Chapter
twenty-six

Nikki stuck her head into Britt’s kitchen at Sweet Art near midday on Monday. “Maddie tells me there’s a ripple in the force field of your romance with Zander Ford.”

Perhaps if she ignored Nikki, the older woman would go away.

“And that you’re really crabby because of it,” Nikki added.

“Maddie!” Britt called. “Please escort your ambassador out of my kitchen!”

“Maddie’s not going to rescue you, honey.”

Britt continued cleaning the inside of her refrigerator. The sound of scrubbing joined the sound of conversation from the shop floor and the wheeze of the espresso machine.

“Come outside with me,” Nikki said.

“No.”

“It’s a beautiful day, and I want to talk to you about the ripple in the force field.”

“No.”

“If I have to announce to all your customers that you’re glum because you had a fight with your boyfriend and then publicly invent juicy stories about each and every one of Zander’s tattoos, I will.”

“That’s not nice.”

“Don’t mess with me, little Bradford.” Nikki gave her a challenging glare, which was, frankly, impressive. Nikki had on a long tangerine shirt and leggings. That, along with her sprayed bangs and heavy makeup, made her look like a 1980s’ roller derby champion who wouldn’t hesitate to elbow competitors to the rink floor.

“Fine.” Britt slipped off her chef’s coat and followed Nikki outdoors to one of the benches facing the large, smooth stretch of lawn at the heart of Merryweather Historical Village.

The early June weather was acting like an unloved child putting on its best behavior in a last-ditch attempt to win the love of a parent. Sunlight fell over them. Children played on the grass. Britt acknowledged these things with all the emotion of a scientist jotting down lab results.

Ordinarily, she relished fabulous weather. Ordinarily, she exercised every day. Ordinarily, she was pleasantly obsessed with chocolate. Ordinarily, she cooked at home. Ordinarily, she liked her life.

But not since Friday night and her exchange with Zander at the fire pit. Since then, she’d been despondent.

After he’d left, she’d returned to her cottage. She’d slept horribly. Spent most of Saturday on her sofa in her pajamas watching episodes of Once Upon a Time. Slept horribly. On Sunday she’d attended church, then spent time with her sisters. Paced her cottage. Slept horribly.

She’d believed she’d improve if left to her own devices. On the contrary, she’d continued to deteriorate mentally, physically, and emotionally. Her well-being was tumbling away from her, beyond her reach. Making matters worse—her conviction that she’d wounded Zander, which was exactly what she’d set out not to do.

“I’m meeting Clint here for our first official date in just a minute,” Nikki announced. “Which is why I stopped by Sweet Art. He’s taking me to lunch, so I thought I’d buy some chocolate so I can treat him to dessert. Of course, as far as I’m concerned, he is the dessert.” She guffawed. Intimidating roller derby Nikki had seemingly departed in search of the nearest happy hour.

“I’m not convinced that your romantic bliss over Clint is the medicine I need at this particular moment.”

“Thank you for bringing Clint around, by the way. I knew you could convince him to date me. My faith in you was not misplaced.”

Both women watched a toddler run by, shrieking with laughter.

“Zander is a gorgeous man,” Nikki declared. “If I could eat him up like a topping on a sundae, I would.”

“You think all men are gorgeous.”

“I think gorgeous men are gorgeous,” she corrected. “You’d be a world-class fool to let that man slip though your fingers. Now tell me what went wrong so Auntie Nikki can repair it.”

“Did Nora tell you what happened on Thursday? The painting and the abduction and all of that?”

“Yes.”

“Afterward, I started feeling . . . overwhelmed by Zander. Every time I was around him it was like I was weaker instead of stronger.”

“Mmm-hmm.”

A long moment slipped past. “What does mmm-hmm mean?” So far, this therapy session stunk.

“You’re scared. Naturally, what happened on Thursday reminded you that you can die and that Zander can die, too. Mortality is terrifying. And loving someone from the bottom of your heart is terrifying, too. So you ran into your rabbit hole to hide from the kind of transparency that could crush you to smithereens.”

Britt gathered words to refute Nikki’s diagnosis. At the last second, though, she held them back. Nikki might not be completely wrong.

