by Heather Gray
She sank back into the desk chair, slapped her purse down on the desktop, and crossed her arms, mimicking at least part of Sam’s posture of moments ago.
“I was your mom’s dealer back in the day.”
Bile rose in Skye’s throat.
“She texted me and asked me to bring something by. When I reached the house, she was dead. I’m the one who found her body and called the police.”
Skye tried to breathe, but the breath wouldn’t come. Everything closed in around her, and darkness lined the edge of her vision.
“Skye. Skye, look at me. Are you okay?” Sam kneeled in front her, his work-roughened hands holding her in place as she fought to pull air into her lungs.
She blinked slowly, trying to force herself to act normal, but every movement — even that of her eyelids — felt hampered by a heavy, smothering weight. “I’m…fine…”
Sam stayed there in front of her, his eyes glued to her face, as the pastor continued talking.
“I’d never seen a dead body before. I was young, I guess. Certainly dumb. I didn’t realize how much damage I was doing. I could have fled, but I called the police instead, and I waited for them. It was a mistake at the time, but it ended up being the best thing for me.”
Her pulse thundered in her head, but not quite loud enough to drown out his words.
“Several months into my sentence, a chaplain came to visit me. I started going to church services in prison. I only went so I could get out of my cell for a little while, but it eventually made sense, and Jesus saved me. I don’t know why it was that day and not the day before or the month before. I don’t know why it had to be in prison instead of before I started dealing drugs. I don’t understand all that, but I know He saved me, and I’ll spend all eternity being grateful for that.”
Skye swallowed and forced her eyes open. Sam was right there, and she stared into the vivid blue of his eyes. They were filled with so many things she’d never allowed herself to see before. Emotions from sadness to joy and from worry to love pooled in his eyes, but they were all colored by the raw pain etched on his face, a face she’d previously found frightening.
The irony wasn’t lost on her. When she’d first seen Sam, she’d thought he looked like someone who had been in prison. Instead, the pastor — who looked like one would expect a pastor to look — had passed time behind bars.
Pastor Dennis continued. “When I got out of prison, I wanted to start a church. None would have me, of course. Who wants a pastor with a record? I had this vision, though, for a church that would open its doors to the undesirables, to the wretches, the poor, the homeless…”
She had to get out of there. She couldn’t sit a minute longer and listen to this man talk about church as though what he said held any weight with her.
“How I ended up at the church I now lead is a long story, and I won’t go into it. I needed to tell you, Skye, how sorry I am for the actions of my youth, for the choices I made that ultimately contributed to your mother’s death. Not a day goes by that I don’t look in the mirror and remember who I was and the damage I did.” His focus migrated to Sam. “As for Samaritan’s Reach, I hope that you will continue to bring your residents to New Hope, but if you decide you can’t, I understand.” He picked up his knit cap from the counter and nodded to them both. “I’m sorry.”
A second later, he was gone, and Skye held in a scream. Every emotion she’d locked up tight in a little box and thrust to the back of her heart had been ripped out of its hiding place. It was too much. It was all just… too much.
She shoved as hard as she could, and Sam toppled backward.
She grabbed her purse, and she ran.
Skye got to her car, but it took forever to get the keys out. When she finally did, her fingers fumbled, and she dropped them to the asphalt.
She reached for them, but Sam was there with his steady, strong presence. He picked up the keys, stuffed them in his pocket, and put his arms around her.
The pain, grief, and guilt consumed her. Was she in her right mind? Not hardly.
She pounded both fists against his muscled chest, but he only pulled her closer with his gentle arms.
She screamed into the cotton of his t-shirt, but he didn’t let go.
She choked on her sobs, and he rubbed her back while whispering words in a hoarse voice, words that barely penetrated the typhoon of emotion threatening to capsize her whole life.
“It’s okay… You’re safe… It’ll be okay… You can do this… It’s okay…”
Only, nothing would ever be okay again.
“I killed my mother. It’s my fault she died.”
CHAPTER 34
I killed my mother. It’s my fault she died.
Sam’s hand, which had been rubbing Skye’s back, stalled.
He’d misheard her. He had to have misheard.
He started rubbing her back again, but she pushed him away.
Tears ran down her cheeks, and her amber eyes were bloodshot. “Your platitudes don’t change anything.”
He knew what it was like to push someone away because you didn’t think you deserved to be comforted. He understood more about what Skye was going through than he wanted her to know, but he also knew she wouldn’t believe him. Nothing he said would matter to her. He needed to show her.
Sam took a step closer to her, but kept his voice just above a whisper. “Tell me about your mom.”
She looked away from him, wrapped her arms around her middle, and started talking. “I graduated high school. My grandparents came to Rainbow Falls and offered to pay for college if I went to live with them. I welcomed their offer. I didn’t know how else to cover the cost of college. I hadn’t won any great scholarships… It seemed like the best way. And I was tired of living with my mom. I knew she loved me, but the up and down of never knowing from one day to the next how she was going to be… It was old, and I was tired. The constant worry wore me down. She loved me, but her love for me wasn’t enough to make her kick the habit. Which is a child’s perspective, but that’s what I was — a child. Sometimes I’d come home from school and find her unconscious. Sometimes laying in her own vomit. She missed Dad so much. It’s like her whole world fell apart when he died. She didn’t know how to function anymore. I wasn’t enough for her, and… Like I said, I was tired. So I took their offer.”
