Secrets

by Kristen Heitzmann

  The sound of Lance’s Harley in the driveway sent her pulse racing. He had put her to bed like a child, and she’d let him. Amazing, if she thought about it. She should have been more resistant than ever, now that she knew what had happened the last time someone urged her to sleep. The fact that she had succumbed surprised and scared her.

  He came inside, hair tousled by the wind, leather jacket open to the waist, brash and confident. He’d started his day with God, which made him better in some way he hadn’t explained. He’d grown up immersed in faith. He didn’t have to wonder if it was real.

  She raised her chin. “Well?”

  He slowed his approach. “Well, what?”

  “What did he say?”

  “Who?”

  “God.”

  Lance took in the set of her jaw, the line of her mouth. He’d expected a couple possible scenarios this morning, that she’d regret telling him about her mom, that she’d try to shut him out, avoid it all. But Rese was obviously going to take this thing head on.

  Having just spent intimate time with the Lord, he should have the answer right there in his hand. He should be able to open her palm and place it there like a treasure, a response so keen it cleared away the doubt in her eyes with a great “aha.”

  But if God had ever spoken to him that way, he hadn’t heard it. He knew the Scriptures, his catechism, hymns and songs, but he was no Moses with a burning bush. He took off his jacket and slung it over the chair. “Were you looking for something in particular?”

  “Weren’t you at church?”

  “Yes.”

  “So didn’t God talk to you, tell you how to be better?”

  He thought about the Scripture readings that morning. Had there been something implicit he was supposed to pass on? He hung his thumbs in his jeans and said, “He raised Lazarus from the dead.”

  “What?”

  “That was two thousand years ago, but people are still talking about it.” She scowled. “I want to know about now, what we’re … you’re supposed to do.”

  He studied her face, getting the drift, but still not sure how to answer. “God isn’t Walter, Rese. He doesn’t drag me around barking orders. So if that’s what you’re looking for, it’s not my God.”

  “Then what is He?”

  Lance stared at her. In twenty words or less, for the big money … what is God? “He’s truth; He’s meaning. He’s my purpose and yours. With terrorists wiping people out, dealers hooking kids on meth and ecstasy, violence and cruelty; there’s still love, comfort, joy, and hope. That’s God. Without him, none of it makes sense.”

  “Then He intends everything that happens, all the things you said.”

  “He intends freedom.” Lance wasn’t sure where that had come from. How did freedom work with God’s will? Freedom was why he kept screwing up, missing it, running away. “He didn’t make us prisoners to His will. He gave us our own, and freedom to choose.”

  Rese snatched up the folder from the table. “Mom had no freedom. If she could choose…” Pain flashed over her face before she could hide it.

  He didn’t know how to answer that. Freedom assumed understanding. Had Rese’s mom known what she chose? “I don’t know how that works, where responsibility and conscience lie for someone like your mom.”

  “So it changes. There isn’t one way for everyone.”

  Baxter whined at the door, and Lance let him in. Rese hadn’t forbidden him the kitchen specifically, and she said nothing now. “Some things are set and can’t be altered, Rese. What is good and what is evil.” What her mother did was evil, but did she know that? “Things either offend or glorify God. I don’t think He’s neutral about much.”

  She shook her head. “What if you don’t know?”

  Was she trying to excuse her mom, or was she speaking personally? He took her hands and sat her at the table. Baxter flopped down at her feet. The dog might have a purer sense of all this if he could just say it. “I used to think life was a maze that everyone had to find the same way through. Lots of trick walls to run into, pits and traps to punish a wrong turn.” He rubbed Baxter’s ears. “But everyone has different challenges, different needs and strengths. Choices have consequences, but I now think that, even in the pits and traps, the Lord can make a way through.”

  “Spoken from experience?”

  “I’ve caught my ankle in the trap—thinking I knew better, I had all the answers, I was justified in bending this rule or that.”

