Hearing Jacob say he’d killed her brother out loud tore open the healing wound. A band about Hannah’s chest squeezed tight, whooshing the air from her lungs. Her mind raced back twenty-one years to the day she’d been told Kevin died in a car wreck. She heard her mother’s screams then her cries all over again.
“I’ve shocked you, Hannah. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything but...” He looked away, his jaw locked in a hard line.
His apology pulled her back to the present. She managed to shut down all memories and focus on Jacob next to her on the couch. “But what?” There was no force behind the words, and for a few seconds she wondered if he even was aware she had spoken.
When his gaze swept back to hers, the anguish in his was palpable, as if it were a physical thing she could touch. “Over the past month we’ve been getting closer. We’ve spent a lot of time together.” His eyelids slid halfway closed, shielding some of his turmoil from her. “I’m not sure where this...relationship is going, but I felt you needed to know.”
“What happened?” She knew one side of the story, if she could even call it that. She needed to hear his side.
“It happened twenty-one years ago, but I’ll never forget that day. Ever.” He reestablished eye contact with her, a bleakness in his expression now. “Kevin borrowed his parents’ car one night, and we went riding. We were bored, and he wanted to practice driving. Because we were fourteen, we drove in the country so no one would catch us. After he drove for a while, he let me get behind the wheel and try my hand. Everything was going along fine until...” Jacob pressed his lips together and closed his eyes.
“Until?” Hannah covered his hand with hers, his cold fingers mirroring hers.
Sucking in a deep breath, he looked directly at her and said, “Until I lost control of the car when it hit a patch of black ice. My friend didn’t put on his seat belt when we changed places, and he was thrown from the car.”
Her own pain jammed her throat like a fist. It was an effort even to swallow. “What happened to you?” She’d known little about what injuries he had sustained in the wreck.
“I had a concussion, some cuts and bruises, but otherwise I was okay—physically. But after that night, nothing was the same for me. At the time I didn’t believe in the Lord and had nowhere to turn.” Leaning forward, he propped his elbows on his knees and buried his face in his palms.
Her heartbeat roared in her ears. She reached out to lay a quivering hand on his hunched back, stopped midway there and withdrew it. Words evaded her because she was trying to imagine dealing with something like that alone, without the Lord. He’d only been fourteen. A maelstrom of emotions must have overwhelmed him.
“How long before you went to the Hendersons to live?”
He scrubbed his hands down his face. “Too long. A year.”
All the agony of that year was wrapped up in his reply. This time she touched him.
“I still have nightmares about the accident.”
Her heart plummeted. All these years she had thought she and her family had been the only ones who had suffered. She’d been wrong—very wrong. “It was an accident, Jacob.”
“Do you know one of the reasons I wanted to be a doctor? Kevin did. That’s all he’d talked about.”
Beneath her palm she felt him quake.
“I became a doctor. I tried to make up for my mistake, but there’s always a part of me that remembers I took a life.” Another tremor passed through his body. “I’ll never forget Kevin’s mother at the hospital. If I could have traded places with him, I would have.”
Tell him who you are, Hannah thought. No! I can’t add to his pain. Not now.
“I’m so sorry, Jacob. So sorry.”
He shoved to his feet. “I’m not the one to feel sorry for. I survived.”
His rising tone didn’t match the despair on his face. “Yes, you survived. I thank God that at least one of you did. Your death would have deprived these children of a wonderful, caring doctor.”
“You don’t understand.” Jacob flexed his hands at his sides. “These past few weeks with you I’ve been truly happy for the first time in my life. I don’t deserve to be.”
She rose. “Why not? How will you living a miserable life change the outcome of the wreck?”
He started to say something but snapped his mouth closed and stared off into space.
“Why are you telling me this now?”
“I thought we could date, get to know each other better, but I don’t think we should now.”
“Because you are happy with me?”
