by Dana Corbit
“You have leaks in the basement, don’t you?”
“A few.” She frowned. “Wait. You can tell that by looking out here?”
“These downspouts are too short. They should have extenders so they come out farther from the foundation. The gutters have probably been blocked up there for years, too.” He pointed to a spot in the gutter with peeling paint and an obvious crack. “In an old place like this, there could be several reasons why the basement’s leaking, but we should try to fix the ones we can.”
“That’s great, but as I said—”
He didn’t even look back at her. “I told you I would take care of the financing.”
“But how?” She should have asked that question yesterday, but she’d been too worried about what would happen with Blake to have paid close attention to the other matters they’d discussed.
“The troopers at the Brighton Post have agreed to make Hope Haven a pet charity project for the next few months. We’re raising some money through our friends and families, and then several of the troopers have offered to help with the work.”
“You did all of that since yesterday in addition to enrolling Blake in his new school and buying him new clothes?”
Mark shot a look at Blake, who’d pulled the hood up around his ears and was staring up at the gutters. “When else was I supposed to do those things?”
He made it sound simple, but Mark had done plenty of things in the past twenty-four hours, beyond putting the fund-raising directors from local nonprofits to shame. She was relieved he didn’t enumerate all of the tasks he’d had to accomplish to bring Blake into his home. Feeling indebted to him was hard enough without having him list the details in a balance sheet where she was deeply in the red.
As if he was uncomfortable with making a big deal about his accomplishments since yesterday, Mark returned to his pickup and unlocked the silver toolbox that stretched across the truck bed. Dozens of hand tools and several power tools, their cords wrapped in tidy figure eights, were stored inside.
“When is he supposed to start at school?” she asked as he took inventory of his equipment.
“Not until the Monday after Thanksgiving. Since next week is only a three-day week, the counselor thought it would be better for me to help him get settled first.” He was winding another perfect cord on a power drill, but suddenly he turned back to her. “Wait. You didn’t say whether you were able to make an appointment with the family law attorney.”
She watched Blake for a few seconds as he stared up at the roof. “Yes, on Monday, but the attorney already gave me a preview of what I’m up against. I understand now what Miss Lafferty meant when she said that I would need her.”
“What do you mean?”
“Apparently, as a birth parent who signed a voluntary release of parental rights, I am not one of the parties who can legally request a court modification of a permanent custody order.”
“And all of that means...?”
“That I would need the state agency to request the change in the custody order because I can’t. It’s going to be an uphill battle.” She paused and lifted her chin. “But hills don’t scare me.”
Mark studied her for several seconds, but then he glanced over at the truck as if he’d forgotten something. “What about the DNA test? Don’t you have to start there?”
“We’ll want to get that done as soon as possible. We can go to the hospital lab on Monday to have a buccal swab taken for a chain of custody DNA test. It’s the only kind of test that’s admissible in court.”
“That’s just a swab that collects cells from the inside of your cheek, right?” He waited for her nod before he continued. “How long before you know if Blake is your kid?”
“Well, I already know, but I have to wait five to seven business days for medical proof.”
At that, he nodded, but he didn’t say whether or not he believed she was Blake’s birth mother. He returned his attention to the tools in his case.
“Hey, Blake. A little help over here?”
But the boy still stood in that same spot behind the house. He pointed to the roof. “You’re out of your mind if you think I’m going up there.”
Mark chuckled, the sound low and deep. “If you think I’d trust you up there, then you’ve got another think coming. You’ll be holding the ladder.”
“Sure you want to trust me to do that? One slip and...” Blake moved his hand in a circular motion to indicate the fall Mark might take.
Mark gave him a mean look and turned back to Shannon. “Now, if you can lead us to the ladder, then you’ll be free to head back inside while we get started.”
Had she just been dismissed? “Don’t you need me to—”
“No. We’ll be fine.”
Her mouth seemed to have fallen open of its own accord, so she clicked it closed. Why had Mark even suggested that he and Blake work at Hope Haven if he only planned to keep her son away from her? She’d been duped. He’d probably agreed to partner with her only to keep Blake from having to go to the children’s center, not to help her get to know her son. Would he go back on his word to let her supervise Blake while he was at work? Come to think of it, he’d dodged the question about why he’d volunteered in the first place. If she’d called him on it at the time, then she wouldn’t be in this position now.
It wasn’t fair. He was acting as a gatekeeper to her son. Wasn’t it enough that her parents had practically forced her to give away her child? Now Mark was playing games with her by making it possible for her to be near Blake and yet putting himself between them so they couldn’t get too close. Why was he doing that? But more important than that, how could she make him stop?
“So...the ladder?”
She indicated the barn with a flip of her thumb. “There are a few things out there. Ladder. Wheelbarrow. Maybe a hammer or two.”
“Good. Thanks.” He took a few steps toward the barn and then turned back.
She followed the line of his gaze to where Blake had remained near the house. No longer alone, the boy stood staring at the five girls across from him. Their curiosity appeared mutual.
