Walking Away (The Walking Together Series Book 2) Read online

  Walking Away

  T. E. Killian

  Christ Centered Ministries

  Cottonwood, Arizona

  Copyright © 2015 by Trennis E. Killian

  Novels by T. E. Killian

  The Sycamore P.D. Series

  Lost Memories

  Accepted Memories

  Resolved Memories

  The Crowley County Series

  No Easy Solution

  A Better Solution

  The Only Solution

  Another Solution

  The Clear Creek Series

  Ryan’s Ruin

  Chase’s Return

  Hunter’s Revenge

  Walking Together Series

  Walking Straight

  Walking Away

  Walking the Line

  www.tekillian.com.

  Another uplifting Christian novel series from the author of the Sycamore P.D. Series, the Crowley County Series and the Clear Creek Series.

  The Walking Together Series

  Three different men have addiction problems. Three different women come into their lives wanting to help them to recover and start new lives together.

  Walking Away – Second in the Series

  Bright lights, flashing lights, noise, people, excitement and more, but Kent Jackson doesn’t like any of it. He just likes winning and being alone! But winning has become rare and Kent is getting more and more stressed both financially and physically, causing horrible headaches.

  Grace Donaldson is getting her seven-year-old daughter, Brianna, away from the big city and the damaging influence of her former in-laws. She needs to be free from being told how and what to do in her life. By moving back home to Strawberry, Missouri, and getting a teaching job at the local high school, Grace hopes to give Brianna a new life. Now Grace is teaching down the hall from Kent. How will they both act and react to the other one?

  Kent is missing two things in his life. First, his seven-year-old daughter, Michelle has been missing with her mother for five years. Second, he lost the love of his life when Grace met someone else in college, married him, and moved to St. Louis eight years ago. But now Grace and her daughter have moved back to Strawberry and are living two houses down from Kent.

  Grace had not been aware that Kent loved her before. Her marriage was not good, so Grace is in no way ready to get into another relationship. Her most important challenge is to make her daughter happy again.

  Kent suddenly has another problem. His principal is out to get him fired and is using his gambling as part of the reason.

  Grace just thought she was getting away from her former in-laws only to find out that they bought a second home in Strawberry. Now what?

  Can Kent live and work so close to Grace? Will he be able to find a way to regain his losses at the casino? Will he be able to get rid of his bad headaches? What will life be like for Kent. Can he handle another heartbreak?

  Can Grace live and work so close to Kent? Will she be able to keep her daughter safe and help Kent too?

  Will Kent and Grace be able to rebuild their friendship and come together to help each other solve their problems? Will Kent let God help him walk away from his addiction?

  Will they be able to cope with the old problems and hurts and move on to better memories?

  Chapter One

  Kent Jackson was tired. He sure was glad it was Friday night. No. He looked at his watch. No, it was now Saturday morning. Had he actually been here for almost four hours now?

  He looked around the noisy casino. It was one of the strangest places he’d ever been. There were many things about the place that he didn’t like. It was too noisy, too many flashing lights and just too many people. They were crowding him every time he got off his stool in front of the slot machine he was playing.

  Why did he come here so much? Yeah sure. As if he didn’t know. He had started out at the beginning of the summer coming here just to have something to do on his weekends. He had always been too tired to do much more than eat supper and go to bed on weeknights. But after a while, that didn’t seem to matter. He was in here most nights, tired or not.

  Kent was getting ready to start his ninth year as a high school history teacher but he always worked for a local general contractor during his summers. That work sure was much more physical than teaching.

  Well, he decided that it was about time to head back home. After all, Strawberry was anywhere from forty-five minutes to an hour from any of the Kansas City casinos.

  When he headed for the exit, he saw his brother, Larry, heading toward him with a girl on each arm. Kent definitely did not need this right now. He just wanted to go home and go to bed, alone.

  He quickly ducked into a restroom nearby and hoped Larry hadn’t noticed him. But his luck with that was no better than his luck had been with the slots. Larry burst through the door before Kent could try to hide in one of the stalls.

  “Hey big brother. You wouldn’t be trying to hide from me now would you?”

  Big brother, ha. Larry was thirty minutes younger than Kent and was always calling him big brother. Kent got tired of it sometimes. Even though they were twins, they didn’t look much alike. Larry had blond hair and blue eyes while Kent had brown hair and eyes. He frowned. They didn’t act much alike either.

  He groaned when he noticed that Larry was weaving a little and his eyes were a little blurry. “Larry, you’re not driving are you?”

  Larry squinted at Kent and said, “No way man. I never drink when I’m driving . . . at least not this much. The girls picked me up and brought me here.”

  He seemed confused for a minute then he said, “Oh yeah. You almost made me forget why I came looking for you. Yeah, I knew I’d find you here tonight. You’re always here on Friday nights aren’t you?”

