She tugged away. “What? No. You love them. Those kids, your work. You’re not leaving it for me.”
Brock’s gaze softened with appreciation. “That’s a subject on hold for right now. I want you in my life—that doesn’t mean trying to force you to fit into it as it is. It means finding out how to build one together. We’ll figure that out when the time comes, but for now, this”—he motioned between the two of them—“is more important. There are things we need to work through, and we can do that here without distractions. Just for a while.”
It was a tender gesture—no one had ever offered to give up anything for her, let alone everything. But as selfless and loving as it was, fear snaked through the love that had filled her heart.
Work through things…her past. The abortion. She didn’t know how to work through that—hadn’t ever wanted to. The whole point in doing it was so that she could leave the problem behind. Move on with her life. You’ll never have to think about it again… That was what the woman had promised. It had been a lie. She couldn’t stop thinking about it, even if her thoughts weren’t conscious.
“You’re shutting down on me.” With a gentle finger, Brock lifted her chin.
Her lips trembled, and she pressed them together and shut her eyes.
“Sherbert…” He rubbed his thumb along the bottom edge of her mouth. “I don’t know what I’m doing, and I’m scared too. But I know we, together, we have to work through this. The headaches, the nightmares, the anger, cutting yourself off from everyone…you have to see they’re all related. Don’t you?”
“I don’t want to go back there again.”
His chest caved inward as he sighed. “I know. And honestly, I don’t really want to see you go through it, because I know it’s going to hurt. But I think you have to.”
“Why?” The question came out as a sob. “Why won’t it just go away? God hates me. He’s punishing me, and I don’t think it will ever end.”
That wasn’t true—God couldn’t hate her if He’d sent Brock into her life. It didn’t make sense. None of this messed-up, tied-into-knots life of hers made sense. Why had God taken her mother? Let her dad abandon her? Let her get pregnant? Why did He allow her to do what she’d done? He should hate her for it. But then He gave her this?
Brock moved to cradle her again, fitting her head against his shoulder. “You remember Gramps’s shoes?”
Weird turn. “Yeah?”
“They were the special kind—the kind he had to get at the pharmacy. I remember one time as a kid going with him to pick up a new pair he’d ordered. Thought it was so weird that he’d buy shoes at a drugstore.”
She sniffed, the tears drying as Brock told his out-of-the-blue memory. “Okay…”
“He was a diabetic. I didn’t understand until years later that his diabetes damaged the nerves in his body. He couldn’t feel pain in his feet, and he had to be really diligent about taking care of them, or risk infection, deformities, or even an eventual amputation. I didn’t know all of that back then, but I remember him telling me something I thought was kind of strange.” Brock moved Cheryl so that she’d look at him again. “He said that sometimes pain was a gift. Really, really bad things could happen without it.”
The gift of pain? Stepping away from Brock, Cheryl examined the idea as she surveyed the city beyond her window. The nightmares, they hadn’t started right away. Actually, they hadn’t started until after Andrew. And the headaches…those too. The other stuff, well she’d done that to herself. Cut ties with the people back home, kept herself away from kids, kept her emotions frozen. Survival tactics, because she was so ashamed.
But the others…why now?
She looked back to Brock, who had waited in patient silence. “God is trying to get my attention?”
“Does He have it?”
Her eyelashes fluttered. “Yes. But why?”
“I’m not sure. But if you’re asking what I think, He doesn’t want you to live like this. Apart from life. Separated from Him.” He slid off the stool and took the two steps necessary to stand behind her. His hands covered her shoulders. “It’s time to stop running, Sherbert. It’s time to come home.”
“I don’t know the way back.”
“He does.”
Cheryl turned to face him again. “And you’ll do this? With me?”
“Yes.”
“It might be awful.”
He took both her hands in his. “We’ll get through it.”
Drawing a long breath, Cheryl closed her eyes. If you still want me, God, I want to come home.