Brooke stepped forward first, her mess of dark brown curls flying in her face. At almost seventeen, she was the most senior Hope Haven resident in both age and in weeks of her pregnancy.
“Hi, I’m Brooke.”
She reached out a hand to Blake. He stood motionless for a few heartbeats, his gaze locked on the fullness of her abdomen that peeked out from her fleece jacket, but then he must have caught himself staring because he stepped forward and shook her hand. “I’m...um...Blake.”
Shannon pressed her lips together, trying not to smile at his stammering. She mourned the years she’d been absent from his childhood, but this was a reminder that she hadn’t missed it all. He was still young enough to be shy around girls.
Since the oldest resident had introduced herself, it only seemed right that the youngest stepped forward next. “Hey, I’m Chelsea.”
Rolling his lips inward, Blake nodded at her.
With heavy limbs, Shannon crossed the yard to the group. The reception to her from both sides was frostier than the outside air.
“Girls, I didn’t get the chance to introduce you all yesterday.” She paused, taking in a breath so deep her lungs ached, and then exhaled slowly. “But I would like to you to meet Blake. My son.”
The girls’ gazes flicked her way, but almost as one, they looked away from her. She’d hurt them, all right, just as she’d hurt Blake.
“I gave up a baby for adoption when I was fifteen.” She paused, her gaze lingering on Chelsea, the only one of them who, like Shannon, would experience motherhood before she could drive. “We still have to have proof for the state that we’re biologically related, but I don’t need proof. He’s my son.”
She might have just i
magined the stark vulnerability in Blake’s eyes because it was there one second and gone the next. He pointedly looked away from her.
Denise made a big show of studying Shannon’s face and then repeated the exercise on Blake. “He looks like you,” she said finally. “Especially the eyes.”
Shannon cleared her throat. “I should have told you all about this before. That I knew what you were going through. That I understood.”
“We can talk about that later.” Chelsea indicated Blake with a shift of her head.
Shannon nodded.
“It’s okay, Miss Shannon,” Brooke told her.
But it wasn’t. None of them would ever understand why she’d kept her secret. She nodded her thanks anyway, trying her best to smile. “And, Blake, I’d like you to meet Sam, Denise and Jacqui.”
As they exchanged hellos, Blake did a good job of keeping eye contact with them rather than staring at their stomachs. If Shannon’s smile had been forced before, it was authentic now. He must have understood how much her girls hated people staring at them when they were out in public. She couldn’t take credit for her son’s good manners, however, as she’d played no role in his developing those. But she was glad that somewhere along the way someone had taught them to him.
Mark had been standing back, watching the introductions, but now he called over to them. “Hey, Blake, can you give me a hand with the ladder? Nobody’s paying us the big bucks to stand around. We need to get something done while the weather’s still holding out.”
For the first time, Shannon noticed the ominous clouds that this time of year could signal snow as easily as rain. “Okay, girls, let’s let them get to work. We have a list of our own chores inside.”
“Aw, man,” came the collective response.
“Do we have to?” Sam asked.
“The sooner we get started, the sooner we’ll be finished and you can download more library books on your ereader,” Shannon told her.
That must have been good enough for Sam because the group’s resident bookworm waved and headed off into the house. With only minor grumbling, the other four followed. They’d all had what they considered valid reasons to be angry with Shannon, and yet it appeared the girls were willing to forgive her.
If only it were as easy with Blake and with his new foster dad. Both were treating her like a convict on early release, no longer contained within cramped cell walls or trapped inside an electric fence, but still held by the ankle monitor that kept her from true freedom. Blake had searched for her and yet he’d announced that he wanted nothing to do with her. Mark had almost single-handedly provided her with the opportunity to get to know her son and now seemed to be planting himself as a roadblock to that opportunity.
What could she do? She’d already allowed others to pressure her into missing so many years of Blake’s life. She couldn’t let that happen again. She would find a way to reach Blake, with or without Mark’s help. Nobody was going to stop her.
* * *
The storm-heavy clouds made good on their threat by late morning. No matter how much Mark wanted to keep space between him and Blake and the ladies of Hope Haven, it wasn’t worth getting a lightning zap to stay on that rickety old ladder.
By the time that he and Blake had stuffed the ladder and the wheelbarrow full of leaves back in the barn, their coats were soaked, and they were shivering.
“This way.” Mark waved his arm and took off at a run toward the back of the house.
Blake caught up with him as he opened the storm door. “Wow, staying with you is better than staying on the streets. Drier, too.”
“You’re not a cube of sugar.” Mark let the boy inside on the doormat and then leaned out the open door to shake out his hair. “You won’t melt.”
“Sure about that?” Blake leaned out and shook his head as well and then pulled the door closed.
Shannon appeared in the doorway then, a stack of towels in her arms stretching up to her chin. “Sorry, guys. You must be freezing. I should have insisted that you come inside before the storm hit.”
“It’s just rain. We won’t melt,” Blake grumbled as he accepted a pair of towels and started rubbing his head.
