He walked past Matthew toward the sidewalk leading up to the front steps, and Matthew jogged up beside him.
“You have to stop her.”
“When have I ever been able to stop Lily from doing anything?”
“Good point.” Matthew’s face dropped, but then immediately bounced back. “You stopped her from running away…when you were kids right? You can do it again. Come on. You two have loved each other since you were practically in diapers. If there’s no hope for you, then there’s not much hope for any of the rest of us.”
Jackson stomped up the front steps, wishing Matthew would just let it go.
“I don’t even know when her flight is leaving. She’s probably already left. Face it. She doesn’t want to work things out.”
“Yes she does! She just doesn’t know it yet!”
“That’s ridiculous,” Jackson said as he pushed through the front door.
“No, what’s ridiculous is letting your best friend, the girl you’ve supposedly loved for your entire life, make a huge mistake because you’re too proud to take a risk. Maybe she was right about you being afraid.”
Jackson stopped and turned around. “Maybe. Or maybe I just don’t have any fight left in me for all of this. Maybe God wants me to accept losing her and get on with my life.”
Matthew’s face softened. “Look, when you’re lying in bed at night, what’s the last thing you think about before you go to sleep? What’s the first thing you think about when you wake up?”
Lily. Always Lily.
“When you think about how you want to spend the rest of your life,” Matthew continued, “when you picture yourself old and feeble, sitting out on a porch in a dilapidated rocking chair, who’s sitting beside you? I know it’s not me.”
Jackson couldn’t help but grin. “You mean you don’t want to be roommates forever? You’re breaking my heart.”
Matthew chuckled and shook his head. “Come on. What do you really want?”
He only needed a second to know the answer.
“Don’t you have a friend that works at the airport?”
“We should have thought this through a little more,” Jackson said as he turned his car onto the road leading to the airport. “How much time before the plane leaves?”
Mathew glanced down at his watch. “Forty-five minutes. We can still make it.”
Jackson punched the gas and merged into the lane heading for the drop off area. “I’ll get out and run inside. You park the car.”
“Got it.”
As he topped the ramp that led up to the second level of the airport, Jackson hit the brakes to avoid the car in front of him, and the tires screeched. He took a deep breath. A wreck was the last thing he needed right now.
He pulled into a spot behind a dark minivan and shifted the car into park. Matthew jumped out at the same time he did.
“Good luck!” he yelled as Jackson took off for the entrance, dodging a few honking cars along the way.
As he entered the airport, the crowd of people in the security line sent a wave of dread through him. He paced back and forth, searching through a sea of faces while trying not to look like a crazy person. Even with four lanes open, the line snaked around into several rows. And Lily wasn’t in any of them. He glanced up at the six television screens above him and searched for her flight. Forty minutes. Maybe there was still time.
Without another thought, he jogged over to the Delta terminal. At least that line was short. The only person in front of him was a tiny Asian woman speaking rapidly into her cell phone. Then two spots opened up simultaneously. Thank God.
Jackson rushed up to the young man behind the counter and blurted out a string of incoherent words.
“Excuse me?” The guy looked at him like he was crazy. Jackson stared back at him, unable to put his thoughts together.
Matthew suddenly appeared beside him. “I think he’s trying to buy a ticket.”
“Okay. Is there something wrong with him?” The man raised an impatient eyebrow.
“I’m sorry,” Jackson blurted out. “I’m…I’m fine. I need a ticket to Hartford, Connector.”
“What?” Now both eyebrows were up.
“Connecticut.” Matthew added. “Do you have any seats left for the flight to Hartford?”
The guy huffed and typed furiously for a moment. “One seat left.”
Jackson felt his stomach roll. “I’ll take it.”
Matthew turned Jackson’s shoulders until they faced each other. “Are you sure about this? You do realize you are purchasing an actual plane ticket.”
Jackson tried to shrug away the panic rising inside of him. “I’m not getting on. I just need to get through security to get to Lily.”
“That will be four hundred and seventy nine dollars.”
Jackson turned toward the guy and slid his credit card across the counter. That was a lot of money just to get through security. He took a deep breath. He wasn’t actually getting on the plane.
Deep breath.
He signed the receipt and snatched the ticket from the counter, and then he jogged over to the line for the security check with Matthew right behind him.
“Do you know what you’re going to say?” Matthew asked.
“No idea.”
“Don’t you think you should plan it out a little bit?”
“Uh, maybe. I don’t know.” Jackson shook his hands out and bounced his weight from one leg to the other.
“Maybe this was a bad idea. You look a little pale.”
“Don’t start being the voice of reason at this stage of the game. I’m getting in there, getting Lily, and getting out. No problem.”
