Halfway to Forever

  Tanner remembered hurting when he learned the truth about Jade’s teenage years in Kelso. Life had not been easy for Jade since she’d moved from Virginia. By the time Tanner found her again that summer, the walls around her heart were so high and thick, there were times he thought their relationship didn’t stand a chance.

  But gradually Jade opened up and the walls fell. Not only that, but midway through July, Jade became a believer, a Christian with a deep love for God. With everything in common, Jade and Tanner’s time together was magic.

  Until then, Tanner had kept himself from intimate situations, determined to wait until marriage before sharing himself with a woman. Jade, too, was a virgin, and early in their dating Tanner couldn’t imagine their relationship ever becoming physical.

  Tanner bit his lip, his eyes still locked on his wife’s framed image. The truth was, they both let walls tumble that summer. By the end of August, the day before he was scheduled to go back to college on the east coast, there was nothing either of them could do to resist the temptation of being together.

  And that single night—the decision to give in to a moment of weakness greater than either of them—changed everything about the next decade.

  No matter how much time passed, the truth about what happened that fall was still depressing. It made Tanner long for a way to go back and change things so he and Jade could somehow share every one of the days they missed.

  After their fateful night together, Tanner left for Europe on a lengthy mission trip. He was there, completely out of communication, when Jade learned she was pregnant. With nowhere else to turn, Jade called Tanner’s mother, who told her that Tanner was a liar who randomly slept with women and made them pregnant.

  Tanner opened his eyes and exhaled in a way that filled the hotel room with sadness. The fact that Jade had believed his mother was always the hardest part for Tanner. That and what happened next.

  Alone and pregnant with nowhere to turn, no one who seemed to care about her, Jade panicked. It was as simple as that.

  She married Jim Rudolph, a man who shared nothing of Jade’s newfound faith. It was a marriage intended to do one thing: give Jade’s baby a chance at a normal life.

  Instead, it caused all of them a decade of heartache.

  Tanner stood and stared out the window at the distant Colorado mountains. There were no words to describe the pain that had suffocated him when he returned from his mission trip that fall and found out Jade was married. Tanner tried desperately to reach her, but to no avail.

  Tanner turned back to the hotel room and glanced at the clock. Matt was right. What good was he doing Jade here in Colorado researching his next case? He could finish his research at home.

  He wandered about his room, gathering clothes and tossing them into his suitcase. A heaviness settled over Tanner’s heart, and he knew it was from the flood of memories that had carried him through the past hour. The pain of losing Jade all those years ago never dimmed, not even a little.

  Maybe that’s why he was running so fast these days.

  He’d been heartsick watching her move away when he was a boy. Then after they’d found each other again in Kelso, after they’d fallen in love and made promises to marry, Tanner had been devastated by losing her a second time. It had taken years before her face didn’t haunt him at night, before her name wasn’t fresh on his mind in everything he did.

  Now the stakes were higher than ever, and Tanner was sure of this much: If he lost Jade again, it would destroy him.

  Eleven

  Fear coursed through Patsy Landers’ veins as she sat on a stone bench amidst the wild daisies, pink roses, and brash violets that took up most of the courtyard outside her small house in Bartlesville, Oklahoma.

  This was her prayer garden, the place she came when she wanted quiet time alone with God. It was a place she’d visited often these past four months while she prayed about the situation with her wayward daughter. And now, as her heart raced within her, she was sure of His answer.

  It was time to take action.

  Not for Leslie’s sake. Unless Leslie gave her life over to Jesus, there was no way the girl was going to change. She was twenty-one, hooked on crack, and determined not to take help from her mother or anyone else. At this point she could be living on the streets or with a band of drug runners. There was no way to tell.

  Patsy lifted her chin and let the breeze dry her tears. If Leslie were not a mother, it would be time to let her go. Let her come to the end she seemed desperate to reach.

  But Leslie was not alone.

  She had little Grace with her, even though Patsy had offered—as she always did—to care for the child herself. Patsy folded her gnarled hands and a small sigh slipped from between her teeth. The loan had been Patsy’s last-ditch attempt, the only way she knew to be sure Leslie would stay in Oklahoma. She borrowed against the equity in her Bartlesville home and gave the money to Leslie on one condition: Use it to purchase a house around the corner, a small place where she and Grace could start a normal life, one that didn’t involve drugs and strange men and living out of various broken-down vehicles.

  It was the money Patsy was going to use to have her hips replaced, an operation doctors assured her would ease her arthritis pain. But the surgery could wait.

  If the money would mean getting Leslie and Grace out of California and off the streets, it was worth every penny.

  Patsy was certain Leslie was going to cooperate. Together they toured the small house she’d chosen and contacted a realtor. Escrow papers were drawn up, and Leslie seemed excited about her new chance at life.

  The day the deal was set to close, mere hours before Leslie was to show up with the cashier’s check and take ownership of the house, she fled. She left with Grace and the money, and Patsy hadn’t heard a word from them since.

  At first Patsy considered calling the police and reporting the money stolen, but that wouldn’t have helped. Besides, she’d given the money to Leslie. Yes, they’d had an arrangement as to where the money was supposed to go, but either way, Leslie hadn’t stolen it. Not by legal definition.

