“So, Donnelly,” the Sheriff said before Jared could mentally fit together even one piece of the puzzle that was Becca. “I take it Bert carried through with his foolish idea of penance.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
Becca put an extra step between them, the icy edge of his reply seeming to have caught her more than his intended target.
The Sheriff transferred his glare from Jared to her. “Shouldn’t you be in the house with the kids?”
“No, I’m sure they’re fine.”
Jared raised his head to the sky. Now Becca decided to stand her ground, over his business, rather than standing up for herself.
Ken dismissed her with a shake of his head and drilled his gaze into Jared’s. “Bert ignored his family and went ahead and left you this property. I suppose he gave your brothers something, too.”
“Yes, he gave me the acreage here. You’ll have to check the county records for any other information you feel you need to know.”
Ken pursed his lips. “Hope you guys enjoy your blood money.” He jerked his head toward his car and his wife started walking toward it.
She stopped at the door and turned to Becca. “See you at church tomorrow.” She climbed in the car and her husband gunned the engine and roared out of the driveway.
“She almost makes me want to skip service,” Becca said. “But your brother gives some of the most thought-provoking sermons. I’d hate to miss one just to spite them.”
Becca’s enthusiasm for his brother brought back a little of the sting he’d felt yesterday when his grandmother’s words had made him think Connor was interested in Becca. He shook it off. “I wouldn’t waste perfectly good spite on Sheriff Norton. What’s with him anyway?”
Becca hesitated. “I...we...you mean, about the land.”
“Yeah.” As much as he’d wanted to light into Ken for what he’d said to Becca, he had no desire to get involved in whatever was between her and her ex-in-laws.
“Debbie is, was, Bert’s cousin, his only living relative. From what she said to me when he was first diagnosed, she’d expected to inherit everything. She and Ken were looking at it as a nice addition to their retirement assets.”
She shivered in the warm breeze and he checked himself from putting his arm around her shoulder.
“Debbie made a big show of going to visit him when he went into hospice. I don’t know that she talked to him three times a year before that.”
“She didn’t get his house, either.”
“Pardon?”
“Bert didn’t leave her his house either. He left that to one of the county home health aides he particularly liked. She told us at the reading of the will that when she told Bert her rent had gone up and she was going to have to move, he’d said he’d leave her his house. She never dreamed he’d been serious. Everything else went to the hospice organization and us.”
She touched her fingertip to her lips. “Strange. I had no idea you were close to him.”
“We weren’t. I worked for him some when I was a teenager.”
“Not to pry, but I’m curious about what Ken meant about blood money.”
“You caught that, too. I don’t know.”
“As a friend—” Jared was so focused on Becca considering him a friend that he almost missed the rest “—let me tell you that you don’t want to do anything to make an enemy out of Sheriff Norton, or Debbie, for that matter.”
Too late for that. It appeared he’d already made it back on the Sheriff’s enemy list without even trying. He looked at her solemn face. From her warning, at least Becca seemed to be on his side.
* * *
Jared hung up from the call with his financial adviser and dropped his cell phone next to him on the futon. Things were coming together. The contingent financing approval he’d applied for before returning to Paradox Lake had gone through. He glanced around the spare room Connor was letting him use. A basic twentysomething male room, from the garage-sale dresser to the footlocker at the end of the futon. Grandpa Donnelly’s antique polished-wood rolltop desk stuck out like a bicycle in a motocross race. Because Jared had loved the desk as a kid, loved rolling it shut and open, Grandma Donnelly had given it to him for his twentieth birthday and first major motocross win. He’d retrieved it from Gram’s the day after he’d run into Becca and the Nortons.
He locked his fingers behind his head and leaned back into the lumpy cushions. He should start thinking about a permanent residence. Permanent. He liked the sound of that. Becca was right that the land fronting the road by the pull-in would make a nice house lot. But after nearly fifteen years on the circuit living, breathing, sleeping work, he wanted to put some space between his home and his work. Not that he’d mind having Becca as a neighbor. He crossed his legs at his ankles and jiggled his foot. He hoped she and the other two residents of Conifer Road wouldn’t mind having him building his track and racing school there. Jared was expecting some opposition, but he was prepared.
“Hey, big brother.” Connor appeared in the doorway. “I figured I’d find you here goofing off.”
“This from a man who works for an hour one day a week?”
“Right.”
Jared swung off the futon. “What’s up?”
“I’m going for a swim down at the Camp Sonrise beach, one of the perks of having the Hazard family as parishioners. Want to come?”
“Sure. Give me a minute to change.”
“I’ll be out front.”
Jared bounded down the steps two minutes later. “We can take my bike.”
“No, let’s jog down to the lake. I need as much physical activity as possible to work off my morning.”
Jared studied his brother. “You had office hours this morning. Bad news?”
Connor waved him off. “No. The toddler room teacher at The Kids’ Place called in sick. Becca had trouble finding a substitute.”
“I take that to mean you hired Becca.” That would explain why he hadn’t seen her car in her driveway either of the times he’d been back over to his property.
“Yeah. Didn’t I tell you?” Connor picked up his pace. “Becca had me cover with the teacher’s aide until she could find someone else.”