“I’ve had my eye on you, and I’ve seen one boyfriend after another pass through your life,” Nikki said. “It seems to me that you’ve kept them all at arm’s length.” Nikki pulled a small Sweet Art box from her purse and opened the lid to reveal four truffles. “I’m going to speak to you in the language of chocolate because it’s what you understand. Here.” She nudged the box in Britt’s direction. “Take one.”

“No, thank you.”

“Take one.” Roller derby Nikki returned and aimed a fiery expression at Britt.

“I thought these were for you and Clint.”

Nikki scoffed. “I bought a bigger box for Clint and me. This is the box I was planning to eat in the bathtub tonight.”

Britt selected one of her newly debuted peppermint truffles.

“Take a bite,” Nikki ordered.

Britt did so. She tasted the flavors and textures. Swallowed. Lifted the truffle to her mouth to pop in the remaining bite—

Nikki slapped what was left of the truffle from her hand. Britt squawked as it went flying into the air, tumbling end over end, then landing in the grass.

“What did you do that for?” Britt asked.

“To teach you an object lesson.” She pointed a freshly painted coral nail at the chocolate remnant. “Your experience with the chocolate didn’t end very well. Did it?”

“No.”

“Are you sorry that you took a bite of it when you did?”

“I . . . No. I’m glad I got to eat some of it before you committed chocolate-icide.”

“Precisely. You and I, we need to embrace the love that comes our way for as long as it lasts. If we let fear interfere, we’ll miss the sweetness. And the sweetness is too, too good to miss.”

Here was someone who’d dared love—and all the frailties that came with that—and experienced heartbreak twice. Even so, Nikki was willing to dive in again. Her dad, her sisters, Leo, Clint. They’d all been willing to dive in again. Meanwhile, Britt quaked at the idea of diving in even once. “I’m sort of awed by your ability to enter into something that leaves you so defenseless.”

“I’m never defenseless. I have God.”

Britt glanced toward the chapel where Nora and John had married. Her taste buds still registered dark chocolate and peppermint. This therapy session hadn’t stunk as much as she’d first feared. Yet an obstinate part of her still refused to reverse her stance, to break down, reach out, and call Zander.

She’d sent him a text this morning, saying that she’d see him at the ceremony at the Pascal Museum on Thursday, when Young Woman at Rest would be formally returned. He’d responded with one word: Fine. Nothing more. Which is how she intended to leave things between them until Thursday.

Nikki rose and adjusted her shirt. “Clint!”

He ambled across the lawn toward them.

“Hi, handsome.” Nikki welcomed him with a kiss on both cheeks.

“Hey,” Clint said bashfully. “Hi, Britt.”

She unfolded herself from the bench. “Hi, Clint.”

Nikki looped a hand around his forearm. “Have I mentioned lately how much I appreciate a man who’s not afraid to show his bare arms? If not, I want you to know I do appreciate it. You’ve got great arms.”

“And you,” Clint appeared to think himself duty-bound to give Nikki a compliment in return, “are wearing really nice perfume.”

Nikki raised her eyebrows suggestively. “It’s called Poison.”

“But it’s not really poison,” Clint said with an edge of doubt.

“You’ll have to sip some from my wrist to find out.”

Clint turned pink and laughter rumbled from Nikki. “Ready for lunch?”

“Ready. You?”

“So, so ready.” Nikki winked at Britt as she turned Clint toward the parking lot.

Britt watched them go, then scooped the discarded chocolate from the ground and lobbed it into the nearest trash can.

Across town, Zander sat at his desk inside his room at the inn, staring through the window before him.

Going through his days without Britt, without hope of seeing her or talking with her, had drained the color from his life like water from a bathtub. He’d caught up with his writing goals. The story was coming together, and he was on pace now to finish his manuscript ahead of schedule. But he couldn’t make himself care.

He missed her.

She’d told him she was on the edge of falling apart, and now it was his turn to stand on that same cliff. So far he’d kept himself from coming undone by forcing himself to eat, sleep, write, and exercise. He’d been praying long and often. And he’d been telling himself that this situation was going to lead him and Britt to better things.

It had to. He couldn’t accept or even think about the alternative.

