Reese was in his car, driving too fast and without a destination. He wanted to get away from the idea of Gabby being with his cousin, but the images in his mind were inescapable.
He’d seen them together with his own eyes, or at least, a picture of them on social media, and Gabby had admitted it was accurate, though she’d explained it away. She’d lied, though, saying she didn’t even like Brock, had never liked him, found him mean.
Not too mean to give yourself to and conceive a child with. If Brock hadn’t had an accident, would he and Gabby be married by now? What had they been arguing about at that party on the night of Brock’s accident? Had Gabby broken the news that she was expecting?
If she’d been carrying Reese’s child, nothing would have given him greater joy. No matter what the circumstances.
But that wasn’t going to happen. Even though, on some level, he’d been fool enough to think about raising a child with her. Something about being around her and the boys, seeing how well she handled them, had planted that seed in his head.
He shook his head but the thoughts wouldn’t quiet. He pushed harder on the accelerator and the tires spun on the icy road.
He forced himself to slow down. He had to be responsible, to stay safe. The boys needed him, even if Gabby didn’t.
His phone buzzed on the seat beside him and he ignored it, but as soon as the call cut off it started buzzing again.
Was it Gabby?
He hated himself for hoping it was.
The car skidded a little again. Clearly he couldn’t drive away from his troubles. He found a safe place to turn around, the empty parking lot of a little machine shop, and grabbed his phone.
Was it Gabby?
She wouldn’t dare. If she called him, he’d block her number.
But it wasn’t Gabby’s number, and the disappointment that slumped his shoulders made him angry. It was his cousin, Paige, and she could wait.
But the call came again, and he sighed and clicked into the call. “Hey, Paige, what’s up?”
“You’ve got to get over here to the house,” she said.
“Paige, I can’t—”
“It’s an emergency. Mom and Dad are going off the rails.” She said something to someone, and there was shouting in the background. “Hurry,” she said, and ended the call.
His aunt and uncle going off the rails about this or that was nothing new. But it wasn’t as if he had anything else to do. For better or worse, his aunt and uncle and Paige were his family, and he’d moved back here in part to be there for them. He put the car into gear, tamped down all the hurt and anger inside him and drove back toward town.
Gabby clicked out of her phone call and quickly recounted to Nana what Paige had told her.
“Go, go, I’ll take care of the baby.” Nana took Izzy in her arms and waved Gabby toward the door. “Go help your brother.” She sat down heavily in her old recliner and rocked, clicking her tongue at Izzy, whose cries grew quieter.
“I don’t like leaving you alone here when you’re so tired.” And sick. And old looking. Nana’s face seemed to sag, and she let out a racking cough, turning her face away from Izzy.
The news that Jacob was in trouble had hit her harder than she was letting on, and Gabby was torn. Which one needed her help more?
She sent a quick text to Hannah, who instantly agreed to come over and sit with Nana until Gabby could get back.
“You’d better go.” Nana’s eyes watered a little, which shocked Gabby, because she’d seen Nana cry only once or twice. “I’d go myself, but I can’t drive at night. I need for you to take care of this.”
“I will.” Even though the Markowskis’ mansion was the last place on earth she wanted to be.
Oh, Jacob, what have you done?
When she pulled up in front of the house, the harassed-looking police officer looked relieved. “Are you his legal guardian?”
“I’m his sister.” She walked over to Jacob, in handcuffs beside the officer, and put her arm around his shoulder. “What did he do that you have to restrain him like this? He’s a juvenile.”
“He tried to run away from us, ma’am.” The officer turned to the Markowskis, who were standing shoulder to shoulder on the front walk of their home, faces drawn tight. “Since it’s cold out and the perpetrator is a juvenile and restrained, we might be more comfortable if I take everyone’s statements inside.”
The last thing Gabby wanted was to walk into the Markowski home, where she hadn’t been since a couple of short visits when she was a teenager. She still thought of it as Brock’s home.
But Jacob was shivering, and so was Mrs. Markowski, despite her fur-collared coat.