Brock stepped closer, and the moment Cheryl rested her head against his chest, his arms circled her shoulders.
Going home. The thought still seemed terrifying. But not impossible.
It might be worth the pain.
~27~
Brock stared over the sea of lights beyond the hotel window.
God, I’m terrified.
This thought from the great thrill seeker Brock Kelly. He’d ripped down slopes with his feet strapped to a board at speeds that could snap his neck instantly if he wrecked. Total rush. He’d ridden in the back country, where threats of avalanche were ever present. Didn’t give it a second thought. He’d even jumped from a plane with a harness and a pack full of nylon as his only lifeline, just for the thrill of it. Heights and speed he could handle. Loved them.
But this?
He knew two things for sure. He loved Cheryl Thompson with a fierceness that shocked him. And he was scared to death to face the future with her knowing what lay in the past.
He’d never stepped into a crisis like this. A single question kept circling his mind, his spirit, relentless as it was unsettling.
Can you redeem even this?
It seemed faithless to ask such a thing. Theologically sound men didn’t doubt like that, did they? God forgave all things. His blood covered all sin. Brock knew this.
It wasn’t the forgiveness part that turned him inside out. It was the redemption. To purchase or take back something by exchange. Could God take this…this abortion and trade it for something good?
The days ahead looked unbelievably hard. While it was true that he was an adrenaline junkie, Brock wasn’t an ignorant jumper. Informed consent. That was how he took on his adventures. Thus, he’d done some research.
Post Abortion Syndrome. PAS. Yes, there was a name for it, and he’d read about it before he came to LA. Agony streamed down his face while the information sank into his heart. Not only had he looked at the symptoms—and recognized several in Cheryl—but he’d researched the process through recovery.
It was long, and it was hard.
He pushed away from the window frame he’d been leaning against, moving to the king-sized bed. Heavyhearted, he dropped onto the mattress and let his head fall into his hands. Cheryl’s body had felt like her own little earthquake when he’d carried her into her apartment the night he arrived in LA, so violent were her sobs. So much pain and regret. How could he ask her to do what seemed necessary—to face the truth rather than bury it? It was going to rip her up, and he’d go through the shredder right alongside her.
God, I don’t know if I can do this.
But then what? If he didn’t…if she wouldn’t, then what?
Sometimes pain is a gift.
They could stay where they were, or pass through the fire. What was on the other side?
~*~
Sunshine warmed the pale sand under Cheryl’s toes. Compared to the first two days after Brock’s arrival, that Thursday afternoon felt like a vacation.
Actually, compared to pretty much her whole life, it felt like a vacation.
Brock had come to her apartment for breakfast, just as he had the mornings before, but his demeanor had been different. As if all of the yucky stuff they were swimming through had simply rolled off his shoulders. As much as she enjoyed the return of his easygoing laughter and teasing—even secretly relishing the raspberry he’d blown into her neck—she wrestled with a ting
e of jealousy. He’d always be able to surface. The past didn’t claim him and drag him under as it did her.
Because the ugly was hers and not his.
What she wouldn’t give to be able to break through with him, to rise from the cold darkness and laugh in the warmth of the sunshine as he did.
But she could hardly begrudge it from him. So when he’d suggested a day at the beach, she summoned a smile, changed into beach-worthy clothing, and focused on the joy his warm hand around hers supplied her heart.
Small victories. Maybe, with time, they’d add up.
“Have you ever surfed?” Sprawled out in the warm sun at her side, Brock squinted at her and grinned.
Cheryl snorted. “Does that sound like me?”
He sat up, hooking both arms over the knees he brought to his chest. “I don’t know how to answer that. What do you mean?”
“I’m E’s boring little sister. Does surfing mesh with that, do you think?”
“I never thought you were boring.” That impish smile made him look boyish. “I think I told you—I was rather fascinated by you.”
“Hanging around to hear me play the piano does not equal fascination.”
“Clearly you were never a seventeen-year-old boy.”