  Next, Patsy thought about getting in her car and heading down the highway toward California, because if she knew one thing about Leslie, it was this: If she was running, she’d eventually wind up in California. Santa Maria, to be specific. That was where her drug base was, the place where she could crash at any of a dozen houses and have people smoke and drink and shoot up with her. People who would watch Grace for days on end if Leslie wound up in a stupor that couldn’t be slept off.

  Patsy was as sure as winter that Leslie was there.

  But she was also sure that this time there was no point chasing her. Leslie would do what she wanted, regardless of Patsy’s attempts to stop her. That being the case, Patsy chose to take an hour every day and do the one thing she knew with absolute certainty would make a difference: Pray.

  She prayed that somehow Leslie would arrive in California and feel compelled to find a new start, that she wouldn’t return to her drugged-out friends, and that she’d realize there would never be another time when she’d have so much cash on hand.

  “Help her think clearly,” Patsy would pray quietly while she sat in her garden. “Let her use the money for a house or an apartment. Something stable for Grace.”

  Because really, what it all came down to was the child.

  Patsy could release her hold on Leslie. She could shelve her concerns that her only daughter would wind up in a gutter someday, facedown, dead from a drug overdose. If that happened, so be it. There was nothing Patsy could do to stop it.

  But Grace deserved better.

  Sweet, precious little Grace. Patsy loved the child like she was her own and would gladly have raised her, would have fought Leslie in court for the chance to do so if only it seemed like the right thing. The problem was that Grace loved her mother. Every time Patsy considered using legal means to take the child from Leslie, she was stopped by that single fact. It was a terrible i
nner conflict. What was best for Grace? Life with Leslie, or life with her grandmother?

  Now, in light of Leslie’s disappearing with the money and remaining silent these past four months, the answer seemed perfectly clear. Grace was four years old, after all, and there was no telling what horrific things awaited her if she accompanied her mother back to the culture of drug users and criminal types.

  Patsy thought back to the time that had passed since Leslie’s disappearance. The months had been filled with pain, not just emotionally but physically. Patsy’s arthritis was worse than before and even simple activities were almost more than she could bear. The weeks had become months, and still Patsy prayed. But not until this morning, with the rich smell of blossoms hanging in the humid air, was Patsy sure it was time to act. She took slow, painful steps toward the house. Once inside, she began making phone calls.

  Two days later she had enough information to string together what had happened to Leslie and Grace since they left Oklahoma. The facts acted like so many spears, impaling Patsy’s heart further with each devastating blow.

  As Patsy had suspected, Leslie headed for Santa Maria, but instead of using the money to find a safe place for her and Grace, she blew the entire amount on drugs. Neighbors who lived near a house that Leslie frequented were able to tell Patsy how wild things had gotten. So bad, in fact, that they’d taken to watching little Grace so she wouldn’t be run down in the driveway by the constant flow of traffic and party-goers.

  Something the neighbor said knocked the wind from Patsy.

  “Leslie told us you were dead,” the neighbor woman said. “She said you were sick and died. That’s why they left Oklahoma.”

  It was a full minute before Patsy could speak. “She had … a lot of money. Did she say anything about that?”

  The neighbor was quick to answer. “Yes. She said you left it to her in your will.”

  When she hung up, Patsy felt numb from her toes to the basement of her heart. So that’s how it was. The guilt of what Leslie had done was so great that she’d simply written Patsy off.

  The rest of the truth was no less easy to accept.

  When the money was gone, Leslie did what she always did when reality crashed in around her. She took Grace and disappeared, this time in an old van. Police records told the story of what happened next. Broke and unable to buy food or water for her and Grace, Leslie took to prostitution, something she’d done before. She operated out of the van, which she parked in an abandoned field outside town.

  That’s where she was when police found her. Details of those final days were hazy, but one thing was terrifyingly clear. Leslie was in jail and Grace had been taken into foster care. The court intended to terminate Leslie’s rights as a mother. And that meant one thing.

  Grace was about to be a ward of the court, adopted out to strangers, all because Leslie had been too proud to place a call to Oklahoma and give Patsy the chance to raise the child.

  The policeman she’d spoken to had been kind enough to trace Leslie’s file and relay the information Patsy needed if she was ever going to find Grace again. Patsy thanked the man and scribbled down the name of a social worker, the woman who had placed Grace in the home of someone named Bronzan.

  Patsy’s heart sank. What if Grace had already been adopted? What if it was too late?

  She closed her eyes and held her breath. Help me get her back, God. She needs me. Besides, Grace is my little girl, my angel baby. She doesn’t belong with strangers.

  Finally Patsy opened her eyes and allowed herself to breathe again. Then, without hesitating, she picked up the phone and dialed the number the policeman had given her. Someone answered on the first ring and Patsy cleared her throat and asked for Edna Parsons, Grace’s social worker.

  There was a pause and then a woman came on the line. “Yes?”

  “Mrs. Parsons?” Patsy winced as her body tensed.

  “Yes, how can I help you?”

