She was his wellspring, his chapel, and the goddess in that chapel, his one true light and the only one on earth he adored. With her at his side, he’d finally reconnected with the God he’d cursed for so many years after he’d lost Sara and Abby. But that was what hard men did. They fought what they didn’t understand until, somehow, that same God sent the miracle they needed to heal. Despite her own overwhelming tragedy, Kelsey had taught him how to live again.
He’d also believed in her when she hadn’t believed in herself. He’d taken her into his home, provided for her, protected her, and taught Kelsey how to protect herself. How to believe in herself. Eventually, the broken woman she’d been at their first meeting had healed from the double tragedy of losing her two sons. She’d gone back to her church. She’d prayed and grown strong. Yet, it was her simple way of recovering that had eventually saved him from himself. To this day, whenever she mentioned how thankful she was that he’d saved her, he had to smile. He knew better. She was the one who’d done the saving that day at his cabin.
Her lips pursed as she drew in a fortifying breath. “There’s a reason Louise never wanted children. I suspect you’ve already guessed why. But honestly, Alex, I didn’t think she’d ever marry after what she went through. But then she met Phillip Timson, and everything changed. He’s good for her, and he adores her. She’s happier now than she’s ever been, even living on that farm in the middle of nowhere.”
“Pendleton, Oregon, isn’t exactly nowhere.”
“Right, but it’s very different from Portland, where we spent most of our childhoods.” Her gaze strayed to the wall over his head.
“It’s okay if you’d rather not tell me,” he told her. “I’ve waited this long, what’s another lifetime?”
Her lips furled into a small, sad smile. “My parents were missionaries, Alex. They believed they’d been called to save the world. Called to higher, grander work than just raising their two daughters.” She swallowed hard. “I don’t think they ever really wanted us. The last time I saw them, I was eleven. Louise was thirteen, a teenager. We were at the airport waving goodbye.”
Alex held his breath. He’d long ago surmised that Kelsey and her sister had suffered incest or abuse as children. Didn’t make hearing those suspicions were true any easier.
“They were on their way into Egypt that morning. As usual, they left us in the care of my mother’s sister’s husband, our Uncle Rafe.” She rubbed her biceps as if the thought made her flesh crawl. “He came to live with our family after his wife, my Aunt Willa, died. Mom felt bad for him. Said it was our Christian duty to help the homeless and downtrodden, the broken-hearted. Stuff like that.”
Alex reached for Kelsey’s hand. By then, they were face to face, both leaning into each other. The sun filtering through the blinds at her right cast Kelsey in gentle golden hues. Alex was feeling golden too, but his was more the molten variety than the glowing kind. Knowing what was coming stoked the deepest furnace of his soul. Yet he controlled the bellows that breathed life into the wicked fire in his gut. This was her story. Her history. And there was nothing he could do to right the wrongs done to two unprotected little girls all those years ago.
But God, he hated pedophiles.
Kelsey blew out a quivering breath. “In Cairo, they boarded a smaller plane that was supposed to take them up the Nile River. But it crashed, and, umm, there were no survivors. Mom and Dad came home two weeks later in wooden boxes. Rafe held a very nice joint funeral service, but I honestly don’t remember much about that day or where they were buried. I do remember a million chrysanthemums, all different colors, though. Wreaths. Vases full of them. So, so many mums…” She ran her fingers into her hair, combing it back over her shoulder as her eyes glistened. “Mom and Dad were always going somewhere else, Alex. They had a mission, other children to save, other little girls to serve and convert and—”
Ever so gently, he bumped his forehead into hers. “You had no one.”
“I had Louise,” she declared firmly. “But even that changed once they died and Rafe was stuck with us. I didn’t know then, but I realized later, after I’d finished college and was teaching, that they’d left everything they owned to him in the event of their untimely deaths. I guess he thought that made us girls his, too. Like chattel.” Her lips pursed into a tight O. “Anyway, yes, Alex. He molested Louise. He’d creep into her room at night and tell her he’d kill me if she didn’t, umm, let him. But the day after she turned seventeen, she went crazy. Scared me to death when she started screaming and crying and yelling that she couldn’t take it anymore. She packed a stupid plastic grocery bag, Alex, and she ran away. Just like that. She left me.”
He waited, his chest hurting for the frightened little girl Kelsey had been then.
“I didn’t reconnect with her until after I’d graduated college and was teaching kindergarten. Someone knocked on my apartment door one day after I’d come home from school, and there Louise was. Alive and happy. Crying and telling me how sorry she was that she’d deserted me. She stayed a month with me that time, even introduced me to Phil. Also told me everything Rafe had done to her after our parents died.”
“Did he touch you?” Alex asked gently. He damned well needed to know.
Kelsey shook her head, silky dark strands shimmering with that same golden glow. “No. I think he was afraid Louise would go to the police. From then on, he made sure I did my homework and went to college. But I was the mouse in
