sneak up to your room this way.” Connie shot her a conspiratorial grin.
Their footsteps were muffled by thickly carpeted stairs. Connie grasped her hand and led her to a beautiful room tucked under the eaves.
“This used to be my room,” she said. Her face reflected a flurry of emotions as she sank onto the window seat. “I spent a lot of time right here, praying.”
“Are you happy, Connie?” Susannah asked, sitting beside her. “Truly?”
“Happier than I ever imagined I’d be.” Connie hugged her. “You will be, too, Suze. But you have to give God time to work things out for you. You have to have faith that He has great things in store for your future.”
“That’s hard, given my past,” Susannah muttered.
“That’s when it’s most important to read your Bible and pray,” Connie murmured. “You have a lot of decisions to make. But you don’t have to rush. You can stay right here, get well and figure things out in your own time.”
“Is it hard—being a mother?” The question slipped out in spite of her determination not to ask.
But the prospect of motherhood scared her silly.
“You’re worried about the baby, aren’t you, Suze. Why?” Connie moved to sit on the bed, patting the space beside her. When Susannah sat down, she hugged her close. “What’s really bothering you?”
“My role model for motherhood wasn’t exactly nurturing. Nothing mattered to my mother more than her next drink.” She heard the resentment in her own voice but couldn’t control it. “Nothing.”
“Suze, honey, you can’t hold on to the bitterness.”
“Can’t I?” Susannah opened her bag and pulled out her wallet. She flipped it to two pictures nestled inside. “They’re dead, Connie. Because of me.”
“No.”
“Yes.” Susannah nodded. “I should have been there.”
“Then you would have died, too.” Connie gripped her hand.
“But if only I hadn’t chosen—”
“The fire wasn’t your fault, Susannah.” Connie’s soft voice hardened. “No matter what your mother said when you were a kid.”
Susannah had gone round and round this argument in her head for years. But nothing erased the little voice of blame in the back of her brain. Her hand rested for an instant on her stomach.
“A new life,” Connie murmured. “Hard to wrap your mind around it?”
“Very,” Susannah agreed with a grimace. “Even harder to imagine coping.”
“You’ll do fine,” Connie assured her.
“It’s easy for you to say that. You spent all those years in our foster home caring for everybody else. I don’t know anything about caring for a baby, except that you need to feed it and change it.” Just saying that made Susannah feel helpless. “What if it gets sick?”
“Then you’ll get help.” Connie patted her shoulder. “One thing I’ve learned with Silver is that there are no easy answers, no recipe you can follow. You do your best, pray really hard and have faith that God will answer. And He does. David told me that when he first hired me.”
“Really?” So David Foster was a man of faith, too.
“David is one of the good guys. My husband is another. So is their friend Jared.” Connie smiled with pride. “They’re the kind of men who do the right thing, no matter what. Integrity. They have it in spades.”
Susannah couldn’t dislodge the image of the tall dark-haired man with the slow spreading grin that started with a slight lift at the corners of his mouth, followed by a gradual widening until it reached his toffee eyes. David Foster had the kind of smile that took forever to get where it was going, but once it got there, it took your breath.
“A lawyer with integrity,” she mused. “How novel.”
Connie drew back the quilt and patted a pillow. “Come on, into bed. Your eyelids are drooping. Rest. We’ll talk again whenever you’re ready.”
“Did I say thank you?” Tears swelled Susannah’s throat.
“What are sisters for?” Connie hugged her. “Don’t worry about anything, Suze. You’re here now. Relax. In due time you can start planning for the future. Just remember—you’re not alone.”
A moment later she was gone, the door whispering closed behind her. Susannah stood up, tiredness washing over her. Then she spied the bathroom door.
Five minutes later she was up to her neck in bubbles in a huge tub, enjoying the relaxing lavender fragrance as jets pulsed water over her weary flesh.
Are You really watching out for me, God?
She thought over the past months and the tumble from joy to despair that she’d experienced. Unbidden, thoughts of David’s troubles rose. How difficult to lose both your parents, and then the sister you’d known and loved. They had that in common—loss.
Susannah hadn’t said anything to Darla or Connie, but when David had carried her into the house, she had come to, for a second. And in that moment, she had felt like Sleeping Beauty. Awakening to a whole new perspective on life.
Which was really stupid. She didn’t want anything to do with love. Certainly not the romantic fairy-tale kind—that only led to disappointment and pain.
Susannah Wells had never had a fairy-tale life and she doubted it was about to start now, just because a nice man and his sister had cared for her. She didn’t deserve a picture-perfect life.
And you won’t have one. You’re pregnant, Susannah. David Foster won’t give you a second look.
Not that she wanted him to. Depend on yourself. She’d learned that lesson very well a long time ago.
Wearied by all the questions that had no answers, Susannah rose, drained the tub and prepared for bed. But when she finally climbed in between the sheets, she felt wide awake. She pulled open the drawer of the nightstand to search for something to read. A Bible lay there.
She picked it up with no idea of where to start reading. She let it fall open on the bed. Isaiah 43.
I, I am the One who forgives all your sins, for My sake, I will not remember your sins.
God forgave her? That’s what Connie had said. But maybe it was only an accident that she was reading these words. Susannah closed the Bible, let it fall open again.
2 Corinthians.
God is the Father who is full of mercy and all comfort. He comforts us every time we have trouble, so when others have trouble, we can comfort them with the same comfort God gives us.
So many times she’d asked herself, where is God? According to this, He was right here, comforting her with Connie’s house. He was the father who didn’t walk out when life got rough.
A flicker of hope burst into flame inside Susannah’s heart.
Maybe God could forgive the stupid choices she’d made. Maybe…but she doubted it. She wasn’t like Connie—good and smart and worth saving.
God had let her get duped by Nick. Why?
Because she wasn’t worth loving. Her whole life was proof of that.
Susannah let her tears flow far into the night.
Chapter Three
David screeched to a halt in front of his home and jumped out of the car.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Foster. I only went to get Darla a drink because she said she was thirsty. When I came back, she was gone.” The