Chapter 14
Fourteen
Noah struggled not to growl at Liam, who sat in the stiff hospital chair whistling.
Whistling.
As if Noah’s world hadn’t just imploded. As if the woman he loved hadn’t walked out two days ago and taken his future with her.
It seemed that no matter what he did, he was destined to end up alone. Mary. Penelope. Now Meg. Everyone he loved either died or left.
Noah picked up the pen—a cheap ballpoint with the hospital logo—and scrawled his signature on the last of his discharge papers. The motion pulled at his stitches and made him wince. He held the papers out for the nurse.
The nurse raised her eyebrows but took the clipboard without comment. Professional smile firmly in place.
Maybe his face showed more of his attitude than he’d intended. The barely contained frustration. The grief he couldn’t hide.
He softened his features and waited as the woman offered the standard discharge instructions that Noah barely heard. Something about taking it easy, follow-up appointments, watching for signs of infection.
He nodded at the appropriate times, but his mind was elsewhere.
On Meg.
Always on Meg.
The one who should be doing his follow-up appointments. Who should be checking his stitches, monitoring his recovery, scolding him when he pushed too hard. But no, he’d get the new hire. Some doctor he’d never met from Colorado.
A sour taste filled his mouth.
The way she’d looked at him two days ago when she’d told him she was leaving still burned in his memory. The way she’d walked out of this room and apparently out of his life without looking back.
“Thanks,” he muttered when the nurse finished, already pushing himself up from the bed. His muscles protested. Everything stiff and sore.
His side screamed—a sharp reminder of everything that had happened, Ryan’s knife finding home below his ribs—but he ignored it.
Physical pain he could handle. He’d handled worse. Broken bones. Torn ligaments. The burn of climbing thousands of vertical feet.
It was the ache in his chest that was killing him. The one that had nothing to do with surgery and everything to do with loss.
The nurse left, rubber soles squeaking softly on linoleum. The door clicked shut behind her.
“Ready to bust out of this place?” Liam stood and grabbed the small bag of Noah’s belongings from next to the chair. Canvas duffel. Wrinkled clothes inside that someone had brought from his cabin.
“I can carry my own bag.” Noah’s tone was gruffer than he intended.
“Were you not listening to the woman? She just said nothing over ten pounds.”
Caught.
Noah shrugged—a careful movement that didn’t pull too much—and pulled on his jacket. He grimaced when the motion tugged at his stitches anyway.
Liam eyed him with a calculated expression. That particular look that said he was reading between the lines. “You want to talk about it?”
“Nope.”
“You want to talk about Meg?”
Noah’s jaw clenched. “Definitely not.”
He brushed past Liam into the hallway—antiseptic smell, fluorescent lights, the soft beeping of monitors from other rooms—but his friend fell into step beside him.
They made it to the elevator before Liam spoke again.
“So you’re just going to let her go?”
Noah jabbed the down button harder than necessary. “She made her choice.”
“Did she? Or did she make a decision out of fear and you’re too stubborn to fight for her?”
The elevator doors opened with a soft ding, and Noah stepped inside. Liam right behind him.
“She doesn’t want me, Liam. She made that pretty clear.”
“That’s baloney and you know it.” Liam hit the button for the ground floor. “That woman is in love with you. Trust me.”
“You’re wrong.”
Noah’s chest tightened. He stared at the decreasing floor numbers—3, 2—willing the elevator to move faster. To get him out of this building. Away from the room where she’d ended things.
“She’s leaving.”
“Because she’s scared.” Liam’s voice softened. “Same reason I left Nimue in the hospital last month.”
That got Noah’s attention.
He turned to look at his friend, who was studying the elevator floor like it held the secrets of the universe.
“Yeah, I didn’t tell you guys that part,” Liam continued quietly.
“The doctor came out and told us that Nimue’s heart had stopped during surgery but that she made it through.
All I could think of was how close I’d come to losing her.
I panicked. I went to meet my brothers at the airport, but I had bought a cheap ticket to get through security, and you have no idea how tempted I was to just get on that flight and leave it all behind.
The fear, the pain, the realization that I could love her and lose her. ”
“Yeah, well, you didn’t leave. That is the difference.”
The elevator dinged—floor G illuminated—doors sliding open to the lobby, but neither of them moved.
“Only because of my brothers.” A small smile tugged at Liam’s mouth.
