On Every Side (29 page)

He stared at her, and there were tears in his eyes. “Every day, Faith. I kept thinking…” He swallowed hard. “I kept thinking you and your parents would show up at the camp and take me home, rescue me from that awful place and help me find Heidi.”

“We wanted to…” Her voice drifted. “I talked to my mom… she's in Chicago helping my aunt. She said they hadn't called social services because they were afraid once the state got involved it would be impossible to adopt you.” She looked at the
tops of the distant trees. “I guess my dad wanted to talk to an attorney friend of his about adopting both of you privately. But the state stepped in before he could do anything.”

Jordan shook his head. “It doesn't matter. Things happened the way they did for a reason, right?”

Again she wanted to take him in her arms and hold him until the hurt faded from his heart. But she had a feeling it would take a lifetime, and they didn't have that. Morning was fast approaching. In six hours this strange time between them borrowed from a place where yesterday lived would be all but forgotten.

Come morning, they'd take up their places on opposite sides of the battle once more.

She decided to be honest with him. “Jordan…”

He turned to her and smiled sadly.” I'm sorry. It's late and cold. I'm sure you don't want to hear all this.”

“No, I do… I just…” He was looking at her, waiting for her to finish. “I thought about you, too. Every day”

He searched her eyes. “I always wondered if you heard about the accident. For a month after it happened I expected to see you and your family.” He smiled and gazed up at the midnight sky.” I pictured your dad striding up to the front office, demanding they let me go, insisting that the camp wasn't a safe place for kids like me.” He shook his head. “But the truth is you probably never even heard about it.”

Faith's eyes grew wide. An accident? At the camp? “Wait a minute, I do remember something about it.”

Jordan lowered his eyebrows and bit his lower lip, stuffing his hands deep into the pockets of his parka. “It was awful, Faith.” Even in the shadows she could see heartache settle over his face. “There was a cave built into the side of a ravine, maybe a hun-dred yards from the main camp. Over the years people used it as a trash dump.” He paused and released a long breath, gritting his
teeth in a way that made his jaw more pronounced. “That after-noon… the owners of the camp decided it was time to clean it out.”

Faith racked her brain, trying to remember where she'd heard these details before. She waited while Jordan found the strength to continue. “The cave was more of a tunnel…I don't know, maybe twenty feet straight into the side of the ravine. Trouble was it'd been raining for three weeks before they ordered the cleanup. We were an hour into the job when dirt began falling from the ceiling.”

Jordan shook his head, and his features looked chalky white, even in the shadows. “I remember every horrifying detail.” He paused and looked at her again. “Another boy and I were near the entrance. We barely got out. I mean, we had dirt on our backs and our legs were buried as the cave collapsed.” He stared at the ground near his feet. “They used shovels and got me and the boy next to me out first. Then they started digging for the others. Seventeen boys. All of them trapped beneath tons of dirt.”

He was silent for a moment, lost in the memory, and Faith barely noticed the tears that trickled onto her cheeks.
No wonder Jordan's so angry…
She wanted to ask the Lord why—why had He allowed the string of tragedies to happen to a boy so young, one so new in his belief? But something deep inside her lacked the confidence to even approach God with the issue. She shifted her attention back to Jordan. “I can't imagine.”

Jordan nodded slowly, thoughtfully and brought his eyes back up to hers. “For ten minutes we could hear the faint, muffled cries of the trapped boys. The camp owner dug as fast as he could, and after a few minutes firemen arrived and joined the effort.” He shook his head, his eyes flat. “There was nothing they could do; it was too late.”

Suddenly she could see the headlines, hear her parents talk-
ing about the accident. As she drifted back to that year, she gasped and her hand flew across her mouth. “I remember it now! The newspaper said you died!” She stared straight ahead, digging her fingers into the roots of her hair, searching her mind for details she hadn't remembered until now. Her eyes flew back to his. “My parents read the article and told me that night. They said they weren't sure it was true and the next day they made some calls and found out you were okay.”

“The paper said I died?” Jordan's eyebrows lifted. “You're kid-ding?” He bit the inside of his lip and his eyes grew even wider. “Hey, what if Heidi heard the same thing?”

