Sarah's Choice Read online

  Acclaim for The Merciful Scar

  “We shouldn’t be too surprised to discover that a singer-songwriter as gifted and sensitive as Rebecca St. James has produced an amazingly moving novel—one that young women will find both relevant and deeply satisfying. Beautifully crafted with coauthor Nancy Rue, The Merciful Scar will not only touch your heart, it might just help heal it.”

  —KARI JOBE, DOVE AWARD–WINNING

  ARTIST AND SPEAKER ON THE REVOLVE TOUR

  “My brother Joel and I speak after shows to teens and young adults across the country. Because of this, we know that the message of this book is relevant and timely! The mix of humor, insight, and drama in The Merciful Scar helps to powerfully convey needed truth. Congrats to our sister Rebecca and Nancy on a great book!”

  —LUKE SMALLBONE,

  FOR KING AND COUNTRY

  “The Merciful Scar is a tender, beautiful, and insightful book about a difficult subject. Nancy Rue and Rebecca St. James have crafted a heart-touching story that feels more real than imaginary. While reading, you might need to remind yourself that these characters are fictional. The plotlines, twists, turns, and heart-wrenching situations will wrap around your heart in such a way that you can’t help but be affected.”

  —LORI TWICHELL,

  FICTIONADDICT

  “Welcome to Sarah’s world! And right now, it’s not an easy place to be. With poignant insight and passion, Rebecca St. James and Nancy Rue have birthed a story that immediately draws you in, and, before letting you go, will touch the deepest levels of your heart.”

  —ROBERT WHITLOW,

  BEST-SELLING AUTHOR OF THE CHOICE

  “Rebecca St. James and Nancy Rue have crafted a beautiful and moving story about how an unexpected difficulty can truly be a blessing in disguise. Anyone reading will not only be entertained, but also inspired as Sarah’s Choice reveals that no matter the circumstances, God does work everything for our good. Having traveled the country to speak to thousands of young people, I think this book is especially timely for the challenges many of us are facing. I am sure this book will touch many hearts!”

  —LILA ROSE, PRESIDENT OF LIVE ACTION, A MEDIA-BASED

  NONPROFIT DEDICATED TO BUILDING A CULTURE OF LIFE

  Also by Rebecca St. James and Nancy Rue

  The Merciful Scar

  Also by Rebecca St. James

  What Is He Thinking??

  Pure

  Wait for Me

  Sister Freaks

  She

  Loved

  40 Days with God

  Also by Nancy Rue

  The Reluctant Prophet series

  The Reluctant Prophet

  Unexpected Dismounts

  Too Far to Say Enough

  The Sullivan Crisp series

  Healing Stones

  Healing Waters

  Healing Sands

  Tristan’s Gap

  Antonia’s Choice

  Pascal’s Wager

  © 2014 by Nancy Rue and Rebecca St. James

  All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or other—except for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Thomas Nelson. Thomas Nelson is a registered trademark of HarperCollins Christian Publishing, Inc.

  Authors are represented by the literary agency of Alive Communications, Inc., 7680 Goddard Street, Suite 200, Colorado Springs, CO 80920, www.alivecommunications.com.

  Thomas Nelson, Inc., titles may be purchased in bulk for educational, business, fund-raising, or sales promotional use. For information, please email [email protected].

  Publisher’s Note: This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. All characters are fictional, and any similarity to people living or dead is purely coincidental.

  ISBN 978-1-4016-8925-4 (eBook)

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Rue, Nancy N.

  Sarah’s choice : a novel / Rebecca St. James and Nancy Rue.

  pages cm

  ISBN 978-1-4016-8924-7

  1. Christian fiction. I. St. James, Rebecca. II. Title.

  PS3568.U3595S37 2014

  813’.6—dc23

  2013047472

  Printed in the United States of America

  14 15 16 17 18 19 RRD 6 5 4 3 2 1

  This book is dedicated to the incredible people whose belief in the sanctity of all life spurs them to share hope and help with those in Sarah’s situation every day. You protect the lives of both mother and baby, and you are our heroes.

  Contents

  Foreword

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Reflection Questions and Resources for Sarah’s Choice

  Acknowledgments

  An Excerpt from the Merciful Scar

  Part One

  Chapter One

  About the Authors

  Foreword

  Everyone enjoys singing along when you know the singer means the lyrics she sings. Everyone likes to listen to a speaker you know is passionate about the topic he or she addresses. Everyone relishes reading a book when you know the author writes from the heart and draws from a wealth of experience.

  With these thoughts in mind, can I let you in on a secret?

  You’re gonna love Sarah’s Choice! In this novel, my good friend Rebecca St. James along with best-selling author Nancy Rue, share a story that will reach you on so many levels. Their writing is just like her singing . . . fresh, creative, and from the heart . . . bold yet compassionate, knowledgeable but gracious, and funny yet honest.

