Page 10 of Deliver Me

He kept reading.

I don’t want to upset you, and I know that it may be part of what you don’t want to talk about, but why doesn’t anyone else write to you?

Mia

He sighed and tipped his head back against the pillow, debating how honest he should be when he answered her last question.

Mia,

First of all, any food? What about liver? Haggis? My mother made me eat escargot as a kid. I was not a fan.

A laugh bubbled up inside her. She couldn’t wait to tell him how disgusting that was. Someone needed to feed him some real food. Except they couldn’t, she remembered with a jolt, because he was never getting out of prison.

Second, contemporary Christian is not my favorite. I like most music, but not that. Or opera. Did your parents let you listen to normal music?

Congrats on going back to college! I think you’d be a great teacher. You seem like the kind to dig until you find the best of someone and not let them give you anything less. Kids need that, someone to have faith in them.

Had he needed that? Why had no one helped him?

She nibbled on the jagged edge of a broken thumbnail, frowning as she read the rest.

Maybe I wasn’t the nicest person when you started writing me, and I’m sorry. You aren’t what I thought you’d be, and you don’t make me feel like I’m not human because of the mistakes I’ve made. Thanks for that.

And about your last question … my mother didn’t even come to the trial and my uncle died a few years ago. So even if he wanted to (which he didn’t) now he can’t, and she won’t.

It’s okay, though, they aren’t the kind of people you really want around anyway. I’d rather have you.

Gabriel

“What are you smiling about?”

She looked up in surprise, clutching the letter to her chest and meeting the kind and familiar face of James Prescott, the youth pastor at her father’s church.

At twenty-five, he was a few years older than she was and handsome. Short brown curls surrounded a perfectly sculpted face—high cheekbones, firm jaw, sensual lips over even white teeth. He had a passion for sports and the outdoors, and the sun had given him a perpetual burnished glow that deepened in the summer months. He was friendly, never wasting an opportunity to talk to her or tease her when they bumped into each other at church, but she wasn’t used to seeing him at her house.

“Hey, James,” she said. “Are you here to talk to Dad?”

“Yeah, he said I could swing by tonight and have dinner.” His eyes were still on the letter, but she didn’t appease his curiosity, turning instead to back slowly toward the stairs, only finally turning her back on him when she set her foot on the first stair.

He watched her go with an amused smirk and she knew that she had just set herself up for an endless stream of him picking on her about her secret. “Please excuse me, I need to run upstairs and clean up before we eat.”

“Sure,” he shrugged. “See you in a bit.”

She called back over her shoulder when she was halfway up the staircase, “Dad’s in his office. Go on back since he’s expecting you.”

It wasn’t a complete lie. She was going to clean up for dinner … as soon as she finished writing another quick letter.

Gabriel,

Liver is disgusting. You should be ashamed for suggesting that it qualifies as a food…

Chapter Six

“Ican’t believe summer is almost over already.”

Mia hummed noncommittally at Kennedy’s comment, eyes pressed shut against the harsh glint of the afternoon sun. Sweat was already beading on her skin and she had just stretched out on her towel after climbing out of the water. The skin of her fingers was still wrinkled, and she was already thinking about jumping back in to escape the heat.

“It doesn’t feel over,” Lilly’s boyfriend complained, leaning back against her legs as she sat behind him. Bryce had been in love with Lilly since she’d first moved to town, but it had taken him until their senior year of high school to find the courage to ask her out, when he’d been the quarterback of the football team and a hometown hero. His parents were so proud of his athletic and academic success that almost everyone half expected Mr. Wheeler’s head to pop clean off his shoulders one day, but Mia secretly suspected having Lilly at his side was the thing Bryce was proudest of. They’d been inseparable ever since they’d started dating and Mia watched wistfully as Lilly caressed his cheek and rubbed a fresh layer of chalk white sunscreen into his warm brown skin.

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