“Right.” Mathew looked over at the television screens. “Except that the plane is boarding.”
“What?” Jackson followed his gaze. Sure enough. The word “boarding” flashed beside the flight to Hartford. And the line in front of him continued to inch forward, like everyone knew how desperately he needed to get through and they were enjoying torturing him.
When he finally reached the front of the line, Matthew gave him a pat on the back.
“I’ll wait out here. Hope you get to her. If you’re not back in an hour, I’ll assume you took off.”
That sent another wave of nausea through him, and Jackson actually felt the blood draining from his face. But there was no time to think about it. He darted through the metal detector and set it off, so he was directed back through it again. When it beeped again, he nearly lost it. A female guard pulled him aside and swept over him with a handheld device.
“You’re clean,” she said. “Now, I need you to take off your shoes.”
“You’ve got to be kidding!”
She widened her eyes and smacked her gum. “Off! Now.”
He slipped his shoes off and watched her inspect them. She was obviously enjoying making him squirm. She finally handed them back and he hopped away as he put them back on. With his shoes finally secured, he broke into a jog down the terminal, getting halfway down before he realized he didn’t even know what gate the flight was leaving from. What had the guy at the counter said? He couldn’t remember, so he found another set of screens.
“A-four,” he mumbled and headed back in the direction he’d come from. Of course he’d already passed it.
When he reached the gate, he hurried past the line of people waiting to board, checking each face for Lily. As he neared the front of the line, he spotted her just as she took her ticket stub from the attendant and walked into the boarding ramp.
“Lily!” She didn’t hear him. Of course she didn’t hear him. God was trying to have a good laugh here.
He turned in a circle and debated his options. Drive to Connecticut? That wouldn’t work. Her interview was tomorrow. Call her cell! Why hadn’t he thought of that to begin with?
He pulled out his cell phone and dialed her number, praying she hadn’t turned it off yet. It went straight to voicemail. He slammed the phone shut and stuffed it back into his pocke
t. The realization of what he’d have to do made his stomach churn. The last time he’d tried to fly, he was eleven years old, and it had been a complete disaster. He’d ended up puking in the airport bathroom and never even made it to the plane.
But he had to do it. He’d have to get on that plane. Somehow.
He was the very last person to enter the plane, and he had no idea how he even made it down the boarding ramp. Maybe he could find Lily, talk to her, and get off the plane before it took off. Surely they would let a sick passenger off.
He scanned the rows of seats as he walked down the aisle, finally spotting Lily near the back with her forehead against the window. He started to make his way back, but a flight attendant moving toward him with a smile as wide the plane itself pointed behind him.
“I think there’s a seat right there, sir.”
“Oh, I’m not actually, I mean, I can’t fly away. I just want to find Lily and leave.”
She wrinkled her brow, but never dropped the smile as she herded him backward.
“Let me just help you to your seat. Do you have any luggage to store?”
“No.” He backed up a few paces. “You don’t understand. I can’t fly.”
“Yes, sir. That’s what the pilot is for.” A few more paces back. She pointed toward the seat. “You need to sit down now so we can get started.”
“I want to sit in the back.” He forced his legs to stop moving and stood his ground. “There’s a seat in the back I want.”
She stepped aside and he got his legs moving again. Lily sat in the window seat, staring outside completely unaware of his presence yet. As he neared her seat, his heart thundered in his chest. He had to get a grip. He forced a deep breath in, and it settled him for a moment. Breathe in. Breathe out.
God, give me strength. Give me the words. Settle my fear and help me to trust in you. And please, let her say yes.
Lily watched the men below her finish throwing the last of the luggage into the belly of the plane and wondered again if she was doing the right thing. Connecticut was so far from home and everything she knew. It made her heart race every time she thought about it.
She felt movement beside her and glanced over, expecting to find a stranger taking the seat next to her, but she was shocked to see Jackson.
“What are you doing here?”
“We need to talk.” He gripped the armrests, and his knuckles went white.
“You do realize you’re on a plane that’s about to take off, right?”
“Yes.” He took a deep breath and then looked over at her, his eyes wide and filled with excitement. If they’d been anywhere else, she might have thought he was happy.
“Yours doesn’t count,” he said.
“What?”
“You didn’t face your fear. You wrote a letter and scampered away. I am facing mine right now. So you have to deal with yours. Tell me to my face. I want to hear you say it.”
Her insides twisted and knotted up. She was still unsure of what he was doing here.
“I don’t know what to say.”
He leaned toward her and lowered his voice. “I know it’s scary to want something so bad that you’re terrified of losing it. But you can’t live your life that way. Just talk to me. Did you mean what you wrote in the letter?”
