He reluctantly opened Cassie's text, just in case she'd sent something crucially important.
Never forget that I love you
, it said.
He'd forgotten already. What they'd shared was an illusion. Cassie and her family weren't living in the real world. In the real world, angels didn't exist and God didn't care.
His head throbbed, his eyes stung, his arms and legs felt heavy as if he'd been dragging them around for hours. The hole in his chest threatened to suck his soul into nothingness. He might welcome a little oblivion right now. It would be better than hurting so bad.
He shot off a quick text to Mom. She'd want to know.
Austin Stetson passed away after surgery this afternoon. I can't talk about it right now. I'll call you when it doesn't hurt to breathe anymore
.
There was an almost immediate response.
My heart is broken. When you're ready, call me and we can cry together. P.S. It will always hurt to breathe
.
Zach put down his phone, buried his face in his hands, and wept.
It would always hurt to breathe.
He woke up on his uncomfortable sofa and tried to clear the fog from his head. Someone was knocking on his door and calling his name. His apartment was pitch black. How long had he been asleep? An hour at most.
He groaned as he got up and hobbled to the door. Was there some sort of fire? The pounding sounded urgent enough.
He opened the door to a frowning Blair, who stood in his hallway holding two brown bags. “They told me what happened at the hospital. I'm really sorry about that little kid. I thought Chinese might make you feel better.”
In his half-asleep haze, Zach felt something stir to life inside him. Blair was pretty and available and comfortable. And man, he needed some comfort right now.
She wouldn't try to talk him into believing in God. She wouldn't judge him or make him feel guilty for not measuring up to all those holier-than-thou's out there. She didn't expect anything from him. No virtue, no convictions, no commitment.
Everything was so easy with Blair. With the rest of his life so hard, he wanted easy.
And he was so tired of the fight.
He let out a breath. “You wanna come in?”
Her lips slowly curled into a smile as she glided into the apartment with those electric hips and set the bags on his metal-filing-cabinet coffee table. She flipped on the light switch and studied his face. Maybe looking for a chink in his armor. Well, she'd find plenty of chinks. “You look terrible.”
“I feel worse.”
“I hate it that people have to die.”
“Yeah.”
Puckering her lips sympathetically, she took his face in her hands. “I know how to make it all better.”
Easy. Being with Blair was so easy. He gently snaked his hands around her waist. “Just don't talk to me about God.”
She laughed derisively. “The last time I went to church was Easter ten years ago. I don't believe in all that stuff.”
Neither did Zach anymore. He and Blair were perfect for each other.
That thought put a bitter taste in his mouth, which he quickly swallowed. He didn't even need to coax her. He relaxed his arms slightly, and Blair slid into his embrace as if an irresistible force of gravity had propelled her there. Their lips met in a long kiss that should have heated the passion inside him. Instead, he felt nothing.
“I'm glad I checked out of my hotel,” Blair cooed.
“Me too.” He kissed her again, hoping to ignite some sort of spark. No luck.
Blair, on the other hand, seemed to be on fire. Her breathing was shallow and rapid, and her lips couldn't have been more eager. “I bet you've never done this with that Amish girl.”
Zach winced. Why did she have to remind him? Cassie's kiss might have been the most pleasant sensation he'd experienced in his life, but that was over. Cassie was an illusion. Her faith was an illusion. Her God was an illusion.
He clamped his arms around Blair and doubled his efforts. Surely he could use all that desire he'd bottled up for weeks and make himself feel something for Blair. He kissed her again and again, tangling his fingers through her hair and pulling her uncomfortably close.
Blair sighed with pleasure, slid her hands down his chest, and found the top button of his shirt.
Zach stiffened as realization slammed into him like an air bag in a head-on collision. How crazy had Austin's death made him?
How could he have talked himself into thinking he wanted this?
Being with Blair was wrong. Unconditionally, absolutely, dead wrong. And he couldn't do it.
He wouldn't do it.
Blair eyed him doubtfully as he pulled away from her and wrapped her hands in his before she could unfasten any more buttons. Dishonorable and cavalier wasn't who he was anymore. As much as he wanted to lash out and hurt Cassie and God and himself, something deep inside him went to battle for his soul and refused to give in to temptation.
