Miracles in Disguise (The Trampled Rose Series) (17 page)

“I'm sorry to disturb you.” He stepped inside as she reset the alarm. She heard the sadness in his voice. “I need to talk with you."

“What is wrong?” She asked. “Is it Barb?”

“No,” he said, reaching out to run a calming hand down her arm. She stiffened against the welcome feeling that threatened to break past her defenses, and he dropped his hand. “We need to talk.”

Turning from him, she headed for the living room. “Yeah, we do.”

Nathan sighed wearily, and Kristina looked up at him with wary eyes. “A couple of days ago, I came to have a conversation about what I hoped would be our future . . . our future together. But instead you went running behind your wall again.” Frustrated, he ran his hands through his hair and began pacing as he spoke. “I don't understand, so you have to help me here, Kristina. You were letting me in. You were starting to trust me; at least that is what I felt. But now you’re running from me again, and I just don't understand why?"

Kristina bowed her head, as tears began to fall, but said nothing. She couldn’t speak, because when she did, it would be over. He would walk out the door, out of her life, and she had to let him go. The only problem was she wasn’t ready yet.

“You opened up the other night about Steve and your father,” he said, stopping his pacing. Placing his hands on his hips, he faced her squarely. “Can't you see I'm not them? Haven't I done a good job of showing you that I'm not going to leave you and that I don't require you to prove anything to me?”

Kristina gripped the arms of the chair, while Nathan towered over her. She mistook his mounting frustration as anger, and fear flooded her. She had an overwhelming need to run and hide. In the end, she just looked away, and ran a shaky hand across her mouth.

“I said the other night that I didn't care about your past. I was wrong.” Kneeling before her, he cupped her face in his hands, forcing her to meet his gaze. His touched caused her to jump, and elicited a small gasp from her. "I despise your past, because it is the thing you use to keep me away and measure me up against. I can’t fight what I don't understand and I can’t see.”

Her eyes, brimming with tears, looked into his. Her breath was coming fast as fear strangled her. “Steve raped me that night. And five years later, I met and married another Prince Charming, who proceeded to physically, sexually and verbally abuse me for about five years.”

Nathan dropped his hands and sat back on his heels. She hadn’t meant to tell him like that, but the words were out, so why not finish the job.

“We had a great marriage in the beginning, but I disappointed him one night and that changed everything. The night of Lisa's wedding, Michael, who I hadn't seen in years, came up and hugged me. I didn't realize it until much later, but that is what made him angry that night. When he accused me of wanting to be with Michael instead of him, I laughed. I really did love David, so I just thought it was ridiculous that I would ever want to be with anyone but him.”

After a moment of silence, Kristina whispered, “It was like he just snapped.” She pulled her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms protectively around them, as if she could ward off the darkness of the memory. “The next day he was so sorry. He cried and cried,” she said between sobs, “and I believed he was sorry. I believed his lies, but a couple months later, it happened again. This time it was about a student in my class who had a crush on me. When I blew it off, he accused me of liking the attention. He went on and on about how I loved the kid’s compliments so much that I actually needed them. David had been so busy with the church at the time, and he suggested that I was seeking attention from my own students.”

Kristina brushed her tears angrily from her cheeks, and continued, “And he even hinted that I probably led Steve on. Nathan, he knew Steve raped me on my prom night, and I let him use it against me." Pointing at her chest, Kristina said again, “I let him; I let him intimidate me into believing those words. All those times he hurled Scriptures and accusations at me. One minute I was his angel sent from Heaven, and the next I was his sinner and he was charged with my redemption."

She tore her eyes from the pity she saw on Nathan’s face. “I went to Lisa, who was a principle at a private, all-girls school, and got a job there. I let him strip me of everything. Before long I was distancing myself from my friends, my family." She turned back to Nathan and said, “You know, at one point I actually believed that I could just love him more and things would stop. If I could just please him, make him happy, do everything he wanted, we could be like we were before.”

She laughed coldly and continued, “But there was nothing that could please him.” With her bottom lip trembling, Kristina finished, “If I cooked chicken for dinner, and he wanted steak, I would pay for it. If a guy smiled at me in the grocery store, I was flirting. And if I failed to sit just so in church, or sing the right notes, or didn’t look perfect enough, I was making him look bad on purpose.”

She sat there silently, locked in her pain, in her memories, unable to go on. The wealth of emotion she had been pushing down for so long had been set free.

“But you left him, you got away from him.” Nathan said, forcing her to look at him.

She tried to pull his hands down, but he refused to let her go.

“Let me help you! You can trust me!”

“Nathan, you don’t understand!” Panic was rising in her. She couldn’t get away from her past, and Nathan wasn’t about to let her go, either.

“I know you have a choice now! You’re free!”

“I’m not free,” she shouted. Before she could continue, he smothered her words in a gentle kiss. The sweetness of his kiss mixed with the pain that was searing her heart was too much for Kristina.

Tearing her lips from his, she screamed, “I’m still married!”

Nathan immediately stood up, and the look on his face told it all. She had wanted to push him away, no matter what it took. But now faced with that look of hurt and betrayal, she wanted to take back her words.

Chapter Nineteen

Nathan stood rooted to the spot, trying to digest what she had just said. She had she let him kiss her, fall in love with her, knowing she was still married? She had let him commit adultery?

