Page 13 of Family Forever
Chapter Five
Marissa’s eyes popped open. She was lying on Dylan Jacobs’s couch.So last night wasn’t a dream.My dad made the final decision to choose whiskey over me.Tears flooded her eyes again. In her heart she knew he loved her, but his addiction to alcohol was too strong to let him make the right decision. At least she wasn’t a child anymore. She had options. She would have been leaving home this coming August anyhow to go to college. What difference does leaving a few months earlier than anticipated make? Dylan had told her the night before she could stay as long as necessary.Everything will be fine.
She caught a glimpse of Aric coming down the staircase before he darted into the kitchen.
“Why is Marissa sleeping on the couch?” he asked.
“It’s a long story. I’ll explain it later,” Dylan replied in a loud whisper.
The voices of his other brothers gradually grew louder. “Hey, you guys need to be quiet and eat. Marissa’s trying to sleep. And we need to leave for church in fifteen minutes.”
Church.Marissa missed going to church. Her dad used to take her but stopped after she confirmed. Almost daily, she longed for the fulfillment she felt when she attended regularly. And after last night, she could use some religious support. Marissa flung the covers back and sat up. She needed to hurry, she wanted to go with them. All gazes landed on her when she entered the kitchen in her pajamas. “Can I go too?”
Dylan cocked his head to the side. “You want to go to church?”
“Yes.”
He raked his gaze over her. “Okay, but we need to leave in fifteen minutes.” He zoned in on the duffle bag in her hand. “You can use the master bathroom to get ready.”
She spun on her heel, flew through his bedroom and into his bathroom where she halted on a dime the second the scent of his woodsy-scented aftershave penetrated her nostrils. She’d caught a good whiff of him the night before when she fell into him at the bar and couldn’t stop inhaling, even with all the crap going on around her. Now, here she was again, standing like a fool in his bathroom, simply inhaling. Thank goodness no one could see her.
As she stepped toward the mirror, she noticed the light blue hue lining the left side of her jaw where her father had struck her. That explained the look of sympathy she got from Dylan while in the kitchen moments earlier. Oh, how she hated that look from people. She'd seen it more times than she could count—every time someone referenced her father.
She slid into the only pair of dress pants she packed, and a light pink sweater, then she combed out her hair. Makeup helped to camouflage the bruise. Hopefully, nobody at church would notice.
Dylan was herding his brothers away from the table when she entered the kitchen. They all climbed into his truck and headed for town.
She followed the Jacobs clan through the large front doors of the church, and down the long aisle. She felt like the entire congregation’s eyes were on her, sure they all knew by now what had happened at the bar the night before.
They filed into a pew, nearly filling the entire row. Dylan sat at the end of the pew on the center aisle, Luke sat between her and Dylan. Braden was on the opposite side of her, then Nate and Aric.
The morning sun shone through the beautiful stained glass windows, and when coupled with the wind whipping around the trees lining the building, the branches shook, causing a colorful kaleidoscope effect on the walls of the church. It was breathtakingly beautiful. As she had hoped, it felt good to be in church.
The pastor’s sermon was focused on forgiveness. How appropriate for her today, though she’d already forgiven her father for accidently hitting her last night. She knew he didn’t know who he was swinging at when he struck her. The apology in his eyes had said it all. Deep down she knew he loved her, but alcohol was a demon to him.
After the service, the boys went to the Sunday school rooms. She looked at Dylan. “So what do we do, just wait.”
He smiled sheepishly. “Sometimes I use this hour to run errands.”
“What do you do the other times?”
“Come with me, I’ll show you.”
They climbed into his truck and he drove to the truck stop up the hill from the church. “I get breakfast. This is the one meal a week where I eat in peace. I don’t have to yell at anyone to stop fighting at the table, I don’t have to listen to anyone whine that they don’t like what I made. It’s just quiet.”
Uh-oh, now she was invading his private time, and she knew from her experience with him and his family over the past couple weeks that private time was not something he got often.
He turned, slid out of the truck, hustled around to her side, and pulled the door open. She didn’t move.
He pulled a frown. “Something wrong? Don’t you want to eat?”
“Yes, but I feel bad about invading your private time.”
He chuckled. “As long as you can promise me that I won’t have to yell at you to stop arguing with the neighboring table we should be good to go.”
She couldn’t help but laugh. “I promise.”
Dylan ordered the Hungry Man special—three pancakes as large as the plate, two eggs, breakfast potatoes, and three sausage links. If nothing else lately, she did learn a lot about the amount of food it took to fill up a man his size, not to mention his growing brothers.
