Cherished Read online

  Advance Acclaim for Cherished

  “As I read Kim’s book Cherished the word that came back to me over and over again is ‘grace.’ Kim has the gift of being able to tell a story so vividly that you forget that the characters she portrays are fictitious and you experience deep empathy for them. You will find yourself in this story. More than that you will discover for the first time or rediscover how deeply you are loved, valued, and cherished by God.”

  — Sheila Walsh, author of Sweet Sanctuary

  “Kimberly has a unique way of inviting you into the heart of her storyline. Each character feels like someone you already know or someone you wish you knew. The issues are always current, and culturally relevant, yet full of truths to help us grow spiritually. I have found myself laughing out loud and sometimes crying along with those on the pages, and I must admit that I’ve caught myself talking back to the book a time or two. So get ready to be changed for the better, encouraged into greatness and convinced of the knowledge that you, too, are Cherished!”

  — Nicole C. Mullen, Dove Award-winning singer/songwriter

  Acclaim for Kim’s previous novels

  “I not only enjoyed reading Kim Cash Tate’s Heavenly Places, I was moved to act! It inspired me to begin a Bible study much like the one portrayed in her book. That says a lot about Kim as an author. She is a rare breed who both entertains AND inspires change!”

  — Mandisa, Contemporary Christian artist, author, and American Idol finalist

  “The author skillfully ties the concept of sexual purity, whether married or single, to the idea of faithfulness on a spiritual level . . . Tate avoids the unrealistic ‘happily ever after’ ending while still offering a message of faith, hope, and love. Readers will not be disappointed . . .”

  — Crosswalk.com review of Faithful

  “Tate has an amazing ability to put difficult but realistic emotions on paper and show the reader the redeeming love of God in the process.”

  — Romantic Times review of Faithful, ½ Stars

  “Kim Cash Tate’s enjoyable novel is true to both the realities of life and the hope found through faith in Jesus. Romance meets real life with a godly heart. Hooray!”

  — Stasi Eldredge, best-selling author of Captivating, regarding Faithful

  “Three friends. Two husbands. One Romeo. All are shaken to the core as author Kimberly Cash Tate peels away layers of lies and self-deception to reveal the rotten core of infidelity and its tragic consequences. But this novel is also about hope and healing as her well-drawn characters discover the freedom of being FAITHFUL.”

  — Neta Jackson, author of the Yada Yada House of Hope novels, regarding Faithful

  Cherished

  Kim Cash Tate

  © 2011 by Kimberly Cash Tate

  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 Thomas Nelson, Inc.

  Author is represented by the literary agency of The B&B Media Group, Inc., 109 S. Main, Corsicana, Texas, 75110. www.tbbmedia.com.

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

  Scripture quotations are from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE®, © The Lockman Foundation 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995. Used by permission.

  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.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Tate, Kimberly Cash.

  Cherished / Kimberly Cash Tate.

  p. cm.

  ISBN 978-1-59554-855-9 (trade paper)

  1. African American church musicians--Fiction. 2. African Americans--Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3620.A885C5 2011

  813'.6--dc23

  2011019015

  Printed in the United States of America

  11 12 13 14 15 16 QG 6 5 4 3 2 1

  For Emanuel and Nicole Lambert

  Contents

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Twenty-Three

  Twenty-Four

  Twenty-Five

  Twenty-Six

  Twenty-Seven

  Twenty-Eight

  Twenty-Nine

  Thirty

  Thirty-One

  Thirty-Two

  Thirty-Three

  Thirty-Four

  Thirty-Five

  Acknowledgments

  Reading Group Guide

  A Note from the Author

  About the Author

  one

  KELLI LONDON TOOK HER PLACE ON THE PIANO BENCH and waited for her cue, grateful that her jittery hands were hidden from the crowd. She shouldn’t have agreed to do this, but she loved her brother and had never seen him happier. How could she say no to singing at his wedding?

  But it was the song Cedric had asked her to sing, one he’d heard only by chance. He had no idea what it meant to her. He didn’t know that singing it would unleash memories of the last person she ever wanted to think about.

  Laughter rose from the pews, and Kelli looked up, wondering what she’d missed.

  “. . . and I’m sure Cedric wants me to get to the vows ASAP,” Pastor Lyles was saying, “so they can get to that kiss they’ve been waiting for.”

  Kelli had only met the pastor once before, at her brother Lindell’s wedding last fall, but it didn’t take long to love his spirit and his style. A black man in his late fifties, he’d started Living Word Community Church decades ago and watched it grow into a multi-ethnic megachurch. At least a couple hundred members were here today. Kelli guessed none of them thought twice about the various hues and accents that had gathered to see this black couple wed. She loved that spirit too.

  Cedric was shaking his head with a shamefaced grin as the pastor called him out. Cyd was smiling up at him, gorgeous, beaming like the bright light she’d become in Cedric’s life.

