Chapter 7

Copyright 2003 by Elizabeth Delayne



Chloe sat on a swing and let the soft breeze comfort. Her hands loosely gripped the steel chains that held her in suspension. She looked down at her feet and shuffled the warm sand with her toes. The sun that was slowly dipping toward the ocean still warmed her already tanned legs.

A family picnicked near the beach. Children were running around, sand dancing at their feet. The merry-go-round creaked as it spun round and around.

Her heart ached.

She had promised herself that she would take time off from guys. Maybe she dated, but she didn't let them close. If they flirted a little, and she flirted back, maybe she would get to see a little cable T.V. once in awhile.

But she'd distanced herself from the girl she used to be ... or so she'd hoped.

She didn't need a boyfriend. She didn't need someone to be seen with. She had a good group of friends. She had a Savior.

God it hurts so bad, she prayed as the hurt swelled in her heart. Help me to let him and the hurt and the pain go. Just go.

When the car door shut, she glanced up and saw Mitch. He stood beside his jeep, male and strong, more than any other guy she'd ever wanted. More of a man then she had known existed.

She remembered the first time she'd really noticed him. He had been on stage at church, playing his guitar and leading in the music as he did so often. There had been a fire in his eyes, but it had nothing to do with the crowd. There had been a strength in his voice, and it had everything to do with the words in the song.

You are my light, you are my fire, you are my everything. When the morning comes, You are there, when the shadows fall, You draw close, and when night falls, You give me peace and rest.

She'd recognized the crush, the feelings and had tried to hold them back. She'd been broken. She wanted the words to heal her.

But in the end, she'd still given him power over her, despite what she'd learned--there was always someone better than Chloe. Guys, men--including her father--had always trusted other women before they'd trusted her. She was a moment, a flash, but she wasn't someone who was seen as solid.

So for a long time she'd lived up to that expectation.

When Mitch started to walk her way, the present slammed into her. He was coming now, she thought. She nearly kicked herself. She'd let him see too much at Kuzcos. She'd been determined to hide those feelings from him. She had, or at least hoped she had, for days.

Now he was coming to fix things. Mitch just loved to fix things.

Well, he should be ready for a fight. She refused to be another goodbye, another problem to be dealt with. She would take a stand, she would fight. She would be solid.

“Go away.”

The biting tone seemed to surprise him, but it did not stop him.

“Chloe—I need to talk to you,” Mitch said and knelt down in front of her. “And I need for you to listen to me for a minute.”

"Now?" she nearly laughed. "Your timing's a little off. You're supposed to be in your new life by now."

Without me.

"I'd be a better surfer if I had better timing. Ask Amy. Chloe—" when he started to touch her she pushed the swing back with her feet and leaned out of his reach. He sighed and let his hand drop. "I'm not good at this. I'm not good with you. Just give me a minute to try to ... just hear me out."

Here he was—Mitch the calm and collected; Mitch who liked his life calm, his waves smooth. She turned her head away and looked at the ocean, blinking back the tears that blurred her vision. The ocean wasn't calm, she wanted to tell him. Neither was life.

The crashing waves had always been a comfort to her. Now, by breaking into her private solitude, Mitch was probably going to take that away from her as well.

“That day in the hospital, when Amy was so ill, I wasn’t thinking clearly. I panicked.”

“You thought I might have tried to ... harm Amy.”

“I didn’t think, Chloe. I never ... believed it. Our emotions, the different parts of them, crossed. You were already mad at me and hurting and I didn’t know how to help you. You were distancing yourself from me. I didn’t know what to do about that either.”

She turned to look at him, her his image blurred by the tears. “Jump the girl you have feelings for. Lets try to put her in prison.”

“Chloe, I can’t take it back. I don’t even know that I can explain it now,” he reached up, used his thumb to brush a tear away with his thumb. The action touched her. She turned her head and looked back out at the ocean.

Mitch sighed. “I was hoping we could move forward.”

She swallowed and tried to ignore his tenderness. He was just fixing things, she reminded herself, he wasn't really meaning to be tender with her. Men weren't that way when it counted.

