Own life. Dallas. Yes.
The fog cleared, and snatches of life—real life—pressed back to the surface. But she didn’t want real life. She wanted to stay in this pocket of stillness, where teen pregnancies and teen rebellion and life-altering secrets didn’t exist. Where there was only the twinkle of the stars and the love in a certain cowboy’s eyes and the whisper that life—her life—could still be different. Could be restored.
“But maybe...” His voice trailed, and he tucked a wisp of hair behind her ear. His touch burned a trail along her cheek and she shivered. “Maybe.”
Maybe. So much potential in that word. So much hope. When was the last time she’d hoped? She wanted to hope. Wanted to feel again. To believe. To trust. Was it possible?
“Maybe.” She breathed out the word, and the smile that started at the corners of his mouth let her know it hit its target. Maybe would have to be enough for now.
Maybe would hold back real life a little while longer.
* * *
She felt the exact same in his arms. Maybe better. Max couldn’t believe he stood near a fence on his own property, hosting a ministry near to his heart and holding the hand of the one woman who’d branded him years ago as her own. He finally felt whole.
He squeezed Emma’s hand, debating kissing her again but afraid he wouldn’t want to stop. He took in her flushed cheeks and heavy-lidded eyes, and his breath caught. No, he definitely wouldn’t want to stop. Some things never changed, but keeping any developing relationship under God’s direction this time would be one thing they’d for sure do differently.
Better to get back to conversation. And maybe movement.
“Let’s walk. Check on the horses.” He extended his arm and Emma hopped down from the fence, linking her arm through his as they plodded through the shadows toward the barn.
“Caley said she enjoyed meeting you.” He watched Emma’s face carefully for her reaction, knowing how guarded she’d been around the firefighter earlier that morning. “The girls seemed to take to her. She said she’ll be back.”
She nodded, eyes cast on the ground as she dodged a hole. “Good. I think her talking to them about their careers is a great idea.”
He did, too—though Tonya’s immediate future was definitely altered at the moment. The reminder sobered Max’s spirits. Still, the girl had clearly made her choices before she came to Camp Hope. It wasn’t their fault, but they could still at least propel her on to the right course from here on out.
Which brought up another question.
“Why did Tonya’s pregnancy hit you so hard?” He opened the door to the barn, and the automatic lights lit the sharp corners of the darkness.
“What do you mean?” A wall went up; he could see it climbing as tangibly as construction workers laid brick.
Oops. “Nothing. You just seemed to take it almost personally. I didn’t want you thinking that was your fault, too.”
Remington popped his head over the stall door, and Emma reached in and rubbed his mane. “It’s a long story.”
“I have all night.” He crossed his arms and grinned, but the effect was wasted. Emma had officially launched into her own world, and she didn’t seem to be issuing any invitations to join her. “You don’t have to bear the burdens of the world, you know.”
That got her attention. Her eyes narrowed, and the warmth between them began to cool. “You don’t know a thing about my burdens.”
“Whoa.” He held up both hands in defense, causing Remington to toss his head and duck back into his stall. “I’m trying to help here.”
“I know you are. But Cody is...impossible. He’s not who he used to be.” Emma turned to face him, tears glistening. “Not everything is an easy fix, you know. Not Tonya. Not Cody. And not—” She stopped herself, and he’d have given his back forty acres to know what she’d been about to say.
He tried a different approach. “I never said it was easy. Cody is just tired of being treated like a textbook. He wants a mom, not a counselor.”
Her eyes widened as if she’d been struck, and his heart shifted toward his boots. He’d said too much—crossed a camper confidentiality line, and at probably the worst possible time.
He tried to backtrack. “Emma, I’m on your side.” He reached out to touch her, but she didn’t soften. If anything, she grew stonier. This was not what he’d intended to do. “I just meant it’s not all your responsibility.”
“So whose is it?” Her eyes flashed. “Who is responsible for wayward kids? Whose fault is it?”
