Forgiven

  One of the teenage boys offered a suggestion. “Maybe if we stop for a minute and pray. Just so we can focus on what’s really important here.” He looked at Katy and then at the other kids. “This is about a lot more than the show. It’s about coming together.”

  Without further prompting, the kids formed a circle and joined hands. Katy looked like one of them as she took her spot between two of the little girls. Once their heads were bowed, the teenage boy prayed loud and clear. “Things happen for a reason, Lord. We’ve been saying that again and again since the accident. And no, we don’t always see that reason or understand it. But we believe—” his voice broke, and for a few seconds he paused—“we believe You’re here. And that You have Sarah Jo and Ben safely with You.” He exhaled hard. “Now please . . . let this show bring You glory. Let it be something we can perform in the memory of the friends we lost.”

  When the prayer was over, Dayne watched them get back in line. At the piano, a friendly looking older woman picked up the melody. The kids put their hands on the shoulders of the person in front of them, and like a single body, they each raised their left foot behind them and hopped forward on their right. Not a person swayed or fell over.

  When the number ended, Katy raised her fist in the air and whooped for joy. “See . . . you can do this! You can and you will, and it’ll be the best show ever.”

  Dayne was awestruck at what he’d just seen. It was more than genuine theater and the brilliance of Katy’s ability with the kids. It was something that had to do with the prayer the boy had spoken. Almost as if the kid was right, and God Himself really was here, working some sort of miracle right in the middle of the rehearsal.

  Watching Katy with the kids drove Mitch Henry’s point home, forcing him to make a decision. Never mind what he’d told her earlier when they were on their run. What they’d shared together—the time and laughter, the intimacy of being close enough to kiss—all of it was wonderful. He’d told her the truth; he’d remember every minute forever.

  It wasn’t pretend—he’d been right about that. But he was wrong about the rest. He couldn’t promise that he’d find a way back to her. Not when he had no idea how to start life over, and she had so much to lose. He watched her for the rest of rehearsal, never taking his eyes from her for more than a few seconds.

  He noticed Bailey Flanigan looking at him and at the boy who had prayed. It didn’t matter if they knew. This would be his last CKT rehearsal. He could joke about painting sets and being here for opening night, but none of it was ever going to happen. Not if it meant putting Katy Hart’s privacy and reputation and her job with these kids at risk.

  The closer the rehearsal came to ending, the worse he felt. He had to tell Katy. Waiting would only make things harder for both of them. Besides, the media could arrive in town any day. Paparazzi had a way of sniffing out stories, and they might expect Dayne to come in early. Even just for a few days of privacy. It was the photogs’ job to make sure that never happened, that Dayne never had a chance to do anything they didn’t chronicle for all the world to see.

  He gritted his teeth and watched as Katy finished with the kids. He moved to the far side of the room so none of them would notice him on their way out. When everyone was gone, even Rhonda, Katy made her way up the aisle, set her bag down, and held her hands out to him. “That was a tough one.”

  “I saw.” He stood and gave her a quick hug, nothing too long or lingering. “Hey, Katy, I talked to my director.”

  Something changed in her expression, as if she had some idea of what was coming. “Just now?”

  “A while ago.” He leaned against the pew and slipped his hands into his pockets. “He wants me to stay away from you.”

  “I’m sure.” She nodded, but she couldn’t hide the pain that flashed in her eyes. “He’s just looking out for you.”

  “Not for me.” Dayne wanted her to understand everything he was feeling. “I’m not worried about me, Katy. He isn’t either, not really.”

  “Sure he is.” Katy tried to laugh, but the sound fell short. “You’re about to star in a film with a woman you’re living with, Dayne. If anyone sees me with you that throws the whole picture into a tailspin.”

  He brought his lips together in a thin line. She understood more than he thought. “But it’s more than that.”

  “What?” She picked up her bag and held it to her chest. “Don’t tell me he’s worried about what the paparazzi would do to me. I have no skeletons.”

