Brides and Betrayal (Reconciled and Redeemed Book 1) Read online

  Holly averted her gaze and pinned the excess fabric from the bodice in the back with a clip. “She’s my half-sister.”

  Clearing her throat from the emotions that were entangled there, Holly changed the subject. “Do you want to go with or without the veil?”

  “Without.”

  Holly avoided the girl’s quizzical stare.

  The rest of the night was a blur of chiffon, satin and lace, until Rebecca put on a chiffon gown. Rebecca’s eyes filled with tears, and Holly knew that it didn’t matter what the voting cards said - Rebecca had found her dress.

  Later that evening, she busied herself with cleanup, dispatching Mark and Katie to their duties in an effort to hustle them out of there as fast as they could. Usually she waited until after the guests left to schedule the fitting appointment, but she had arranged the appointment in the bedroom while she was helping Rebecca out of the dress. Within fifteen minutes, Mark had the props loaded in the first van, and Katie was rolling the dresses into the back of the second.

  She thanked the mother of the bride, and endured another hug from Rebecca. Sidestepping an entangling moment with Jennifer was Holly’s goal. She hoped she wasn’t burning any professional bridges, but after today, she couldn’t stomach another emotional upheaval.

  Holly slid into the van and shut the door, starting the engine before Katie even had her door closed. As Holly put the car in reverse, she saw Jennifer step out onto the porch.

  Holly turned her head to look out the back window as she eased off the brake and let the van roll out of the driveway.

  “I think that girl is trying to get your attention.” Katie lifted her arm to point at Jennifer.

  Holly gently pushed Katie’s hand down before Jennifer could see. “I can’t right now.” Holly explained as she put the van in drive. In her peripheral vision, she could see that Jennifer was watching them leave with her hands on her hips. “She’s my stepsister, and...well, I don’t think I could handle the conversation she wants to have right now.

  For a moment, Katie looked like she might say something. “Alright.”

  The rest of the drive back to the store was silent. After they unloaded the van, she told Katie to go home. “We can put this away in the morning.”

  As the woman turned to leave, she stopped. “Holly, I know you are in a dark place right now, but that is not where you are supposed to stay. You know that, right?”

  Holly nodded, but saw little point in telling Katie she couldn’t find a way out.

  “God can light the way.” Katie said, as if reading her thoughts.

  “Yeah,” came Holly’s dejected response.

  She wished Katie a goodnight and locked up. As Holly climbed the stairs to her apartment, she thought about what the woman said. God, she thought, He was once my life. Now where is He?

  As she unlocked her door, Espresso greeted her. “At least I have you.”

  The next morning, Holly was barely able to drag herself out of the bed. Why? She thought to herself. Hunter’s gone, the baby’s gone - God is gone. Everyone has left me because I am so unworthy.

  With motions of a robot, she showered and got ready to go to work. She briefly opened the fridge, but quickly slammed it shut. Why? She thought.

  Her heels made hollow clunks on the stairs as she descended and entered the back of the shop. She opened the boutique and began putting away the dresses from last night’s event, the steady question of, Why, chanted endlessly through her brain as she performed each task.

  She rested her arms on the top of a rack and closed her eyes to the unbearable weight she felt inside her chest. She wanted to cry, she wanted to feel something besides this endless pain. Why? I am the result of an affair. I had an affair. I had a child with a wonderful man, but lost that child. I have always been disastrous to all I come in contact with – why should I have relief?

  The front door chimed, and Holly briefly thought about saying good morning to Anya. The question resurfaced again, but she squelched it. Turning toward the door, her greeting died on her lips.

  “Hey, Holly.” Her father stood before her. His reddish brown hair had more streaks of gray than she remembered, but he smiled a hesitant smile - one that transported her back to when she was sixteen, a single suitcase in her hand, and a world of both hurt and hope in her heart.

  “Hi...Dad.” She choked on his title, but saying it didn’t hurt like she’d imagined.