“I want you to go. I want you out of my life.”

“I am,” he said, his voice strong and sure, oddly as if to reassure her that he would leave her again. “I’ll go, but I don’t want to go with things like this between us. I thought maybe you could take care of Buster for me.”

Chloe turned to face him, “You think I’m going to take that bribe now? I was sitting at the door, Mitch, when you told Amy that you were leaving. You didn’t want to tell me. You didn’t want anything to do with me.”

“That’s not true.”

“Then what is?”

“Do you know how beautiful you are to me—" the words slashed out of him, "how hard it was to stay away before you found Christ? How much harder it was to stay away when you found Him? Your relationship with God did not need to be complicated by a relationship with me.”

This was not a Mitch she'd seen before. His eyes were a little wild. It scared her a little bit—not the emotion, but the fact that it was real and it was felt toward her.

She blinked back the tears that blurred her vision again. This time she wanted to see him, to see the look in his eyes. “Do you know how much you hurt me?”

He sighed, “Probably not … but I know you don’t trust me anymore. I know that if I’ve lost that … if I’ve lost you, then I’ve lost something precious.”

Chloe reached out a hand, to touch, to take, she wasn’t sure. Her hand just stopped in midair.

Mitch reached up and took her hand with his own.

“Take a walk with me?” he asked.

She nodded.

He leaned back, scooped her flip-flops with two fingers and gently drew her from the swing. When she stood in front of him, she attempted a smile, then leaned forward to rest her head on her shoulder.

The children were laughing, splashing in the roll of the waves. Someone had a CD player playing a crazy beach song. Her feet were in the warm sand.

Mitch reached up his arm that held her flip-flops and drew her close. For just a moment she closed her eyes and allowed herself to feel. She was weary, but she felt safe. So very safe.



Amy quietly shut the door to the bedroom she shared with Chloe. She settled on the floor under a soft light and spread her Bible and journal open in front of her. It was a habit she was hoping to forge. Her journal was full of her fears, her hopes, and her past. Her collection of journals traced her faith as it bloomed, dampened and regenerated.

The moments before the dawn were the moments that helped her move on, find peace, and accept.

She pressed her fingers to her tired eyes. She had been worried about her friends last night, so she’d only dozed until Chloe had slipped in at close to three in the morning.

She started with prayer.

God, I need you right now. I need your peace, your guidance ....

She had no idea how to deal with what was going on in her life right now. She’d planned a new start for herself and she’d found that those, even undecided, plans weren’t enough. She wanted something else.

Mitch was leaving, Ham was ... not the same. Her closest friends, Chloe and Andrea, were struggling, hurting, angry.

There was murder, attempted murder, revenge or just ... craziness attacking her life ... on a beach, in a place where she’d thought she’d found safety.

And in the middle of it all, there was Derek. She had no idea what to do about him.

God knew the big picture. God knew what her strengths were even when she did not. She comforted in that. She would never find comfort in the death of her mother or brother ... she would never gain her teenage years and choices back ... and Jenny Lyons and Matt Barker were gone ... it was part of her life.

She picked up her Bible and opened it to the place she had marked yesterday and picked up with Paul’s struggle and words to Timothy.

If we died with him,
we will also live with him;
if we endure, we will also reign with him,
If we disown him,
he will also disown us;
if we are faithless
he will remain faithful,
for he cannot disown himself.

She picked up her journal and copied the words into a fresh page, then wrote:

You will not leave me alone. Even though I feel that you have left me, you have not. Even when You should have forgotten me, you won’t. I don’t have the words like David, but I know that You are with me. Your rod and your staff comfort me ... and I will dwell in your house forever. This I know.

Amy turned when the bedroom door opened, surprised as Chloe came out, dressed up in pressed khaki shorts and a blue sleeveless sweater, holding a pair of sandals in her hand.

“Hey—” Amy said. “You came in late last night. Things turn out okay?”

“I was trying not to disturb you. I—” Chloe gave up and dropped down in front of Amy, “Things turned out ... perfect.”

“Perfect?”

