Her Surprise Sister

by Marta Perry

  “You sound surprised.” Violet glanced up at him and then looked quickly away.

  But not before he’d seen the warmth in her gaze. It gave him a totally irrational urge to put his arm around her.

  He restrained himself. “Well, volunteering in a small-town teen center is a far cry from her glamorous job as assistant at Texas Today magazine.”

  “Maddie has unexpected depths,” Violet said, smiling a little, but then the smile slipped away. “She talked to me about losing her job. That really devastated her.”

  “Do you recommend corralling a bunch of teenagers as a cure?” he asked.

  Violet’s head tilted as she seemed to consider the question. “I don’t know about that, specifically. But I know it’s important to feel that you’re doing something useful, and she is.”

  “You make a good point.” He let his hand brush hers between their bodies, trusting that no one else could see. The kids probably shouldn’t see their chaperones holding hands. “Is that the girl Maddie said you were worried about?” he asked quietly.

  She nodded. “Tracey Benton. The family is fairly new in the area. They moved here from somewhere in south Texas.”

  “Trouble at home, do you think?” He glanced at the girl, who was smiling at something Maddie had said.

  “I’m beginning to think so. Usually if they’re upset about friends or boys, they’ll come out with it, given half a chance. Something tells me this is family trouble.”

  “You really care, don’t you?”

  She glanced up, obviously surprised. “Of course.”

  “Even if the girl doesn’t let you help her?”

  Violet shrugged. “She still shows up every time we’re open. As long as she’s here, we have a chance to minister to her. There’s no way of knowing how and why God might work through us.”

  Landon was silenced by the words. He made careful, thorough studies of any organization before he donated to it, as meticulous as if he were making a business investment. Violet’s haphazard approach was foreign to his nature, but he still couldn’t help but appreciate it.

  “Well, Maddie seems to have things in hand here,” Violet said. “I’m going to relieve Lynn on the door. It gets busy when a lot of kids start to leave at once.”

  She moved off, and Landon stood looking after her. Violet kept surprising him, showing him different aspects of herself that both startled and delighted him.

  He checked out the kitchen to make sure the volunteer there didn’t need any help, then walked back through to the gym, telling himself he wasn’t necessarily doing that because Violet was there.

  Violet was there, all right. She stood at the door, her body language eloquent. She was barring entrance to three teenage boys who loomed over her.

  He walked quickly toward her, thinking of nothing but the need to protect her. As he came up to the group by the door, she was lecturing the kid who was obviously the ringleader of the trio. Taller than Violet by a half a foot, he teetered a bit on the heels of his Western boots, hat pushed back on his head.

  “You know the rules, Sam Donner. Once you leave, you can’t come back in.”

  “But I just went out to check on Danny, here.” He shoved the kid next to him. “Danny forgot he was supposed to meet us here.”

  “You went out looking for beer,” Violet said, her tone uncompromising. “And you smell like you found it. Now leave before I call your parents.”

  It hung in the balance for a moment. Violet’s assumption of control seemed to be working. Then the taller of his two buddies prodded Sam in the ribs. “You gonna let her talk to you like that? You said we could have some fun here.”

  That gave the kid a bit of courage. He took a step toward Violet, opened his mouth, and closed it with a snap as Landon moved Violet aside with one hand and grabbed Sam’s collar with the other.

  “You’ve been asked to leave, fellas. I think you probably want to do just that, don’t you?” He pulled up on the collar, the slightest movement making the kid stumble. Violet was right—he’d been drinking, and the smell of it churned Landon’s stomach, sending memories tumbling through his mind. “Right?” He yanked the collar a bit harder, judging that none of them really wanted a fight, especially not with someone more than their size.

  “Landon,” Violet murmured, but Landon didn’t take his eyes off the kid’s face.