  “Jen, said...she told me where I could find you.” He cracked his knuckles one at a time. She’d heard it the night he welcomed her into their home, when he tried to talk to her after she ran away a month later, when she was caught kissing Ted from down the street, and when she’d packed that same singular suitcase and left two days after her high school graduation.

  Holly just stood there, uncertain of what to do, what to say. She’d been plunged into a dark and uncertain world when her parents died. She’d been a carefree sixteen year old, full of dreams, full of hope, a good girl with a bright future.

  “I’ve been trying to find you ever since you left...”

  “I didn’t want to be found.” Her words were meant to be cold, but she couldn’t help it. There was a soft whisper of defeat in her - that was all that was left. “I still don’t.”

  “Holly, I know I let you down. Marcy was so angry and bitter after finding out about the affair that she took it out on you. I was so apologetic about the affair that I just turned a blind eye, afraid that she would see my defense of you as still being in love with your mom.” He stepped forward and gathered her hands in his. “We were all a mess back then and we needed to get help to work through it. Instead, we all tried to figure it out on our own, we didn’t seek God’s guidance...and look where we ended up.”

  Looking down at her hand, he noticed her wedding ring. “You are married.” His face showed both joy and sadness. “I missed it.”

  “I’m not married anymore.”

  “Oh.” He stared down at her. She knew what he was looking for, but she just didn’t have anything else to give.

  “Marcy wanted to come today.”

  She finally looked up at him, letting out a mirthless laugh. “Why?”

  “She is really sorry for how she treated you. She wanted to come and apologize.”

  Holly looked around him, and he shook his head. “I told her to let me come first. I wanted to apologize and make sure you were...” He shrugged.

  “Not going to smash a cake in her face.” Though her sardonic words weren’t meant to cause laughter, he chuckled as he remembered her last action on the day of her graduation. Marcy had baked her a cake for her graduation, and she had taken the thing and smashed it in her face.

  His reaction spawned a sideways grin from Holly. “I guess I have to apologize, too.” Her smile, her first genuine one in the past few months, faded as quickly as it had sprouted. “I’m going to need some time...”

  “I understand.” He grabbed one of their interest cards from the front counter and jotted down his phone number and address. “Call me, or just stop by.”

  She stared down at it for a few seconds before taking it. “Jen is out in the car. She said she was supposed to come today and look over your bridesmaid’s dresses. Do you want me to tell her to come back another day?”

  Holly slowly shook her head. “No, I think...I can help her.”

  She watched her dad walk out the door, and she wanted to follow him outside and tell him to go away. She wanted to scream, “Where were you when I was sixteen and alone? I needed you. I needed love, and protection. I needed to be accepted.” But as the bell chimed, announcing his exit, she could only think, “Come back.” She felt just as alone as she had on the day she had witnessed her parents’ death – even more so.

  Jen came in moments later, followed by Anya, her arm hooked through her dad’s, who was reluctantly being pulled along. “We have a place for you to sit back here while she tries on dresses.” Anya was saying.

  Her dad looked at her, and she gav
e him a hesitant smile. She felt as if she had been thrust out into the tossing sea, and she sat in a small boat, clinging to the oars as an ever-present voice whispered “row.” She was too fearful to obey, but too weak to jump out and try to swim for shore. So she sat, clinging, hoping...praying.

  God, is this more penance, or is this redemption?

  Chapter Thirteen

  Hunter looked at Grace suspiciously. “Watch you try on dresses? Don’t you have girlfriends to do that with?”

  "Mom's dead and I need a family member by my side."

  The mention of his mother sent a picture of Holly running across his mind.

  "Jaded, sarcastic, bitter, unforgiving, scowling...”

  At her inquisitive look, he clarified. “Isn’t that what you called me a couple weeks ago when you asked me to walk you down the aisle? You said you didn’t want a jaded...”

  “Okay, I said it!” Grace interrupted, then she shrugged her shoulders and looked down at the carpet she was stubbing with her toe. “Besides, I still want you by my side.”