Truly? Had he been interested in her back then? If only he’d acted on it.
“You still fascinate me.” His fingers brushed over her arm, prickling tingles of pleasure. “Even if you don’t want to go surfing.”
She studied him, wondering at how he could blend fun and serious so smoothly. “You don’t mind that I’m a chicken?” She meant to ask the question with a smile. Instead, it came out with an undertone of insecurity.
Brock leaned toward her, brushing her shoulder with his. “I want to see you live. That doesn’t mean you have to live on the edge. You don’t have to be your mom or try to be like Ethan. There’s nothing wrong with preferring a book over the slopes, or music to the waves.” He pushed to his feet and pulled her up beside him. “But you might have to compromise with me. I can’t come to the ocean and not get wet.”
Her hand still in his, she leaned away, trusting him to hold her up. “I doubt dipping your toes in the water will be the end of it. The thrill seeker in you won’t be satisfied.”
His eyebrows shot up. “Obviously you do not understand all the crazy things that happen inside of me when I’m with you.”
Such a charmer. Her heart hiccuped and did its own little crazy, adrenaline filled cha-cha.
“Come on.” He tugged.
She shook her head, biting a grin.
“Nope, not getting out of this.” With one fluid motion, he had her swept up in his arms.
Hooking her arms around his neck, she joined his laughter, kicking her flip-flops from her feet as he walked toward the ocean. “You do realize the Pacific is not exactly the hot springs back home, right?”
“You do realize I’ve spent most of my life in the snow, right?”
Two more steps and his feet sank into the waves lapping against the beach. She felt his quick intake of air and chuckled.
“Cold?”
He smirked, continuing into the waves. “Deliciously.”
She tightened her hold around his neck. “How deep are we going?”
“Deep enough to throw you in.” The water moved above his knees when he stopped, and he swayed with the motion of the tide. His smile dared her to squirm. She simply locked her grip more secure.
One eyebrow lifted. “You don’t think I would?”
“Oh, I know from experience you would. I also know that you’d go in with me, so…”
His expression changed, though he still smiled, gripping her with a security she was beginning to treasure. Loosening her hold, she slid a hand along his stubbled jawline. “I love that about you.”
His nose brushed against hers. “That I’d throw you in?”
“No.” She breathed a small laugh. “That you’d go in with me.”
The arms that held her tensed, drawing her, if possible, closer into his chest. She could feel the words he’d said to her that last night in Hayden throb through his pulse. In spite of the truth she’d hurled at him, he still loved her. She realized she hadn’t told him…
“I love you.” Breathless, she let the three never-spoken-to-any-other-man syllables free. They floated on the salty air, swirled in the sun-soaked warmth, circled around them, binding her heart securely to his.
“That’s good to hear,” he whispered, brushing light kisses against her cheek, her chin, and finally her mouth.
Her hand curved around his neck as she responded to the gentle touch of his lips against hers. He shifted her, lowering her legs into the moving water. Her feet sank into the gritty ocean floor, and she shivered as the cold, salty ocean pulsed around her. The tide pushed her into him, and one hand spread across her lower back. When the undertow tugged her away, his grip strengthened, anchoring her closer, holding her steady.
His mouth broke away from hers. “I’ve got you.”
She nuzzled his nose, toying with the hair that brushed against her fingers. “I know.”
He reached for the hand that she’d curled around his neck and moved it until her palm settled against his chest. Strong, fast beats throbbed into her hand, matching the staccato rhythm of her own pulse.
“See? All kinds of crazy going on in there.”
~*~
“Pull in here.” Brock pointed to a parking lot to the right.
Cheryl complied, still confused. The day at the beach had been perfect. She couldn’t help but feel nearly giddy as she wondered what else he had in mind. The quiet suburb he’d navigated her to didn’t offer any hints. What was he up to now?
A few scattered cars dotted the lot, surrounded by three nondescript buildings strangely lacking overhead signs. Kind of a creepy place. Tension began to ebb in her muscles, replacing the wonder of their near-perfect day.
