Page 58 of Forged in Secrets

She managed to take only a single step before everything faded into blackness.

BEN

The drive to nearby Brownsville felt like it took forever. With every mile further away from Grace he got, the more anxious he became.

According to his phone app, Asher’s flight had been delayed by about twenty minutes. Though he doubted coffee would do much to calm his nerves, it would be better than sitting in the tiny airport’s waiting area empty-handed.

“Can I get a large dark roast with two creamers?” he said as he pulled into the drive through of a popular coffee shop chain.

“A venti drip, got it. Okay, sir, will that be Verona, Espresso, or Italian?”

The guy on the speaker sounded nice, and he resisted his immediate urge to make a cutting remark about needless complexity. Seriously, why did coffee shops have to be so pretentious? And why was the most pretentious one located on every street corner in America?

“Whatever one you recommend would be great,thanks,” he said instead, pulling out his phone for the tenth time in as many minutes as he waited for the car ahead of him to move. He wanted to give Grace space, but considering everything that was going on, he couldn’t help but to worry about her.

Once he paid for his Caffé Verona, he sent her a quick text to ask if everything was okay before pulling out of the parking lot and obeying the commands of his GPS for the next several minutes.

His hatred of flying notwithstanding, Ben generally felt the same way about airports as he did about sand, top forty music, and people who put sweaters on their dogs.

Fortunately, Brownsville International was more tolerable than most of the other places he’d been. The airport was tiny, and at this time of morning on a weekday, he passed only about a dozen passengers as he settled into a seat near a giant map of the United States.

He picked up his phone again as he sipped his coffee. No answer.

After a couple minutes of going back and forth with himself, he finally tried calling her. No answer again. He made one more call and left her a quick voicemail before scrolling over to his inbox and dealing with several mostly unimportant emails from the office he’d been avoiding since arriving on South Padre. Not that they were much of a distraction from his mounting anxiety.

He hoped that Grace was just ignoring him. He could bear her anger, and he had no doubt that he deserved it. What he couldn’t handle was the mere thought of something bad happening when he wasn’t there to protect her.

For years now, he’d pushed so many people away. Grace had always treated him with such love and gentleness, way more than he deserved, and he’d kept her atarm’s length. Even now, after all that had happened between them, he couldn’t let his guard down. Not even his brothers fully escaped his distrust. If he was being honest with himself, not even Jesus Christ met his standard for who to open up to.

He was so determined to rely only on himself that he’d become blinded to how foolish he truly was.

He was a coward.

Grace was right.

He had to tell her the full truth about what had happened with Mikayla, or he was never going to be able to move forward. He couldn’t let a past heartbreak ruin his future, no matter how painful it was going to be to tell her why he was so terrified of being vulnerable.

Ben pressed his hands together and bowed his head in the middle of the airport, not caring who happened to walk by as he sent up his whispered plea.

“Heavenly Father, I pray that You will grant me the courage to tell Grace the truth about my past. I also pray that she will forgive me for hurting her,” he said softly. The words felt strange and awkward on his lips, but he kept going. “Most of all, Lord God, I pray that I will have the courage to lay my heart bare in front of her, and to say those words I have been wanting to say to her for years. In Jesus’s name I pray. Amen.”

As if on cue, he saw Asher striding toward him at last, carrying a camouflage backpack in lieu of actual luggage. “Hey, bro,” his twin said as he approached, his eyebrows raised. “You look freaked. What’s going on? Where’s Gracie?”

All at once, Ben’s attempt at stoicism fell apart.

“We had a fight, and now she’s not answering my calls,” he said.

“Well, you were probably being a jerk. Let me try.”

Asher pulled out his own phone, tapping her name on the screen and putting the call on speaker.

It rang several times before going to voicemail.

“Let’s talk on the way,” Asher said firmly, running a hand through his blonde hair. “You’re not being paranoid. I’m sure she’s fine, but still, this isn’t like her.”

Guilt mingled with his fear as he and his twin rushed toward the parking lot. Maybe he should have let Asher take a shuttle bus to the resort. Not that he could do anything about it now.

“I’ll drive,” Asher suggested, tossing his backpack into the back seat of the rented sedan. Ben didn’t argue.

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