Love Inspired June 2015 - Box Set 1 of 2: The Cowboy's Homecoming\The Amish Widow's Secret\Safe in the Fireman's Arms (16 page)

Something didn't add up and Abby couldn't put her finger on it. “Why are you defending him so vigorously? There was a time when you were just as adamant that he was a horrible, evil young man.”

“I was overreacting. He's...not guilty... I mean...he's okay... He's not bad.”

But Abby latched on to the one thing her father said that perplexed her more than anything. “That's the second time you've said he's not guilty. What is he not guilty of?”

“Stop it,” Cornell hissed. “I can't give the money back. Not anymore. You should never have pushed me to take it. I shouldn't have listened to you. The Bannisters can't find out...”

The air in the cab was suddenly cold. Ominous. “Can't find out what?”

Her father twisted his hands around the steering wheel, growing more agitated.

“Can't find out
what
, Dad? Tell me. What can't the Bannisters find out?”

Her father spun on her, his eyes wide. “That Lee wasn't driving the night of my accident. The wrong person went to jail.”

Chapter Twelve

“W
hat do you mean, Lee wasn't driving?” What her father said didn't make any sense. Abby felt as if she were tumbling down a hill, trying to figure out which way was up. “I don't understand. It was his truck. You saw him. The police saw him.”

“I shouldn't have said anything. Forget I ever said it.” Her father sounded panic-stricken.

“I can't, Dad. You have to tell me what you meant.” Abby spoke each word slowly, precisely, as her mind tried to sort through what he had just thrown at her.

Cornell looked away from her, his hands resting on the steering wheel now, kneading it. “Just leave it alone, Abby.”

“No. I won't. Tell me what you meant.”

He sighed, looking down; then, as if realizing she wasn't going to let it go, he began talking. Quietly, slowly at first, then gaining momentum.

“Right after I got hit by Lee's truck, I was conscious. I remember seeing the truck hit a tree and the lights of the truck were shining on the branches. I could see two silhouettes in the truck. Then the light inside the truck went on and I saw for sure. Two people. The driver got out, pulled the passenger over and put the seat belt on him.”

“Are you sure? Could you have been hallucinating? You were in a lot of pain.” Part of Abby wanted desperately to believe her father that it hadn't been Lee who was driving, but another part didn't dare. Believing what he said changed everything.

“I was fairly lucid in spite of the pain,” her father continued. “I saw the guy who was driving walk toward me. I couldn't see his face. It was dark and the truck's lights kind of threw him in shadow, but I could see he had long hair. Blond hair. Then he backed off and ran off into the woods.”

“How long was his hair? Shoulder length? Curly? Are you sure it was blond? Are you sure you didn't recognize him?” The questions were automatic. The questions of a reporter trying to investigate the story, trying to piece it together. “Did you know who it was?”

Blond, long hair. Driving with Lee. Could it have been Mitch? David? Because if her father was describing the driver accurately, and if his memory was indeed correct, this man definitely wasn't Lee with the close-cropped dark hair he had favored back then.

“No. I had no idea who he was. I just remember seeing him move the passenger, come walking over to me, then run away. I blacked out after that.” He scrubbed a hand down his face and sighed wearily. “When I came to in the hospital the police told me Lee was the one driving. I couldn't figure out what was going on. Then a lawyer came and started talking about pressing charges. Suing him. Getting some money. So...I just let events go the way they seemed to be going.”

“Why did you do that?”

Cornell stared ahead, his breathing shallow and quick, as if he had run a long ways. “According to the lawyer, the police had Lee behind the wheel and I knew his parents had lots of money. I wanted to ask more—about who else might have been in the truck with Lee—but I had no clue who the other guy was. And I knew if I started asking questions, it would raise inquiries about who was driving, and if that happened...” He let the sentence trail off, but Abby finished it herself.

“We wouldn't have known who to sue,” she said, her voice like ice.

She felt her throat close off, her stomach turn over. Lee was innocent. The man she had struggled to forgive had done nothing that required her forgiveness.

Her entire worldview of the past few years was turned upside down, like a toy box being dumped. Everything was scattered on the floor, a clutter of misconceptions and false righteous anger.

Lee had gone to prison for nothing.

