Chapter 5
Chapter Five
HANNAH
Jack’s email was shorter than I’d imagined and more humorous, but he was a busy man, so I understood. I also didn’t expect Chloe to call again this morning and offer free cancer treatment for my mother! That was taking it way too far. Gifts this big made me feel uncomfortable. But I didn’t want to deny my mother the best care the world had to offer.
Living apart from me in Seattle for six months wasn’t an option; neither was my leaving the restaurant and going to live with her in Seattle. So we’d gone for the second offer of having a Seattle cancer specialist fly out and consult with my mother’s local cancer team.
Still, this all felt like too much for a man I’d met for all of ten minutes, and I felt like I had to thank Jack properly. He barely knew me, yet he’d waltzed in here and started to grant wishes like a genie. It was…unnerving in a way, but I was grateful.
I wanted to know his motivation for such a thing. Sure, he was a billionaire, but I didn’t see Jeff Bezos going around paying for people’s cancer treatments. Maybe he did, though, and you just didn’t read about that stuff.
I typed the number from his card into my phone and hit the call icon. He was a busy guy, and I’d probably get his voicemail, but…
“Jack Marrow,” he answered on the first ring, and my eyes went wide.
“Jack, it’s Hannah with two N’s,” I said, and then I felt stupid. Why had I said my name like that? “Coincidently, have you ever met a Hannah with one N?” I added.
“I have not. I was hoping you would be the first.” I could hear the smile in his voice.
I relaxed at his friendly banter. “Soo…I got your kind offer to help with my mom’s cancer treatment.”
“Is she okay?” The concern that laced through his voice made my heart melt a little. He didn’t even know her, and he seemed to care about her.
“She is…but you’ve already bought me a restaurant. I think you’ve done enough.”
“It will never be enough,” he muttered under his breath.
I frowned. “What do you mean?”
He cleared his throat. “Listen, Hannah, I know that for most people it’s…weird to just go around paying off single mothers’ mortgages, or funding soup kitchens, or buying beautiful women who just got fired restaurants, but it’s what I do.”
He thought I was beautiful? I felt a blush creep up my cheeks.
“Wait, you paid off a single mother’s mortgage?” I asked. That was incredibly sweet.
“Yes. And it’s no big deal. Just take the help for your mom and live a happy life.”
“Jack,” I whispered into the phone as my throat tightened with emotion. “It’s not that easy. You can’t just go around blessing people and call it no big deal. I have to be able to repay you somehow. What do you need?”
I wasn’t sure I had anything a billionaire needed, but I could try.
He was silent so long I thought he’d hung up.
“Jack? Are you still there?”
“I…I haven’t had someone ask me that in a long time.” His voice was hollow, and in that moment, I knew that Jack had gone through some tragedy. There was something decidedly sad about him.
“Jack, what do you need?” I asked again.
“You’re Christian, right?”
It was an odd question, a direct one, and I wondered if putting the Bible verse in the email to him had been too much. Still, I wasn’t ashamed of my beliefs.
“I am.”
“Pray for my soul, Hannah. And be happy. That’s what I need.”
Then he hung up, and tears ran in slow rivulets down my cheeks.
“Pray for my soul.”
Oh, God, what has he been through ? I thought. What would make him say that?
Right then and there, I dropped to my knees in my office. I didn’t want to be one of those Christians who said they would pray for someone and didn’t. Or one that did a two-second prayer without much thought.
No.
For Jack, I would pray as long as it took, with a broken heart, until God heard my plea. Because if a sweet and generous person like Jack wanted me to pray for his soul, it meant he had done something really bad.