Page 82 of Never Fall Again

A low chuckle rumbled through Cal’s chest. “I’m terrified. But we don’t have to figure anything out right now. Let’s get through tonight. Then we’ll get through tomorrow. And the day after that.”

“Okay.”

A long moment passed, and Cal said, “I want to ask you something. You might think it’s weird.”

“What?”

“Would you mind if I prayed?”

Landry looked up at him. “Pray? Now?”

“Now seems like a good time.”

“You aren’t wrong about that. Go for it.”

He squeezed her hand, dropped his head to hers, and spoke. “Father, we don’t know what’s going on. We don’t know why you’ve allowed it. We don’t know where the danger’s coming from. And we don’t like it. We don’t like being afraid, and speaking for myself here, I’m sick to death of people breaking Landry’s pottery. Please give Gray and his officers wisdom. Give Bronwyn wisdom. Give Landry peace, Father. The kind of peace that comes only from you. Please help us know how best to protect Eliza and Landry. Shield them from evil and give them rest from their enemies.”

A sharp knock at the door interrupted his prayer, but Cal didn’t move.

“Open us up to what you want to do, Father. Help us not to hold on so hard to the past that we miss the future you have for us. In Jesus’s name, Amen.”

Another knock.

“Stay here.” Cal disentangled himself and stood. Landry swiped at a rogue tear, and the hard shell around her heart that she’d built, layer upon layer, against envy, deceit, lies, and meanness cracked. It didn’t fall away, but it broke enough for her to see light on the other side.

Voices came from behind her, and she caught enough to know that Cal was filling Bronwyn in. She could have kissed him for that. How did he know that she didn’t have the mental or emotional energy to tell anyone else?

Then Bronwyn slid into Cal’s spot.

“I’m so sorry. We’ll fix everything. We have insurance. You won’t have to replace the supplies on your own. I’ll call that clay supplier from Asheville and see if they can get us what you need.”

Bronwyn wrapped her arms around Landry, and it was her friend’s tears that finally broke the dam of Landry’s horror. She sobbed, Bronwyn sobbed, and she expected their combined sorrow to scare Cal off.

But she was wrong.

He came around behind the sofa and put his arms around both of them. “We’ll figure this out.”

Another knock on the door. Firm. Insistent.

“Be right back.”

Landry pulled away from Bronwyn, and they wiped their faces.

“I promised you’d be safe here.” Bronwyn sniffled. “I promised.”

“This isn’t your fault.” Landry got up and retrieved a box of tissues from the coffee table. She took one and handed the box to Bronwyn. “You should probably visit the bathroom and fix your face. You don’t need to give anyone ammunition by being a ‘weepy female.’” She put air quotes aroundweepy female, words Bronwyn’s uncle had used in his argument against making her the CEO.

Bronwyn blew her nose and headed toward the bathroom. “If my family is behind this, Landry, so help me...” Landry patted her arm as she walked by.

Cal and Gray were still talking by the door. She could hear their voices enough to recognize them but not enough to hear what they were saying.

She looked around her home. It was a nice place. Plenty of space for her and Eliza. Had she been wrong to want more? To plan for a place of her own?

No. One of her favorite therapists at the rehab center had afavorite saying. “Never doubt in the dark what God revealed to you in the light.” She’d been so sure, so settled, so at peace about the property and the house.

Despite the fear she lived with every day, she’d been confident that God loved her and that even if no one else understood her, he did. She’d seen the property and the timing and everything as being a gift from him.

She wouldn’t see it as anything else.

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