“Is this the truth, Daddy?” she croaked.

He slowly nodded and she could see from the shame on his face that he wasn't lying. “You know, I thought the money would make a difference. But it didn't. I lost everything after I got that money. I thought it would help, but it was blood money. Shouldn't have taken it.”

Abby's lips were quivering the entire time her father talked. They were cold and numb, just like the rest of her body. She couldn't get warm enough.
Lee wasn't the one who hurt my father.
Lee wasn't driving.

The thought shivered through her, and as the repercussions of her father's reluctant confession became clear, she felt as if the ground were cut beneath her feet. All this time. All these years, her bitterness toward Lee had festered and grown. She had come here as the injured party. Feeling all magnanimous when she decided she could forgive him for what he had done to her father. She felt as if she had overcome a huge hurdle.

But it was all a lie. Everything was the other way around.

Now Lee had to be the one to forgive her.

“You have to promise me one thing, though,” her father said, clutching her hand in a fierce grip. “You can't tell him. You can't let him know what you know. I didn't come to tell you this. To confess. I only wanted to let you know that Lee was a good guy. That I wanted to see you with him. I don't want you to waste your life. That's all.”

“Lee needs to know,” Abby said, the burden of what her father just told her lying like a rock on her chest.

“Please, I'm begging you. Don't tell him. If he knows, his family will want the money back. I don't have it. Your mother doesn't have it. We can't afford to pay them back. I didn't mean to tell you. You kept pushing and pushing—”

Abby shook off her father's hand as a sob clawed to the back of her throat. Panic grabbed her heart with a harsh, unyielding fist.

“I gotta go,” she said, the walls of the truck closing in on her. “I've gotta leave.”

“Promise me you won't tell him,” her father pleaded as she scrabbled at the handle of the door, trying to pull it open. “Promise me you won't tell his family.”

Abby finally unlatched the door and clambered out, her feet almost slipping out from her when her heels hit the pavement. She grabbed her camera bag and without another word to her father, scurried down the sidewalk and up the stairs to her mother's apartment.

Minutes later she was inside. She leaned against the door, her legs trembling, her stomach heaving as her father's shattering words circled her brain like threatening crows.

Why now? Why did this happen now?

A cry of anguish choked off her throat as images flooded her mind. Lee asking her forgiveness. The note of self-condemnation in his voice as he spoke of wanting to talk to her father.

She'd been so smug. So self-righteous.

Lee had gone to jail for something that wasn't his fault.

His family had paid out money they never had to.

Abby slid down the door, grabbing her head as if to contain her raging thoughts. She had struggled so hard to forgive him for what she thought he had done to her father. Yes, her life had been difficult, but she hadn't lost her freedom for three years.

As Lee had.

Maybe it was a good thing you ended up in jail.

Guilt seized her midsection. How could she have said that? How could she have thought that?

Lee had spent three years of his life in prison because of her father's mistake and years away from his home, struggling to repay his family because he was so ashamed of what he had done. And now? What would happen now? What would Lee think of her now? How would he react?

The unanswerable questions swarmed through her mind, taunting her. She had been so wrong about Lee in so many ways. He hadn't asked her out on a bet as Mitch and David had told her, and now he hadn't been the one who had injured her father.

She waited a moment, trying to find a solid place, trying to find her footing in this new reality.

You can't tell him.

Abby shook her head, unable to process that thought. How could her father not think Lee needed to know? She had to tell him.

And what would he think then? What would happen between them? Would he have as difficult a time forgiving her as she had forgiving him?

“Abby? Is that you?”

Her mother's voice drifted down the hall. She hurriedly stood, smoothed down her hair, the awful knowledge her father had just given her dragging her down.

“I'm here,” Abby said, hitting the light switch for the main room.

We can't afford to pay him back.

The reality of what her father said was made even clearer as she looked around her mother's apartment.

But how could she not tell Lee? The guilt of what he had done had been such a burden on his shoulders.

Abby felt bile rise in her throat. Three years of his life and all that money. Gone. For nothing.

“Abby, honey, are you okay?” Her mother was tying up her bathrobe as she came into the living room.

Did her mother know the truth?

“I'm not okay,” she gasped.

