by Alana Terry
She scooted her chair back, afraid of the feelings his kiss had awakened. “I shouldn’t have done that.”
“Maybe not.” He grinned. “But I’m sure glad you did.”
“I can’t ...” She held up her hands. “I shouldn’t be ...”
He stood. “I understand. It’s, well, I can guess it’s pretty complicated.”
She lowered her eyes. “Yeah.” Heat rushed across her face.
“But it was nice, wasn’t it?”
She wiped her mouth self-consciously. “Yeah.”
“Really nice.” Why was he looking at her like that? Didn’t he know how irresistible he was? He took a few steps toward the door. “I should go, shouldn’t I?”
She should stop him. Keep him here forever. Once she explained everything to Kurtis, he’d understand ...
“Do you mean go go?” Her voice squeaked a little.
He paused with his hand on the doorknob. “Is that what you want me to do?”
“No, I ...” She took in a deep breath, trying to clear her mind, which was still racing after the feel of his lips pressed hungrily against hers. “I ... I need time to think. It’s nothing personal.”
“No problem. I’ll give you my number.”
She fumbled for her phone in her purse, thankful for something to occupy her hands. She kept her eyes on the screen and typed in his name. “All right, I’m ready.”
He rattled off the number. Her fingers trembled a little when she punched them into her cell. What if she got it wrong? What if he went to Anchorage tomorrow and she never saw him again? Maybe she should leave with him. Maybe she should just ...
“I don’t fly out until Monday. There’s time.”
She nodded, eager to get him out of her apartment, searching for an excuse to make him stay.
“It’s going to be all right. You know that, right?” He touched her gently on the shoulder, and she tried not to jerk her arm away. This was Raphael. Not the phantom she had dreamed about, pined after for so many years. He was really here, the warm sweetness of his kiss no longer just a bittersweet memory but fresh on her lips.
He bent his head down and kissed the top of her head. “I’ll be waiting for your call. If you’re happy here, I wish you both all the best. You know that, right? And if you decide you want to come back, well, like I said, I’m driving to Anchorage tomorrow.” He glanced at her, his eyes hopeful.
She couldn’t speak. She could scarcely breathe. It felt as if someone had stabbed her in the heart and her blood was spilling out in a puddle on the floor.
He held up his phone. “Just call me either way, ok? Even if it’s just to say no thanks. I really ...” He cleared his throat. “I really don’t want to go another four years wondering, you know?”
She bit her lip.
“Hey, you’ve still got a Bible, right?”
“Yeah.” Drisklay hadn’t let her take the one Carl and Sandy signed for her high school graduation, but she found a freebie at the Glennallen thrift store and brought it home, even though she had only opened it once or twice since then.
“Look up Jeremiah 29:11, all right? It’s one of my favorites.”
She nodded, hardly able to lift her hand to wave good-bye as he walked out of her apartment.
Chapter 6
SHE STARED AT THE DOOR for several minutes after he left. She didn’t want to go digging for her thrift store Bible, so she opened up a Scripture website on her phone. What verse had he said? Jeremiah 29:11. It had been so long since she and Sandy had read the Bible together over milk and cookies at the Lindgrens’ dining room table. She couldn’t even remember which testament she should look in. Thankfully, the webpage made that part easy enough for her. Her phone took some time to load, and she glanced around her apartment. Other than the cup of cider on the table, was there any proof Raphael had been there? She glanced at her cell, wondering if his name and number would be there in her contacts list if she were to look it up.
Jeremiah 29:11. The verse finished loading. She read it slowly. “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”
A future? What kind of a future was there for her as long as she stayed in witness protection? A future away from Carl and Sandy, the only parental figures who had ever really loved her. A future in Glennallen, a town with absolutely nothing going for it except for the fact that it was remote and catered to tourists in the summer. A future working at the daycare until she lost every ounce of patience with the children and was forced to quit. And then what? Getting a job at Puck’s grocery store? Bagging canned goods and stocking shelves the rest of her life?