“They showed up, called me on my garbage, and reminded me that Nimue was the best thing that had ever happened to me. They also reminded me that I could in fact lose Nimue someday. That love doesn’t come with guarantees.
But no matter what I faced, the Lord would be there with me. Walking me through it.”
Noah stepped out into the lobby—polished floors, potted plants, people waiting in chairs—Liam beside him.
But his steps faltered.
His prayer in the cave came back, crystal clear. A moment of peace and clarity. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
Everything seemed like it was coming together. Like for the first time in a long time he could see how the Lord had been carrying him through his pain, his grief. Through three years of loss.
The Lord had brought him to the canyon to heal. To find refuge in the vast quiet spaces.
The Lord had brought Meg into his life to love him again. To teach him he could open his heart without it destroying him.
The Lord had seen him through the darkest moments. The cave. Ryan. The knife in his side. The explosions that should have buried them all.
But what now?
He wanted to be there for Meg, but how could he convince her of that? How could he make her see what he saw—that she wasn’t broken. And what she saw as broken wouldn’t keep him from loving her.
“Any chance your brothers want to go talk to Meg?”
“Probably not the answer.” Liam released a chuckle as he pushed through the doors into the late-afternoon sunlight. “Did she say why she is leaving?”
Noah squinted against the brightness, his side aching with each step toward Liam’s truck.
“I think she felt like it was the ultimate failure when she froze in that cave. The proof she’s always feared—that she’s not good enough.
I think she can’t forgive herself, so she’s running.
She thinks running will stop the anxiety. And it might, for a while.”
Until it caught up again. Until the pattern repeated. Until fear found her in Pennsylvania the way it had found her here.
“So she’s convinced herself she’s too broken. And you’re going to just let her keep believing that?”
“Of course not. I tried to tell her. But she won’t listen.” Frustration edged his voice. Because what could he do if she wouldn’t hear him?
“So tell her again.” Liam clapped him on the shoulder—careful of his injury but firm enough to make a point.
“Show up, Noah. Fight for her. Don’t let her walk away believing she’s not worth fighting for.
That her brokenness disqualifies her from the Lord’s plan.
From you. But tell her soon because she’s leaving tomorrow. ”
Noah’s head snapped toward his friend. “Tomorrow? She was supposed to stay through the month.”
“She hasn’t been the same since the cave, and Virgil thought she could benefit from having some time to get settled before she starts.”
Noah looked at his friend, then toward the parking lot—rows of cars glinting in the sun—then back at Liam.
“She’s made up her mind.”
“Then change it. Speak truth to her. Not just your truth, but the Lord’s truth.
Because even more important than the fact that you love her is the fact that the Lord loves her and still has great plans for her.
Even with all our failure, He wants to use us.
Wants to work through us. Broken pieces and all. ”
Liam was right.
As much as he wanted Meg to stay, as much as he wanted her to let him love her—and he wanted those things desperately—even more than that, he wanted her to believe her story wasn’t over. Believe she was usable by the Lord. Valuable. Worthy. That she didn’t have to keep running from herself.
“I need to find her.” He couldn’t hide the desperation in his tone.
A grin spread across Liam’s face. “That’s what I’m talking about. Where to first?”
“Her cabin. If she’s not there, the clinic. If she’s not there—” Noah pulled open the passenger door of Liam’s truck. “I’ll search the whole canyon if I have to.”
Every trail. Every viewpoint. Every place she might be hiding.
“Now that’s the Noah I know.”
Liam climbed into the driver’s seat of his ’74 Bronco and started the engine. That distinctive rumble.
Noah settled into the seat and ignored the pull of his stitches. His mind was already racing ahead.
What would he say?
How could he make her understand that she didn’t have to be perfect, didn’t have to have it all figured out? That he loved her—that the Lord loved her—exactly as she was?
Panic attacks, fear, guilt, and all the broken bits. The nightmares. The freezing. The way she fell apart sometimes. All of it.
The Lord hadn’t left her alone in that cave, and Noah wasn’t going to leave her alone now. Not when she needed him most. Not when she was running scared.
He’d spent three years running from life, from connection, from the possibility of loss. He understood the impulse. Understood the fear that made you push away everything good before it could be taken.
But he also understood now that running didn’t fix anything and it definitely didn’t save you from pain.
It just guaranteed you’d face it alone.
And he wasn’t letting Meg face this alone. Not if he could help it.