Forgiven (34 page)

“No.” She stared into the loneliest, most confused part of him. “Back to your roots, to the faith your adoptive parents tried to teach you.”

He brought his lips together and for a moment said nothing, only peered through the trees at the darkness falling over the lake. Finally he shrugged. “Where should I start, Katy? No one in Hollywood thinks like that. No one I know, anyway.”

“Start with the photographMthe one your birth mother gave you.” She slipped her hands behind her. “You said there was a

letter on the back, something you’ve never read.”

“Right.”

“So… go find it. Read it. The way back has to start somewhere for all of us.”

“The way back?” He loved this about Katy, the fact that she could talk about real things. Not just scripts and dinners and how the press might view them.

“The way back to God, Dayne. He’s the reason you’re here, the reason we found each other in the first place. So that you’d have a reason to go back to the beginning.”

“But… I don’t know; the guys at the Kabbalah Center talked about finding freedom and peace, getting rid of negative feelings.” He leaned his head back against the tree. “Doesn’t that sound good to you?”

“It sounds like .something only God can take care of.” She touched his arm. “God and you.”

He pressed his fingers to his chest. “See, I have all this… I don’t know—anger—I guess.” The frogs were louder than be 281

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fore, and he raised his voice. “I told you about my adoptive parents, but I didn’t tell you how I feel now. I’m angry at them.” He waved his hand at another mosquito. “They picked God over me. Now I’m supposed to go looking for God?”

She eased her fingers around his wrist. “You have to search. The answers are out there, Dayne.” She reached back into the bag and pulled out a book. No, it wasn’t a book—it was a Bible. She handed it to him. “I got you this. So the search would be easier.”

“Oh.” He made a quiet sarcastic sound and then regretted it. Her sincerity was touching, but that didn’t make her suggestions any more plausible for him. “I won’t find the answers at the Kabbalah Center—” he held up the Bible—”but I will find them here?”

“Yes.” She had no doubts whatsoever; that much was clear from her tone.

The path was getting dark. They had only a few more minutes of daylight before they’d have to go back. “Why, Katy? Why the Bible?”

“Because it’s the only thing on earth that is the authoritative Word of God. Any search for truth has to start there, right? Because God’s the author of truth.”

Dayne let that roll around in his mind. He’d never thought of it that way. God being the author of truth. He looked at the Bible, then at her. This wasn’t the time to have a debate. He’d missed her too much to waste their time that way. He slipped the Bible and the document on Kabbalah back into the brown bag. “Thank you.”

“Meaning we aren’t going to talk about it.” She searched his face, his eyes.

“Not now. We don’t have much time, Katy. It means a lot to me that you’d do this, though. The research and the Bible.” He paused. “Really, thank you.”

She nodded and looked at something on the ground near her 282

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feet. After a while her eyes found his and she spoke straight to his soul. “What you said earlier.., that you missed me.. 2’ “Yes.”

“I missed you too.” There was shame in her voice, and it cut him deep. Was he that bad for her that she hated the idea missing him? He studied her, waiting for her to finish. She stoodil straighter, no longer leaning against the tree.

“I tried not to miss you, but I did. I couldn’t help it.”

They’d been talking for twenty minutes, and the whole time he’d wanted to take her in his arms. Now he couldn’t take another breath without reaching for her.

He put one hand around her waist and the other along the back of her head. “Come here, Katy. Please.”

She came, but he could sense her reluctance. Only after they drew together in what was now a familiar embrace did he feel her relax in his arms. “Dayne…”

She pressed the side of her face against his chest and clung to him. “How come I can’t just walk away?”

He kissed the top of her head and whispered, “Maybe you’re not supposed to.”

“But I am supposed to.” She looked up, and there was alarm in her eyes. “If there’s no future for us—and there isn’t—then I need to be your friend.

Nothing more. Nothing that wouldw”

He lowered his face to hers and kissed her, silenced her the only way he knew how. Not by his kiss so much, but by showing her how wrong she was. They could never be only friends— never. Fate might not give them a chance to be together, but there was no point lying to each other.

