Not Until You (Hope Springs Book 3) Read online

  Not Until You

  -A Hope Springs Novel-

  Valerie M. Bodden

  Not Until You © 2019 by Valerie M. Bodden.

  Scriptures taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com The “NIV” and “New International Version” are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™

  All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to any person, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Valerie M. Bodden

  Visit me at www.valeriembodden.com

  Books in the Hope Springs Series

  Not Until Christmas

  Not Until Forever

  Not Until This Moment

  Not Until You

  Not Until Us

  Contents

  Books in the Hope Springs Series

  A Gift for You . . .

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Epilogue

  More Hope Springs Books

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  A Gift for You . . .

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  For as high as the heavens are above the earth,

  so great is his love for those who fear him;

  as far as the east is from the west,

  so far has he removed our transgressions from us.

  —Psalm 103:11-12

  Chapter 1

  Nate squinted into the blinding expanse of the parking lot. Had the world always been this bright, or did it only seem that way after seeing it through bars and walls for the past seven years?

  His gaze roved the cars scattered throughout the lot. He’d written home to let his parents know today was his release date, but they’d never written back. Not that he’d expected a reply. After seven years without contact, a person kind of gave up.

  Still, he’d half hoped, half dreaded that at least one of them would be here to meet him. He had a grand total of ten dollars to his name. Which left him with the options of sleeping on a park bench tonight or hitchhiking the fifty miles back to his hometown.

  “Nathan.” There was no mistaking his father’s stern voice.

  Nate turned to find his dad standing several rows away. He probably couldn’t bring himself to come any closer to the building that proved his son was the worst kind of screw up. Dad looked older than the last time Nate had seen him, his once salt and pepper hair now all salt, his suit fitting him more loosely than it used to. He stood as stoic and unsmiling as ever, though.

  Nate forced himself to breathe as he approached his father. Forced himself to keep his shoulders straight and his chin up, the way Dad had drilled into him.

  Two feet in front of Dad, he stopped and held out his right hand. Dad looked at it a moment, then slapped a piece of paper into it.

  Nate flipped it over. A slow churn started in his gut.

  “A bus ticket?” He swallowed the bile rising at the back of his throat. The only thing that had gotten him through the past seven years was the promise of going home. Of making things right. Of making up for what he’d done.

  He’d work the rest of his life to do it if that’s what it took.

  “Get in the car. Your bus leaves in twenty minutes.” Dad disappeared into the driver’s door without another glance at Nate.

  Nate stood frozen a moment, then moved toward the passenger door. What had he expected? That Dad would welcome him home with open arms like some sort of long-lost son?

  The moment Nate closed his door, Dad backed out of the parking spot.

  “Can’t I at least see Mom first?” He pressed his lips together, trying to push down the emotion building in his chest. “And Kayla?”

  “The bus will take you to Hope Springs.”

  “Where?” Nate had never heard of the place. “Why?”

  But before Dad even threw him the dark look, Nate knew. He was being banished.

  “We just bought out a property management firm there.” Dad’s voice, the voice Nate had remembered for its resonance, was flatter than the cornfields that stretched in every direction around them. “It’s in pretty bad shape. You’re going to make it profitable. I expect weekly progress reports.”

  “Dad, I don’t want―”

  “Card’s in the suitcase.” Dad plowed on as if Nate hadn’t spoken. “There’s a law office next door. They have the key. At least one of our buildings has an empty apartment. You can live there.”

  “Dad―”

  “There’s a bag in the back.”

  Nate swiveled to look over his shoulder. A small suitcase rested on the backseat, as if Nate were going on some sort of vacation.

  “There are clothes in it. Some money.” Dad’s head didn’t move so much as a centimeter.

  “I don’t want money. I want―”

  “Frankly, Nathan, I don’t care what you want. This is what you get. You made your choices. Now you have to deal with the consequences.”

  Nate stared at Dad. Didn’t he think Nate knew that? That he’d spend the rest of his life living with the consequences of his actions?

  He wanted to argue. To plead. But he’d learned early on that once Dad’s mind was made up, nothing was going to change it.

  A sharp silence sliced the air between them. It took Nate two tries before he could open his mouth to tell Dad what he’d needed to say for seven years. “Dad, I know it’s not enough, but I want to say I’m sorry. I don’t expect you to forgive me. But you have to know, if I could trade places with Kayla, I would. I―”

  “But you can’t. And all the sorries in the world aren’t going to change that.” Still that flat voice. Anger would be better. Or sadness. Anything but this stony, emotionless man.