Oh, how he wanted to reach out to her. To pull her into a hug and hold her and take away all her hurts. She didn’t want to be touched, though, and no matter how much he wanted to make this better, no matter how much it was wired into his male DNA to want to fix things, this one was beyond him. The only person who could get inside her heart and heal this wound was Jesus. Sam needed to remember that and to help Skye see it, too. Without pushing her away, if he was lucky. So he stood there, and he didn’t touch her even though it was ripping out his heart not to. “What happened?”
“Mom didn’t handle my leaving too well. She would call me all the time and want to talk to me, but I had school, and I got tired of the slurred conversations. I was eighteen and selfish, and I wanted a fresh start. During my first month at college, I got the call. Overdose. She was dead, and I was to blame. She’d called three times that morning, but I sent her to voicemail every single time because I didn’t want the downer of talking to her. Every time we spoke, the conversation hung over me like a cloud for the rest of the day, and I was sick of it. So I didn’t answer, and she died, and…” She swallowed. “And the guilt has been killing me ever since.”
“You’re not responsible for your mom’s choices.”
“My brain says you’re right, but my heart doesn’t agree, and I don’t think it ever will.”
“What about your grandparents? What did they say?”
Her mouth turned down, and her chin quivered. “Good riddance. They were my dad’s parents. They’d never liked my mom, and they thought the world was better off without her. They were heartless, cold, unfeeling people. Maybe they hadn’t always been. I don’t remember
them being like that when Dad was alive, but I was young. Who knows? By the time I went to live with them, though, they were old and bitter. Every time I got a B on a college exam, they would remind me that I didn’t want to turn out like my mom. When I graduated and wanted to take some time to figure out what to do next with my life, they put me right to work in the company business because idleness was temptation wrapped in a pretty package, and I might be tempted to turn out like my mom. A few years later, when I wanted to leave the family company and strike out on my own, they said I was just like Mom, ungrateful for everything they’d given me. I didn’t have the energy to fight them. I was still tired, too tired to stand up for myself. So I stayed.”
“Skye…”
She offered a weak version of a sad smile. “Don’t worry. I didn’t kill them.”
Sam didn’t return the smile. He couldn’t. Her pain tore at him until he was sure he’d see blood if he looked down at himself.
“They hit an icy patch of road this past winter. Their car spun out of control and went over an embankment. There were witnesses, and the police were called immediately, but by the time the rescue workers could get to them, they were already dead. Suddenly I had a big, empty house in the city and a company I hadn’t ever wanted to work for, let alone own.”
“But you didn’t sell. You put your employees first, even though it couldn’t have been easy.”
“If things had been different, my dad would have inherited, and he’d have done the right thing. He never would have sacrificed people for a profit.” Her eyes — eyes that normally made him think of honey — flashed like liquid gold in the midmorning sun. “Besides, it wasn’t their fault. Everyone I’ve ever met at Treasure Valley Chux has treated me well. They’ve shown me more kindness and compassion in the months since my grandparents’ death than my grandparents did in all the years I was with them. It’s always been that way. They’re upstanding people.”
“You’re upstanding people.”
Skye held out her hands. “Keys?”
Sam slipped them from his pocket, put them into her hand, and closed her fingers over them. He didn’t let go, though. The minute she drove away, she might drive straight out of his life, and he wasn’t ready for that. “What are you going to do with the company?”
She tugged her hand free. “Jette is finding an attorney for me. I wanted to keep it under wraps until I can make the announcement, so I decided not to use the company’s attorneys. I’m heading back to Boise for several meetings over the next few weeks. Our annual picnic will be taking place, too. I’ve been working on my speech. I hope they’ll appreciate it. I hope they’ll understand that I want to do what’s best for them.”
“Just be honest. Let them see your heart.”
“I’m not very good at that. The whole heart thing.”
“Skye…”
Centimeter by agonizingly gradual centimeter, she raised her eyes to meet his. “I need to go.”
“You said you killed your mom, that she ODed, and you never saw her again. When you told me those things, your voice broke on only one of those phrases.”
She watched him as though trying to figure him out.
“When you said you never saw your mom again — that’s where your pain was. Not with the rest of it.”
“What does that have to do with…?”
“Don’t run away from the friends you have here. Otherwise, someday you may be saying those same words — that you never saw them again — following some other tragedy. And it’ll tear you up.”
She glanced at the car, at her keys, and even at Samaritan’s Reach. Not at him, though. “I need to go.”
Sam reached out and brushed his fingers against her cheek. “I’ll be praying for you.”
She closed her eyes and leaned into his touch. For a split second, he thought she might stay. It wasn’t to be. She opened the car door, and pulled forward on the street to make a U-turn. He stood there, hands by his side, and watched her drive away and out of his life.