“Yes! These past two days getting the cottage ready for the holidays has shown me what Christmas can be like, what it would be like to have a family.”
“How long do you have to suffer before it’s enough?”
He plowed his hand through his hair, the tic in his jaw twitching.
“When will it be enough?”
“I don’t know,” Jacob shouted, then spun around on his heel and stalked to the front door. She sank down on the couch, her whole body shaking with the storm of emotions that had swept through the room. She couldn’t forget that Jacob had opened his heart to her. She had to do the same. She would pray for guidance and tell him tomorrow after church.
Hannah stood at the window, watching Jacob help Terry, Gabe and Andy build a manger for the play. The sound of laughter and hammering pounded at her resolve to find some time to be alone with Jacob and tell him who she was. He’d avoided her after church, and by the time she’d gathered all the children together, he was gone. Even when he’d come an hour ago, he’d spent little time with her, as if he’d regretted sharing something so personal with her the night before.
He lived in a self-made prison, and she was determined to free him. This was why the Lord had brought her to Cimarron City, to Stone’s Refuge—to heal Jacob, a good man who had made a mistake when he was a teen.
His eyes crinkling in laughter, Jacob tousled Andy’s hair. The boy giggled then launched himself at Jacob, throwing his arms around his middle. The scene brought tears to Hannah. The only time today she’d seen him relax and let down his guard was with the children.
Hannah pivoted away from the window and froze when she saw Nancy in the middle of the room, watching her with her thumb in her mouth and her doll cradled against her chest. Hannah quickly swiped away her tears. “Hi, Nancy. Have you got your costume finished for the play?”
The little girl shook her head, plucking her thumb from her mouth. “Susie said she heard you talking to Meg about visiting my mother. Susie thinks you want to get me together with her like you did Andy and his mother.” Terror inched into the child’s expression. “Is Mommy coming to get me?”
“No, honey.”
Nancy heaved a sigh. “Good. She isn’t nice like ya and Andy’s mother.” The little girl held up her doll. “Can we use Annie for baby Jesus?”
“Yes,” Hannah murmured, relieved to see the child’s terror gone from her eyes.
The child beamed. “I told Annie she could be. No one will know she’s a girl.”
“We’ll wrap Annie in swaddling and all that will show is her face. She’ll fit perfectly in the manger.” Hannah gestured toward the boys in the court finishing up with the cradle.
“I’m gonna try Annie in it.” Nancy raced toward the sliding-glass door that led outside.
“Hannah!”
Out of the corner of her eye she noticed Nancy carefully lay her doll into the manger. At the sound of her name being shouted again, she turned from the window as Susie came into the living room.
“I can’t get this to work.” The girl dropped her arms and the white sheet slid off one shoulder. “Can you help me with my costume?”
“Sure. This won’t be hard to fix.” Whereas she wasn’t sure about her relationship with Jacob.
“Jacob, you aren’t going to stay for dinner?” Hannah moved out onto the porch that evening and closed the front door behind her so the children couldn’t listen.
He stopped on the top step and faced her. “It’s been a long day. I have a busy week ahead of me.”
He’d made sure they hadn’t had a minute alone to talk. She wasn’t going to let him flee, not after working up her courage to tell him everything so there were no secrets between them. “I need to talk to you.”
He stiffened. “Can we another time?”
“No.”
He glanced around him as though searching for a way to escape. When he directed his gaze back to her, resignation registered on his face but he remained silent.
She pointed toward the porch swing. “Let’s sit down.”
He strode to it and settled at one end. Hannah sank down next to him. He tensed.
“This is about what I told you last night.”
The monotone inflection of his voice chilled her. She hugged her arms to her and shored up her determination. “Yes.”
She tried to remember what she had planned to say, but suddenly there was nothing in her mind except a panicky feeling she was wrong, that she should remain quiet. That she would only add to his pain.
“I understand if you don’t want to see me.”
