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But seeing Aria again… he was reminded of all the reasons he’d fallen in love with her. Every moment they’d spent together flashed through his mind. The joy and happiness he’d experienced when she’d look at him, her smile, gentle and disarming.
His biggest struggle was to not feel like she’d duped him. To not think that the gentleness and joy she’d exuded had masked her lies. Would she ever have told him what had happened? Or would she just have carried the lies through the duration of the relationship?
The longer he stood there, the more he wished he’d been able to formulate a better response to Aria when she’d come. His anger upon seeing her had faded a bit, and he could accept that she had appeared to be genuine in her apology.
Gareth knew he had to forgive her, even as God had forgiven him… that’s what the Bible taught. His forgiveness had nothing to do with how he felt or how genuine Aria’s apology was. However, offering forgiveness had always been a struggle for him. From the time he’d been young, if someone did something to make him mad, he had struggled to forgive them. Even if they’d said they were sorry.
How did he get over his anger at her for withholding vital information from them? How did he get past his hurt that even though she’d agreed to be in a relationship with him, she hadn’t trusted him enough to share her past?
Gareth didn’t know how much time had passed as he stood out there trying to sort through his emotions, but the sun had fully disappeared behind the mountains. Unfortunately, he still didn’t know how to move forward.
He had questions that he wished he had asked Aria earlier. But he wasn’t sure that her answers would have made any difference with his anger. In fact, they might have made it worse.
As he turned to go inside, his doorbell rang. His heart gave a hard thump in his chest, though he was quite sure it wasn’t Aria. Most likely, it was Wade and/or Jackson.
“What are you doing here?” Gareth asked when he saw Janessa and Jay.
“Can we come in?” Janessa asked.
Gareth didn’t feel like company, but he stepped back and fully opened the door to allow them inside. Because he wanted their visit to be quick, he didn’t offer them coffee.
Even without his invitation, however, they went right to his couch and sat down. With a sigh, Gareth closed the door and went to join them.
“What can I do for you?”
“I’ve spoken with Aria,” Janessa said. “She came to see me after talking to you.”
“Oh?”
“Oh?That’s all you have to say?” Janessa demanded, anger flashing in her eyes.
Jay reached out and put a hand on her arm. “That’s not going to help.”
Janessa frowned at Jay before she let out a huff and turned back to Gareth. “Did you eventalkto her? Or did you just let her leave?”
Gareth narrowed his gaze at her, trying to keep from getting angry at yet another person in his life.
“Aria is determined to leave Serenity. In fact, she’d already left, but then came back to apologize.” She stared at him for a moment before taking a deep breath. “Listen, I’m not sure if she told you this, but if she hadn’t told me, I’d be operating under a wrong assumption.”
“What’s that?”
“That her nursing license had been suspended.”
Gareth frowned. “Considering the offense, I would have thought that a suspension was a given.”
Janessa shrugged. “I assumed the same. She said that she hadn’t treated any patients while she was intoxicated, plus they took into account her previous work for them as well as the circumstances she was dealing with at the time.”
“But they still fired her,” Gareth said. “Why didn’t they just put a reprimand on her file?”
“Apparently they’d had a recent huge issue with a previous situation involving someone coming to work high. In that case, the person had gone on to treat patients, and someone had died. After dealing with a suit from that patient’s family, they couldn’t be seen not taking harsh action on something like that again.”
While Gareth was glad that she had retained her license since she’d treated a patient in their clinic, he still thought that she should have told them about everything before agreeing to take the receptionist job with them. If she’d explained all that, they would have been sympathetic and probably still would have hired her.
“I want her to come back to work at the clinic,” Janessa stated. “And Jay is also willing to have her back on the job.”
Gareth glanced between his siblings. Janessa had a determined look on her face, while Jay’s expression, as usual, was pretty much unreadable.
“Why do you think it’s wise to bring her back?” Gareth asked, directing his question to Jay. “Is it just because it’s the easiest thing?”
