Secrets over Sweet Tea (28 page)

Scarlett Jo stood abruptly, causing the swing to wobble and bang against the windows. Grace had to drop her feet to keep from tumbling off. “I don’t want to talk about this.”

Grace had suspected that. “We’re not talking about anything in particular. All you’re doing is telling me your story. A story I’ve been way too self-absorbed to even ask about.”

Scarlett Jo pulled her robe around her tighter.

Grace got up and walked over to her. “I have only known you about five months. But you know every piece of my life, all the ugly details. Now I’m asking you to trust me with yours—not because I want to know your stuff, but because I want to know you. What made you this amazing woman that you are, this woman I’ve grown to admire and love. I want to know her story.”

Scarlett Jo let out a heavy sigh. “Don’t open a can of worms unless you want to go fishin’, Grace Shepherd.”

“I’ll go fishing with you anytime, Scarlett Jo Newberry.”

Scarlett Jo’s shoulders slumped, and she dissolved into tears.
She pulled Grace to her as she sobbed, and in a few moments Grace started kicking at the ground in an attempt to free herself.

Scarlett Jo released her and pointed to the swing. “Go sit down.”

“I will if you promise to warn me before you get up next time.”

Scarlett Jo half laughed. “I promise.”

Grace would take that. Right now she’d take just about anything from her.

They both sat and started to swing. Slowly, quietly, until finally Scarlett Jo began to talk. From the beginning.

Zach hit a perfect shot off the fourth tee at the south course of Vanderbilt Legends Club. He had joined the golf club quite a few years back. Its rolling lines were as voluptuous as a beautiful woman, the Tennessee hills serving as a handsome backdrop. He loved the quiet here. It didn’t get any more peaceful than this.

“Wow,” Jackson said, following the ball’s long arc.

Zach smiled and put the driver into his bag. “I’ve had a lot of free time lately.”

Jackson came up to the tee box and stuck a tee in the soft soil. “Well, it’s paid off, at least for your golf game.” Jackson hit a ball long but to the right and in the rough. “Obviously I need to cut back on my preaching.”

Zach laughed as he waited on Jackson, and then they slung their bags over their shoulders and walked on. Zach liked to walk golf courses instead of using a cart. For him that was part of the experience, an experience he’d almost forgotten how much he enjoyed.

In fact, Zach had always been more into experiences than into stuff. If he bought a gift for someone, he preferred it to be some kind of activity, not another gadget or piece of jewelry or a bigger car. The same was true for what he bought for himself. He wanted a memory. And this golf course had given him quite a few memories over the past several months.

“Jackson?” Zach’s voice was about the only sound other than the birds and squirrels in nearby trees.

“Yeah?”

“How’s Scarlett Jo?”

“She’s doing all right. She made me come, you know.”

“You needed it. Except for church Sunday, it’s the first time you’ve left her side since all this happened. I’m glad she made you.”

They walked on for a bit before he continued. “Jackson, we’ve known each other now for close to two years. And I know a fair amount about you, especially stuff you’ve shared with us at church meetings and such. Your vision, how you got started pastoring, what brought you here. But after Saturday, it’s clear there’s something big I don’t know about. You don’t have to talk about it, but if you want to, I’m here to listen. You’ve done enough listening to me over these last few months. I’d be honored to return the favor.”

Jackson laughed. “What? You think my wife having a breakdown is something peculiar?”

Zach laughed too as he approached Jackson’s ball and put his bag down. “Well, that was a little dramatic even for Scarlett Jo.”

Jackson set his bag down too and pulled out a club. “I’ve always been honest with you, Zach. Remember I said that I understand what you’ve been going through because I know what broken looks like?”

Zach nodded. “I remember.”

“Well, there was a time when Scarlett Jo and I were severely broken. It started when we were still in college and had just gotten engaged.”

Scarlett Jo twisted slightly in the swing, causing it to move sideways. “It was the most beautiful ring you’d ever want to see. And I’d never been happier in my life because Jackson loved me for me. I mean, Mama and Daddy loved me to pieces, but it seemed like guys only ever wanted one thing from me.” She glanced down at her chest. “I had these in college too. And maybe my judgment wasn’t the best. But anyway, I just seemed to attract these horrible men.”

“Until Jackson?”

Scarlett Jo nodded. “Then Jackson came along, and he was a man.” Her voice went into that low throaty thing she did.

Grace laughed. “Yes. Jackson is a fine specimen.”

“You should have seen him back then. And that man loved me. I mean loved me like my mama and daddy did. I was so happy you could butter me and call me a biscuit.” She stopped for a minute and licked her lips.

Grace covered her mouth to hide her smile.

