Let It Be Me by Becky Wade (win 10 ebook reader txt) 📗

He’d made her another Pop-Tart, but it had gone to waste. She’d only eaten half of the first one.

When she’d died, and for a long, long time after, his feelings had been on one side of a glass pane while his body had existed on the other side. No longer. Leah had broken the glass, and now he was experiencing the weight of every emotion he’d never wanted to feel.

“You can’t let fear have control,” his mother had said.

Too late.

He did not want to be parted from Leah. Just the idea of that turned his stomach. Yet to love her then lose her would cost more than he could afford. His mom’s death had sent him down a destructive path that had lasted for years. What would the loss of Leah do to him?

He turned away from the rail and interlaced his hands behind his skull.

Already, he’d put himself at risk by allowing Leah to become one of the most important things in his world.

He’d made a mistake—a mistake he’d just tried to fix by breaking up with her.

A deep, black hole opened in his soul.

Upon arriving at home, Leah immediately shut herself in her room. She sat on the floor, leaned against the foot of her bed, and pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes.

She would not behave like a lovelorn girl and cry!

A soft knock. “Leah?” Dylan asked.

“Hmm?”

“Everything cool?”

Their roles had reversed. She was the one hiding in her room and he was the one checking on her. Affection lumped in her throat. “Yes. Everything’s cool.”

“Sebastian called earlier, wondering where you were.”

“I saw him. It’s all good.”

“Sure?”

“I’m sure.”

“’Kay.” His footsteps retreated.

Internally, she shook her fist at romance and called it a string of bad names, because it turned out that she was going to cry like a lovelorn girl. Her immunity to men had been disproven. Her feelings of superiority regarding her singleness had been humbled.

When you met a man you couldn’t help but love . . . it changed everything.

She’d kept it together while talking with Sebastian. But just now, while driving home, the spent drama had heavied her body. Subtle shaking had overtaken her limbs. The reality of Sebastian’s words had crushed down.

“I can’t get any more involved.”

Every step of the way, she’d been very cautious about dating him.

He’d overcome her barriers by treating her beautifully, respectfully, devotedly. By speaking vows with his kisses.

Was it possible that she’d misinterpreted the depth of his feelings? She was not gifted at reading people. Maybe she’d ascribed meaning to his words and actions that wasn’t there—

No.

She’d asked him to be direct with her and he’d honored that request. She’d stake money on the fact that he cared about her a great deal. If she had to guess what had happened between them this afternoon, she’d guess that he’d been propelled over the dividing line between his affection for her and his wounds.

She’d given him a reason not to trust her. And he’d pulled away. She’d been clear-eyed about his issues and limits from the start. Which is why she’d prayed again and again, asking for God’s guidance concerning Sebastian. God had remained stubbornly silent.

“Why did you put me through this?” she asked Him softly. “This is exactly what I was afraid would happen.”

God had stood back and allowed her to follow Sebastian into a trap. He’d let her feelings for Sebastian break free of the box where she’d wisely been trying to keep them.

In the past, God had always steered her. Always defended her.

Why not this time? I don’t understand why you didn’t answer when I repeatedly asked you to show me your will. She’d been poised to obey Him, willing. But He had not spoken.

For the first time since she’d believed in Him, He’d let her down, and now she’d landed herself in a wretched predicament. She’d fallen in love with a man who’d promptly broken up with her. She was experiencing the pain she’d seen other women endure when their relationships ended, a pain she’d planned to sidestep.

She truly couldn’t stand to think about facing the lack of Sebastian’s phone calls, smile, presence, conversations. He was loneliness and staggering success and childhood sorrow. He was a brilliant brain in a rugby player’s body. Inky hair and uncompromising features.

She’d done what she had to do for Claire today. Yet it devastated her to think that her actions had cost her Sebastian.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Never. That’s when Luke Dempsey had planned to return to his hometown of Misty River.

But here he was.

On Friday morning, an elderly woman unlocked the door to the apartment she’d listed for rent. She went in ahead of him, eying him suspiciously.

She was right to be suspicious. He could snap her in half.

He’d found this place the old-fashioned way, by buying a newspaper out of one of the few machines left in town and scanning the For Rent section. This landlady was old-fashioned, wearing tight gray curls and an apron over a faded dress. The apartment was old-fashioned, too.

Green carpet that stank of dust stretched from wall to wall. The kitchen had yellow Formica countertops and wooden cabinets with brass handles. He entered the one bedroom. More green carpet. The bathroom hadn’t been updated since the fifties.

He returned to the living area, which felt big to him after the jail cell that had been his home for the past seven years. The ceilings were at least twelve feet high. Square panes of glass divided the tall rectangular windows that let in views of the town and mountains.

Having grown up in Misty River, he was familiar with this building. It had been constructed for commercial use more than a century ago on the edge of the historic downtown. A warehouse currently occupied by a lumber company took up the bottom floor. The next floor, offices. The top floor, this floor, contained a few apartments that had probably once housed either the original owner’s family or supervisors.

“Are there hardwood