“I can see that. Did you get sick at the wedding?”

Oh, dear Lord, the wedding. That moment of utter bliss and contentment. Happiness and anticipation.

What would Lee think of her and her family after she told him?

Couldn't she just keep it quiet? Keep it to herself as her father suggested?

“No. I didn't get sick.” Abby squeezed the heel of her hand to her temple, trying to push away the headache that threatened. “But...I saw Dad.”

“Today? When? I thought you were at the wedding.”

“I saw him just now. He said he wanted to talk to me.” Abby's stomach did another dive as she thought of the topic of that conversation.

“What about?”

“Lee.” Abby set her backpack with her camera on the dining table and turned to her mother. “Did you know about the accident? I mean, did you know the truth about the accident? Did Dad ever talk about it?”

Her mother's puzzled frown gave her some encouragement that maybe she didn't know. “What truth about the accident?”

Abby folded her arms over her stomach as she leaned back against the table for support. “Dad just told me... He just said...Lee wasn't the one who was driving when he got hit. Someone else was.”

“What are you saying? I don't understand.”

Abby eased out a sigh. Then, in a dull monotone, she relayed to her mother what she had heard from her father. “And, on top of that, he told me not to tell Lee,” she said.

Ivy pressed her fingers to her lips, her shell-shocked gaze darting around the apartment, as if mentally sizing it up just as Abby had done only a few moments ago. “If you tell Lee...the money...we were wrong...I can't pay that kind of money back.”

“I know. Neither can Dad. It's gone.”

“And the Bannisters could sue us. For libel. Or something. Your father could be charged.”

Her mother's despair created a storm of second thoughts. Lee seemed content. He had made his peace with what happened. He had found his way through all this. Nothing could be changed by his knowing.

“Are you going to tell him?” her mother asked, her voice shrill.

“I have to,” Abby said quietly. “It's not fair.”

“But if he finds out what will he do?”

“I don't know.”

And that was the truth.

“I'm tired, Mom. I need to go to bed. We'll talk about this tomorrow.” She gave Ivy a quick kiss, then grabbed her purse and trudged to her room, worry and fear and anger with her father dogging her steps. Why had her father lied and, even worse, kept up the deception all these years?

That wasn't hard to figure out, she realized as she closed the door and tugged her shoes off. He saw a chance to get some money and he took it.

And Abby had been right beside him, urging him on, her own rage with Lee entwined in with what she saw as a gross injustice done to her father.

Instead, it was the other way around and she had been a party to it.

Help me, Lord
, she prayed, dropping her head into her hands, squeezing her eyes shut as if trying to hold back the emotions that threatened to swamp her.
Help me.

She was so confused she didn't even know what to ask of God anymore.

She lifted her head and saw her Bible sitting beside her laptop. She dragged it across the desk, opening it to Lamentations 3, a passage that she had read over and over again after her father's accident.

Because of the Lord's great love, we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.

She would require more of the Lord's faithfulness in the coming days. Because one thing was certain, as hard as it had been for her to forgive Lee, he had much more to forgive. She had pushed the lawyer so hard to fight for what she thought of as a reasonable settlement. And now, looking back, she knew her motives weren't exactly pure. Some of her insistence had to do with the “bet” that she thought Mitch and David had made with Lee. She had thought if she could get back at him she would feel better.

But it hadn't done anything for her. And now not only had her father lied, but her own twisted motives had saddled Lee with a financial burden that, by his own admission, had been part of the reason he stayed away from the ranch.

What if she didn't tell him the truth? Wouldn't it be easier?

Abby shook that thought off even while it was formulating. She couldn't do that. Lee carried the burden of guilt so heavily. She needed to release him from the lie that hung over his head with the truth.

But what would he do? How would he react?

How could he forgive her father and, by extension, her?

* * *

Lee pulled up to the Grill and Chill, curiosity and expectation thrumming through him. Abby hadn't been in church this morning. Though he and his family had been up until 3:00 a.m. cleaning up after the wedding, he still got up to get to Sunday services on time, looking forward to seeing her. When she didn't show up, he thought she was having second thoughts. But her text, asking him to meet at the Grill and Chill afterward, balanced out the concerns.