“Gram said something about your dragging your feet about hiring her.”
“Hey, it wasn’t me. It was the day-care board.”
“They gave you a hard time? What could they have against Becca?” What could anyone have against her?
“Debbie Norton is on the board. She got some of the other members questioning whether we wanted to hire a divorcée. After Matt was the one who abandoned Becca and the kids for another woman and initiated the divorce.”
Jared pounded ahead, hitting the road so hard it sent a bolt of pain up the shin he’d broken in his accident last year.
“Sanity prevailed. We didn’t have anyone else who was as qualified as Becca, and she’s only filling in until the head teacher we hired for the fall can start.” Connor pulled ahead. “Since when have you been interested in small-town, social-political gossip?”
Jared switched gears into a full run. Forget the pain. He couldn’t believe how cruel and meddlesome Becca’s ex-in-laws were to her. “Since you became the purveyor of such information.”
Connor shrugged and matched Jared’s speed. “It comes with the territory, and I shouldn’t have shared that, even with you. All I wanted was some sympathy for having to spend two hours with a room full of two-year-olds. I certainly didn’t get any from the women.”
“That tough?” The men hit the beach with Jared a stride ahead and then slowed to a trot.
“That tough. Remind me of this morning if I ever get any ideas of having kids of my own.”
“Becca’s kids seem okay,” Jared said without thinking. “But you’re right. Us Donnelly
men are not cut out to be parents.” He stopped at the camp dock, dropped the towel he’d hung around his neck and pulled off his T-shirt.
Connor followed suit. “So, that’s the way it is. Becca Norton.”
Jared answered his brother by diving into the lake. “Whoa!” he shouted when he surfaced.
“Yeah, bro, I meant to tell you. With the below-normal temperatures we’ve had at night this month, the lake’s cold.”
“No, it’s great. Just what I needed.” To cool off my reaction to your too-close taunt, little brother.
Connor shot off the dock with a cannonball.
“Way to go, Pastor Connor. That was a good one.”
Jared shook off the water Connor had splashed in his face. A small mob of kids was invading the beach, led by several women, including Becca and Jinx Hazard Stacey. “Look out, Conn. They’re coming for you.”
Connor paddled over to the dock ladder. “No, that’s the third-through sixth-grade kids,” he said over his shoulder. “They’re people. Nothing like the little darlings I got to experience down and dirty this morning.”
Jared followed him up the ladder and picked up his towel. “You were two once. I remember you being two. Mom used to make me watch you in the backyard so she could get stuff done in the house.”
“I was one kid. There was a whole herd of them at day care.”
“Sure.” Jared toweled his hair dry.
“So, this is where you ran off to,” Becca said.
Jared peered out from under the towel to see her and Jinx stepping onto the dock.
“You’ve got that right.” Connor tossed his towel over his shoulder and gave an exaggerated shudder.
“You should have seen Connor,” Becca said. “I wish I’d had my phone with me to catch his look of pure terror when I walked him into the room after he’d agreed to help the teacher’s aide.”
“I heard all about it.” Jared dried off quickly and pulled on his T-shirt, feeling inexplicably self-conscious in front of Becca and Jinx without it.
“Hey, Donnelly, it’s okay. We’ve seen men at the beach before,” Jinx teased.
Strange, the sun wasn’t that intense that his cheeks should feel so warm. “Jinx Hazard. How have you been?”
“Emily Stacey now. And I’ve been good.”
“I know, Mom and Gram have kept me up to date.”
Becca pushed her hair behind her ears and looked from him to Jinx, seemingly confused by their banter. “I hadn’t realized you two were friends.”
They weren’t really. They’d simply shared the affinity of both being students on the fringe of their high school’s cliques and an ambition to get out of Paradox Lake as soon as they’d graduated. He doubted Becca and her popular crowd had ever noticed either of them.
“I could say the same about you two.”
“When Emily returned to Paradox Lake to stay with her niece a few years ago, we connected and found we had a lot in common.”
Becca caught and held his gaze until he contemplated another dive into the lake.
“Jared.” Brendon and another boy about his size clambered onto the dock, breaking the connection. A connection that probably existed only in his wishful mind.
“Tell Ian that you are the guy in my magazine. He doesn’t believe me.”
“I am.”
Brendon’s red-haired friend scrutinized him. “You sort of look like the picture.”
“That’s your motorcycle in Pastor Connor’s driveway. Right, Jared?”
“It is.”
“Ian,” Becca said, coming to his and her son’s rescue. “This is Jared Donnelly. He’s the racer in the picture in Brendon’s magazine.”
“Aunt Em. You know this guy?” Ian asked, skepticism still coloring his face.
And Connor thought two-year-olds were tough.
“Yes, Ian.” Patience laced Jinx’s face. “My brother’s oldest son,” she said as if that explained the little Doubting Thomas. “Jared is a champion racer.”
“Former racer. I’ve retired.”
“Get out!” Ian’s voice rose with excitement.
“Told you,” Brendon said, shooting Jared a triumphant look. “Wait, aren’t you and Pastor Connor going to stay and swim with us?”
