The firelight flickered across her face. She still wasn’t looking at him.
“She died when she was twenty-two. Three months before she would have graduated.”
Oh wow. “Jayden?—”
“She had this Bible.” Her voice softened. “Little leather-bound thing she’d had since confirmation. All marked up with her notes, her prayers, her questions. She read it every day, even at the end. Even when she was too weak to hold it and I had to hold it for her.”
She finally looked at him, and her eyes were bright with tears she was fighting not to let fall.
“When she died, I got it. The Bible. It’s the last piece of her I have.” A bitter half smile. “I don’t really believe anymore. Not like she did. But I keep it with me everywhere I go. Hold it sometimes. Read her notes.”
His chest ached. “And it’s in the bag.”
“I keep it in my carry-on. Always.” She shook her head. “I never thought I’d have to gate check it and it would get lost somewhere over the Pacific. Stupid. It was so stupid.”
“I get it.”
“It was the one thing I should have kept with me.” Her voice cracked slightly. “It’s all I have of her. My parents—they never recovered. All their hopes, their dreams, everything they’d invested in the future—it all went with her. And I was just the other daughter. The one who was still there.” That bitter smile again. “Lucky me.”
Aw. Dakota couldn’t stop himself from reaching across the table. He took her hand. She let him.
And just like that, the memory of kissing her last night swept over him. Her sweet surrender to his touch, the way she’d seemed just as willing, just as hopeful . . .
Yeah, he was in. All in. “You’re not ‘just’ anything,” he said quietly.
“You don’t know that.”
“I do know that.”
She looked at their joined hands. Swallowed.
“You said you lost your faith,” Dakota said. “I get that. I did too.”
Her mouth tightened.
“I had faith when I was young,” he said. “When my family was whole, before Dad died.”
“How did he die?”
“Car accident. Was driving home late at night from Aberdeen. A semi drifted into his lane. Head-on crash. Gone, just like that.”
“Oh, Dakota.”
He lifted a shoulder. “Yeah. It was . . . well, it destroyed us. We moved in with my Mom’s dad. My older sister got lost. Drugs, bad choices, wrong people. She disappeared into that life. My mom and younger sister disappeared into church.”
Jayden’s hand tightened on his.
“It all felt so . . . chaotic. Mom was grieving hard, and Grandpa was trying to hold us all together. I needed to control something, you know? So I started rodeoing. Got very good at roping, and even bronc riding. Felt like something chaotic that I could wrestle into control.” He shook his head. “Faith was too . . . I dunno. I guess I felt betrayed. I believed in God, but I didn’t trust Him to do things my way, you know?” He gave her a wry smile. “That’s probably the problem, right? God never does it our way.”
She sighed. “Skylar always said that faith means trusting what you don’t know,” Jayden said softly. “And believing that it’ll work out anyway.”
“Yeah.” He met her eyes. “And I’m not good at not knowing. Or believing in the happy ending.” He looked away. “Mom got remarried a couple years ago. Good guy, local cowboy. My kid sister thinks he’s fantastic.”
“And your older sister?”
“Still lost. I haven’t heard from her in years.”
“I’m sorry.”
