Page 20 of Perilous Healing

“The fact that you’re trying to feel Him tells me you do. Your heart is burdened with the weight of your past. If you want to truly move into your new life, then you have to accept your Savior, ask for forgiveness, and let the past go.”

“Forgiveness.” I shake my head. “I’m not deserving. You have no idea the things I’ve seen. The poison in my blood.”

“None of us are deserving,” he tells me. “Jesus didn’t die for us because we were worthy. He died for us out of love.”

“Love is another fallacy in my world, Pastor.”

“It’s not a fallacy in anyone’s world,” he replies. “You just need to open your heart to receive it.”

Chapter7

Silas

It’s nearly ten and she’s still not home.

Where is she? Where could she have gone?

Eloise is sleeping soundly on my side of the duplex, as evidenced by her soft breathing through the baby monitor on my hip. Using a bright work light, I apply another coat of putty to Bianca’s ceiling.

It took most of the day, but Felix, the hardware store owner, and his son-in-law Alex came to help. We were able to clear the tree from Bianca’s house, got the roof closed up, and now the ceiling has been patched with sheet rock.

I glance out the open front door again. Did River’s people find Bianca? Is she gone? I climb down from the ladder, then head out onto the porch, closing the door behind me. As soon as I’m sitting, I take a drink from my bottle of water.

If I had her number, I could call her. But I didn’t allow myself to put it into my phone even after she started work at Knight Security.

The last thing I wanted was another piece of her tied to me. She already has so much of me it’s sickening.

Now I wish I had the number, if only to make sure she’s still here in Hope Springs.

Honestly, it’s more than likely she ran. Took off into the distance, just as she did all those years ago. Even as the thought graces my mind, a pair of headlights turn down our street.

She comes to a stop in front of her house and climbs out, a book in her hand.

“Hey.”

“Hey.” I don’t look up at her even as she takes a seat on the steps in front of her front door. It’s then I glance over at her. “Been at the library?”

She looks down at the book in her hands. “The church. It’s the Bible. Pastor Redding gave it to me.”

“A Bible? I didn’t take you for a believer.”

“Getting there,” she replies with a soft smile. “I’m trying to find my way to Him.”

I grunt in response. Truth is, I hardened my heart against faith after my sister’s death. Before then, I believed, sure. Though I never practiced my faith. Never prayed. Never spent a Sunday in a pew.

Not until I got the call that my sister had been in an accident.

I prayed then.

But she stayed dead.

And I haven’t dropped to my knees since.

“I’m sorry that I came to Hope Springs and that I stayed. It was never my intention to bring danger to this town.”

“Then what was your intention?” I ask. “Why did you stay?”

“The truth?”

---