by Deb Kastner
“I see,” she murmured.
No, she didn’t. She hadn’t a clue about the man he’d become. He wasn’t the bright-eyed kid who’d dated her all through high school. Not even close.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” he said.
“I’m sorry.” Her tone was punctuated with bitterness. “I had no right to ask.”
She was taking it personally. This wasn’t personal. It had nothing to do with her at all. “You couldn’t have known.”
“I’ll just— Let me go take care of his diaper real fast for you, and then you can have the baby back,” she stammered.
He watched her make a quick exit into the ladies’ room, the sweet, fruity scent of her perfume lingering behind her. He blew out a frustrated breath and threaded his fingers through his hair.
He was quick to acknowledge his own part in his disaster of a life, but he had faith that the Lord would use it for good, even if he didn’t have any idea how that might work out for him, or for Grayson. He could only put himself and his baby in God’s capable hands.
He didn’t know why the Lord had set him on this path, but he imagined he must be even more hardheaded than he’d realized. Most horses could be broken with a whisper. It appeared he needed the sharp jerk of a bit to get him moving in the right direction.
When Tessa returned with his still-happy infant, she immediately deposited Grayson into Cole’s arms. He adjusted his son to his shoulder and gently patted his back.
“After I saw Grayson was with you, I completely spaced on the reason I came to Cup O’ Jo’s in the first place,” she admitted with a forced chuckle.
“A cupcake?” Tessa’s friend stepped into Cole’s line of vision and dropped into the conversation as if he belonged there. “Here’s temptation for you.” He waved the chocolate-iced cupcake under Tessa’s nose.
Red velvet.
Even though Cole couldn’t see what the chocolate icing was hiding, he was absolutely certain of it. Tessa had always been partial to red velvet with chocolate frosting. He personally thought it was an odd combination—a whipped white cream cheese frosting suited him fine—but he’d always humored her.
She made a face at the man. “You get a pass for abandoning me back there, but only because of the cupcake.”
Tessa’s friend turned a winsome smile on Cole that seemed a little over the top, given the circumstances. He ought to save his charm for the ladies. But when he extended his hand, Cole had no choice but to respond.
“I’m Marcus Ender, by the way. Boys’ counselor at Redemption Ranch.”
Cole shifted Grayson so he could meet the man’s hand with his own. He might have been guilty of adding a little extra pressure to his grip, but a handshake told a lot about a man. Surprise flashed in Marcus’s gaze at the strength of Cole’s grip, but he didn’t break the contact until Cole did.
A challenge? Marcus’s gaze said it all. He was looking out for his friend, and Cole had better not hurt her. Cole tempered his naturally aggressive response. He couldn’t fault Tessa’s friend’s overprotective instincts, he supposed. Marcus didn’t have any way of knowing Cole would never hurt Tessa. Not intentionally, anyway.
“I’m Cole—”
“Bishop,” Marcus finished for him. “Yeah. I know.”
And he didn’t sound too thrilled about it, either.
Cole’s hackles rose, and the hair on his neck stood on end. What exactly had Tessa told Marcus about him?
It couldn’t be good. He was probably better off not knowing. But it rankled him nevertheless.
Grayson whimpered in protest as Cole’s arm tightened.
“Sorry, little man,” he murmured in the baby’s ear.
“Red? You were saying?” he reminded Tessa. “Why you came over to Cup O’ Jo’s in the first place?”
“Red?” Marcus snorted and burst into laughter, but it instantly died when he was simultaneously punctured by both Cole’s and Tessa’s glares. He held up his hands in a sign of surrender.
“I was over at Emerson’s before I came here,” Tessa explained. “Edward asked me to give you a message.”
Cole relaxed his stance, rocking back on the heels of his boots. He hadn’t realized how tense he’d been since Tessa had walked into the café, and all this time it had been about a feed order.
