Chapter Twenty-Four
Rachel’s hands fluttered helplessly around Jennifer, as if she was frightened to touch her.
Adam cleared his throat. “Jennifer,” he said quietly, “I want you to know that you’re safe here.
Whatever has happened, we’ll make sure that you’re protected.
Nothing will harm you under my roof.” He kept his voice as steady as he was able, and after a moment, Rachel looked over at him.
Tension drained from her body. Her shoulders lowered, and her eyes closed briefly.
She took Jennifer’s hand in both of hers. “Adam is right,” she murmured. “Whatever happened…you did the right thing in coming to us, Jennifer. We’ll take care of you. You’re very safe now that you’re here. I promise.”
Jennifer was slumped over their joined hands, her posture reminding Adam of a willow tree. Though he couldn’t see her face, her sniffles revealed that she was still crying.
Rachel met his eyes, her brow furrowed in anxiety.
Adam nodded toward the glass of water.
Rachel picked it up and pressed it into Jennifer’s free hand, but it was immediately apparent that Jennifer was going to have trouble.
Her hand shook so violently that the water was at risk of spilling.
Adam started to rise from his seat. Maybe if he took the glass and emptied some of the water into the sink, she would be better able to manage it…
Rachel gave him the smallest shake of her head. She kept her hand on Jennifer’s, steadying, and gradually the shaking subsided. Jennifer was able to raise the glass to her mouth and take a slow sip of water.
“How badly are you hurt?” Rachel asked her softly, her eyes warm with concern. “Should we call the doctor?”
“No,” Jennifer whispered, her voice breaking. “No doctor.”
“You have nothing to be ashamed of, Jennifer. Nothing to feel embarrassed about. If you need help, we should get you help.”
“Please, no. I’m all right.” Jennifer closed her eyes. “It’s only some bruises. I’m fine. I just needed to get away from…” She trailed off, as if the rest of it was too painful to say.
“From Mr. Levine?” Rachel guessed.
Jennifer’s eyes flew open. Her jaw clenched. “From all of them! It isn’t just Ted at all. Everyone has something they want, Rachel. Nobody can be trusted.”
“Slow down,” Rachel urged her. “Just tell us what happened, a little bit at a time. Take another drink of water first.”
Jennifer did so. The water seemed to be having a steadying effect on her—or maybe it was the fact that she was slowing down to drink it.
Adam knew firsthand the way doing something physical could distract a person from their worries.
It was a technique he employed often, losing himself in ranch labor when grief or pain grew too heavy to hold.
Even something small like holding a cool glass and bringing it to your lips over and over might have the same impact, forcing Jennifer to focus on the needs of her physical body instead of whatever thoughts might currently be racing through her mind.
She set the glass down. “I couldn’t get what you said out of my mind, Rachel,” she said, facing her sister.
“What you said about Ted, and how he wasn’t a good man.
I didn’t want to believe you. I wanted to think you were just jealous.
But I had to admit…it didn’t sound much like you.
In all the time we’ve known one another, you’ve never been jealous of me.
” She looked down into her lap for a moment.
“And it isn’t as though you haven’t had reason,” she murmured, her voice very low.
“I knew it wasn’t fair how he treated you.
I would have been mad with jealousy in your shoes, but you never were. ”
“I was,” Rachel said, leaning in. She was so close now that her forehead nearly touched Jennifer’s, and the two of them spoke so quietly that Adam had to strain to catch what they were saying.
“I was very jealous. I wanted the things you had, Jennifer. Edith used to speak to me about it every day, reminding me that God wouldn’t want me to dwell on those feelings.
But you weren’t at all wrong to guess that I might have them. ”
“But that isn’t the reason you spoke to me about Ted,” Jennifer said, lifting her head to make eye contact with Rachel.
A wash of strength seemed to pass through her.
She sat a little taller now, though she still didn’t let go of Rachel’s hand.
“I know that now. I knew it when you spoke to me. I just couldn’t admit it to myself, because… ”
She trailed off, looking down and away. Her cheeks flushed.
“Because you wanted him to be telling you the truth,” Rachel whispered.
“I wanted it to be real.” Jennifer began to cry again. Rachel scooted her chair closer and wrapped an arm around her sister’s shoulders. “He told me I was beautiful and that he loved me and that we would be married, and I felt special. I wanted it to be true.”
The two of them sat quietly for several moments.
Adam fidgeted in his chair, unsure of what he should do.
He wanted to help, but everything he thought of seemed foolish.
He wanted to comfort Jennifer, but Rachel was the one she wanted.
He wanted to comfort Rachel, but that would be distracting her from her sister’s needs.
Maybe the right thing to do was to fix something for them to eat.
At a loss for anything else to do with himself, he got up and fetched a few apples, cut them up into slices, and returned to the table with them.
He placed the plate in the center of the table and then made a bit of a show of taking an apple slice.
He bit into the slice with an audible crunch.
Both of them glanced at him, then turned back to their conversation, leaving Adam feeling a bit foolish.
“Tell me what happened,” Rachel said.
Jennifer took a deep, shuddering breath.
“Maybe I shouldn’t have done it,” she said.
“But after you and I spoke, I thought…well, I thought that I might find some proof about the kind of man he was. I thought if I looked through his office and didn’t find any evidence of anything unpleasant, that would prove that he was a good man.
I was thinking about you, actually, Rachel. ”
“About me?” Rachel’s voice deepened with emotion.