“Brendon, I think Jared and Pastor Connor have finished swimming, and you and Ian are going to miss out if you don’t go and get your buddy tags.” Becca pointed to one of the other teachers on the beach handing out colored plastic bracelets.
“See you, Jared. Remember you still owe me a ride on your bike.”
“Your mom’s going to let you ride on his motorcycle?” Ian said in a loud whisper.
“Why not? Yours lets you ride with your sister Autumn’s husband, Dr. Jon.”
“Right, but he’s a doctor, not a motocross racer.”
“Brendon,” Becca said.
“Ian,” Emily echoed.
“Go,” they both ordered.
Connor laughed. “We’ll leave you to your charges.”
Jared hesitated. He didn’t have anything else planned for the rest of the afternoon. “I can stay if you need another person to watch the kids swim.”
“No, we’re good.” Becca quickly dismissed him.
Too quickly for the adolescent longing to feel like he belonged—that he was wanted—here in Paradox Lake. A longing that seemed to surface all too often when she was around. He’d earned that sense of belonging on the motocross circuit where no one knew him as Jerry Donnelly’s delinquent kid, and hoped to achieve it here with his racing school.
Chapter Three
“What was that?” Emily asked.
“What was what?” Becca pulled her beach bag up more firmly on her shoulder.
“You and our town celebrity, Jared. Brendon and him being best buddies. Ari talking about him at Sunday school.”
Becca scanned the beach for a good spot for them to sit and watch the kids swim.
“The current between you and Jared,” Emily prodded.
Becca frowned at her friend. “I ran into him at his grandmother’s house when the kids and I stopped there to drop off something for Edna. Brendon recognized Jared from his magazine and asked him to autograph it. Not to be outdone, Ari insisted Jared read her storybook while I went out to the garden with Edna. That’s all there is to it. This spot look good to you?” Becca slipped her bag from her shoulder and rummaged in it for the blanket she’d packed. She wasn’t going to mention the run-in with Debbie and the Sheriff the next day.
“Ari stayed with him while you went out to the garden. Your Ari? The little girl who insisted you wait on a chair outside her Sunday school room where she could see you for most of last school year? That Ari?”
“She’s getting better.” Becca had been surprised how her daughter had latched on to Jared. She shook the blanket out hard and let it settle on the ground. Unfortunately, Ari was still asking daily when Jared was going to come and read to her. She pressed her lips together. Ari got enough broken promises from her father.
“What’s that sour face about?” Emily dropped to the blanket and sat with her arms wrapped around her knees, scanning the kids swimming in the lake.
“Nothing. I was just thinking.”
“About Jared? Not all men are like Matt.”
Mentally, Becca knew that was true. Emotionally, it was another story. She and Matt had dated for most of high school and, except for a short breakup, through college. He’d left her when Brendon was a toddler, and she hadn’t even realized yet that she was expecting Ari.
Becca sat down next to Emily. “Now, my turn for questions. You and Jared were...are friends?”
“Jealous?”
“No. Maybe. Yes. But not how you think. I would have liked to have known him in high s
chool.”
“No, you wouldn’t have. You were too busy being pretty and smart and popular. As a teenager, Jared had too much baggage for you to handle. I’m not sure he ever was a teenager.”
That had been one of the things that had attracted her to Jared as a teen. He seemed more responsible, mature, even though he was a year younger than her crowd. “I wasn’t that superficial.”
Emily shook her head. “You were that untried, sheltered. You’ve lived some now.”
“Thank you, Dr. Stacey. I hadn’t realized you’d given up graphic arts for psychology. And you weren’t sheltered?”
Emily grinned. “Dad certainly tried. But it didn’t carry over to school. Remember, I was the tall, clumsy kid everyone called Jinx. My brother, Neal, is eight years older than I am. He wasn’t around school to shelter me after fourth grade.”
“And you and Jared?”
“Used to talk sometimes about our misfit lives and how we were going to leave Paradox Lake at our first opportunity. Strictly platonic.”
Jared hadn’t struck Becca as a misfit then—and certainly didn’t now.
Becca’s cell phone buzzed that she had a text, giving her a welcome break from the conversation. She checked the screen. Maybe not.
“Go ahead and answer,” Emily said.
“It’s the Sheriff. He recently got a smartphone and has gone text crazy. It’s probably nothing.” She dropped the phone to the blanket.
“Are he and Debbie still dogging your every move?”
Becca sighed. “Almost more so since he got his new phone. I have an unsettled feeling it has something to do with Matt and my custody agreement. Debbie and the Sheriff are planning to move to Florida now that he’s retired. It’s making me a wreck. I’ve prayed, but I can’t seem to find the peace I normally would.”
“I have just the thing. The Singles Group is challenging the Couples Group in ‘Bible Jeopardy’ tomorrow night. I don’t know how peaceful it will be, but we’ll have fellowship, inspiration and food. I’m making my cheesecake brownies. Maybe Connor will bring his big brother.”
Jared’s presence didn’t exactly shout peaceful to Becca. “I can’t.”
Love Inspired May 2015 #2 Page 23
