Deadly Ties (38 page)

Sam and Nick slapped twenties into Tim’s hand. He laughed.

“I know you boys aren’t standing at Annie’s bedside gambling.” Peggy Crane gave them a stern look meant to wilt knees. “Joseph?”

“Not me.” Joe held up his hands. “I don’t owe anyone anything.”

Which didn’t mean he hadn’t bet, only that he hadn’t lost.

“I’m seeing pepper juice in all their immediate futures,” Mark whispered to her, clearly amused.

They’d need a tea taster for a month. Lisa bit back a smile. “Just so we know, Tim, what was the bet?”

“Whether you’d ask him to marry you—someday—or he’d ask you.”

Mark folded his arms across his chest. “When and if we do decide to make it official, I’ll ask her. Until then, I’d say it’s a draw.”

Everyone started laughing.

Lisa faced her mom. Her eyes were shining, and she looked beside herself, overjoyed. “I expect you and Nora are already picking out wedding colors, but we’re not ready for that.”

“Of course you aren’t, dear.”

“So you haven’t?” Lisa glanced at Nora, then back at her mother, elated and deflated at once.

“I didn’t say that.”

“She sure didn’t, dearie. I was listening.”

“They picked peaches and cream,” Beth said from the back of the crowd. “Sorry, ladies, but truth is truth.” She shrugged. “And there was a mention of the reception hall at the club too.”

“Beth Dawson, I’d be clamming up right about now, dearie, if you ever want to taste my peach cobbler again.” Nora bumped into the edge of the bed.

Everyone pretended not to notice. Beth tucked in near Joe. “Protect me. I tell the truth and I’ve started a war.”

“How about coffee at Ruby’s?” Joe asked. “I’ve heard about it and want to try it myself.”

Beth nodded.

Joe dropped his voice, then hastily cut through the crowd, pulling Beth along with him. “You’re definitely prettier when you’re not snarling.”

“Thanks.” Beth frowned. “I think.”

Peaches and cream
. Lisa’s room at home had been decorated in peaches and cream. Those had been her signature colors her whole life. Swallowing a knot in her throat, Lisa pecked a kiss to her mother’s cheek. “You remembered.”

Annie sniffled. “You’re my daughter. Of course I remember.” She deepened her southern drawl.
“I love peaches and cream, mama. I’m making ’em my signature colors.”

Everyone chuckled.

“I like it here.” Sam winked at Gwen.

“What’s not to like?” Nick asked Sam. “It’s hot, humid, and flat. Perfect.”

“Man, do you have a romantic bone in your body?” Sam tugged at his cap.

“Apparently he does not.” Selene raised her brows.

Sam hooked a thumb toward Nick. “Ignore him. He’s a little rusty.”

“At what?” Selene tucked her hair back. It snagged at her shoulder.

“Everything.”

Selene laughed. Not politely but with gusto.

Nick liked that a lot.

Tim told Mark, “Dead stumps from the neck up.”

Roxy stepped over to Lisa and Mark. “I’m grateful for your help. We wouldn’t have been able to pull it off without you.”

“There’ll be more women.” Lisa wasn’t going to get starry eyed about this. “There’s always going to be more.”

“Unfortunately, yes,” Roxy said. “But we shut down Phen and got his buyers. It’ll take time for NINA to build up a network that trusts it again. We got Frank and Karl Masson out of commission, which should help Kelly and Ben sleep better at night.”

“We saved thirty women too,” Gwen said. “And Juan.”

“Don’t forget his family.” Selene sniffed. “People always underestimate the value of family.”

“We did all those things,” Roxy nodded, “and revealed NINA’s expansion. An imperfect victory, but we definitely won this time.”

“We did.” Lisa smiled at her mom.

“One crisis at a time, right?” Roxy glanced at Harvey. “Isn’t that what you say at Crossroads Crisis Center?”

“It is.” Tight-lipped, he looped his arm through Roxy’s. “I’ve been patient while you said what you had to say to everyone else, but I’m out of patience. Actually, I’m pretty steamed at you right now.”

“I expect you are.”

“You divorced me, Rox.”

She cupped his face in her hand. “And you’ll be really mad at me for a very long time and lecturing me even longer.”

Anger flushed his face. “Bet on it.”

“Wanna yell at me over coffee? I’m thirsty and I guess we have some serious talking to do.”

“You guess?” Harvey scowled at her. “You know, it’d serve you right if I refused to say a word. Who would blame me?”

“Not a soul.” Roxy moved with him toward the door. “But you promised for better or worse. This has been the worse.”

“Don’t even—”

“I’m not,” she assured him. “I did what I did.”