“Is that why you told me?” She twisted toward him so she could look into his eyes. With night quickly approaching it was becoming harder to read his expression.
“I—I’m not sure what you mean.”
“It’s simple. Did you tell me about your past to drive me away?”
“You have a right to know.”
“Why?” A long moment of silence eroded her resolve.
She started to say he didn’t have to answer her when he said, “Because I’m falling in love with you and...”
His declaration sent her heartbeat galloping. “And?”
“Isn’t that enough?” He bolted to his feet and took a step forward.
She grabbed his hand and held him still. “Don’t leave after telling me that.”
He whirled around, shaking loose her hold. “Don’t you see, Hannah? I carry a lot of baggage. That’s why I don’t think it’s a good idea for us to become involved.”
She tried to look into his eyes, but the shadows shaded them. “We all do. Please sit.”
“I can’t ask someone to share that.”
“Why not? It’s in the past. Over twenty years ago.”
“I’ve tried to forget. I can’t. I’ll never be able to.”
“Forget or forgive?” She stood, cutting the space between them.
“Both! My carelessness led to another’s death. That may be easy for someone else to dismiss, but not me.”
She desperately wanted to take him into her arms and hold him until she could erase all memories of that night twenty-one years ago—from both their memories. But the tension flowing off him was as effective as a high, foot-thick wall—insurmountable and impregnable.
“Earlier you said you’re falling in love with me. That’s how I feel about you.”
“How—”
She placed her fingers over his mouth to still his words. “No, let me finish.”
The tension continued to vibrate between them, but he nodded.
She lowered her hand and took hold of his. There was no easy way to say this to him. “I need to tell you who I am. Before I married, my maiden name was Collins. I was Kevin’s little sister.”
Several heartbeats hammered against her chest before Jacob reacted to her news. He yanked his hand from hers and scrambled back, shaking his head. “You can’t be.”
“I am. I was eight when Kevin died in the car wreck. My parents split not long after the accident and Mom and I moved away. Actually we spent many years running away.”
“What kind of game are you playing?”
“I’m not playing a game.”
“I killed your brother! Why are you even talking to me?”
The fierce sound of the whispered words blasted her as if he had shouted them. “I’m not going to kid you. For many years I blamed you for taking my big brother away from me. I hated you.”
His harsh laugh echoed through the quiet. “And now you don’t hate me.” Disbelief resonated through his voice.
“No, I don’t. I didn’t lie when I told you I was falling in love with you.”
“Please don’t. I don’t want to be responsible for you betraying your family on top of everything else.”
“I’m not betraying them.”
“I’ll never be able to forget your mother yelling at me that I had destroyed her life. I dream about that.”
“This isn’t about my mother. This is about you and me.”
“There is no you and me. I...” He took another step back until he bumped into the railing post.
She quickly covered the short distance, planting herself so he couldn’t easily leave. “If that’s how you feel, so be it. But I wanted you to realize how I feel.”
“I know. Now I need to go.” He started to push past her.
She moved into his path. “No, you don’t know it all. And the least you can do for me is to listen until I’m through.”
He inhaled a deep breath.
She felt the glare of his eyes boring into her although darkness now cloaked the porch totally. “When I came back to Cimarron City, I discovered you were still living here and a doctor. At first I didn’t realize you were the pediatrician for Stone’s Refuge, but when I discovered that, I considered leaving. I didn’t see how I could work with the man who killed my brother.”
“It does seem unbelievable.” Sarcasm inched into his voice as he tried to distance himself as much as she allowed.
“Have you forgotten what Christ has taught us? To forgive those who trespass against us?”
“Yeah, but—”
“But, nothing.” She gripped his arms. “I have forgiven you for what happened to Kevin. It was an accident.”
His muscles beneath her palms bunched.
“You’re a good man who deserves to really live his life. You’ve paid dearly over the years for the wreck. Don’t you think it’s time you stop beating yourself up over it?”
“Because you say so?”
