Remember to Forget Read online

  “I was enthralled from start to finish. Remember to Forget took me to deep places of the heart and touched the spot where we all long for unconditional love. I wanted to stay in Clayburn, Kansas, forever. Raney’s best book yet!”

  Colleen Coble—Author of Midnight Sea

  “Deborah Raney has done it again! Remember to Forget is a wonderful, heartwarming story about learning to trust . . . and love. Yes, I loved it.”

  Roxanne Henke—Author of After Anne, and other books in the Coming Home to Brewster series, and The Secret of Us

  “Wow. Remember to Forget has it all: a gentle love story that won’t let go, with crosscurrents pulling way deeper than you expect. Pack your bags, because your heart is going to Clayburn, Kansas!”

  Robert Elmer—Author of The Recital and Like Always

  “An enthralling, realistic depiction of lives in need of God. Another unforgettable story from an excellent writer.”

  Yvonne Lehman—Author of forty-three novels; director, Blue Ridge Writers Conference

  “Only Deb Raney can blend the story of a woman who struggles with deceit and survival into one of love and redemption. Grab your tissues as you cheer for a woman who fights her way into the hands of God and unconditional love.”

  DiAnn Mills—Author of Nebraska Legacy, Leather and Lace, When the Shadow Falls, and more

  “Remember to Forget is an emotional ride that eloquently reminds us of God’s promise to make all things new.”

  Carolyne Aarsen—Author of The Only Best Place

  “Two broken souls from different worlds. Somehow, some way, you’re praying Deborah Raney brings them together. A heartwarming tale, with a pulse-pounding finish.”

  Creston Mapes—Author of Dark Star and Full Tilt

  “Deborah Raney’s Remember to Forget is a tender, emotional story of second chances. A real blessing.”

  Lyn Cote—Author of The Women of Ivy Manor series.

  “Deborah Raney’s Remember to Forget is a nicely crafted allegory wrapped in a sweet love story that entertains from start to finish.”

  DeAnna Julie Dodson—Author of In Honor Bound, By Love Redeemed, and To Grace Surrendered

  “From the opening page of Remember to Forget, I was swept into the idyllic town of Clayburn, Kansas. Yet even in this beautiful town, the story reveals deep heartache; but, thankfully, Deb Raney shows that within every heartache is an opportunity for hope.”

  Tricia Goyer—Award-winning author of From Dust and Ashes and Arms of Deliverance www.triciagoyer.com

  Thank you for purchasing this Howard eBook.

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  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Discussion Questions

  ‘Yesterday’s Embers’ Excerpt

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  About Deborah Raney

  To Reed,

  precious grandson,

  with love

  Acknowledgments

  I wish to offer sincere thanks and deep appreciation to the following people for their part in bringing this story to life:

  For help with research and editorial direction: Tamera Alexander; Ken Raney; Terry Stucky; Max and Winifred Teeter; my authors’ groups, ChiLibris and ACFW, who are always ready with expert assistance; and the kind folks at the Swedish Country Inn in Lindsborg, Kansas, which served as a model for Wren’s Nest, and where the idea for this story was born.

  I also wish to thank the ChiLibris Midwest contingent for help in brainstorming this story: Dr. Mel and Cheryl Hodde, Dave and Colleen Coble, Till Fell, Judy Miller, Nancy Moser, and Steph Whitson.

  Special thanks to my ace critique partner Tamera Alexander, my talented editors Ramona Cramer Tucker, and Philis Boultinghouse and Terry Whalin at Howard Books; and to my agent extraordinaire, Steve Laube. As always, all of your names deserve to be on the cover alongside mine.

  To my wonderful husband, our children, and extended family: what a gift from the Lord you each are. You make it all worthwhile.

  One thing I do: Forgetting what is behind

  and straining toward what is ahead,

  I press on toward the goal to win the prize

  for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

  Philippians 3:13–14 NIV

  “Get out! Get out of the car!” He spit the words like machine-gun fire.

  Chapter One

  A lofty full moon painted a jagged swath of light across Lafayette Avenue. Maggie Anderson glanced at the digital numbers on the dashboard. Four o’clock in the morning.

  An eerie calm hovered over New York, the street absent its typical bumper-to-bumper congestion. At least she would make it back to the apartment in good time. Maybe for once she wouldn’t have to give him a play-by-play to justify every minute she’d been out of his sight.

  A vagrant staggered into the crosswalk ahead of her, beckoning her with a leer. She averted her eyes and reached across the console of the Honda Civic to pat the brown paper bag buckled into the passenger seat beside her, testing again to make sure it was secure. Before driving away from the liquor store, she’d tightened the seat belt around Kevin’s precious bottle as if it were a child. It might as well be. She would pay dearly if she slammed on the brakes and sent his next fix flying through the windshield. For a split second the thought caused a cynical smile to tug at her mouth . . . until an image of the probable aftermath came into focus.

