Free To Heal A Heart (Love Inspired) by Arlene James Page B

enough to rent in a secured building. She punched in the code, then smiled at him as the lock clicked open.
    “Thank you for the ride.”
    He hadn’t expected to be invited in, but he didn’t intend to budge until that gate was locked firmly behind her. “Any time.”
    She went in. The gate swung shut with a clang. For a moment they just looked at each other through the heavy grillwork, then they turned and went their separate ways.
     
     
    Piper woke on Monday morning wanting never to see Mitch Sayer again.
    It was shocking, nonsensical, downright rude, but she couldn’t help deeply regretting that they must meet. What had possessed her to suggest it? Why hadn’t she realized before that he was exactly what she’d come to Dallas to escape—anything that bumped her against her past.
    She prayed that it would rain, muttering for God to pour torrents down on Thanksgiving Square right through lunch, but she knew that would be only a temporary reprieve. At some point she was going to have to tell the man that she didn’t want to see him again. And how would she explain that? How would she make him understand that he was too much like what she’d walked away from, too reminiscent of the old life that she absolutely had to leave behind or go mad? It would be better if she just never saw him again, but he knew where she worked and lived. He could find her if he wanted to. And he wanted to.
    Sweet, merciful heaven, how had this happened?
    Her father would probably say that God was testing her.
    She didn’t want to know what her father would say. Not that this was about abandoning her family. This was about putting together a new life, one that she could bear to live.
    Maybe Mitch Sayer could live in his parents’ hip pockets, but she wasn’t like that. She had been reared for independence. That made her uniquely qualified for this course of action. Maybe God had always known that she would wind up on her own, far away from those dear to her, that she was going to screw up so royally that she’d have to go off, find a way to start over again. But how could she do that if every time she turned around there was Mitch Sayer making her think of all that she’d lost?
    She prayed for rain, and with gut-wrenching dismay watched the sunshine glitter against the office windowpanes.
    At noon, feeling belligerent and rebellious, she unzipped her sandwich bag on her desk, but when she reached for the thermos bottle of soup, her hand wouldn’t quite close around it. She bowed her head and told herself that she was behaving irrationally. If she didn’t want to see Mitch Sayer, no one and nothing could make her. Except…her own sense of fair play.
    Angrily, reluctantly, she slapped the sandwich back into her lunch kit and snatched up the strap. Good manners could be a downright bore and a burden.
     
     
    Mitch hung up the phone, jotted down a last note with his left hand, then shoved back his cuff to check the time. Three minutes past noon. Rising swiftly, he snatched his suit coat from the back of his chair and threw it on, straightening his tie as the coat settled across his shoulders. He bent and opened the bottom desk drawer to grab a folded brown paper bag. Not wanting to lose precious minutes picking up something to eat, he’d packed a lunch of sorts that morning. Bag in tow, he sailed out of the office, giving his coat pocket one last pat to make certain that his cell phone rested safely inside.
    He was pleased to have received three more contacts from airline passengers. One call had given his heart a momentary jolt. The gentleman on the other end of the line had wanted to know if Mitch had found a small slip of paper—with the combination of a safe written on it. Such a slip had apparently fallen out of his wallet at some point. Mitch was sorry to disappoint him, sorrier still to be disappointed himself, but at least, after a bit of conversation, the fellow had offered Mitch the name of another traveler who might be