  Hunter doubted the veracity of her statement, but he couldn’t resist her smile when she begged, “Please, Hunter, for me.”

  Though she resembled their mom, Hunter knew she was nothing like her. She was sweet, honest, and kind.

  “Okay, munchkin. I’ll go.” She slammed into him as wrapped her arms around him in a fierce hug, causing his breath to briefly escape his lips in a rush. He kissed the top of her head as he’d done so many times since their father’s death.

  “Thank you, Hunter. I think this is going to be the best thing!”

  “I love you and I will do everything I can to support you.”

  “I’m glad you said that.” Grace ran her hand along the edge of the desk, refusing to look him in the eye. “The dress that I want is in Holly’s shop. I want to have her and Anya do one of their events - here.”

  “What! You really think I’m going to invite...” Hunter couldn’t even say her name. “...that woman into my home and pretend that everything is okay?”

  “Haven’t you moved past this yet? Hasn’t she suffered enough? She lost you and she lost the baby...”

  “She’s suffered?” Hunter exclaimed, pausing to take a moment to control his mounting anger. “I am sad we lost our baby, but I can’t help but wonder if God is punishing her....”

  “Hunter, I know you don’t really believe that. You know God’s love and mercy are extended to everyone with a repentant heart.”

  “Maybe that’s the problem.” All traces of anger were gone, and in their place, was a weariness. “Maybe she doesn’t really feel bad, and maybe I am not sorry she’s gone.”

  Grace just stared at him for a moment, then, grabbing her purse, she started to walk out the door. “You keep telling yourself that and let me know when you have yourself convinced.”

  After she left, Hunter eased his frame down into the sofa. It seemed like the days in his life were just a succession of worthlessness - a parade of misery, anger, and pain, one after the other. As much as he didn’t want to admit it, life had stopped the moment he read that message from Seth. Hunter was a ghost of his former self, and he had no intention of trying to resurrect the old Hunter.

  He pulled on the chain that hung around his neck that he kept hidden under his shirt. He looked down at the gold band with a cross made of small diamonds. Holly had replaced his lost wedding band with this one on their second anniversary.

  Love endures all things. It was the inscription she had engraved on the inside of the ring. A summed-up version of 1 Corinthians 13:7.

  Letting the ring slip off the chain, Hunter slid it onto his finger. The metal was cold, but the ring felt natural there. With seconds the cold dissipated to warmth, and he closed his fist around the ring.

  He closed his eyes and leaned his head on the back of the couch. A part of him would love to slip back into their marriage just as easy as he slipped this ring on. A day or two back in his life, and he could pretend that the coolness of these past months would dissipate just like the coolness of the metal of the ring. He could warm again to her seductive smile, slip his fingers through her silky copper hair, and feel the strength of her love which had pulled him from the darkest part of his life.

  But she wasn’t the same twenty-one year old girl who had wormed her way past his defenses. She wasn’t the one stripping away his fears about his first bride’s betrayal, she was the one committing her own betrayal. His mom, his first wife, and now Holly - he’d loved them all, but they all had betrayed him. Love does not endure all things.

  Rising, he tore the ring from his finger and strode to the kitchen, throwing it in the trash.

  It was time he moved on, time he stopped dwelling in the past. She had ruined their future, so why shouldn’t he have it with someone else?

  He made it halfway up the stairs before he retraced his steps and dug the ring out of the trash. Rinsing it off in the sink, he bent his head and let the tears fall, mingling with the water swirling down the sink.

  Holly sat in the workshop with her father as he worked on a dresser. Despite her rough time as a teenager in this house, the workshop held happy memories - probably the only ones from that time.

  When Marcy would rant about her sinfulness, she would come down and watch her dad work. He was usually silent – they had little to speak about when she was younger. However, when her dad worked on the furniture, there was always a peaceful expression on his face.