  “Right, right, we’re going.” The kid tried to manage a smile, not quite succeeding. Landon let him go, and he stumbled backward out the door. “Come on. We’ll find our fun somewhere else.” He turned with an assumption of arrogance that didn’t quite fly and shuffled off with his friends.

  Landon closed the door on the heat and humidity, his stomach still churning. He turned to Violet to find her looking at him with fury in her eyes.

  “What do you mean by interfering?” she snapped. “If I’d needed help, I’d have asked for it. Which I didn’t.”

  * * *

  Violet was still fuming inwardly as she finished the routine of closing Teen Scene down for another week. If she’d been able to say everything she was feeling at the time, she’d probably have simmered down by now.

  But she hadn’t, both because she wouldn’t do that where there was a possibility of the teens overhearing, and because it just wasn’t in her nature to blow up at anyone. How could Landon move her to both longing and fury so easily?

  Maybe she didn’t want to look too closely at the answer to that question.

  Violet walked back through the gym, making sure everything had been cleaned up. She had it on good authority that a couple of church members had taken to checking out the rooms on Sunday mornings, ready to complain about the program if they found anything amiss. She was determined that they wouldn’t.

  The gym was fine, the kitchen cleaned up and everything put away. The games room and social room seemed to be in order as well. She began locking doors, making her way around methodically while wondering where Maddie had gone. She must have already headed upstairs.

  Everything secure, she turned off the lights and started up the stairs. Still no Maddie. Violet stepped outside and locked the door.

  She turned, looking automatically for Maddie’s car, but the space was filled instead by Landon’s vehicle, with Landon standing beside it.

  He straightened, probably reading the annoyance in her face even in the glow from the light above the door. “Don’t be mad,” he said quickly.

  “Where’s Maddie?”

  “I asked if she’d let me bring you home so we can talk.”

  It wouldn’t have been hard for him to persuade Maddie, given her obvious desire to bring the two of them together.

  “It’s late, Landon. I don’t want to talk right now.”

  “But I do.” He stepped toward her, and as he came into the circle of light, she was shocked by the pain in his face. “Please, Violet. Take a walk with me. I’ve got to get this out of my system before I bury it again.”

  The grief in his voice struck her heart so hard she felt it like a physical pain. Wordless, she held out her hand to him. He clasped it, holding on tight, and they turned and walked along the side of the church toward Main Street.

  Landon stopped when they reached the street, as if unsure where to go. Then, still clasping her hand, he led the way across to the green, serene and quiet, its linden trees spreading their branches like arms in welcome.

  The bench in the center of the green bore a plaque saying it was donated in memory of Uncle James, and that seemed comforting. Landon sat down next to her and Violet waited, half-afraid to hear what he had to say.

  Crickets rasped their monotonous sound, and a light breeze tickled the hairs on her nape. A car went by, its radio playing a country-western song, and then they were alone.

  “You think I shouldn’t have interfered tonight with those boys. Maybe I shouldn’t have, but…” He paused, seeming to search for words. “It’s not something I talk about, but you deserve to hear what drives me. We’ve gotten too close
, and everything that’s happened since I came to Grasslands has been bringing up memories.”

  Painful memories, judging by the look on his face, and her heart was swept with the longing to wipe away that pain. If all she could do was listen, then she would. “Tell me,” she said quietly.

  His fingers tightened on hers. “I don’t know if you can understand a family like mine. Two parents, plenty of money, two healthy children…from the outside we must have looked like the perfect family.”

  He fell silent, and she realized she’d have to prompt him to keep him going.

  “Not so perfect on the inside?” she asked gently.

  He shook his head. “Don’t get me wrong. Our parents weren’t abusive or anything of the kind. They just didn’t have any time for us.”

  “Us?”

  His hand moved restlessly, and for a moment she thought he’d jump up and run away from telling her. The desire was so strong in him that she could feel it.