“How could you, Rox? Do you know how miserable—?”

“I do. I really, really do.”

As they left the room, Lisa watched the body language between Harvey and Roxy. The sparks were still there. This wasn’t over yet.

“I’m smelling a reunion right there.”

Lisa smiled at Nora. “I hope so.”

“Count on it.” Peggy fiddled with her chunky necklace, letting the beads clunk together. “Though we might have to nudge just a little.”

“Cupid
and
Rambo?” Nick grunted. “Another goner.”

“Yeah, they’ve all got the look.”

“What’s the look Sam’s talking about?” Mom asked Mark.

“The way I look at Lisa.”

“Ah.” Mom smiled. “And the way she looks at you.”

“Yeah.”

Mark didn’t even try to hide his feelings about that, which brought Lisa joy that ran so deep she couldn’t begin to describe it. Mark was willing to accept love.

Sighing contentment, Lisa watched everyone chatting and laughing, so happy with the way things had worked out. Not without pain and suffering. Not without loss and tragedy. But things
had
worked out. The tunnels in her life had been dark, and some of them had been very long. But God had been right there, preparing her, guiding her, giving her maybe not what she wanted but what she needed to survive even Dutch’s deadly ties.

“I’m selling it.”

Lisa looked to Annie. “The house?”

She nodded. “I want a fresh start, honey. That’s okay with you, isn’t it?”

Likely the bad memories there with Dutch outweighed the good ones with Lisa’s father. And if her mom knew Dutch had been responsible for her dad’s death, they’d be even worse. Lisa had talked to Mark about telling her mother, and they agreed to wait until she’d recovered. It would hurt and she’d mourn again, but she just didn’t have the physical reserves to cope with that right now. “Whatever you want, Mom.”

She reached for Lisa and Mark. “I have you two in my life. I’m free. What more could I want?”

“Well, you might start with meeting Miranda Kent at the club on Sunday for brunch, dearie. She’s been the mainstay for the prayer warriors through all this, and she misses you. It’s time, I’m thinking, you start living your life again, Annie Harper.”

“Oh, Miranda and brunch. That’s a wonderful idea.” Mom clapped her hands, setting her IV line to swinging. “I used to love our brunches at the club. And golf. Nora, I haven’t had a golf club in my hands in years.”

“Don’t I know it?” Nora harrumphed. “I can’t see to play anymore, but I’d sure like to ride along in the cart now and then.”

“We’re going to have a lot of fun, Nora. We really are.”

Lisa nearly wept. Seeing her mother so excited thrilled her and squeezed her heart.

Mark nudged Lisa, and they walked out of the room and into the hallway. Lisa looked up at him. “We’re doing the right thing, not telling her about Dad now, right?”

“We are.” Mark stroked her cheek. “Harvey says she’s had all the trauma she can handle right now. No added stress until she’s stronger.”

Lisa touched the placket of his shirt. “That puts my mind at ease. Thank you for consulting Harvey.”

“You don’t have to thank me. I love Annie too.” Mark shifted, tensed. “Lisa, I want to say something to you.”

The edge of regret in his tone worried her. “Don’t even think about jilting me, Mark Taylor. I’m not ready to get married and won’t be for a good while—it’s a big step. Nora and Mom are just doing what moms do. Nora’s been my surrogate mother, if you’ll recall, so I’ve got a double dose of maternal meddling going on there.”

“Jilt you? Not happening, lady.” He clasped her hands, pecked a kiss to her cheek, then a longer one to her lips. “They’re razzing us more than anything. The truth is, we’ve never been on a real date. I’ve never brought you flowers or—”

“You gave me a shell. A beautiful shell and romantic walks on the beach. Remember that first night we walked?”

He nodded. “Nora set us up.”

She had. “I so hoped you’d kiss me that night. Then I was glad you didn’t because what if you did and you didn’t like it?”

“I like it.” His eyes glinted.

“Then I wish you had.” She smiled up at him, let her fingertips drift down his muscular arms, shoulders to elbows. “I wanted that night to last forever.”

“Me too.”

“I didn’t dare dream you could be interested in me.”

“You were beautiful in the moonlight. That was one of the most special nights of my life, and I was pretty frustrated—debating between kissing you and not.” He let out a soft chuckle. “If it helps, I almost kissed you.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“I didn’t want you to think … I don’t know. That’s not true. I know exactly,” he confessed. “But why didn’t you kiss me?”

“I wasn’t sure you were interested in me that way, and I didn’t want to lose what we had.”

“Honey, I’ve been interested in you in every way since the first time I saw you.”