“Come in, Mom, Dad! It’s freezing out here!” Only then did Gabby realize that Paige was standing on the porch behind her parents, arms wrapped around herself, shivering.
Mr. Markowski put a hand on each of his wife’s shoulders and turned her around. “Come on, Catherine. We’ll sit in the living room and give our statements. And you—” he pointed at Paige “—you don’t need to be here. You go to your room.”
“He needs an advocate!” Paige protested. “He didn’t really do anything and you’re making it sound like he’s a criminal!”
Relief washed over Gabby. If Paige didn’t think whatever Jacob had done was serious, it probably wasn’t.
“I’d rather not have either of those two in my home.” Mrs. Markowski waved a dismissive hand at Jacob and Gabby, as if they were dirt.
Gabby squeezed Jacob’s shoulder tighter and they followed the police officer inside.
They bypassed the elegant living room and trooped into the den, where Gabby sat down beside Jacob on the sofa when directed to do so by Mrs. Markowski. Mr. and Mrs. Markowski sat in a pair of leather chairs, and the police officer took out his tablet and sat on the ottoman. The Markowskis gave their indignant statements—they’d come home from church to discover their expensive lawn decorations knocked over and Jacob in the process of ripping down the lights from their bushes, lights that had taken their gardener hours to put up.
Gabby stayed close to Jacob. “When it’s your turn, tell the truth,” she said quietly.
“She’s coaching him!” Mrs. Markowski objected.
The police officer ran a hand over his face. “Let’s just get the basic facts down for now,” he said. “Young man, let me hear what happened from you. And your sister’s right—tell the truth.”
Jacob tonelessly described what he’d done, refusing to give a reason for it, and Gabby looked around the room to avoid the Markowskis’ mean, accusatory eyes.
When she saw the built-in bookshelf, her heart rate increased along with her breathing.
It was everything Brock. His football jersey, framed. A shelf full of trophies. Worst of all, his senior picture, enlarged and lit with a small lamp beneath the frame.
He seemed to be sneering down at her. She could almost hear his voice: “You’re worthless. No one will believe you. You’re trash like your mother, your whole family.”
All the things he’d said before and during the assault seemed to ring in her ears, things she’d pushed out of her consciousness. A wave of nausea washed through her, and she hunched over, arms wrapped around herself.
Here she was in Brock’s fancy living room, listening to her brother admit to committing a crime.
Breathe. You can live through this, she reminded herself. You’ve lived through something much harder. Breathe.
It can’t get any worse.
She drew in a deep breath, let it out slowly, drew in another. The nausea started to recede.
Then the door opened and Reese walked in.
Reese looked at the tableau before him and felt like turning right around and walking back into the night. Why hadn’t he kept driving?
Did he really have to deal with Gabby again tonight?
But the ashamed, miserable look in Jacob’s eyes, the slump of the boy’s shoulders, told him that, yes, he had to stay. Had to stay right here in his cousin’s house with the woman who’d chosen his cousin over him, and conceived a child with him.
He had to stay because he remembered being just like Jacob, thought of as a criminal, assumed to be the bad guy.
“What’s going on?” he asked wearily, avoiding Gabby’s eyes.
His aunt and uncle chimed in with descriptions of the boy’s horrible crime of defacing their expensive Christmas decorations.
The police officer stood. “I think we have all the information,” he said, cutting off the rant. “It’s up to you whether to press charges.”
“Don’t press charges,” Reese said automatically. “I’m sure Jacob can do something to pay for the damage.”
“Yes, of course. We can pay for the damage, and Jacob will work until he’s repaid the money,” Gabby said. There was only a slight tremor in her voice, and Reese figured he knew why: there went her Christmas funds.
But he didn’t need to be feeling sorry for her, not after the betrayer she’d shown herself to be.
“We most certainly are pressing charges,” Aunt Catherine said.
Reese looked at his uncle and saw a little more reason there. “Does it have to be decided tonight? Why don’t you wait and sleep on it. I can help put the decorations back up.”
“Not much going to happen between now and Christmas,” the officer contributed. “I can release him to his sister’s care, but that makes you, ma’am, responsible for keeping him out of trouble until we can get this sorted out.”
