Heart of the Family (13 page)

He slid a look toward her as he turned onto the highway. “What?”

“My mother came to visit this afternoon for a few days. She wanted to spend Christmas with me, and her employer gave her the time off at the last minute.”

His harsh intake of air was followed by silence.

“This is just like Mom. When the mood strikes, she gets up and goes somewhere. She doesn’t like staying still for long in any one place. There were many times while I was growing up that I left my things in boxes rather than unpack. It was easier that way.” She heard her nervous chattering and wished she could see Jacob’s face but the dark hid it.

“Does she know about me being involved in Stone’s Refuge?”

“Yes.”

“Before or after she came.”

“Before.”

“I’m sure that made her day. Why is she really here?”

“That’s a good question. One I don’t have an answer to.”

Silence ate into her composure. She rubbed her thumb into her palm and tried to think of a way to make everything all right.
Lord, what do I do? How do I fix this?

“Hannah, I’m sorry you had to tell your mother. I imagine that wasn’t a nice reunion for you two.”

“I told my mother that I had forgiven you for what happened with Kevin, that I cared about you.”
That I want to be more than friends with you,
she wanted to add but realized at the moment Jacob wouldn’t want to hear that.

His derisive laugh taunted her words. “She was thrilled, no doubt.”

“I love my mother, but we don’t always see eye to eye on things. This will just be another item added to the bottom of a long list.”

“Don’t you mean, added to the top?”

Before she could answer him, her cell phone blared with a drumroll. She fumbled for it in her purse and flipped it open. “Hello.”

“Hannah?” A voice, barely audible, came through.

“Yes, who is this?”

“I’m in trouble.”

Hannah sat up straight. “Lisa, where are you?”

“I’m near my old apartment. He’s so angry.”

“Who?”

“My ex-boyfriend,” Lisa said in a raspy whisper.

“Jacob and I are on our way. We’ll be—” The connection went dead.

Hannah snapped her cell closed. “Please hurry. Lisa’s near her boyfriend’s apartment. Something’s wrong. She sounds…” She searched for a word to describe what she heard in the woman’s voice beside fear.

“High?”

“Likely.”

Jacob pressed down on the accelerator. He remembered the times he found his mother stoned. The memories, one after another, left him chilled in the car’s heated air. That last night before the state took him away from her, the paramedics had said she’d been a few minutes away from death. If he hadn’t come home…He shuddered and increased his speed even more.

“O
h, great! It’s snowing even harder now. Normally I love to see it on Christmas Eve. Not this year.” Hannah gripped the door handle, prepared to jump from the car the second Jacob parked.

“Why did she go with her ex?”

“Some women have a hard time breaking ties with men who’ve been in their life, even ones who have abused them.”

Jacob took a corner too fast, and the car fishtailed on a slick area. The color leached from his face as he struggled to control his vehicle.

She gasped. For a few seconds her brother’s wreck flittered across Hannah’s mind as a telephone pole loomed ahead.

Steering into the skid, he slowed his speed. Finally he managed to right the car, missing the curb and pole by a couple of feet. “Sorry,” he bit out between clenched teeth, his white-knuckle grasp on the wheel tightening.

“It’s okay. We need to get to Lisa before her boyfriend finds her.”

“It’s not okay!” Although the words came out in a harsh whisper, the power behind them hung in the air, reinforcing the barrier that he had erected between them. “I could have…”

His unfinished sentence lingered. She touched his arm.

He swallowed hard. “I know better. I couldn’t live with myself if I caused something to happen to you, too.” He retreated into stony silence as he negotiated the city streets.

“I forgave you, Jacob. There were no strings attached to that forgiveness.”

“How could you?”

She felt as though she was fighting for the most important thing in her life. “Because I love you. Love yourself.”

He shook off her arm, his jaw set in a grim line. His scowl told of the war of emotions raging inside him. She wanted so much to comfort him but knew he would reject it—reject her. All she could do now was pray and turn it over to the Lord.

When the apartment building came into view, Hannah bent forward, scouring the area around it for any sign of Lisa. Jacob brought the car to a stop in front. Hannah leaped from the vehicle and raced toward the entrance.

Jacob halted her progress. “What do you think you’re doing?” His hand immediately fell away as if touching her was distasteful.

Snowflakes caught on her eyelashes. She blinked and looked up into his fierce expression. “Going inside to see if Lisa is with him.”

“Let’s check outside first. That’s where she was when she called.”

“Okay, I’ll look down this side. You go over there.” She waved toward the area across the street.

“No, we go together in case the boyfriend is looking for her, too.”

“But it will go faster if—”

“I don’t want you meeting up with him alone.” His determination, a tangible force, brooked no argument.

“Fine. Then let’s get moving. We’re wasting time.” Frustrated, worried, she stalked down the street.