Hope and a future. Until tonight, Lacy hadn’t really allowed herself to hope for anything besides a mild winter. There was Kurtis, of course, and his proposal. Just a little bit ago, she had all but thrown herself at him, begging him to ignore her initial rejection. But he knew she hadn’t meant it. Not really. And now, if he found out about Raphael ...
The sting of that last kiss burned her lips. Shame congealed in her veins. What had she been thinking? How would Kurtis feel if he found out?
She glanced at the verse on her screen once more. “For I know the plans I have for you.” Well, at least somebody did. She was embarrassed to think about how thoroughly she had turned her back on God since she moved here. When she first got to Glennallen, she had gone to the chapel because she missed Carl and Sandy and thought being in a church on Sunday might assuage a little bit of her homesickness. But she got bored. She was tired after working long hours at the daycare. She went back to the chapel when she started dating Kurtis because it was important to him, but other than that hour and a half on Sunday mornings, she rarely thought about the Lord.
How many times had she gone over that evening with Raphael? They could have gone to any pier in North End. They could have dined at any restaurant across the entire Boston-Cambridge area. Why there? Why then? And if God really had a plan for her life, couldn’t he have stopped them?
Well, what if that verse was right? What if witnessing the murder on the pier really was part of God’s plan? That meant he wanted her in Glennallen. He wanted her to suffer the loneliness, the heartache. Why? So she could meet Kurtis? Then why had he thrown Raphael back into her path?
And if God wanted her to marry Raphael, why had they been separated for these past four years? Even if the Lord wanted to grant them a dramatic reunion after all they had been through, why didn’t he stop Kurtis from coming into the picture, complicating everything with his patient understanding?
The phone was heavy in her hand. It was too much to think about tonight. Yet again, she felt that God must be punishing her for some horrible thing she had done in the past. And if he was God, that was probably his right. But why were there people worse than she, people who beat their children or were strung out on drugs, whose lives weren’t thrown into chaos? She never doubted God’s existence, not really. But it made so much more sense to think of him as a benign being in some far-away universe, too busy to care about the day-to-day affairs of an East Coast foster girl.
Too busy to intervene when Lacy needed him the most.
Well, the answers weren’t going to magically appear on her phone. She closed the Bible website and stared at the screen. Should she call someone? Who? Raphael had just left. She could call him now, ask him to take her away with him to Anchorage. Go back with him to Massachusetts. In a day or two, she could be home with Carl and Sandy.
But where would that leave Kurtis? At least his wife was really dead. Renee had died in the hospital. He had seen her buried. He hadn’t lived the past several years wondering, dealing with the nagging suspicion, the spark of hope that was almost too painful to acknowledge. But what if she was magically found to be alive? Wouldn’t it be his right to dump Jo and spend the rest of his life with his first love?
She should call Kurtis. He was so level-headed. So thoughtful. Even just talking through things
with him would help. But to do that would mean revealing her past. What would he say when he learned her entire identity was a fabrication? Somewhere in his vast reserves of compassion, there must be an end to his patience and forgiveness. If he found out the truth, if he found out she wasn’t a foster kid from Michigan who moved out to Alaska to fulfill a lifelong dream, what would he say? What would he say if he discovered she hated the cold, hated mosquitoes, hated the claustrophobic, isolated feeling that came from living in a town of four hundred?
What would he say if she told him that she was in love with Raphael? That she had never stopped loving him? That she had known deep in her heart he was still alive even while she was dating someone else? Kurtis was a saint. But she couldn’t expect him to sympathize with that. And if he did, if he looked at her with those tender eyes and told her he understood and forgave her anyway, she would feel even more wretched.
Why had Raphael come? Why had they ever gone to that pier in the first place?
“For I know the plans I have for you.”
