Redemption 03 - Return

by Smalley, Gary; Kingsbury, Karen

  “Sometimes.” His eyes narrowed. “I’m doing the job he loved. I can feel him looking over my shoulder from his place in heaven, asking God to keep me safe.”

  Ashley leaned against the windowsill so she could see Landon’s face, see all of him, taking a mental picture to last her until next time. Whenever that would be. “Is that why you don’t call?” Her tone was soft, curious. “Because you’re living Jalen’s life for him?”

  Landon’s shoulders drooped a few inches. For a while he said nothing, only looked at her, searching her eyes the same way she searched his. Looking for answers that maybe didn’t quite exist. “I don’t know.” He took a step closer, never losing the hold he had on her eyes. “I ask myself that all the time.”

  Ashley was quiet.

  Finally, she understood. He hadn’t called because he hadn’t let go of Jalen, hadn’t made the decision to let go of his dream of fighting fires alongside Jalen in New York City. And since he’d committed to the department, pining over Ashley would be senseless.

  At last the pieces fit together; the picture was clear.

  Landon came to her and slipped his arms beneath her elbows, around her waist. “I’m sorry.” He drew her to him, but held his face at a distance so he could read her eyes. “I just want the year to be over.”

  She didn’t have to study his features to memorize the look of him. His image had long since been painted on the canvas of her heart. Still she raised her hand, and with gentle, childlike strokes she brushed her fingers along his brow and down the side of his face. “You’re beautiful, Landon.” She felt a sad smile play at the corners of her lips. “You want life to be good and right and fair. And when it isn’t, you remain unchanged.” A barely audible laugh came from her. “It’s amazing.”

  “No.” He pressed his face the slightest bit against her hand, as though any contact had to be enjoyed in their brief time together. “Winning your heart, Ashley. That—” he tapped her once on the tip of her nose—“was amazing.”

  She giggled, and colors splashed across the moment. How wonderful, having a reason to laugh when the moment wanted so badly to be sad. “I was a brat.”

  “You were.”

  “I think Irvel changed me.”

  “God changed you.” Landon cocked his head. His eyes sparkled the way they always had when he and Ashley were together, even back when their time together was limited to whenever they might run into each other.

  “Yes. God did it.” She brought her other hand up and framed his face with her fingertips. “But he used Irvel.”

  The moment changed, and her senses were suddenly on high alert. She was here, a thousand miles from home, alone with Landon in his dimly lit Manhattan apartment with smooth, seductive music playing from the CD player, filling her senses with possibilities.

  He eased his hands up her lower back and they came together. The kiss left them breathless, and Ashley saw a passion in his eyes deeper than anything she’d ever known. Before they could kiss again, he took a small step backward and cupped her chin with his hands. “I have…haven’t I, Ash?”

  What was he talking about? She bit her lip and gave a few quick shakes of her head. She wanted one thing—to be close to him again, kissing him, forgetting the time and the place and the danger of the moment. Passion colored her tone. “You have what?”

  “Won your heart?” Landon’s voice held a barely detectable question mark.

  Ashley came to him again. After months of silence, her answer demanded voice. “Yes, Landon.” She’d feared just such a moment since Paris, yet here she was. And nothing in all the world could’ve felt more right. She gave him a simple kiss. “My heart’s all yours.”

  Once more their lips met. For a long while they let themselves be carried on a wave that surged above the shore of common sense. But then he took her hands in his. His fingers trembled and his breathing was ragged, but she saw determination in his gaze. “I…I can’t do this.”

  His words landed them safely on the beach. “It’s late.” She sucked in a steadying breath. “I need to go anyway.”

  “When do you leave?” He still had hold of her hands, and he worked his thumbs across her knuckles.

  “Seven-fifteen.”

  “I work at six.”

  She wanted to ask him if this was it, if they wouldn’t see each other again for another six months. But instead she breathed a silent prayer, a thanks to God for giving Landon the sense to take a step backwards. Whatever the future held, they would do it God’s way and believe—in the process—that he would one day give them all they’d ever dreamed of.

  “Remember last time we said good-bye?” Landon was trembling less now, in control again.

  “We agreed to make no promises.” Her heart held its breath. Something about this time with Landon felt miles deeper, more certain. But she wouldn’t ask for a commitment, even now. “Right?”

  “Right.” His voice was quiet. The passion remained, even if it was no longer calling the shots. “Let’s do something different this time.”

  “Different?”

  “I don’t ever want to lose you, Ash. I never want—” his eyes darted around the room, as though he was searching for the right words—“I never want you to wonder about my feelings for you, never want you to imagine me walking with some girl and a baby and wonder if I’ve found someone else.”

  She smiled and let her fingers play lightly against his palms. “I was stupid, that’s all.”

  “No.” He shook his head and something serious flashed in his eyes. “I was wrong to leave you like that last time. Especially when all I want is to go home with you and start life the way I want it to be.”

  “So…?”

  “So, I promise you, Ashley, here and now.” He brought her hands to his lips and kissed first one, then the other. “I’m coming home for you. I’ll finish work here in New York, and then I’m coming home. And if a day goes by between now and then when I don’t call you, you’ll never have to wonder again.”

