by Mia Ross
Pointing at a tiny one-person booth in the corner usually reserved for staff meal breaks, she was rewarded with a low chuckle. Not exactly laughter, but it was a vast improvement over grumbling. “Okay, I’ll behave.”
“Good boy.”
“Well, now, look who finally decided to come by and see me!” Molly Harkness shouted a greeting from the end of the lunch counter. Hurrying over, she hugged Jenna quickly, saving a much longer one for Scott. Molly looked tiny standing next to him, but he accepted her attention with a grateful smile. Pulling away, she grasped his arms and beamed up at him. “I’m so glad you dropped in. I was starting to think you’d learned how to cook or some such thing.”
“Not a bit. What smells so good in here?”
“Everything,” she replied with a bright laugh. “A table for two just freed up by the front window. I’ll have Rachel pick up some silverware and menus and meet you there.”
When they were sitting down, Jenna leaned in to speak quietly. “See? Not so terrible.”
“So far.” She gave him a warning look, and he had the decency to wince. “Sorry. Old habit.”
“Bad habit,” she corrected him as a pretty auburn-haired waitress approached them with table settings and menus. “The sooner you break it, the better off you’ll be.”
He rolled his eyes but didn’t contradict her, so she decided to claim this round as a victory. When their table was set, she said, “Rachel McCarron, I’d like you to meet Scott Barrett, Jason’s older brother.”
“I’ve heard a lot about you,” Rachel began, giving him a flirtatious grin. “Is any of it true?”
Unease flickered in his eyes, but he quickly masked it with the wry humor that had no doubt saved his sanity while he was in prison. “Probably.”
When she laughed, Jenna noticed Scott didn’t join in, but he wasn’t exactly hiding under the table to escape the vivacious woman, either. Not that it was any of her concern, she amended silently. He was a grown man, and he could pursue whoever caught his eye. But she thought it was only fair he should know what he’d be getting into with this particular mark.
“So, Rachel,” she started in a nonchalant tone. “How’s that adorable daughter of yours doing these days?”
Her obvious fascination with Scott wavered, and she beamed like the proud mama she was. “She’s the best baby in the whole world. She’ll be four months old soon. Brenda Lattimore just opened up a day care at her house, and Eva goes there while I’m working. She has a great time with all her little friends, and then I get to play with her when we get home.”
“That’s great,” Jenna replied, pretending to skim the menu while angling a glance over at Scott. Mission accomplished, she decided when she found him gazing back at her, a knowing look in his dark eyes.
“Your family’s been so great to us,” Rachel continued in a gushing tone. “Especially Jason. I mean, Eva’s not his daughter, so he didn’t have to lift a finger to help me when I pulled into town at Christmastime. Eight months pregnant, broke and homeless,” she added dramatically.
“Is that right?” he asked politely. It seemed the chatty young woman had worn him out already, and Jenna smothered a grin.
“He found me a place to live and a receptionist job that kept me off my feet. I’m telling you, that brother of yours literally saved our lives.”
“He’s a good guy, that’s for sure.”
Flashing another smile, Rachel quickly rattled off the specials, and Scott motioned for Jenna to order first. Another tick in the “gentleman” box, she thought. Maybe he was beginning to get the hang of dealing with regular people again. Based on his dustup with Alan at the hardware store, she assumed he was short on funds. In an effort to avoid cleaning out his wallet or embarrassing him if he came up short, she asked for a house salad and diet soda.
After ordering a club sandwich, he sipped his water and gave her a knowing look. “That was nice of you, but I have enough money to buy you lunch.”
“I’m not that hungry, so a salad’s fine.”
“Before you leave town, I’ll take you out for a proper dinner. Have you ever been to the Spring House over in Cambridge?”
“Are you nuts? That place is really expensive.”
“Sure, but you get to work your way through the garden maze and watch the swans swimming in the pond.”
It sounded as if he’d been to the antebellum mansion before, and he didn’t strike her as the type to stroll around the restaurant’s impeccably manicured grounds on his own. She wasn’t prone to jealousy, especially over some guy she’d just met. But his exchange with Rachel was still fresh in her mind, and Jenna couldn’t deny being curious about who he might have chosen to spend such a romantic evening with.
As if sensing her train of thought, he leaned his elbows on the table and grinned. “We all took Gram and Granddad there to celebrate their sixtieth anniversary. I haven’t been back since.”
She felt her cheeks flush and sipped her water to hide her bizarre reaction to something that was clearly none of her business. “I didn’t ask.”
“Yeah,” he responded with a smirk. “But you were doing it pretty loudly.”
She didn’t have a decent comeback for that, so she opted to let it go. But she had to admit she was ridiculously pleased to discover that if they did end up having dinner together at the posh Spring House, she’d be the first woman he took there. That detail shouldn’t matter even the tiniest bit to her, of course, but she was girly enough to acknowledge that it did. For some unfathomable reason, it mattered very much.
While they waited for their meal, a few people stopped at their table to chat with her and welcome Scott home. Others eyed them with curiosity but went out of their way to steer clear of them. All in all, the general opinion on Scott’s return appeared to be split pretty much down the middle.