  She chewed her lower lip. “So if someone does wrong, but doesn’t know it…”

  “Mercy covers a lot.”

  She closed her eyes. “I just don’t see it, Lance. Where was the mercy for Star?”

  He squeezed her hands. “Right here. God gave her you.”

  She looked up and searched his face, absorbing that thought, then tripping on the next. “And Mom?”

  Very thin ice. “I need more information there.”

  She half smiled. “Then you’ll have the answer?”

  “Maybe.”

  “I thought you knew everything.”

  “So did I.” He stroked her thumbs. “Conchessa pretty much wiped that idea out.”

  “Conchessa?”

  “My second cousin twice removed. I spent a few weeks at her convent in Rome.”

  “Testing her vows?”

  He chucked her chin. “Twice removed, Rese. She’s ninety-one.” He sat back. “She blasted my maze theory. Said it’s all about possibilities, and God meets us in them.”

  She had challenged his whole life plan—to find God’s will and do it— said he was fixated on finding the one thing God intended for him, when every moment was an opportunity. What if she was right? Could one choice be God’s will, and another as well? It might not be about finding the one right answer as much as knowing the heart of God and choosing from the possibilities. He saw her point now as he pondered his own situation; helping Rese or helping Nonna or somehow finding a way to help them both.

  He didn’t know what he would find in the cellar, didn’t know what he had missed from Sybil. He didn’t know where things would go with Rese, or even what he wanted there. But he knew that the core of it all was Christ. “If there’s anyone worth trusting, it’s Jesus.”

  Rese sighed. “I don’t do invisible well. Not after Walter.”

  “But Walter wasn’t invisible. Not to your mom.”

  Her brow squeezed as she pondered that.

  “What you experienced in your room that night was more real than any hallucination your mom ever had.” He waited for her to recall, to tap into the experience. “There’s a whole reality outside our finite understanding. A spiritual battle of good and evil. You could have died, but God intervened.”

  “Why?” It was hardly more than a breath.

  She had asked him that before, and the answer seemed so obvious, but she couldn’t see it. “Because you’re His, and He isn’t done with you yet.”

  You’re His. Dad had carried her out and become her hero. But the truth was, he wouldn’t have come in time. Something had created a cushion of air that smelled like fruit and blossoms, not the sickening scent of the gas. Something had urged her to fight, to hold on.

  Lance had said all she had to do was believe, but he didn’t know how hard that was. Everyone had lied to her. Mom and Dad, Aunt Georgie, Brad, everyone else who kept the secret….

  But Lance hadn’t lied to her. He believed what he said. She saw it in his face when he blessed the food, told his stories, when he held her and prayed silently, when he spoke to her of God.

  “You knew He was there, Rese. You listened and lived.”

  Maybe that was true. Maybe it was all true. But she didn’t know enough to say for sure. Too many things had seemed true and had not been. In the end, Dad’s arms had carried her out, not the invisible being, no matter how comforting.

  The look on Rese’s face proved he had not convinced her, but she said, “So God made the world and Jesus saved it. What else?”
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br />   He laughed. “That was the abbreviated version. The rest takes pretty much all your life.”

  “Then you’d better start talking.”

  “You can read it in my Bible. Oh, I forgot you don’t read.”

  She leaned forward. “I want to hear it from you, why you believe it, or is it just what you grew up with?”

  Before Tony died he might have said it was. Growing up in a milieu where every thought, every move was measured and weighed according to the already understood standard and culture of faith made it easy to live that faith without necessarily internalizing it.

  But when their world got rocked it wasn’t easy anymore. Either it was real and he could cling to it, or he’d been lost that morning as well. “I do believe it, Rese. It doesn’t mean I understand it, but I’ll tell you what I know, and you can decide.”

