Meant-To-Be Marriage

She shivered because Jarod might as well have said, I won’t let it be ours. Still holding her gaze he said, “If our marriage is going to tear you and your family apart, then we have to be prepared for a lot of heartache.”

Upon that remark he stood up. “What I’m going to do is leave you here to spend the night. I’ll go back to the hotel, and we’ll talk again in the morning.”

“No, Jarod. I’m coming with you!” It hit her again just how much he’d given up to be with her. She was afraid for them to be apart for any reason, but right now wasn’t the time for her to analyze what was at the bottom of those fears.

“Jarod’s right, Sydney. We need time to talk alone. I’ll walk you to the door.”

Jarod moved closer to kiss her cheek. His eyes sent her the clear message that this separation was going to be agony for him, too. “Call me later on my cell,” he whispered.

She nodded, having to hold back from throwing her arms around him and never letting go.

When the two men left the room her mother flashed her a questioning glance. “Where does an ex-priest get money to buy land and a house?”

Oh, Mom.

“Come in the kitchen and I’ll explain.”

She hurried ahead and opened the flour bin drawer. Her mother looked totally perplexed when Sydney lifted out the ten-pound sack.

“See the brand?”

The second her mother put two and two together, she stared at Sydney in fresh alarm, but for once she didn’t say anything.

To Sydney’s parents, Jarod came from a background and had lived a life so foreign to everything they knew, they were having trouble absorbing it all, especially her mother.

“Take away the trappings, Mom, and you can see he’s a marvelous human being.”

Her mother got that set expression on her face. “I’ll admit he’s the most forthright man I ever met.”

“He’s more than that!” Sydney cried in frustration.

A strange sound came out of her mother. “Yes. He has you under his spell. I’m afraid for you, Sydney. This man has the power to destroy you.”

Behind her mother’s intransigence, Sydney detected real anxiety. In all honesty, she couldn’t deny her own deep-seated fears that the day could come when marriage might not be the ultimate answer for Jarod. He might want to break his vows to her, too.

She didn’t want to think about it or believe it could happen, but with his history, she had to at least acknowledge the possibility.

“I’m scared, too, Mom. But I’m more scared of letting him go and never seeing him again.”

“I know.”

Her mother turned away and left the kitchen.

Jarod grazed the TV channels. Nothing held his interest. Nothing could have captured his attention while he was waiting to hear from Sydney.

For the last ten years he’d lived and worked among Midwesterners, but he had to admit her parents displayed an insular quality that was pretty well impossible to penetrate.

Their quiet, disapproving stoicism explained the depth of her guilt. Nothing could be more intimidating to a child growing up than to read the censure in her parents’ eyes or tone of voice.

He didn’t know what was worse. The ear-splitting battles his own parents waged for everyone in the household to hear, or the crushing silence from two parents whose demeanor would put off the most courageous of their children.

Considering the life she’d come from, Sydney was the most unique, courageous woman he knew to be willing to take him on. But he’d be a fool to rule out the possibility that her parents’ arguments against marrying him had taken hold.

The mere thought of a life without her caused him to break out in a cold sweat.

By eleven, he couldn’t lie there any longer and levered himself from the bed to take a shower. When he reentered the room, he saw the blue light flashing from the cell he’d left on the bedside table.

Sydney? Only a handful of people knew his number.