“I thought that when I saw you next, I would be able to tell you that you had been wrong.” Jennifer choked on a laugh.
“I thought I would make you eat your words, and that you’d regret having ever accused Ted of anything.
I would tell you that I had known all along you were only jealous of me, and you would have to admit it. ”
Rachel’s eyes squeezed shut. Adam could only imagine the guilt. She must be thinking that whatever had come next was her fault.
It isn’t, he wanted to tell her. It isn’t your fault at all. You did nothing wrong.
She opened her eyes. “So you went into his office?”
“I was looking through his desk and I found…letters,” Jennifer said softly. “Letters from my father to Ted. About me.”
“What did they say?” Rachel’s grip on Jennifer’s hand never faltered.
“They were making arrangements for my marriage to Ted,” Jennifer said, her eyes filling with fresh tears.
“But…Rachel, it was as if they were talking about livestock. The things they said about me…it was vile. They spoke about how many children I would be likely to have because of my age. They spoke about how soon I might be able to have the first one. My own father wrote, I know she isn’t very pretty, but she’s young and healthy.
My father! He sees me as nothing more valuable than a horse or a cow.
Just a piece of property for him to sell off to the highest bidder. ”
She collapsed into a flood of tears, hands pressed to her face.
Rachel slid closer still to Jennifer and wrapped her arms around her. Jennifer rested her head on Rachel’s shoulder.
“It’s all right,” Rachel murmured. “You don’t have to marry him, you know, no matter what your father might have agreed to. And you don’t need to remain in your father’s house either. You can walk away from all of it. It’s going to be fine now.”
“But what happened?” Adam spoke up. Perhaps it had been Rachel’s intention to skip over the ending of this story, to save Jennifer from reliving something that was obviously painful.
But that wasn’t a good idea, in Adam’s opinion.
They needed to know what had happened so they could make a plan for the future.
He had a pretty good idea about who was to blame for those bruises.
She spoke through her hands. “It was Ted,” she said, her voice muffled. “He came back and found me in his office. He snatched the papers out of my hands. He screamed at me—I’ve never seen him like that before. It was terrifying. And then…”
“He hit you?” Rachel breathed, horror in her voice.
Jennifer nodded slowly. “Twice. And I fell. I got up and ran. I don’t know if that was right.
Maybe I should have stayed. Maybe I should have told him I was sorry.
I was in the wrong. I was the one in his office.
” Her voice had grown faster now, more high-pitched.
“Of course he was angry. I knew he would be angry. I should have told him that I was sorry. I should have tried to make things right.”
“No,” Rachel said sharply. “He hit you, Jennifer. You can’t apologize to him for that.
He was the one in the wrong. Even if he was angry with you, there is no amount of anger that makes it all right for a man to strike a woman.
There is nothing you could have done that would make you deserving of that. ”
“That’s right,” Adam said gravely. “Any decent man would have known better. Would have done better. No good man will ever raise a hand to you, Jennifer, and you are right to run from any man who ever does.”
Rachel touched Jennifer’s cheek gently, fingertips feather-light against her bruise. “I’m proud of you,” she whispered. “I’m proud of you for running.”
“But I’ve ruined my whole future,” Jennifer said, her voice cracking.
“What am I going to do now? My father may have spoken of me in a way I didn’t like, but he was making an arrangement for me.
Now that’s gone. And who will want to marry me when Ted tells everyone in town his version of events?
I’ll be on my own for the rest of my life. ”
“You won’t,” Rachel assured her. She got to her feet.
“You can manage this, Jennifer. I promise you that you will make it through this, even if you can’t see the way yet.
” She rested a hand on her sister’s shoulder.
“At times like these, we need to remember to put our trust in God. We may not be able to see what He intends, but I feel sure He wouldn’t have wanted you to be stuck with a man who would hurt you.
God led you to those letters knowing that they would make you run. God wanted you to leave Ted behind.”
“Why did God want me to be with Ted in the first place?” Jennifer asked, looking up at Rachel with wide eyes.
She really thought that Rachel would be able to give her the answer.
Adam could tell. Not for the first time, he wondered how—in the face of such horrible things—anyone was able to cling to the kind of faith Rachel had.
‘I don’t know the answer to that,” Rachel admitted as Jennifer got to her feet. “We’ll have to wait and see whether God shows us more in time. But I’ll bet He will. Until then, we just have to trust.”
“I don’t know what to do,” Jennifer admitted.
“I don’t feel as if I can go back home, knowing what I know.
How will I face my father? I’ll have to tell him things with Ted are over.
He’ll know as soon as he so much as looks at me that something went wrong.
” She sighed and waved a hand in the general direction of her injured face.
“But what if he tries to tell me that I should go back to Ted?”
“Would he do that?” The thought of it made Adam’s stomach turn. How could any man want to put his daughter in harm’s way like that? But then, he had to concede, he had known that Nathan Foster was not the kind of person to care for those in his life. He could not claim that it came as any surprise.
Jennifer shivered a little. Rachel put an arm around her shoulders.
“He really wants to see me married,” she explained quietly. “It’s the most important thing, as far as he is concerned. I have no doubt he would go to whatever extremes he thought were necessary to make it happen.”
“Then we won’t send you home,” Adam said firmly.
A shock went through him at what he had so readily offered, but then Rachel looked at him. Her eyes were wide and shining with gratitude.
“You’ll stay here with us,” he said again, resolute. “Until we come up with another plan, this is your home.”