As happy as his relationship with Britt had made him since Nora’s wedding, it hadn’t been without flaws. She’d never told him she loved him, and he hadn’t been able to tell her that he loved her without fearing that he’d scare her. And—as the aftermath of her abduction proved—she wasn’t willing to confide in him.

He wanted their love to go far deeper than that. With every molecule of him, he was certain that their love could go deeper. Would go deeper.

He’d made himself plain to her on Friday night. She’d said she needed time. He’d given her time. Now he had to have faith that the God who’d heard and answered the prayers he’d prayed when he’d been trapped inside Frank’s apartment would use this no-man’s-land of pain to take him and Britt where they needed to go. Together.

Standing, Zander stretched his arms overhead. Then he hooked his thumbs through his belt loops, his attention still latched on the scene outdoors.

He’d waited thirteen years for Britt.

Winning her heart wasn’t a short game. It had proven itself to be a very, very long game.

He was a shell of himself without her. His hands itched to touch her and his eyes longed to see her.

But for her, he would force himself to be patient.

For the remainder of Monday, all of Tuesday, and most of Wednesday, Britt tried to wrestle her mental health into submission. She wrestled with it while looking over business accounts and making chocolate. At home in front of the television. In bed when sleep evaded her.

Almost a week had passed since Tom’s men had kidnapped her. In that time she’d survived on little but gumption and pre-packaged food.

By dinnertime on Wednesday, she’d exhausted her supply of both.

Dizzy with tiredness, she peered blankly at the kitchen cupboard in her cottage for five minutes. Despite her body’s weariness, her brain churned with fears. You’re helpless. You’re out of control. You’re not safe. Not even here. You’re not safe anywhere. She couldn’t bear the agitated hamster wheel of her thoughts. She’d felt better after she’d been impaled by a tree branch than she did now.

Hands trembling, she assembled ingredients for a salad on her cutting board. As she chopped a carrot, the tip of her knife nicked her index finger. The spot stung. Then blood welled.

Britt cursed and examined the cut. It wasn’t serious. It didn’t require stitches. It was just the kind of ordinary, garden variety incision that happened to people who cooked.

Even so, overwhelming despair and frustration built inside her as she watched blood drip from it. The pressure of her emotions increased and increased.

She squirted a drop of soap on the cut, ran it under water, flicked the water off angrily, and pressed a paper towel against her finger.

The pressure increased even more. Her heart began to race. Her breath grew shallow. Her skin turned clammy—too hot and too cold at the same time. Faintness gusted through her, and she struggled not to vomit.

Her mind broke free of its leash. You’re going to have a heart attack like Frank. You can’t get enough air into your lungs.

Terrified, she grabbed for her phone. Leaning on the counter for support, she exited the kitchen and shuffled toward the living area in her socks. She’d rest on the sofa—

She didn’t get that far. Halfway there, she braced her palm on the wall and fought a losing battle to master her body. She crumpled to the floor. Hunching forward, she planted her arms on her upraised knees.

Her pulse beat out a rhythm of alarm as she dialed Zander on her cell.

“Hello?” he said.

“Zander . . .”

“I’ll be right there. Are you at home?”

“Yes.”

He’d understood everything she needed him to understand from the state of her voice alone.

It would take him fifteen minutes to get here from the inn, a length of time that seemed impossible. She couldn’t stand this for fifteen more seconds, let alone fifteen more minutes.

She pulled her mom’s words from her memory as urgently as if they were a lifeline. “You can rely on Him in the hard as well as in the easy. If He leads you into something hard, then He’ll provide the grace you need to bear up under it.”

Britt desperately longed for that to be true.

Her eyes squeezed shut. God, she prayed. Save me.

She’d been submerged by a situation she couldn’t power through. Couldn’t talk herself out of. Couldn’t evade. The self-sufficiency she’d used to treat every other difficulty of her life was worthless to her now. She’d failed to deal with or even acknowledge numerous injuries and sorrows.

She wasn’t fine.

She’d hadn’t been fine many, many other times.

She wasn’t fine.

I’m relying on you, she told God shakily. Not me this time. Only you.

She hung on to Him for one minute. Then, eventually, two minutes. Three.

He didn’t make everything better by quieting her body the way that she wanted Him to. Her body and mind continued to rage. But His presence turned her brutal predicament from something she could not endure into something she could endure, through His power.