  When Kent didn’t answer, Larry said, “Well, I’ll tell you what I’ll do for you big brother. You see, I’ve got two girls and I thought you might like one, not that I can’t handle both of them all by myself now. I was just trying to be a good brother and thought I’d share with you. Isn’t that what good brothers are supposed to do?”

  Kent began shaking his head immediately. He ignored Larry’s question and said, “No thanks Larry. I’m so tired that all I want to do is go home and try to get some sleep.”

  At first, Larry looked like he was going to argue but Kent held up both hands between them and said, “I’m serious Larry. If I don’t get some sleep, I’m going to crash right here.”

  After that, Larry turned around and left the restroom. Kent waited five minutes before leaving. He wanted to make sure Larry wasn’t out there waiting for him.

  Soon, he was in his car headed for Strawberry. Home. Sure, he’d been like most kids growing up, barely able to wait to get out of that small town after high school. But, not only had Kent gone back to Strawberry after college, but he’d gone back to teach in that very high school. Go figure.

  That made him begin to think of all that had happened in his life since he came back home. Wow. There sure was a lot of it.

  The first thing and one of the worst things was that his longtime love, Grace Livingston had met someone in college and married him. That hurt. But as often happens, Kent married a local girl more or less on the rebound. And had that ever been a disaster.

  Shelly had never been happy with her mother, Kent or even living in Strawberry. Shortly after their daughter, Michelle’s first birthday, she had filed for divorce. Then a year later, Shelly had just disappeared with Michelle and Kent hadn’t seen his daughter for five years now.

  That hurt so bad that he always tried to push it out of his thoughts. He’d go into a funk fo
r sure if he didn’t.

  He forced his thoughts back to Grace, as he passed the Strawberry city limits sign. She was a widow now and she had a seven-year-old daughter. Hey, that’s exactly how old Michelle would be too.

  But the best thing of all was that Grace was moving back to Strawberry. In fact, she had a job now teaching English at the high school. He would be able to see her every day. Would that be a joy or would it be torture?

  Well, if it was going to be torture seeing her at school, it could be worse with her renting the house on the other side of Mrs. Anderson’s house from his.

  He was home now and he’d just have to think about all of that later. Yes, later when he’d had time to get some rest. Maybe then, he’d be able to think straight and figure out how he was going to act around Grace now that she was going to be so close all the time.

  * * *

  Grace Donaldson was happy. She knew that Brianna was happy too. She giggled softly to herself. No, happy wasn’t quite the word to describe her seven-year-old daughter right now. Brianna had been wide-awake all the way on the drive from St. Louis today. It was probably the first time Brianna had ever stayed awake for the whole four-hour drive from one side of Missouri to the other.

  They were moving back home. Grace couldn’t get enough of that feeling either. Brianna had never lived in Strawberry, but she was super excited to be living near her grandparents and her Uncle Matt. Grace smiled to herself again when she realized that she now needed to include Matt’s new wife Betty Sue. Brianna already loved her too as did the rest of the family.

  That was another thing that made Grace happy lately. Her brother Matt had been into all kinds of bad stuff ever since he’d graduated from high school twelve years ago. But Betty Sue had come into his life and now not only was he away from all that but he had accepted the Lord and married Betty Sue. Added to all of the rest, he had just completed a training course on heating and cooling. She was so happy for them and so proud of her brother too.

  Grace knew what would happen when she made the announcement she was about to make so she braced herself for it.

  “Brianna, there’s the Strawberry city limits sign.”

  “Weeee!” Brianna squealed and said, “Oh boy Mommy. Are we going to Grandma’s house first?”

  “No Sweetie. You know that Uncle Matt is behind us driving the truck with all our things in it, and we have to go to our new house to start unloading.”

  There was silence in the backseat for a few seconds. “Okay Mommy.” Another pause then, “Can I get my room ready first of all?”

  “You sure may. That’s why I had everything from your room put in the truck last so it would come off first.”

  Almost as if he knew what they were saying, Brianna’s large yellow cat yelled out from his cage next to her.

  “Oh Butterball. We’re almost there. Mommy, can I take Butterball into my room with me?”

  “Yes, Honey, I think that would be a great place for him once we get all of your things in there. But please wait to release him until we do. Okay?”

  Brianna giggled. “Sure Mommy. We wouldn’t want Butterball to run away. He wouldn’t know how to find his way back to our new house.”

  Grace marveled at how mature her little girl could be at times. She knew that all the so-called experts say that most only children do mature faster. She did wish that Brianna had a younger brother or sister.

  Maybe if she’d had a boy, he’d looked more like her brother and her dad. They both had light brown hair. Grace and Brianna both took after her mother, having the same shade of blond hair and dark blue eyes.

  Oh, well, Brianna would probably never have a brother or sister now.

  Soon, Grace turned onto their street and two blocks later, parked at the curb past their driveway so Matt could back the truck up to the garage. She hit the garage remote so it would be ready.

  Once she and Brianna were out of the car and walking up the driveway, an older lady came out of the house next door and waved at them.