If his day could get messed up this quickly just by the sight and scent of Tessa, he didn’t have a prayer of ever truly settling down and making a life here.
“The feed’s ready?” he offered, hoping to stay within comfortable bounds of conversation.
“All loaded up in your pickup and ready to go.”
He pressed a breath from his lungs. “Thanks for the heads-up. I think poor Grayson here has had about as much doting and loving from the community as he can handle for one day.”
Grayson? Forget the baby. Cole’s head was whirling.
His gaze met Tessa’s, and he could see she was thinking the same thing.
First time out of the chute. No score.
Cole cleared his throat. “Best be getting home. It’s about Gray’s nap time.”
“Right, okay,” Tessa agreed with a smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “I guess Marcus and I will see you later, at the meeting.”
Tessa blended into the crowd, and Cole reached for the handle of the giraffe diaper bag, slipping it onto his shoulder. Even after all these weeks, it still felt odd to him to tote around a bag that was similar to a woman’s purse. Chalk that one up to necessity—diapers, wipes, bottles, pacifiers, toys. He tried to ignore the way the bag tromped all over his masculinity.
“Are you leaving?” Jo bustled up to Cole and reached for his bicep. “Can you wait just one more moment, dear?”
Cole nodded, but he tensed when Jo made a beeline toward Tessa, who was speaking to Dr. Delia and her husband, Zach. Jo linked elbows with Tessa and drew her back in Cole’s direction.
“If I could have a quick word with the two of you?”
What now?
Tension rippled across Cole’s shoulders and down his spine. Jo Spencer was the nicest woman a man could know, but she was also a little bit scheming when it came to matchmaking. She had a bird’s-eye view from her spot behind the counter of Cup O’ Jo’s, and she tended to see what was what—or who should be with whom—far before the rest of Serendipity caught on.
Well, as long as it wasn’t matchmaking, Cole would be all right with whatever Jo had in mind.
“Alexis and I were talkin’ about the upcoming summer barbecue.”
Electricity bolted through him at Jo’s words. His gaze locked with Tessa’s. She looked every bit as shocked as he felt.
Not the June BBQ. Anything but that.
“She was telling me she’d like to see the teens get involved this year. We usually relegate them to set up and clean up, and I suggested that they might want to do something different this year—entertainment. The band we contracted with backed out on us. Slade and Samantha have pulled together some musicians for dancing, but Alexis really wanted the kids to do something special for the townsfolk, give them a little show. Do you think you two could get together and work something up for us? A scene from a musical, perhaps? The planning committee would sure appreciate your efforts, my dears.”
Was she kidding? A scene from a musical? No way was that going to happen. Cole and Tessa had first met—first kissed—performing a scene from a musical. And they had broken up at the June BBQ. The beginning and the end of their relationship.
Cole had no intention of helping those kids do anything, musical or otherwise. Working with delinquent teenagers wasn’t even in his skill set. Besides, he wasn’t going to the barbecue, much less participating in it.
“Why don’t you ask Marcus?” he suggested through gritted teeth. “He’s the boys’ counselor, after al
l. He ought to be the one leading this thing, don’t you think?”
Jo barked out a laugh. Even Tessa chuckled.
“Honey, that man cannot carry a tune for a second, much less an entire musical number. He’s as tone-deaf as a rock. As I recall, you have a beautiful baritone voice. Surely you’ll step up and share your talent for the good of the community—and the teenagers.”
Jo was goading him—and she was good at it. He remembered all the many times growing up when she’d set him on the right path. Part of him instinctively reacted as if he were still a child, but he was a grown man now, and he had no intention of being pushed into a situation that would be nothing but trouble for him, and for Tessa, too.
Why wasn’t she speaking up?
“We’ll see what we can do,” Tessa said.
What?
“Great! Can’t wait to see what you two come up with.” Jo scuttled away before he gave his own answer—which would have been a no. He didn’t even have the opportunity to raise another objection, not that Jo would have listened to it.