  “Landon…” Something old and fading in her wanted to object, to make him aware that he owed her nothing, that she wasn’t worthy of his love let alone his commitment. But a louder voice echoed in her soul, assuring her that this was part of God’s plan, part of the future he had for her.

  Maybe even the biggest part.

  She closed her eyes for two seconds and opened them. Then she did it again.

  “Okay, now you’re acting like Irvel.” Laughter danced in his words, and he raised his eyebrows at her. “What are you doing?”

  “Convincing myself—” she laughed as she opened her eyes—“that I’m not dreaming.”

  The call came as she was on her way to the airport the next morning. She barely had time to snag her phone from her purse before it stopped ringing.

  “Hello?”

  Static rang across the line, and a voice tried to rise above it. “Ashley…tell you…”

  “Excuse me?” The traffic outside her cab made it impossible to hear. “I think we have a bad connection.” She pressed the phone against her ear and ducked her head closer to her knees. “Could you repeat that, please?”

  The static grew worse. “…to tell you…from Paris—”

  Then the call went dead.

  Her mind raced over the few details. Someone from Paris? With something to tell her? A cold chill ran down Ashley’s spine. She closed her phone and returned it to her purse. The caller had used part of her name. Otherwise she would’ve suspected it was a wrong number. But why Paris? She’d left nothing of herself back in Paris. No artwork, no friendships, no promises to return. And today—reveling in the glow of last night with Landon—she needed no reminders of that time in her life.

  The call haunted her all the way to La Guardia, but with every few blocks she worked on her memory of it. Maybe the voice hadn’t said Ashley, but something else. Actually, maybe. Yes, that had to be it. Actually, I can’t hear you… or Actually this is the wrong number… or I have the wrong number, actually
.

  Actually was a common word, wasn’t it? Or maybe it was as we. Maybe the caller said, As we all know, this is a wrong number.

  Ashley wore the thought for a while, but it didn’t quite fit. Someone from Paris—of all places—had accidentally dialed her cell phone number? Was that even possible?

  She was still uncomfortable when she boarded the plane. Instead of pleasant convincing thoughts about wrong numbers and words that sounded like her name, she began going over a dozen reasons why someone from Paris would call her. The impossible existed, of course. Someone at the gallery where she’d worked had remembered her art and wanted to display it. Or maybe they needed an American to run the desks again.

  But her memories of Paris were hardly laced with compliments for her artwork or of happy moments behind the gallery desk helping English-speaking customers.

  They were completely taken up with the dark days of Jean-Claude Pierre.

  And any phone call from Paris was enough to turn her stomach. The possibilities balanced like an avalanche positioned directly over her chest, so that even thinking about them made it almost impossible to breathe. She never wanted to think about Paris again, not as long as she lived. Not when her entire being wanted only to think of Landon Blake.

  And the fact that—after a lifetime of feeling unloved and unwanted and unable to love back—she was finally standing on the brink of happily-ever-after.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  THE FREETHINKERS MEETING was just getting started when Luke walked in through the back door. He slipped into a seat along the side, halfway toward the front, and slid his backpack under the chair. Then he glanced around. Had to be more than a hundred students packing the room, but Luke wasn’t surprised. Lori had told him the speaker would clear up any lingering doubts he had about her occasional wanderings. The talk today was on “Open Love—Relationships That Work.”

  He didn’t want to miss a minute of it.

  He opened his notebook and took a pen from his backpack. The speaker looked to be in his thirties, short hair and nice clothes. The look of a company president or a doctor at St. Anne’s. The man’s voice was smooth, his smile cool and confident. Further proof that Lori was right. This way of thinking wasn’t way-out or crazy. It was practical and more common all the time.

  No matter what the great Dr. Baxter thought about it.

  “Relationships can be painful. How many of you have seen that?” The speaker moved up to the first row of seats and made eye contact with several students.

  A few hands lifted, and a general murmuring of agreement passed over the room.

  “That’s because too many people work their relationships by the world’s rule book. A rule book of morality and rigidity.” He stopped and lifted his chin. “Freethinking means we take a hard look at a situation, we think outside the box, which lends freedom to all situations.” He paused. “Including love.”

  He went on to talk about a relationship he’d had his first year of college. “The two of us were exclusive, playing by somebody else’s rules.” His gaze roamed the audience. “But she met a guy in her biology class, and a week later we had the breakup scene.” He turned and walked to the other end of the room. “Tears and apologies and sadness, all completely unnecessary.”

  Luke pictured Reagan. They hadn’t had that scene, but they might as well have.

  The speaker stroked his chin. “Now, what if we’d been freethinkers?” He let the idea hang in the room for a moment. “Love wouldn’t be boxed in by a list of archaic rules.”

  He asked for two volunteers, then chose a girl and a guy from the middle of the room. When they were up front, he had them face each other and act out a scene like the one he’d just described.

  The couple looked uncomfortable at first, but after a few awkward lines, they relaxed. “I met someone,” the girl said. She shrugged for effect and earned a few laughs from across the room.

  “Really?” The guy raised his eyebrows. “Someone you like?”