  Grace smiled and let Brianna go on into the house through the garage. After all, there wasn’t anything in there that she could damage or get hurt on.

  She turned to the woman coming at her across the lawns and thought that she looked somewhat familiar but she couldn’t quite place her. Oh well. She knew that would happen with a lot of people in this town. She hadn’t seen many of them for at least nine years.

  The lady smiled at Grace and said, “I’ll bet you don’t remember me do you Grace?”

  No, Grace didn’t . . . at first. But when she heard that voice and searched back in her memory she sure did.

  “Oh Mrs. Anderson, is that you?” Then she shook her head. “How on earth did you remember me after all these years?”

  Mrs. Anderson beamed a big smile back at her, “Oh Grace, how could I ever forget the best student that I ever had in first grade?”

  Grace blushed. “I’ll bet you say that to all your former students.”

  Mrs. Anderson shook her head, “Oh my no.” And with a sly smile said, “You’ll remember that I had your older brother too.”

  They both laughed at that.

  “So you’re the one moving in over here are you?”

  “Yes we are. You saw my daughter Brianna as she ran into the house before. She’s so excited to be living near my parents and Matt.”

  “I hear that boy straightened himself out and even got married too.”

  “Yes ma’am, he sure did and Betty Sue is just simply the greatest. We all love her dearly,”

  “Where’s your husband, Dear?”

  Grace didn’t want to go into the whole story right then, so she just gave the short version. “He died in a car accident a year ago.”

  Mrs. Anderson was looking at Grace’s face closely and she was sure the shrewd older lady noticed something in the way Grace said that. But she was relieved when Mrs. Anderson didn’t comment on it.

  “I’m so sorry dear.”

  Just then, Matt pulled the truck up on the street and began backing it into the driveway, thus breaking the tension of that awkward moment.

  As they watched the truck back up, Mrs. Anderson turned to Grace and said, “I’ll bet you don’t know who lives on the other side of me. Do you?”

  When Grace shook her head, Mrs. Anderson smiled a different kind of smile that Grace couldn’t quite identify. “Why, it’s Kent Jackson, that’s who.”

  She said this as if it should be of the greatest importance to Grace. She was a little confused by that. But then Mrs. Anderson didn’t keep her in suspense long.

  “Why, don’t you know that boy’s been sweet on you since you were in my class and he was in the second grade next door?”

  Grace couldn’t believe it but she blushed. Sure, she and Kent had spent a lot of time together in high school, but never anything serious. Of course, she would have known if he’d been in love with her. Wouldn’t she?”

  “I’m sure you’re mistaken Mrs. Anderson. Kent and I have always been friends but never what you could call close that way though.”

  Mrs. Anderson cackled. “I’m sure the reason for that had to be that no good twin brother of his. You probably shied away from Kent because you didn’t want to be around Larry.”

  Grace hadn’t thought about that in years but she had to admit that Mrs. Anderson was probably right. She did not like to be around Larry for even a few minutes.

  Matt jumped out of the truck and waited for Betty Sue to come up from where she’d parked her car. Then they both began walking toward where Grace was talking with Mrs. Anderson.

  “Hey Mrs. A it’s good to see you. I sure am glad Grace is moving in next to you, even if it is only until she can find a house to buy.”

  Grace was surprised when Matt leaned over and kissed the frail woman on the cheek. Oh my! Her big brother sure was changing.

  * * *

  Kent sometimes wished that his brother lived far away. Larry was always causing him trouble or at the least embarrassing h
im in some way. Larry had a drinking problem and had ever since they were in high school. Kent had been trying to cover for him ever since.

  For probably the thousandth time he wondered how the two of them could even be brothers much less twins. They didn’t look at all alike and they certainly didn’t act alike, that was for sure. Larry did have blond hair like their sister Sheila and their mother. As luck would have it though, Kent had brown hair like their dad. It was just strange, that was all.

  Larry had come over to Kent’s house some time during the night, drunk as usual and probably passed out in one of Kent’s spare bedrooms, where he was currently sleeping it off. Of course, that room was basically Larry’s home away from home anyway.

  As Kent sat at his kitchen table drinking a cup of coffee, his thoughts drifted to the fact that this was Saturday and school started on Monday. Wow. Where had the summer gone? He was finished working construction for this summer. He was kind of looking forward to the less physically strenuous duties of teaching.

  In fact, Kent loved teaching. He only taught freshmen, even though he could have taught the older kids due to his eight years of seniority in the history department. But the principal, Dr. Payne, had it in for him for some reason and constantly passed him up for the upper grade classes.

  Kent didn’t mind that much since he really liked the younger kids. He enjoyed getting them while they were young and eager to learn so he could try to keep them that way.

  A sound coming from the doorway behind him interrupted Kent’s thoughts. He turned to see Larry leaning against the wall rubbing his eyes with both hands. He looked rough. His long blond hair looked disheveled and dirty and his clothes looked like he’d slept in them, which he had. Of course, Larry usually looked that way on Saturday and Sunday mornings.