Redemption Series: Redemption Part 25

"Somehow I believe you." She leaned her forearms on the table and looked into the bookstore, wondering whether Anika and Billie had spotted him. Though she and Landon lived in the same town, they ran in completely different circles. He was straightforward and good, the type who divided his time equally between church, the gym, and the fire station.

Ashley didn't spend time in any of those places, so though he'd been back home for more than two years, she could count on one hand the number of times they'd actually run into each other. "Where's Cole?"

A part of her heart was touched that he remembered her son's name. He'd seen the boy only once-when she'd had him dedicated at an evening church service just after his first birthday. Landon had heard about it from her parents and showed up with a present, an engraved picture frame that still sat on Cole's nightstand.

"With my parents. He likes it there."

216 He leaned back in his chair. "How long's it been, Ash?" She thought about that for a moment. "A year at least."

He nodded, and the faraway look in his eyes told her he remembered their last meeting as if it were yesterday. "So ... what's new?"

Ashley doubted that was the question he wanted to ask. The real question, the unspoken one, hung around them like a cloak, and she decided not to make him guess. "I'm not seeing anyone, if that's what you're wondering."

He nodded thoughtfully. "I'm not either."

The girl from behind the counter placed a steaming drink on the take-out shelf and searched the room. Ashley gestured toward the cash register, leaned close, and whispered, "Your admirer has your drink ready."

"My admirer?"

He turned, and the girl gave him a cutesy-type wave. Ashley whispered again.

"That one."

Landon turned to her again and settled into his chair, making no effort to retrieve his coffee. After a while he crossed his arms, his eyes never leaving hers. "May I call you sometime?"

Her heart rate sped up, and she worked to look indifferent. "Why?"

"Relax, Ashley." He chuckled and shook his head. "I'm not asking you to marry me. Just talk a little, catchup on the years." Her better sense screamed at her to say no, to tell him to leave her alone and let his feelings for her die. But being in his presence now was more enjoyable than she liked to admit, and she let her gaze fall to her hands.

What harm could there be in talking to him now and then? She lifted her eyes and met his. "I live on my own now."

He raised his eyebrows, and a slow grin worked its way across his face. "Call me crazy, but the way you said that almost makes me think you're saying yes."

A giggle slipped from between her lips, and she silently scolded herself. Why was she doing this-leading him to believe 217 there was any hope? "Okay." She reached into her oversized crocheted handbag, grabbed a pen, and scribbled her phone number on a napkin. She dropped her chin, gazed up at him, and slid the napkin across the table. "You can call."

He took the paper, folded it, and slipped it into his wallet. Then he studied her for another moment and tapped his finger on the table two quick times. "Good seeing you, Ash."

She leaned close and whispered once more. "Your coffee's getting cold."

He left then, moving back to the counter as easily as he'd come, taking his drink and looking at her over his shoulder once more before leaving.

The moment he was gone, she silently cursed herself for giving in. What's wrong with me? Were his looks that hard to resist? She dried her palms on her jeans and knew the answer. Forget the fact that they were as different as night from day. Something about him was flat-out irresistible.

That's why she had felt compelled to go as far as Paris to get away from him.

But where could it possibly lead? Landon was everything she was not. Stable and steady, the type of guy who deserved -- what did her mother call it? -- a Proverbs 31 woman, someone who would honor him and make him proud and sit by his side at church.

Quite simply, Landon was the marrying type, and she was not. Something occurred to her then, a thought that had irritated the delicate places in her soul a handful of times since she'd been back in the States. It wouldn't be that hard to lose Landon if she wanted to. He didn't know about what happened in Paris.

If he did, he would toss her phone number in the nearest trash bin.

In fact, he wouldn't have asked for it in the first place.

218 218.

219.

Kari's legs shook as Ryan led her back to the beach chairs by the fire. He slid his chair closer to hers so that when they sat, their legs and arms touched.

Heat from the fire warmed Kari's freezing legs, but it was nothing compared to the way Ryan's nearness warmed her body.

