Clint caught his breath as he saw Sherry standing with her back to him, staring down with unseeing eyes at the blueprint on the table in front of her. She was thinking about him. He felt it as strongly as he felt that she still loved him, but the knowledge was not enough for him as long as she fought those feelings.
Eight months without her, he thought with a shudder. Eight lonely, impatient months, wishing to God that one miserable night that changed his fate had never taken place. Eight months praying that someone else would not come along to replace him, that she would wait …
He watched her sweep her hair back from her face and hold it above her head, then let it fall in a helpless tumble. Her heavy sigh moved her shoulders, and she dropped her head. She was as tired as he was, he thought. The months had taxed her spirit, too. He wondered how many months it would take to get spirit back in either of them.
He had almost made her his wife. He had almost had the chance to begin a life with her. Instead, he was reduced to watching her from a distance, with the awestruck feelings of apprehension that he’d known when he’d first fallen in love with her. It had been a constant struggle to keep from voicing his feelings for her, when he’d met her at church and she had volunteered to help with the youth. But she had been involved with someone else—a cop who didn’t seem worthy of her, at least in Clint’s mind—so he had kept his feelings to himself. But when that relationship had ended, he felt the obstacles lifting, and he had lost the struggle with his heart …
It was the night of the youth Christmas production, and several volunteers had stayed behind to clean up. Sherry had been one of them, and he still remembered the sweet smiles she’d given him through the laughing faces, the bright blue twinkle of her eyes. Though he’d given no one any indication that he was interested in her, he felt that his interest was dreadfully obvious to everyone. When they had begun to leave one by one, he’d found other things to keep her busy so she would stay.
As soon as they were alone, he had scrounged up the courage to move their relationship to a different level.
“I really appreciate your help, Sherry,” he said. “The kids enjoy having you around. So do I.”
“Don’t misread it,” she’d said, and his soft smile had faded. “I think I’m doing it more for selfish reasons than any generosity.”
“Selfish reasons? Like what?”
She couldn’t make herself say it, and his heart had begun to burn as she’d turned away to close a box. He didn’t know what had come over him just then, but something had told him that her admission was an invitation. And he’d accepted it. He touched her shoulder and she turned around. As she looked up at him, her eyes seemed to twinkle with anticipation.
“Sherry, I heard you and Gary Rivers weren’t seeing each other anymore. Is that true?”
She nodded. “Absolutely.”
“I’m sorry,” he lied.
Her smile told him not to be. “We weren’t right for each other, Clint. It had to happen sooner or later. God has better things for us.”
Their eyes had locked, and he’d desperately tried to read what was going through her mind. “Maybe it’s too soon,” he said, “but I was thinking that maybe you’d let me take you to dinner sometime.”
“I’d love to go to dinner with you. When?” The bold question had made him grin.
“How about tomorrow?”
“All right.” That twinkle in her eyes was more pronounced. “I’ll see you then. Seven o’clock?”
He thought about seven o’clock tomorrow night, and it seemed like an eternity away. “Okay. That’s great. But right now I’d love to sit down over a cup of coffee. Do you have to get home?”
Something about her easy smile had made this feel so right. “No. Why don’t we go to the coffee shop up the street?”
They had talked for hours, about his plans for his ministry, the kids they both loved, the dreams they shared …
And then he had walked her to her car.
He had always considered himself a strong man, a man who wasn’t easily moved, a man who kept his head. But something in her face had made him kiss her that night. The moment their lips met, he knew this wasn’t just an idle infatuation. There was something special about Sherry Grayson.
No other woman had ever made him want one moment to linger into eternity. No other woman had ever made him love so deeply that he would have given anything he owned to hold her for five more minutes …
And there had not been another woman since that night. He had loved her mind, her beauty, and her loving ability to give. His absence had only made those feelings stronger. No, he thought as he watched her. For him, there would never be another woman.
He started toward her, the buzz of a power saw outside muffling the sound of his footsteps across the floor.
Had he left her for another woman? The sickening thought crossed Sherry’s mind as she stared, unfocused, at the blueprint Wes had asked her to make copies of. Had it been some idiotic, male desire that had wrenched him away? Hadn’t the love she’d believed in been a little too good to be true?
An hour hasn’t gone by that I haven’t thought of you. His words echoed in her mind. Then why? she wanted to cry out. Why did you leave me?
As if in answer, the power saw outside cut off, and she heard footsteps behind her. She kept her head down, for she didn’t want Wes or any of the others to see the tears in her eyes. But a familiar scent drifted to her nostrils, and she stiffened as his roughened fingers closed gently around her arm.
She swung around. “What are you doing here?”
“I was looking for you,” Clint said softly. “Sherry, we’ve got to talk. You have to trust me. You have to believe in what we had, even if what I tell you doesn’t make sense.”
“Get out,” she said.
“No, I won’t. You have to listen to me.”
“You haven’t said anything to listen to, Clint. Some cockamamy stuff about writing a book. Do you really think I’m so stupid—?”
“It’ll be clear soon, Sherry. Until then … I just want to see you. I’ve missed you. I would have risked almost anything to get back to you …”
“Risk?” she asked. “What kind of risk could it take? The risk of possible marital entrapment? Is that it?”