  “You will when the press gets finished with you.” He said the words so softly, even he could barely hear them. “Katy, they’ll make it look like we’re sleeping together. They’ll flaunt the fact that you’re a Christian drama teacher and make you look worse than Madonna in the process. I’ve seen them do it.” He took one hand from his pocket and touched her arm. “I can’t watch them do it to you.”

  She held her body stiffly, her expression steeled against the emotions he knew must be tearing at her heart. “I have a meeting with the older kids this afternoon, and tomorrow’s church.” She looked into his eyes, and he felt her find the deep places, the places she had found back in California. “So I guess this is it.”

  He wanted to laugh at the idea, stand and shout that the thought was ridiculous. Of course this wasn’t it. Katy Hart was the only woman who had ever touched him this way, the only one he’d cared about because of her inside more than her outside. He didn’t break eye contact with her. “How can you say that?”

  “Because it is. Did you just hear yourself? Your director wants you to stay away from me. You even said that being together could ruin everything for you and me both.” She gave a sad shake of her head. “I get it, Dayne. I’m right. This is it.”

  He took his other hand from his pocket and clenched his fists. “I hate this.” His tone was carefully measured. He was too sad to get very angry. “Let’s get in your car and drive to Canada or Alaska.”

  She touched his shoulder. A sad smile played on her lips. “They have movies there too.”

  “I’ll see you again before I go.” He worked the muscles in his jaw and took a step closer to her. “The director’s right. I won’t do it if it means you’ll get caught by the paparazzi. But if there’s any way . . .” He let the sentence die. Who was he kidding? Once filming started, he’d be watched every moment. Even more than in Hollywood, where movie stars were a common sight.

  She leaned in and kissed his cheek. “Good-bye, Dayne.” She motioned toward the front of the sanctuary. “I’m going to go over the script.” She searched his eyes one last time. “I enjoyed every minute of being with you.”

  “Katy . . .” He caught her arm before she could turn away. “Don’t give up, please. I’ll find a way.”

  “Good-bye.” Her voice was a whisper, and already he could see tears welling in her eyes. She pulled away, turned, and headed back down the aisle.

  He wanted to run after her, grab her, and tell her it was all a crazy joke. Of course they could spend time together. No one would ever tell them what they could or couldn’t do, right? They were two adults, after all.

  But his feet wouldn’t let him go. His feet and his heart. Because no matter what he wanted to tell himself, Mitch Henry was right. He cared too much for Katy Hart to let the media swallow her whole. And as he walked through the back doors of the sanctuary, through the lobby, and out to the parking lot toward his car, he hurt worse than ever before.

  By the time he got back to his hotel, he realized why it was so hard to walk away from her. It was because he not only cared about Katy Hart.

  He loved her.

  Katy had lied to Dayne.

  She had no intention of going over the script. All she knew was that if she followed him out to his car, she might follow him anywhere he asked her to go. And since the film crew was still two days from arriving, they might both be able to talk themselves into spending another afternoon or evening together.

  But all of it was pointless. And so she pretended to hav
e work, pretended she might be able to study the script after he left, when all she could do was close her eyes and let the tears come. Guys weren’t supposed to be this difficult, were they? But Dayne wasn’t just any other guy, and she’d known that from the beginning.

  After a few minutes she pulled herself together, dried her eyes, and drove home to the Flanigans’. Jenny saw her as she walked in through the second front entrance, the one that led straight up to her little apartment.

  “Katy!” She was at her side instantly, taking hold of her shoulders and trying to read the reason for her red, swollen eyes. “What’s wrong, honey?”

  It took a few seconds for Katy to find her voice. “I won’t . . . see Dayne again.”

  “Why?” Jenny didn’t look completely upset by the thought, but her concern was deep all the same. “Did something happen?”

  Katy sniffed and clutched her bag a little more tightly. “Life happened. The world of make-believe ended today.”

  Jenny hugged her, and they stayed that way for a while. When Katy pulled back, Jenny brushed away a stray tear on her cheek. “God has a plan for you, Katy. You believe that, right?”

  “I do.” She dragged her fingertips across her cheeks. “But why did Dayne have to come here? Why did we have to find each other at all?”

