Jack shook his head. “What a waste.”
“Torres, what would you consider a life well spent? Or an afternoon for that matter?”
Ah, the trap, set with clever conversation, baited by a master. This guy was way more subtle than Meg’s roommate. Jack laughed. “You want to talk about the meaning of life, Preacher?”
“Well, I’d just as soon talk baseball, but you gave me a perfect opening.” Santos chuckled. “I’d be an idiot not to walk on through.”
“Yeah, I guess you would.” Maybe he was unconsciously looking for answers. “Okay, an afternoon well spent would be a wide-open ride on my Harley down a long stretch of highway. A well-spent life?” He shrugged. “The pursuit of justice maybe.”
Santos raised his brows but remained comfortably slouched in his chair. “Justice, huh? What about mercy?”
“Preacher, the merciful end up dead.”
The pastor whistled. “You say that like a man with an agenda.”
“An agenda?”
“Yeah. I think you’re after something. But what you’re gonna find might surprise you.”
“You’re talking in riddles.”
Santos sighed. “Meg told me you made a profession of faith at some point.”
“When did she tell you that?”
“We prayed for you last Sunday.”
Jack looked away, trying not to feel annoyed at the invasion of privacy.
“I asked her to let me talk to you,” Santos continued.
“I knew this was a setup!” Jack sat up straight. Apparently the gloves were off.
“You knew it was all along,” Santos said patiently. “Didn’t you? And you came anyway.”
Jack gave the pastor an amused look. “Yeah,” he admitted. “God has seemed a lot more—” he hesitated “—real to me than He’s been in a long time. Do you think He’s chasing me again or something?”
“Brother, once God gets hold of you, He doesn’t let go.”
“Well, I don’t particularly like the way He operates.” Jack met Santos’s sober gaze. “All I know to do is function on a day-to-day basis and get along the best way I can. I believe in taking care of myself.”
Santos’s dark eyes lit. “You know what? Salvation is for life, but you don’t stick it in a drawer like a policy manual and forget it until you need it. Let me ask you something, Jack.”
Jack. Being called by name in that blunt, friend-to-friend tone got his attention. “Okay, shoot.”
“Are you happy?”
Jack snorted. “I don’t know anybody who’s really happy.” Well, except maybe Meg St. John.
“Okay, then, content,” persisted Santos. “Are you content?”
“No! No, I’m not content.” Jack felt his shoulders tense, though he tried to keep his tone light. “I’m confused and I’m sorry I even brought the subject up.”
Santos smiled, but his gaze remained steady. “Listen, everybody gets confused sometimes. We’re all lost, like dumb sheep. You know what? I think when you were introduced to the Shepherd you didn’t stick around long enough to get to know Him.”
“I’ve got to go,” Jack muttered. How could this man know so much about his feelings? He gave Santos a cautious look. “What do you mean?”
“The Christian life is a relationship with the Shepherd, man. Jesus isn’t some impersonal cloud in the sky, or the crack of doom waiting to get everybody. He knows me and you by name, and He’s got an individual call for each one of us. But you gotta listen and follow. You get in trouble when you try to stumble around on your own. You don’t know what you need, but He does. He loves you, simple as that.”
Jack looked away. This was the same thing Dottie Rook had tried to tell him. And Rico.
But Rico had been murdered, and Jack had to somehow make that right before he could look God in the face again.
“I’ve got to go,” he said again.
“All right, we’ll finish this conversation later,” Ramón said, looking disappointed.
“I’ll be ready for you next time, Preacher.” Jack stood up. “What time is it?”
Ramón looked at his watch and jumped to his feet. “Aw, man! Nap time’s been over for thirty minutes. Consuela’s gonna fillet me!”
Chapter Ten
The Fourth of July dawned hot as a firecracker under a cerulean sky nearly empty of clouds. In a busman’s holiday, Meg decided to use her day off to organize an installation party for the design she’d drawn for the churchyard. Dressed in overall shorts and T-shirt, with thick socks and work boots protecting her feet and a baseball cap to keep the sun out of her eyes, Meg issued orders to her fellow church members and family.
