If I'd Never Known Your Love by Georgia Bockoven Read Free Book Online

without you."
    She pushed her plate away, hoping Harold hadn't noticed how little she'd eaten. She had trouble getting food past the constant lump of fear in her throat. When she did, she invariably wound up sick to her stomach.
    "I thought about it," she said. Every minute of every day. "This is beyond hard on the kids." She was haunted by the thought her children could wind up with lifelong scars from what they might someday perceive as neglect. "I hear it in their voices every night." Along with the tears that shredded her aching heart. "But I can't leave until we hear something." No matter how she hurt for her children, they were with people who loved and cared for them. Evan had no one.
    "What about bringing them here? Don't they get a week off school at Thanksgiving?"
    She shook her head emphatically. "I don't want them anywhere near this place. Even the idea terrifies me."
    "I knew it was a stupid suggestion the second I made it." He flagged the waiter and gave him his credit card. "I'm afraid I'm not doing very well with this whole business, Julia. I've never felt this helpless. Or this useless. I function best when I have something to do."
    "Me, too, Harold." She reached across the table to touch his hand. "It would help us both if you went home for a couple of days."
    "What would you do here alone?"
    "I'd double up on my Spanish lessons. And Paul's wife, Luanne, has offered to show me around the city. She's convinced I'll find solace visiting the colonial churches. She said there were a couple of pre-Colombian gold exhibits I might like, too." Julia had politely nodded and kept her mouth shut when hearing of all the delights in Bogota.
    How anyone could think she'd be interested in playing tourist while waiting to hear whether her husband was alive or dead was beyond her. But then, as she'd been told over and over again, kidnapping was a way of life here. You either found a way to live with it or it destroyed you.
    "You're not fooling me, you know."
    She shrugged and released his hand. "It was worth a try."
    "Why is it so important to you that I leave?"
    "It's not that I want you to leave, Harold. It's that I want to stop feeling guilty about keeping you here."
    "Ah, I should have guessed." He took his credit card from the waiter and signed the receipt. "I don't agree with you, but I do understand what you're saying. I promise I'll consider it."
    Harold flew out the same day that Julia's father flew in. Before he left, he saw her settled into an apartment, a place she could feel more rooted and cook an occasional meal for herself. It also had an extra bedroom for her father. When she met Jim at the airport, she dropped all pretense that she wasn't ecstatic to see him.
    "Any news?" he asked on the taxi ride back to the hotel.
    "I can count to a hundred in Spanish."
    "You're going to have to learn to count a lot higher than that," Clyde said.
    The implication of his words hung heavily between them for several seconds. Then they looked at each other, and in a moment of insanity born out of exhaustion, they started laughing.
    Seconds later Julia's desperate laughter dissolved into tears. She moved into her father's outstretched arms. 'I’m so glad you're here, Daddy," she sobbed into his shoulder. "Thank you for not listening to me."
    He kissed her forehead. "You're welcome, sweetheart. Before I forget, your mother wanted me to tell you that she sends her love—and some molasses cookies that she got up at two o'clock this morning to bake."
    Deciding a change of scenery would be good for the kids, her mom had taken them to the farm for the holiday. "I hate molasses cookies," Julia told him.
    Clyde chuckled. "I know you do. But somehow your mother got it in her head that they were your favorite."
    "They're Evan's favorite," she whispered. "She baked them for him."
    "Well, maybe he'll get to eat them. Nothing wrong with hoping for our own little miracle for Thanksgiving."
    She put her arm around his waist. "Nope, nothing