“Fault?” They’d gotten way off topic, but clearly this was something Emma had been keeping just below the surface. As much as he’d wanted to know what was going on in her head, he wasn’t sure he could handle this much roller coaster. Not tonight, with the weight of the day still pressing in. He struggled to take a breath against the heaviness suddenly covering the barn. “Why does it have to be anyone’s fault? Stuff happens. Kids are influenced or hurt and no one can necessarily prevent—”
“But some can. Some can be prevented. And in those cases, there is someone to blame.”
She believed a lie, and it was killing her. His heart softened at her burden. “You’re not to blame, Emma. There’s no way.”
Her lips pressed together but didn’t contain the words that exploded forth like a shot from his favorite rifle. “You’re right. I’m not.” The tears spilled over, leaving makeup speckled trails down her cheeks. “You are.”
Chapter Seventeen
She’d said it. There was no turning back now.
But that didn’t stop her from hightailing it out of the barn.
Emma picked up her pace, the ground rising to trip her, but she kept going, stumbling in the darkness toward the light shining in the main house’s front window. Her outburst raced through her head almost as fast as her legs churned the ground, and she mentally railed on herself. How could she have said that? Thirteen years of keeping a secret, down the drain. She never should have told her mom. That unplugged the dam, and now she was about to pay for over a decade of silence.
Max didn’t let escape come easily.
He caught up in a few quick strides and grabbed her arm. She pulled him along, knowing he was too stubborn to let go, yet too much of a gentleman to force her to stop. “Emma, wait. What do you mean?”
He had to know by now, typo or not. Did he really not get it? The possibility that he didn’t brought hope, but it was tainted with instant disappointment. She either had to lie to his face, or confess. Neither option felt right.
She stopped just inside the front door, and Max finally released her as if realizing she had nowhere else to go.
And she didn’t. Her past had finally caught up to her, right there in a dimly lit living room on a ranch in the middle of Broken Bend, Louisiana. A ranch for troubled teens. Their troubled teen.
“I know you’re angry. But I don’t really get why.” Max stepped back to give her room—or maybe give himself room—and tossed his cowboy hat on the table by the door. His rumpled hair just made him all the more endearing, and the memory of their kiss seared her lips. What had she been thinking, saying “maybe” like that? As if they actually had a chance? As if this bomb of a truth she was about to detonate wouldn’t change anything? Change everything?
Out. Of. Her. Mind.
“Talk to me, Emma.” His tone pitched at the end, revealing his desperation, and it almost broke the shield around her heart. He cared—really cared.
But not for long.
“Why are you mad? Was it the kiss?” He was starting to look angry now, too, probably because she couldn’t make herself speak. Her mind wouldn’t shut up, but her lips refused to open and say what she’d buried for so long. “I’m sorry if I rushed you. If it was too—”
“That’s not it.” There, finally, her
voice. She held up her hand, wanting to touch him but knowing it’d just be pouring fuel on the fire she was about to light. “The kiss was...well. It was.” Wonderful. Perfect. Everything she’d missed since their last one years ago. But the desire seeped and soaked underneath layers of bitterness she thought she’d rid herself of, yet apparently, had only been hiding.
“What’s my fault?” He stabbed his fingers through his hair, drawing the rumples even higher. “I don’t get it, Emma. I was trying to reassure you that Cody’s choices aren’t your fault, and you spin it around on me? You know I’ve done nothing but try to help him this entire time. And he’s making progress. I don’t understand why you’re so—”
“You’re right. You don’t understand.” Her stomach cramped. “There’s something you don’t know.” She wanted to pray, wanted to beg God to take this situation away, just make it disappear—but there was no way. This was her choice. Her sin. Her consequences.
Coming full circle.
Hadn’t she paid enough?
“If there’s a missing puzzle piece here, then please, by all means fill me in.” He spread his arms to the side, his expression as haphazard as his hair.