Tears pricked her eyes and she looked down at the floor.
“Every word.”
He picked her chin up until she looked him in the eye.
“Then tell me.”
She stared back at him while somewhere in the background a female voice described the proper use of the seat as a flotation device. What was she so afraid of? This was Jackson, her best friend, the man who’d jumped in front of a bullet to save her. And he was here, on a plane, no less. Maybe God had finally brought them back to each other.
“I love you.”
His smile widened, and he pulled her into his arms, nearly squeezing the breath out of her.
“Oh my word, Lily Brennon! Was that really so hard?”
“Yes,” she mumbled into his shirt. He laughed as they fell back against the seat, her head still resting on his chest. “Did you really just climb onto an airplane to hear me say that?”
“Yes, but that’s not all.”
“Oh no. There’s more?”
“Just this.” He slid out of the seat into the aisle, resting on one knee while still holding her hand.
Lily’s heart jumped into her throat. “What are you doing?”
“Don’t say anything until I finish. I need to get through this before this plane starts moving.” She nodded and glanced around. They had already caught the attention of a few passengers nearby, and a couple of older ladies were smiling across the aisle at her.
“This year has been really tough, and I take full responsibility for messing things up. If I had trusted in God and relied on Him, maybe things would have been a lot different. But I also might never have figured out how badly I need you, or how much I really love you, and for that, I’m grateful. God has taught me that He is always God, and you and I never left His hands.”
She shook her head and pushed a tear off her cheek. “But I messed up too. How can you forgive me?”
“How can I not? At the end of the day, it’s still you and me forever. Forever. I’m sure we’re not through making mistakes, but you’re the only one I ever want to beg forgiveness from. You’re the one I want wake up next to every morning. It’s your beautiful face I want to see when I look at my children.”
He paused, and a huge smile spread across his face.
“So…will you marry me, Lil?”
Her heart nearly leapt out of her chest. “Yes!”
Jackson stood and pulled her into his arms. Then he covered her mouth with his, sending a rush of warmth through her body. It was like coming home after a long, dreadful time away.
It wasn’t until a flight attendant walked up to them that she remembered where she was. Lily looked around at all the curious smiles and annoyed grimaces.
“Sorry,” she said, unable to suppress her smile.
Jackson waved a hand in the air. “We’re getting married!”
A few people applauded, and the flight attendant nearby smiled politely. “That’s wonderful, sir. But we really do need for you to take your seat.”
They returned to their seats and fastened the seat belts, then shared a nervous grin. Jackson’s eyes went wide as the plane began to roll, and the color drained from his face.
“We’re moving.”
She squeezed his hand. “Yes, and finally it’s in the right direction.
The End
But what about Alex?
No need to worry. Alex lives on in the crime fiction series, The Kill Code, written under my pen name J.L. Hays. You can follow Alex's adventures as a Special Agent for Homeland Security starting with the first book of the series, The Teacher for FREE. Click on the image below for more! You can also sign up for email notices of new releases in this series here.
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Acknowledgements
I’d like to thank my family for all their support—David, the chief fluff-cutter, and my sweet boys who continuously remind me to quit daydreaming and get them something to eat.
I will always owe my friends who read through countless rewrites a debt I can never repay. Thank you, Wendy, for being so enthusiastic from the beginning and always encouraging me to continue. To my sweet friend Shari, without whom I might never have made it through the last year, thank you from the bottom of my heart.
Of course I have to thank all my former Midway students for putting up wit
h me for so long, for making me smile almost every day, and for being blessings in ways they’ll never know. To the Four Awesome Chics: your enthusiasm and craziness got us through some pretty difficult days of problem solving, and I will always remember you guys when I need a good laugh.
To all the rest of you who were so encouraging and supportive, my parents, Eve, Christy, Dana, Alicia, and William, thank you so much.
And of course, most of all, I thank you for reading, and I hope you’ll enjoy this little bit of my heart.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jennifer Westall dives into Christian characters to explore her own questions of faith. Inspired by her experiences as a college athlete, Love’s Providence (2012), a contemporary Christian romance, navigates the minefield of dating and temptation. She’s also the author of Healing Ruby (2014), the first in the Healing Ruby series, which delves into the mysteries of faith healing. She resides in southwest Texas with her husband and two boys, where she homeschools by day and writes by night, thus explaining those pesky bags under her eyes. Readers can connect with her at jenniferhwestall.com or find her on Facebook and Twitter.
Copyright © 2012 by Jennifer H. Westall.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed “Attention: Permissions Coordinator,” at the address below.
Jennifer H. Westall
www.jenniferhwestall.com
Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.
Love's Providence: A Contemporary Christian Romance Page 37