She sent Benny and Elliot, the first to arrive, to the home improvement store with a plant materials list, and put the Santos family in charge of yanking weeds. After setting her parents and the remaining volunteers to work digging up old shrubs and trash trees, Meg went into the sanctuary to turn on the sound system and open all the doors and windows. As she danced back outside to the beat of a Hispanic Christian rock tune, she spotted a familiar multi-colored pickup truck pulling into the parking lot, and promptly fell over a rake somebody had left on the sidewalk.
“Manny! Jack!” Delighted, Meg brushed off her stinging knees and hobbled over to greet her regular work crew. “I didn’t know y’all were coming!” The two men got out of the cab, while Tomás and Diego piled out of the back.
“We help much and see fireworks,” Tomás said with his beaming smile. “You said eat on the dirt, too?”
Meg laughed. “Dinner on the ground, yes.” She met Jack’s grin behind Tomás’s back. “I’m so glad you came! Come on, I’ll put you seasoned soldiers in charge of the recruits.”
Four hours later, mission accomplished, Meg leaned against Manny’s truck, surveying her handiwork. She felt as if she’d just earned a million dollars, rather than skinned knees, sunburnt shoulders and blistered palms.
The cottonwood tree by the church’s front door was now the centerpiece of a brick-lined bed filled in with ground cover. Pink, purple and white impatiens spilled on either side of the walkway from the parking lot. Even the grass had been plugged with new sod, and then neatly mown, edged and watered.
Now it was time to celebrate at her parents’ place out in the country.
Meg had just dispersed most of her ground troops to assemble mess. Jack, who had somehow taken on the role of second-in-command, had stayed behind to help Meg store the tools and conduct a follow-up inspection.
“If they gave a Nobel Prize for persistence, St. John, you’d win hands down,” Jack said, opening the passenger door of the truck with a weary sigh. “I’ve about had enough dirt and grass for one day. Let’s go get some grub.”
Meg’s stomach grumbled at the mention of food. “Good idea.” She got behind the wheel of Manny’s old truck and found it tattered but clean. When the engine cranked easily, she pulled out into the street. “How come you changed your mind about helping out today?” She’d mentioned the project to Jack during Sunday lunch, but he’d claimed he already had plans for the Fourth.
Jack propped his knees on the dash and laid his head back against the seat. Under the ever-present bandanna, his long hair spilled freely on his shoulders. “I wanted to talk to the preacher boy,” he said without opening his eyes.
Meg blinked. “Did you?”
“Yep.”
Silence. They got on the interstate and headed toward south Fort Worth. Finally, Meg blew out a breath. “That is so low.”
Jack’s mouth curled a little. “What’s low?”
“Getting my curiosity up and then making like a Sphinx.”
The black eyelashes lifted a fraction. “You’re gonna have to help me out, Spanky. What’s a—”
“Oh, for crying out loud, quit that. You probably know more about the Sphinx than most college professors.” Meg eyed his gray T-shirt. “I bet you even graduated from Yale, didn’t you? Benny says—”
“No,” he interrupted. “I did not.” He l
ooked at her uneasily. “What did I say wrong?”
“You—” She stopped, frustrated. “You’re evading my question, which happens to be one of your prize-winning tactics. What did you and Ramón talk about?”
“Sheep.”
“Sheep,” she repeated blankly.
He chuckled. “Yeah, and shepherds, and following voices. I went home and studied John 10 last night. It suddenly made sense to me, like I’d never read it before.” He paused. “Which I had.”
Meg could feel her face splitting in a big grin. “Are you telling me—”
“Now don’t go getting all excited. I’ll probably never be as spiritual as you are. But I had a really good friend who passed away about a year ago.” Jack cleared his throat. “This guy was a Christian, and he led me to believe, too, only he died before I got very far in my faith. So I got derailed and mad at God, and I’m just now seeing how He might have some purpose for me after all.”
Meg felt almost light-headed, listening to Jack tell her things she’d longed to know all summer. “You know He does, Jack,” she said softly, feeling her eyes sting. Pulling off the road might stop the flow of Jack’s words, so she kept driving.
