After a pause, she said softly, “And that leaves you.”
“That leaves me.” He took a moment, trying to get his words together. “My mother left us when I was twelve. Then Michael left. Then Geoffrey left. And Dad, of course, was torn up about the way we’d fallen apart. I felt like my family had disintegrated, and I had nothing left.”
He cleared his throat, finding it very difficult to say the next thing to Helen, when all he wanted to do was impress her and earn her admiration. “I was young. Just in college. And I think in some ways I’d been spoiled. Things had always come easily for me—school, friends, sports, whatever. I was used to being able to…to fix things in my world to my satisfaction. And then suddenly I’d lost everything and couldn’t do anything to fix it.”
His face twisted slightly as he concluded. “I gave up. I couldn’t keep coming back here and remembering everything I didn’t have anymore. And I was angry with God for stripping it all from me. Taking it away so unjustly, I thought.”
“I can only imagine how hard that must have been. You were what, twenty-one?”
“Yeah. So I just started over—gave up on Cane completely. I never really gave up on my faith—I just put it indefinitely on hold because I stupidly didn’t think God deserved my loyalty. I kept in touch with my Dad. I never hated him, and I was basically all he had left. But I couldn’t bring myself to visit Cane again. He came to see me quite a bit.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“Yeah. I guess the story around here is that we all cut our ties completely. But I didn’t. I couldn’t. Geoff and I are still close. And, of course, once Mom died, Melissa came to stay with me.” To his relief, Helen had looked up at the sky so she wasn’t staring at him while he’d made such a naked confession. It made it easier, somehow.
Now that it was said, he didn’t regret it.
“Is that why you never started a family of your own?” Helen asked at last, her voice oddly tentative. “Because you’d lost yours so painfully?”
Andrew looked back over at her and recognized she was nervous about the question, worried that he wouldn’t respond to it well. Her anxiety comforted him, made him realize she wasn’t in control of this either, that he wasn’t the only one feeling his way blindly in this conversation.
He thought about her question before he answered it. “Maybe. Not consciously. I never made a conscious decision not to get married. I dated a lot until the last few years. I just never found anyone I wanted to marry. But, in some ways, I think you’re right. That was what was holding me back. I couldn’t take the risk of starting my own family if it might fall apart on me like it did before. Now, I think…” He trailed off, as a realization hit him out of the blue.
For the last few years, he’d been growing in his desire for a wife and family, and now he desperately wanted one. He could picture himself with a wife—maybe like Helen. Maybe a few children. The image was so powerful, so vivid, his chest ached for it.
“Now, you think what?” Helen asked, following up on his last broken thought.
He couldn’t bring himself to tell her, since she was too closely aligned to the heart of his own desires. He was still too confused about too many things, and he had no idea how Helen felt about him anyway.
He smiled at her and shook his head. “What about your family? Any deep confessions?” His words were light, but he really wanted to know. He wondered if she’d be willing to share with him the way he had with her. Desperately hoped she would.
Her eyes drifted away from him, and she made a reluctant face. “There’s not much to tell about my family. My parents loved me, and I loved them. We were blessed not to have anything more than the run-of-the-mill conflicts and arguments.”
“Your mom died a few years ago?”
Her smile was sad as met his eyes again. “Yeah. It was a heart-attack, and none of us expected it. So now it’s just me and my Dad.” She swallowed visibly. “And, one day, my Dad will die too, and then it will be just me.”
He saw tears in her eyes before she turned away. Andrew’s throat ached for her, at the fear he recognized underlying her simple words.
Able to do nothing else, he reached over and ran his fingers lightly over the back of her hand, which was resting on her belly.
She turned back to him, smiling again, obviously recovered from the brief swell of emotion. “Thanks.”
His chest warmed at the knowledge that his silent attempt at comfort had meant something to her, had helped her. In so many ways, he felt like he had nothing significant to offer her, but maybe that wasn’t true.
“I’m surprised you haven’t started a family of your own,” he said, pleased his voice sounded natural. He was a little nervous at the comment, understanding now why Helen had looked anxious when she’d asked him something similar.
She gave a little snort. “I’m not entirely in control of that.”
“What do you mean?”
Staring at him like he was crazy, she said, “Well, in order to start my own family, I’d have to find a man who wants to start a family with me.”
When he realized what she was talking about, Andrew’s lips parted slightly in surprise. “Surely, that isn’t a problem for you.”
“Do you see men lining up at my door to ask me out? Much less ask me to marry them?”
“Well—” Andrew cut himself off before he said what first came to mind. He could think of at least two men who were obviously interested in her now. But since one of them was him, the comment might make a rather awkward situation.
“I’ve never been the kind of girl that guys are into,” she said, with a little sigh of resignation that was almost heartbreaking in its finality and acceptance.
“I don’t believe you,” he said, before he thought through the wisdom of the words.
She gave him a slightly annoyed look. “I’m not lying to you. I can count on one hand the number of men I’ve dated in my entire life. I’m not saying anything is wrong with me. I’m just saying that nobody wants me.”