Cole leaned into Tessa’s personal space, meeting her emerald-eyed gaze square on. “What are you thinking?” he demanded. “You know as well as I do that we can’t do this.”
“I admit it’s not ideal.”
“Not ideal? It’s plain crazy.”
Tessa sighed. “We would have given in eventually. You know Jo. I just saved us having to scrap with her.”
He hated that Tessa was right. Jo would have won in the end, stubborn woman that she was. But how could they get over...everything...to work together in such a capacity? At the moment he couldn’t even go there in his mind.
“I can’t see how this is going to work,” he muttered crossly.
“That makes two of us. But it has to happen, Cole. We have to put our differences aside for the sake of the teenagers. They deserve the chance to do something good and to experience the community’s positive response to their actions.”
Honestly, his mind wasn’t on the teenagers. It was on himself and his own discomfort. Was this the Lord’s design to give him the opportunity to step out in faith—and completely out of his comfort zone? If it was, it was way, way out.
Right out of the frying pan and straight into the fire.
Chapter Three
Tessa straightened her color-coordinated file folders, one for each of the incoming teenagers, and laid them atop a lavender-colored three-ring binder, in which she kept all her additional notes. At the moment, she was the only one sitting at the Haddons’ dining room table.
Early as usual.
She usually took the extra time before the meeting to pray for the incoming teenagers and quiet her heart so she would be open to whatever new challenges lay ahead, but after what had happened earlier in the day at Cup O’ Jo’s, she couldn’t get her mind or her emotions to stop buzzing around like a hive of angry wasps. Unlike bees, which stung once and died, wasps had the capacity to sting over and over again.
Cole was a single father.
While that explained a lot, it still filled her with confusion. No wonder he’d returned to Serendipity. He was bound to need the help of his family and friends to raise Grayson. She imagined it was hard to go it alone. He was blessed to have his brother Eli and sister Vee and their spouses living close by. Plenty of aunts and uncles to spoil little Grayson.
She couldn’t help but wonder how the whole single dad part of it had come to be. That wasn’t the sort of information a man shared with an ex-girlfriend, especially one with whom he’d had such a conspicuous breakup.
Single mothers, as heartbreaking as they were, were a dime a dozen given the current society. One mistake and they were the ones left holding the baby, the ones whose whole lives were forever changed in an instant. The men—they could walk away. It might be wrong, but that’s how it was. They could choose whether or not to be responsible for their child.
Cole, apparently, had made that noble decision.
Her first instinct would be to think he was a widower, but that wasn’t what he’d said. He’d said he wasn’t married. Not that he had been married, or that he was divorced. He wasn’t married.
Which meant what?
She didn’t know, and really, she shouldn’t want to know. She needed to keep her attention where it belonged—on her career and her incoming charges—and mind her own business where Cole was concerned. She wasn’t even close to being ready to work with Cole on the musical number with the teenagers, so she pressed that problem as far back in her mind as she could force it.
She scoffed and flipped open the hot-pink folder on the top of the pile, then glanced down and read the name on the file. Kaylie Johnson. Fifteen. Had been picked up for underage drinking and arguing with a police officer. Obstructing justice. Not a smart move, but a fairly typical case. Most of the teenagers came to the ranch with a chip on their shoulders. It was her job to provide the tough love that usually turned the kids around—a combination of counseling and good, hard physical labor. Redemption Ranch was the perfect place to keep teenage hands and minds busy.
And if God was gracious, Tessa hoped her own mind would be likewise occupied. She longed to be too tired to think, to drop into bed at night without any dreams. Busy enough for the ever-present thoughts of a blue-eyed cowboy to be overshadowed.
Unfortunately, she couldn’t get away from him in her thoughts or in person, because Cole arrived a moment later, hat in hand, his thick blond hair windswept and messy. She was a little surprised to see him arrive early to the meeting. She remembered him as being chronically late to class and church when they were in high school.