  She rubbed her left wrist, remembering his last tantrum, and forced her mind to blank out the scene. No use spoiling these brief minutes of freedom with a dose of reality.

  Crossing Clinton Street, she changed lanes and reached to adjust the air-conditioner vent. The cool air caressed her face, a balm for early June temperatures that had barely dropped during the night. She leaned back against the headrest and let out a slow breath, willing her thoughts to carry her to the one place that never failed to bring her peace. She’d become adept at conjuring the scene. The city streets receded to the periphery of her vision, and there it was . . .

  The riverbank, soft beneath her bare feet. Cool water lapping at her toes. And overhead, towering trees that whispered i
n the breeze, calling her to step deeper into the river’s flow. She lowered her eyelids to half-mast, letting herself drift.

  Behind her eyelids, a moon like the one that hung over New York tonight cast a yellow glow over the countryside. Except the moon of her imagination was far, far from the city. Where, she didn’t know. It only mattered that it was far away from where she was now.

  Opening her eyes, she reoriented herself to the road. But the scene remained, warming her from the inside out—in a way that had nothing to do with the sticky summer heat.

  She tried to go deeper into the daydream, but ahead, a traffic light turned from green to amber. Hers was the only vehicle in the intersection. She could run the light and probably get away with it. Instead she tapped the brakes and prepared to stop. The light meant she could spend another ninety seconds in her tranquil fantasy world.

  She could truthfully tell her boyfriend it was just the traffic. No help for that. He couldn’t blame her. She rehearsed her excuse and touched the paper bag once more to reassure herself that her cargo was safe.

  Closing her eyes again, she counted out the seconds before the light would turn green and returned to the riverbank in her mind.

  The cool water, lapping at her—

  Boom-boom-boom! A series of sharp thuds vibrated the hood of the car. Hot air and acrid exhaust fumes rushed over her, carrying with them the city’s distinctive music of distant sirens and taxi horns.

  Maggie jerked to attention. A blurry image loomed in her driver’s side window. A man dressed in gray sweats . . . a hooded jacket over his head. A fleece-clad knee held her driver’s door open.

  He pounded again—louder—on the roof of her car. “Get out! Get out of the car!” He spit the words like machine-gun fire.

  Heart racing, Maggie tried to yank the door shut on his knee. But his leg pried it open wider. Fingers of steel reached through the opening and clamped around her arm, wrenching her sideways from the seat.

  She flailed at the steering wheel, trying in vain to sound the horn. Would anyone pay attention, even if she could? The street was deserted.

  “Get out of the car!” the man screamed again, his voice as shrill as a woman’s.

  She jerked her head from side to side, trying to make things come into focus in the moonlight. Then she saw his hand. His left hand was hidden inside the wide center pouch of his jacket. The shape of a blunt object was outlined against the fabric. A gun?

  Panic clawed at her throat. “What do you want?”

  “Shut up and get out of the car!”

  Her eyes fell on the brown bag beside her. If she went home without the precious Jack Daniel’s . . . She shuddered, knowing that whatever this guy might do to her couldn’t be much worse than what she’d have coming at home.

  She checked her rearview mirror. Traffic whizzed by on the freeway in the distance, but no other vehicles were stopped at the light. Could this guy be bluffing about having a weapon? She wasn’t about to get out of the car in this part of the city in the middle of the night.

  When the light turned green, another car eased to a stop at the intersection on her left. The man in the hood opened her door wider. He hissed a curse and wedged himself through the opening. In one smooth motion, he undid her seat belt and, with a meaty hip, shoved her across into the passenger seat. The momentum left her sprawled between the seat and the floor.

  He slammed the door and gunned the engine. The car lurched through the intersection.

  Maggie cowered from her precarious half-prone perch on the edge of the seat, clawing at the dashboard to regain her balance. “What do you wa—”

  “Shut up, I said!” He raised a sharp elbow and used it like a weapon.

  She dodged his aim with a practiced bob and clung to the car door. The whiskey bottle dug into the small of her back. “Here.” She reached behind her. “Take this. It’s the good stuff. Just, please . . . let me go.”

  The man glared at her, meeting her eyes for the first time. He snorted, then trained a laser stare on the road as if he wouldn’t dignify the likes of her with a response.

  She dug in the pocket of her khaki slacks and took out the change from the fifty-dollar bill Kevin had given her for the liquor store. “Here.” She thrust the money at him.

  “Keep your money,” he barked. “And keep your mouth shut.”

  Cowed, she returned the cash to her pocket and sat in silence beside him. She gripped the sides of her seat, bouncing at every bump in the road, her mind accelerating to match the engine as the car flew over the city streets. If booze and cash didn’t interest him, she hoped the use of her car—Kevin’s car—was the only thing he was after.