Andrew could hardly wrap his mind around what she’d told him so bluntly. She was beautiful, intelligent, funny, and so sweet. She obviously loved deeply and with unwavering commitment. She lived her life in response to her deep faith.
What else would a man want in a woman, in a wife, in the mother of his children? How was it that every man in the world hadn’t recognized what he’d seen so quickly? Surely they weren’t all deceived by her the quiet composure or her retiring demeanor. Her nature shone, it glowed, with a radiance that couldn’t be hidden.
“Well, you don’t have to stare at me like I’m some sort of freak,” she muttered eventually, blushing more deeply than she had before. “I promise I’m not the only woman in the world who has been socially overlooked, for no particular reason.”
Realizing she’d misunderstood his dazed stare, Andrew murmured, “I don’t think you’re a freak. I can’t believe you’ve been overlooked.” His eyes and mouth softened. “I can’t believe no one wants you.”
It wasn’t true. He wanted her. Deeply. Desperately.
Her face was still flushed, but this time she didn’t look away. They lay side by side on the blanket on the grass. Not touching. Not doing anything but holding the gaze.
And Andrew lost his breath anyway.
It felt like they were touching. The shared look was so intense, so intimate, that he was sure she had to know how he felt. That the feelings he’d been trying to fend off for weeks had risen to the surface, had spilled over into the gaze.
For the first time, he felt a flare of hope. That maybe—miraculously—Helen might return those feelings. That she might see something in him, however unworthy, that she wanted too.
He wanted to take her hand. He wanted to kiss her. And soon the urge was so strong he had to hold himself back by the force of his will. Finally, he had to turn his head and look back up to the bird’s nest, still shadowed in the tree. If he hadn’t looked away, he wouldn’t have been able to stop hims
elf from reaching out to her, and then there would have been no turning back.
Helen cleared her throat and sat up on the blanket. “Well, that’s nice of you to say, although I’m afraid my dating track record speaks for itself.” She rubbed her face, as if she were trying to dispel cobwebs. “So why did you come back? To your faith, I mean?”
Andrew stared up at her for a minute, amazed and touched by what her words had implied. “Thank you for assuming I have.”
“Oh. I just assumed…I mean, you’re committed to God now. Right?”
“Right. It’s been a process. During my twenties, I basically tried to ignore God, but for the last several years I’ve been on my way back. Now, I think I’m almost there. I just seem to be missing one last thing. Peace, maybe.”
Helen nodded, as if she’d understood this about him already. It reassured Andrew. She wasn’t deceived about him. She understood his spiritual struggles and neither ignored them or made too much of them.
She idly glanced up into the tree again and smiled as she noticed something. “Look. The bird’s nest is in sunlight now.”
Andrew followed her gaze and couldn’t help but smile at how brightly the nest and the perched bird were lit. They were too far away to see the eggs, but he knew they’d be there.
“It doesn’t take much to break the shadows,” she murmured, meeting his eyes and obviously meaning so much more than the surface of the words. “Just the sun.”
Just the sun.
She was in the sunlight now too, her braided hair and rosy face lit by the bright fall of light.
Andrew wanted her so much, and he wasn’t sure how he could keep denying his feelings, just because he knew that he didn’t deserve her. It seemed selfish to saddle her with his conflicted soul, even if she was gracious enough to receive it. He still had so much to work out with God and himself.
But maybe if he could finally find peace, then he could find love as well.
***
For the next week, Helen waited to hear from Andrew.
She’d come down from the mountain on an emotional high. For the first time, she actually considered the possibility that he might be interested in her romantically. The personal nature of their conversation and his willingness to open had felt significant.
She could no longer deny that her feelings might be mutual. He’d looked at her so intensely, so hungrily. As if she were what he’d been waiting for his whole life. At one point she’d been sure he was close to kissing her. She didn’t have much experience with men, and she’d been wrong about men before. But she was sure she wasn’t deceived in Andrew’s attentions to her.
In church on Sunday after the hike, she saw him across the sanctuary. He smiled at her—and there was a certain resonance in his expression that made her blush. But she got waylaid after the service by a couple of the women in the church, and Andrew was gone before she was able to get across to aisle to speak to him.
But she hoped for a call, perhaps. Maybe even an invitation on a date. She felt like there was some kind of understanding between them now. Unspoken, perhaps, but there nonetheless.
So she went to work on Monday jittery and excited, but she didn’t hear from Andrew that day.
And so she hoped that he was just waiting until the next day to speak to her, since she’d arranged to have dinner with Melissa on Tuesday anyway.
But when Helen went over to the Cane’s house on Tuesday, Trish answered the door rather than Andrew, and he didn’t put in an appearance for dinner, as she’d half expected. Since she was feeling uncertain about the whole thing, she made a point of not asking Melissa where he was.
Often, in the past, he would be working in his office when Helen came over, but he’d always come out at some point—sometimes just before she left—to say hello.
He didn’t emerge at all on Tuesday, and Helen went home sorely disappointed.
On Wednesday, she still hoped for a call. She and Andrew had shared something on Saturday—something real and intimate. He’d treated her like she was special.
She was sure he wasn’t the kind of man to lead her on or play with her emotions.