“I guess.” Jack glanced at her, then out the window. “But my life is extremely complicated right now, and that’s about all I can tell you about myself. The rest is not fit for someone like you to hear. Just pray for me, okay?”
“Of course I will. But you can trust me—”
“It’s not that.” His voice remained tense. “Just—don’t push me. I’ve been keeping an eye on you all week. Have you noticed anything else out of place in your car, or anything suspicious at your house?”
The abrupt change of subject nonplussed Meg so that she almost missed the exit to Mansfield, where her parents had a small working farm. Fortunately, traffic had thinned considerably as the scenery became more and more rural. She slammed on the brakes and turned.
“No, I’d almost forgotten about it.” In fact, Meg had felt so safe knowing that Jack was watching her back, she’d quit triple-checking her locks every time she got out of the car.
“Don’t get too blasé,” Jack warned, folding his arms. “I rode by your house a couple of nights this week.”
“So that was your motorcycle that woke me up at two a.m. last night?” She looked at him, scandalized, and gave him a Stymie impression. “Boy, you’s gettin’ to be a noosum!”
Jack shook his head. “Just how many Little Rascals videos have you memorized?”
“Enough to keep you busy for a couple of years catching up.” She grinned at him.
He snorted. “I’m sorry if I woke you up, but I have to agree with your dad. You and the Ben-ster picked a pretty sorry neighborhood to set up house in. I’d be surprised if there wasn’t some drug traffic going on in the house across the street.”
“You’re kidding! What makes you think that?”
“Meg, it was lit up like a Christmas tree until the wee hours of the morning.”
Meg had to push her jaw shut. “Wow.”
“Yeah. So don’t ever leave the house by yourself after dark.”
Refusing to dignify that outrageous and impractical command with an answer, Meg turned in at the gravel drive of her parents’ farm. Passing through the iron gates, which had been swung open in welcome, she honked the horn, startling a herd of Black Angus grazing next to the fence.
“Here we are,” she said with more confidence than she felt. Introducing Jack to her parents shouldn’t have any particular significance.
But somehow it did. Oh, yes, it did.
Jack grabbed the door handle and rubbed the other sweaty palm down the leg of his jeans. “This is where you grew up?”
The house was an enormous stucco-and-brick two-story with a landscaped driveway circling the front yard. Meg had parked behind a Lexus SUV whose license plate said “KIDDOC.”
Having spent most of his adult life with military and law enforcement types, Jack had never been comfortable hanging out with doctors and lawyers. Generally he didn’t worry about his appearance while undercover; the scruffier the better. But he wished he’d had time to shower and change clothes before coming out here.
“Come on, Torres. I’ll protect you.” Meg was leaning in the window, grinning at him.
“Boy, this am a residence de-luxe,” he drawled as he opened the door. Pleased at Meg’s delighted shout of “Buck-wheat!” he followed her up the short sidewalk to the door.
Her eagerness and joy were contagious. He wondered how it must feel to be welcomed into a home like this, the child of parents who gave you everything. As Meg opened the door without knocking and called out to her mother, Jack thought of Ramón’s sermon yesterday morning.
“The Father loves you more than you know, beloved,” the pastor had said, translating in herky-jerky fashion from Spanish to English. “No matter what your circumstances or background, you’re precious to Him. Whatever you need, feel free to ask.”
Ramón had explained the Hebrew term abba—the intimate address of a child to his daddy. Because Jack had never had a real father, the idea went straight to his heart. As he walked into Meg’s home, he repeated it to himself, suddenly filled with peace and confidence.
“I’ll show you around a little before we go out on the patio,” Meg said as they entered a sunny foyer, where a skylight poured sunshine onto the split-brick floor. Bursts of laughter, conversation and music filtered in from outdoors.
As Jack looked around, the mirror above a pine cabinet cast back his dark reflection, reminding him to guard his tongue. He was an interloper here.
At the click of toenails scrabbling on the floor and heavy canine breathing, he turned to find Meg bending to receive the slobbery kisses of the weirdest-looking dog Jack had ever seen. Brown spots splattered an ugly beige coat, and Jack looked twice to make sure he wasn’t seeing things: one of the dog’s eyes was pale blue, the other a light cinnamon color.
