A Scarlet Cord (13 page)

He stroked his thumb over her fingers. “There was a fire,” he said. “Tori—Victoria—lived in an apartment over a huge old house. It caught fire, and she … she couldn’t get out.”

She drew back in alarm. “Oh, Joel. How awful! I’m so sorry. Why … why didn’t you tell me?”

“I
should
have told you before, Melanie. I’m sorry.” He gently disentangled his fingers from hers and looked into her eyes. “That’s how I got this,” he said quietly, running his index finger along the thin line that creased his cheek.

“I don’t understand.” Tenderly, she reached up and traced the path of his finger.

“When I got there, the house was still burning. The firefighters had already brought Tori out … She was”—his Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat—“already dead. But I didn’t know that. Someone told me she was still inside.”

His voice wavered as he continued, “I … I ran up on the porch just as the roof collapsed. They said a falling beam hit me. I don’t remember any of it. I woke up in the emergency room.”

“I don’t know what to say. Oh, Joel, nobody should have to deal with everything you’ve been through.”

“It was a very bad time in my life, Melanie. The hardest thing I’ve ever gone through. I was angry for a while … very, very angry. But I’m … better now. Now, it seems like it happened a lifetime ago.”

He reached out to stroke the back of his hand along her cheek. “You couldn’t know it, but you are part of the reason I’ve been able to work through it all. You didn’t just lose someone you loved; you lost a husband, your child’s father. And still you’ve managed to go on and find real joy in life. You’ve shown me that I’m not the only one in this world who’s suffered.”

The huge lump in her throat wouldn’t let her answer.

Joel drew her into his arms. “I feel so blessed that God has put you in my life. The Lord has been closer to me these last few months than I could have ever imagined. He’s given me the gift of someone to love again. It’s you I love, Melanie, and I’m … I’m muddling through this like a bumbling idiot …”

Now Melanie broke down and sobbed, her tears dampening the shoulder of his shirt. “Oh, Joel. I’m the one who’s been given the gift of someone to love again.” She pulled away to gaze into his eyes, and reached up again to trace her finger lovingly along the scar on his cheek—a hero’s badge. “I love you … so much, Joel.”

Gently he pushed her from him. He looked down and rolled a tiny stone under his shoe. “There’s a reason I needed you to know this, Melanie. Maybe this is too much, too soon … Maybe you need time to sort this out?”

“What is it, Joel? Please, tell me what’s going on?”

He took her face in his hands and his gaze pierced her. “Melanie,” he breathed, “will you marry me?”

Joy rippled through her like the breeze over the prairie grasses. “Joel … Oh yes … a thousand times yes.”

He drew her to him again. His tender kiss was a healing salve. Finally, he ran a warm hand down her arm until he found her fingers and knit them with his own. They began to walk slowly, hand in hand, their fingers entwined, as their hearts had become. Her heart soaring, Melanie leaned her head on Joel’s shoulder, contemplating how hallowed a gift his love was.

They walked along the deserted country road until the light waned. Together they mourned the sorrows each had known. Yet Melanie rejoiced that this day that had had such a rough beginning had become a memory she would cherish forever.

Joel was invited to supper at Melanie’s the following evening, and before he left her house, he knelt with Melanie in front of Jerica, and together they shared their happy news.

“We have something to tell you, Jerica.” He smiled as Melanie’s eyes shone with tears of happiness.

“What is it?” Seeing them both on their knees, the little girl giggled, but the tight knit of her thin eyebrows told him she knew something out of the ordinary was afoot.

Melanie looked at Joel, then to her daughter. “Joel asked me to marry him. And I said yes.”

Through the window of the little girl’s wide-eyed gaze, Joel could almost see the wheels turning. She looked from him to her mother, mouth agape. “You mean … I’ll have a daddy now?”

“Yes, you will, sweetie,” he answered, surprised by the catch in his own voice.

Jerica flung herself at him, almost bowling him over. “You’ll be my daddy! Daddy … hey, Daddy …” She practiced the unfamiliar appellation. The sound of it on her lips sent a thrill through the core of his being.

Melanie put a warm hand on his cheek and looked at him with such love in her eyes. “You’ll have the most wonderful daddy in the world.”

He pulled Jerica closer and nuzzled the top of her head with his chin, his eyes locked with Melanie’s. “Yes, I’ll be your daddy, sweetheart. And the only thing that makes me happier is that I’ll be your mommy’s husband.” He leaned to plant a kiss on Melanie’s cheek, sandwiching Jerica between them. “We’ll all be a family—together.”

The joy in their laughter warmed his heart like nothing had in many years. He kissed them both good-night—these beautiful girls who would soon belong to him—and drove back to his apartment. In the shadow of darkness, he tried to ignore the terrible truth that nagged at his conscience. But it wouldn’t go away.

He had made a decision months ago. It had seemed right at the time, but now he found himself wrestling with the question all over again. Melanie was going to be his wife. Didn’t he owe her the truth? He’d asked that question a thousand times since the day he realized he was in love with her.

Voices warred in his head, and a chill went up his spine as he
recalled the stern warnings of John Toliver, inspector with the U.S. Marshals Service. “You want to stay alive, Bradford?
You tell no one
. You got that? We’ve never lost a man who followed the rules. Never. But you do the Lone Ranger thing, and all bets are off.”