“I tried to run from him, and he found out. He hurt me really bad that night, and Lisa found me the next day when I didn’t show up for work. She called the cops. While in jail, he wrote to me. He told me that he knew he lost me, but he wanted to see me one more time before I left. And I couldn't bear to see him again; I hated him so much.” Nathan stood rooted to the spot, wanting to be able to help, but unable to move. “So I crumpled his letter and tossed it into the trash. A couple of days later I received word that he committed suicide.”

He heard the pain and the guilt lacing her words as she fumbled through her explanation. "He told me that he could never live without me, that it would kill him if I ever left him.” The bitterness was back in her voice as she said, "You know the church blamed me for his death. They said it was my fault…maybe they were right.”

Nathan watched the myriad of emotions going through her, and reached for her despite the jumble of emotions going through him. But she rejected his comforting touch. “Darling, if he’s dead, you are not married.”

“I think he is still alive.”

“What do you mean, ‘think’?”

She walked to her desk, and returned with a crumpled piece of paper. “I found a box with a few of my husband’s things and this note on my doorstep Monday.”

He read the note and softened his tone as the pieces started to fall into place. “The cop outside, the security system…avoiding me.”

“Nathan, I’m leaving town. If David is still alive, I need to stay away from you. You don't know what he is capable of.”

“So you’re running?”

“For your safety…”

“But you don’t even know for sure that he’s alive!”

“You don’t understand, Nathan.”

“Then help me understand,” he roared. She jumped again at his voice and backed up in the chair when he reached for her. She was silent and he watched the tears trickle from her eyes down her cheeks.

The possibility dawned on him. “You want to go back to him?”

“No!” She cried, and turned from him. The words his mom said kept tumbling through his mind, but the thought of letting her go broke his heart.

His heart wrenched with pain, and his words came out more forcefully than he wanted. “Then let me help!”

She jumped up from her precarious perch on the edge of the chair. There was no hiding her fears…she was scared of him. It was as if she slapped him. The truth slashed through his heart. She not only feared her husband, but she feared him…that he would one day turn into her husband. That she could think he would ever harm her in any way cut him to the core.

He dropped his hands in defeat and mumbled, “You can say you are running for my safety, but the truth is you are also running from me.”

Hearing the hurt in his voice, she turned. “No, Nathan,” she said softly, her voice quivering with tears. “I just wanted to believe that this time . . . I just hoped...”

“…That I wouldn’t turn out to be a monster?” His words hung in the air between them, piercing their hearts with the truth. She wanted to deny it. Nathan was so gentle, so compassionate…but she had just recoiled in fear at his anger. She had believed that he was going to hurt her. And now she couldn’t believe that she had ever feared him. Nathan was no David. He wasn’t now, and he never would be.

“I'm sorry that I deceived you. I should have been honest with you from the beginning." Kristina could no longer continue, she turned from him and said softly between sobs, “I think you should just go.”

Nathan stood there for a few moments, her shoulders wracked with violence of her sobbing, and his own tears dampening his cheeks. He wanted to stay and convince her there was hope, to hold her until her tears ceased, and her fear subsided. But the futility of it all was like lead in his heart, weighing it down. In the end, he silently walked out of the house with the words his mother spoke buzzing around his head like an aggravating fly.

Chapter Twenty

Kristina heard the click of the screen door closing, followed by the successive beeps of the alarm giving her a chance to enter her code before blaring. She numbly entered the code to disarm it, quieting the alarm, but not the alarm clamoring in her head.

Why, God?

The empty room merely hung onto her question. No answer, no explanation to her misery was given.
I did the right thing
, she told her aching heart. But her heart didn’t seem to care for her excuses.

She walked into her room to pack her clothes…no reason to stay now.

The phone rang, and she checked the caller ID. “Hey Lisa.”

“I got your message. How are you?”

Kristina briefly explained about the package. “I’m leaving soon, and I just wanted to let you know. I didn’t want you to worry."

“Leaving - but what about Nathan?”

“It’s for his own safety.”

“Are you sure?” Lisa questioned. After Kristina remained silent, Lisa asked, “What did he say?”

“He wanted to help me. But he has no idea how cruel David can be.”

“Kristina, I understand your concern. Remember, I saw David’s handiwork all over your face, and I have no wish to visit you in the hospital again. But you don’t even know if he is alive. You are running off, running from a wonderful man, running from this new hope you have, and letting David ruin both of your lives.”

“Our hearts will heal with time, but Nathan can’t heal if he’s dead!”

Lisa sighed, and Kristina knew she was frustrated with her logic. But she would just have to understand.

“So where are you running to? Come back here, and let us protect you.”

“No!” Kristina said quickly. “And I am not going to tell you where I’m going. The less you know the better.”

“Well, will you at least tell me when you are leaving?”

Tears were again pouring down her cheeks. “In a couple of days. I just need to clear up a few things first.”

*****

Kristina pulled up to Barbara’s house and noticed Pastor McKinley’s truck in the driveway. She thought about pulling back out, but she needed to leave tomorrow. There wouldn't be any other time for explanations; today was all she had.

She walked up to the door and was greeted by George. The emotional weight of the past week had taken their toll on the man and it was evident in the weary lines on his face.

“They’re in the den.” She followed him down the hall to the back of the house. When she stepped into the little room, she paused as Nathan stood.

He looked at her for a moment, but then turned to Barbara resting on the couch. “Well, it looks like you have another visitor. I will come back tomorrow.” He squeezed Barbara's hand and Kristina remembered how much strength those little hand squeezes bolstered her flagging spirit. She wished…but she quickly chased the thought from her mind. There were no more wishes left for Kristina and Nathan. Only a miracle could make things right between them.