  “I know they’re not.” Nate said it so quietly he wasn’t sure Dad heard him. He made himself speak up. “Can you at least tell me how Kayla is?” Seven years with no word on his sister’s condition had been the worst part of his punishment.

  Dad’s jaw tightened. “You ruined her life, Nat
han. And mine. Your mother’s. You expect me to sit here and chat with you like we’re old buddies?”

  “No, but―”

  “You know, Nathan, when I think about how excited we were when we learned your mother was expecting you― We thought you would be such a blessing.” He let out a sharp, humorless laugh. “Some blessing. We’d have been better off if you’d never been born.”

  Nate turned toward the window and scrunched his eyes shut, pinching the bridge of his nose between his fingers.

  He deserved every one of those hateful words. He’d told himself the same thing every day for the past seven years. But hearing them from his dad’s mouth―the same man who had read him bedtime stories and played airplane with him and told him he loved him―sliced through every vital organ in his body.

  Dad pulled up to the curb outside the bus station. Nate mashed his teeth together and grabbed the door handle. “Please, Dad. Just let me say goodbye to Mom and Kayla.”

  Dad stared straight out the windshield. “Show me you’re not the worst mistake of my life, and maybe someday you can see them again. Until then, I’m not letting you near my family.”

  Nate wanted to say they were his family, too. That he would do anything for them. But his words would never convince his father. He’d have to make a success of this new job Dad had assigned him. No matter how much he hated it.

  If it meant he could see his mother and sister again, it would be worth it.

  Chapter 2

  Violet eyed the empty boxes she’d spread across the living room floor of her small apartment. She had to do it. She knew that. She’d been putting it off for three years, but it was time.

  The Black Forest cuckoo clock on the wall behind her let out a squawk, as if chiding her to get moving, and she jumped.

  “Okay, fine.”

  She picked up the thriller that had sat, unread, on the side table for the past three years. A bookmark stuck out of its pages about halfway through. A stab went through her as she plucked it out of the book. It was a leaf she had pressed for Cade the first year they’d been married. She’d wrapped it in packaging tape to preserve it. But the leaf was faded now, its edges thin and worn.

  She put the book in the box she had marked for donations, but she tucked the bookmark into the Bible sitting on the other end of the table.

  There. One item done.

  Only six hundred and fifty-seven more pieces of Cade’s life to sort through.

  She moved systematically through the apartment, adding items to the donation box: Cade’s jeans and shoes. His books. The collection of baseball cards he’d never been able to bring himself to part with, even though they weren’t worth anything. She let herself keep a few of his sweatshirts, the knit cap someone from church had made him, and the ticket stubs to the first movie they’d seen together.

  But everything else she put into the boxes. With each item, she felt like she was shoving a needle deeper into her own heart. And yet it wasn’t only pain she felt. Somewhere buried under that was a sharp relief. She wasn’t sure which was worse, really―the pain or the relief. This was all she had left of her husband. And if she got rid of it, what would she be left with then? Aside from the giant Cade-shaped hole in her heart?

  By the time she got to the bathroom, she’d filled six boxes, and she wasn’t sure if she could make herself do more.

  She glanced at her phone. She had ten minutes before she had to get downstairs and open the antique shop.

  Last room, she told herself.

  She sorted through Cade’s stuff, which had been shoved to the back of the medicine cabinet. She tossed the deodorant and razors in the trash. But when she came to the fresh, slightly sea-smelling cologne he always wore, she pulled the cap off and spritzed it in front of her. She leaned forward into the mist, inhaling deeply. She could almost imagine Cade standing next to her, close enough to put his arms around her. But no arms circled her. No one brushed her curls off her face. No one dropped a kiss onto her forehead.

  No one ever would again.

  She stuffed the ache deep into a corner of her heart as she tucked the cologne back into the cupboard and closed the box she’d filled.

  She moved it to the laundry room with the others. She needed some time to get used to the apartment without Cade’s stuff before she took the final step of donating everything.

  Eventually, she’d learn to live without it, like she’d learned to live without Cade.

  Have you? a voice in her head taunted.

  She pushed it aside and reached to turn off the light, but her gaze caught on her finger.

  It’s time. That same voice.

  But this time it was harder to ignore.

  Violet had tried to take the wedding ring off before. But her hand had always seemed too heavy without it.

