The Missionary's Purpose by Kat Brookes

Author:Kat Brookes
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2021-05-13T18:22:29+00:00

* * *

She was more important. Oh, how those words came to Addy like a balm for her aching heart. “Thank you,” she said with a soft smile.

“If you ever need to talk, I’m here for you,” he said. “I know I haven’t been the friend I should have been.”

“For good reason,” she told him.

“But I was so caught up in my anger toward you, and then after this last devastating mission trip, my guilt, I wasn’t emotionally capable of being the man my daddy raised me to be. Addy, I forgive you. I’m sorry it took me so long to do so.”

She fought back another surge of tears. Why was it so hard to hold it together when she’d been so strong all her life? As that question came and went, something Jake said took its place. My guilt. She looked up at him from across the table. “You were there serving the Lord. You did nothing to deserve that ambush. There’s no reason for you to harbor any guilt for what happened.”

“Maybe not because of the ambush,” he said, sitting back in his chair. “But I feel it deep for being the reason a fellow volunteer I’d befriended died that day.”

“Oh, Jake, I’m so sorry,” Addy replied. “Lila didn’t mention anyone having died.”

“My family doesn’t know the details of that day,” he admitted. “Like you, I decided it was a part of my past better kept locked away.”

“Talk to me, Jake,” she pleaded. “Opening up to you lifted some of that weight that had been pressing on my heart for so long.”

Frowning, he said, “Corey and I were up on a scaffolding working together on one side of the schoolhouse. It was hot, and I was parched. I told him I needed to stop and take a break to grab a bottle of water and asked if he wanted one, too. He did and offered to take over the task I’d been working on while I went to get our drinks. I was only halfway down the ladder when shots rang out.” His eyes pinched shut. “He never made it out of the Congo.”

“Oh, Jake,” she groaned, hurting for him. Her stomach churned as she imagined what that moment had been like for him. The fear and the helplessness he must have felt.

“If I hadn’t offered to get us water,” Jake said with a slow shake of his head. “If I hadn’t switched places with him...”

“Then it would be your family in mourning right now,” she said softly. I would have been mourning your death, too. Addy could hardly bear the thought of how close she’d come to losing Jake. Losing his friendship was something she could find a way to deal with. But not to death. “I’m so sorry your friend died that day. My heart goes out to the family he left behind. But I’m so grateful you made it home to us.”

“Addy, I can’t stop thinking about that day. I should have died, not Corey,” he said, the words taut with emotion.

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