  Pastor Lyles continued. “But I don’t think he’ll mind one last song, and it’s a special one, written by his sister.”

  Kelli drew a deep breath as Cedric and Cyd smiled over at her, Lindell and Stephanie too—the flip side of last fall. Then Stephanie and Lindell were the bride and groom, and Cyd and Cedric were maid of honor and best man, which was how they met. Kelli loved the story, how Cyd turned forty on her younger sister’s wedding day, thinking she’d never marry herself. Now here she was—a June bride. It was romantic that her brothers would now be married to sisters, but it somehow added to her melancholy, that each of them had found the love of his life.

  Kelli gazed at the piano keys, and knowing they had to, her fingers tapped the first notes. She fought to stay in the moment, in the church. Her eyes swept Cyd and Cedric, imagined the lyrics were just for them . . .

  I will love you till the stars don’t shi
ne

  And I will love you till the oceans run dry

  I will love you till you know every why

  I will, I will

  Her eyes closed, and he was there. A shiver of remembrance danced down her arms. She could still see that distant look in his eyes, could even hear him, that tone of indifference that echoed forever in her head. Kelli opened her eyes to capture another image—any image—but he was everywhere now. And her heart allowed itself to be crushed all over again.

  I will love you like an endless stream

  A million miles won’t take your heart from me

  I will love you every breath you breathe

  I will, I will

  Almost to the bridge, Kelli could feel her emotions cresting with the song. She closed her eyes again as they took over, filling her voice, magnifying her range, powering her through. She played the final chords with the salt of tears on her lips and bowed her head at the last note . . . and heard—applause? She looked out and saw the guests on their feet and Cedric and Cyd fully turned, facing her—Cyd wiping tears from her cheeks. With her own anxiety about singing it, Kelli hadn’t given thought to whether people might actually like the song.

  She pulled a tissue from the box atop the piano, dabbed her cheeks, and blew her nose, then muscled a heart-heavy smile to acknowledge everyone’s kindness. When she moved back to the front pew beside her mother, only then did the guests stop clapping and sit.

  “When did you write that?” her mother asked, patting her thigh. “That was beautiful.”

  “Thanks, Mom. I wrote it . . . a long time ago.”

  She turned her gaze to the ceremony, her heart beating a little faster still, puzzled by the response to the song. It coaxed a different memory to the surface, and as Cyd and Cedric exchanged vows, Kelli thought about her long-ago dream of writing music that God would somehow use. Then the better part of her brain kicked in, reminding her that she’d left songwriting behind, that she knew better than to dream.

  That all those dreams had turned to dust.

  “KELLI! GIRRRL . . .”

  Kelli looked up—midpivot in the Electric Slide—and saw Stephanie threading her way through the line dancers in her champagne-colored dress. Soon as the song started, it seemed everybody left tables and mingled to claim a spot on the parquet floor. Kelli waved her sister-in-law over.

  “I’ve been looking for you.” Stephanie scooted between Kelli and Devin, a nine-year-old cousin, as rows of people sidestepped to the right. “I haven’t had a chance to tell you . . . girl, you sang that song. I had no idea—hold up, am I doing this right?” She was headed a different direction from everyone else. “Why am I even out here? I hate this stupid dance.”

  Kelli laughed. “Back, Steph. We’re going back.”

  “Oh.” Stephanie checked Devin to get in sync, then leaned her head Kelli’s way again, her voice elevated. “Anyway, I told Lindell I couldn’t believe he didn’t tell me about that song, ’cause I would’ve had you sing it at our wedding. And he said he’d never heard it . . . and then I couldn’t believe that.”

  “I know. Crazy, right? This way, Steph. Pivot left.”

  Stephanie was behind her now, and Kelli turned to make sure she was following, but Devin had it under control.

  Like a traffic cop, he moved his hands left, then right to direct her which way to go next. “And pivot,” he announced, to the amusement of those around them.

  Side by side with Stephanie again, Kelli continued. “Lindell and Cedric had already moved out of the house by the time I started writing songs in high school, so it was easy to kind of keep my music to myself.” She shrugged. “Cedric overheard it because I didn’t know he was there.”

  “Hmph,” Stephanie said. “If I had that kind of talent, everybody would know about it. They’d have to tell me to be quiet.”

  The music switched, and they could hear people near the center of the floor cheering, “Go, Cyd! Go, Cedric! Go, Cyd! Go, Cedric!”

  Kelli and Stephanie craned their necks, moving toward the action.

  “Oh, goodness,” Stephanie said, laughing. “Look at your brother. He’s at it again.”

  Kelli laughed too, remembering Cedric and Cyd on the dance floor at Stephanie and Lindell’s reception. Now the two had cut a wide swath in the middle of the floor with a different line dance, this one a little livelier.

  Kelli and Stephanie worked their way to a spot in the inner circle.

  “Have you seen this version?” Stephanie asked.