“I don’t think they could have been better after the mess he made to begin with,” she beamed. “We walked on the beach, under the moonlight. He carried our shoes, all the romantic stuff. We splashed in the waves and when I got cold we walked in the warm sand.”

“You and Mitch?” Amy prodded.

“Yes—you must have told him where I was. I’m not going to be mad at you for that. He begged me not to be,” she said and filled Amy in on all the little details of what Mitch had said, done, and the look in his eyes as her own sparkled. Chloe was calm and all but glowing and yet, during the walk on the beach just a few hours ago, she’d shared with Mitch some of the most difficult parts of her life.

Amy glanced down at her journal, at the words she had just written and underlined them before closing it and setting it aside.

“We sat on the steps leading up to the station house and watched the waves. He told me about his grandfather, the minister, about learning to surf, meeting you. Then he told me he wanted to walk the beach with me again, to play in the waves. He said that he wanted to find out what made my eyes sparkle.”

“Are you going to cry?” Amy reached out to take Chloe’s hands in her own.

“I did,” Chloe said and gave Amy’s hands a squeeze. “And I probably will again. He decided not to leave until he’d had some sleep, so he asked me to eat breakfast with him before he goes.”

“You got in at what three and you’re up—” Amy glanced at the clock, “before seven? You don’t normally eat breakfast.”

“And I’ve never taken a moonlight walk on the beach with a guy that didn’t have the intention of kissing me at some point—or for that matter more than that. He didn’t have to kiss me. He didn’t even have to hold my hand ....”

“Though he did,” Amy surmised. “Chloe, you’ve got it so bad for him. You okay with him leaving?”

Chloe nodded. “I’m okay ... I feel like I—like everything’s fine. Just fine. It's so simple to just say it. My whole life, Amy, I’ve felt like I had to have someone. In every relationship I’ve rushed into it with both feet out, my eyes closed, thinking if I didn’t that it obviously wasn’t worth having.”

She reached up and ran a hand through her hair that still looked so much like Amy’s, “Even the day I went and did this, I just wanted to be like that again. I was so angry and hurt and afraid that no body would ever see me for who I could be ... even though I knew that who I could be was so much better then what I was.”

"You're right, you know."

Chloe grinned, “I know. For the first time I know. I like who I am now more than I ever liked myself before. I don’t feel rushed ... I feel giddy. I feel safe.”

For a moment Amy felt almost like a mother; protective, loving. The past was suddenly covered in the warm glow of Chloe's delight. She had come so far and had grown into such a beautiful person.

“With Mitch you can forget those guys in the past.”

“Pray for me?”

It was such a simple request, but it brought back so much. They had sat on the floor so many times as Amy, young in her own faith, prayed for Chloe who was hurting and healing. Amy squeezed her hands as she said a simple prayer.

When Chloe was gone, and she’d said one last farewell to Mitch, Amy picked up her journal once more.

So much recently I’ve been angry about the changes. Change isn’t always bad. I need to remember that. Change also makes life an adventure, and I like that.

Change also brings joy.



Having one friend happy increased Amy’s desire to at least check on the other one.

But first she called her, partly to tell her the news about Chloe and partly to see when it would be safe to put her own plans into motion. She felt a little guilty—until she remembered that Andrea usually involved herself in Amy’s own problems. Just because Andrea didn’t like for others to be involved in her own ....

Amy made a phone call and scheduled an unofficial appointment through the receptionist, went to a class, and sat around the student union building with a group of her classmates. She timed herself just right and shut the door to her truck just as Eric Bridgewater turned his sleek black BMW into the parking lot.

Eric the Red—Amy thought when he got out of his car—noting his chestnut hair that was sleek and nearly to his shoulders. He flipped through a leather portfolio as he walked. He had a thin beard, more of a goatee. And he dressed with style in a tailored tan suit and vest. Andrea would have admittedly fallen for his style, and secretly for the rogue hair and face.

Like Andrea, he could have walked from the pages of a style magazine.

She stepped from the side of her truck and into his path, crossing her arms. “Eric Bridgewater?”