  As they reached the end of Lafayette, the traffic picked up a little with early-morning commuters. With one glance in the rearview mirror, the man merged into the flow of vehicles.

  Maggie was in unfamiliar territory now. No matter what happened from this point on, it was a safe bet she wasn’t going to be delivering anything to Kevin. At least not anytime soon. And maybe never. She stared at the digital clock on the dashboard, watching the numbers flick forward. They’d driven at least half an hour in the opposite direction from the apartment. Kevin would be pacing the foyer and cursing her by now.

  She eyed her captor before she angled her body back to attempt a glimpse at the gas gauge. Even so, her view was skewed. But she was pretty certain there wasn’t enough gas in the Civic to get her back home.

  What would this guy do if the car ran out of gas? A flash of memory took her back to another day on another highway. Kevin had been late for a job interview—and he’d called her at the office and coerced her into picking him up and driving him to the interview. The car had run out of gas, fueling a rage in Kevin like she’d never seen before. In the end he didn’t get the job and pinned the blame on her for not filling up the tank. It was the first time his verbal lashings had threatened to turn physical.

  Now her mouth twisted at the irony of finding herself a literal captive to this stranger when, in truth, she’d lived as a virtual hostage to Kevin Bryson for almost two years.

  If she felt any fear, it was in imagining Kevin’s accusations when she told him about her abduction.

  Chapter Two

  Half an hour later, Maggie’s captor slowed the car. She stiffened in the passenger seat, her eyes darting from the road to the man’s face, still partially obscured by the fleece hood. Only his sharp nose and a scraggly brown goatee stuck out enough to give her anything to identify him by in a police lineup.

  His pale, slender fingers tapped an impatient staccato on the steering wheel, and his neck and shoulders twitched as though the confines of the hooded sweatshirt irritated him beyond his tolerance.

  As they crossed an overpass, she could make out a thin line of pink between the buildings on the eastern horizon. She panned the landscape, trying to get her bearings. It would be dawn soon. Headlights flickered ahead at intervals from the highway. If only she could attract someone’s attention . . .

  The man punched the accelerator and merged onto I-287.

  Kevin would be livid by now. She couldn’t even guess how he’d react when she told him what had happened.

  Watching her captor in the edge of her vision, she supposed she should be more frightened. After all, she had just been kidnapped by a man who most likely had a gun. At least he kept fingering the bulky object in his pocket, as if preoccupied with making sure it was still there.

  No doubt her abductor intended to use the gun on her. A quiver of some strange emotion—was it relief?—skittered down her spine. She didn’t know what to make of her odd calm.

  If she felt any fear, it was in imagining Kevin’s accusations when she told him about her abduction.

  He would never believe her. But maybe when he found out the truth, he’d finally see the value in letting her have a cell phone.

  But as the road signs sailed past outside her window, her genuine fear returned and escalated. They were headed out of the city. The Civi
c ate up the expressway at a speed faster than she’d ever driven. In a few minutes they were crossing the Hudson, driving on the Tappan Zee Bridge. Soon after they got off the bridge, she saw a sign for Saddle River. She’d only been to Jersey once, but she was pretty sure they were now well over an hour from the apartment she shared with Kevin.

  Her abductor seemed to relax a little. He pushed the hood back off his forehead to reveal stringy blond hair. As if sensing her perception, he glanced over, then quickly into the rearview mirror. Tapping the brakes, he pulled onto the shoulder of the thruway. They bumped along for a full minute with the rumble strips grinding and buzzing beneath the tires. Finally, still hugging the shoulder, he veered onto an off-ramp and brought the car to a complete stop. He made no effort to exit the car but leaned over the steering wheel and peered into the dusky light at the other traffic on the knot of intersecting roads.

  Maggie studied him . . . the way his steely gray eyes darted in every direction. Was he watching for a ride, waiting for someone to pick him up? But when his gaze came to rest on her again, her heart stuttered. She edged toward her door and crossed her arms over her midsection.

  Her captor’s eyes seemed to pierce her thoughts. Her stomach knotted, and a bitter taste rose in the back of her throat. She had feared pain in the past, but she’d never been afraid to die. In fact, on another night not so long ago she had prayed for death. Prayed to a God she wasn’t even sure existed. It shamed her to think of it now, but at the time, she’d only wanted to escape the agony Kevin had inflicted.

  It hadn’t been physical in nature—not that time anyway.

  No, that night, words were his weapon of choice. And they had inflicted far deeper wounds than his fists would in the months that followed. She was still nursing those wounds. And unlike bruises that eventually faded and scabs that fell away, she suspected those words would leave her with scars that might never heal.