Forgotten Past by Mary Alford
Epilogue
Six months later
“Are you okay?” JT asked once more as he watched his wife fight back tears. He stood close by her side at the family cemetery outside of Austin. Rachel had chosen to share the future with him and he’d never felt more blessed or more afraid. Their love was different from the love he’d shared with Emily, but it was just as strong and just as important to him. For the first time in a long time, he had someone in his life he couldn’t bear to lose again.
Rachel struggled to answer him because the tears were falling freely from her eyes.
“She would be so grateful to you, Rachel. You did it. You helped to bring peace to her and your father. He would be so proud of you.”
She reached for his hand and held it tight. She’d decided she couldn’t change what happened in the past so why hold on to those painful memories.
JT had been by her side when most of the memories of her past returned.
“I still can’t believe Ben would embezzle from my father. Dad treated him like a son and that’s how he repaid him.”
“In his own way, Ben was just as sick as Phillip Masters. He had it in his head that Carl was responsible for his mother’s death and that he’d taken Elizabeth Jennings’s share of their inheritance once she died.” JT shook his head. “He couldn’t accept Elizabeth had gone through all the money on her own by the time she died. Ben didn’t see it as stealing from Carl. He thought your father actually owed him the money.”
Ben had confessed to embezzling funds from Carl’s firm for months before Faith brought it to Carl’s attention. Ben had manipulated the records to make it seem like Faith had taken the money, but Carl hadn’t bought it. It had been the final straw as far as Carl was concerned. He’d confronted Ben. Faith showed up with the evidence. Carl was going to call the police. Ben panicked. After their deaths, and when he thought he’d gotten away with the murders, Ben put the money back into a different account to make it look like a clerical error.
“If I hadn’t hired Faith, none of this would have happened. Faith would still be alive. She was my friend and I delivered her to her killer.”
JT tugged her into his arms. “You couldn’t have known what Ben was planning. He was desperate. He knew if he didn’t do something he’d lose you as well as go to prison for a long time. He was just as obsessed with you as Phillip Masters and determined to have you and your father’s wealth no matter what.”
“But...”
“There are no ifs, ands or buts about it. He killed Faith and Carl...and there was absolutely nothing you could have done to stop him, Rachel. You can’t take on his crimes.” He kissed her cheek. “It’s over, sweetheart. Ben is paying for what he did. It’s time to concentrate on the future.”
There had been one final thing left to do. She and JT had returned to Austin to close the file on what had happened two years before. Rachel had decided to leave the business running the way it had been for the past two years and her father’s estate would continue to go to charities. She wanted to return home to Hope Island, open her own bakery and be a wife and, one day, with God’s blessing, a mother.
It hadn’t really surprised him the way Liz had taken to Rachel. Within a short time, they’d become good friends. Liz was a natural-born mother hen, after all, and she’d played a tremendous part in Rachel’s emotional healing.
Rachel had told JT that in some weird roundabout way, Ben had brought her to the island where she’d met JT and found out what it truly meant to love.
“Thank you,” she whispered through her tears.
“For what?” he asked as they stood beside the headstone that now read “Faith Davenport.”
“For giving me back my friend. For giving me back my father’s love. But most of all for giving me back me. For loving me. For not letting me run away. Thanks to you, Faith can finally rest in peace. JT, you are a blessing and my Job moment. God promised He’d see me through this dark season if I trusted Him, and He did. Just like Job, He’s blessed me with more than I deserve.”
Although she didn’t say the words, he knew. Rachel Jennings could finally start to live and trust again.