She thrust her face close to his. “Yes!”
For a long moment tension continued to pour off him, then as if he had shut down his emotions, he closed himself off. “Is that all?”
All! She nodded, her heart climbing up into her throat.
“May I leave now?”
“Yes.” She backed away from him.
It didn’t matter to him that she had forgiven him. He couldn’t forgive himself.
The sound of his footfalls crossing the porch bombarded her. This was the end.
She couldn’t let him walk away without trying one more time to make him understand. “Jacob.”
He kept walking toward his vehicle.
“Jacob, stop!”
He halted, his hand about to open the car door. The stiff barrier of his stance proclaimed it was useless for her to say anything. He wouldn’t really hear.
She had to try anyway.
Hannah hurried toward him, praying he didn’t change his mind and leave. She positioned herself next to him, hoping he would look at her.
He stared over the roof of the car into the distance. The lamplight that illuminated the sidewalk to the house cast a golden glow over them. She could make out the firm set to his jaw and the hard line of his mouth slashing downward.
“When I realized I’d finally forgiven you for what had happened to Kevin, I was free for the first time in twenty-one years. That’s what forgiveness can do for you. Let it go.”
He cocked his head to the side. “And just when did you decide to forgive me?”
“It wasn’t a sudden revelation. But I knew when you took care of me and the children during the strep outbreak.”
“And all the time before that?”
“I was fighting my growing feelings for you.”
“And you lost.”
“I don’t look at it as losing. I want to see where our relationship can lead.”
“Nowhere, Hannah. Nowhere. So why waste our time?” He wrenched open the door and climbed inside his car.
A few seconds later the engine roared to life, and Jacob sped away. As the taillights disappeared from view, she vowed she wouldn’t give up on him.
Hannah leaned against the wall in the back of the rec room at the nursing home as the children began their play about the birth of Jesus. She scanned the crowd one more time, hoping she had overlooked Jacob, but he was nowhere in the audience. Her gaze fell upon Lisa in the front row with Cathy and she was glad that at least Andy had his mother at the play. But no Jacob, although he had promised the kids he would be at their production, via a phone call to Terry. Jacob hadn’t been at the house in a week. He was avoiding her. She didn’t need it written in the sky to know what Jacob was doing. She’d even thought briefly—very briefly—that maybe one of the children would get sick and she would have to take them to see Dr. Jacob.
Not having dated much, she wasn’t sure what to do now. She missed him terribly. She hadn’t realized how much until day three and she had reached for the phone at least ten times to call him. She hadn’t, but the desire to had been so strong she had shaken with it.
Laura slid into place next to her and whispered, “He’ll be here. He doesn’t break a promise to the kids.”
“There’s always a first time.” Hannah checked her watch for the hundredth time. “He has one minute before Susie and Terry appear as Mary and Joseph.”
No sooner had she said Joseph than Jacob slipped into the room and eased into a chair in the back row at the other end of the room from where she was. Hannah straightened, folding her arms across her body.
Laura turned her head slightly toward her and cupped her hand over her mouth. “I told you he would be here.”
“Shh. The play is about to start. I don’t want to miss a word of it.”
“Who are you kidding? You’ve heard the lines until I’m sure you can recite every one of them.”
Hannah really tried to follow the children as they reenacted the story of the birth of Christ, but she continually found herself drawn back to Jacob, his strong profile a lure she couldn’t resist. She came out of her trance when one of the lambs escaped and charged down the aisle toward the door by Jacob, baaing the whole way. The play stopped, and everyone twisted around in his seat to follow the animal’s flight. Dressed in a gray suit, Jacob sprang to his feet and blocked its path to freedom, tackling it to the floor, its loud bleating echoing through the room.
“Got her.” Jacob struggled to stand with the squirming animal fighting the cage of his arms.
