SHE WAS TERRIFIED. Kaylan poured a cup of coffee and trudged to the sunroom, pulling her robe tighter around her. Her body was readjusting to waking before dawn. Tugging a blanket over her legs, she covered a yawn as she studied the subtle, rosy hues pouring over the tree line.
He was taking Sarah Beth’s place, and it both terrified and thrilled her. She’d realized it after the kiss. Sarah Beth had been her best friend, a shoulder to cry on, a well of wisdom, someone with whom to laugh, someone with whom to walk through life. Sarah Beth couldn’t be replaced, but Nick was becoming equally if not more important in a shorter amount of time.
“Morning, beautiful.”
She nearly jumped from her skin. “Nick Carmichael, stop sneaking up on me.”
“Sorry.” He placed a gentle kiss on her lips. “It’s my job to take the enemy by surprise and then leave without a trace.”
It felt good to laugh. He left more than a trace. “I’m the enemy?”
“When I can’t sleep because I’m thinking about you, and then I force myself out of bed after not sleeping so I can be with you, you are definitely the enemy.”
“I didn’t do anything.”
“I beg to differ. That kiss was far too memorable.”
The kiss. She slipped her hand from his grip and hugged herself.
“Something wrong?” His brow furrowed in confusion.
“Not exactly.”
“Well, why don’t you tell me what exactly is bothering you?”
“I’m not sure I can.”
“Try.”
“I’m frightened.”
“Good. If I don’t frighten the enemy, I’m dead.”
The blood drained from her face, and her hands began to shake. “Don’t say that. Don’t ever say that again.”
“Kaylan, I’m sorry. I didn’t think about it.”
He pulled her to him, and she rested her head across his chest, watching the sunrise. She couldn’t help but think about Sarah Beth’s last sunrise. Kaylan had held her, denying and raging against the inevitable. All her tears, screams, and clinging couldn’t keep Sarah Beth from slipping away.
“Your job deals with life or death. What happens if you don’t come home? I can’t handle it, Nick. I can’t lose someone else I care about.”
“Kaylan, neither of us can control that.”
“Don’t do it.”
“Don’t do what? My job? Kaylan, you are very important to me. I would do anything for you, but please don’t ask me to give up what the Lord has called me to do.”
“How do I know you’ll be okay?”
“Yesterday, you prayed that the Lord would help you trust Him. Trust Him with me. Let Him be God, Kayles. Let Him be in control of my days. Besides, I have too much to live for now to be stupid.”
She nodded.
“You want to tell me what the real problem is?”
“Not really.”
“Why don’t you humor me? Pretend I’m your ever-loving boyfriend who wants to calm your fears, if at all possible.”
“You would play that card.”
“Time to accept reality. You said yes yesterday. This is part of the package.”
She pulled away from him and struggled to gather her scrambled thoughts into a coherent sentence. “When you kissed me, something happened that frightens me.”
“Your heart stopped beating, and butterflies fluttered in your stomach? It was that good.”
She shoved him and smiled. “Be serious, Nick.”
“Sorry. You just make me happy.” He leaned in to kiss her again, but she pulled away.
He sighed. “All right, talk to me.”
“I think you’re taking Sarah Beth’s place, and it scares me to death because I don’t want to forget her, and you are becoming all too important to lose, and I don’t know how to handle this.” The words burst from her mouth as she panicked.
His eyes probed her like the machines at the doctor’s office, testing each place for the source of pain. “I could never fill the shoes of that relationship. They are far too big and amazing to fill. This is our own relationship, a piece unique only to the two of us. You won’t lose me, Kayles. I’m not going anywhere. And you won’t forget Sarah Beth either, because I won’t let you.”
Tears filled her eyes, and she realized she’d been holding her breath. “Really?”
“I promise, and I don’t break my promises.”
She settled back against his chest, feeling the weight of the Haitian rubble lift for the first time. “Know what she told me as we were lying there, waiting to be rescued?”
“What?” His voice was low and warm, and the sunrise seemed deeper, richer.
“She told me not to be mad, that God was still good.”
“He is, Kayles. I won’t pretend to understand. When I lost my buddies, it was like a part of me died.” He kissed her head and whispered the words against her hair. “Then you danced into my life.”
She met his eyes, once again feeling at home. Suddenly the pain wasn’t as sharp. “Do you think we give pieces of ourselves to the people in our lives, and that’s what makes it hurt so badly when they’re gone?”