Laughing, Meg ruffled the dog’s ears.
“Looks like somebody was foolin’ with the DNA on that one,” Jack said.
Meg laughed. “This is Julio. Registered Catahoula cur. Isn’t he gorgeous?”
“He was bred to look like that on purpose?” Jack snapped his fingers. “Come here, fella.” The dog sniffed Jack’s fingers and gave them a slurp. Jack scratched him under his leather collar and made a friend for life. “You’d make cat-bait out of that twerpy little dachshund, wouldn’t you, big guy?”
“Hey!” exclaimed Meg, setting her fists on her hips, and Jack grinned at her.
“Meg, is that you?” somebody called from another room.
Meg tipped her head. “Come on and meet my mom.”
Jack would rather have tangled with a mound of fire ants, but he gave the dog a last pat and stood up, brushing his hands off on his jeans.
Meg led the way through a dining room featuring a mahogany table with a floral centerpiece. She stopped in the doorway of the kitchen, taking Jack’s elbow and tugging him closer.
“Mom, this is Jack Torres.”
Distracted by the feel of Meg’s fingers against his skin, it took Jack a moment to find the tall, middle-aged woman who stood at the sink wrestling with an ice-cream freezer.
“Welcome.” Rose St. John took in her daughter’s hand clasped around Jack’s arm. Her brows, straight and dark like Meg’s, climbed a little. “Have you met Benny?”
Meg’s roommate, who had just closed the refrigerator door with her elbow, faced Jack with a loaded vegetable tray. “We’ve met a couple of times.” Her expression was knowing, but kind. “Hey, Jack. The men are all outside, fighting over who’s got the best grilling technique.”
Jack shifted his weight and glanced at Meg.
Eyes sparkling, she released his arm to pluck a carrot from the tray. “Go on out and show ’em how it’s done,” she said, gesturing toward the back door. “I’ll give you the grand tour some other time.”
Gratefully Jack headed for wide-open spaces.
Jack sprawled in a lounge chair by the pool, watching the sun meet the horizon in a blaze of orange, pink and violet. In his lap was a guitar he’d borrowed from Meg’s brother’s old room. He’d been enjoying the luxury of having nothing more pressing to do than run scale patterns and watch Meg and Connie dunk the little Santos girls in the shallow end of the pool.
Ramón, Elliot and Benny were supervising the fireworks on the far side of the lawn, and Meg’s mother walked around plying everybody with iced lemonade. Not an alcoholic beverage in sight.
Which was fine with Jack. Much easier not to have to deal with the complications of pretending to be bad-news scum with a drinking problem.
“Okay, that’s it, son, now gently press the shutter.”
Meg’s father was crouched near the edge of the pool, explaining the operation of a digital camera to an intent Tomás Herrera. They were practicing on the bevy of mermaids in the pool. Meg and Connie, knee-deep in the water and still dressed in shorts and T-shirts, had been drenched by the squealing and splashing little girls. It was quite a sight.
Jack grinned as Meg received a strangling hug from a pair of wet little arms. “Take me under again, Miss Meg!” choked Valentina, who had refused to remove her new glasses. Jack remembered praying in the ice-cream shop for her eye exam.
“Is very cool, Señor Doctor!” exclaimed Tomás. “I am good, sí?”
“You’re a natural, kiddo,” said Dr. St. John, chuckling as the teenager viewed the picture through the monitor and preened at his success. “Would you like to take it home with you and practice some more?”
Tomás looked at the tall, silver-haired doctor wide-eyed. “You are kidding me, right?”
George shrugged. “You can learn more just messing around with it, than if I stand here and lecture you.”
Tomás’s Adam’s apple bobbed. “Caramba.” He lifted the camera to his eye again and focused the lens on Jack. “Look, Torres, I’m a photographer.” He pronounced the word carefully.
Jack shook his head. The generosity of the St. John family had him nearly as flummoxed as Tomás. They were treating this scraggly and underdressed lot like long-lost relatives. On the patio, three long tables groaned under the weight of hamburgers, side dishes and desserts—and no telling how much money they were blowing up in fireworks.
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