Read Online The Homecoming: Countdown to Armageddon: Book 5 by Darrell Maloney - Free Book Online Page A

able to see that she was only a part. That there was much more to me than the time Joyce and I spent together. That I was still living, still breathing, and that I needed to finish my mourning and move on.
         “I know your heart still belongs to Johnny and probably always will. But if I didn’t at least tell you how I felt, I’d spend the rest of my life wishing I had. Wondering what might have been. Today I told Joyce that she’d always have a special place in my heart. But that I was strong enough to move on down the road now, to start living again.”
         “Did she answer you?”
         “Actually, she did. She told me she understood. And that I waited much too long. She said all she ever wanted was for me to be happy. And that a mourning man cannot find happiness as long as he’s grieving. She said that life is for the living. And she told me to run after you. That you were too wonderful a woman not to grab hold of. That if I didn’t grab you somebody else would. And that I’d spend the rest of my life wanting someone else’s wife. And that I owed it to myself not to let that happen.
         “So there it is. I’ve bared my soul to you. If you want to tell me you’ve got no feelings for me, that you could never have any feelings for me, then I’ll go away and give you your space. But if there’s even a small chance you could see some good in me, I’d like the chance to pursue it. I’d like the chance to take you out, and spend time with you, and see if I could make you love me. If only you’ll give me a chance to try.”
         He finally stopped talking and looked at her. In her deep blue eyes he saw promise, and something else, too. Longing, perhaps. Maybe not. He wasn’t sure what it was. So he decided to stop begging for her heart and listen.
         The ball was in her court now. He braced himself and awaited his fate.
         She struggled, but couldn’t find the right words.
         So she finally blurted out the best words she could muster.
         “You silly man. I’ve loved you from the very start. I just never let you see it, because you belonged to another.”
         He smiled and took both her hands. As she rose from the chair he held her once again and meekly asked, “So this means there can be an ‘us?’”
         “Yes. There is very much an ‘us.’”
         Neither of them moved for several minutes. They stood there, in the center of the break room, simply holding each other. The nurses in the front of the window had to turn away, and others clamored for their spots.
         And for one brief moment all the misery contained within those hospital walls, all the pain, all the suffering, was replaced by something else.
         Hope, promise. And love.
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    -12-
     
         “But wait. You said you had more to talk about. What else do we have to discuss?”
         Scott’s face suddenly lost much of its luster. He was brought back to his other task at hand.
         The one more difficult.
         “I need your help to do something that’s going to be very tough.”
         Becky sensed this was serious. She stood a step back from him and lifted his chin in her hand.
         “What is it? What can I do?”
         “Honey, you’re a nurse. And lately you’ve been more like a doctor without the degree. I know you’ve had to deliver some very bad news to your patients and to their loved ones.”
         “Yes. Go on…”
         “I’ve never been very good at sharing bad news. I freeze up. I stumble over my words. I say the wrong things. I haven’t done it often enough to be good at it.
         “Sure, there have been times lately when people have asked me to go into a loved one’s house to see if they’ve survived, and I’ve had to go back and tell them they’re lying inside, dead. So I have experience. I just don’t seem