The kiss grew, and became two kisses and then three, and Dayne felt himself falling, losing control. She must’re sensed it too, because her breathing came faster, and in a sudden rush she pushed back from him, her eyes wide. “We can’t, Dayne. No.” She took a step toward the parking lot, her eyes clear and deter 283

mined in the fading light. “I promised myself this wouldn’t hap pen. It’s not.., it’s not why I wanted to see you.”

He felt a ribbon of anger tie itself around his soul. “And what was, Katy?” Her kiss still burned on his lips. He didn’t want to fight with her, not now. But he had to make his point. “Was it this?” He lifted the brown sack and held it out to her. “You came to warn me away from Kabbalah and turn me back to God?” He set the bag down and gave a single laugh. “Is that all this is for you?”

“Of course not.” She moved away from him. “But I have to an swer to that same God. And right now I can’t think of a single good reason why I should be standing here in the woods kissing you.”

Her words were like so many knives stripping away every thing wonderful about the way he’d felt a few moments ago. He stared at her, baffled. “Not one good reason, Katy?” His voice was much softer than before, the control back. “We care about each other, right? Isn’t that enough?”

She shook her head and backed away in the direction of the parking lot. “No, Dayne. It’s not enough. In a few days you’ll leave here and walk out of my life forever. And what then? What am I supposed to do with my feelings for you?”

“What am I supposed to do with mine?” He thought of some thing. “Don’t forget the trial. We’ll be together again whether you like it or not.”

“That isn’t the point.” Her eyes filled up, and she looked away. “It’s like I said before. What we have here or at the foot ball stadium or out jogging—it’s all pretend. Your life doesn’t have room for me, Dayne.”

He looked at her, looked beyond her fears. “And yours has no room for me, either.”

“Exactly.” She spoke the word with finality and defeat. Her tears spilled onto her face and shone in the dusk. “We found each other so I could show you the way back to God.” She

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pointed to the brown bag beside him. “I did that.” Another step’,i backward. “Now I have to go.”

“Katy… wait.”

She shook her head and turned away. Then she ran back down the path, sprinting as if she were terrified he’d come after i her. Not because she didn’t trust him. Because she didn’t trust herself. He could see that now. The humid air filled his lungs, making the ache in his heart worse. He picked up the brown bag and waited. After a minute he heard an engine start up and the sound of a car driving away. She didn’t have to worry. He wouldn’t go after her, not if she didn’t want to be caught.

Stars were piercing the dark sky by the time he reached the parking lot. He slid the bag onto the passenger seat and drove all the way back to the hotel in silence. When he reached his parking spot near the back entrance of the Holiday Inn, he saw a lone photographer sitting in a car nearby.

The man leaned through the window and snapped a round of pictures.

Dayne stared at the guy and uttered a sad-sounding laugh. “You people never give up, do you?” He said it loud enough for the photographer to hear him.

“It’s a job,” the guy said. Then he held up his camera and clicked again.

“Well…” Dayne smiled and waved. He wouldn’t give the guy the satisfaction of a single usable photo. No frustrated looks or angry eyes, nothing. He took a step closer, the smile frozen in place. “You’re too late this time, buddy. You missed the story.”

With that, he took his brown paper bag and headed into the hotel. Only then did the shock wear off a little, enough so that he could think about what Katy had said. How he needed to find his way back to God, and that maybe she had been brought into his life to show him the way. But there was something Katy didn’t understand, no matter how many times he tried to explain it to her. The God she was trying to point him to? That same God had 285

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taken everything important from him—his birth parents, his adoptive parents, his chance at a family.

He thought about the rest of what she’d said, how she owed it to God to stay away from him, to let him go. Didn’t it just figure? God had taken everything else. And now He’d taken the thing that hurt him most of all.

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CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN …………… ……….

EvERYONE ELSE WAS READY, but Ashley still had curlers in her shoulder-length hair. Landon wouldn’t mind. He knew that every now and then she ran a little late. Besides, the dinner tonight at her father’s house was nothing out of the ordinary. Just a time for all of them to get together and catch up.