Guilt shook her insides. She’d pushed him to his own limit, what with their exhausting day, their kiss and half-spoken declarations, and now her random—in his eyes, at least—freak-out.
He stilled and lowered his voice. “I told you from the beginning the more I know about these campers and their home lives and their backgrounds, the better equipped I am to make a difference.”
“You made a difference all right.” Ah. There was her alternating archenemy and best friend, Resentment, bubbling to the surface. She could psychoanalyze herself down to her own core, but somehow, she felt helpless to put into practice the advice she’d give her clients. This was too deep.
His eyes narrowed. “Quit with the riddles, Emma. Shoot straight.”
Straight? Fine. Right to his heart. “You’re Cody’s dad.”
* * *
Max had never told anyone this before, not even Brady, but he’d always secretly enjoyed the story of Alice in Wonderland. He’d discovered it in school, when a librarian read it to his class over a series of afternoons, and he’d carried those images with him for life. There was something appealing about it—though at the time, he’d not been masculine enough to admit it—about falling into an alternate reality, where cats grinned, and rabbits carried watches, and flamingos served as croquet mallets. Where nothing was as it seemed. Where anything could be possible—like finding a father who actually cared.
He never thought about how Alice must have felt tumbling down the hole to get there.
He knew now.
“Cody’s dad.” The words stuck on his tongue like they belonged to someone else. And maybe they did. How was this even possible? His mind raced with a reasonable argument, but all he could sputter was time. “Thirteen years. Thirteen years ago?”
“Right. Do the math.”
He had.
And it hadn’t added up. After he’d counted, all he’d focused on was Cody’s explanation. My dad was a jerk who left my mom when she was pregnant.
How could—
Him? He was the jerk?
Heat spread across his cheeks and jaw and into his ears. “The birthday in his file doesn’t—”
She swallowed, looked away. “It’s a typo.”
A typo. Everything, his entire life, and future, and past, boiled down to a typo.
What if she’d never admitted it? He’d have never known.
Because of a typo.
But black ink on paper or not, the truth remained. She’d lied. To both of them.
An ache started deep within as the realization of all he’d missed paraded before his eyes. He never got to feel his son kick. Never got to hold Emma’s hand in the delivery room, never got to pose for a picture beside his newborn. Never got to help him potty train or take him to the doctor for checkups. Never got to watch Saturday cartoons or ride a bike.
Nothing.
Because of her.
“How could you?” He didn’t recognize his own voice. Couldn’t control its timbre. Couldn’t stop the boiling rush of emotion rising in his throat and taking over. He slammed his fist against the door frame, and the wood cracked. “How could you!”
She didn’t flinch. Didn’t shake. Didn’t even blink. Just stood there and took it—as if she knew she deserved it. Well, good. She did. How dare she stand there and tell him Cody’s behavior was his fault when he hadn’t even been there? Hadn’t ever been given a choice?
His hand hurt.
Not as much as his heart.
The room felt as though it was caving in. Walls coming closer. He closed his eyes and shoved his fingers through his hair, his chest burning with unnamed feelings and regrets. And yet, underneath all of that...one question remained. “Why?”
If anything, her grip around herself tightened. “I did what I had to do.”
“Oh, right. You had to run away and keep a secret.” He laughed, a harsh sound void of amusement, one that rippled up from his churning stomach. “That makes perfect sense.”
“Max, it’s not like that.” She reached out, but he jerked away as if her touch would poison him. Maybe it already had. Maybe that was the source of his ache the past decade-plus—the effect of Emma and her secrets. Her selfishness. “You don’t understand.”
“You’re right. I don’t.” He grabbed his hat and shoved it back on his head. “I’ll never understand how you could keep a secret like that. How you could bring your son—our son—to my camp and still not tell me the truth.” His voice rose with every new word. “How you could stand there and blame me for his choices, how you could kiss—” His breath caught and he hardened his heart. No. No tears. She certainly hadn’t spent the past decade crying over him.