  Patsy drew a deep breath. “I’m Grace Landers’s grandmother. I’d like to see about getting permanent custody of her.”

  Edna Parsons’ heart skipped a beat the moment the caller identified herself. She hoped it was a hoax, one of Leslie Landers’s friends seeking to disrupt the termination of Leslie’s parental rights.

  But there was something very real and logical about the woman’s story. She knew Grace’s full name and birth date and had examples of what the child liked to eat and wear and watch on television. The grandmother lived in Oklahoma and promised to fax in documentation proving she was Leslie Landers’s mother and showing that she had the means to permanently care for little Grace.

  The woman suffered from arthritis and lived on a disability pension and the retirement funds from her deceased husband. She was slow, but not crippled, she explained. “I can care for Grace, no problem. She’s a sweet child; she knows I don’t get around very well.”

  By all preliminary standards, Patsy Landers seemed well enough to be named the child’s legal guardian, but that didn’t make the situation any easier. After all, Grace was adapting beautifully with the Bronzans. Edna had been by their house a few days earlier and had been moved to tears watching Grace run on the beach with her new sister. Hannah and Matt said the change in their family had been miraculous.

  “It’s like she’s always been our little girl,” Hannah told Edna when she gathered her things and left that day.

  Edna’s throat swelled with sorrow. She’d done everything she could to see that something like this wouldn’t happen, but still it had. These sorts of disruptions in foster-adopt homes weren’t supposed to happen! Leslie Landers had said her mother was dead, after all. Of course, Edna had realized the woman could be lying, so she had done a national name search on Patsy Landers—just to verify that the woman was indeed dead. When nothing turned up, Edna assumed Leslie was telling the truth—but Patsy was listed under the name of her second husband, a man who had passed away a decade ago.

  It didn’t matter now. None of that would help the Bronzans once Edna notified them of Grace’s grandmother’s intentions.

  Losing Grace would be overwhelming to people like the Bronzans, people who had suffered so much loss already.

  Edna wanted to go home, shut herself in her bedroom, and cry for a week. But she knew there was something she had to do first. Not now, not until she had the proper documentation from the woman in Oklahoma, but as soon as she did there’d be no way around it.

  She would have to call the Bronzans and tell them the truth.

  Twelve

  A month into the medication, Jade was still herself—no personality changes, no shuffling gait, no slurred speech or memory loss.

  She felt tired, but nothing worse.

  It was the end of July and Tanner had been home from Colorado for nearly a week. He seemed less distant, more willing to share with her, talk to her. Whatever had happened while he was gone, the change had been a good thing. In fact, everything about life seemed better than ever lately, and Jade couldn’t help but thank God with every breath she drew.

  Not only that, but the tumor seemed to be staying about the same size—something Dr. Layton said was nothing short of miraculous, considering pregnancy was often the worst time for cancer to hit. Meanwhile, her nausea had let up and she was beginning to feel the first fluttering of movement deep within her, movement that meant their baby was alive and well.

  The whole of it was enough to make Jade sing her way through the days, sure that somehow when she reached the end of her battle with cancer, she would emerge victorious. She and Tanner and Ty and the baby. All of them together, without fear of anything else happening to them.

  Of course, every now and then there were still times when she wondered if the tumor was God’s way of punishing her for what happened with her and Jim Rudolph. But most often, she refused to allow those thoughts a chance to develop. Yes, she’d made mistakes in her marriage to Jim, but she’d done everything in her power to rectify them. There was no point wallowing in guil
t now.

  “You have to stay positive,” Hannah told her every time they were together. “Keep believing God will get you through this. That’s where your thoughts should be.”

  And that’s exactly where Jade intended to keep them.

  She finished her salad, drank a glass of water, and sat herself down at the computer. A friend from the hospital had told her about herbal vitamin tablets she could purchase online. The blend was designed to bolster the immune system of pregnant women who were battling cancer.

  Jade found the web site, read up on the tablets, and ordered a three-month supply. Then she checked the mirror and headed for the hospital. It was just after noon, and she had an ultrasound scheduled for two o’clock. An ultrasound that would most likely tell her the information she and Tanner were dying to know—whether the child she was carrying was a girl or a boy.

  As she made her way into the hospital parking lot, Jade remembered a conversation she and Tanner had shared the night before.

  “It doesn’t matter to me; you know that, right?” They were lying on their sides, their faces inches apart, wrapped in each other’s arms.

  “I know.” Jade brushed her lips against his. “But what if I can’t have more kids?”

  “Well …” Tanner smoothed her hair back from her forehead. “Then I’d say a little boy would have Ty as the best big brother in the world.” He hesitated and touched his lips to her brow. “And a little girl would be a priceless gift … priceless beyond anything I could imagine.”

  His words ran through Jade’s mind as she entered the hospital and headed upstairs to the children’s ward, where she had worked before taking leave. It had been that long since she’d seen her patients, and there was one in particular she wanted to check on.

  Jade made her way off the elevator and greeted her friends at the nurse’s station, all of whom were full of compliments and thrilled to see her up and around. After several minutes, Jade motioned down the hall.