  “Jessica. My sister, three years younger than I.” His voice softened. “She was such a beautiful little kid—blond curls, big blue eyes, such a sweet, innocent smile. Anyone would love her. Our parents just…” He shrugged. “Dad was totally involved with his business. Our mother was totally involved with her social life. We were left to a succession of housekeepers to take care of. I figured out early on that if anyone was going to look after Jessica, I’d be that person.”

  Maddie had said his sister died when she was in her teens. A cold hand seemed to grip Violet’s heart. “Something happened to her, didn’t it?”

  He was staring straight ahead, and his profile was sharp and forbidding…and as still as if it was carved from rock. He swallowed, and even in the semidark she could see the movement of his Adam’s apple.

  “She was just fourteen—the age of some of those kids tonight. Mom and Dad were off on a trip to New York, leaving the housekeeper in charge. Jessica had been driving me crazy all week, wanting to go with me to a football game and party.” He scrubbed a hand across his face. “I told her I wouldn’t because the kids would be too old for her, but the truth was that there was a girl I was interested in, and I didn’t want my kid sister tagging along. So I went off without her.”

  He took a ragged breath. “As soon as the housekeeper dozed off, Jessica slipped out. She left me a note, saying she could find parties on her own and she’d tell me all about it the next day. But she didn’t.” He stopped, and she saw the muscles work in his neck. “She got into a car with a drunken kid. He ran right into a bridge abutment. He walked away with barely a scratch. She died a few hours later at the hospital, with nobody there but me.”

  She hurt so much for him that she could hardly breathe. So much pain, so much guilt—it flowed from him in heavy, suffocating waves, nearly burying her.

  She couldn’t speak, but she had to. She put her hand on his arm, the muscles so tight that they felt like steel cables. “Landon, it wasn’t your fault. You—”

  “I should have taken care of her. I didn’t. She died.” His voice was flat.

  “You weren’t her parent.” She tried again. “Just her brother. Just a kid yourself. You couldn’t have known what would happen.”

  “I should have taken her with me. She loved to go places with her big brother.” He turned to her then, his face tortured. “But I didn’t. I let her go off on her own and get in a car with a kid who was blind drunk.”

  “That’s why you reacted so strongly to Sam and his friends.” He’d seen her threatened by a drunken kid, and he’d jumped in to protect her in the way he hadn’t protected his sister.

  “I had to protect you. Just like I was trying to protect Maddie when I proposed to her. But nothing can make up for what I did to Jessica.”

  “Landon, I understand. I do. But you weren’t responsible. Even if you had been, even if you’d been driving that car, you must know that Jessica would have forgiven you in an instant. That God forgives you.” She smoothed her hand along his arm, hoping the simple human touch would comfort him.

  He shook his head. “God may forgive me. But I don’t forgive myself.”

  “Don’t, Landon.” Her voice shook and she tried her best to steady it. She couldn’t pretend to have the strongest faith in the world, but this she was sure of. “You can’t turn away from forgiveness that way. If you can’t forgive yourself, how can you accept God’s forgiveness?”

  He looked at her bleakly. “I don’t know. Maybe I can’t.”

  She touched his face, smoothing her palm along his cheek, feeling warm skin and the faint stubble of beard. A muscle twitched in his jaw as if in protest to her touch.

  Then he made an inarticulate sound and pulled her into his arms, holding her fiercely, as if she was his only anchor from the pain that was sweeping him away.

  She wrapped her arms around him, holding him close, thinking of how he had held her in those moments after she’d found the photo of her family. She didn’t know what he felt for her. She only knew that at this moment he needed comfort, and if that was all she could ever give him, at least she would give him that right now.

  Chapter Ten

  Violet sat in church on Sunday morning, her gaze focused on Pastor Jeb. He stood tall in the simple, pale oak pulpit, his red hair like a flame where a shaft of sunlight from an upper window struck it. Around them, Grasslands’ faithful crowded the plain, uncushioned pews of the simple sanctuary, its stained-glass windows the only ornamentation other than the painting of Jesus in Gethsemane above the communion table.