He wouldn’t waste another solitary one on her. “Forget it.” He wrenched open the door.
Her fingers brushed his sleeve. “Max, wait.”
The door shook the frame as it slammed behind him, drowning out her protests.
Drowning out his own.
* * *
Emma curled up on her bed, trying to silence her sobs so as not to wake Tonya, Katie and Stacy. Her cell phone glowed on her nightstand, revealing that only seven minutes had passed since she’d last checked. Since time had decided to all but stand still. Since sleep continued to elude her.
Though that could be a blessing, since her dreams wouldn’t be much better than reality.
She twisted on her back, scrunching her pillow under her head and brushing at the wet spot left from tears. It wasn’t the first time she’d cried herself to sleep—or tried to—over Max Ringgold. But these tears stemmed from somewhere previously untapped.
And were oddly mixed with a small, yet very tangible, sense of relief.
It was done. Her all-too-familiar burden had been lifted, though a new one had immediately settled in its place. The secret was out. It was over. She could take a breath, a full breath, for the first time in too many years to count.
But they still had to tell Cody.
The relief vanished, and fresh tears soaked onto the neckline of her sleep shirt. And she thought telling Max had been hard? What was she thinking? She wasn’t. Hadn’t. But no, her plan used to make sense, back when it was just her and Cody, when she knew that there was zero chance of running into Max, zero chance for anything to change.
Yet everything had changed, and no one told her.
Because you never gave anyone a chance to.
Her conscience reared, sharp and ugly and all too honest. She flopped on her side, the wet pillowcase sticking to her cheek. All these years, she’d convinced herself Cody’s problems were Max’s fault. If Max hadn’t passed on those genes, if Max hadn’t live
d the way he’d lived, if Max hadn’t done drugs, Cody would be different. If Max, if Max, if Max.
If Emma.
Now her conscience sounded a whole lot more like the Lord, another voice she’d squelched over the years of doing everything for herself. She’d been running from more than Max and her past. She’d been running from herself.
And her faith.
“I’m tired of running,” she muttered into her pillow, and across the dorm, one of the girls shifted in her bed, sheets rustling. She stilled, trying to calm her pounding heartbeat, and uttered the words she should have spoken to God years ago. “I’m done running.”
A slight pocket of peace began to envelop her, and she nestled into it like a downy quilt. Cody’s problems weren’t Max’s fault. And they weren’t hers. They were probably a little bit of both—but they were mostly Cody’s. Maybe he’d been reacting in a way that connected to Emma’s bad choices, but he was still ultimately responsible for himself. Just as she was. Just as Max was.
Of the three of them, Emma’s choices might just be the worst. Hers didn’t involve drugs and gangs. But she’d kept her choices and sins a secret. Max had always lived out loud, had never hidden who he claimed to be. He’d definitely made wrong decisions, but hadn’t she? At least Max hadn’t pretended to be something he wasn’t.
She’d been pretending for thirteen years.
Another weight lifted, and her body relaxed even as her heart sought to rid itself of her years of guilt and regret. She prayed honestly for the first time in too long, turning Cody over to the Lord and embracing the fact that for once, not having control over a situation might just be a good thing. The best thing.
For all of them.
Chapter Eighteen
Max managed to avoid Emma most of the following day, making an extra effort to keep the boys’ and girls’ schedules separate. He could go about Monday business as usual, as long as he didn’t have to look at her. Luke had come in for the afternoon, since Nicole was resting and stable, and offered to take over with the campers while Max arranged for Tonya’s parents to pick her up. He still couldn’t believe he had a pregnant teen, a lying ex-girlfriend and a secret son on the premises.
Love Inspired January 2014 - Bundle 1 of 2: Her Unexpected CowboyHis Ideal MatchThe Rancher's Secret Son Page 55