She didn’t want to face her past. She didn’t want to face the emotion. And she especially didn’t want to face God. Until she could do those things, she wasn’t going to want to face him.
Shoulders hunched, Sam climbed the steep driveway up to the shelter’s entrance. The men were up and about and no doubt wondering where he’d gone off to.
“Everything all right, Boss?” Franco called from the doorway to the room where they did their yoga.
No. Everything wasn’t all right, but he couldn’t say that. These men needed him to be rock-solid and steady. They depended on him for that.
Sam headed toward Franco, but movement to his right drew his eye.
Gideon’s niece was leaving. Her face was blotchy, and her eyes were red-rimmed. She met his gaze, though, and didn’t flinch away. “Thank you for taking care of Uncle Gid, for looking out for him like you have.”
Then she was gone, like a wisp of wind. When a motorcycle roared to life, he looked out toward the street and caught sight of Gabbie Pierce snapping the strap on her helmet.
Sam veered away from Franco. His long legs ate the courtyard up and, in no time at all, he was once again knocking on Gideon’s door.
“Come on in.”
Sam pushed the door open and found Gideon sitting in his one chair, his hands resting on the small, scarred table. “Want to talk about it?”
Gideon had the same red-rimmed eyes as his niece. “Shelly died two weeks before I showed up. Ovarian cancer.”
Stones tumbled in Sam’s stomach. “I’m sorry.”
“Me, too. She died not knowing I was okay, that I was finding my way back.”
“Her husband…?”
“Dan. Gabbie thinks the world of him. Says he was just grief-stricken. She might be right. I don’t remember much about him from before, but Shelly wouldn’t have married a jerk.”
“He may not have welcomed your visit, but he told Gabbie you’d come by.”
Gideon nodded. “Yeah, there’s that. He wouldn’t tell her where I was, though. Until he found out she was driving to every homeless shelter she could find looking for me. Guess he decided he didn’t want his little girl putting herself in danger like that.”
“He’s a good dad.”
“She wants to come back and see me again. She…” Gideon’s words broke off again.
Sam sank to the floor and stretched his legs out, settling in for as long as it took.
“She says Shelly always loved me, that she understood how much the war messed me up. She…” He blinked several times. “She didn’t blame me for running.”
“That has to feel good.”
“Maybe. Eventually. Right now, it mostly hurts. She named Gabbie after me.”
Sam lifted an eyebrow.
Gideon looked back down at the table. “My folks couldn’t decide between Gideon and Gabriel. Since Shelly couldn’t think of a girl version for Gideon, she named her girl Gabriella. In honor of me.”
“She loved you.”
“More than I deserved. She was pregnant when I left. I never even knew.”
“Would you have stayed if you’d known?”
Gideon shrugged. “I don’t know. I might’ve tried, but I don’t think it would have stuck. I was a mess.”
“So what do you do from here?”
Gideon lifted his gaze again. “She wants to get to know me. Wants to be a part of my life. I don’t know… What if I end up hurting her the same way I hurt Shelly?”
Sam leaned his head back against the wall. “Are you that same man?”
“No.”
“Then you probably won’t make the same choices.”
“How can I be sure?”
“I don’t suppose you can, but we serve a God of second chances, a God who believes in restoration and redemption. You might feel like selling yourself short now and then, but don’t sell Him short.”
“Do you believe He wants to redeem the mess I’ve made of my life?”
“Not a dou
bt in my mind. The question is, are you willing to let Him?”
“If I got that business degree I was talking about, do you think you’d have any use for a used-up old man like me around here?”
“As in paid staff?”
Gideon stared at his hands as he nodded.
“A business degree isn’t bad. Neither is a nonprofit business degree or a counseling degree. We all wear a lot of hats in a small operation like this. Regardless of the degree, you finish the leadership program all the way through and, as long as I haven’t been shut down by the city, I’ll find a place for you here. The pay’s lousy, and the hours are long, but the work is worth it.”
Gideon flexed his hands, clenching them into fists and releasing them a couple of times before setting them back down on the table. “I want to be in Gabbie’s life, and I want to be worthy of that honor. The way I see it, God’s the only one who can make that possible. But me doing something with my life that matters is a start.”
CHAPTER 35
September
Nearly two weeks had passed since Skye had left Sam in her rearview mirror.
She wasn’t going back, either. Not yet, anyway.
Someday…
Sam had made a valid point. Never seeing her mom again was an open sore that had festered too long. Was she brave enough not to repeat that mistake? Maybe. Maybe not.
She didn’t want regrets, though. Even if she never returned, she’d stay in touch with the friends who’d loved her through her previous long absence.
As for Bible study… She hadn’t honored her commitment to meet with Sam for thirty days, but she’d still managed to crack open her Bible every morning and read something. At least that way, she could tell herself she’d kept her word.
“Miss Blue, Juan Clarion is here to see you.”
Skye glanced from the tree-filled Boise view to the intercom on her desk. She pushed the appropriate button. “Send him in.”
The attorney, older than she’d expected him to be, with silver liberally threaded through his wavy black hair, entered the office she’d taken over from her grandfather. “Miss Blue.”