As though the first lamb had signaled a mass bolt for all the animals, the other one broke free, probably because the young boy holding him had let go. Then the two dogs, portraying donkeys, up until this point perfectly content to sit by their handlers, chased after the second sheep. Kids scattered in pursuit of their fleeing pets.
Shocked at how quickly everything had fallen apart, Hannah watched the pandemonium unfold, rooted to her spot in the back along the wall. Then out of the corner of her eye, she saw a dog dart past her. She dived toward the mixed breed and captured it. Thankfully the mutt was more cooperative than Jacob’s lamb. Taking the large dog by his collar, she led it back to the front where Peter was trying to bring some kind of order to the chaos.
Sprinkles of laughter erupted from the audience until all the elders joined in. One woman with fuzzy gray hair in the front row laughed so hard tears were running down her rouged cheeks, streaking her makeup.
“I think the show is over,” Hannah said, clipping a leash on the dog she had.
“At least they were near the end.” Jacob put his lamb down but held the rope tightly. “I’m not tackling this one again.”
Hannah gave Jacob the leash then held up her hands to try and quiet the audience while Peter, Laura and Meg gathered the rest of the animals and the kids. Several times she attempted to say, “If everyone will quiet down,” but that was as far as she got because no one was listening.
“Remember laughter is the best medicine.” Jacob struggled to keep the lamb next to him.
Five minutes later only after Hannah whistled, the last strains of laughter died but whispering among the residents and children began to build. She quickly said, “There are refreshments in the lobby. The children made them.”
The word refreshments sparked the interest of several elders in the front, and they started moving toward the exit.
Slowly the rec room emptied with Laura and Meg taking the children who were serving the food.
Peter took one of the lambs and headed for the door. “I’ll be back for the others.”
That left Hannah and Jacob trying not to look at each other. Unsuccessful, she finally stepped into his line of vision. “We should talk.”
He swung his gaze to her. “I’m not ready. I don’t know if I’ll ever be ready now that I know who you are.”
“You make it sound like I’ve changed somehow. That I’m a different person. I’m still Hannah Smith. That’s my legal name now. Not Hannah Collins.”
“And every time I look at you I see Kevin. I should have seen the resemblance. You have the same hair and eyes.”
“Like millions of others.”
He started to say something when Peter reentered the room. “I can help you with your animals.” Jacob lifted the lamb into his arms, then tugging on the dog leash, walked toward his friend.
“Me, too.” Hannah led her mutt along behind Jacob.
“I’ll get the props,” Peter called out.
Hannah barely heard the man, she was so intent on catching up with Jacob. She reached him in the parking lot at Peter’s truck. He hoisted the lamb into its crate, then the dog. After taking care of the animals, Jacob stepped around Hannah and started to make his way back inside. She stopped him with a hand on his arm.
“Jacob—”
“Why did you tell me you were Kevin’s sister?” His question cut her off.
And knocked the breath from her. The streetlight accentuated the harsh planes of his face, but distress rang in his voice. “Because I didn’t want any secrets between us. You had shared yours. I had to.”
“I feel like I’m reliving that night all over again.”
She squeezed his arm as though to impart her support. “I didn’t tell you to put you through that.”
“What did you think I was going to do?”
“I don’t know. But it was the right thing to do.”
“For you.”
She peered toward the building and saw Peter emerge. Through the floor-to-ceiling windows Hannah glimpsed the children playing host to the residents, serving them the refreshments and talking with them.
“The kids missed you this week. They’ve gotten used to you coming to see them a lot. Please don’t stay away because of me.”
Jacob shifted away from her. “I’ve been especially busy. It’s flu season.”
“They wanted me to ask you to Sunday dinner tomorrow.”
Jacob closed his eyes for a few seconds. “I can’t.” He strode away, not toward the nursing home but toward his car.
Her legs weak, Hannah leaned back against Peter’s truck as the man came up with a box full of props.
“What’s wrong with Jacob?” Peter slid the items into the bed of his pickup.
“I think I’ve ruined everything.”