Healing Hearts (New Hope Falls #6) - Kimberly Rae Jordan Page 0,117
month after us meeting, I said yes without hesitation. The only thing was that I knew my parents wouldn’t agree. That they would say it was too soon.”
She lifted a hand and rubbed it across her mouth. “When I told Ezekiel that, he said that maybe we didn’t need a big church wedding. That we could have something for just the two of us.”
“Like eloping?” Ryker asked when she didn’t continue right away.
She shook her head, keeping her gaze lowered. “Not really. He said we didn’t need a preacher or anyone to make our wedding legal. If we stood before God, just the two of us, that would be enough. He knew my faith in God was a big part of my life, and it seemed that he felt the same way about God. Though I’d never imagined that I wouldn’t have a hand in planning my own wedding, he said to leave everything to him. All I had to do was get myself a wedding dress and let him take care of the rest. So I did.”
The alarm bells started to clang a bit for Ryker then. He could recognize the manipulations in their relationship already.
“So on the day we’d chosen, he arrived to pick me up wearing a suit and with a bouquet of flowers. He took me to a spot overlooking the ocean, and as the sun set, we pledged our love to each other. It was all super romantic in my mind. I couldn’t believe that this handsome man had planned something so wonderful for just the two of us. I didn’t feel like it was missing anything even though there was no pastor there to perform the ceremony or guests to witness our vows.”
Ryker could see how the romance of it might appeal to someone young and yearning for a romantic connection with another person. But at his age, with everything he’d seen and experienced in his life, he saw something more sinister at work. And, of course, he was listening to everything she told him with the knowledge of how she and Bryson were now, and the things he already suspected.
“My parents were livid when we told them we were married, though we didn’t mention that it wasn’t exactly legal. I knew they wouldn’t understand, even though in my mind, we were very much married.” She hesitated then, biting on her lip and keeping her gaze lowered. “He hadn’t pushed for anything physical between us before the wedding, saying we needed to wait until we were married. I thought it was him being respectful of me, of my upbringing and my faith.”
If what he suspected was true, the roughest part of her story was still to come.
“He’d told me to pack all my things, anything that was important to me, before we told my parents that we were married, just in case they wouldn’t let me take my stuff. He said we’d move into our new place together when we got back from our honeymoon. His family lived in Texas, and he wanted me to meet them, so that was where we were going to go for a couple of weeks before we returned to start our new life in Seattle.”
Ryker had to make a conscious effort to relax his hands when the handle of the plastic fork he held bit into his palm. He had always hated when people preyed on the vulnerable. And though he wouldn’t say it to her, Sophia’s naivety had made her vulnerable.
Still, no one should have taken advantage of that. People should be allowed to be who they were without fear that others would prey on them because of it.
He had to admit that her gentle air was attractive to him, but he didn’t want to take advantage of her. He wanted her to continue to have that because it was part of the person he found himself falling in love with.
“The first sign of trouble came when we arrived at a walled compound where he said his family lived. Only it wasn’t his family that lived there…at least not ones who were all related to him. There were men and women there who called him Brother Ezekiel. Children there who called him Father, and other women who called him Husband. It was…horrible.”
“Did you ask him to bring you back to New Hope?” Ryker asked as his mind filled with all the possibilities of how things had been for her.