The Love of Her Life: A Christian Romance (The Callaghans & McFaddens Book 3)

by Kimberly Rae Jordan

  There were a few vehicles parked in the area in front of the house. Maya pulled in beside one of them and sat for a moment, praying that this was the right thing to do. Praying that God would give her the right words to say and then to be able to accept the outcome, even if it was bad. Her relationship with God had changed a lot since the beginning of the year. From not thinking about God much at all for a lot of years to finding a peace and joy she hadn’t really experienced before.

  And it was that peace she felt as she prayed that God would help her to accept His will for her and Gabe—whether it was for them to be together or apart.

  The knock on her window made Maya jump and open her eyes. She turned to see Mitch standing there, a curious look on his face. As she lowered the window, Mitch dropped down into a squat beside the car.

  He braced his folded arms on the open window. “Hey, Maya. What’re you doing here?”

  Maya hesitated. Nothing about Mitch’s demeanor made it seem like he thought she shouldn’t be there. “I came to see Gabe.”

  22

  Mitch’s face lit up, and for a moment, she saw a flash of Gabe in his expression. “That’s great.”

  He pushed to his feet and opened her door. Maya turned off the engine and grabbed her purse before unbuckling the seat belt and getting out. “Thank you.”

  Mitch closed the door then gestured to the house. “He hasn’t been feeling so hot today. Maybe you can put a smile on his face.”

  Maya hesitated at the bottom of the steps. She didn’t have Mitch’s confidence that her visit would make Gabe happy. “Maybe I should visit when he’s feeling better.”

  “No. I think today is perfect.” He gave her another smile as he held the door open for her. “He’s in the guest bedroom on the main floor.” Mitch paused as they walked into the house. “Like I said Gabe’s struggling a bit today. He hasn’t gotten out of bed yet, which is unusual for him. So be prepared, but I think seeing you will help him a lot.”

  Clutching her purse strap, Maya followed Mitch down the hallway past the kitchen and living room. They heard voices as they drew closer to the bedroom, and once again she wondered if this was a good time.

  “I’m fine, Mom,” Gabe said, and even though she’d heard his voice on videos over the past few months, hearing it in real life caused her eyes to sting.

  “You’re not fine if you’re still in bed,” Emily Callaghan said, her concern evident in her words and her tone.

  “Just wait here for a minute,” Mitch said in a low voice then left her in the hallway while he went into the room.

  Maya heard some murmured conversation before he reappeared with Emily right behind him. Her smile was warm and welcoming when she spotted Maya.

  “You’re here to see Gabe?” she asked softly as she came to Maya’s side. When Maya nodded, she said, “I’m so glad to hear that. I think he needs to see you.”

  “Why don’t you go on in?” Mitch suggested, then moved aside to let her pass. She glanced at him one last time before stepping into the room.

  It was a small-ish room—although she realized that compared to her own room, most rooms seemed small—and decorated in shades of gray and yellow. There was a queen size bed flanked by two nightstands, and in the bed lay Gabe.

  The covers were tossed to the opposite side of the bed so she could see he was dressed in a worn T-shirt and a pair of long gym shorts. On his left leg, she spotted the cast that almost fully encased his leg from foot to hip. He lay with his head on the pillow, his eyes closed.

  On silent steps, she approached his bed and sat in the chair beside him. He suddenly took a sniff then his eyes popped open, his gaze immediately landing on her.

  “Maya? I thought that was your perfume.”

  The idea that he recognized the scent she wore and associated it with her gave Maya a bit of encouragement. She smiled tentatively at him. “I hope it’s okay that I’ve come to visit you.”

  “It’s fine.” He stared at her for a moment, his expression unreadable. “How have you been?”

  Then it was her turn to stare. How had she been? “Worried.”

  “Worried?” Gabe asked as he struggled to push himself up to lean against the headboard. “About me?”