Faith caught his enthusiasm. “You know, you might be right. Maybe she thinks you're dead, and that's why she hasn't tried to find you.”

“I've looked up her records, but never mine. What if some-how they got it mixed up and—” He stopped, and his shoulders slumped as he leaned back against the bench once more. Faith watched the despair settle over his face.” They wouldn't have got-ten a thing like that wrong. The papers might have made a mis-take, but not the state.”

He looked at his hands. “I spent a night in the hospital while they looked me over. The next day I was moved to a boys’ camp in New Jersey.” He leaned his head back some and looked at Faith again. “I asked about Heidi every day for three months until finally the camp warden told me not to ask anymore.” Jordan huffed, and Faith could see the bitterness in his tensed features. “He threatened to send me to a camp in Montana if I spoke her name again.”

Faith pictured him, only months after losing his mother and sister, stuck at a camp so far from home with people who neither knew nor loved him. “I wish… I wish we could have found you, Jordan.”

He shrugged, and she knew he was letting her see into the very depths of his heart. “I kept thinking they'd bring Heidi to me, find us a home together. But one year led to the next, and in no time I was finished with high school and playing college base-ball. By that point I think I figured no one wanted to find me. I sort of had to let the old Jordan Riley die…” He studied Faith's eyes. “Know what I mean?”

She shook her head and felt her heart sink. This was his way of telling her he'd changed, at least from his perspective. But it wasn't true; the old Jordan hadn't died. She'd sat right next to him for the past half hour.

Jordan's heart raced deep within him at Faith's nearness, at the desire he felt for her. How had he gotten in this position? How had things gotten so mixed up, so far from what he wanted?

He wanted to pull her close and tell her the way he was feeling, but how could he? Nothing lasting could ever come from a relationship between them. They were complete opposites.

But, oh! What she did to him, sitting so close he could smell the subtle sweetness of her skin.

“What are you thinking?”

Jordan looked at her, and a flash of anger pierced his soul. What was he doing here, anyway? This was all about the court case. Faith didn't have feelings for him. “I know what you're trying to do.”

She jerked back an inch or two and knit her eyebrows together as though he'd suddenly switched languages on her.” What's
that
supposed to mean?”

He expelled the air in his lungs and dug his elbows into his thighs. “I'm sorry I'm not making sense.”

Faith was quiet for a minute. Then in a voice soft as silk she
whispered words that felt like balm to his empty heart: “The old Jordan isn't dead. He's right here.”

Get up and leave! She's trying to change you, make you into some-thing you're not! She's one of them, remember?

The silent, angry whispers pecked at his soul, but he ignored them. It didn't matter what her motives were, or what she was trying to do to him, or which side she was aligned with. He looked up and their eyes locked. Slowly she slid closer and slipped off her gloves. Then she lifted her hand to his face, framing his jaw with the most delicate touch he'd ever known. “He's not dead, Jordan.”

He searched her eyes, painfully aware he was losing control at an alarming rate. His words slipped out before he could stop them. “Sometimes I think, maybe… maybe you're right.”

Faith's eyes filled with tears, and suddenly Jordan was sure beyond any doubt that the woman before him had no ulterior motives. Rather the two of them were caught in a time warp, transported back to that long-ago summer when they were two kids learning about love.

“Until tonight,” she went on, “I thought it might be true, that the old you really had died. But now…”

He drew closer to her, savoring the feel of her hand on his face as she talked.

“Seeing you here, like this, I realized that somewhere inside of you the old Jordan Riley still remembers.”

The night air was cold and oddly calm. Jordan looked into Faith's eyes, trying to memorize the moment and wondering if it wasn't all some kind of a dream. Finally, when he couldn't hold back another moment, he took her chin in his hands, allowing his fingers to caress the sides of her face. “I wanted to win this battle, Faith. For a long time I've wanted to win it. But I never meant to hurt you. I had no idea…”

Her eyes clouded over, and she turned her eyes toward the Jesus statue. Again there was quiet between them.