But he was out of the Federal Witness Security Program now, no longer compelled by the rules of the U.S. Department of Justice. He argued with himself. In this little Midwestern town where people didn’t even bother to lock their doors, who would believe him if he did tell the truth? The whole scenario would likely be met with bemused skepticism. It was the stuff movies were made of. If people knew anything about the witness protection program at all, they had the notion that WITSEC existed to protect Mafia thugs—criminal rats who agreed to squeal on their mob buddies in exchange for life outside of prison and a guarantee that they wouldn’t meet up with a hired assassin in a dark alley some night. For the most part, the perception was true. But the sad fact was that, of the more than six thousand witnesses to whom the program had offered sanctuary over the years, something like six percent were innocent, law-abiding citizens like himself. Men and women who’d had the misfortune of being in the wrong place at the wrong time—unwilling spectators to crimes that now demanded justice.

Joel wished with everything in him that he wasn’t a walking encyclopedia of Justice Department statistics—that he wasn’t himself a statistic. His had been a long journey—one for which he had no desire to keep a scrapbook. As it was, he revisited the terrible events far too often in his dreams.

Bile rose in his throat as his mind toyed with the memories. The reward for his sacrifices had been a hung jury. An evil man had gone free, and Joel’s testimony no longer held any power. The attorney for the defense was apparently confident that the prosecutor would not ask for a new trial.

Thankfully, Silver Creek was the end of the line for him. He’d had no contact with the U.S. Marshal’s office since before he’d
moved to Silver Creek. Though he would always use the identity WITSEC had provided, he no longer reported to the inspectors. For all intents and purposes, he was out of the program, and he didn’t care if he never heard the term WITSEC again as long as God gave him breath. His unsolicited association with the agency had tied a thousand knots in his life. And he feared that he would never be completely untangled from the mess. Nothing—not even the very name with which he’d been christened—would ever be the same. He couldn’t go back.

True, there wasn’t a price on his head anymore. No one was looking for him now. Tim had seen to that. But God forbid something should change and they should trace him to Melanie …

A vision of Victoria Payne floated before him, and he shuddered involuntarily. If Melanie was ever faced with being interrogated on his account, Joel didn’t want her to be able to answer one question. He didn’t want her to even know the name of the man being hunted. And in truth he wasn’t that man. Not anymore.

Melancholy settled over him like a cloak. He fought to shake it off, scrambling to recall the scriptures that had offered him comfort and justification in the beginning—Old Testament stories of godly men and women who’d found themselves in circumstances like his and had been commended for their necessary deceit. The prophet Elisha, who lied to the Syrians when they came to his doorstep to kill him. The mother of the infant Moses, who hid the child and served as his wet nurse under false pretenses. Jonathan, who deceived his father to defend the life of his friend David. And Rahab, the prostitute whose guile had saved the Israelite spies. Joel thought of the braided cord that hung from the mirror in his car, much as the scarlet cord had hung from the window of Rahab’s house in the biblical story. That cord had been a symbol of her faithfulness. It had gained her favor with God and saved her life and the lives of those in her household. Rahab’s actions had earned her a place among the parade
of the faithful in the New Testament book of Hebrews. Joel had taken that scarlet cord as his own reminder that God had not abandoned him. No, God had
spared
him.

But spared him for what? he wondered now. A life of loneliness? of never feeling he could be close to anyone? A lifetime of keeping secrets from the people he loved most? What kind of life was that?

He shook his head. He should be grateful. Today of all days he should feel God’s favor on his life. After all the tragedy, all the sorrow, he’d been given a fresh start, a precious daughter-to-be and a woman who loved him.

It was for her own sake that he couldn’t tell Melanie. He pounded the steering wheel with the palm of his hand. He would not dwell on the past. His past—the history of Joseph William Bradford—had died so that Joel Ellington might go on living.

He’d known enough of death in his lifetime. Living was what he intended to do now.

Sunday night, Melanie called to give her parents the happy news. She ended up crying like a baby on her end of the line while her mother sobbed with joy on the other.

“Oh, honey, we’re so happy for you,” her mother said through her tears. “Have you called Matt and Karly? What does Jerica think? Have you set a date?”

“Whoa! One thing at a time, Mom,” Melanie laughed. “I’m calling Matt as soon as I hang up. Jerica is over the moon. And we’re thinking about April for the wedding. Things will settle down a little at work for both of us by then, and we thought that would give everybody plenty of time to schedule flights.”

“Well, you know your dad. He’d be out there on the next red-eye if that’s what it took.”

“I don’t think that will be necessary.” Melanie smiled into the phone.

Erika LaSalle, too, burst into tears when Melanie announced her news after dinner at the LaSalles’ the following evening, but Melanie wasn’t altogether certain that these were tears of joy.

“Erika, what is it?” Melanie pushed her chair back from the table in the formal dining room and went to stand beside the older woman’s chair. Feeling awkward and helpless, she put a tentative hand on Erika’s arm. She was thankful that Jerica had already been excused to play outdoors. And thankful that she’d decided not to invite Joel today. She had suspected that her news might be somewhat bittersweet for her former parents-in-law—reminding them as it would of her and Rick’s happy announcement seven years ago. But she hadn’t expected such a strong reaction from Erika. She turned to Jerry for help, but the look on his face was one of equal gloom.

“I’m sorry, Mel.” Erika fluttered a slender hand, tacitly asking Melanie to wait for a new wave of tears to pass. Finally she composed herself. “I’m happy for you, honey. Truly I am. I just … I don’t want to lose you—either of you. You’re all we have.” She broke down again.