But Thursday came and she still hadn’t heard from him. By the evening, she was starting to give up hope. She’d been mistaken about men before. Had believed men were interested in her when they obviously weren’t. Perhaps she’d read too much into his words and expression.
He’d said he couldn’t believe any man hadn’t wanted her before, but that didn’t necessarily mean he did.
She was eating leftover pizza on Thursday evening and trying not to feel sorry for herself when the phone rang. She leapt for it, snatching it up on the second ring. She’d never in her life been so eager for a phone call.
After her greeting, a male voice said, “Helen? Hi.”
She let out a breath. Not Andrew. “Hi. Yeah, it’s Helen.”
“It’s Thomas Harrison calling.”
She greeted him with as much enthusiasm as she could muster. She genuinely thought he was a nice guy. He just wasn’t Andrew.
Earlier that week, Judy had taken her off the manuscript duty. The appraisal had come in, and Thomas was accepting offers for purchase. Helen wasn’t qualified to negotiate the sale, so someone else at the college was assigned that responsibility.
At this point, the whole thing was out of Helen’s hands. She’d been so distracted with Andrew that the situation hadn’t bothered her as much as it would have otherwise.
She was pretty sure the library didn’t have much chance of successfully buying the manuscript—not if the Dean refused to up their offer. Andrew would get it. She was no longer hurt and angry about his behavior. She believed that—whatever conversation he’d had with the Dean—he hadn’t intended to betray her. This was just one of those things that were out of her hands. It was bitterly disappointing. But, had she started to date Andrew like she’d been hoping, the edge of the disappointment would have blunted quite nicely.
“You heard I’m accepting offers for the manuscript this week, I guess,” Thomas said, after a little small talk.
“Yeah. I’m sure you’re relieved to finally get down to business.”
“It does seem to have taken a long time, but I’m also glad for another reason.” He cleared his throat. “I’ve been waiting until you no longer had responsibility for dealing with the manuscript because I didn’t want there to be a conflict of interest.”
Helen sucked in a breath, instinctively understanding what was about to happen.
“I was wondering if you wanted to go out to dinner with me on Saturday night.”
Six weeks ago, Helen would have said yes without any hesitation. Thomas was a good man and a pleasant companion. While she wasn’t inordinately attracted to him, that was something that might change.
Now, Andrew had taken over her interest so completely that she hadn’t even thought about Thomas much for almost a month.
But Andrew had never spoken a word to her about pursuing a dating relationship. In fact, he’d been extremely careful in all of his dealings with her—giving her no direct signs of romantic intentions.
She’d been convinced that his expression and his opening up to her on Saturday had meant something deeper. But a week had gone by, and he hadn’t followed up.
More than that, he’d obviously been avoiding her.
She’d been wrong so many times before. For once, she’d been trying to follow her father’s advice and not assume she belonged in the shadows. That, as unlikely as it seemed, maybe a man as incredible as Andrew Cane might fall for her.
But her romantic dreams had always been crushed in the past, and it seemed they would be now too.
She couldn’t put her life in neutral as she dreamed of Andrew—when he’d gone out of his way to show her that he wasn’t going to ask her out.
So, after a moment’s pause, she said weakly, “Uh, yeah. I guess that would be all right.” There was nothing wrong with going to dinner with Thomas—to at least figure out
whether they had any potential at all.
He wasn’t Andrew, but Thomas had at least asked her out. Something it seemed more and more evident that Andrew had no intention of doing.
“Great,” Thomas said, sounding relieved. “Should I pick you up at about seven?”
“That would be fine. Thanks for asking.”
“You’re welcome. I’m looking forward to it.”
When she hung up, Helen stared at the phone.
It was ironic—in a slightly bitter way. She’d spent all week hoping to get a call for a date, and she finally had.
With the wrong man.
But there was no reason to assume he was the wrong man. She’d known all along the prince of the story would never fall for a quiet, unassuming librarian.
She’d let her imagination get away from her again. It had happened all her life. But she was going to be mature and reasonable about it now.
And she wasn’t going to let Andrew Cane break her heart any more.
Chapter Ten
“Does this look all right?” Helen asked, staring at herself in the full-length mirror in her bedroom. She wore a brown skirt and a pink crocheted sweater. She wasn’t sure where Thomas was planning to take her for dinner, but it seemed rude not to dress up a little. “I don’t want to look overdressed.”
“No. It’s perfect. You can go anywhere in that.” Lorraine was lounging on the armchair in Helen’s room, having come over for counsel and company as Helen got ready to go on her date on Saturday evening.
Helen peered at her hair, which was hanging in a shiny fall down her back. “What should I do with my hair? Put it up like normal?”
“No. I wouldn’t. It’s so pretty when you wear it down.”
She supposed most women her age wouldn’t get in such a tizzy about something as simple as a date, but dating wasn’t an everyday occurrence for her—or even an every-year occurrence. Plus, she was too old-fashioned to be able to treat dating as casually as a lot of women seemed to.
Helen pulled the top layer of her hair back, securing it with a large barrette she grabbed from the top of her dresser. “How’s that?”
No Shadow (Prodigal Sons of Cane) Page 11