Scarlett Jo lowered her head, and her voice softened. “But
about two weeks before graduation, I was hosting my last big hurrah with all my college friends. I’d agreed to host since my apartment complex had this party room by the pool. It was supposed to be all of us girls together for one last time, and it was supposed to be alcohol free. But we had a few boozers in the group, and they brought some bottles and invited some guys. Two of them we didn’t know—rough guys from across town. They didn’t go to the school or anything.

“I got kind of frustrated with the girls for letting the guys come, so I told them they had to leave, that this was a girls-only party. Well, they acted all nice, like they were leaving. But a little while later, when I went up to my apartment to go to the bathroom—”

Her voice broke, and Grace reached out instinctively for her arm. “Scarlett Jo, if it’s too much, it’s okay. You don’t have to say anything.”

Scarlett Jo patted her hand, then pulled a tissue from the pocket of her robe. She blew hard and loud—freight-train loud. Grace felt her brow furrow. She had no idea how a sound like that could come out of a lady, even a lady with as big a personality as Scarlett Jo’s.

“No. It’s okay,” Scarlett Jo said. “I know your stuff. You can know mine.” She stowed the tissue in her pocket again and continued. “Anyway, when I got to my room, I went to close the door, and one of those guys pushed it back open. I could smell the booze all over him. And he smelled like oil and gas, like he worked around cars or something. And he started calling me these horrible names. Telling me I thought I was better than him and he was going to show me who was better.

“And then . . .” Her voice trailed off to a whisper. “Then he raped me.”

“I wanted to kill him,” Jackson said, the emotion in his voice as rich and real as Zach had heard it on Sunday mornings time after time. “I looked for that guy everywhere. But I guess the Lord knew I’d ruin my life if I found him. Anyway, I never did.” Then Jackson looked up. “But I blamed her too, Zach.”

Zach shifted and leaned against his club. “You did? Why?”

“I don’t know. I guess because I’m a man. And I’m an idiot. And I just wondered. Because you know Scarlett Jo. She can’t walk past you without touching you or calling you a pet name. She can be so sweet and warm and inviting, and she’s got this, this amazing figure, and part of me wondered if all of that had led him to believe she was available for something more.”

“But she said she kicked him out.”

Jackson shook his head. “I know she said it. But I still struggled with all this anger, and I didn’t know what to do with it. There we were, three months from getting married, and this happened. And I knew I needed to be there for her, to take care of her and love her. But I was just so angry, and some of it got aimed at her.”

“How did she handle your anger?”

“Not well. She cried all the time. She kept begging me to believe her.” He rubbed the top of his head. “She shouldn’t have had to ask me that, Zach. She is the most honest person I know, the most loyal. She would have never come on to that guy. And I know now that there is nothing a woman can do that makes it okay for a man to rape her.”

Jackson lifted his head and stared off toward the next hole. “What I discovered as we went through counseling later was
that I was really angry at myself. Angry that I hadn’t been there. That I hadn’t protected her. That someone had taken a piece of what I considered mine. Except she isn’t mine—I’ve had to learn that too. She is ultimately God’s, and I am simply a steward of her heart for a season. And I was angry at God too. I wanted to know where he was in all of this. Why hadn’t he stopped it? How could he let someone as kind and loving as Scarlett Jo be violated like that?”

“I’m so sorry, Jackson. I’m so sorry you and Scarlett Jo ever had to go through this.”

Jackson looked at Zach. “Well, there was more.”

“His anger was bad enough. And I didn’t know what to do with that. I mean, here I had tried to get that scoundrel out of the house, and he had raped me, left me with what felt like a mark of shame, and now the man I loved could hardly look at me. I just couldn’t handle that. And then, two months later, I found out I was pregnant. I was going to have a baby. And it wasn’t Jackson’s, Grace. No, we’d been saving ourselves for marriage. I had been looking forward to my wedding night ever since I met Jackson Newberry. But some drunk had stolen that from me, and now I was pregnant one month shy of my wedding.”

Grace tried to hide her shock, but Scarlett Jo noticed. “Don’t even act like this isn’t a horrible story. It’s as awful as it sounds.”

“What did Jackson do?”

Scarlett Jo scratched beneath her wild blonde curls. “You know, it was odd. When he found out I was pregnant, his whole attitude changed. Maybe it was because I was so freaked out. I all but had a nervous breakdown. I knew there was this life
growing inside me, but I wanted it out. It wasn’t mine. It was some stranger’s. It was like someone was forcing me to take something I didn’t want. And I just collapsed in all that grief and pain and trauma.”

Grace leaned back harder into the swing. In that moment, she had no words.

“When I found out Scarlett Jo was pregnant, Zach, it was like something in me shifted. All that anger just kind of drained away. She was hurting so bad. And I knew that the God of the heavens was either God in the middle of all that pain or he wasn’t. Even at that young age, I knew deep down that if there was a life growing inside her and if God is the giver of all life, then he had a plan in all of this. And even if I didn’t understand what it was, I was no longer going to question him.”