  She supposed it was her own fault that he didn’t realize what he meant to her. What he still meant to her. Or course, she had no idea what she meant to him either, so perhaps it was time for them both to let each other know. “Yes. I’ve been worried about you.”

  Gabe didn’t reply right away, but then he said, “Thank you for what you had your father do for me and my family.”

  “He was happy to help, and I was glad he was able to.”

  “So I guess that kind of explains why you never wanted me to pick you up at your house. I imagine that would have been a pretty big giveaway.”

  Maya gave him a quick smile. “Yeah. Dad built a ridiculously huge house back before I was born. I think the plan was to fill it with lots of children, so it has some crazy things in it like a movie theatre. A pool. A single lane bowling alley. Stuff like that.”

  Gabe arched a brow. “Stuff like that? Sounds like a kid’s dream house.”

  “It was for awhile even though I was an only child, but once I got sick, I didn’t enjoy it much.”

  “I guess even having money doesn’t guarantee good health.”

  “No, it doesn’t.” Maya gave him a rueful smile. “My dad had the best doctors he could find look at my case, and the treatment was pretty straightforward, but even so there was no guarantee of success. Sure, they said it was highly treatable cancer, but really, that didn’t help the psychological issue of knowing that the treatment didn’t always work. My dad’s money couldn’t guarantee that the treatment would cure me.”

  “I never would have guessed.” Gabe frowned slightly. “About any of it.”

  “That was what I wanted,” Maya told him. “I wanted to be treated like normal. Like just any other person. Not a cancer survivor. Not the daughter of a billionaire. Just Maya. A girl wanting to contribute to something in a positive way. So while I do have some involvement with charitable organizations, I also really enjoy working for C&M because it gives me a sense of purpose. A reason to get up in the morning.”

  Gabe looked away. “I don’t really feel like I have much of a reason these days.”

  “What have the doctors said?” Maya asked.

  “That my leg was basically crushed. I have pins and hardware in my leg that will probably get me stopped every time I have to go through security at the airport. But the bottom line is that I’m probably never going to be able to walk without a limp.”

  “But at least you’re going to be able to walk, right?”

  Gabe shrugged. “Probably. With a lot of work.”

  “Then it’s a good thing you’re not afraid of work. I’ve seen that.”

  He didn’t say anything, just closed his eyes for a moment and let out a sigh. “I suppose.”

  “If I could fight to live, you can fight to walk.” Maya waited until his gaze met hers. “I need you to fight, Gabe.”

  After a moment’s hesitation, he asked, “Why?”

  And that was her opportunity. The moment she needed to make herself vulnerable. “Because your accident was a wake-up call for me. I thought I would protect myself by ending things between us before they got too serious because even after just a few weeks, I…well, I felt a lot for you. I was scared of what that would mean if I lost you…and then I almost did. And you weren’t even doing something dangerous but just walking across the parking lot.” She took a deep breath. “I should have known better. I should have known that some time with you—even if it was just a few days here and there—was better than nothing at all. Because when you had that accident, I had a glimpse of what nothing at all would be like when we didn’t know if you were going to make it.”

  “Are you just saying this now because you know I can’t go back out and do that dangerous stuff anymore?”

  Maya shook he
r head. “No, because the reality is that you can still do plenty of dangerous things. Believe me, I’ve watched all your dangerous adventure videos, and yes, while some might not be feasible anymore if you have limited mobility in your leg, plenty of them would still work. Especially the water ones.” She gave a brief shudder. “Like your shark cage one.”

  Gabe’s expression was still unchanged, looking the same as when he’d first opened his eyes and seen her. Maya wasn’t sure what to make of that. Every time she’d seen Gabe, he’d been smiling or, as was the case with their last conversation, frowning in hurt and confusion. This stoic look was something Maya didn’t know how to interpret. She’d just told him that she had feelings for him and wanted another chance, and he’d had hardly any reaction.