“He’ll stay out of trouble.” She nudged Jacob. “Do you have anything you want to say to the Markowskis?”
Reese wanted to warn her that Jacob was in no mind-set to apologize—again, speaking from experience—but to his surprise, Jacob lifted his chin. “I’m sorry I messed up your decorations. I’ll pay you back.”
“Good man,” Reese said, still not looking at Gabby.
“He’ll lie to get what he wants,” Uncle Clive said.
“You’re free to go, ma’am,” the officer said. “We’ll be in touch right after the twenty-fifth.”
“Thank you.” She turned and led Jacob out.
The look she gave Reese as she passed was pure misery. But it didn’t move him, no way.
He wasn’t surprised his uncle thought Jacob was a liar. The whole family were liars. He stepped back and didn’t speak as they walked out the door.
Gabby didn’t have the heart to lecture Jacob on the way home. She was too busy trying not to weep.
Being in the Markowski home and seeing the pictures of Brock—a memorial set up to him, as if he’d been some kind of hero—made her almost physically ill. But it also brought home the fact that the whole family wanted and needed to believe the best of their lost son. Understandable, and what harm did it do, when Brock wasn’t alive to assault any other women?
They pulled up outside Nana’s house, and Gabby turned off the car and sat. Jacob didn’t make a move to go in, either.
As the big sister, she ought to have wise words. But what came out was “You okay?”
He turned his head to look at her. “Sure.”
The single word was obviously untrue. “Tough being from a family known for bad things, isn’t it? Kind of makes you want to live up to the rumors.”
“Yeah.” He looked sideways at her. “Who’s Izzy’s father, really?”
Gabby closed her eyes. “I can’t say.”
“Sure.” He shrugged, opened the car door and headed through the biting snowfall toward the house.
Her arms and legs felt too heavy to move, but she forced them to. Nana was inside with Izzy, and she had to be tired. Gabby couldn’t ignore her responsibilities.
When she got inside, though, Izzy was asleep in her crib in Gabby’s room. Nana was ushering Jacob into his room, talking to him in a low voice, and Hannah had apparently gone home. So Gabby was free to go to bed herself.
She did, and then the tears came.
No way could she work with Reese anymore, so she was out of a job. She didn’t want to get Jacob in even more trouble by involving his father, asking him for money. That meant she had to front Jacob the money to pay back the Markowskis, so there went any money she could’ve spent to make a nice Christmas for Izzy, as well as for Nana and Jacob.
She heard Nana walk slowly down the hall to her bedroom, coughing, the same horrible cough she’d had when Gabby had first arrived. So she was back to where she’d been.
Gabby hadn’t done any good at all since she’d arrived. She’d only made things worse. She looked at Izzy sleeping in her crib and, for once, let herself remember dark days before and right after she’d been born. The misery of the pregnancy, all alone, dodging people’s questions. Giving birth in a clinic without anyone there to hold her hand, not having a clue as to how she was going to manage.
If it hadn’t been for a wonderful Christian halfway house, she could very well have ended up on the streets.
Only when there was a light tap on the door did Gabby realize that tears were streaming down her cheeks.
“May I come in, dear?” Nana asked.
She grabbed for tissues. “Just a minute.” She wiped her eyes and blew her nose and went to the door, but the sight of her grandmother’s kind, concerned face made the tears come again. “I’m sorry,” she said, not wanting to add more stress to Nana’s worries. Jacob’s problems were enough to contend with. “Just an emotional day. I’ll be fine.”
“Of course you will, dear,” Nana said. “But sometimes, it helps to talk about what’s bothering you. That’s what I’m here for.”
Gabby felt a great longing to share with Nana what had happened all those years ago. To confide in someone who wasn’t a trained counselor but a family member who cared about her. To share the pain and humiliation and be reassured that she was still all right, still loved.
“What is it, honey?” Nana took her hand and sat down beside her on the bed.
“Oh, Nana.” She sighed. “You don’t want to know.”
“I do want to know. What’s bothering you so much? Jacob got in a little trouble, but we’ll manage it.”