“I think if we are truly investing ourselves in the people around us, we inevitably give them part of who we are, and they give us part of who they are. We swap pieces. It’s one reason we’re always changing, always growing. We’re like puzzles who share pieces and in doing so become more intricate. Better versions of ourselves.”
“I like that image. Sarah Beth’s piece is bright pink and huge with tons of daisies and sunshine. She would have liked that. It’s the gift she gave to me.”
“She gave you an even bigger gift than you realize. She gave you permission to live, guilt-free. God is still good.” He tilted her chin and rested his forehead on hers. “Kayles, she gave you permission to love her and remember her without pain, without shame. She gave you hope. Don’t ever forget it.” He kissed her, slow and long, melting away the ice around pieces of her heart. When she pulled away, the sun rested high in the sky, welcoming a new day, a brighter beginning.
“I wish I could tell her about this.” A tear trickled down her cheek; it was no longer one of sorrow but of sweet remembrance.
“She knows. She would be happy for us.”
Kaylan settled against Nick and felt the once familiar urge to pray. She no longer wanted to fight it, but she still didn’t understand. God still felt distant, as though she had left Him in Haiti, buried with Sarah Beth.
“I wish I could still believe God is good. I have hope for us, but hope for this larger picture, Nick? I don’t get it. Where’s the good? Where’s the hope? Where’s God in all of this mess?”
Nick had been praying for the right words to say all through his restless night. When words hadn’t come, an image had. He pictured Kaylan and him in Haiti, helping to rebuild, revisiting Sarah Beth’s grave, saying good-bye the way he should have allowed her to do before ripping her back to Alabama.
He dreaded her response. He knew she had been contributing to Haiti relief, but that didn’t entail being back in the war zone that had first plummeted her into this depression and pain. Could she handle it? Would she want to? Regardless, she needed to.
Your words, not mine, Lord.
He took a deep breath and shifted Kaylan away from him. “I want to talk to you about something, and I want you to listen and consider before you say anything.”
The faintest hint of distrust colored her eyes, and he wished he’d begun with a more graceful opening.
“The way Micah and I brought you home from Haiti wasn’t right or fair. We were terrified your leg was infected because of how sick you were, but that’s no excuse. I’ve talked to Rhonda and Abraham, and I think you need to go back to Haiti.”
Her face went stony. “You, of all people, should know better than to say that.” She tried to stand, but he caught her arms and held her in place, willing her to look and listen.
“Kayles, I know that place ripped you apart.” He ran his thumb over the small scar above her eye. “I also know how much you loved it, and how much Sarah Beth loved it. I think it would give you perspective to go back, maybe see the hope you are desperately denying. Abe said things are happening, people are changing. I think you need to go see for yourself how God can work wonders in the midst of the rubble of our lives.”
“What if there’s another earthquake? What if more of my friends died? I can’t, Nick, I just can’t. Sarah Beth’s mom already asked me to go, and I’ve thought about, and I don’t think I could bear it.”
“Think about it, babe. Pray about it. I think it would be good for you.”
“I haven’t really prayed in months. Not like I did in the auditorium.”
Nick almost asked her to repeat the whispered words. “Then maybe it’s time to start. You lived for a reason, Kaylan Lee Richards. Don’t waste it. Talk to that God who dug you out of the rubble. There’s your first indication of good in the midst of this. You aren’t finished yet.” He wouldn’t back down on this. She needed to hear. It was time to put things back in order, time to remember the beauty in the midst of brokenness.
“You aren’t going to let this go, are you?”
“I’m nothing if not persistent. And I would never do this if I thought you couldn’t handle it. I really feel like the Lord placed this on my heart before I left, but the time wasn’t right to bring it up. Now it is.”
She gazed at the lake, and Nick prayed, gripping her hands to bring reassurance. She didn’t look at him, but he heard the soft words: “Will you go with me? As soon as you can get another leave?”
He thought of his assignment with Janus. He was headed back to his team in the morning. They would train harder than before because a killer was loose, armed, and deadly, and his team had been given the task of taking her out. He wished he knew when they could go to Haiti, but he didn’t know when new intel would come and he would have to disappear again. Yet he had to figure something out, because to ask her to face her biggest fear and pain was unacceptable unless he was present to help her through it.
“I’ll be there. I won’t let you down.” It was his promise, the promise of a SEAL who never left a teammate behind.
Her hands shook as she nodded, and he prayed she wouldn’t fall apart. He watched her silent struggle and recognized the moment she found her strength. Her shoulders straightened, and her eyes met his, clearer than they’d been in months. “I guess we’re going back to Haiti.”
Some way, somehow, he would be there for her. He prayed that the timing would line up.