  Maybe while she’d struggled to accept the decision she’d made and get over him, Gabe had been able to move on. And she could only blame herself if that was the case. It was hard to see him with fading bruises, lips in a tense line and a furrowed brow. He looked so unlike how he had during the weeks they’d spent together, but Maya found herself wanting to be there for him now more than ever.

  Before, it was like he had been teaching her how to live, but now, she could teach him how to heal. She understood how discouraging it could be to have a body that wouldn’t do what you wanted it to. To be held back by physical constraints.

  Her heart longed to be part of his journey. To offer him a place where he could find someone to rejoice with him over his good days and to support him through the bad ones. But maybe that wasn’t what he wanted. After all, it wasn’t like he didn’t already have a huge number of people in his corner. Between his family and his friends, he had a ton of support. Maybe he didn’t need the woman who’d walked away from him because she was too scared to take the chance of loving him.

  “There were still plenty of things I’d planned to do that will be impossible with a gimpy leg.” Gabe rested his fist on his cast, rubbing it against the surface. “I’m finding it a bit difficult to be thankful for the adventures I’ve already had when all I can think about is what I won’t be able to do from now on.”

  Maya gripped her purse with her hands, realizing that in spite of what Mitch had said, it might not have been a good time to visit with Gabe. There was a part of her that wanted to wish Gabe well and escape to cry her eyes out, but if she wanted to prove to him that she was there for him, she really had to be there for him.

  Though she wanted him to look up and smile at her, to see that twinkle in his eyes that had first drawn her in, she realized that she was wanting him to make this easy for her. However, that wasn’t what this was all about. It wasn’t about making the situation more comfortable for her.

  She remembered well the days during her first round of treatments when she hadn’t wanted to smile for her mom. Hadn’t wanted to pretend that she felt better than she did. But she’d done it anyway. All she’d wanted was to be able to feel what she was feeling and know that someone was there by her side. Once she’d hit rock bottom and hadn’t had the strength to hide how she felt, her mother had realized what she’d been trying to do and had tried to be better about looking for other signs rather than just her words for how Maya was handling things.

  Gabe was clearly having a bad day—whether it was physical or emotional really didn’t matter. A physically bad day could create an emotional day and vice versa. Maya knew that, and she knew that if she wanted to stay in Gabe’s life—as a friend, if nothing else—she needed to remember it. Always.

  With that in mind, instead of reassuring him that everything would be okay, Maya reached out and covered his other hand that was fisted against the sheets. Though he didn’t look up at her, she saw his head turn in the direction of their hands. When he didn’t respond right away, she had to resist the urge to remove her hand. If he wanted to break the contact, he could move his.

  After what felt like an eternity, his fist relaxed, and he opened his hand so their palms touched. She wrapped her fingers around the edge of his hand and felt him do the same with hers. Maya blinked back tears as he lifted her hand and pressed it to his lips, holding it there as he took in ragged breaths. It wasn’t so much a kiss to her hand as it was a connection. A connection that had been severed for the months they’d been apart.

  When Gabe lifted his head, Maya saw his blue eyes were swimming with tears and knew that the man she loved had—for whatever reason—hit rock bottom. Moving carefully, Maya sat on the bed beside his uninjured leg and then leaned forward to rest her forehead on his shoulder. Almost immediately, Gabe buried his face against her neck, tangling his hand in her hair.

  “I love you,” Maya whispered, knowing that with their proximity Gabe would hear her, regardless of how softly she spoke. “I want to be here for you. If you want me to be.”

  Gabe’s nod came right away, and then he sat back, capturing her face between his hands. “I want you to be—more than anything—but I’m not the man I was back in February.”

  “But you are.” The discouragement Maya saw in his eyes tugged painfully at her heart. She lifted her hands to cover his where they cupped her cheeks. “All the things that make you special are still there. Your leg being injured hasn’t changed who you are. Maybe it has changed what you can do, but I know that your zest for life is still there. I know that once your leg has healed, you’re going to find a way to feed that zest. It might look a bit different from how it has been up until your injury, but I have no doubt you’re going to rise above it.” She gave him a soft smile. “And you’ll do it all while still maintaining your title as the better-looking twin.”