She sensed His nearness, His mighty Spirit. Resolutely, He funneled courage into her. As she gave her weight over to Him, He began to carry her, the way her mom had said He would.

Another minute passed. Another. The tighter she gripped Him, the more dependable she found Him to be.

What an idiot she’d been. So full of willful confidence in her own capability. Her sisters and parents and Maddie and Zander had all been right about her. She’d trusted in herself and ended up on her butt in her living room, incapacitated. A week ago she’d been going about her life as if she had it all under control. Now that illusion of control had been shattered.

The truth: she was small and frail. Horrifically human. The Bible was right when it said her life was like a mist that would soon vanish. On the day of her kayaking accident and the day of her abduction, she’d seen just how susceptible she was to death. Her time on earth? Incredibly temporary.

God Most High couldn’t be more different. He was creator of heaven and earth. The Ancient of Days. Her intuition could only grasp at a fraction of His size and even that fraction was vast.

How could such an all-powerful God love her enough to meet her here?

She didn’t know how. She only knew that, incomprehensibly, He did love her that much.

Because He was here.

When she heard Zander’s footsteps on her front porch, gratitude unfurled within her. He knew where she hid her spare key and, sure enough, she heard it twist in the door lock. She lifted her face in time to see him enter. He wore track pants and a black athletic shirt, and he looked healthy and normal and strong.

Zander. Her best friend. She wanted to fist her fingers into his shirt in order to keep him next to her. Always.

He knelt before her, his features tense.

“My heart’s . . . been pounding,” she told him. “And I’m . . . short of breath.”

“Are you dehydrated?” he asked.

“No.”

“Panic attack?”

“Maybe. I . . . think so.”

“Is it getting worse? Or better?”

“It might be getting . . . a little better.”

“What’s this?” He indicated the paper towel still wrapped around her cut.

“I sliced my finger. It’s not bad . . . though.”

He sat, pulled her onto his lap, and braced his back against the wall. She lay against the incline of his chest, his arms wrapped around her. “Let’s work on breathing,” he said. “We’ll start with three counts in, three counts out.” They breathed in unison. Gradually in, gradually out. “Can you slow it down even more?” he asked her after a time.

She nodded.

Mercifully, her mind began to release its terror. Her heart quieted. The aftermath left her weak, shaky, and holding on to her composure by a strand as thin as a spider web.

“Better?” Zander asked.

“Slightly.”

“I’m going to get you some water.” He set her gently down.

“I can get it.”

“I know you can. But let me get it for you.” He returned with a glass of ice water.

She accepted it and took an experimental sip.

He must have remembered where her medicine drawer was located, because he lowered himself before her, holding a tube of antibacterial ointment and a bandage.

With the sort of concentration she’d guess brain surgeons used when operating, he removed the paper towel and studied the small incision on the pad of her finger. He dabbed ointment onto it, then applied the bandage.

The crumbling sensation his nearness had evoked since her abduction overtook her. This time, she wasn’t equal to it. Watching him doctor her finger slayed her. A panoramic view opened in her memory of all the things he’d done for her, all the things he’d sacrificed for her. Tears started streaming down her cheeks.

He stared directly at her. She knew she looked a wreck, but she gazed levelly back at him, tears and all.

“Water,” he suggested.

She drank more water. She cried and drank. Drank and cried. Eventually, she drained the glass.

He lifted her in his arms and carried her upstairs to her bedroom. After he’d deposited her on her bed, he created a backrest out of her array of throw pillows.

She cried.

He climbed onto the queen bed with its white duvet and propped his upper body on the pillow ramp. Then he looped an arm underneath her, and curved her in beside him. She rested her head on his shoulder. He took hold of her hand, then tucked their joined hands between them.

“This isn’t so bad, is it?” he whispered, referring to their cozy position.

“This is mortifying,” she whispered back, tears flowing.

“Not for me. I get to be here, with you, and there’s nowhere I’d rather be.”

“I’m a mess.”

“No. It’s just that you’re not bulletproof. That’s all.”

“I want to be bulletproof.”

“None of us are.”

“You’re pretty much perfect, Zander. It’s nauseating.”