The devil-may-care doctor who had once been Blair Baker's perfect match no longer existed. He'd come too far in the last few weeks, and he wouldn't be going back.
“Sorry, Blair,” he said. “I forgot myself for a minute.”
“I thought you finally remembered who Zach Reynolds really is.”
He nudged her away. “You caught me in a moment of weakness, but I'm not doing this. It's wrong, no matter how sad I am about Austin.”
Blair nibbled on her bottom lip and narrowed her eyes. “I can make you forget.”
“No one can make me forget.”
Blair didn't surrender, but the fire in her eyes dimmed. “I think you've lived among the natives for too long. Their hokey religion has rubbed off on you.”
He looked away as a fresh wave of pain almost knocked him over. “I don't believe in their hokey religion.” Nothing he could say would make her understand. He quit trying. “I just don't want to sleep with you, Blair.”
She tried to mask the hurt that flashed in her eyes. “Okay, I can respect that.”
He could plainly see that
respect
had nothing to do with it, but he wasn't about to argue. She'd backed off . That was all he wanted. “You should probably go now.”
“I've got nowhere to go. I checked out of my hotel, remember?”
“You better check back in.”
How did she manage that orphaned-little-girl expression? “Can't I stay here just for the night? I'll sleep on the sofa and keep my moral depravity to myself.” A drop of bitterness tinged her tone. Just a drop.
Zach huffed out a breath. He was too exhausted to persuade her otherwise. “Don't expect anything.”
She gave him a ghost of a scowl. “I would never.”
Refusing Blair's Chinese food, Zach left her to fend for herself and stumbled to his room, his only object to sleep and forget. He fell into bed like a man already dead. He was. He would never feel alive again.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Cassie pulled into the parking lot of Zach's apartment building, parked her car, and took a deep breath. She didn't know if she'd be welcome or not, but at the moment, her feelings didn't matter. Yesterday, Zach's profound suffering had etched itself into every line of his face. Austin's death had devastated everyone, but Zach had shared something extremely close with Austin. It was as if Zach had died right along with him.
While he'd supported Jamie at the hospital, he had gone out of his way to avoid Cassie. She understood his reaction. She had tried to nurture his faith. Austin's death had crushed it. He had lashed out at her because he was looking for someone, anyone, to blame. He needed something sturdy to hang his grief on. He had found Cassie.
All she had wanted to do was help him rekindle his faith. But had she unwittingly destroyed it forever? She hadn't been able to give him the answers he needed, and now his doubt had swallowed his faith whole. If he rejected God, it would be no one's fault but hers. She should never have presumed to try to tell him anything about life and death and the love of God. She'd done a terrible job of it.
The thought that Zach might have stopped loving her stole her breath. Could a change of heart happen so dramatically? And could she hope to make him love her again?
He suffered terribly, and she couldn't let him suffer alone. He might be too angry to accept her comfort, but she had to try. The thought of Zach sitting in that tiny apartment, grieving and lonely, was more than Cassie could bear. So even if he rejected her, she would do what she could.
Her own heart felt like a solid piece of lead. Not only was Jamie her friend, but Cassie had visited Austin several times in the hospital. He had wheedled his way into her heart with his passion for soccer and life and his innocent honesty in the face of death.
She got out of the car with a pint jar of maple syrup and a heaping plate of orangeâmacadamia nut cookies, Zach's favorite. Even on the worst day, he would give her a smile for an orangeâmacadamia nut cookie. He joked that they were about a thousand calories per cookie. She teased that she was trying to fatten him up.
Ten o'clock. She hoped it wasn't too early. He'd been dead on his feet yesterday. She didn't want to wake him, but she also knew he had a shift starting at noon. He'd probably be awake.
She walked up the stairs to his apartment and quietly listened at his door for any sign of life. The sound of something sizzling in a panâbacon maybeâtold her that he was stirring. At least she wouldn't wake him up. It was definitely not a normal kind of day. Zach never made breakfast. He never made lunch or dinner either. Well, there wasn't much he could do to ruin bacon unless he burned it.
With her heart clomping around in her chest like a giant in army boots, she knocked on the door. She gripped the plate of cookies tighter as she prepared for anything, including having the door slammed in her face.
Nothing could have prepared her for this.