  No one would ever make up her mind for her, and if Evvy thought he had some magic key to turn on the truth for Rese Barrett, she was mistaken. They’d get down and dirty before it was over, he could tell. But if that was what it took…

  Lance got his Bible so he could show her some of it in black-and-white. He couldn’t resist teasing her with things like, “If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.” A Scripture he had taken to heart, tearing out one thing that had mattered so much but consistently got him in trouble. He tried to make her see that sin had consequences.

  Then they battled over the contradiction of hell and a loving God. Her experience of the Savior had been so comforting, she couldn’t fathom the judgment side. Or maybe she didn’t want to.

  They walked out to the end of the street where Baxter patrolled the empty fields with lolloping strides, an eager nose, and the firm intention of marking every inch his territory.

  “So you’re saying Dad is burning in a pit of fire?” Rese’s eyes were sharp with pain.

  He’d pierced through a vulnerable place he hadn’t meant to go. “I don’t know, Rese. God judges the heart.”

  “And if Dad’s heart was closed?”

  Lance took both her hands and looked into her face. “Would I be standing here with you if you hadn’t opened up and let me in?” Not that he was God, or anything close, but the analogy stood. “The Lord gives us a lifetime to accept His love.”

  “But if it’s cut short—”

  “Every day is a gift. Did you earn today?”

  She stared at him, annoyed. She didn’t want to be boxed in, but central to faith was realizing how utterly helpless they were.

  “There’s no guarantee either one of us will be here tomorrow. Look at Tony. And your dad.” Both strong men, if his guess was right, but one surrendered to grace and ready to meet death when it came and the other unwilling to give up control.

  “Wouldn’t Jesus try… ?”

  “Did I break down your door?”

  She ignited. “You pushed every limit, ignored every boundary, refused to hear ‘no’.”

  He smiled. “You stopped saying it.”

  “But…”

  He drew her close and kissed her forehead. “The Lord is what He is. We accept that or not.”

  “It’s not fair.” She meant to fight this all the way. He couldn’t blame her. Things hadn’t shaken out in her favor.

  “It might not seem fair to you, but look at it from God’s side. Jesus made the way, but we have to choose it. The Father’s willing to let us reject Him.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t understand that.”

  “I know what you mean. I’ve been trying for twenty-eight years.”

  She straightened. “You’re twenty-eight?”

  “Last October.”

  “Why didn’t I know that? It’s like you tell me all these things, and then I realize I don’t know you at all.”

  Where did that come from? Was she deflecting away from the sticking point of faith? They could stop the topic any time she wanted to. “What do you want to know?”

  “Everything.”

  He spread his hands. “I’m the youngest of five, born and raised in The Bronx, half a B.A. in music performance, one year in the Peace Corps digging wells in Zimbabwe, two years with Habitat in Jamaica and Nicaragua, fourteen years off and on with a band, and a sackful of other jobs that paid the rent. You saw my résumé, talked with my employers. If you’d read the birth date on your own forms you’d have known my age.”

  She blinked. “Oh.”

  “I’ve shown you who I am, Rese.”

  “It just seems…” She looked away. “I don’t know what to think or believe.”

  No surprise with the twists her life had taken these last days. And he’d come to her under false pretenses that had yet to be explained. Now? How could he when the trust she had in him supported the faith she needed? As good as it would feel to come clean, he couldn’t risk it.

  “That’s understandable.” He should have told her before this. The longer it went, the more complicated it got. “But you’re on the right track.”

  She sighed. “I guess I want new construction, and it’s only renovation.”

  “Renovation is an art. And you’re in the hands of the Master.” He tipped up her chin. “Do you know what Jesus was before He started His ministry?”

  She shook her head.

  He ran one finger down her cheek. “A carpenter.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY - TWO

  As they turned into the driveway, Baxter lurched forward, baying at the burgundy conversion van parked in front of the shed. Rese frowned. “Did we have a reservation?” She shouldn’t feel such disappointment at the thought. It was the point, after all.