When she shared her observation, he shrugged. “Not much to be done about it. Folks’re either gonna trust me or not.”
“They won’t just give you their trust, though,” she pointed out as gently as she could. “You’ll have to do things to earn it back.”
“How?”
“By proving to them that you’re a stand-up guy, that you’re happy to be home again. Working on your family’s old property is an excellent start.” A slow grin was drifting across his chiseled features, and she asked, “What?”
“You think I’m a stand-up guy? Me? A bank robber?”
“The driver,” she corrected him, punctuating her point with a stern glare. “Even if you’d been inside the bank with those goons, you wouldn’t have stolen a dime because that’s not who you are.”
Leaning back in his chair, he folded his arms and studied her somberly. “What makes you so sure?”
“I know a thief when I see one.” That hadn’t come out the way she’d intended, and she immediately started backpedaling. “What I meant was—”
“You’ve seen a few thieves in your time,” he interrupted, comprehension glittering in those intelligent eyes. “Why do I get the feeling you’re trying really hard to not tell me something?”
“I— Well, it’s complicated.”
“In my experience, when someone says that, the situation’s usually pretty simple. We just make it complicated to avoid telling the story ’cause it makes us angry or sad or something else we don’t want to put ourselves through again. But you don’t have to give me the details if you’d rather not.”
She appreciated him giving her an out, and she seriously considered taking it. Then again, he’d been up-front with her about his history, so she felt compelled to do the same with him. A more subdued Rachel arrived with their meals, giving Jenna a chance to decide how to answer him.
Once they were alone, she drizzled raspberry vinaigrette on her salad and picked up the odd tale of her life where she’d purposefully left off be
fore. “Let’s see. I guess the trouble started when I quit college and was living on my own for the first time. My three roommates weren’t all that picky about their friends, so I got a good look at the kind of people no one should be spending any amount of time with.”
“Sounds familiar,” he commented through a mouthful of Molly’s homemade potato salad.
“Too familiar, I’m sure. Anyway, one thing led to another and we ended up at the wrong party one night. I wasn’t mixed up in the illegal stuff, but it didn’t look good that I was there at all.” The humiliation she’d felt that evening had been nothing compared to her sheer terror at being thrown in a jail cell with a dozen strangers who looked more like starving she-wolves than people. “Fortunately, when I called my foster dad, he jumped in his car right away and drove six hours in the middle of the night to bail me out. Since he was a cop, he was able to convince them to release me into his custody and let me go home with him. I didn’t have a record, so his lawyer friend negotiated with the judge to get me probation and community service.”
“That was the right way to handle it. Sure, you screwed up a little, but you didn’t hurt anyone. At that age, you shouldn’t be treated like a criminal for having bad judgment.”
She’d never told anyone about this part of her past before, and while it was more than a bit unnerving, she discovered she was glad he knew the truth about her. Something told her that was important, but she wasn’t quite sure what it meant to either of them. Still, she felt comfortable with everything being out in the open, so she decided it must have been all right.
“One of my community-service assignments was at this rural church that was being rebuilt after a flood. The whole congregation pitched in, doing whatever they were best at.” Recalling the experience made her smile. “Imagine my surprise when I walked in that first day and found the judge from my hearing up on a ladder, stripping damaged plaster from the walls.”
The irony of it made him laugh. “Didn’t see that one coming, did you?”
“Not a bit.” Seeing a chance to drive home a meaningful message with him, she lowered her voice and went on in a more private way. “Those people had never met me before, but they made a place for me. I’m sure the judge told them I’d had a run-in with the law, but no one ever mentioned it, just appreciated that I was there to help. When they invited me to come back for Sunday service with them, I wasn’t sure. But it was nice of them to include me, and I didn’t want to seem rude, so I went. It was outside in a grove of trees, and for the first time in my life I felt like I belonged somewhere.”
“I’m sensing a point in there for me.”
“God has a place for everyone,” she reminded him gently. “We just have to step up and accept what He has to offer us.”
Misery filled Scott’s eyes, but he didn’t look away. That alone told her how much he’d come to trust her in the short time they’d known each other. That kind of responsibility sat heavily on her shoulders, but she didn’t have the heart to continue keeping him at a distance. Struggling to put his life back together, he was reaching out to her for encouragement. She simply couldn’t let him down.
“There’s a difference between you and me, though,” he finally said, looking down as he stabbed a pickle with his fork. “You were a kid who didn’t know any better. You deserved a second chance.”
So that was it. All along, she’d suspected Scott hadn’t drifted away from his faith out of bitterness or because he didn’t care about it anymore. In fact, the opposite was true. She ached for this man who’d lost so much and had no idea how to get it back.
Reaching out, she lightly rested her hand over his, giving him space to pull away. He didn’t, and when his eyes met hers again she took it as a sign that she was making progress with him. “Anyone can get another chance with God, but we have to ask Him for it.”