  Quickly, before she could change her mind, she slid the ring over her knuckle and dropped it into the palm of her hand. Her breath came in ragged heaves as if she’d just run a marathon.

  In a way, maybe she had.

  The past three years had been a marathon of grief and anger and regret.

  She stared at the ring, lying still and lifeless in her palm, as she walked into the bedroom. Ignoring the trembling in her fingers, she plucked the ring out of her hand, opened her jewelry box, and deposited the ring inside.

  Then she fled to the living room.

  But without Cade’s stuff everywhere, it felt smaller. Incomplete.

  Just like her.

  Chapter 3

  “This is it.” Nate’s seatmate nudged him as the bus crested a hill.

  “Mmm.” Nate turned toward the window to appease the woman, who had introduced herself as Leah. In five hours, she hadn’t gotten the hint that he had no interest in talking. She’d even gone so far as to show him pictures of her baby niece, her cat, and her friend’s wedding.

  The rain that had started an hour or so ago had slowed, and the sun had pierced through the clouds low on the horizon. Shafts of light glared off the choppy waves at the bottom of the hill. That had to be Lake Michigan. The masts of dozens of boats stabbed toward the sky, where seagulls circled and swooped. Nate’s gaze swept down the street, lined with colorful shops.

  Great. Dad had relegated him to a tourist trap.

  “Oh, look, a rainbow.” The woman leaned across him and pointed.

  Nate obligingly craned his neck and grunted.

  The rainbow stretched above the lake, its far end disappearing into the tree line at the edge of the horseshoe-shaped bay.

  Once upon a time, Nate might have convinced himself the rainbow was a sign from God that his new life would be better. But he’d stopped believing in such signs right about the time God had stood by and watched his whole life fall apart.

  The bus slowed to a stop. The woman stood and stretched. “It was nice talking with you.” She gave Nate a smile without a trace of sarcasm behind it.

  Nate almost retorted that it’d been nice being talked at, but he bit his tongue. She was only trying to be friendly. He supposed he’d have to get used to that. Not many people had been kind to him in the past seven years. Which had been fine with him. He didn’t deserve anyone’s kindness.

  Nate followed the woman off the bus.

  The air was hot and humid, and the ground was wet. In spite of himself, Nate pulled in a deep breath. The fresh, clean scent of the town made something deep inside him twinge.

  “Leah.” A middle-aged woman rushed forward with her arms outstretched, and his seatmate―Leah, apparently―stepped into the hug as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

  Nate looked away. When was the last time he’d been hugged?

  He grabbed his suitcase and riffled through the front pocket until his hand fell on a card.

  Benson Property Management. 1201 Hope Street.

  Wherever that was.

  “Bye. Hope you like Hope Springs.” Leah and the woman passed him on the sidewalk.

  “Thanks,” Nate mumbled, stepping out of thei
r way. It wasn’t until they were a dozen steps past him that he managed to get his voice to work. “Could you tell me where Hope Street is?”

  Leah turned with a smile. “Sure can. It’s right there.” She pointed across the parking lot to the street that ran parallel to the lakefront.

  Nate nodded his thanks. It felt like the first thing that had gone right for him in seven years. Maybe it was the beginning of a streak.

  He picked up his suitcase and kept his head down as he directed his footsteps toward the storefronts lining the street. He passed two gift stores, a fudge shop, an antique store, a restaurant, and the post office before he came to 1201. The sleek steel of the building’s exterior stood in stark contrast to the old brick storefronts on either side.

  The sign on the door indicated that the building held a law office, a dentist, an accountant, and a property management firm. Apparently his property management firm.

  Welcome to the first day of the rest of your life. Nate’s lips twisted into a sneer directed at himself.

  This was a far cry from where he thought he’d be at twenty-eight. If things had gone right, he’d be cutting records and touring with his band now.

  But things didn’t go right.

  No, they didn’t. And he had only himself to blame for that.

  Nate grabbed the sleek metal door handle and stepped inside. The building was cool and had the faintly antiseptic smell of a dentist’s office. He wrinkled his nose. This was where he was going to be spending his days.

  A door immediately to the right was marked with the name of the dentist’s office. Farther down, on the left side of the hall, was the accountant’s office. Which meant his office must be upstairs. Nate followed the long hallway to the back of the building, finally finding a staircase there.

  At the top, it opened into another hall, identical to the one downstairs, except with an oversize vase of fake flowers on a small table next to one of the doors. Nate shuffled down the hall.

  Of course the flowers would be outside the door to his office. Those would have to go.