She parked her car and turned the key. “Where are we?”
Brock shifted in the passenger seat so that he could face her. The seriousness in his eyes caused the tension to grip harder. He reached for her shoulder as if he could see her pulling on her armor. “Don’t get mad, okay?”
Not a good sign. She leaned away. “What are you doing?”
His eyes left her face and drifted to a door on the middle building. She followed his gaze. The small lettering stuck against the glass was hard to make out. She squinted to read the name.
Pregnancy Crisis Center.
With a sharp intake of breath, her shoulders curled, and she felt like a cat cornered by a barking dog.
“Sherbert…”
She swallowed, refusing to look at him, and reached to start the car. His hand caught hers and pulled it away from the keys.
“What are you thinking?” she hissed.
“Just listen, okay?”
“No. I’m not going in there. I’m not pregnant, and they don’t have anything for me in that place.”
“Cheryl, I’ve done a little bit of reading, and they have a recovery group that meets here—”
“No.” She stabbed him with all the fury that had suddenly billowed through her. “I’m not going in there.”
He sat motionless, his hand still curled over hers. His breathing seemed labored, as if he were fighting for control.
Why would he need to fight for control? This was her pile of crap, not his. He had no right.
She ripped her hand away from him. “I thought you said you didn’t think I needed fixed. Remember that?”
“I’m not trying to fix you.”
“Then what is this?” She flung a hand toward the building across the lot.
Sighing, he ran a hand over his face.
Cheryl didn’t wait for an answer. Instead she turned the key and floored the gas.
Yep. Definitely should have known better. Fairy tales were always too good to be true.
~*~
Brock followed Cheryl into her apartment in the wake of
her frigid silence.
Way to go, smart guy.
What had he been thinking? That they’d pull up to the center, the soft, teary version of Cheryl would emerge, they’d go in and talk to people who knew how the heck to handle this, and they’d both be all better?
Neat and tidy. Which would have been awesome, because he definitely did not know how to handle any of this.
Clearly.
Ice-princess Cheryl continued to rage in her fury. She stopped at the hallway to her room and spun around. “You have no idea what you’re doing.”
“I know that, Cheryl, but—”
“You want to fix me? Let’s get honest then, Brock Kelly. Let’s just dig out all the ugly. Wanna take a stab at how many times I’ve been high—totally stoned out of my head? Drunk?” She took a step forward, as if she’d turned into a predator and was ready to pounce on his already raw heart.
His fists clenched at his side, and his chest tightened. “Stop this.”
She stalked forward until mere inches separated them. “No. You wanted to be Fix-It Felix. You’re the one who’s been probing around all the dark corners with a floodlight. You wanted full disclosure. Here it is. Do you know how many men I’ve been with in the last decade?”
The air seemed to thicken, and his lungs began to burn as if he were drowning. “Cheryl…” I don’t want to know—not like this.
“At least a dozen, but you know what? I’m not really sure.” Her voice chilled the room. “How does that sit with you?”
He shut his eyes against her fury, against the arrows she was ramming into his heart. God, help.
Silence locked around them. Brock forced his eyes open and searched hers. The fire there quickly died, replaced by the cold indifference he’d seen when she’d first walked back into his life.
They break my heart, and I let them.
Brandi’s words whispered in his throbbing heart. Shaking, he unfolded his fists and lifted his palms to frame her face. She stiffened at his touch, and her expression morphed from the intensity of a predator to the fear of prey.
Help. An image swam through his mind, the memory of his father’s face a little over five years before. You can’t force me into hating you, Brock. You’re my son. You will always be my son, and I love you. Words that in the weeks following had finally penetrated his hard heart. For all the arguments they’d had over the years about his choices and priorities—his rebellion—it was that pledge of unconditional love, and not all of the well-laid-out convictions delivered to him in debate, that had grabbed hold of him. He had not been able to escape the demands of deep compassion.
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