Reclaiming Nick (29 page)

The thought made her want to retch.

The few times she’d attended church with her mother, anger had seeped into her as she listened to the sermons, and she’d found herself arguing with the pastor in her head. God simply didn’t notice the hurting, the wounded, as the pastor had indicated.

The pastor began to read: “‘A woman in the crowd had suffered for twelve years with constant bleeding. She had suffered a great deal from many doctors, and over the years . . .’”

Preachers were a lot like the counselors her mother had sent her to in those early years. The counselors might have meant well, but Piper had emerged from those sessions more angry, more bitter. More wounded.

See, I can’t go to church without having these sores opened. Piper rolled her eyes, looking for an opportunity to escape from the chapel.

“‘. . . she had spent everything she had to pay them, but she had gotten no better. In fact, she had gotten worse,’” the pastor continued.

Of course she had.

“‘She had heard about Jesus, so she came up behind him through the crowd and touched his robe. For she thought to herself, “If I can just touch his robe, I will be healed.”’”

Unexpected tears pricked Piper’s eyes at the woman’s desperation.
She took a deep breath. So the woman was hopeless. So she’d tried everything. That wasn’t Piper—Piper had a successful life. A life that made a difference. She could heal herself, thank you.

“‘Immediately the bleeding stopped, and she could feel in her body that she had been healed of her terrible condition.’”

Piper’s eyes narrowed, angry that she still sat in the pew yet suddenly riveted on the story.

The preacher scanned the small audience. “It’s important for you to know that this woman was not only suffering in body but in soul. By Old Testament law, she was deemed unclean. She wasn’t allowed to go to the temple to sacrifice, wasn’t able to enjoy forgiveness, redemption, or a relationship with God. She’d been walking around with unredeemed sin and guilt, feeling dry and untouchable for twelve years. She wasn’t even supposed to be around people, yet here she was, touching a rabbi, a holy man.”

Piper heard her pulse in her ears. She knew how that might feel, to walk around with a ball of dirt and sickness inside, hoping to hide her illness, wanting so badly to reach out and not only be healed but be made whole.

Like Cole.

Instead, she hid behind her words, her reputation as a cutting-edge investigative reporter. When all along, she left the marks of her wounds on every life she touched. She recalled her editor’s words: “Piper, your work is good but jaded. Someday you’re going to go too far and fabricate what isn’t there. And then this paper is going to pay the price.”

Or Nick would pay the price.

Piper thought of him, risking his life for Cole, and she wanted to cry at her stupidity.

She didn’t want to bleed anymore. She didn’t want the bitterness,
the anger, the fear that not only filled her body but stained everything she did—her work, her feelings about herself, even her ability to love Nick. Even if she could learn to trust him, he’d never trust her. She was dirty. Wounded.

Unlovable.

But, oh, how she longed to be clean.

The pastor read on: “‘Jesus realized at once that healing power had gone out from him, so he turned around in the crowd and asked, “Who touched my robe?”’”

See, that’s just like God to accuse. To blame the woman for wanting to be healed and free.

Piper’s mother had lived for years with guilt about leaving her husband—perpetuated by the women at her church who hadn’t the foggiest idea what it felt like to lie in bed in terror, dreading what the night might bring.

Piper scooted to the edge of the pew, poised to make a break for it.

“‘Then the frightened woman, trembling at the realization of what had happened to her, came and fell at his feet and told him what she had done. And he said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace. Your suffering is over.”’”

Piper stared at the preacher. No condemnation? No blame? No “You brought this on yourself”? Just “Go in peace; you have been healed”?

The pastor put his Bible aside before he spoke. “Jesus reached out to a woman who’d been ostracized from society, from Himself, and healed her from the inside out. All it took was her faith in God, her surrender to His healing power. Her willingness to reach out and touch Him.”

Piper clasped her hands between her knees, glad she sat in the back of the chapel. She closed her eyes, willing herself to be like the woman who had touched Jesus, to simply reach out. But where was Jesus when her dad was hitting her? when he’d thrown her across the tiny hotel room after their trailer caught fire and broken her arm? She traced the old scar, remembering her terror, remembering how Jimmy had tackled him and taken the rest of her beating on himself.

No, Jesus hadn’t been there then. And she certainly couldn’t count on Him to heal her now.

Besides, even if she fell at Nick’s feet and told him everything, peace would be the last thing he’d offer her.

But wait. He’d harbored a ten-year grudge against Cole and right now was offering him a piece of himself to save his life.

But Cole was his brother.

And Cole was dying.

She couldn’t exactly claim mortal wounds or a deadly disease. Not really.

Even if he had held her. Had asked her to stay . . .

Every cell within her wanted to scream yes! To start over and be the person she saw reflected in Nick’s eyes. To be healed. Made whole.

“He redeems me from death and crowns me with love and tender mercies.” Nick’s voice, a gentle recollection of their time at the Cathedral, filled her mind. She brushed it away, hurting.

Piper snuck from the chapel and closed the door gently behind her, her throat tight.

She stood outside the chapel, wrestling the urge to leave, to walk outside and never return. Certainly that would be best for everyone.
She nearly jumped out of her tired skin when a hand pressed her shoulder. She turned and met Dutch’s grim look.

“Cole and Nick are out of surgery.”

Cole had entertained a few dreams about heaven. None of them, however, resembled this one: the eastern Montana landscape, the lime-colored grass, the roll of the land over hills and draws, the blue sky as far as he could see. Nor did he expect Suds inside the pearly gates, yet here he was, along with the squeak of saddle leather as Cole rode him across the field toward home.