  Kelli nodded. “But you know Cedric’s gonna add his own twist.”

  Instead of a simple sidestep, Cedric led Cyd in bouncy moves to the left, with a slide before going right. And instead of a normal pivot, they did some kind of kick, kick, turn—with Cedric twirling Cyd into a two-step before moving back to the line dance, all of it seamless. The crowd was fired up.

  After a couple of rounds, Cedric spotted Kelli and pulled her to the center.

  “I don’t know if you can hang with a twenty-five-year-old, big brother.” Although Cedric was a fit forty-two, Kelli didn’t miss an opportunity to tease him about his age. “I’d hate to embarrass you in front of your guests.”

  “Oh, you got jokes? We’ll see about that, baby sis.”

  Cyd led the cheers this time as Kelli whipped some different moves on him. Cedric paused, then mimicked every last one to let her know she couldn’t show him up. Lindell dragged Stephanie out there—literally—and Kelli was in stitches watching them try to copy what she and Cedric were doing. Soon everyone on the floor had joined in again, and then the music switched to Motown, which got its own cheers.

  Cedric draped one arm around Kelli and the other around Cyd and led them off the floor. They stopped at the bridal party table, which had emptied of all but Dana, one of Cyd’s bridesmaids.

  “Why aren’t you on the dance floor?” Cedric asked. “We need all the forty-and-over folk representing.”

  Dana glared at him. “Let’s see how well you ‘represent’ with some heels on. My feet are killing me.” Then she nodded toward the dance floor. “My husband left me. He’s out there with the kids. And last I saw, Scott wasn’t representing too well either. He looked almost as bad as Stephanie with that Electric Slide.”

  “I heard that, Dana,” Stephanie said, walking up with Lindell. “I could learn the dumb dance if I cared to. And since you’re trying to clown me, I might do it just to keep my black rhythm points. Can’t have a white guy showing me up.”

  Dana got a kick out of that, laughing as auburn wisps fell about her face. “How about a white girl? Let’s tell the deejay to play it again and see who’s got it.”

  Stephanie eased into a seat. “Uh, no thanks. I always told you, you’re one of those black white girls. You can go on the dance floor.”

  Dana eyed the dancers out there. “Well, pray for Mackenzie. I think the poor thing takes after Scott. Look at them.”

  Kelli’s heart was smiling. Because she lived out of state, she didn’t know these women well—not even her sisters-in-law—but from her brief interactions, including last night’s rehearsal dinner, she could tell she would like them.

  Cyd pulled out a chair and sat, her beautiful gown, passed down from her mother, swishing over the sides. “Ahh . . . think I can get away with sitting like this for maybe five minutes?”

  Cedric massaged her shoulders. “You’re good. The Jackson Five’s got everybody occupied.”

  Dana touched Kelli’s arm. “The bridal table was talking about you earlier.”

  “Me? Why?” Kelli took a seat.

  “Are you kidding? That song. It was beautiful.”

  Kelli blushed. “Thank you.”

  “That’s my little sister.” Cedric beamed.

  “Mine too!” Lindell said, giving her shoulder a squeeze. “So proud of you, girl.” He looked at the others. “Just got her master’s too, from UT–Austin.”

  “I heard,” Dana said. “Is your degree in music?”

  Kelli sh
ook her head. “One’s in communications and the other’s in public relations.”

  “Wow, two?” Dana nodded. “That’s awesome.”

  “Well . . . not really. Just means I didn’t know what I wanted to do.” Kelli didn’t mind admitting it. “But I’m done being a professional student. I’m looking for a job now—”

  “—in Texas.” Cedric’s tone made clear what he thought of that.

  “What part of Texas?” Stephanie asked. “Are you trying to stay in Austin?”

  “I’ve been looking at possibilities in Austin and Houston . . . and Dallas.”

  “Mostly Dallas, I’d bet,” Cedric said. “That’s where her boyfriend is.” He looked around playfully. “Where is he anyway? I wanted to meet him, see if he measures up. What’s his name? Miller?”

  Kelli smirked at her big brother. “Miles. Miles Reed. He wanted to meet you all too, but he had a conflict.”

  “I’m sure we’ll get another opportunity,” Cedric said, “if I can get you to move back to St. Louis.”

  Cyd perked up. “Ooh, Kelli, I’d love that. Any chance?”

  “I . . . doubt it.” Kelli hedged to be polite; her mind had said a fast no. She hadn’t lived in St. Louis since she left for college, and the distance had been good. Her mother had relocated to Little Rock to care for her mother, so Kelli had gone there on school breaks.

  “How’s the job market in Texas?” Cedric asked. “Improved any?”

  Cedric knew the answer perfectly well. He was a VP at a head-hunting firm. He’d made some calls for her, but nothing had materialized.

  “Not exactly,” Kelli admitted. “I’ve been looking since early in the year, and, well . . . it’s nearing the end of June.”