit me. Then one time, after a really bad injury, I sought help from my mother before she passed away. The closest thing to a saint on earth, she dealt with my father’s abuse for decades before he died. She was a devout Christian, but a warped idea of love plagued my mother her entire life. She told me, ‘What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.’ That one piece of advice she gave me months before passing made me suffer through a marriage w
ith John for another five trying years.
Each day with John as a husband was a day full of prayer. I would pray for him not to drink, and sometimes, he didn’t—those were the days I felt God had listened to my pleas. On the days he came home drunk and swinging, I felt alone, like God had left me to die by my husband’s hands. Fear was a cornerstone of our relationship, in my eyes, and I hated it. As the years piled onto one another, I began to deal with two entirely different people when it came to John. There was the John who would give me everything I need in life and bring flowers home on the days he was sober, and then there was John, the drunk, who would bring insults and injury instead of flowers.
I knew something needed to desperately change in my life, but I didn’t have the courage. Then one day, it all changed when two little pink lines told me to run and never look back.
Chapter 1
Fingers glided against the skin of my arm as I lay on my side looking into John’s big, gorgeous brown eyes. It was morning, so I knew he was sober, and for a moment, I thought maybe, just maybe I could tell him about the baby growing inside me. Flashes of a shared excitement between us blinked through my mind. He’d love having a baby around the house. He really would. Behind those eyes, I saw the man I fell in love with years ago down in Town Square in New York City. Those eyes were the same ones that brought me into a world of love and security I had never known before. Moments like that made it hard to hate him. Peering over at his hand that was tracing the side of my body, I saw the cut on his knuckles from where he had smashed the coffee table a few nights ago. My heart retracted the notion of telling him about the baby. I knew John would be dangerous for a child.
Chills shivered up my spine as his fingers traced from my arm to the curve of my back. Could I be strong enough to live without him? I wondered as the fears sank back down into me. Even if he was a bit mean, he had a way of charming me like no other man I had ever met in my life. He knew how to touch gently, look deeply and make love passionately. It was only when he drank that his demons came out.
“Want me to make you some breakfast?” I asked, slipping out of his touch and from the bed to my feet. His touches were enjoyable, but I wanted to get used to not having them. My mind often jumped back and forth between leaving, not leaving, and something vaguely in between. It was hard.
John smiled up at me from the bed with what made me feel like love in his eyes. I suddenly began to feel bad about the plan to leave, but I knew he couldn’t be trusted with a child. Keep it together.
“Sure, babe. That’d be great.” He brought his muscular arms from out of the covers and put them behind his head. My eyes traced his biceps and face. Wavy brown hair and a jawline that was defined made him breathtakingly gorgeous. Flashes of last night’s passion bombarded my mind. He didn’t drink, and that meant one thing—we made love. It started in the main living room just off the foyer. I was enjoying my evening cup of tea while the fireplace was lit when suddenly, John came home early. I was worried at first, but when he leaned over the couch and pulled back my blonde hair, he planted a tender kiss on my neck. I knew right in that moment that it was going to be a good night. Hoisting me up from the couch with those arms and pressing me against the wall near the fireplace, John’s passion fell from his lips and onto the skin of my neck as I wrapped my arms around him.
The heat between John and me was undeniable, and it made the thoughts of leaving him that much harder. It was during those moments of pure passion that I could still see the bits of the John I once knew—the part of John that didn’t scare me and had the ability to make me feel safe, and the part of him that I never wanted to lose.
“All right,” I replied with a smile as I broke away from my thoughts. Leaving down the hallway, I pushed last night out of my mind and focused on the tasks ahead.
Retrieving the carton of eggs from the fridge in the kitchen, I shut the door and was startled when John was standing on the other side. Jumping, I let out a squeak. “John!”
He tilted his head and slipped closer to me. With nothing on but his boxer briefs, he backed me against the counter and let his hand slide the corner of my shirt up my side. He leaned closer to me. I felt the warmth of his breath on my skin as my back arched against the counter top. He licked his lips instinctively to moisten them and then gently let them find their way to my neck. “Serenah . . .” he said in a smooth, seductive voice.
“Let me make you breakfast,” I said as I set the carton down on the counter behind me and turned my neck into him to stop the kissing.