“It’s not that.”
Nana lifted an eyebrow and watched her steadily.
“Do you remember...” she began, then faltered.
“Remember what?”
“Do you remember, after Reese left...I went to a party?”
Nana frowned. “You went to a lot of parties over the years.”
“This one was with...with Brock.” She swallowed.
“Oh, yes, that I do remember. You were going to do a video call with Reese. Come to think of it, I don’t remember if you ever got through or not.”
“We didn’t.” She drew in her breath with a gasping, sobbing sound.
Nana gripped her hand tighter. “Tell me what happened.”
She blew out a breath, sucked in another. “Brock took me into one of the bedrooms. So we could have quiet, to talk to Reese. That’s what he said.”
Nana’s eyebrows drew together. “Go on.”
“Only we didn’t talk to Reese. Instead, he...” She bit her lip and looked off to the side. “He raped me, Nana.”
A strangled sound came from Nana’s chest, and then she pulled Gabby to her and held her tightly. “Oh, my poor girl. My poor, poor girl.”
The sympathetic words and the warm embrace loosened what was left of Gabby’s tears.
Nana let her cry, rocking her back and forth. “And that’s how Izzy came to be.”
Gabby nodded.
“Did anyone know?” she asked when the tears slowed down.
Gabby shook her head. “He said no one would believe me. I fought him, Nana. And though I couldn’t keep him from doing what he did, I screamed at him afterward. I was as angry as I was scared. But that was the night—”
“The night he wrecked his car and died.” Nana’s words sounded heavy. “Oh, my dear. I am so very sorry.”
“And Reese,” she choked out. “Reese just realized tonight...someone just told him...that Izzy looks like Brock. So he came and accused me of cheating on him with his cousin. I don’t know what to do.”
Nana pulled away enough to stare at Gabby. “He’s throwing stones without knowing the circumstances.” Two high red spots colored her cheeks. “I’d like to give that boy a piece of my mind.”
“Don’t tell him, Nana,” Gabby said, alarmed at her grandmother’s obvious high emotions. Nana didn’t need any more stress. “It’s okay. All’s well that ends well. I have Izzy. We have Izzy. And if Reese is that narrow-minded and judgmental, well, I guess I don’t want him.” She made her words firm, almost firm enough to convince herself. Not quite, but almost.
“I want you to rest,” Nana said to her. “You’ve had a hard night and spilled a lot of emotion. You just sleep in here with your baby and don’t think one thought about men, all right?”
A smile creased Gabby’s face. She was in her twenties and a mother, but being cared for by Nana still felt good.
Nana helped her lie down and pulled the covers up under her chin. “You just rest, dear. Everything is going to be all right.”
It wasn’t. Her heart wasn’t going to be all right, not quite, not ever. But Gabby nodded and let her grandmother think she’d made it all better, just like when Gabby was small.
Reese arrived at the church early for Christmas Eve services, mysteriously directed to do so by Gabby’s grandmother.
He just hoped she wasn’t trying to set up a ridiculous reconciliation. It was the kind of thing she’d do—like how she’d as much as forced him to hire Gabby. And look how that had turned out.
If she brought Gabby in and tried to get them together, he’d be hard-pressed to be polite.
But when he arrived in the little church parlor to find Nana there all alone, his heart sank and he realized: some part of him had hoped to find a way things could be repaired with Gabby.
He was a fool.
Nana didn’t smile. “Sit down,” she said, gesturing at a chair set up to face her.
He felt like he was at a tribunal, especially with the religious paintings surrounding them, the smell of candles, the dim light.
“I understand you’re angry at Gabby.” Her words were tight, clipped.
“Well...yes. Yes, I am. But that’s between us.”
“The two of you are making a botch of it! Now listen.” The old woman leaned forward. “Love is too wonderful and rare to waste on a misunderstanding.”
She was making him sound petty. Feel petty. “Lying and deception are more than a misunderstanding.”
“So is being judgmental,” she said severely. “I take it your hostility has to do with Izzy’s father?”
He didn’t want to admit to it, but he couldn’t deny those clear, uncompromising eyes.
