Captivated

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 1

“I had a great summer.” Ian reached out his hand and caressed Kennedy’s cheek with the back of his finger.

She tried to pull her gaze away from him, knowing that what she had to say would come so much more easily if she weren’t staring him in the face. If she didn’t have to watch his expression change as he realized what she was doing.

She wanted to remember this moment exactly as it was now.

Not like it would be in another minute.

“I’m so glad you agreed to go to Seoul with me,” he said. “I’ll never forget these past few months.”

“Neither will I,” Kennedy answered truthfully. She tried to keep her sigh from sounding too melodramatic. After tonight, the memories of their summer together would be bittersweet for both of them.

Maybe it didn’t have to happen now. The summer camp for North Korean refugees was over, and this was her last night at her parents’ mission home in China. She could call him tomorrow when she landed in Boston, give him the news then. That way she wouldn’t have to see his reaction at all.

There was a soft breeze in Yanji, and he wrapped his arm around her as if he were trying to ward off the cold. He didn’t deserve to be crushed like this, but after she’d made up her mind, she couldn’t change it any more than she could reverse the seasons. Keep the summer from turning into a cool, crisp fall.

“You aren’t saying much,” Ian observed. “What are you thinking about?”

What was she thinking? How frightened she’d been to spend her summer in Seoul working with people she’d never met. Thinking about what would happen when she hopped on that plane for Logan Airport tomorrow to begin her senior year at Harvard, wondering if deferring her med school admission for a year really was the right choice.

But most of all, she was thinking about Ian. About his shocking red hair that had served to open dozens of conversations with the North Korean refugees they met over the summer in Seoul. The way he’d always been so supportive of her academic goals. The way his skin felt when she ran her palm across his cheek. That exact moment when they’d gone from two acquaintances who occasionally shared breakfast together to a couple.

Most importantly, Kennedy was wondering how he’d react when she broke up with him.

She glanced up into his green eyes. How many late nights had they spent at summer camp, sitting by a bonfire or relaxing in lounge chairs at the conference center on the little island outside of Seoul? How many hours a day had they filled talking about their pasts — about Ian’s childhood after his mother died, the eccentric granny who helped raise him and his sister, how he’d thrown off the confines of his religious upbringing in college but was willing to entertain the possibility that his spiritual old granny had been right.

They’d had so many deep discussions about faith, and even though Kennedy had watched Ian soften his views from diehard atheism to curious agnostic, he’d never taken the final step of embracing the truth of Scripture.

She’d been so convinced it would work, no matter how many times in the past her dad had warned her against the dangers of missionary dating. She’d jumped headfirst into a summer fling hoping that by the time she went back to college, God would have changed Ian’s mind.

Which he hadn’t. No matter how hard or fervently Kennedy wished it. No matter how many times she prayed with her best friend in Alaska. In spite of all of Willow’s prayers and hers, Ian wouldn’t accept the Jesus he’d grown up worshiping. He didn’t tease Kennedy for her faith. In fact, he told her several times how deeply he admired her convictions. Kennedy spent her summer pretending that this budding romance would mean enough to Ian that he’d become a Christian just like her, but now she had to face the truth.

Summer was over. Tomorrow she was heading back to college, and if Ian was really the right man for her, he would have given his life to Christ by now.

She hadn’t even told him that she’d emailed the dean to defer her med school admissions. He didn’t know that in nine months, Kennedy would return to Seoul to work as an intern for Korea Freedom International, the group that had sponsored the summer camp where they worked.

He didn’t know that this time together in the cooling Yanji air would be their very last.

She took a deep breath.

“What is it?” he asked.

He was so observant. Maybe that’s why he was such a good photojournalist. Always looking. Perceiving intuitively what language alone could never capture.

She forced herself to meet his gaze, etched each detail of his features into her memory.

“What?” he repeated. Did he guess? Would he have any idea?

She had to follow through. She couldn’t back out now. “I have something we need to talk about. Something important.”