Well, that was all fine and good and poetic, and Lacy figured that people like her foster mom Sandy would read a verse like that and derive a great deal of comfort from it. But it only made Lacy feel worse. If God had a plan for her, that meant he wanted her in witness protection. He wanted to ruin her life. And then, just because he was all-powerful and just because he could, he was going to throw Raphael at her right after Kurtis proposed.
Some plan.
She shut off her phone. It was late. The sky was still bright enough you could drive without headlights even though midnight was less than an hour away. She plodded to her room without bothering to brush her teeth or change into her pajamas. She closed her curtains, but the light still spilled in through the sides. She plopped onto her bed and threw the pillow over her face. Two mosquitoes buzzed in her ear.
Alaska sucks.
She rolled onto her side and tried to sleep.
Chapter 7
SHE WOKE UP THE NEXT morning with at least four new bites. One was on her ankle, the most annoying spot of all. It was a little after eight, and she wondered if she’d be lucky enough to go back to sleep. She was still exhausted. She had lain awake half the night listening to the bugs and trying to organize her thoughts. God might have plans for her future like Raphael’s verse suggested, but it had taken her until two in the morning to come up with any plans for herself.
She just hoped she wouldn’t regret them.
She flipped on her phone. There was already a text message from Raphael. Breakfast this morning?
She wasn’t going to think about the shock of seeing him again. She wasn’t going to think about the fire that burned in her gut when they had kissed after so many years. Gotta do something first, she replied. Lunch instead?
Today might be the hardest day of her life.
As she dressed, she thought about calling Kurtis beforehand. Warn him she was coming. But she couldn’t bring herself to do it. If she got him on the phone, the temptation would be too strong to tell him everything she needed to say without looking at him. She couldn’t do that to him. She had made up her mind and had the bags under her eyes to prove it. She would never forgive herself if she took the easy way out now.
It took fifteen minutes to walk to Kurtis’s house, which helped clear her mind. Her heart pounded faster than normal by the time she arrived, but her limbs weren’t as jittery as when she first started out. A slight breeze had kept most of the mosquitoes at bay. When she had made up her mind last night, she pictured walking to Kurtis’s in a rainstorm or getting swarmed by a hundred bugs at once, but the trip itself had been surprisingly calming.
She knocked on the door, feeling more like Lacy and less like Jo than she had in years. Lacy wasn’t afraid of change. Lacy wasn’t afraid to tackle life head-on no matter what the cost. The only thing Lacy feared was a cage, a cage that after today would no longer confine her.
Madeline answered the door, still in her footy pajamas. “Miss Jo!” Her excited squeal sent a pang of regret through Lacy’s heart. What had she expected? She knew how hard this would be. It didn’t matter, though, she reminded herself. It had to be done.
“Hi, sweetie.” Lacy pried Madeline off her leg. “Can you tell your daddy I’m here?”
Madeline scurried away yelling, and Lacy stepped in and shut the door to keep the bugs out. Kurtis came out a moment later in flannel lounge pants and a white undershirt, drying his hair with a towel. “Hi, Jo.”
She couldn’t tell from his voice if he was happy to see her or not, but she couldn’t focus on that. She would say what she came here to say, and that would be all. She was about to apologize for stopping by unannounced, but that was Jo talking, Jo the demure daycare worker who had never really existed. She glanced around the house, at the moose antlers on the wall, the plastic pink princess toys strewn across the floor. She hadn’t admitted until now how much she would miss all this.
“I came here to talk to you. Do you have a minute?”
He looked at her quizzically before leaning down to Madeline. “Why don’t you grab a Pop Tart and run downstairs to watch some cartoons? I’ll make us pancakes in a little bit.”
“Is Miss Jo eating with us, too?” she asked.
“I don’t know.”
Kurtis avoided meeting Lacy’s eyes as Madeline skipped downstairs. He pointed to the couch. “Have a seat.” He took the lounge chair opposite her.
Lacy had already decided not to waste time on chitchat. What was the point? “I’m heading to Anchorage. I came to say good-bye.”
