Forgiven

Forgiven

By

Vanessa Miller

SMASHWORDS EDITION

*****

Published by:

BFP Publishing

Forgiven

Copyright © 2010 by Vanessa Miller

Smashwords Edition License Notes

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Other Books by Vanessa Miller

Long Time Coming

A Promise of Forever Love

A Love for Tomorrow

Yesterday’s Promise

Forgiven

Forsaken

Through the Storm

Rain Storm

Latter Rain

Abundant Rain

Former Rain

Anthologies (Editor)

Keeping the Faith

Have A Little Faith

This Far by Faith

EBOOKS

Love Isn’t Enough

A Mighty Love

The Blessed One (Blessed and Highly Favored
series)

The Wild One (Blessed and Highly Favored
Series)

The Preacher’s Choice (Blessed and Highly
Favored Series)

The Politician’s Wife (Blessed and Highly
Favored Series)

The Playboy’s Redemption (Blessed and Highly
Favored Series)

This book is dedicated to my sister, Debra
Clark.

May you always trust God and never look
back.

Acknowledgments

When I started writing Forgiven, I thought it
was simply a story about learning to forgive people for past
mistakes. But as my mother and I were driving back from an event in
Maryland, she suggested that we listen to a Mary Mary CD. One of
the songs on that CD was about understanding how great God really
is and about trusting Him. That’s when it hit me; people don’t
forgive because of a lack of trust… and suddenly, the book became
much larger. So, a special thank you goes out to my mother,
Patricia Harding. I believe my readers will also thank her once
they see how much of an impact the theme of trust has on this
story.

I would also like to thank my agent, Natasha
Kern. I appreciate all that you have done for my career. I’m
looking forward to many years of success! I would also like to
thank my editor at Urban Christian-Joylynn Jossel. It is always a
pleasure working with you; you’re the best. The graphic artist at
Urban-Christian does such a great job on my book covers that I have
to take a moment to acknowledge that fact.

Finally, I cannot forget to acknowledge the
many book clubs and readers who anxiously wait for my next release.
Thank you all for continuing to support my books. I truly hope this
book helps you to trust God with everything that concerns you.

I have to send a shout out to my girls in the
Anointed Authors on Tour; I wish every one of you all the success
in the world.

Crouched down between a rusty old Lincoln
with a playboy symbol on the driver’s side door and a red Pontiac
with a busted rearview window, while a maniac wielded a tire iron
that had already clipped her in the leg once, Diane Benson decided
it was time to call her husband and beg for his forgiveness.

She had left Cleveland, Ohio about eight
months ago after leaving her three oldest children with her
husband, Joe Benson. She then drove to Pastor JT Thomas’ house and
left her three month old daughter with him and his wife. The way
Diane saw it, every child needed to be with his or her own daddy
and she didn’t care how JT and Cassandra’s life was disrupted. JT
got what he deserved anyway. What kind of man pastors a church
while sleeping with the deacon’s wife? But JT hadn’t only been
sleeping with her. Diane could have understood if he had slipped
into sin because he just couldn’t resist her voluptuous curves and
Angelina Jolie pouty lips. But that hadn’t been the case.

JT would sleep with anything in a knee high
skirt willing to kick her pumps off and get busy. Too bad she got
pregnant before she figured that one out. She had been prepared to
leave her husband for JT so they could start a new life with their
baby. But JT suddenly developed a conscience and realized that a
husband’s place was at home with his wife. He expected her to just
continue living a lie with Benson. JT never imagined that she would
tell Benson the truth. But she had, and Benson beat the snot out of
him.

Soon after JT got his beat down, Diane had
become fed up with the whole matter. So after dropping Lily off
with her daddy, she left town with Brian Johnson. Brian had been
the mechanic at the auto dealership her husband owned. But Brian
was fixing more than automobiles and Joe hadn’t had a clue about
it. Brian had been her side kick. When JT wasn’t acting right, she
spent her free time with Brian. She may have imagined herself as
first lady of Faith Outreach while fooling around with JT, but
Brian was the one who made her weak in the knees. She couldn’t lie
if she wanted to, that man held some type of demonic power over her
and she lived to do his bidding. Actually, Lily could have been
Brian’s baby just as well as JT’s. But Brian said that since she
had been sleeping with JT more than him around the time that she’d
gotten pregnant, Lily more than likely belonged to JT. Funny thing
was, when the DNA test came back and it proved that Brian had been
right; JT was Lily’s father, Brian got so mad that he up and left
her in Jacksonville, Florida with only twenty dollars to her
name.

That’s when she met Darryl Mills. Darryl was
a house flipper. Since the economy turned and not many people were
buying homes, he’d given Diane the key to a fabulous four bedroom
home in the suburbs. Diane loved the house and was trying to figure
out how she could convince Darryl to give it to her instead of
putting it back on the market. Diane almost had Darryl convinced,
until his nosy wife figured out that she was living in the house
rent free. That’s why Diane was crouched between two cars right
now. The maniac with the tire iron was Darryl’s wife.

“You might as well come out from between
these cars. ‘Cause I really don’t care if I bang these cars up,
just as long as you get banged up in the process.”

Crawling on the ground, trying to move
further into the jam packed parking lot and away from the tire
iron, Diane said, “I don’t even know you, lady. Why are you doing
this?”

