Chapter 52
Jack
My phone glows in my hand.
Me: WHERE R U???
Me: ur dad won’t let me see u
Me: MORGAN REPLY OR ILL LOSE MY FUCKING MIND
dumb girl: I’m OK! Srry was caught up with parents. Meet me at the church.
Not long after receiving that text, I fly through the door. Morgan waits in the expansive, marble-covered lobby.
I don’t have words. I just take her in my arms.
“You stupid girl,” I scold, but kiss her temples. Once, twice. Breathing her in before pulling back. “Those things I said about your dad... your face. What happened?”
She cups her cheek, her expression ashamed.
“My mother slapped me.”
“She what?”
“I know. The important thing is, I didn’t mean to worry you. I’m okay now,” she reassures, her voice a mix of remorse and compassion. “I hit my head. I went to the hospital, but my parents brought me home.”
I step back, studying her. “What? I didn’t know you were in the hospital. Your parents—”
“I know,” she murmurs. “I need to show you something. Inside.”
I swallow hard, but begrudgingly follow. She pushes open a door to the big auditorium. We stroll down the walkway in silence. I take in the massive space. It’s even bigger than it looks on television. It’s a production, not a church.
We climb the steps on the stage. The spotlights beam down, blindingly white.
“If you plan on using this place to convert me, it won’t work.”
“No,” she replies, her smile soft and sincere. “I was trying to convert you, though.”
My brow lifts, surprised she admitted what I already knew.
Still, hearing her say it here — on this stage, under these lights — hits differently.
I ease the tension.
“Church girl uses such sinful tactics.”
She shrugs, neither proud nor ashamed.
“Jack, I wanted to bring you here to apologize in a place I feel closest to God. A church. For as long as I’ve known, a house of worship has been my sanctuary. I find comfort and strength here, and I need those things right now.”
I smirk. “Okay. Go on.”
After taking a deep breath, she continues.
“You were right. I live in la-la land too often. I let my parents control me, and I blamed you for not committing the way I need you to.”
“It was my fault, too.”
She holds up her index finger. “Hold on. I have more. I’m sorry for not accepting and respecting your beliefs. Or lack of beliefs, I should say.”
Damn. Who is this woman...
“And I am sorry for not doing the right thing and announcing the end of my engagement to Blake. I released a statement half an hour ago.”
step back and press a hand to my chest, feeling my own heartbeat, reaching for something physical to prove this is not a dream.
Finally.
Blake is not impeding our future. He was the strangest rival. There was no love between him and Morgan, yet he was a barrier between us that Morgan wouldn’t let go.
He wasn’t the problem. Morgan’s inability to step out from the institution he represented was.
It brings solace that she ended things with him.
“You did it?” I say, shocked.
“Mm-hm.” She takes my hands in hers. “I want to marry you and build a family, but on your timeline. When you’re ready.
” She winces and adds, “Hopefully a fast timeline... but, uh, if you don’t want to marry, that’s fine too.
I won’t expect you to convert either. Ever. I love you just the way you are.”
Don’t want to marry. What a laugh. This girl has no idea how badly I want to make her mine so the whole damn world knows it. I want to be the church she turns to. I want to be the one she trusts above all others, especially her parents.
But she said something bigger. Something that I am still trying to process.
She loves me just the way I am.
“Holy sh—”
She stops me once more, giving me a sly smile. “We’re in a church. No swearing allowed.”
I laugh and nod, but I cannot believe she is saying these things. “You want to be with an atheist? Openly?”
“I wish I could share every part of my faith with you. Maybe I always will. Wishing for that is not the same as requiring you to become someone else for me to love you.” Then, she smiles widely and taps my nose.
“But I believe there is a heaven, and that you’ll be by my side whether you like it or not. ”
“Okay, church girl,” I reply, and kiss the top of her hand. “So I don’t have to go to church.”
“Nope, but I would love for you to attend on holidays. Not to watch me preach. I’ll sit with you.”
“Deal.”
“Really?”
“Yes.”
“That’s good.” She beams. “Also, I want to help out financially. Maybe not a chef, but an extra hand at the center, a little remodeling around the house. I’m still a woman who likes pretty things.”
I chuckle and easily agree. Honestly, I’m still stunned she accepts me as a nonbeliever.
“Morgan, I want to say sorry, too. It wasn’t my place to spill your dad’s secrets like that.”
“What? That he’s gay?”
I squint. I’m nearly certain I didn’t specify it was a guy blowing her dad.
She reads my mind.
“I walked in on him in the break room last night... with Blake.”
“Come again?”
“Yeah. It was enough to make me pass out and hit my head on the floor.”
