Page 26 of Canyon of Deceit

TWENTY-FIVE

THERESE

Darkness cast its eerie cloak around us, and I kept the fire stoked. Blane did his best to keep an eye on it and not complain about his injuries. But his voice and ragged breathing showed how the pain pounded into every part of him.

Tom Chandler shattered my confidence, causing my knees to weaken.

I’d rather wrestle a mountain lion with a taste for blood than what Chandler’s evil thoughts conjured up.

Death and destruction accompanied him like an old friend.

Too many tales darted in and out of my day and night terrors, and whether true or not, those things made me shiver.

Alina, please do your best to appease your kidnappers.

I prayed for Alina, Rurik, Blane, the FBI team, the Texas Rangers, and myself. God had a plan, and I refused to lose faith.

“I’m not asleep,” Blane said above the stillness.

I’d rather we pursued silence until sleep overcame us. “Doubtful you will without a pain pill, but I understand your reluctance. Your whole body endured a horrible beating. My worry—”

“Enduring it builds my character.”

I smiled in the shadows. Poor man. “Do you want me to send up a flare for the rescue team?”

“Are you crazy? That’s like your whistle. Increase the chances Chandler and his sidekick step into our campsite carrying our guns aimed at our heads?”

I laughed. “We’ve been blindsided, robbed, and nearly killed, but you still find a way to make me forget about it all.”

“I aim to please. I haven’t heard your ghost story.”

Sleep evaded me, so his idea would keep me off the mission. The fire crackled, and sparks shot up as though competing with the stars’ intensity. “I can’t tonight. Finish what happened with Wendy.”

“You’re a tough one.” He drew in a painful breath.

“Not much to tell. I stayed at the party. Irresponsible. Drunk. She’d have been safe if I had acted like the man she deserved.

Doesn’t matter our values were on opposite ends of the spectrum.

I made a poor choice, and God punished her.

And me. I should have handled the situation better. ”

“God doesn’t work in ways to deliberately hurt us.”

“I disagree with you. Others have played the convincing game from my mother to Sergio and his family. Not going there.” He bit back a moan.

I wanted to take away his pain—all of it. “You don’t need to tell me any more.”

“I need to, and I’ve come this far. If you were the one with the haunting story, I’d be encouraging you to continue. Tell you how much better you’d feel and not to keep a padlock on your past.”

“I’m not you, Blane. But I’m thinking hard about it.”

“Do men always spill their guts around you?”

“Only those with concussions who break their arm.”

“And have their gun stolen and lose their backpack and phone?”

“How did you guess?”

He chuckled, then quickly sobered. “I’m going to try to sleep.”

I lay awake thinking about Blane. We’d both suffered loss. We risked our lives for others with some skewed sense of redemption for ourselves, and neither of us had allowed God to heal us. Here we were stranded in the high desert to rescue a helpless child, looking more like two failures.

Tonight, with the pressures of the undertaking bearing down on my shoulders and the obstacles stalking us, I saw how easily a person might walk away from God.

I nearly did when Kate and then Mom and Dad had died.

But my grandmother’s words of God’s love never let me go.

Even if I couldn’t bring myself to tell the story.

.. and how rescuing Alina seemed like I was rescuing Kate.