  Jenny thought for a moment. “I don’t know. But God does. Maybe you need to talk to Him.”

  “I will.” Katy turned toward the stairs. “Thanks, Jenny. Hey . . . I invited the older kids over at four o’clock for a Bible study.” She frowned. Her sadness over Dayne made even talking about this almost too difficult. “They’re still so angry, Jenny. We need to pray about that too.” She blinked back the hint of fresh tears. “At least they’re willing to meet with me.”

  “I’m so glad. Every time Bailey talks about the drunk driver, it’s like she becomes somebody different. Someone cold and set on revenge. Jim and I can be in on the study if you want.”

  “I would.” She managed a laugh. “After today, I’m not sure I can lead a prayer let alone a study.”

  The time in her room was brief. She fixed her hair and makeup and stayed in constant prayer. It was right, what she’d done by releasing Dayne. Maybe she would see him again sometime over the next couple weeks. Or maybe not. Maybe never again. Either way she was glad they’d spent time together. She still wanted to research Kabbalah, because she’d said she would and she wanted to keep her word.

  Her time alone with Dayne was over. With every passing minute, she hurt a little more about the fact, but she knew it was the right thing. Why risk having the story blow up in the gossip rags? For what, when he was going to return to Hollywood and Kelly Parker when the two weeks in Bloomington were over?

  She forced all thoughts of Dayne and the last two days so deep they wouldn’t surface. At least not for the rest of the afternoon. Out her window she watched the first car pull into the Flanigans’ driveway.

  Fifteen minutes later, they were all gathered in the family room—Katy and Jenny and Jim and ten of the older CKT kids, including Bailey and Tim Reed.

  “We love the idea of a Bible study,” Tim spoke out first. “But what’s the real reason you have us here, Katy?”

  She steadied herself. The day had already brought so much emotion. “The real reason is a guy named Jeremy Fisher.”

  “The drunk driver?” Bailey sat up a little. Anger colored her expression. “That’s funny, ’cause we want to talk about him too.”

  There were a few nods around the room, and Tim gave Katy a defeated look. “We think it’s wrong. What he did, the fact that he’d driven drunk so many times before. We want to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

  “I know.” Katy looked to Jenny, but she was whispering something to Jim. “You want to see him punished.”

  “Punished hard.” One of the girls at the end of the sofa slapped her hand on her knee. “He should’ve been in jail, not out on the streets that night.”

  “That’s probably true. I’m sure he’ll serve time for what happened to our friends.” Katy paused. God, soften their hearts, please. “The thing is, guys, I don’t think the Lord wants us to put our energy into seeing Jeremy Fisher punished. That’s a job for lawyers and judges and juries.”

  “We want a new law, Katy. That’s what we’ve been talking about.” Bailey stood, her voice impassioned. “The Sarah Jo Stryker law. If someone drives drunk once, they get a year in jail. Do it twice, and you lose your license forever.” She looked around the room and took notice of the approval from the others. “We wanted to write it up today when we were together.”

  “Then we’ll spread out into the community.” Another girl’s voice was just as fervent. She sounded angry and indignant. “We’ll have petitions everywhere, and we’ll get signatures.”

  “Right.” One of the boys beside her raised his fist in the air. “This is America. You get enough signatures, you get on the ballot. Then the voters can decide if someone like Jeremy Fisher should’ve been allowed on the road at all.”

  “And while we’re at it, we’ll get signatures for this case too.” Bailey sat back down, but her intensity was still at an all-time high. “We want him to serve a life sentence. He took two lives, so serving one life seems like the fairest thing.”

  “Guys . . .” Katy slid to the edge of the chair and looked around the room. “Listen to yourselves.” She held the Bible on her lap, but before she opened it, an idea hit her. “I want to tell you a story, okay?” She made sure she had their attention. “Once there was a boy who grew up around here. He was an only child, and he liked bike riding with his mother and playing catch with his dad.”

  The room quieted, and she was glad. She had their attention. “Each Christmas the family would go to church and read the story about Christ’s birth from the gospel of Luke. The boy got older, and he went to Clear Creek High—” she looked at Bailey—“same as a lot of you.”