“I beg your pardon. I have lots of weaknesses.”

“Which are?”

He must have grabbed a box of tissues from the bathroom after depositing her on her bed, because he offered the box to her now. She took two.

“I can be reclusive,” he said.

“You like to spend time alone.”

“I’m gloomy.”

“You’re realistic.”

“I’m terrible with strangers.”

That, she agreed with. She shrugged and blotted her eyes.

“I can’t walk past an open drawer or cupboard without closing it. I need matching hangers and all my clothes have to face the same way. I can’t stand by and watch people load a dishwasher the wrong way.”

She attempted a shuddering breath. “Your ability to expertly load a dishwasher isn’t an imperfection.”

“Yes, it is, because I have to load a dishwasher the right way even if the people who own the dishwasher haven’t invited me to.”

It seemed that her tears were bottomless.

“I hate ketchup,” he said. “I used to spend too much time playing video games. And I can’t set a timer for an odd number.”

“Scandalous.”

“But my biggest weakness by far . . .”

“Yes?”

“Is you.”

Her heart was coming apart at the seams.

“I’d give up anything,” he said. “For you.”

“I don’t deserve that.”

“You do deserve it. That, and more.” He brought the tissues to her again.

She tossed the used ones over the side of the bed and took two more. “You admired my independence. I know you did.”

“I still do. You’re the most independent woman I know. Today won’t change that.”

“I’m soaking your shirt with my tears.”

“You’re being honest. You’re giving me the first chance I’ve ever had since I met you to be here for you.”

“It’s mortifying,” she repeated.

“I love you,” he told her, undaunted.

Her crying shook her shoulders.

“I’ve been all over the world,” he said, “but you are the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. You’re my treasure and my compass. If you’d died last Thursday, then my life would have been over, too.”

Britt hadn’t known her body could contain this much splendor and grief simultaneously. Since the moment she’d met Zander, she’d wanted to use her strength to rescue him. But now he was leveraging his strength to rescue her.

“Have I made myself clear?” he asked.

She nodded against his chest.

Then she sobbed for an hour straight.

He massaged her scalp. He smoothed the long fall of her hair. He rubbed her back.

She cried for the things her family members had suffered, things that had left their marks upon her childhood.

She mourned the death of her close friend Olivia.

She sobbed because she’d been wrong to go kayaking after a flood and wrong to not tell Zander about her injuries and wrong to not accept comfort or help from the people who loved her. She cried because her kayaking injury had hurt and because it still hurt sometimes.

She mourned because she’d felt so wretchedly powerless last week in the parking lot at The Residences and later in that room at the warehouse. Her sense of security had been yanked away and she was sorry, very sorry, that it had.

She cried because Zander loved her and she loved him back, and she wasn’t worthy of his devotion or this astonishingly wonderful bond that existed between them.

She sobbed because her ridiculous pride had kept her from relying on God, the one—the only one—she should have been relying on all this time.

When she finally spent all her tears, her eyes were puffy but the sin, the anxieties, and the lies she’d told herself had been expunged from her soul. Her body could relax. At last, her mind could settle.

She’d been driven low, and it had humbled her. But when she’d been driven low, she’d found God there. The God she’d known since childhood had gently lifted her chin. He was on her side. She could afford to let go of her own tattered competency.

She drifted to sleep in Zander’s arms.

A few times during the night, she became aware of him shifting. Closing the curtains. Turning out the lights. But he always returned immediately, and thank goodness for that. Because as soon as he came back and she felt his arm beneath her head or his fingers enclosing hers or his heartbeat beneath her ear, she tumbled back into deep, restful sleep.

Letter from Zander to his mom two weeks after he started high school:

Dear Mom,

I know you were worried about me making friends. I don’t want you to be worried. I have a friend. A girl named Britt Bradford. She sits beside me in English and walks with me from English to art. She saves me a place at her lunch table, and we talk after school when we’re waiting for our rides outside.

She grew up in Merryweather, so she knows everyone and introduces me to everyone—which is more people than I even want to meet.

She lives in this big mansion, and I went there yesterday to eat dinner with her parents. Then Britt and I made brownies, but not out of a box. They turned out really good.

I’m okay, Mom. You don’t have to worry about me.