  In America, it’s easy to become numb to the numbers: Over fifty million abortions in the past four decades. But thankfully, people like Rebecca and Nancy boldly keep the issue before us. Being a family friend of Rebecca’s for years, I know that she has used her music platform to encourage countless women to make wise decisions with their unplanned pregnancy. Rebecca truly cares. She’s helped support crisis pregnancy centers nationwide and mentored struggling young women. She’s also helped many find healing and hope after an abortion.

  Rebecca and Nancy are both mothers, and one can’t help but wonder if their love for the unborn comes shining through in these pages because of this. Perhaps especially since this book was written while Rebecca was pregnant with her first child.

  God is good.

  May Sarah’s Choice remind you of that truth.

  Dave Stone

  Pastor, Southeast

  Christian Churchr />
  Chapter One

  Last night’s dinner was up before Sarah that morning. Between tripping over two pairs of boots and stomping on her briefcase, she barely made it from the daybed to the bathroom before the jalapeños put in their second appearance.

  The tiny black-and-white floor tiles blurred to a fuzz as she pressed her forehead to them. For once she was grateful the radiator wasn’t working. Again.

  Ohmygosh, she hated to throw up. Hated. It.

  She doused her face with cold water—because it would take at least five minutes for any hot water to come through the faucet—and muttered a few threats against Matt. He was the one who ordered the jalapeños on the nachos, knowing full well his parents would be watching every choke and spew.

  The boy was cute, but shameless.

  She managed to avoid an encore now by skipping the coffee—in fact, the entire kitchenette—and taking enough deep breaths to hyperventilate a hippo as she leaned on the sink, shook back the dark tendrils of hair that stuck to her face, and squinted at her reflection. A little makeup would cover that asparagus-green tinge, right?

  Okay, a lot of makeup.

  You should stay home, the sunken brown eyes told her.

  And miss work with the promotion being decided? Uh, no. Thad Nussbaum wouldn’t risk a sick day right now if he had the plague. Sarah wasn’t sure she didn’t, actually.

  Another dive for the toilet. She definitely hated to throw up.

  Avocado-skinned or not, she needed to get a move on. After that round she chugged a half bottle of Pepto-Bismol and stepped over a stack of how-to-succeed books on loan from Megan to get to the desk crammed between the daybed and the bathroom door. Fortunately she only had to paw through one layer of unpaid bills to find Megan’s list.

  1. Dress professionally. You’re not in grad school any more. Go monochromatic if you can, but with a splash of color. Advertising IS a creative field—at least that’s what they tell me. And do NOT wear that ratty scarf.

  Sarah groaned, not a difficult sound to manage at that point. She hoped the money she’d spent on wardrobe improvements at T.J. Maxx, under Megan’s step-away-from-the-jeans-skirt tutelage, would be worth it if—when—she got the promotion. Between that and the new briefcase, no wonder AT&T was threatening to turn off her phone.

  The other bills were tucked into their compartments in the organizer, although they still glared at her no matter how tightly she closed their little plastic drawers. As for her personal bills . . . she looked for something to cover them up so they, too, wouldn’t give her the stink eye when she got home from work.

  The only thing she could come up with to conceal them without doing a complete renovation of the entire studio apartment was the framed picture her mom gave her on Thanksgiving, which she hadn’t hung up yet because . . . she just hadn’t.

  In spite of the queasies, Sarah had to grin at the photo. Megan would have a complete meltdown over Sarah at twelve: hair straightened in an attempt to look like a dark-haired Christina Aguilera and a too-big royal-blue choir robe with a large and admittedly tacky cross for a zipper pull. The identical robe looked so much better on her father. But then, anything he wore was handsome because he was in it. The photographer had caught Sarah looking up at her father, eyes whispering “I’m gonna make you proud, Daddy” . . .

  A lump in the throat paired with nausea: not a good choice.

  Sarah pressed the photo facedown on the stack and headed for the closet to attempt monochromatic with a splash of color.

  Ten minutes later she was as close as she was going to get. The shopping spree notwithstanding, it wasn’t like there was a whole lot to choose from in there. Black pencil skirt with boots, tailored white blouse, charcoal fitted sweater trimmed in apricot, subtle jewelry. Then the wool camel coat—a cast-off of Megan’s—and the paid-too-much-for-it-even-on-sale leather briefcase.

  She paused, the multi-brown scarf between her hands. With so many pulled strands it was starting to resemble a very sad boa, but it still smelled like Dad—all British Sterling and strong coffee and some musky undefinable thing that was just him. One whiff at the right moment and she could almost hear him saying, You’ve got this, SJ.

  Yeah, she was wearing the scarf. Sorry, Megan.

  Okay—a final look in the full-length mirror and she was out of there.

  Almost out of there. Hand on the knob, she saw something had been slipped under the door. Looked like a Christmas card without an envelope. Before she even picked it up, Sarah knew it was from Catfish.

  Merry Christmas, Ms. Collins he’d written under a drawing of what was probably supposed to be the Grinch. But Santa won’t be visiting you if you don’t pay the rent. Sincerely, Your Building Manager.