Passing an alley, Hannah walked down its length, inspecting every place someone could hide. Nothing. Back out on the sidewalk, she continued, stopping at the quick market on the corner, the only place open on Christmas Eve.

“Let’s check inside. Maybe she’s hiding in here since it’s cold and snowing,” she said as she entered the store.

While she went up and down the aisles, Jacob questioned the clerk at the counter. When she finished her search, she came back to his side.

“If she comes back in, tell her Jacob and Hannah are looking for her and to wait here.” Jacob took her elbow and led the way to the door. “She was here about fifteen minutes ago, using the phone in the back. When a man came in that fits the description of her boyfriend, she must have fled. The clerk didn’t see her leave, but he thinks she went out the back way.”

“Then he may not have found her.”

“The clerk told the man she was on the phone in the back.”

“No! How could he?”

“He was scared. He knows who Carl is and doesn’t want to have any trouble with him.”

“Did he call the police?”

“No.”

Lord, please put Your protective shield around Lisa.

“We’ve got to find her first.” Hannah rounded the corner of the store, making her way to the back where Lisa would have come out.

Footsteps in the continually falling snow led away from the door, heading toward an alley nearby. Another set had joined the first.

“She’s running.” Jacob pointed at the long stride between each print.

“He isn’t, as if he’s stalking her and knows he’ll catch her.”

“With this snow, it’ll be hard for her to hide from him.”

“But we can track her, too.” Hannah hurried her pace.

The darkness of the alley obscured part of the footprints, but the occasional light from a window showed them the way—as well as Carl. At one place Lisa must have tried to go into a building, but the door was locked.

Jacob slowed, putting his arm out to halt Hannah. “Call 9-1-1.”

She squinted into the dimness and glimpsed what he’d seen. A still body curled into a ball in the snow, a fine layer of the white stuff covering the person. She dug into her pocket and pulled out her cell, making the call while Jacob stooped and brushed the snow off the body, revealing Lisa.

After talking to the 9-1-1 operator, Hannah knelt next to Jacob. “Is she alive?”

“Yes.” Removing a penlight from his pocket, he began to check out Lisa’s injuries. “She’s got a lump on the back of her head.”

A snow-covered pipe lay a few feet away, a stream of light from the building illuminating it.

A moan escaped Lisa’s lips. “No, don’t.” She raised her arm as though she were fending off a blow. Her eyes bolted open. She saw Jacob, and her arm fell to the pavement. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” Tears streamed down her cheeks and blended with the melted snow on her face.

Hannah leaned close. “Lisa, I’m going to wait for the police and ambulance at the end of the alley. You’re going to be all right. Jacob will take care of you.”

Jacob paced the waiting room, wearing a path in front of Hannah’s chair. “We should have heard something by now.”

“Carl beat her up pretty badly. Thankfully Lisa was conscious enough to tell us what drug she took before she passed out again.”

Jacob paused before her. “Let’s hope the police have brought him in by now.”

“One less drug dealer on the streets.”

“But for how long?”

“Do you think Lisa will testify against him?”

“No.” He pivoted and started pacing again. “She’s afraid of him and rightly so.”

“We’ve got to be there for her. Maybe then she will.”

“Maybe.” But skepticism drenched his voice.

An emergency-room doctor appeared in the doorway. “Jacob, I heard you found the woman. Does she have any kin?”

“A son staying at Stone’s Refuge. Otherwise, I don’t think so. How is she?”

“A concussion, two cracked ribs and some cuts and bruises. I think the man had a ring on that left his mark as he was pounding on her.”

Chilled, Hannah stood and clasped her arms, running her hands up and down to warm herself. “May we see her now?”

“They’re taking her upstairs to a room. Give them fifteen minutes to get her settled in, then you can see her. I want to keep her overnight for observation. If she does okay, she can go home tomorrow.”

After the doctor left, Hannah sighed. “We need to get Andy. I promised him we would.”

Jacob glanced at his watch. “He should be at the church with the others right now. I’ll go pick him up and bring him back to see his mother while you go talk to her.”

“She’ll want to see you and thank you, Jacob.”

“I don’t know if that would be a good idea.”

“Because she had a relapse?”

“Some things never change.”

“Lisa is human. She made a mistake. We all do. God forgives us thankfully, so the least we can do is try to do the same.”

His gaze sliced through Hannah. “I’ll be back later with Andy.” Jacob strode from the waiting room before he said something he would regret. He’d heard the censure in her voice. But Hannah hadn’t lived with a drug addict. He had. His mother had ruined her life and had been well on the way to doing the same with his.

No, you did a good job of that yourself that night you killed Kevin. What she started, you finished.

His guilt that was always there swelled to the foreground, threatening to swamp him. Up until the appearance of Hannah in his life he’d managed to cope with what he had done. Now he didn’t know if he could continue to work with the children at Stone’s Refuge and see her. He’d thought he could, but he wanted more. He wanted a wife and a family—with Hannah. But how could they ever be really happy with what happened always hanging between them? How could she have really forgiven him?