“Really?” Pleased about that, it oozed from her every pore.

“Oh yeah.”

She smiled. “I’m so glad. I’d hate to be falling in love by myself.”

He smiled back. “Not happening. I’ll love you forever, and that’s a promise.”

Nora’s voice spilled into the hallway. “But that’s red. Red and orange—peach is too so orange, Annie—clash.”

“See why I’m not worried?” She laughed. “Let the matchmakers talk weddings. It’ll take a couple of years for them to agree on anything, much less everything. And I have a feeling they’ll be recruited to handle a different wedding long before then.”

“Harvey and Roxy?”

Lisa nodded.

“That will keep them diverted.”

“I am totally crazy about you.”

“I’m glad.” He kissed her softly, then more deeply.

When their mouths parted, he swayed, looking a little dazed. Right there she decided she needed to keep him that way.

“I can’t believe it, Lisa. Things are … perfect.” He linked their pinkies.

And she was lost. “Absolutely perfect.”

“We’ve made some mistakes, and we were wrong about a lot of things.” Mark slid a fingertip down her cheek. “But we were always loved.”

“Yes, we were always loved.” She pecked a kiss to his finger. Deadly ties might be hard to endure, but from them can spring ties of hope and joy.

Ties of truth and of love.

R
EADERS
G
UIDE

1. Annie asks God to let her go back twenty-four hours. Have you ever wished you could go back, regretted a decision you made, felt guilty because if you had chosen differently, perhaps another could have been spared a tragic event or being hurt?
1

2. Mark feels he let Jane down.
2
Have you ever been in a situation where you disappointed another who mattered a great deal to you? How did you cope, survive, and recover?

3. Though Mark’s teammates were as close to him as brothers, Mark said that one day he hoped to belong to a family of his own, one where he was wanted, not just needed. What are your thoughts on that?

4. Annie stayed with Dutch out of obedience to God, even though she was in an abusive relationship. Have you ever known someone in this situation? How would you counsel her?

5. Dutch believes the key to respect is money.
3
What do you think?

6. Annie wonders why she hadn’t trusted God to provide for her. Have you ever felt this way?
4

7. Lisa is frustrated feeling some Christians get favor, blessings, and peace while she is living on “fumes of faith.”
5
Have you ever felt this way? Mark tells her she doesn’t see the big picture.
6
What would you have told her?
7

8. Lisa feels like she has been sacrificed for her mother. Describe a time when you have suffered hardship or trials for the sake of another.
8

9. At one point Lisa feels she has been “forgotten in a dark tunnel.”
9
Have you ever felt God has forgotten you?
10
Have you ever felt you have forgotten God?
11

10. Mark said he believes Christ has redeemed him.
12
He knows this logically, but knowing it and feeling it are two different things. Because of his childhood, he grew up feeling that he had to earn love—Lisa’s and God’s.
13
Have you ever felt this way? How would you advise a friend who is feeling this?

11. Mark believes that everything Lisa has been through had a purpose.
14
What do you think?

12. At one point Lisa struggles with not asking God to kill certain people. She asks for forgiveness instead.
15
Have you ever felt this way?

1. To see what the Bible says about these things, you can begin by reading the following Scriptures from the New International Version: “Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:12-14).

2. “We pray to God that you will not do anything wrong. Not that people will see that we have stood the test but that you will do what is right even though we may seem to have failed” (2 Corinthians 13:7).

3. “People who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge men into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs” (1 Timothy 6:9–10).

4. “Let the beloved of the LORD rest secure in him, for he shields him all day long, and the one the LORD loves rests between his shoulders” (Deuteronomy 33:12).

5. “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:6–7).

6. “I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you” (Matthew 17:20).

7. “ ‘My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,’ declares the LORD. ‘As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts’ ” (Isaiah 55:8–9). “Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight” (Proverbs 3:5–6).

8. “Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up” (Galatians 6:9).

9. “Suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us” (Romans 5:3–5).

10. “I say to God my Rock, ‘Why have you forgotten me? Why must I go about mourning, oppressed by the enemy?’ ” (Psalm 42:9).

11. “Does a maiden forget her jewelry, a bride her wedding ornaments? Yet my people have forgotten me, days without number” (Jeremiah 2:32).

12. “In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace” (Ephesians 1:7).

13. “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast” (Ephesians 2:8–9).

14. “Many are the plans in a man’s heart, but it is the LORD’s purpose that prevails” (Proverbs 19:21). “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28).

15. “And if ye offer a sacrifice of peace offerings unto the LORD, ye shall offer it at your own will” (Leviticus 19:5, KJV).