“No, Sherry. You know how much I wanted to marry you.”
Her face reddened and tears sprang to her eyes, and her face twisted with the effort of holding them back. “You’re a cruel man, Clint. I never would have believed that about you.”
Clint took a step toward her. “Don’t believe it now, Sherry. I never wanted to hurt you. I’m so sorry.”
He touched her shoulder, and Sherry turned away, unable to trust herself to face him. A tear seeped through her lashes, but she kept her eyes closed.
Clint lowered his mouth to her hair, kissed it, then pressed his forehead against her crown. She felt his chest brush against her back, felt the fusion of their hearts telling her that she had a dreadful fight on her hands if she intended to forget him.
“Don’t, Clint,” she whispered desperately, but in answer he slid his arms around her waist and pulled her back against him.
“I still love you, Sherry,” he whispered next to her ear.
Why couldn’t she hate him? Why couldn’t she summon enough anger to push him away and convince him that there was no feeling? “But I don’t love you,” she said, her voice as stiff and unyielding as her body.
As if her words had no meaning, he tightened his embrace. “It’s so good to hold you again,” he murmured against her neck.
“Let go of me, Clint.” Her voice broke as she spoke, and she longed to extract herself from his embrace before her brimming emotions burst. Pulling herself together, she said it again more firmly. “Let go of me.”
Clint turned her to face him, forcing her to look up into his pleading eyes. “Look me in the eye and tell me you don’t love me,” he challenged. “Your eyes don’t lie. They never have.”
Sherry’s
cheeks stung. “This is not a game, Clint.”
“Look me in the eye and say it,” he repeated.
A moment of silence rippled between them as Sherry looked up into his opaque black eyes and summoned all the strength she contained. “I don’t love you anymore.”
Clint’s eyes bore into hers, searching, finding, measuring. “I still don’t believe you.”
“Fine, then,” she said, her face burning. “Delude yourself. I don’t care what you think.”
“Then why are you crying?”
Sherry swatted at her tears and stepped backward. “It has to do with anger, Clint, and resentment. Nothing else. Play your games on someone else. I’m all used up.”
“I know the feeling,” he said, finally allowing her the distance she so desperately needed. “But I can make it up to you.”
“No, you can’t. Not when it was so easy for you to waltz out and waltz back in. I’ll never trust you again.”
He reached for her, but Sherry recoiled, stepping back into a model of a fourteen story building. The structure tumbled over and crashed on the floor. Suddenly, a man bolted through the double doors of the office, hand poised under his nylon windbreaker.
“It’s okay,” Clint yelled quickly, stopping him with a raised hand. “It was the model.”
The man—the same one who’d been with Clint in the car yesterday—assessed the situation briefly, flashed Sherry an innocent, composed smile, then sauntered away as if going for a summer stroll.
Forgetting the collapsed model and the rush of emotion that caused her to back into it, Sherry brought her distrustful eyes back to Clint. “Is that the man who was with you in the Bronco yesterday?”
Clint stooped down and began to pick up the pieces. “Sam’s a friend of mine.”
Sherry wasn’t satisfied. “What is he doing here? Why did he come running like that?”
“He’s funny that way,” Clint evaded. He stood up, and she noted the deep lines running like fissures between his eyebrows, lines that hadn’t been there months ago. He brushed his hands off and set them on his hips. “Do you want to meet him?”
“No, I don’t need to meet your new friend, thank you.”
“But Sherry—”
Before he could detain her again, she was out the door, hurrying across the lawn as if her sanity depended on it.
For she was certain it did.
Sherry sat on the chaise lounge by the pool, letting the sun pour down on her. It had been too much for her to go home and continue feigning composure for the benefit of Madeline, who often came home to work when things at her Promised Land studio got too crazy. So she had come here, to her father’s house, knowing he was in court and wouldn’t be home.
If she could have cried, some of the soul-deep sadness might have been relieved, but suddenly her eyes were as dry as barren craters in godforsaken earth. Her despair found new levels, even beneath the agony that Clint’s leaving had caused. What disturbed her now was that Clint had betrayed her in such a devastating way, then thought he could erase it all with a simple touch and some whispered words of regret.
The unfeelingness of it all ripped at her, leaving scars that she hoped would remind her the next time she was weak. She realized now that it had been weakness to delude herself while he was gone. New misery welled up as she remembered the letters she had written to him at first, a form of therapy that had helped her to cope. She had spilled her heart out in them, knowing he would never see them. And whether they had been packed with curses or lamentations, they had all ended with, Clint, where are you, where are you, where are you?
And today he could walk up behind her at work, slide his arms around her, and expect her to accept him as if the months of loneliness and humiliation had never occurred. Those presumptions hurt her almost as much as his leaving had.
A door closed in the house, and Sherry snapped her head up to see her father coming toward her.
“I didn’t know you were coming by today,” the stern-looking U.S. attorney said, although his handsome gray eyes twinkled with pleasure at the unexpected sight of his daughter. “Why aren’t you at work?”
“I had a headache so I took off,” she said. “I thought you were in court.”