“You know me well enough to sleep with my
husband,” the woman said as she angled her obese body between the
two closely parked cars and swung at Diane.

Thankful that the woman missed her that time,
Diane stood up and ran as quickly as she could through the maze of
cars.

Darryl’s wife was simply too big to move any
further in between the Lincoln and the Pontiac, so she couldn’t
catch Diane, but she screamed as loud as she could, “I’m throwing
all your stuff out of my house and onto the street. If you come
back here to get any of it, I’m going to shoot you.”

Once Diane was a safe distance away from
certain death, she used the cell phone that Darryl bought her to
call Benson. When he answered she said, “Hey, Joe, I was just
calling to check on the kids. How are they doing?”

“They miss you, Diane, that’s how they’re
doing,” Joe told her.

“I know. I know,” she said, like a woman
who’d learned her lesson. “I should have never left them. I miss
all my babies.”

“You received court papers about a custody
hearing for Lily last week.”

“What?” she said as if she couldn’t believe
this was happening to her. “What am I supposed to do, Joe? I don’t
even have a way to get back to Cleveland right now.”

“The hearing is next month. I’ll get you an
airline ticket. Just tell me where you are.”

That’s what she wanted to hear, but she tried
to tamp down her excitement as she said, “I don’t know, Benson. The
only reason I didn’t turn around and come right back home eight
months ago was because I was scared about how you would treat
me.”

Benson was almost seven feet tall, bulky and
strong, but with his wife, he might as well have been a midget.
“Have I ever given you a reason to fear me? It’s not just the kids
missing you, Diane. I miss you. Just come home.”

“What about Lily? I can’t just forget that I
have another child.”

“I wasn’t sure that you wanted Lily since you
left her with JT.”

“She’s my child,” Diane said angrily. JT
wasn’t just going to run over her with some custody hearing,
telling some judge that his wife would be a better mother than she
was.

Benson cleared his throat. “Just come home,
Diane. We can work on getting Lily back from JT once we’re back
together.”

“Okay, Benson. I’m in Jacksonville, Florida.
Go online and order the ticket and I’ll pick it up at the airport.”
Diane smiled as she hung up the phone. Benson had always been at
her beck and call. She would go home, but she would also make JT
pay for the agony she felt had been inflicted on her because of his
refusal to leave his wife and marry her. And she would start by
taking Lily away from him.

“What are you doing?” Mattie Davis asked when
she walked into her daughter’s bedroom and saw her throwing her
clothes into a suitcase.

Cassandra Thomas turned to face her mother.
With a smile on her face she said, “I’m going home.”

Looking heavenward, Mattie proclaimed, “Lord
Jesus, my child has lost her mind again.” Mattie sat down on the
edge of Cassandra’s bed. Her head was bowed low as she shook it
from side to side. “Why do you want to ruin your life? I don’t
understand this at all.”

“Stop being so dramatic, Mother. I’ve been
away from JT for six months. It’s time I went home.”

JT Thomas had once been the pastor of Faith
Outreach Church, but once his sins had been exposed, he’d been
suspended and then he resigned from his position. JT was now
restored back to God and an upstanding citizen who went to work at
a community center every day and held a monthly Bible study in his
home for men struggling with infidelity and he’d also just started
his own church. And yes, Cassandra was willing to admit it; she had
fallen in love with her husband all over again. So why shouldn’t
she and her two sons, Jerome and Aaron, go back home where they
belonged?

“I suppose this means you’re willing to be a
mother to that child he had while still married to you,” Mattie
stated.

“Yes, Mother, I will be just as much Lily’s
mother as I am Jerome and Aaron’s. I’ve thought long and hard about
this, and the way I see it, if another woman was willing to be a
mother to me after you and Bishop Turner fooled around and had me,
then how can I deny a child my love, just because I didn’t give
birth to her?”

Mattie’s shoulders slumped. “You enjoy
throwing that in my face, don’t you? Okay, I made a mistake. Your
father was a married man. But does that mean you have to pay for my
sins for the rest of your life?”

Cassandra sat down next to her mother and put
her arm around her shoulders. Her mother was a petite woman of
little more than five feet, but she had a loud, boisterous voice
that made her seem seven feet tall at times. “I’m not trying to
throw anything in your face, but I’m in a predicament and I need
your help to get out of it.”

“What predicament? What are you talking
about?”

“Well, it seems to me that you and Bishop
Turner did to Susan what JT and Diane Benson did to me. Susan
forgave you and Bishop and found a way to continue loving her
husband. All I’m asking for is the chance to do the same thing with
my husband.”

“But how can you forgive what that man has
done to you?” Mattie asked, refusing to see that she had done the
same thing to another man’s wife.

“The same way that I forgave you for all the
years you lied to me about who my father was. The way I see it,
Mother, forgiveness is a choice.” Cassandra stood up, zipped her
suitcase and pulled it off the bed. “Thank you for putting up with
me and the boys for all these months, but I’m going home,
Mother.”

***

Cassandra put her key in the lock and opened
the door. She stood in the entryway and looked around the modest
home. It was certainly not the five bedroom, seven thousand square
foot home she shared with JT before moving in with her mother. JT
had sold their home after she moved in with her mother. He moved
back into the first home they purchased together. It was only
thirteen hundred square feet with three bedrooms and a basement,
but Cassandra had loved everything about this home. Jerome and
Aaron ran into the house and started screaming for JT.