“You’re angry because you think it’s your cousin, Brock.”
He blew out a breath, leaned forward and propped his cheek on his clenched fists, nodding. “Yeah.”
Then he waited for her to deny it. Hoped she would. Hoped Marla’s information had been wrong.
“Well. I learned last night that you’re right.” Nana lifted her chin. “Your cousin Brock was Izzy’s biological father.”
Rage and despair propelled him out of his chair. “Is that what you wanted to tell me?” He got so far as turning toward the door before his manners turned him around. “Is that all?”
“Sit down,” she ordered.
He should have kept walking. He definitely didn’t want to listen. But you treated your elders with respect, so he sat back down.
“How well did you know your cousin?”
He shrugged. “Pretty well. We grew up together, from the time I was twelve.”
“How would you describe his personality?”
He shrugged again. “Athletic. Well liked.”
She actually rolled her eyes at him. “Not on the surface. I mean his inner self.”
Reese thought about his cousin, and the words that came out were “Entitled and mean.”
Nana nodded. “That was my impression, too.”
They sat a moment in silence. Reese looked at his knees, thinking of his cousin. Tragic that he’d died, of course, and it had broken his aunt’s heart. But there was no personal sense of loss inside of Reese. He’d stopped trusting his cousin within six months of living with him, if he’d ever even started. He’d kept the peace, played on sports teams with him, listened to his exploits and complaints. But he had to admit he’d never liked Brock. Never trusted him.
Which made it sting all the more that Gabby had chosen to give Brock what she wouldn’t give to him. What they’d agreed to wait for, before sharing with only each other.
He looked up to find Nana watching him. “Does Brock seem like the kind of man Gabby would choose?”
The question stopped his racing thoughts cold. Slowly, he shook his head. “No. He doesn’t. That’s why it’s so crazy that—” He broke off because Nana was pushing herself up out of her chair, and he hurried to help her.
“You’re right,” she said once she was steady on her feet. “He isn’t the type of man Gabby would choose.”
Her words circled in his head as she walked toward the parlor door. “Wait, Nana. What did you just tell me?”
“Think it through, Reese. Think of the times when choice is taken away from a woman. Ever heard of that?”
He had, of course, but... “I don’t get it.”
“She would never have chosen Brock,” Nana said patiently. “But what if she didn’t have a choice?”
“If she didn’t have a...” He trailed off, because the only reason Gabby wouldn’t have had a choice about Brock as the parent of her child was if... He looked into those clear eyes. “He didn’t...force her...did he?”
She just gave him another steady look and then walked slowly out of the room.
Minutes later he was striding through the church. If he’d been angry before, now he was furious, outraged...for Gabby, not at her. He had to find her, to tell her he understood, that he’d been wrong.
There she was, among the crowd of people starting to file into the sanctuary. He approached her, put a hand on her shoulder. “Gabby, wait.”
She turned. Izzy was in her arms, and Gabby was wearing a red dress he remembered her wearing in high school. And dignity, wrapped around her like a cloak. “I don’t want to talk to you,” she said, and walked into the church.
He couldn’t stop her, couldn’t force her to listen to him. She’d been forced enough and had survived on her own incredible strength.
His mind kept circling around the truth Nana had shown to him, a truth that immediately felt accurate.
Of course Gabby wouldn’t choose Brock. She’d never liked him.
And Brock... Gabby wasn’t exactly his type, but he’d always felt entitled to take whatever he had a momentary whim for.
Reese didn’t live in a hole; he knew how many women had faced harassment or worse. Stories were everywhere in the media, which had to mean there were ten times as many stories that hadn’t been publicly told.
He’d never even considered the fact that Gabby’s story could be one of them.
How could he let her know he was sorry for misjudging her? How could he make it up to her? What was he going to do?
He couldn’t face sitting alone through the church service nor standing out here schmoozing with merry parishioners over hot chocolate and Christmas cookies. He ducked into the church’s tiny, empty chapel and let the door close behind him.
He sank down into a back pew and let his head drop into his hands. At his wits’ end, full of shame for the wrong he’d done Gabby, and anger at the wrong that had been done to her, he lifted an inarticulate prayer to God.