“We’ve recessed until this afternoon, so I came home for some peace and quiet. The media will probably be banging on the door any minute now.”
“If you were going to get so involved in this case, why didn’t you handle it yourself instead of giving it to Colin Breard? Isn’t it too important for an assistant?”
Eric squinted in the sunlight and shrugged. “Breard deserved it. He wanted it. He’ll probably be behind my desk in a few years, anyway.”
The logic seemed misplaced somehow, but Sherry wrote it off to her father’s fatigue. “So how’s it going?”
“Slow,” he said, running a hand along his gray temples. “Givanti’s a weasel who had so many gambling debts that he started distributing cocaine to pay them off. Has mush for brains. It’s a wonder he ever ran a business. Unfortunately, though, he has a shrewd attorney.”
“But you guys are shrewder, right?” Sherry said with a smile.
“Let’s hope.” He sat down on the lounge chair next to hers, and clasped his hands between his knees. “So, how are things with you?” A look of concern gilded his gray eyes. “You looked a little upset when I came in.”
That sympathetic look and tone had lost its comfort value, for while she knew her father loved her dearly and suffered with her, she couldn’t bear the constant reminders of what had happened. Madeline’s no-nonsense approach to heartbreak had been exactly what she’d needed. “I’m fine, Dad. Don’t worry about me.”
As if knowing when to quit after months of dealing with her hot-and-cold moods, Eric stood up and smiled. “Well, I’d better go fix myself a sandwich. Want one?”
The knots in Sherry’s stomach had left her appetite dead. “No thanks.”
He shrugged. “All right. Maybe another time.” As if he couldn’t think of anything else to say, he slid his hands into his pockets and started back toward the house. “Oh, by the way,” he said as an afterthought, turning around. “Did you by any chance notice that black sedan parked in front of the Millers’house when you drove up?”
“No, why?” Sherry had been in such an emotionally explosive state when she’d come here today that a submarine could have been parked in front of his neighbor’s house and she wouldn’t have noticed.
A deep frown clefted his forehead, and he rubbed his jaw. “Just wondered. This trial has me paranoid. He’s probably just waiting for the Millers to get home.”
“Must be,” Sherry said. “It wasn’t Clint, was it?”
As if the question warranted his full attention now that she had broached the subject, her father came back to her. “No, not Clint. I suppose you’ve seen him by now, huh?”
Sherry nodded.
Her father turned to the blue water and focused on the sunlight reflecting from the surface. “Thought so. He seemed pretty intent on starting things up again when he was here yesterday.”
Sherry looked up at him, surprised. “He was here?”
“Yeah. He said he’d seen you.”
She let out a deflated sigh. “He thinks I should forgive him and run back into his arms.”
Her father’s unusual momentary silence was more eloquent than his words. “There are worse things you could do.”
Sherry’s eyes narrowed in amazement. “What did you say?”
Eric’s eyebrows arched apologetically. “I just want to see you happy again, honey.”
Sherry couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “And you think I could be happy with a man who ran out on me? A man who humiliated me by practically leaving me at the altar? Have you forgiven him?”
“He isn’t asking for my forgiveness,” her father said in a wooden voice. “You’re good at forgiving, honey. You’ve forgiven me. Maybe it won’t be as hard as you think.”
“That’s right,?
?? Sherry snapped. “I’m the forgiving one, so people can kick me in the teeth and expect me to smile when they say they’re sorry.”
Her father’s shoulders dropped as he exhaled. “I didn’t mean to get you all—”
“I’m fine.” She got up and started toward the house. “I’m going back to work. I don’t have time to worry about Clint Jessup anymore. It seems he has enough people to do that already.” She looked back as she reached the door, saw the look of pity on her father’s face, and cursed Clint Jessup all the more for being the one who put it there. She didn’t need her father’s pity. And she sure didn’t need Clint’s brand of love.
Chapter Three
Wes saw the shadows of fatigue under Sherry’s eyes when she came back to the office later that afternoon. He stopped what he was doing and pulled a chair up to her desk. “You okay, sis? I’ve been looking for you.”
“Yeah,” she said. “I’m fine. I was at Dad’s.”
He grew quiet for a moment, biting his tongue. Why she spent so much time with the man who hadn’t given them a thought for most of their lives, was beyond him. He said he had changed, that the love of Christ had transformed him, but Wes was doubtful. Why now? If God was going to change a person, wouldn’t it be while his children were young, when they desperately needed him? Would he really wait until they were older?
Something about the whole story rang false to him, and even though his wife, Laney, accused him of being too hard on the man, Wes couldn’t seem to help himself.
“He said I should forgive Clint.”
Again, he was surprised. “He did? Why?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know.”
Wes thought it over for a moment. “Maybe he can relate to him. Since he skipped out on you, too.” The stung look on her face made him wish he hadn’t said it.
“I really don’t want to talk about this.” She slid her chair back and struggled not to cry as she headed for the file cabinet.
“I’m sorry, sis. I didn’t mean it.”
“Yes, you did,” she said, turning back to him. “You don’t ever want me to forget that I was dumped by my father, and then by my fiancé, do you? Does it make you feel better to remind me, Wes?”