Love Inspired Suspense April 2021--Box Set 2 of 2 Laura Scott (speed reading book .txt) 📖

“No, I’m not.”

He tilted his head.

“The Lord doesn’t just help me. He carries me through it, because He knows that I’m not strong enough to do it on my own.”

“He carries you?”

“He holds me in His arms and gives me of His strength until He knows I can stand on my own.”

“Your faith never wavers, does it?”

“Are you kidding? My faith wavered plenty when my fiancé died. But then I realized that the Lord understands my weaknesses and forgives me. He knows the end from the beginning. I can’t know that, but I do know that He is always there, ready to catch me when I fall.” Her lips curved in a tiny smile. “Which is plenty.”

She sat, rested her hands in her lap.

“You sure you want to hear this?” The doubtful look he sent her way had her hackles rising once more.

“I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t.” She made no effort to keep the tartness out of her voice.

“I was a believer when I was a child. My mother had the whole family going to church every Sunday. We did the whole thing—Sunday school, Bible study on Thursday evenings, bazaars to raise money for a new roof for the church, to help a family who’d lost everything in a fire. It never occurred to me to not believe.”

“And then the accident happened,” she finished for him.

“Yeah. That changed everything. I started questioning God, asking why He let five innocent kids die because of a stupid mistake.”

“Did you get an answer?”

“Not that I could tell. All I got were more questions. Finally, I decided that God either didn’t care about His children or that He didn’t exist at all.” The despair in his voice reached down and squeezed her heart so painfully that she nearly cried out.

“Sometimes the Lord answers in ways that we don’t immediately recognize.” Even as she said the words, she called herself a hypocrite. Hadn’t she asked the same questions when first Brett and then Ethan had died? Hadn’t she doubted the Lord and His love for His children, especially for herself?

Once the shock had passed and grief had settled in, she’d done some weighty soul-searching. Railing against the senseless accident that had caused Brett’s death and the ATF sting that had taken Ethan from her had achieved nothing. Rather than dwell on her anger, she had looked for and found a true testimony of the Savior—not the one of her childhood, but one she’d won through tears and self-examination.

Liam held up his hands as though to ward off any more words. “You’re pretty remarkable, and I admire you for your belief. I just don’t happen to share it. Not anymore.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to go on like that.”

“You don’t have to apologize for your beliefs. They’re refreshing.”

“Some people would call them naive.”

He shook his head. “No. You believe out of conviction. That’s not naive. That’s strong. Incredibly strong.”

“If we’re not careful, we’re going to have a mutual admiration society going on before long.”

He gave her a steady look. “I can think of worse things.”

Warmth suffused her, and she pulled back. Not physically, but emotionally. Her feelings were getting messy. Messy wasn’t good. Messy wasn’t good at all. Especially when she found herself growing more and more attracted to Liam.

An attraction she couldn’t afford. She’d do well to remember that. Her schoolgirl crush on Liam was long over. And then there was the undeniable factor that the feelings she was experiencing were likely brought on by danger-fueled adrenaline, an emotional response that couldn’t be trusted. When the case was over, the attraction would fade, and she and Liam would go their separate ways.

Which would be for the best.

She wondered why she was having such a difficult time convincing herself of it.

Paige’s testimony both humbled and annoyed Liam. He couldn’t share it, nor could he understand it. She was probably the smartest person he’d ever met, but she had the simple faith of a child. The two should have been a dichotomy, yet, in Paige, they fit together in perfect harmony.

The problem was that he didn’t want to hear about the Lord’s goodness. At one time, he would have been ashamed to admit that, but he couldn’t reconcile a loving God with what he’d witnessed over the years.

“You’re the strongest person I know.” That was the absolute truth. He’d known plenty of heroes in his time in Delta, but Paige topped them all with her quiet belief in the Lord.

“No. I’m probably one of the weakest. But I keep going because I know I’m never alone. God is always with me.”

Liam desperately wanted that belief for himself. He wanted to be able to pass it on to Jonah. But how could he? How could he, with any honesty, say he believed in God’s goodness when he had seen so much, too much, of the world’s ugliness?

It was a sore point between him and his parents. They held to their faith with a passionate intensity that he admired but didn’t understand.

“You can have that faith for yourself. All you have to do is ask.” Paige shook her head at his silence. “It’s all right. I can’t make you believe any more than you can make me not believe.”

She left sometime after midnight. Her belief remained unshaken, while his disbelief had taken some hard knocks. Knowing he wouldn’t be able to sleep, he looked through the detritus of his home, trying to decide if any of the pictures could be salvaged. Probably not.

Fortunately, he had backups of the photos on his computer, but that didn’t help with Jonah’s artwork. Those drawings couldn’t be replaced. Jonah’s pride in each piece had been palpable. Once again, Liam wondered how to explain to a five-year-old child that someone had destroyed his work.

Somewhere after four, he drifted to sleep, only to be woken by a phone call a few hours later. “Mr. McKenzie. This is Officer Mackie from last night. The lab put a rush on the