  Watching him now, that same serenity surrounded him as he sanded the dresser he was working on. However, there was something else – something that let him keep that same peace even when he left the workshop. Holly had seen it a couple of weeks ago in the store, and she had felt it at lunch this afternoon, despite the awkwardness she felt.

  Holly had gone with the Buckners to church that morning. It had been uncomfortable at first and she had almost left. Marcy had been warm and welcoming, but Holly had chosen to remain withdrawn. Holly knew she should forgive them, but she keep wondering if she hadn’t endured so much during her childhood, would she have made the mistakes she did with Hunter? Probably. Holly couldn’t stop the negative thought from escaping.

  “Thank you for coming today.” Her father’s words pulled her from her thoughts.

  She swirled the ice around in her glass of tea, ruminating on her emotions and if she would share her thoughts with her father. She had agreed to come today because she wanted that feeling - she needed that feeling of acceptance, love, and worth - the stirrings of which she felt when Jen and her father had stopped by the boutique a couple of weeks ago. Though she wanted to shrug them off in anger, her need surpassed her bitterness from the past.

  “I almost didn’t come.” She sipped her tea before adding. “I wasn’t sure how welcome I would be.”

  Her father stopped sanding the dresser. “You were always welcome here.”

  At her dubious look, he added, “When I brought the news to Marcy about you, her heart was broken for you and your situation. But her heart was also broken because of what I had done to her. I had turned my back on her and then kept that secret from her for years.”

  “I have a hard time believing she felt bad for me. She made it clear she never wanted me here.”

  Dad laughed, “No, you weren’t exactly on her top ten list of things she wanted for Christmas. You have to understand, there was a physical reminder of my sin sitting across from her at the dinner table every day. While her mind saw you for what you were, a young woman who had been through a lot, innocent of her parents sin, her heart saw you as a constant reminder of my betrayal.”

  She scoffed about the innocence part. I’m not innocent.

  “Receiving forgiveness is easier than releasing it – especially after a betrayal as hurtful as mine.”

  Holly shrugged, thinking about how apologetic Marcy had been today.

  “Ah, there it is.” Her father said as he swept aside the dust from the sanding. She went to stand next to him. “
Getting to the bare wood beneath all the paint, scars and markings – that is my favorite part. It reminds me of Psalm 51.”

  Aside from church this morning, it had been since before her affair that she opened her Bible.

  Her father continued. “Verse seven says, ‘Purify me from my sins, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.”

  The Scripture pierced her heart, and before she could stop it, a tear slipped down her cheek. “I would love that.”

  Her father looked at her quizzically. “You know that God’s grace and mercy are available to anyone who wants it.”

  “I know.” She said, but the truth was, she knew that in her head, but her heart had a hard time believing God would truly forgive her for her affair. She had done so much damage.

  As if sensing her thoughts, her father said, “This dresser was caked with layer upon layer of paint that each new owner thought would look better than the last. There were scratches from wear and tear, and I had to replace the bottom of two of the drawers because they had been misused.”

  She ran her hand upon the smooth blonde wood, pure and natural in its stripped-down state.

  Her father placed his hand over hers. “Holly, that is how we are. We have our own thoughts and plans for our life, we get scratches from the decisions we make, and sometimes we are broken from not living as we are supposed to.”

  He handed her a sanding block. “When we let God have his way into our repentant hearts, He sands down all that junk we let into our lives, he bleaches out the stains, taking us back to our clean, pure natural hearts.”

  She contemplated telling him about her affair. He would understand.

  “I know that, but...”

  Her father finished her sentence. “You have done something that you think God is unable to forgive you for.”

  “No, I mean...Yes, but I know he’s able to do anything.”

  “But you feel that you are unworthy.”

  She nodded. “I keep telling myself that isn’t the way He works, but then I think about what I did...”

  “You know, when I had to confront my past sin, I thought the same thing. I felt guilty for being happy that you were here. I saw the pain I had caused my own wife. I was tormented because of how your mom died.” His voice was barely a whisper and tears formed in his eyes. “I did that. My selfish actions all those years ago caused two deaths.”