  Sarah tossed the thing toward the desk, but not before she smelled him on it: that whole hipster, unbathed, let’s-see-how-long-I-can-wear-these-jeans-before-the-rips-get-too-big-to-be-legal aroma. If she met him face-to-face this morning she would probably puke on his shoes.

  The chances were good he’d made the delivery in the wee hours and was still asleep. Catfish was a wannabe musician who stayed up half the night pretending he was making a living playing the sitar and then slept half the day. Sarah could probably make it to the car without running into him.

  The studios all opened onto open walkways, not the best scenario for brutal subzero Chicago winters. But the Sandburg Arms had once been a Motel Four and the renovators obviously hadn’t wanted to spend the money on closing it in. Or on much of anything else for that matter.

  Like a super who would at least throw some cat litter on the cement steps when the ice set in.

  Sarah picked her way down them and then checked to be sure the proverbial coast was clear of all things Catfish before she hopped between the icy patches to the parking lot. As she passed his first-floor apartment, holding her breath so she wouldn’t take in any fumes wafting under the door, she made him a silent promise that once she got this promotion, she’d pay the back rent and bid him a cheery good-bye as she moved out.

  After she paid off the ones in the plastic compartments.

  No wonder she was queasy, Sarah decided as she stitched her faded red Toyota through the early morning traffic. “Rush” hour was a complete misnomer. Cars crawled off the Ike onto West Congress and huffed around the Loop with maddening slowness. Exhaust coughed from every vehicle as hot vapors met frigid air and created a mist so heavy you could cut it into cubes.

  She’d lived here all her life, except for the six years she spent in New York at college, and she’d spent more hours sitting on the Eisenhower Expressway than she had on her own couch. When had this smell become so nauseating?

  The train probably wouldn’t be much better when it came to fumes, but it was definitely faster. Too bad she needed a car during the day to deliver projects outside the city proper. And too bad Carson Creative didn’t give her a company car for that. Although right now, any vehicle would call up the heaves. Ugh.

  A distraction—that’s what she needed. Sarah pushed the motivational CD Megan had given her into the ancient player and waited for the way-too-enthusiastic-for-8:00-a.m. voice to tell her that success was 90 percent attitude.

  Or as Megan put it under number 2 on the list:

  From the time you arrive at Carson Creative Services in the morning until you pull out of the parking garage at night, you have to keep your game face on. You can’t let down. You never know when a potential client will walk in, so you have to wear a constant expression that says, “I can sell anything for you.”

  Sarah glanced in the rearview mirror. She could only hope any client she saw today wanted an ad campaign for acid reflux medication.

  She turned off Mr. Positive Attitude. She needed to focus on the road anyway. Snow was now plastering the windshield with wet, heavy clumps the size of bear paws, and her wipers weren’t in optimal shape.

  Neither, apparently, was her engine. Just as she inched the Toyota into the State/Jackson intersection, it died. A
t least five horns blared and more than one window opened so a driver could spew out angry, frosty breaths and a multicolored string of expletives.

  It was Chicago, after all.

  Sarah turned the key with a vengeance and stomped repeatedly on the gas pedal, just the way Matt had told her not to do. What he had told her to do currently eluded her.

  “Come on, Buzz,” she said, although that definitely hadn’t been included in Matt’s instructions. “Don’t do this to me. Not today.”

  She could feel the trail of traffic behind her virtually seething as she continued pumping and pleading. The engine struggled to turn over, while the cars with the green light on either side of her struggled to avoid sliding into her like bumper cars. Any minute this was going to turn into a scene from The Blues Brothers.

  Most were successful in screeching to an icy halt. One had to veer around her while its driver hollered—as only a native of Chicago could—“Get that $%##@!!! hunk of junk off the road, lady!”

  “I’m working on it,” Sarah muttered. Her teeth were clenched so hard she could feel the enamel eroding.

  One more foot jam and Buzz wheezed himself back to life. Together they limped the remaining few blocks to Michigan Avenue and managed to climb to her space in the parking garage, where she pulled in beside Megan’s white BMW SUV. Before Sarah had really gotten to know Megan—what was it, five months ago now?—she’d always had her for a sports model: something black and fast-looking even when it was standing still. Ten minutes into their friendship and Sarah knew a Boxster wouldn’t fit the image Megan was going for. Megan slid from the front seat of that SUV now with more grace than Sarah could manage on her best day, especially while simultaneously holding two Starbucks cups.

  She eyed the Toyota as it shuddered itself into a coma. “Don’t worry,” she said. “You’ll be buying a brand-new one soon.”

  Sarah closed the car door with a gentle hand and waited. Nothing fell off. There was at least that.

  “Don’t jinx it,” she said.

  Megan handed her a cup. “Are you talking about the car or the promotion?”

  “Both.” Sarah pretended to take a sip, but the very steam of the latte beckoned to what was left of the nachos. Matt was so dead. She stuck him back in his little plastic compartment and tried to focus.