They would talk about Annie and the sets and how the kids were coming along in their grief over losing their friends. Dayne Matthews and his movie crew had gone back to Hollywood, and they’d probably touch on that, and about how much calmer the town was without the commotion of a film team in the middle of town.

She’d spoken to Katy twice since they left, but she was quiet about Dayne.

Whatever had come of their time together, she wasn’t talking about it. Almost as if she wanted to forget she’d ever known him.

That wouldn’t come up at dinner, because Ashley hadn’t told anyone but Landon and Kari about Katy’s connection with Dayne Matthews, and they knew the matter was private. But the

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family was bound to talk about how the farmers’ market would be saner now, and maybe her father would give more details about his friendship with Elaine Denning.

They’d all be there, after all. Dad had said they’d call Luke and Erin and talk to them on speaker. That way it would feel like they were all together again.

Those two and Landon and Cole and her, Kari and her family. Brooke, of course…

Ashley set her lipstick down. Brooke! Of course Brooke would be there. She gasped and jogged down the hallway to the kitchen. She’d forgotten all about the letter, the one she’d found in her parents’ room. Here she’d been trying to do her dad a favor by getting it to Brooke sooner than he might’ve, and now it had sat in her purse for three weeks. Way too long! She grabbed her bag and scurried to the bedroom. Her dad probably wondered what had happened to the letter. She hadn’t even remembered to tell him she took it!

Ashley… you’re so scatterbrained, she chided herself and took a seat on the edge of the bed. What if it had fallen out? Her purse was never exactly in one safe spot. Sometimes she’d leave it on the floor of her car or tossed onto the backseat. The letter was obviously something special, written by their mother just for Brooke.

Her heart skittered about anxiously as she dug through the side pocket. It didn’t settle back to normal until her hand made contact with the envelope, stuffed near the bottom of the bag. She pulled it out and frowned. It was bent in half, with a smudge across the right corner.

How could she be so careless? The letter had stayed in her father’s possession since her mother’s death, in the box on the closet shelf, no doubt. And now she’d let it get all tattered. If it weren’t for her mother’s writing across the front, she’d put it in a new envelope.

She stared at it a little longer. Her curlers hung on either side of her face, and she gave them a little shake. They were still 289

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warm against her cheeks, which meant she had another five minutes at least before she could take them out. So… what had her mother written to Brooke, anyway? And why just to her firstborn? Was there something special, some words of wisdom she wanted to give Brooke that the others didn’t need?

The possibility seemed strange, not at all like her mother.

A memory came back to her, the hours just after her mother’s funeral. Her father had gathered Ashley and her siblings together and read them an important letter their mother had written to them. All five of them. In that letter, their mother had addressed them each by name.

So why a sealed envelope marked Firstborn?

Ashley turned the envelope over in her hand and noticed another smudge on the back. Cole’s Teddy Grahams probably. They were spilled throughout the same side pocket, and a few of them had morphed into a mass of fine cracker dust. Ashley brushed at the spot with her thumb as the memory from after her mother’s funeral lingered.

Her dad had put the letter—the one addressed to the kids— back into a single manila envelope; only there had been two more smaller envelopes inside it, right? The details were getting clearer now. She had noticed the other envelopes and asked him about them. “What about the other letters, the ones still in the envelope?”

Yes, she definitely remembered asking him about it. And he’d said the others were for him. Ashley blinked and ran her fingers over the sealed edge of the envelope. That didn’t really make sense, either. Why would Mother write one letter for her children and two for her husband? Ashley tapped the letter with her pointer finger.

Suddenly another few pieces from the past came into focus. The letter had been on the floor next to a manila envelope when she found it three weeks ago. So maybe it was the same manila envelope.

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She studied the letter in her hand. Perhaps this was one of the letters her father hadn’t pulled out, one of them he said was for him. A strange queasiness made its way through her veins. Why would her mother have something special to say just to Brooke? And why wouldn’t her father have shared that letter at the same time, while they were all gathered together? He could’ve at least given it to her.