Catching the towels as Shannon tossed them, Mark hid his grin. The kid had a quandary, all right, choosing between playing the tough guy and accepting some loving care from the pretty lady. Right now, the thug was ahead, but Blake wouldn’t be able to hold out for long with Shannon trying so hard to win him over. Mark sure wouldn’t have been able to resist if she was working that hard to get his attention.
He closed his eyes, wiping his face with the towel extra hard to clear his head. He had to stop thinking things like that. Shannon Lyndon hadn’t done a thing to encourage his attention, and he was noticing her, anyway. What was wrong with him? Since the divorce, he’d been as gun-shy as any guy who carried a gun for a living could be. And he’d been smart to be cautious after the scars that Kim had left behind by deserting him and their wedding vows. So what was he thinking taking a second glance at someone like Shannon, someone with a track record of deserting her own son?
After pulling off his sopping coat and resting it next to the back door, he glanced out the window where the skies continued to bluster and weep. His relief over having the chance to leave Hope Haven now shamed him. Coming here had been his idea in the first place, though Shannon hadn’t exactly painted signs in protest. She’d recognized it as a way to have more time with her son, and she’d climbed on board.
So now that he’d figured out that spending this much time at Hope Haven with the center’s pretty housemother might be as big a mistake as throwing himself into Blake’s life in the first place, he was stuck. Every time this morning that Shannon had found some flimsy excuse to come outside and say something to Blake, Mark had been so distracted that he’d nearly fallen off the ladder. It was a mistake, all right, and a health risk.
“We won’t be getting any more work done today, so...”
Still holding a few dry towels, Shannon was watching Blake shed his coat, but she looked over at the sound of Mark’s words.
“Oh...you don’t have to go, do you? I’m sure you could find some things to do inside.”
Blake pointed to the door. “I thought we were leaving now.”
Mark nodded. “Well, I—”
“I mean,” she began, trampling his words, “I fix the things I can, but my home-repair skills are sadly limited. The garbage disposal shoots food everywhere, one of the washing machines leaks all over the floor every time we use it and the upstairs toilet keeps overflowing.”
“Sounds like a mess, literally and figuratively,” he said, waggling his brows. “How did it get to this point?”
Apparently she didn’t like his question because she lifted her chin. “We’re doing the best we can. We try not to charge more than our residents’ parents can afford to pay, and after we’ve provided for healthy food, prenatal vitamins, online curriculum, school supplies and small salaries for the staff, there’s not a lot left over for minor repairs. We call those things our little inconveniences.”
“Sorry.” As obvious as it was that Shannon loved the center, Mark could only imagine what it had cost her to confess the facility’s deficiencies. The kind of shortcomings that could hurt her during a health department inspection.
“Well, we wouldn’t want you to get written up for any of those things, so...”
“So we won’t be leaving,” Blake finished for him.
Mark thought for a few seconds, the coward in him arm wrestling with the hero wannabe. Losing. “Guess not.”
The coward couldn’t resist requesting a rematch though. “But won’t the place be cramped with everyone inside doing their chores?”
Shannon was already at the door, hefting the heavy coats off the floor. “That shouldn’t be a problem,” she sai
d over her shoulder. “I’ll ask the girls to work in other parts of the house.”
But where would she be? That was what concerned him most. Either she’d missed the point in his question, or she’d refused to hear it. Didn’t she understand that he’d had a difficult enough time working with her inside and him and Blake outside? Now he would have to try to accomplish something, knowing that she was just a room or two away, able to pop in any old time she wanted.
“I’ll throw these into one of the dryers so you’ll have them for later.” She indicated the coats in her arms.
“The dryers work?” Mark couldn’t help asking.
She frowned. “For now, anyway.”
“Well, we’d better move fast, before they go on the blink, too.”
She smiled this time, and he couldn’t help wondering if those lips would feel as soft as they looked when pressed to his. He brushed at his eyes to blur the image, but it remained startlingly clear. As much as he wanted to apply his blinders with her, something about her kept pulling them aside and giving him a good look. He didn’t want to linger on her china-doll face or to wonder if her shiny ponytail would be soft to touch, but he couldn’t stop himself.
She either hadn’t noticed him staring or was taking pity on him and giving him a release from his humiliating trance because she opened the basement door and headed down the stairs to the laundry room. Again, he glanced out the window to a sky as cloudy as his thoughts. Why was he allowing a woman to distract him from his goal of proving himself through his work with the troubled teenager? He’d made the mistake once of seeking the thrill of the moment while losing sight of what was important, and that had ended in a mass of tangled metal. If he wasn’t careful, all he might prove with this project was that he hadn’t changed at all.
Chapter Six
“Have any of you ever been in a situation where you questioned God’s purpose in it, or if He even had one?”
Reverend Bill Hicks deadpanned the question to the all-female congregation, and snickers began in the back of the makeshift sanctuary in Hope Haven’s formal parlor. They spread faster than a rumor. Shannon couldn’t help chuckling along with them, no matter how uncomfortable the thought made her. If God saw some purpose in the awful things that had happened to Blake, or in what her parents had forced her to do, then it had escaped her.
