Page 16 of Veil of Silence

“He did.” The answer came automatically. “He was good at seeming nice.”

Good enough that Nora had handed him pieces of her life without ever wondering what he planned to do with them. She’d been so careful too. She’d hardly dated at all. She hadn’t wanted the hassle.

But Jacob had been different—or so she’d thought. She even considered him an answer to prayer at one point.

And again, she’d been wrong.

She stood and slung the nursing bag over her shoulder. “I’ll be back tomorrow morning. Call if the redness spreads, you develop a fever, or the drainage gets worse.”

Shelby nodded. “I will.”

Nora headed toward the door.

“Miss Nora?”

She turned.

Preston stood behind her holding out the red Matchbox car. “I can make it jump five.”

Nora set her bag down again and crouched beside him. “Five crayons? I’m going to need proof.”

Preston immediately laid five crayons side by side, then propped one end of the paperback higher to make a steeper ramp.

For the next thirty seconds, Nora watched the red car launch off the book, clear all five crayons, and crash into the leg of the coffee table.

Preston threw both arms into the air. “Five!”

Nora smiled. “Clearly you’ve been training for this.”

He beamed.

She picked up her nursing bag and stood. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Preston.”

“Okay.”

“Don’t try six crayons while I’m gone.”

His expression turned suspiciously innocent.

Nora pointed at him. “I mean it.”

Preston grinned.

Nora said goodbye to Shelby and stepped outside into the mild late-September air. As she walked toward her car, she replayed her conversation with Shelby.

She prayed Shelby was wrong to be afraid.

Lately, Nora hoped she was wrong about a lot of things.

But hoping and believing were different things. And Nora’s faith in her own ability to discern truth from lies had shattered when Jacob walked into her life. She’d prayed for wisdom then too. Prayed that she wasn’t making a mistake. Prayed that she was seeing clearly.

God had been silent. Or she had simply not heard.

Now, with Christian’s strangeness settling into her bones, she didn’t know whether her instincts screaming something was wrong were spiritual discernment or just her own broken judgment trying to protect itself from being fooled again.

She wasn’t sure God was helping her tell the difference.

She only knew she’d been wrong about a lot of things.