His eyebrows rose as he pulled away from my body and released. His eyes met mine. There it was—the change. “Fine.”
“What?” I replied as I turned and pulled down a frying pan that hung above the island counter.
“Nothing. Nothing. I have to go shower.” He left down the hallway without a word, but I could sense tension in his tone.
Waiting for the shower to turn on after he walked into the bathroom and slammed the door, I began to cook his eggs. When a few minutes had passed and I hadn’t heard the water start running, I lifted my eyes and looked down the hallway.
There he was.
John stood at the end of hallway, watching me. Standing in the shifting shadows of the long hallway, he was more than creepy. He often did that type of thing, but it came later in the marriage, not early on and only at home. I never knew how long he was standing there before I caught him, but he’d always break away after being seen. He had a sick obsession of studying me like I was some sort of weird science project of his.
I didn’t like it all, but it was part of who he had become. Not much longer, I reminded myself.
I smiled down the hallway at him, and he returned to the bathroom to finally take his shower. As I heard the water come on, I finished the eggs and set the frying pan off the burner. Dumping the eggs onto a plate, I set the pan in the sink and headed to the piano in the main living room. Pulling the bench out from under the piano, I got down on my hands and knees and lifted the flap of carpet that was squared off. Removing the plank of wood that concealed my secret area, I retrieved the metal box and opened it.
Freedom.
Ever since he hit me that second time, a part of me knew we’d never have the forever marriage I pictured, so in case I was right, I began saving money here and there. I had been able to save just over ten thousand dollars. A fibbed high-priced manicure here, a few non-existent shopping trips with friends there. It added up, and John had not the foggiest clue, since he was too much of an egomaniac to pay attention to anything that didn’t directly affect him. Sure, it was his money, but money wasn’t really ‘a thing’ to us. We were beyond that. My eyes looked at the money in the stash and then over at the bus ticket to Seattle dated for four days from now. I could hardly believe it. I was really going to finally leave him after all this time. Amongst the cash and bus ticket, there was a cheap pay-as-you go cellphone and a fake ID. I had to check that box at least once a day ever since I found out about my pregnancy to make sure he hadn’t found it. I was scared to leave, but whenever I felt that way, I rubbed my pregnant thirteen-week belly, and I knew I had to do what was best for us. Putting the box back into the floor, I was straightening out the carpet when suddenly, John’s breathing settled into my ears behind me.
“What are you doing?” he asked, towel draped around his waist behind me. I should have just waited until he left for work . . . What were you thinking, Serenah? My thoughts scolded me.
Slamming my head into the bottom of the piano, I grabbed my head and backed out as I let out a groan. “There was a crumb on the carpet.”
“What? Underneath the piano?” he asked.
Anxiety rose within me like a storm at sea. Using the bench for leverage, I placed a hand on it and began to get up. When I didn’t respond to his question quick enough, he shoved my arm that was propped on the piano bench, causing me to smash my eye into the corner of the bench. Pain radiated through my skull as I cupped my eye and began to cry.
&n
bsp; “Oh, please. That barely hurt you.”
I didn’t respond. Falling the rest of the way to the floor, I cupped my eye and hoped he’d just leave. Letting out a heavy sigh, he got down, still in his towel, and put his hand on my shoulder. “I’m sorry, honey.”
Jerking my shoulder away from him, I replied, “Go away!”
He stood up and left.
John hurt me sober? Rising to my feet, I headed into the half-bathroom across the living room and looked into the mirror. My eye was blood red—he had popped a blood vessel. Tears welled in my eyes as my eyebrows furrowed in disgust.
Four days wasn’t soon enough to leave—I was leaving today.
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Other Books
Available Books
By T.K. Chapin
(Inspirational Christian Fiction & Romance)
Protected By Love Series
Love’s Return (Book 1)
Love’s Promise (Book 2)
Love’s Protection (Book 3)
Diamond Lake Series
One Thursday Morning (Book 1)
One Friday Afternoon (Book 2)
One Saturday Evening (Book 3)
One Sunday Drive (Book 4)
One Monday Prayer (Book 5)
One Tuesday Lunch (Book 6)
One Wednesday Dinner (Book 7)
Embers & Ashes Series
Amongst the Flames (Book 1)
Out of the Ashes (Book 2)
Up in Smoke (Book 3)