"Cold?" She shook her head. "I'm okay." It was partly true. She could survive the falling temperatures. It was the story he wanted to share that concerned her.

"I've looked for a way to talk about this ever since I got hurt." Ryan gazed out at the silvery reflection of moonlight on the water. "We should have done it a long time ago, but ... I don't know. I'm not sure exactly what happened." He looked at her. "Obviously you walked away believing something that wasn't true."

Her mind swirled with possibilities, trying to understand what he was saying.

The events of that day were perfectly clear, weren't they? The nurses at the hospital had confirmed it. "I ... I guess I don't know what you mean."

"Let's do this." There was a softening in his features, and she 220 saw that whatever the misunderstanding, he didn't hold it against her. "You tell me what you think happened, how you remember the day I got hurt and ...

everything that followed it."

Kari nodded and stared out at the lake, her thoughts drifting back to a time she'd never been able to delete from her memory. "It was November. I was a junior in college."

"Right." She closed her eyes and pictured her family going about its business that Sunday afternoon. Brooke was already away at medical school in Indianapolis, but the others were home. Mom was in the kitchen. Ashley, Erin, Luke, and Dad were watching the football game on television.

Kari bit the inside of her lip. "By then I'd been hearing things from your friends, you know ... here and there."

Ryan's eyebrows raised a bit. "About me?"

"About how you were spending your time." Kari had a group of friends she hung out with back then, several of whom had known Ryan in high school and still followed his career. Two of them had even flown out and caught a game a month before Ryan was hurt.

"What'd they tell you?"

Tears stung at her eyes as she struggled to find her voice. "A bunch of us went bowling after they got back. They were full of stories."

"Like what?" The surprise on Ryan's face was genuine, and Kari felt increasing tremors of doubt ripple across the foundation of everything she'd believed.

"Like how well you were doing, how much money you earned ... and the girls."

Ryan laughed and ran his hand over the top of his head. "I took them to a players' party."

"That's what they said. All they could talk about were the women around you."

"Sure, there were women. There always were at those parties.

221 I introduced the guys, and that was it. After that, I stayed with the team.

I wasn't interested in those girls, Kari. I told you that."

A dozen conversations played in her mind. Ryan was right. He'd always claimed that his feelings were for her alone, that when football was over their life together could begin.

An ache settled in her heart, and she traced small circles in the sand with the toe of her shoe. "Yes. You always said that." "You didn't believe me?"

"I tried." She stared at him, her mouth open. "Look at it from my point of view."

"I want to, Kari." He was calm. "Why don't you tell me what happened after I got hurt? Maybe I'll understand better."

Kari took a deep breath and continued.

She had watched the game on and off that afternoon, doing laundry, catching key plays every now and then, when suddenly she heard her father's voice.

"Kari! Ryan's hurt."

They were words Kari would never forget, words she had always feared. As she hurried into the television room, she told herself it couldn't be serious. An ankle or knee or bruised rib, maybe. But the screen showed Ryan lying motionless on the field while the announcers talked in hushed tones.

Kari eased herself, trancelike, into a spot on the sofa beside her father and watched as the network replayed the injury. Ryan had caught a pa.s.s in the air and then instantly been sandwiched between two defenders. One pulled him from behind, causing him to lose his balance. The other met him with a direct blow from the front. By that point, Ryan was parallel to the ground, and his head took the full brunt of the impact.

His head and his neck.

The camera cut back to the scene on the field, and Kari could barely breathe as she watched a team of people working on Ryan. Seconds earlier he had been doing what he loved best, running like the wind, his body strong and responding to every 222 signal his brain sent it. But in a single moment, a single hit ... Kari stared at his image on the screen, unable to believe her eyes. His legs lay at an unnatural angle, utterly still.

The announcers' voices cut in. "He hasn't shown any signs of movement."

"No, it doesn't look good."

A somber silence filled the air.

"Our thoughts and prayers are certainly with Ryan Taylor and his family right now."

The fear of that moment came back in all its fullness now, and Kari was silent for a while. "I was so scared for you."

