Page 34 of With All My Heart, Joy

A lump crowded his throat. “Not yet, cupcake. Not yet.” And not someday, either. There would be no puppy. And there definitely would be no mom for Christmas.

He wandered into the cold, empty living room and bumped up the thermostat. As the heater kicked on and filled the room with warmth, he plopped onto the couch.

Silas was married. And he wasn’t.

He looked around the dreary space.

Like Joy had said, it was December now. He should set up the Christmas tree. Paisley would be ecstatic come morning. Yes, he should.

But he didn’t.

His gaze landed on the set of weights in the corner of the room. After Paisley joined his life, he’d been forced to become creative with home workouts. He should lift some weights to boost his mood.

But he didn’t.

With another soul-weary sigh, he stood and trudged to his office drawer, retrieving a blank Christmas card. He was due for a reply to JJ. Her last card arrived yesterday. It was wonderful, as usual. And yet, as he filled the white space inside his return card, he found his heart wasn’t in it.

JJ was wonderful. But she was a faceless name on a card.

Joy was real. Joy was the one his heart longed for. The one his heart couldn’t have.

* * * * *

Four days later, Isaac paced his office, rehearsing the words he’d been forming until midnight last night. Joy would be here in minutes. He would take her through one more counseling session, and then at the end, he would break it to her gently.

This isn’t working out, just as I feared. It doesn’t feel right seeing you in social settings outside the office. I am uncomfortable continuing with us both in this position. It’s not fair for you to see your counselor in personal settings, and it puts me in an awkward spot. I have enjoyed providing counsel to you during these four sessions, but I think it would be in the best interests of both of us to schedule you with one of my coworkers.

That covered it, right? Everything except his attraction to her. But if she was as smart as he knew her to be, she would read between the lines. He wasn’t worried she would confront him. If she wouldn’t confront her own brother, she wouldn’t force him to confess his feelings. All he had to do was keep them in an hour longer. Then Joy would be gone.

“Oh, Joy,” the words poured out in a moan as he returned to his desk. Time to summon her. He reached with the mouse to close Joy’s file where he had reviewed his notes when his eyes paused on something familiar. He squinted and reread the address listed under Joy’s name.

But, no. That was impossible.

He shook his head and closed his eyes. Clearly, he was delusional from lack of sleep. Yet when he looked a third time, the address read the same as before.

It was the same address he’d copied down onto an envelope bearing a Christmas card five times in the last month. It was JJ Hall’s address.

Isaac slumped into his chair, dropping his face into his hands. Joy Janise Halverson. Her full name was displayed on his screen right now. Any careful, clever young woman wouldn’t use her legal name with her address when writing to a total stranger. And thanks to his mom’s everlasting nickname, she hadn’t suspected she was writing to him, Isaac Miller, all along.

So much for letting her go gently.

His body aching as if he’d just added twenty years to his age, he walked to the doorway where he had waited for Joy three times before. Today would be the last time. That was more certain now than ever.

“Joy?”

She came toward him with an eager smile. His heart smarted. Why did she have to look so happy to see him? “Hi, Mr. Miller.”

Oh, how he hated that title.

He listened vaguely as she spoke in the hallway about how she was enjoying the book of Psalms at his recommendation. That his last counseling session had been “transformational.” Yeah, this one would be, too. But not the good kind of transformation.

“Are you all right?” Joy looked at him, the flawless skin of her brow rippled with concern. “You haven’t said a word.”

He bowed his head, still silent. How should he start? He handed her a pad of paper and a pen. He would do a test to make certain he was right, although he knew he was. A little unorthodox, but this entire arrangement had been unorthodox from the beginning, and he was the idiot who’d gone full steam ahead with it when it felt wrong before it began. “Can you write down the best thing that’s happened to you in the past week?”

Her eyebrows knitted together, but she took a seat and began scribbling with the pen. When she extended the paper to him, he didn’t process her words. It was the handwriting he saw. JJ’s handwriting. His shoulders slid toward the floor, and he eased into the chair across from Joy.

“I don’t know how to tell you this, but… I’m Zak.”

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