  “Yeah. I like him a lot.”

  The speaker stepped in and gestured toward the couple. “Work it now; think outside the rules.”

  “Okay.” The guy looked to the speaker for encouragement, and then back at the girl. “That’s cool, because there’s a girl in my math class I’ve wanted to hang out with.”

  The girl took a step closer and winked. “Maybe we could double-date.”

  The students burst into a spontaneous bit of applause and laughter, and the speaker waved the volunteers back to their seats.

  He punctuated the air with his finger. “Perfect!” When the laughter died down, he continued. “We laugh because we’re so entrenched in society’s way of thinking.” He spoke with his hands, his eyes wide with conviction. “Freethinking takes time. But doesn’t it make sense in relationships?”

  Freethinking makes sense in relationships. Luke scribbled the words across his pad of paper. Doubts poked pins at his conscience. How had he felt when he found out about Lori’s abortion, that she’d been with another man? Betrayed. Upset to the point of almost leaving her. But since then she’d talked at length about love the same way the speaker was talking now.

  Free…open…a way of expressing self through physical intimacy. One person could never be enough for a task that involved. Luke wasn’t sure.

  “Think about yourself, your creative inner person.” The speaker’s voice rose. “Could one person really meet those needs, the innate desire within you to share your body with another?” He stopped and raised an eyebrow. “Now don’t mistake what I’m saying for irresponsibility. You owe it to yourself and anyone you share yourself with to use protection. That goes without saying. But within those safety bounds, free love, freethinking is very possible.”

  He began to list the reasons why open relationships worked best. Multiple partners increased a person’s ability to make love interesting and satisfying to all partners. With freethinking, guilt and regret and sorrow were eliminated from the formula of love.

  “Now tell me that doesn’t sound like a better deal than what the traditional rule book offers.”

  Luke felt himself nodding along with the others in the room. This was exactly what Lori had been talking about, and maybe she’d been right. What did it matter if she’d spent an afternoon or an evening with someone else? The experience would make her a better lover, so why should he care?

  The speaker stopped in the middle of the room and pointed at them. “Tell me this. If loving one person is right, how can loving more than one person be wrong?”

  Once more a niggling thought scratched at the door of Luke’s conscience. Something about sexual immorality and God’s plan for love. Luke gritted his teeth, banished the thought, and tuned back in to what the speaker was saying.

  “I challenge you to live life on your own terms, not by someone else’s rules.” He made eye contact with a few of them. “Love…life…your bodies. They’re meant to be shared. And a year from now you’ll never have to dread a broken relationship again.”

  For a moment Luke tried to imagine what the great Dr. Baxter would think of this speaker. That he was blind, probably. Walking in darkness, ignorant of the truth. Lost. Luke used the end of his pen to scratch the back of his head. How long had it been since he’d seen his father? Two months, maybe? Yes, it’d been that long. For a moment—even though the speaker was going on about his challenge—Luke could do nothing but think about his dad, his mom…his entire family.

  Did they miss him? Were they sorry for being so judgmental? for running him off and forcing him to make it on his own? Luke scribbled a series of circles around the holes in his notebook paper. If their faith meant anything, shouldn’t they accept him for who he’d become? not expect him to live life on their terms?

  Nothing freethinking about that.

  And his dad, of all people, a man with more education than anyone in the family. He should understand the need to challenge life, to find nontraditional answers, to push the envelope on why life existe
d. His dad’s training was in biology and medicine, after all. Disciplines with provable theories and exact formulas.

  How could the man believe God was behind all of life when science had so many answers? A strange ache settled across his chest, and he wished he could see his father again. Just for an evening or an afternoon.

  Luke shook his head. What’s your problem, Baxter? Your old life held no answers; why question the new one?

  Return to me, Son. I have loved you with an everlasting love. Return even now.

  Luke straightened in his seat and gave a slight shake of his head. Who said that? The words had been whispered, as though someone was standing behind him, leaning close to his ear. He glanced over his shoulder. The student behind him gave him a strange look and focused his attention back on the speaker. Luke slunk down and turned to the front of the room again.

  If the kid behind him hadn’t said it, then who?

  Back when he’d been duped into believing the whole Christian thing, he’d imagined a voice like that all the time. Daily, even. But it had grown softer with time, and Luke hadn’t heard even a whisper in months. Why would his imagination dredge up such a thing now? at a Freethinkers meeting?

  Luke bit the tip of his pen. Probably as a reminder. He would have to attend many more meetings like this one before the habits of his upbringing faded into nothingness and gave him the true freedom he sought.

  The speaker was wrapping up, and Luke looked at his watch. Lori was out tonight, studying at the library with some friends. He hesitated and stared at the notes in front of him. Then, in a gradual morphing of grays and blacks and muted colors, the image changed, and it wasn’t notes he was seeing at all, but faces. His father’s…his mother’s. Ashley’s and Kari’s.

  Reagan’s.

  The ache in his heart worked its way through his body, even to the tips of his fingers. He begged his mind to change channels, think of something else. Anything else. But their images remained, and he heard none of the speaker’s concluding remarks.