“Oh, Morgan, baby, I’m sorry.” I grimace, feeling her pain. No daughter should find out that way. How twisted. Her dad and her ex. Damn.
“I’m glad you told me,” she murmurs. “I pray my dad lives a more authentic life. For him and my mother’s sake. It’s overdue.”
Whoa.
I’ve heard and seen everything now. Church girl wants an atheist, accepts her father’s secrets, and—
“I’m starting my own church,” she adds.
“Huh?”
She holds out her arms, wide apart. “If my father comes clean, this cathedral — our empire — won’t survive. It’ll be sold to someone who fits the mold. That’s fine, but I’d like to run a smaller one. You okay with that?”
I place my hand over my heart, touched she would be satisfied with something less than grand. It’s what my mother would do, yet it feels different. She’s sacrificing a kingdom for a barn.
I stroke my jaw, musing. “I never want to stop you from doing what you love, but I am sure if you want something this big again, you’ll find a way.”
“Honestly, I don’t know everything I want, except that I want to figure it out with you.”
“I want that, too,” I whisper.
I turn, taking in the vastness of the space around us. The giant ceiling, opulent tapestries, beautiful mosaic windows. My gaze lands on the cross. It’s three stories tall. A symbol of the ultimate sacrifice that Morgan wears so comfortably over her chest.
Since she moved into my house, I’ve been stricken with fear. She offered permanence when I only knew fragility and temporary moments of joy. I ran from it. Hell, my body rejected it before my mind. But not now.
I get lost in those brilliant hazel eyes. My body obeys me for once as I lower myself onto one knee.
My lips follow, speaking as they once did when the spirit of my convictions powered my words so effortlessly — so damn fearlessly.
“Baby, I love you.”
It’s easy to say.
“I love you in a way that terrifies me, because if I lose you, I won’t recover.
” I take her hand and stroke my thumb over the empty space where a ring should sit.
“I don’t have anything to give you except myself.
I’ll buy you a ring, but it won’t be big enough, and somehow, I know you’ll cherish it. ”
She covers her mouth and tears well in her pretty eyes.
“But I’ll give you something now that you’ll treasure more.” I bite my bottom lip and squeeze my eyes shut for a moment, coaching myself, hoping I’m not struck by lightning after I say the words. When my eyes reopen, I look into hers and finish.
“If a woman as incredible as you can love a nonbeliever like me, there must be a God. Or at least, something bigger than me.”
“What?” Her voice cracks.
I look at the ceiling, but it doesn’t crash down. I expected it to. I’ve been an atheist for some time, and it brings me peace as much as when I was a believer. There is something calming about knowing my time has a beginning and an end.
There are also some things that aren’t so easy to explain. Morgan is one of them.
I don’t know all the answers. I don’t pretend to. But I know if she can walk away from her controlling parents, I can try too.
“I’ll pray at night with you, and I’ll mean it the best I can.”
“Oh, Jack!” she gushes and drops to her knees. She clutches my jaw and kisses me with hurried pecks.
I chuckle and shake my head. “Calm down, church girl. I’m not gonna preach. I’ll just believe enough to know maybe God, or whatever is out there, doesn’t hate me.”
Her toothy grin doesn’t falter. “Wait! Did you ask me to marry you yet?”
“Fuck,” I say, realizing I didn’t. “Sorry, I swore. Yeah. That was the whole point.” I fill my lungs, my heartbeat steady and sure. “Morgan Leigh Montgomery, will you be my wife?”
“Oh, yes! Very much so.”
She throws herself into me, laughing and crying at once, and I hold her there under all that stained glass and light, memorizing the exact sound of her saying yes.
For one breath, it feels like the whole world steadies. We pull back and stare into each other’s eyes. It feels like, for the first time, nothing is between us. We kiss deep and passionately, the moment enshrined under the enormity of faith.
When our lips part, I smile warmly.
“I come with a Tommy. Hope that’s alright.”
“Yes!” she says without skipping a beat, then her grin turns impish.
“What?” I murmur.
Her palms press together in prayer. “Oh, I come with someone too. It’s nothing, really.” She winces. “Just a little thing.”
I squint, confused.
“What do you mean?” I say.
“Um, Tybee Island? I’m pregnant.”
I suck in a sharp breath. My heart doesn’t pound. It stalls.
“You are pregnant?” My voice cracks, my throat so tight I have to clear it. “For real?”
“Yes.”
It is the second yes that I etch into my memory forever.
I look up.
The roof doesn’t fall in. The whole world does. With me and her in it. I snatch her, flattening her cheek against my chest, my palm pressing her head close.
“Thank you, God,” I say.