  Having Maddie sitting next to her was a new experience, and her heart filled with thankfulness that she was reunited with her twin after all these years. It still seemed impossible that they should have found each other. Still, with God, all things were possible.

  She wasn’t quite so thankful for the attention they were arousing. People were too polite to turn around and stare openly in church, but those seated behind her and Maddie had a clear view. She could almost feel the numerous eyes on the back of her neck.

  Violet brought her wandering thoughts back to the sermon, but Pastor Jeb’s words about the power of prayer for even the smallest things in life sent them careening off on another tangent. Of course, Landon’s grief over his lost sister wasn’t small. It loomed large in his past, still coloring all that he thought and did.

  He was taking all the responsibility for what happened to his sister on himself. That was a natural reaction to so painful a loss, but she’d think time and distance would have helped him see that other people bore responsibility, too.

  His parents, for instance, to say nothing of the housekeeper who’d dozed off and let Jessica go out that fateful night. Then there were the people who’d given that party and obviously not provided enough supervision, and of course, the drunk driver himself.

  And finally, Jessica. Much as it would pain Landon to think about it, a fourteen-year-old should be old enough to exercise caution about getting into a car with someone who was obviously drunk.

  She couldn’t have said any of those things to Landon last night. Maybe she never could. Landon had been silent as he drove her back to the ranch, as if the effort of telling her had exhausted all his words. She’d been as quiet, not knowing what to say that would do any good. It seemed that the odd way they had been brought together had led them into a closer relationship than would normally be possible in such a short period of time. She’d betrayed her deepest emotions to Landon, and last night he’d told her things he might never have told anyone.

  Maybe it was too much, too fast. Maybe that was why he’d been so uncommunicative. Doubts swept through her. Maybe he’d been having regrets about saying anything at all to her.

  When they’d reached the house, he’d walked her to the door, told her he’d be back in a few days at most, and given her a quick, hard kiss. Then he’d gotten into the car and driven away.

  At least now she knew why he’d reacted the way he had to young Sam and his buddies. How could he do otherwise?

&nb
sp; They stood for the closing prayer, and then Pastor Jeb raised his arms as if to encircle all of them in a hug. “God be with you until we meet again.”

  Somehow her heart eased as she repeated the words in her heart to her mom, to Jack, to Landon, even to the father she hadn’t met.

  The postlude rang out, and she and Maddie began to edge their way out of the pew. Their progress was impeded by all the people who wanted to satisfy their curiosity by having a word with them.

  That was an uncharitable thought, and she scolded herself for it. These people were her neighbors and her church family. Of course they were interested, but they were well-meaning, too. Most of them honestly just wanted to welcome Maddie to their midst.

  Glancing back toward the double doors, Violet noticed someone else who was in church for the first time that day. Tracey sat in the corner of the back pew, looking around as if unsure what to do next.

  Violet murmured an apology in Maddie’s ear and, ignoring her reproachful expression, deserted her, slipping back along the aisle. She nodded and smiled as people spoke to her and evaded the hands that reached out to her. She wanted to get to Tracey before the girl had a chance to disappear.

  Violet reached the back of the sanctuary just as Tracey slipped out the door, taking advantage of a large woman who’d stopped to talk to Pastor Jeb to slide past without greeting him. Violet followed her, touching Tracey lightly on the shoulder.

  The girl turned, her eyes wide and startled.

  “Hey, Tracey, it’s so nice to see you here today. I’m glad you decided to worship with us this morning.”

  Tracey nodded, her expression guarded. “I just thought I would. I mean, since I come here for Teen Scene, the church didn’t seem so strange to me.”

  That was exactly the argument she’d used to sway some of the board members into starting the ministry, and she was glad to hear the reasoning coming from Tracey’s lips. Tracey had obviously dressed carefully for her first appearance in church, discarding her usual jeans and T-shirt for a yellow cotton sundress. Her dark hair shone against the sunny color.