Page 129 of Snowed In With the Mountain Man
What? What don’t you trust?She frowned as a nagging voice challenged her.Him? You don’t trust JJ?
She shifted in her seat. That wasn’t right. She did trust him. He was the most loyal, generous, and trustworthy man she’d ever met.
She didn’t trust love.
She swallowed hard, her frown aimed at the blanket in her hand. But love wasn’t some monster in the night. It wasn’t the boogeyman. It was two people and how they felt about each other.
She might not have had good experiences with love, but trust…
She could trust JJ.
And herself? She swallowed hard. Could she trust herself not to lose her identity and sense of self if she surrendered to these feelings?
“If you need to talk, I’m here, okay?” Rose offered.
Dahlia nodded even though her sister couldn’t see. “Good night, Rose.”
Her sister sighed. “G’night.”
Dahlia hung up and stared at the blank TV screen long after the call ended. Rose’s words swam in her head, like sharks circling their weakening prey.
She just got schooled by the baby of her family, and Dahlia couldn’t help letting out an astonished laugh. Tipping her head back, she gazed up at the ceiling and shouted, breaking the silence of this cold, empty apartment with a bellow that wouldn’t endear her to her neighbors.
It was part joy, part anguish. It was an explosion of emotion that she had no idea what to do with.
You can trust this love, Dahlia.
That gentle whisper moved through her.
She didn’t know that voice in her head, but it stirred and called to her. Its soft, peaceful tone was in complete contrast to her raging emotions, and it made her stop. It made her listen.
This love won’t leave you or forsake you.
She frowned. Where had she heard those words before? And why was she suddenly thinking about that sermon she heard in Aspire? The one that gave her the worst hay fever… those tear-inducing allergies.
She snickered at herself, shaking her head and staring back at the blank TV screen again.
It was the sermon about that woman, the adulteress, who Jesus didn’t judge. He showed mercy. When everyone else wanted to hate her,killher even, he showed her love.
Because love heals.
Wasn’t that what the pastor said?
“Love heals,” she whispered.
And if love healed, why did she need to fear it?
Closing her eyes and letting more tears slip free, she let those words, that question, churn through her over and over again.
46
Dahlia walked to the subway’s entrance the next morning, but as a stream of people pushed by her to go down, she stood there at the top of the steps. Finally, she turned and started to walk.
When was the last time she’d walked to work?
It had been an age. Not because she didn’t like walking but because it took up time, and she’d always been anxious about getting in early.
But this morning, she couldn’t quite muster up that sense of urgency that normally drove her out of the apartment and onto the subway.