Their eyes met, and Tessa noticed something she’d overlooked when she’d seen him at Cup O’ Jo’s. The pitiable man had dark circles under his eyes and a rough-lined, haggard expression that suggested he hadn’t been getting enough sleep. Had he been keeping late nights with the baby?
“Does Grayson have his days and nights mixed up?” she asked, gesturing to the chair opposite her. Any discomfort that she might feel being alone with him was offset by how thoroughly exhausted he looked. The kind thing for her to do would be to hold off on the snark she usually used in defensive mode. She really did feel sorry for him—a little. Besides, Marcus and the Haddons couldn’t be far behind. A glance at her watch told her there were only five minutes to spare.
Cole groaned as he slid into his chair. “We had Grayson pretty well set on a schedule in California, but the move messed him up again, poor little guy.”
Tessa’s breath caught. “We?”
“The folks I stayed with while I worked out the legal issues with Grayson. They were such a blessing.”
She wanted to ask him about the legal issues he’d been facing. Instead, she said, “That was very kind of them.”
“I’ll say. I had a lot to learn about baby care.”
“I can only imagine.” Truthfully, Tessa didn’t really know. She’d been around her friends’ babies on occasion, but taking care of an infant twenty-four-seven, and as a single parent at that—well, that was a horse of a different color. No wonder Cole’s skin looked a little pasty.
Tessa rolled her eyes at the sound of clamoring and clunking coming from the front room. She didn’t have to turn around to know it was Marcus—the man was built like a giant and moved with all the grace of a bull in a china shop, no matter where he was.
“Oh, good. I’m not late, then,” Marcus said, dropping into the chair next to Tessa and slinging an arm along the back of her chair.
Marcus grinned at Cole, who narrowed his gaze on the spot where Marcus’s shoulder touched Tessa’s. Part of her wanted to correct the mistaken impression Cole might be getting, but then again, why should she bother? It wasn’t like it mattered.
“That’s got to be some kind of record for you, Marcus,” she quipped back. She wa
s joking, but not entirely inaccurately. Marcus did tend to show up late to the staff meetings. He had his own sense of timing—casual, cool, no worries. Chill. His kind of attitude drove on-time and organized Tessa nuts.
“So what have you got there, Red?” Marcus asked, grinning and emphasizing the last word. He gestured toward her pile of file folders and then slapped his own onto the table, all a generic manila.
Red.
The name made Tessa’s stomach churn, as if she’d eaten something that disagreed with her. Cole’s pet name for her didn’t belong in this conversation, most especially on Marcus’s lips. It was sure to get Cole’s goat. They all had to find a way to work together. Didn’t Marcus have a brain in that head of his?
Probably not. Marcus was the kind of man who used his looks and charm to get his way and thought everything in life was easy if it was faced with a smile.
But he’d crossed a line here, right into Cole’s territory. She scowled at Marcus in an unspoken warning. Goading Cole was not a good idea. Ever. He would most certainly lose that battle.
Don’t do it.
Then her gaze flashed to Cole, half feeling she owed him an explanation or apology for Marcus’s airheaded slip of the tongue, but Cole’s gaze was on Marcus’s and the meaning in his expression was clear.
Leave it be. Cole frowned and looked as if he wanted to say something. Tessa looked back at Marcus, feeling panicked.
Fortunately, Tessa was saved from having to ply the men physically off each other by the appearance of Alexis and Griff. Griff seemed to be unaware of the overabundance of testosterone crackling through the room, but Alexis raised an eyebrow as she surveyed the men glaring at each other across the table.
One corner of Alexis’s mouth turned up, and she tilted her head at Tessa, asking for an explanation without speaking a word, her eyes sparkling with mischief.
Tessa shrugged. How was she supposed to know why the two men were apparently at odds with each other? If she could read the male mind, maybe she could have staved off a few of her past mistakes. Maybe she and Cole—