He stopped, as he’d nearly moved passed her. Then his lips parted in a wide smile. He reached out a hand. “Amy—you've got to be Amy."

"I am, but how would you—"

"Are you kidding? Andrea talked about you all the time. 'Amy and I...' 'Amy would...' 'I bet Amy...' She had a few pictures in her apartment. You were what she missed most about Basin Springs."

She wanted to believe him, Amy realized, but she needed to trust him first. It was going to take some convincing for him to gain that—Andrea came first in this case.

Chloe had described his voice accurately. It did sound like Boston, but only at the edges. “You just get in from lunch?”

“A lunch meeting, yes,” he held up the folder, “you caught me on my way in to another appointment.”

“No,” Amy said and released his hand. “I’m you’re next appointment. You’d be surprised at how much clout I have around here.”

“You love Andrea,” he said simply as his eyes warmed. He held open the door for her. “Her parents would know that.”

“Her parents and the staff and half the town,” Amy pointed out, then followed him up the front stairs. She smiled when he opened the door to his closet sized office. It held a desk that faced the wall and two chairs with little room for anything else. He had to know that there were other offices, places that he could have been offered.

And there were other places he could have worked.

Amy slipped in and sat down, eyeing him.

“I don’t think you came to see what kind of office arrangements I had earned.”

Earned, Amy noticed, and nodded. “No ... I came because when Andrea graduated and came back home, pale and tired, I didn’t push to get any information about what happened. It had not been easy for me when she was away at grad school ... I was just glad she was back. I might should have ... prodded ... even when she refused. She would have pushed me ... if ... well, she would have pushed me.”

“You want to know what happened,” he said and stood, stuffed his hands in his pockets and turned to pace only to find himself against the black door. “And maybe you think I shouldn’t tell you.”

“I think I shouldn’t ask,” Amy corrected. “I don’t do as well thinking for others as Andrea.”

“Can you tell me about your friendship first?” he asked and turned to face her. “You’ve been friends for what? Seven years? Andrea doesn’t have long term friendships with many. Why are you two close?”

“That’s easy. She was the one who came after me,” Amy answered. “I heard a saying once that said something like 'the greatest love is forged in the fires of grief and anger and hurt ... forgiveness and love.' For a long time I leaned on her and that was it. She always seemed so strong and valiant. I didn’t think that she would have problems outside those I put in her life.”

“It took me a long time to realize that I didn’t know her as well as I should. She was shy . . . which seemed so uncharacteristic because she forced herself into my life, made me accept her.”

“She needed you,” Eric said softly and sat.

“She needed to forgive. She needed to move on,” Amy corrected and adjusted to the fact that Andrea had taken her with her when she'd gone away for her masters. “I guess we needed each other. I was there the night her sister died. On another night I could have been the one who killed her. We were out drag racing. It wasn’t my night to race.”

“So she came to you.”

“Her heart was—is—bigger than mine, so you have to understand that I love her very much. I didn’t come to you necessarily to help you. I came because she’s my friend, and in certain ways, my hero.”

“Before she knew me, she prayed for me like a warrior. She attacked my defenses when she dropped her tray down across from mine in the school cafeteria. Everyday, she was there ... this popular, rich, smart girl a year ahead of me in school. The one all the teachers adored, who followed all the rules and expectations. Well, all the expectations they had except me. She would sit there and talk to me even when I pretended not to listen. Even when others mocked her because of it.”

It made him smile. “Did she?”

“Others didn’t understand. She can be stubborn in her own way.”

He laughed and rolled his head side to side. “Tell me about it.”

“She shattered your vase of daisies.”

“Probably,” he sighed. “She’s angry.”

“At you or because of you?”

“No ... I don’t know that it has anything to do with me. She does have a side that’s shy, that’s afraid, and she rebels from it. She hates it. It bothers me that she hates it so much. It was the side I ... was attracted to first,” he shook his head as if shaking off a fog. He focused his eyes on Amy. “She’s upset that I followed her, that I refuse to forget what she so obviously wants to.”

“Forget what?”

