Emotions didn’t march across his face like she knew they were doing on hers. Instead, he almost seemed as if he’d taken a page out of Trent’s book—feigned boredom. But behind the mask, she glimpsed a war of sentiments. Outrage that someone had dared to hurt his sister. Conviction to make sure she was all right. Powerlessness that some things were out of his control.
Some of the fight drained out of her. Love drove her brothers to be overprotective bores. If she focused on that, she found their heavy-handedness a little more endearing.
“I really am fine, Michael,” she tried to reassure him.
“Good, but I still want to talk to you.”
She should be grateful, really. Michael was handing her the perfect way out of what would no doubt have been the most awkward day of her life. She’d spent the whole night trying to come up with what she would say to Seth today when she saw him, but her mind had remained blank. There didn’t seem to be any words, when strung together, that would work. The only response toI love youthat didn’t end with someone being hurt wasI love you, too.And she hadn’t said that. Couldn’t say it. So, what did that leave her?Wheredid it leave her?
“Amber?”
She snapped back to the present. “Sorry. Let’s go.”
Turned out Michael had a taxi waiting out front. The driver handled the city’s traffic with ease, and they were soon leaving behind the bustle of the crowded streets for the tranquility of the countryside. Instead of skyscrapers, towering trees and lush, thick forests lined the road.
“Where are we going?”
Before Michael had time to answer, the curtain of trees parted, and her breath caught in her chest.
The castle.
The same one Jay-Jay had pointed out from the plane when she’d first arrived. The one she and Seth had teased each other over on their way to get käsespätzle.
A thought raced across her mind as the castle grew in her view the closer they approached. She shook her head, calling herself silly, but the thought grew roots and planted itself in her brain.
Almost as if the castle were a living and breathing entity, it sang out to her. Drew her close. Whispered promises of shared secrets. Of tangled destinies.
She inspected that thought from all angles. Could it be possible? Was there something specifically for her that she was supposed to discover at the castle? About the castle? Or was this feeling of anticipation and foreshadowing merely heightened curiosity for history and trepidation for the heart-to-heart with her brother?
The driver pulled up in front of the entrance, and Michael handed him money with his appreciation. After paying an entrance fee, they walked around the ruins, taking in the stonework and reading placards.
“Did you know this castle played a role in the Protestant Reformation?” Michael asked as he gazed up into a stained-glass window in a side chapel.
That hadn’t been on any of the displays she’d read. “Really?”
“A princess lived here about the same time as Martin Luther. Story goes that she hid a man being hunted as a heretic right here in this castle.”
If Trent were telling her this, it would be an interesting anecdote. One he’d probably use in a lecture for his high school history class. But Michael? He didn’t say or do much without an explicit purpose. Although this was the most roundabout way she’d ever seen him approach a subject. Besides Jack, that is.
His gaze moved from the colored glass window to her. “Why’d you come to Germany, Amber?”
“Talk about a subject change,” she mumbled.
He smirked. “Humor me. Why’d you come to Germany?”
She placed her hand on the cool, stone wall, its rough edges nipping into her palm. “I wanted to help. You know that.”
His gaze bore into her. “I also know that isn’t the heart of it.” He walked over to a nearby bench and sat down, studying her. “Watching you during your last semester of school was like looking at myself in a mirror after the accident. Something happened that ripped the ground right out from beneath your feet.”
She released the oxygen from her lungs as she sat beside him. All the thoughts that had swirled around and chased each other for so long sprinted out of her grasp. She’d never given her doubts a voice before. She was afraid that, once she spoke her fears out loud, she’d never be able to gather them back up and tuck them safely inside where no one else could see.
Amber faced her brother. “After your accident, how did you know that you’d been right before? About what you were supposed to do with your life, I mean. Did you ever doubt that maybe you’d been wrong all along? That you weren’t supposed to be a fighter pilot at all, and the accident was a sort of wake-up call to get you back on the right path?”
He seemed to weigh her words. Consider them and the source from which they flowed. “Are you saying you’re not sure if you’re supposed to be in ministry as a chaplain?”
“Something like that.”
“Where’s the doubt coming from?”