  For a moment, Gabe just stared at her and then—there it was—a smile. Not the biggest she’d ever seen from him, but it was genuine, and the worry that had wrapped tightly around her began to ease.

  “And don’t you forget it,” he replied, his smile growing just a bit. The moisture that had been present in his eyes earlier was gone, but his expression grew serious again. “I love you, too, beautiful. I’ve missed you.”

  Leaning forward, Gabe drew her face toward his. He pressed several soft kisses to her lips before lingering.

  His words and kisses were what finally released the last of the worry and fear that had taken residence in her heart. When he drew back from her a short time later, Maya said, “I’ve missed you too. I’m so sorry.”

  “I don’t blame you at all. In your shoes and circumstances, I would have done the same thing.”

  Maya gave him a rueful smile. “Somehow, I doubt that, but thanks for trying to make me feel better.”

  “I feel better when you feel better, beautiful.”

  “Do you?” Maya asked. “Do you feel better now?” He opened his mouth to speak, but before he could say anything, Maya pressed her fingers to his lips. “Only honesty between us now, love.”

  Gabe let out a puff of air against her fingers then nodded. She moved her hand and asked again. “Do you feel better now?”

  “Physically? No. Pain and itchiness have been tag teaming me since early this morning, and I couldn’t sleep. I hate it. Absolutely hate it.”

  “The painkillers aren’t helping?”

  Gabe grimaced as he jammed his fingers through his hair. “I’m trying not to take them unless I absolutely have to.”

  “I think perhaps you might be in a have to situation, especially if you’re dealing with something else like itching. Enduring pain when you don’t have to doesn’t make you a hero, it just makes you cranky. Trust me, I speak from experience.”

  “I guess if anyone would understand, it’s going to be you.” He lowered his hand to rub against his cast again. “I just wish the itching would stop. I can’t seem to do anything about that.”

  It seemed that once Gabe began to talk, the words just spilled out of him as he shared what he’d been through over the past couple of weeks. Though she’d heard much of what the doctors had already told him about his break and recovery, hearing it again in Gabe’s own words with his emotions mixe
d in made it more real for Maya. It hurt her to hear it, but when he began to talk about what lay ahead, she wondered if he realized that he was focusing on the future.

  Because of her own experiences, Maya knew that one moment of focusing on the future and feeling positive didn’t mean the road ahead was going to be smooth and trouble-free. But it would be the memory of these positive moments that would help get them through the rough spots ahead. The rough spots didn’t scare Maya. She’d experienced them before and lived to tell the tale. This time around, she’d be doing it at the side of the man she loved, secure in the knowledge that he also loved her.

  EPILOGUE

  Gabe looked out over the group that was gathered in the living room of the Airbnb they’d rented in Thailand. He and his friends had decided to take a two-week trip back, focusing on the southern part of the country where—among other things—they planned to go on another kayaking trip. This would be a bit longer kayaking trip since they were only visiting the southern city of Phuket and not all the other locations they’d hit the last time they’d been there.

  This was Gabe’s first major trip since his accident almost seven months earlier. His leg still pained him, but much less than it used to. This trip to the tropics was definitely a welcome break since the frigid cold weather back in Winnipeg this time of year caused his pain to intensify.

  Most the people in the group had been present on his previous Thailand trip. Matt, who was part of their usual group, was there as well, having recovered from his injuries much as Gabe had. New faces in the group this time included Mitch and, more importantly, Maya. This was the first trip they’d taken together, and Gabe knew that Maya was a little nervous about it.

  He hoped that this trip would be memorable for her and the first of many they’d take together. And if this trip went as planned, future ones they took together wouldn’t require them to bring others along as chaperones.