Ryan took hold of her hand and stared at the water. "It still feels like yesterday."

Looking back, it seemed odd that she and Ryan had never had this conversation, never gone back and talked about what it was like for him, lying on the field unable to move. "How much do you remember?"

Ryan's features darkened. "My face was planted in the gra.s.s. They had to carefully move me so I could breathe." He clenched his teeth. "My mind was screaming at my feet and legs and arms to do something, move, get my body up and running again."

He leaned back in his chair, and his grip on her hand tightened. "Look at my legs."

Kari shifted her gaze to Ryan's knees. "Okay .. "Try to make them move."

Kari stared for a few moments, understanding. She looked up at him and winced.

"That's how it felt?"

"It was like my arms and legs belonged to someone else. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't move." Tears glistened in his eyes. "I might have already made a decision to love G.o.d, but I guarantee you, that day I was praying like never before. I promised G.o.d if only he'd give me a second chance, I'd get serious about him."

It was a detail she'd never heard before, and Kari was terrified 223 at what other truths he might share. What if she'd been wrong about what happened?

It would be more than she could bear.

She swallowed back a lump in her throat and nodded. "Dad called us together in the room, and we prayed. Then we watched along with everyone else in the country. Waiting and wishing you would move. Even a little."

Instead, paramedics had arrived, strapped him to a backboard, and carried him off the field. The announcers had promised to keep the viewers updated, and the game had resumed.

"I was so scared I could barely breathe." She ran her thumb over his hand.

"That's when Dad made the plan."

The Cowboys had been playing at Soldier Field in Chicago that afternoon, and the hospital was only a five-hour drive away. Within thirty minutes, he'd phoned someone at the university and gotten the okay for a few days off from teaching.

"Dad and I threw our things in a suitcase and set out to find you."

Ryan's mother had been at the game that weekend, so Kari and her father knew they'd find her at the hospital.

"I think my dad was as worried for your mom as he was for you." Kari inhaled sharply, her insides tense at the memory of the next twenty-four hours.

The drive up was one of the quietest Kari could remember. Her fears were so all-consuming she could barely think straight. What if Ryan died en route to the hospital? What if he never walked or ran or moved again? The possibilities were too awful to consider.

When they got to the hospital, they found Ryan's mother right where they'd expected. Sitting in the lobby in intensive care. "She told us they were operating on your spine. That there was a chance-a small chance-you might walk again." Kari ignored the tears now streaming quietly down her cheeks. "Sometime that night my dad and I fell asleep on a couple of padded benches in the waiting room."

Ryan released her hand and turned to face her. "Here's where 224 things get a little weird." His jaw muscles flexed. "My mom has tried to explain it to me, but I want to hear it from you. What happened when you woke up?"

Kari's stomach dropped. She could hardly believe she was here, at Lake Monroe alone in the dark with Ryan, discussing the events of that time. She exhaled slowly and found a way to continue. "Your mom was gone, and my dad was still sleeping." She angled her head, her eyes burning with tears. "I went to the nurses' station and asked how you were."

Ryan waited, his eyes locked on hers, hanging on every word. "A nurse told me you'd come through the surgery beautifully." A sob escaped from a place in Kari's heart that had not forgotten. "They couldn't know if you might walk again, but there was a good chance." Kari caught two quick breaths and fought to maintain her composure. "I asked if I could go in, and they said maybe later because ..."

His face came closer to hers, his features frozen in antic.i.p.ation of what she was about to say. "Because ... ?"

"Because right then your girlfriend was with you."

Ryan stood and let out a moan that echoed across the lake. He dropped his head back and stared straight up, then paced in a circle around the fire. "I knew it.

I knew that's what happened." He stopped and stared at Kari, and for the first time his eyes blazed with a kind of anguish she'd never seen there before. "Why didn't you ask my mom about her?"

Kari's head was spinning. What was he saying? Certainly none of this was a surprise to him. She pictured the other girl at Ryan's side, comforting him, holding his hand, wanting a private moment for just the two of them. If that's what the nurse saw, then it was too late for Ryan to explain it away.