“I think what we had. It was beautiful. She was beautiful,” he stood, turned to the door, his body tense and needing the space to pace. He was used to big rooms, Amy thought, and he could probably have one of those offices anywhere but here. The Lyons probably knew that as well.

As did Andrea.

“When I first saw her ... it was like ... pow. You know? I couldn't stop looking. Then she looked down, away, shy, as you said, and took my breath away with her. Her heart was so big and open toward others.”

“She sees so much beauty in other people,” Amy filled in for him and he turned to look at her. He nodded.

“More than she would ever see in herself. I didn’t understand until—I should have. I should have tried ... ” he sighed. “We’d been dating months, since before Christmas and I took her to this reception in town. It was a big deal. A place to be seen, be noticed ... what you might consider a job fair at Harvard. It was a week before graduation. She was stressed, not eating right. I was used to girls not eating. I should have thought more about it.”

Amy saw his face and knew. “She had an attack—her hyperglycemia. She was embarrassed. She always gets so ridiculously embarrassed.”

He nodded and lowered himself into his chair, “She’d never told me. I got her out of the room as fast as I could and held onto her. I was shaking. Scared out of my mind. I was thinking of marrying her and I thought I would loose her. They called an ambulance. Carried her off. She cried the whole way there.”

“She never told me either,” Amy said and he turned his dark brown eyes on her. “Understand that. It goes back to when she was a not more than a baby and she was always in the hospital. Then after Jenny died, her body nearly shut down. She doesn’t talk about it."

"I had suspicions before I knew, but I was a lifeguard and I’d had training as a junior lifeguard since I was a child. Her parents trusted me with her. I knew what to look for and how to handle it and I don’t get as embarrassed as easily.”

Eric let out a breath and rubbed his hands over his face. “She wouldn’t see me after. When her parents came, she went home without going through the graduation ceremony. When I called, she refused to come to the phone. Her mom was the one who encouraged me not to come, to give her time.”

“So she offered you a job.”

“She offered me a chance,” Eric sighed. “One risky chance, but she wasn’t easy about it. I had to make a score on the bar and find references that would have gotten me the best of jobs in New York. I made sure I had those. Andrea hasn’t talked to her mother in a week, but her mom finds that encouraging. Her father nearly refuses to speak to me.”

“Andrea’s stubborn. Much like her father. If you learn to deal with him, you’ll learn to deal with her better,” Amy said and looked around the office one last time.

She stood and smiled as he followed suit. “Well, Eric the Red—man of war. You have your battle cut out for you.”

He laughed and took the hand she offered him, shaking it with a firm grip. “My nickname was the Plunderer on the soccer team at Harvard. The Warrior on the debate team and Viking to the guys in my study group.”

“Eric—” she said when he reached for the door. He turned back to her, his hand on the knob. “Nothing hurt her more than loosing her sister, but she’s put that ... in not in the past, then in a place she can handle. Andrea would have forgotten you if she’d wanted to.”

Amy stepped out into the hall just as Mrs. Lyons came around the corner. Andrea was so much like her in her styled, beautiful way that Amy nearly ducked back into the office. Her hair was pinned into a neat twist. Her suit tailored and pressed, even at the middle of the day.

When she spotted Amy, with Eric at her back, she stopped and laughed, tossing her head back with merriment.

“Amy, you don't know how good it is to see you with Eric. Andrea doesn’t have a chance. All these alliances. Secret prayer meetings and negotiations,” she pointed a pen at Eric. “Amy—don’t let my husband see you with this scoundrel. He swears he’s on Andrea’s side and he’s not ready to like the man who wants to marry his baby.”

“Going to—” Eric corrected and leaned forward to kiss his hopeful future mother-in-law on the cheek. “I’ll just keep praying. I’ll be patient.”

“Great strengths for a hero,” Mrs. Lyons murmured when he was gone. She took Amy's hand in her strong, manicured one and gave it a hard squeeze.

“Amy, I want to be right. I want him to be the one God has for Andrea ... Eric understands her better then she could ever hope. He always has.”



HEY! and don't forget to e-mail me if you have a comment!







Return to Basin Springs Table of Contents