He didn’t expect any answers. He’d acted like scum, didn’t deserve direction from God. After long, contrite moments, he opened his eyes, leaned back and looked around the little chapel.
What caught his eye immediately was a banner.
To know the love of Christ, which passes knowledge, that you might be filled with all the fullness of God. Ephesians 3:19.
He knew that. Knew he was loved, because God loved everyone.
Except...it had always seemed like God loved some people better than others. He’d always thought Brock was better, more loved, because that was how it had been in his aunt’s home.
But his conversation with Nana had made him think.
Brock wasn’t better. Of course not. He was a blustering, mean-spirited bully who had done the worst thing possible to Gabby. Even now, Reese’s blood boiled at the thought of it, and he pounded his fist on the back of the pew.
There was nothing he could do to exact revenge, but he sure wanted to.
Sitting a little longer in the chapel, though, he remembered that vengeance belonged to the Lord.
Of course. Brock had gone to meet his maker immediately after the horrible thing he’d done. Reese had made plenty of mistakes in his own life, had sometimes dreaded having to defend his life before God, but he’d done nothing on the scale of what Brock had done. He had to figure that God knew how to take care of that.
Probably the worst thing Reese had done, now, was to mistrust Gabby and say mean things to her. He prayed about that, asked for forgiveness.
Knew he could be forgiven by God, already was.
Gabby, though...that was another question. She saw into people’s hearts.
So making sure his heart was right—that was the important thing.
He sat staring at that banner, read it again.
To know the love of Christ, which passes knowledge, that you might be filled with all the fullness of God. Ephesians 3:19.
He knew the love of God, in his head at least, but did he really know it in his heart? Was he filled with the fullness of God?
He had to admit the truth: not really. Some of the time, maybe, but not all the time. Not enough to make him good at dealing with life’s challenges and blows.
He had the feeling, though, that Gabby truly knew that love. Otherwise, how could she deal with what had happened to her? His stomach twisted at the very notion.
How could she raise Brock’s child, but by an exceptional gift of grace from God?
He sat praying for some of that kind of love and grace to fill him, too, until the heightened music let him know the service had ended. Then he went to Gabby’s car to wait for her.
When Gabby emerged from the church into snowflakes that looked as big as saucers, Izzy lifted her face, felt them and blinked, looking startled. Then she laughed and tried to catch them.
Gabby stepped back to take Nana’s arm, intending to give her a little extra support on the slippery sidewalk, but Nana was talking to Mr. Romano. They were arguing, of course, but amicably for once.
After Mr. Romano’s family came and swarmed around him, Gabby took Nana’s arm and walked with her to the car.
At which point she saw Reese leaning against it, arms crossed, legs planted wide. He looked like a movie star to her, and her heart turned over.
He might be handsome, but it was how a man treated you that mattered. She stopped, clutching Izzy a little tighter. “What do you want?”
“I’m still hoping to talk to you,” he said.
Nana looked over at Gabby, her grip tightening. “I can take Izzy home, if Reese can bring you. If you want to talk to him, that is.”
She frowned and shook her head. “I don’t think so.”
Reese took a step toward her. “Gabby, I’m so sorry for not delving into the real story of what happened...” He broke off, took a breath. “What happened with Brock.”
Gabby narrowed her eyes at Nana. “You told him!”
“I just put a few facts into his mind. He figured out most of it himself,” Nana said complacently.
She studied Reese. His eyes were sympathetic, sure. But something still didn’t feel right about all of this. Gabby needed to listen to her own truth, not anyone else’s. “Reese,” she said, “I’ll think about forgiving you. I appreciate your apology. But honestly, I’ve heard sweet words from you before, and they were quick to change once something else happened that made you think badly of me.” She shook her head slowly. “Words are cheap. They’re not enough.” She sidled past him to open the car door, snapped Izzy into her car seat and then helped Nana into the passenger seat.
She got into the driver’s seat. Carefully, she eased the car out of its parking space and drove away from the man she loved with all her heart.