  But Lance said, “No.” He had a strange look on his face as he started for the van. Two men got out, and the three of them converged, hooking fingers and slapping backs in a male ritual of recognition. Baxter thrust himself into the melee with doggy delight.

  These were people he knew. She observed the tussle with mixed emotions, the joy of their reunion stinging in a way it shouldn’t, worse than last night with Star. As though Lance had no right to other relationships. Pathetic. He motioned her over.

  “Rese, this is Rico Mirez and Chaz Fortier.”

  She shook hands with Rico, who wore two small hoops in both ears, his hair layered to his shoulders with a strand on the side wrapped in colorful thread. His face was narrow, and his slight, compact frame made Lance seem tall. Then she looked up to the elegant features of the one he called Chaz, who clasped her hands in long dark fingers and spoke with an accent. Lance rested his hand on the small of her back in a gesture she recognized as proprietary, though no one had laid claim to her before.

  “Whatchu doin’ here?” New York stood out in Lance’s speech with that one phrase, though she hadn’t noticed it before.

  Rico tapped a rhythm on the side of the van. “You got a gig, man. Jake told us.”

  “I played one night in a dining room.” Lance cupped his hand around her side. “As an experiment.”

  Rico took a folded paper from his pocket, opened it and displayed one of the flyers she’d hung. Lance and his guitar looked out from the page. “It says Saturdays.”

  He frowned. “We’re still figuring it out.”

  Rese glanced at Lance. Why was he denying it? His first night had been a roaring success. She fully intended him to play again, and he’d never been reluctant where his music was concerned.

  Rico pinned her in his gaze. “He was hot, wasn’t he?”

  “Sure, put her on the spot, Rico.” Lance shoved his friend’s shoulder. “And that’s not the point. I’m not—”

  “You’re playing.”

  “I’m not getting paid.”

  “You’re performing.”

  Lance rubbed his face and glanced at her sidelong.

  She wasn’t sure what was going on, but she said, “We only opened last weekend. Nothing’s settled yet.”

  “We’ll settle it.
” Rico was as wiry and intense as a terrier. He opened the back of the van. “We brought the equipment. I told Mr. Samuels we’d send a CD. He’s hungry, Lance. We need to feed him.”

  Rese eyed the sound equipment, instrument cases, and drum set in the van. Was this the band Lance had played with?

  “This is a bed-and-breakfast, Rico. Not the Village.”

  Chaz had stood grinning through all of it. His smile broadened now, forming two long creases in his cheeks. But he said nothing, letting the two smaller men argue.

  Rico tugged a case free and opened it on the edge of the van’s floor. “Just look at her.”

  The guitar was reddish-hued, detailed with mother of pearl, and Rese could swear even the outlining was inlaid wood. She didn’t know much about instruments, but the craftsmanship was incredible.

  Lance shouldered Rico aside. “If you’ve banged that up…”

  “I wrapped her like a baby.”

  “I know how you drive.”

  “I drove like a grandmother.” Rico’s fingers tapped his thigh. “Tell him, Chaz.”

  Chaz leaned on the van. “Like your Nonna Antonia.”

  “Yeah, she could have won the Indy.” Lance’s hands were on the guitar.

  He didn’t take it out of the case, but Rese saw his desire to. The other guitar was his travel companion … and this one?

  “She was lonely.” Rico’s voice grew velvety. “You can’t leave her so long without stroking her.”

  Lance glared at him and closed the case. “Cheap shot, Rico.”

  Rico tugged a tightly packed sleeping bag from the van. “So where do we camp?”

  Lance looked from Rico to Chaz. “Got a couple hundred for a room?”

  Chaz’s smile shrank. “I told you we should call, mon.” He shook his head at Ricardo.

  Rese stepped forward. “If they’re your friends, Lance—”

  “They can have the attic. For tonight.”

  She shot him a glance. The attic?

  “Great.” Rico shouldered his bag and pulled a navy duffle free. He flashed Lance a grin as incorrigible as any she’d seen.