His expression didn’t change. Where was the kindness, the compassion she had grown to expect from him?
She rushed to fill the silence. “It doesn’t have anything to do with you. I want you to know that. You’re a ... well, you’re an amazing guy, and I’m really thankful I got to know you.” She couldn’t read him. Was he angry? “I just, well, I’m leaving, and I didn’t want it to come across like I was running away or anything ...”
Who was she fooling? That’s exactly what she was doing. No, that wasn’t it either. She was embracing her own life for a change. Making her own plans.
Kurtis continued to stare.
“Why don’t you say something?” she finally asked.
“When are you leaving?”
“Today. As soon as I get packed.”
“It was Raphael, wasn’t it?” His voice was so soft, she leaned forward to make sure she heard him. “At your apartment last night.”
“Ra ...” The word caught in her throat. “My apartment?”
“I went back, you know. Went back to tell you I didn’t mean it. Went back to tell you that even though the nice-guy thing to do is wait until you’re good and ready, the truth is I’m dying inside. I want to be with you. I know last night I said I would wait because I want your whole heart, but it was a lie. I said that for you, because I thought you needed space to sort your life out. But I want you now. I want you here with me, wearing my ring, using my name, raising my daughter with me. I came last night to tell you I couldn’t stand the thought of waiting anymore. It was killing me. That’s when I saw him leave your place.”
Her stomach dropped. “It wasn’t what you’re thinking. It wasn’t ...” She stopped short at the memory of Raphael’s kiss. She couldn’t lie anymore. “It was Raphael. You’re right about that. But it’s not like I was seeing you both at the same time. Until yesterday I thought he was dead.”
“In witness protection, you mean.” The words came out flat.
Nervous energy raced up Lacy’s spine. “What are you talking about?”
Kurtis let out his breath. “I’m a simple guy, Jo, but I’m not stupid. I know what happened to you.”
“What?” She felt like a parrot with a one-word vocabulary.
“Listen, you told me about Raphael. You told me he was killed in a car accident. You gave me the name of your foster parents. You think I couldn’t figure it out?”
“But I never
told you where I lived.”
“No. You did the smart thing and kept that a secret from me. But how many Carls do you think there are who take in foster kids and pastor a church and are married to a woman named Sandy?”
She didn’t know what to say. She had never heard him speak like this. “Are you angry?”
“Angry?” He raised his voice. “Geeze. Do you think that little of me? Of course you had to lie to me. Of course you had to keep the past tucked away. If I were mad about something like that ...”
“Then why are you yelling?”
He paused to take a breath. “I didn’t mean to. But you can’t understand that I’m on your team here. I’ve known about this for weeks. Want to know when I put it all together? When I tried to find Carl so I could ask him for your hand in marriage. And I didn’t find a Pastor Carl and Sandy in Michigan where I was looking, but I found them in Massachusetts. So I called. Asked if he had a foster daughter named Jo. He said he and his wife had a lot of foster kids over the years, but nobody by that name. I said she moved to Alaska four years ago. He turned evasive and finally hung up. You think after a decade as a trooper I can’t smell suspicious? So I started searching more. Looking up Raphael, trying to figure out how he died. And guess what? He wasn’t alone in the car. There was a girl there. A girl your age who testified in court and then disappeared. You think I can’t put things together? So then I start to think, the girl got put in witness protection. What about the boy? What if his death’s just a cover-up, too? And then I realize why you’re having a harder time moving on than I did when Renee passed. You’re holding onto hope that he’s still out there, that maybe one day you’ll find each other, live out your happily ever ...”
“I’m not going to Anchorage with him,” Lacy interrupted. “With Raphael. I’m not ...” She paused so she wouldn’t fumble over her words. “I’m not choosing Raphael over you. It’s been four years. Do you know how weird that is? He’s been going to my dad’s church. He’s all religious now. Do you think I’m just going to throw away this life to be with someone I hardly know anymore?”