“What're you thinking about?” Jordan tucked the loose strands of her hair behind her ears. “You looked a million miles away for a minute there.”

She looked back at him, and he wondered if she was as dis-tracted by his nearness as he was by hers. It was all he could do to keep from taking her in his arms and…

If only there weren't an ocean of differences between us
—

“It's cold.”

At her words, Jordan nodded and closed the remaining gap between them, moving so close to her that his heightened senses took in every place where their bodies touched. The length of their arms, their legs… “Better?”

Faith hesitated, and Jordan knew she had to be waging an inner battle as well. But he felt her relax and snuggle close to him.

“Better.” She positioned herself so she could look into his eyes again. “Remember what you said? About this case meaning a lot to you?”

He nodded, barely able to breathe for her nearness.

“It means a lot to me, too.” The reality of her statement cut like a dagger, though it did nothing to stop the way he wanted her, the way he was sure he'd never loved anyone like he loved the woman at his side, the connection they shared. She was the only one he had ever been able to share his heart with.

“You have to be true to yourself, Faith.”

Their eyes locked, their faces no more than an inch apart, and Jordan knew there was no turning back. Faith brought her cheek up alongside his and he nuzzled her face. “I will be… It's some-thing I promised my father.”

He eased his arm around her and pulled her against his chest.
Finally, when he thought he'd die from anticipation, he whis-pered into her ear, “I still love you, Faith.”

Sitting this close in the shadows of the park where they'd spent so many hours as kids… it was more than either of them could bear. The statue, the legal fight… none of it mattered with her so close he could feel her breath, smell her shampoo.

She cupped his face with both hands this time, her eyes full of questions. “Jordan, I…”

“Shh. Don't say anything.” He could feel the early sting of tears. “We're different now, we look at life from opposite sides of the ocean. I just… I wanted you to know how I feel.”

Her hands quivered against his face and he caught them in his own, protecting her from the freezing night.

Faith looked deeply into his eyes. “But you agreed with me. A part of you—who you used to be—still lives inside you. Isn't that right?”

Jordan let go of one of her hands, tracing her eyebrows with his thumbs. “If things had been different… who knows where we might be now” He warned himself not to do something he'd regret, but without paying heed he brought his lips closer to hers. This time he kept eye contact as he whispered the feelings that were flooding his heart. “I always loved you, Faith. What I felt for you was… I don't know, pure. Right. I never loved anyone the way I loved you. The way I still love you.”

Certain they'd found a ride upstream in the river of time, he touched his lips to hers and kissed her until they were both breathless. When he pulled back, a breeze blew across them and he was struck by the insanity of their actions. What was he doing? Where could this possibly go?

A thought quickly took shape. Whatever their differences, this wasn't fair to either of them.

He searched her face, taking in the honesty and integrity and
desire he saw there. The love. Tears pricked at his eyes again. “You're so beautiful, Faith. So good and right. But what we have between us is borrowed from yesterday.” Before he could stop himself, he kissed her again, then drew back. “It isn't real.”

Faith's eyes clouded. She lay her hand over his heart, and he knew she must feel the way he was trembling. “It is real. As real as the boy you used to be.” She framed his face with her fingers again and kissed him with a passion that took him by surprise and was almost his undoing.

“Faith,” he whispered when their lips came apart for a brief moment. “Whatyou do tome…”

Again and again she moved her lips over his until he thought he might scream from the feelings welling up inside him. When they came up for air, she searched his eyes for a long moment, her voice barely a whisper. “You can't have your mother and Heidi back. But I'm still here, Jordan. That's proof that God loves you, isn't it?”

A single tear spilled onto his cheek, and he shook his head. “No. Tomorrow we'll be enemies again. I'll do whatever I can to see your Jesus statue walled up forever and you'll do everything in your power to stop me. Don't you understand, Faith? The God you love, the God you serve…He's my enemy I spend all my time trying to have Him eliminated from society.”

She drew back from him, open-mouthed as though she'd been slapped. And in that instant a knife twisted in Jordan's heart—and he knew the moment they'd borrowed from time was gone.