A Passion Denied by Julie Lessman

going, as if he didn’t even care. I even tried guilt as a last resort, telling him that friends don’t leave when you need them the most.”
    “Good girl. Did it work?” Charity leaned in, her shapely brows arched in expectation.
    “No, and that’s the worst part.” Lizzie closed her eyes, seeing Brady’s look of pain once again. “He said, ‘No, they don’t,’ and then left, just like that.” Her eyelids fluttered open to a fresh wash of tears. “Don’t you see? It’s over. He doesn’t even want to be my friend.”
    “That’s ridiculous. There must be some reason why he’s acting like this, something he’s hiding.” Faith paced the room with a glint in her eyes.
    Charity pressed a hand to Lizzie’s arm and sat up straight on the bed. “Wait! That’s it. I remember now.” She squeezed her eyes shut as if to conjure the memory. “He told me once, after we kissed that time, that I wasn’t ready . . . and that he wasn’t ready, either. He said he had things . . . things from his past.” Her eyelids flipped open. “He said I deserved more, and I remember being shocked when he said it. I mean, what more could a woman want than a man like Brady? Faith’s right— he’s hiding something, something so awful from his past that he won’t even let himself look at a woman, let alone fall in love with one.”
    Lizzie sat up and wiped the tears from her eyes. “But how do we find out? I don’t think he’ll talk to me, especially now.”
    “Oh, we’ll find out all right, trust me.” She waved a hand toward Faith, who helped her to her feet with a grunt. Charity groaned from the effort and rubbed the small of her back. “First thing tomorrow morning, before church, I am going to pay a long overdue visit to my good friend, John Brady.”
    Lizzie’s eyes grew wide. “What are you going to say?”
    “I don’t know,” Charity said with a lift of her chin, “but I know it will be good. Good enough to rattle his cage and give him something to think about. And you know why?”
    Lizzie blinked and Faith smiled.
    “No, why?” Lizzie asked in a hush.
    “Because you two will be praying, that’s why. John Brady may have the willpower of ten men in fighting against flesh and blood. But it was John Brady himself who taught me that a man hasn’t been born who can fight against prayer and win.” She reached for both of her sisters’ hands and smiled. “Shall we prove him right?”

    One of the dim bulbs dangling over Tucker’s Bakery flickered and caught Brady’s eye as he hurried down Connover Street. It barely illuminated the large, crudely scripted sign that hung in the window, obscuring the last word. To him it looked like “Fresh Homemade Dread.”
    How appropriate. That’s exactly how he felt—his gut weighted down with a rock-solid loaf of dread. Not to mention pain. His lips twisted into a bitter smile. “The bread of adversity,” he reflected, recalling his reading from Isaiah 30 that morning. He exhaled his frustration with a noisy breath that swirled into the air as he scaled the steps of his apartment, hands buried in his pockets and shoulders hunched. Noting the lights peeking through the Venetian shades in his landlady’s apartment, he quickly glanced through the glass-paned front to make sure the hallway was clear. He turned the heavy knob with the utmost care, desperate to avoid making a noise. It was only nine o’clock, after all, still early enough for a neighbor or two to poke out a head and engage in a chat.
    He dug his key from his pocket and carefully inserted it into the lock, then released a sigh of relief when he escaped inside. The door quietly clicked behind him, and he sagged against the wood and dropped his head in his hands. A dull headache was beginning at the base of his head. All at once frustration surged, and he ripped his coat off and hurtled it across the room. It narrowly missed his nautical lamp and landed in a heap on the floor.
    “Gosh, Gram would tan