An icy hand clamped around her throat, and she couldn't draw a breath.
Zach's old girlfriend Blair the Beautiful opened the door holding a spatula and wearing nothing but Zach's pink button-down shirt. It covered enough of her legs that she probably wouldn't be arrested for indecent exposure, but left little to the imagination about anything else.
Blair looked Cassie up and down as if inspecting someone who'd come to the prom wearing jeans and a T-shirt. “Can I help you?”
Cassie's stomach clenched, and she thought she might be sick. “Is . . . is Zach here?” She didn't know why she even asked. She had absolutely no desire to see him now.
“He's asleep.” Blair smirked. “But he's got a smile on his face.”
Cassie wasn't about to hyperventilate in front of Zach's girlfriend. She had to get out of there. She had to get out now.
Eyeing Cassie casually, Blair twirled a lock of hair around her finger. “You're that Amish girl, aren't you?”
“I used to be Amish.”
“You definitely look better without the ugly gray dress and bonnet.” Blair held out her hand. “Are those for Zach?”
Cassie looked down at the cookies. She'd forgotten they were in her hand. “Yes,” she said, handing them over but fully expecting Blair to toss them in the trash as soon as the door was shut. “And this.” She handed her the jar of syrup. Five gallons of sap wasted on Zach Reynolds.
“It looks delicious,” Blair said apathetically.
Cassie couldn't stand there one more second. “Have a nice day,” she said because she couldn't think of anything else.
Certainly not “Tell Zach I came by” or “I'll call him later.” She wasn't going to call him later. She wasn't ever going to call him again.
She turned around and walked slowly down the hall, holding her head high in case Blair watched from the door. She practically skipped down the stairs although she'd already heard the door to Zach's apartment close. She wanted to burst into tears, but tears would have to wait until she made it to the car. She quickened her pace. She wouldn't be able to hold them in much longer.
From the very first, she had known what kind of man Zach Reynolds was. Why, oh why hadn't she trusted her gut and avoided being taken in by his dazzling smile and cute nose? Zach had proved to be just like all those other guys out there who only had one thing in mind. All his talk about virtue and purity and Sir Galahad was just a ruse to eventually get the naïve ex-Amish girl into bed.
And she'd played right into his hands. By the time he'd finished working his little act, she'd almost begged him to kiss her. He must have been overjoyed that he finally got somewhere with this tight Amish goody-goody.
She climbed into The Beast, slammed the door, and rested her head against the steering wheel. She hated for the world to be like this. Except for the Plain people in her community and her family, there were so few godly men out there, and even fewer who wouldn't ultimately disappoint her. Zach, who had seemed so eager to change, so eager to be a better person, had shown his true colors when a crisis came.
She lifted her head and rubbed at the dent the steering wheel had made in her forehead. She'd been fighting with herself for so long, wanting to be part of the outside world while clinging to her Amish values. As Zach had shown her in dramatic fashion, it couldn't be done.
So. What to do now?
Go back to ogling professors and intellectual graduate students who thought she was a fool for even believing in God? Or return to her Amish faith and give up the fight, surrender to the pull she'd been feeling for years? As a member of the church, she wouldn't have to steel herself for battle every day. She wouldn't have to worry about fighting off guys who wanted to use her or get her heart broken by handsome doctors with a weakness for orangeâmacadamia nut cookies.
A sob escaped her lips. She was so tired. Tired of the struggle with her family. Tired of being a disappointment to Norman. Tired of breaking her mamm's heart. Tired of never being good enough because she wasn't truly one of them.
The car groaned loudly when she turned the key. She pulled out of the parking lot past Blair's sleek new Lexus. Too bad she hadn't noticed it before. She could have saved herself a lot of embarrassment, plenty of heartache, and a plate of orangeâmacadamia nut cookies.
She drove straight to Mamm's house, which sat at the end of a secluded lane lined with climbing rosebushes.
Mamm answered the door with a spot of flour on her cheek, and it looked as if she were about to launch into a criticism of Cassie's blowsy hair. Cassie immediately flung herself into her mamm's arms and cried as if her heart would break.
Mamm softened as she wrapped her arms around Cassie and rubbed her back soothingly. “There, there. It can't be bad as all that.”
“Mamm,” Cassie said through her tears. “I want to come home.”