Ted Dekker: The Bride Collector

Paradise was looking up at Brad. She winked at him. “Not so fast, Roudy. You may not need to adjust to your new skin, but some of us might like the adjustment.”

“I vote for the beach,” Cass said.

“Does this mean you’ll be moving out, Paradise?” Andrea asked, nibbling on her fingernail.

“We all move out sometime.”

“No, I can’t.” Andrea paced on the grass, suddenly very nervous. “It’s too dangerous out here! I don’t think I can ever live out here again.”

“But why would you, my dear?” Roudy asked. “I need you. You don’t expect me to handle the caseload my reputation will now heap upon me all alone, do you? We have cases to solve, lives to save!”

“Did you ever think Paradise would be out here?” Allison asked, ignoring Roudy.

“No.”

“There you go, then. Anything and everything can change in the space of one day. Not that you’d want to change.”

Andrea’s eyes darted over to Paradise. “Do I want to, Paradise?”

The girl didn’t reply immediately. The hillside grew quiet.

“I don’t know.” She looked at the horizon and her features softened. She was still the same Paradise Allison had always loved. No makeup, jeans and a T-shirt. She’d taken up a new interest in grooming, and she decided that she liked her jeans long, to the ground, and her blouses colorful, a yellow tank top today, layered with a white one.

But she was the same girl who’d always possessed extraordinary wisdom and beauty.

“If you find someone to love, maybe then you want to be with them.”

It was a tender expression of her love for Brad. They all seemed to understand and appreciate the breakthrough Paradise had made, but they were still courting their own delusions.

Unwilling to let an opening go to waste, Cass broke the silence. “And you know that I can help you with that, Andrea. If you want to be in love or make a man fall madly in love with you, I need only a day or two. They’ll be crawling all over you.”

“See, now there you go, spoiling a perfectly good moment,” Andrea cried.

“I can’t help it. I’m mentally ill.” But Casanova was smiling.

“Aren’t we all,” Brad said.

And that did silence them all, this time with a kind of finality that none of them wanted to upset. They were the same, he was saying. And there was nothing kinder he could have said to them.

Brad kissed Paradise on the top of her head. He caught Allison’s eyes, smiled gently, and winked.

She returned the wink.

And that, she thought, said it all.

The End

SONG OF SOLOMON

SIX

TED DEKKER is a New York Times bestselling author of more than twenty novels. He is known for stories that combine adrenaline-laced plots with incredible confrontations between good and evil. He lives in Austin with his wife and children.