Jacob found a parking space in the nearly full lot at the church and walked toward the entrance. The snow had stopped and a white blanket muffled the sounds, making it serenely quiet. Christmas music wafted from the sanctuary, reminding him how special this time of year was. He entered the place of worship and stood in the back, searching for the large group from the refuge. He caught Peter’s gaze, and his friend leaned around Laura to let Meg know Jacob was there.

Andy exited the pew and started for him. Following close behind the boy was a woman whose image was burned into his memory. For a few seconds the remembrance whisked him back to the hospital corridor where Hannah’s mother had accused him of ruining her life, that he might as well have killed her, too. Emotions so strong he staggered back a couple of steps inundated him as his gaze locked with Kevin’s mother’s.

Around him the congregation sang “O Holy Night” while Jacob desperately tried to compose himself enough to deal with her and Andy. He knew one thing as the distance disappeared between—that he didn’t want the parishioners to witness the scene. Fumbling for the handle, he wrenched open the door to the sanctuary and escaped out into the empty lobby.

Why now, Lord?

No answer came as Andy and Karen Collins halted in front of him. His attention remained glued to the older woman, who was slightly heavier and with strands of gray hair, but otherwise the same as twenty-one years before.

“Dr. Jacob, is my mother all right? Did you find her?”

Andy’s voice drew his gaze to the boy standing half a foot away, his head upturned, his eyes large with fear and worry in their depths.

Jacob forced a smile of reassurance. “She’s going to be fine.”

“Where is she?”

“At the hospital.”

Panic widened the boy’s eyes even more. “She’s hurt!”

“Hannah is there with her. I’ve come to take you to see her.” Jacob settled his hands on the boy’s shoulders, compelling the child’s full attention. “She has a lump on her head and some cuts and bruises, but she’ll mend just fine. She’s going to need you to be strong. Can you do that for her?”

Andy drew himself up tall. “Yes.”

“Where’s your coat?”

The boy pointed toward the hallway that led to the classrooms. “Back there.”

“Go get it, then we’ll leave.”

The second the child disappeared down the corridor Jacob’s gaze fastened on Kevin’s mother. So many things he wanted to say swirled in his mind, but none formed a coherent sentence.

“Hannah said you were wonderful with the children. She’s right.”

Her words, spoken with no anger, confounded Jacob. He stared at her, speechless.

“When Hannah first told me today you two were more than associates, that you were…friends, I didn’t know what to say to her. After she left to go with you, I had a long talk with God. I wanted to tell you that I’ve forgiven you for what happened, too. As my daughter pointed out to me, it was an accident that ended tragically for my son. What I said to you in the hospital that day was grief talking, but it took me years to realize that. It took finding the Lord and my daughter’s example to see what I needed to do. I’m sorry for what I said.”

Jacob heard her, but the words wouldn’t register. “How can you say that?”

She smiled. “Stop blaming yourself for something that was out of your control.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Jacob glimpsed Andy coming back. He rushed to the boy and clasped his hand. “We need to get to the hospital,” was all he could think to say.

A few minutes later he headed his car away from the church, still grappling with what Hannah’s mother had said.

“You aren’t kidding me, are you? Mom is okay?”

“I promise. I’d never kid you about something like that. She’s staying overnight at the hospital and hopefully will go home tomorrow.”

“I won’t get to see her on Christmas?”

“I’ll make sure you do. I’ll pick her up and bring her to the cottage to spend some time with you if the doctor says it’s okay.”

Andy heaved a long sigh. “Good. I don’t want her being alone on Christmas. She needs me.”

Shouldn’t it be the other way around? “You aren’t mad at her for all that’s happened?” The question slipped out before Jacob could snatch it back. “No.”

“Why not?”

“I love her.”

Is love the key? If you love someone enough, you forgive them?

God loved us so much that he gave His only son for our salvation. Hannah had said Christ has taught us to forgive, that she had learned from the Master Himself.

Could he? Can the Lord forgive him for taking another’s life? Could he forgive himself for surviving the car wreck? Could he forgive his mother for his childhood?

If he wanted any kind of life, he needed to figure that out.

“Where’s Dr. Jacob?” Hannah asked as Andy came into the hospital room.

“He needed to go see someone. He told me Peter will come and take us home.” The boy walked to his mother’s bed and took her hand.

Lisa’s eyes fluttered open. “Andy,” she said groggily.

“How are you?” The child’s voice thickened with tears.

“Hey, baby. Don’t cry. I’m gonna be fine thanks to Hannah and Jacob.” She closed her eyes for a few seconds. “I love ya.”

Andy lay his head near his mother’s. “I love ya, Mom. Dr. Jacob said ya could come to the cottage tomorrow if the doctor says so.”

“That’s…great. I can’t…” Sleep stole Lisa’s next words.