Free Jericho (A Redemption Novel) by Ginger Jamison Page A

will I be then?”
    “I don’t know. But if it were me, I wouldn’t give up until I knew there was nothing else left for me try.”
    “You think I’m a coward, don’t you?”
    “No, I—”
    “I have to go.” He got out of his chair a little quicker than he should have and knocked into Christian’s nightstand, banging his hip. He didn’t react. He just kept feeling his way along the wall until he was gone from Christian’s sight.
    * * *
    Later that night, Georgia forced herself to sit at the nurses’ station after seeing to her patients. She hadn’t gone in to see Christian yet. She could have. She could have been in and out of there by now, because one of her patients had been discharged. But she made herself sit and complete her paperwork. She had the entire night to check on him.
    Her shift was usually very quiet after she saw to all the men on her floor, and at times she often found herself scrounging for something to do.
    There were other nurses in other wings there, too. They sometimes left the orderlies in charge while they congregated in the break room and gossiped about what was going on in the hospital. Georgia had joined them once, but she never felt as if she fit in. It must be another one of those drawbacks of growing up so isolated. She never had many girlfriends. There were the girls she used to go to church with, the children she would see in Sunday school, but as a child her best friend was her sister. Carolina was the only person she had really been able to speak to.
    Ever since her letter showed up, Georgia had been missing her more and more almost to the point where it was painful. What would be the harm of talking to her sister? She could use a friend.
    But just when she was about to break down and call her, some of the bitterness returned. The betrayal. She tried to pull up one of her father’s old sermons about forgiveness but none came to mind. It must not be time yet.
    Georgia threw down her pen. Paperwork wasn’t enough to take her mind off her family. It was 12:15 a.m. The last of her patients seemed to have drifted off to sleep soon after eleven. Except for Christian. He never went to sleep until after she came. She didn’t want to think that he waited up for her. But sometimes she would loop back around again and peek in his room one more time. She told herself it was just to check on him. Not to get one more glimpse of him. He was always asleep when she did. She wondered if the day would ever come when she walked into his room and he wouldn’t be awake to greet her. So far that day hadn’t come. And she was glad for it.
    As soon as she walked into the room, his presence struck her. He had his bed in the upright position but she could barely see it behind his broad shoulders.
    His massive hands rested on top of the thin blanket. Her eyes went to them before they settled on his face. She couldn’t help but wonder how hands of that size would feel all over her body. Would they be tender? Would they feel rough and callused? Like the hands of the workingman she knew he was. Would his touch feel good? Could it be possible that under that huge, alarming exterior lay a gentle man? It had been nearly a month since they had met, but his bigness, his width, his underlying power, still affected her. Every time she saw him she felt dizzy.
    Maybe it was because he waited for her. His tense features relaxed slightly when he spotted her. It was silly, but seeing that pleased her more than anything else had in a very long time.
    “Hello, Lieutenant. How are you this evening?”
    “You’re late.”
    He frowned at her. Pouted at her, to be more accurate. And if Christian hadn’t been over six and a half feet tall and the size of a linebacker, she would have said he resembled a pouting three-year-old child.
    “I see you took your cranky pills this evening.” She walked over to the foot of the bed and pulled the blankets from around his large feet. “What’s the matter, sweets? Are you