The warm day told him it must be mid-June, and the sprinkling of coneflower and larkspur evidenced a good season. In the distance, he heard contented cows lowing, and something warm curled in his stomach. His ranch. His land.

His woman. The thought sent a spike of panic through him. Maggy always rode out with him, had spent so many hours working the ranch with him that she felt like an extension of his thoughts. He heard himself calling, but his voice seemed feeble.

Maybe she was in the house with CJ. He urged his horse toward the yard and hopped off, heading toward the back door in long strides. He stepped into the entryway, and voices in the nearby room—the kitchen—stopped him.

Bishop and Maggy.

This wasn’t a dream but a memory. He let the memory free from the places he’d hidden it for so many years.

“I know that is Nick’s child you’re carrying, Maggy.”

Cole took the news with a wince. He longed to see Maggy’s expression. Relief? Shock? Regret?

“The night Nick left, Stefanie found the note and gave it to me.”

“All this time, you’ve known?” Maggy’s voice, Cole’s question. How could Bishop have known and not said a word? Every day Bishop drove over here to sit with Irene, and yet he hadn’t mentioned anything to Cole.

“I’m prepared to make it right,” Bishop said. “I want to build you a home on Noble property. Give you and your baby a piece of the Noble legacy. When Nick comes to his senses—which I know he will—you’ll be there, waiting for him. This child can grow up running a ranch right beside his father.”

Maggy’s voice sounded tight, even angry. “He—or she—will run the ranch with their father—Cole. I love Cole, Bishop. Nick might have given me a taste of what love might be, but Cole showed me what real love is. I know you mean well, but I don’t want Nick back. I want Cole. And if Nick wants to be in his son’s life, he can be. But if Cole will have me, I want this child to bear his name. His character. His legacy. Even if Nick comes back, Cole will always be my choice.”

Cole stepped out of the entryway, his heart thundering. Maggy loved him?

He hadn’t tried to make her love him, although deep inside he’d longed to hear those words. Honor and guilt had pushed the desires back, buried them.

Even now, he felt shame, feeling as if he’d stolen her somehow.

“Cole will always be my choice.”

In his memory he saw himself push open the door, but it wouldn’t give. Instead, he saw Maggy again, standing in a stream of light. Stoic as someone hurtled words at her.

“What were you thinking, telling Nick about Cole being his brother?”

Cole struggled to place the voice. Bishop? Dutch? He saw Maggy, her hair in two braids, her eyes fierce. This was the Maggy he’d married, the Maggy who hung on to life with both hands. The Maggy he adored. “I was thinking about saving his life. I was thinking that I didn’t want Cole to die.”

“This isn’t what Cole wanted.”

“That’s because Cole is living under the warped illusion that I don’t really want him. That I don’t love him. But he’s wrong. I would do anything to save his life.”

No, Maggy . . .

“Nick will figure it out. He’ll argue that you influenced Bishop. That he signed the will under duress.”

“I know.” Maggy rubbed her hands over her arms, but her chin tightened. “But I don’t care.”

“You’ll lose the land, Maggy. And then everything else after the hospital bills.”

Maggy only stared at him.

“You’ll even lose CJ.”

Maggy’s voice had dropped to a whisper. “How do you know about CJ?”

The voice paused, and Cole found his own breath choked in this chest. “Bishop told me. He told me that by giving Cole the land, he was also standing in Nick’s stead.”

Maggy’s tone sharpened, as if regrouping. “Nick would never take CJ from me.”

“He would if he could provide for him, and you and Cole
couldn’t. I suggest you keep CJ’s paternity quiet. I’m the only one besides you and Cole who knows, and I’m not telling a soul.”

Maggy said nothing. Then she looked over at Cole, seeing him through the cracked door. Without a word, she walked over and shut it.

Cole stood in the entryway, feeling the wind kicking up, shivering.

“His pressure is dropping. I think we have an internal bleed. We may have to go back into surgery.”

Cole’s eyes flickered open, and he tried to place the images through the haze of sleep. Tubes and Maggy, dressed in a gown, her nose and mouth covered with a mask, standing at the foot of a metal bed. Her eyes were wide and laced with worry, and the words she’d spoken before he went into surgery assaulted him now, clicking suddenly into place with stinging clarity.

“But I’d chuck it all for one more day with you. I love our land. But I love you more. And I don’t care if we have to sell everything we have and I have to wait tables at Lolly’s—we’re going to have our happily ever after.”

She’d given up their land to save him. The truth made him weak with grief.

Her gaze found his. Don’t die, it said.

And his replied, Oh, Maggy, what have you done?

He’d spent two days pacing, waiting for the opening he needed to end this. But he saw someone with Nick nearly every moment, and he wasn’t really considered one of the family.

Instead, he’d watched from the shadows as Maggy hovered over
Cole in ICU. He didn’t want to wish ill upon them, but when Cole had been rushed back into surgery twice, he felt a surge of hope. Maybe Nick would be next.

But after a day, it seemed Nick would live. With Piper and Stefanie playing nurse, he hadn’t had a second to get near him, and time was running out. He leaned against the wall, holding a paper cup, sipping the acrid hospital coffee. He had to get Nick alone, just for a moment. He knew what he would do . . . had planned it out in the wee hours of the night. All he needed was a second to realize his revenge. A second to turn the nightmare back into the American dream.