  At the other end of the room, Jenny and Jim linked hands.

  “The boy tried to make good choices, but his football friends were a bad influence on him. His parents had an idea. ‘Try something new,’ they told him. Band or chess club. Maybe drama.”

  Katy’s voice was clear, the story strong on her lips. “Drama sounded pretty good to the boy. He loved being in the limelight, loved the way it felt when he was carrying the football down the sidelines, pushing himself toward the end zone. He wasn’t much of a singer, but his parents encouraged him anyway. There was a new community theater group in town, a Christian group. Surely such a group would have a place for this boy. They were Christians after all. And Christians were accepting, right? So what if his voice was a little off?”

  Tim Reed hung his head for a moment, and Katy wondered if he knew where she was headed with the story. She glanced around the room. “The boy decided to audition for the next play. If he made it, well, he’d still play football. But he’d have a new group of friends at least. Kids who didn’t want to drink or drive fast or sleep with their dates. He could hardly wait for tryouts.”

  Katy felt a wave of emotion, but she refused it. She had to finish the story, had to get it out while she still held their attention. “So the boy showed up for tryouts, only he couldn’t quite get the melody, not anytime through the song. The whole thing—every note of ‘Take Me Out to the Ball Game’ was just a little off-key. Cuts were made that weekend, and the boy didn’t get a part.”

  A few of the girls made quiet sounds of disapproval and regret.

  “But that wasn’t all that happened that week. Four days later, the boy’s father got a notice in the mail. See, he’s an army reservist. The government needed him in Iraq, and he had a week to report. One week. During that time, the boy’s parents argued more than usual, and a month after his father left, he noticed that his mother was gone more than she was home. When she announced that she was leaving on a vacation, he already knew the truth. She wasn’t coming back.”

  Katy nodded, feeling the way the boy must’ve felt
. “That was okay, he told himself. She could go. He still had his father. Only his father e-mailed and said his first leave wouldn’t be for six months.” She hesitated. “About that time the football friends realized something that made them crazy with joy. The boy lived all by himself now. He was sixteen, so he could do whatever he wanted, right? They cheered him on, congratulating him on his good fortune. And every night of the week they brought over cases of beer and had parties.”

  She could tell by the faces around her that the kids could see where she was headed. A few girls had tears on their cheeks.

  “It didn’t take long before the boy realized something. He realized that drinking was an escape. Even after the parties were over, getting lost in a six-pack of Budweiser was better than facing the truth that he lived alone, that his mother had walked out on him without so much as a hug good-bye. Pretty soon the nights weren’t enough. He was an adult after all, so who needed high school? Besides, the kids at Clear Creek didn’t understand him. And the ones who might’ve—the drama kids involved in that Christian theater down the street—well, they’d rejected him too.”

  Even the boys looked disturbed. Katy’s voice stayed strong and compassionate as the story continued. “One season blended into another, and the boy began to worry. Drinking wasn’t an option anymore—it had become a lifestyle. He got a ticket for driving drunk and then another. When his father came home from Iraq for a month, he tried to get help for his son. ‘Don’t do this,’ he told the boy. ‘You’ll ruin your life. You have to stay away from the stuff.’ And for a while, the boy did stay away. But when the boy’s dad went back to Iraq, the loneliness set in again and so did the drinking. Night after night after night, right through the spring and summer and on into the fall.”

  Katy looked at Bailey. Her expression was softer than before, but her eyes were dry. Please, God . . .

  She took a quick breath and finished the story. “It all ended late one horrible night. That was the night the boy drank at a club with a bunch of football friends. But they were smart enough to get rides home with people who hadn’t been drinking. Not this boy. With no one waiting at home for him, he figured he could make it back without getting in trouble.” She shook her head. “But that’s not what happened. He was too drunk to drive, and he crossed the yellow line. On the other side, a van full of kids was coming home from a night of pizza and ice cream.” She swallowed a lump in her throat. “A van with Sarah Jo Stryker and Ben Hanover inside.”