“I don’t think—”
“That’s your biggest problem,” she interrupted with a scowl of her own. “You think too much. If you’d just listen to your heart once in a while, you’d do better.”
“I’m not an artist like you. My heart doesn’t talk to me.”
“Yes, it does,” she informed him with a certainty that startled her. How she knew that was beyond her, but now that she’d hung the thought out there, she might as well carry it through. “But you have to listen carefully to hear what it’s saying. Most folks are so busy running from one thing to another they don’t stop long enough to pay attention.”
That cynical look he wore so frequently was back, but as he lounged in his chair she caught a glimpse of something else, too. It was a mixture of curiosity and hope, as if he thought she might have come up with an answer for him. “What does your heart tell you?”
“All kinds of things.” She stalled, searching for a coherent answer to a question no one had ever asked her. “How to capture sunlight on canvas. Which angle’s best for a landscape I’m doing. How to make a gnome statue look like you could have a conversation with it,” she added with a grin.
“That sounds more like talent to me. Not everyone has a gift like yours.”
Any moron could figure out he was referring to himself, and she hastened to correct him. “You don’t think being a good carpenter takes talent?”
“Not especially.”
“I think there’s a carpenter from Nazareth who might disagree with you.”
Crumpling up his napkin, he tossed it on the table with a quiet chuckle. “Is this your way of trying to get me back to church?”
This guy was sharp, she had to admit. Knowing how devoted they were, she had no doubt Olivia and Diane had tried to coax him back into Pastor Griggs’s fold without success. So she took another tack altogether. “Not at all. Go or don’t. It’s totally up to you.”
“But?”
“No but,” she assured him airily, tipping her glass to spoon out a melting ice cube. “You’re a big boy. You’re perfectly capable of deciding that kind of thing all on your own.”
He fixed her with an I’m-smarter-than-you-think-I-am grin. “But you’ll be there this Sunday, right?”
“Uh-huh.” Leaning toward the middle of the table, she whispered, “Don’t tell anyone, but I don’t sit in the rear pew ’cause I’m always late. It’s because I’m a terrible singer.”
He flung his head back and laughed as if she’d just told him the best joke he’d ever heard. Far from the muted, self-conscious sound she’d been able to wring out of him up until now, this one gave her a tantalizing glimpse of just how lighthearted this very serious man could be.
It only proved her theory on people in general: no matter how lost they might appear to be, there was hope for everyone. Some of them just needed a little shove to help them realize it.
Chapter Six
Thursday afternoon, Jenna arrived at the teen center, still not sure she was the right person for this assignment. She didn’t have a lot of experience with kids, and she was more than a little nervous as she followed Diane through the large room where twenty or so high schoolers were spread out doing homework, clustered around the three computers or just talking.
“Gretchen?” Diane waited for her to look up and then rested a hand on Jenna’s shoulder. “I’d like you to meet a friend of mine, Jenna Reed. She’s the woman who owns Reed’s Artworks here in town.”
“Hey there,” Jenna chimed in, trying to sound casual. “How’s it going?”
“Pleased to meet you.”
The girl’s tone made it clear she wasn’t the least bit pleased, and the guarded look in her hazel eyes reminded Jenna of the face that had often stared out from the mirror while she was growing up. She’d learned quickly that owning up to family problems too often resulted in well-meaning adults nosing around in things that were none of their business. Keep a calm appearance and everything was fine. But let on that you were upset and you wer
e besieged with counselors trying to help. All that unwelcome attention only made things worse at home, so it was best to conceal your emotions. Sometimes, even from yourself.
Diane seemed to pick up on the tension and quickly said, “Well, I’ll leave you girls to get acquainted. Just give a holler if you need more paper, honey.”
With a brief half hug for Gretchen, she was gone. Jenna had never taken on anything remotely like this, so she was at a loss for how to get things rolling. Thinking back to her own sullen teenage days, she pulled up a chair but sat on the other side of the table to avoid making the girl feel crowded. From her back pocket, she took out the detailed drawing she’d made of the chapel window, right down to the missing pieces. She flattened the page and studied it as if her life depended on figuring out how to finish the picture. For her part, Gretchen went right on sketching, but every now and then her eyes flicked over to Jenna.
After a few minutes of that, the girl’s natural curiosity got the better of her. “What are you working on?”
Bingo, Jenna thought, smothering a proud grin. “It’s kind of a puzzle, I guess.” Spinning the sketch, she explained, “We found this broken window behind the wall of an old church, and I’m in charge of restoring it to the way it used to be a long time ago.”
“How long?”
“Good question,” Jenna approved. “That’ll make a difference in what kind of glass I need and what ingredients were used to make these colors. Guess I better find out how old it is, huh?”
Gretchen shrugged as if she didn’t much care, but Jenna could see she was interested. Her next question confirmed it. “Who’s ‘we’?”
“My friend and I.” Describing Scott as a friend felt strange but right somehow. They certainly weren’t enemies, and sharing some of their painful pasts had left them far more than strangers. When she realized her companion was waiting for more details, she added, “He’s the carpenter in charge of rebuilding the chapel.”
