Love Inspired November 2013 #2

by Emma Miller

  “Those are Lana’s cookies. Iced oatmeal.” Jack took one from the plate on the table for emphasis.

  “What’s his name?”

  “Gabriel,” Calista said, glancing at Grant. A look passed between them, part joy, part sadness. “After Marisol’s son.”

  She remembered the short Hispanic woman, huge hug, smelled like vanilla. Evie wanted to ask about Gabriel but sensed a tragedy. Marisol should be the one to tell the story, if she wished.

  “Look how long his fingers are.” Gavin stretched out a hand and pointed, not touching the baby’s skin. Gabriel had his hands crossed over his chest, fingers on full display.

  Hyperaware of Gavin’s presence, a radiating warmth near her shoulder, Evie was overwhelmed by emotions. He smelled clean, a little woodsy, like he’d been up on the mountain today. She glanced at him, feeling her eyes well up with unexpected tears. “He’s so beautiful.” Is this what it was like to welcome a child into the world? She couldn’t even begin to imagine the love they must feel for him and for each other.

  Gavin nodded, his eyes soft and dark. His expression spoke of tender wonderment.

  “He’s so Zen.” Jack shot a glance at Calista. “Don’t know where he gets that.”

  “Hey, I can be Zen.” Calista tossed her blond hair and frowned. Evie wasn’t too sure, but from what she’d seen, Calista was more Pilates than Zen.

  “From distant relatives, probably.” Grant laid a large hand on his son’s head, running his fingertips through the fine, dark hair. There was such peace in his eyes that Evie felt her heart contract. This baby had brought excitement and joy. Effortlessly.

  “Welcome to the world, little guy.” Evie brushed her lips over Gabriel’s soft hair, inhaling his sweet scent.

  She glanced up and caught Gavin’s gaze. Something in his posture changed. She sensed him stiffen. She straightened up, wondering if he worried about germs. Maybe like editors hated typos, he worried over microbes. She shouldn’t have kissed the baby. But she didn’t see revulsion there. His eyes held an emotion she was very familiar with: struggle, conflict.

  Evie dropped her gaze, heart pounding. There was a story in Gavin, she was sure of it. The journalist in her could smell it a mile away. Her woman’s intuition was setting off alarms that were making it hard to hear the conversation in the room.

  “We’d better let you all get to work. Babies won’t pay the bills, you know.” Grant reached out for Gabriel, and Evie reluctantly passed the warm bundle back to his father.

  “Must be their only failing because he’s pretty perfect, in my eyes.” Lana gave him one last gentle touch and wheeled out the door.

  “I agree. I don’t know how you get anything done. I’d just sit around and stare at him all day.” Evie was convinced she could still smell the baby on her sweater.

  “I budget time just for gawking.” Calista said it so seriously, Evie wasn’t sure whether to laugh or not.

  “All right, let’s get this meeting going. We’ve got some decisions to make on the grant money that came in last month,” Nancy said.

  Evie settled in her chair and got down to business. Working on a shoestring budget was something she was used to.

  But the awareness of the man sitting next to her, and the emotions that had passed between them moments before, were making it difficult to concentrate. She wasn’t a girl who thrived on drama. Those years were done and gone. She’d once thought that living for the moment was for the brave and the free. She’d learned the hard way it was just another trap. She wasn’t interested in unearthing old secrets, of exposing wounds best left to heal.

  But her heart was aching to know Gavin’s story, to bless the hurt he carried inside. The loss of his best friend wouldn’t have caused that sort of reaction. Did he have a child given up for adoption? Had he once been married and he and his wife had lost a baby? She lived her life in God’s grace, but there were memories that still gave her pain. If Gavin trusted her, if he ever let her into his heart, she would share the hope that kept her going—that a past like hers could be used for something great. Hope that she had a divine purpose, a calling, that wasn’t lost when she’d worked as a paparazzo.

  * * *

  Her elbow brushed his whenever she moved. She was left-handed and sitting on his right, a recipe for awkwardness. Gavin shifted on his chair, willing himself to focus. Spreadsheets were passed around, funds allocated, and still he couldn’t hardly concentrate. It felt like someone was running a hand down his arm whenever the sleeve of her pink sweater touched his jacket. She looked so soft and she smelled delicious.

  He let out a long breath. He hadn’t had dinner. He’d missed his run that morning. The pertussis epidemic was weighing on his mind. He wasn’t sleeping like he should. McHale was breathing down his neck and asking him to do something he felt was unethical. Nothing more than that. Nothing a vacation wouldn’t straighten out.

  Okay, truthfully, maybe he was feeling like it was time to settle down and start a family. Maybe it was seeing Grant and Calista wrapped up in their new baby. He’d dated a few girls who had turned into great friends. But he’d never felt this pull, this inability to get his body to follow his brain. And his brain was telling him that this woman next to him was going to complicate his relatively straightforward life in all sorts of ways.

  Allison and Sean are complications, and you wouldn’t let them go for the world. The little voice in his head reminded him that sometimes love was that way. It walked in and rearranged the furniture in your heart, changing everything around, making you feel like a stranger in your own place. And when it was all done, you realized you were happier.

  Evie had held that baby like the precious gift he was. He’d been caught up in the moment; his chest had contracted at the sight of the tears in her eyes. Then he’d remembered Allison. His sister who had made terrible choices, who had given birth to a child no one wanted, who had hidden from the world until her shame was too heavy to bear all alone.

  Allison, the sister who always walked on the wild side, believed she would be a big star someday. When she met a man and fell in love, she hadn’t cared that the man was married and had children. It was always about her feelings, her dreams. But he was in the public eye, so it was only a matter of time before the gossip hounds found them out.

  Sean, who should have been welcomed into the world because he was innocent, was hidden away like a stain on the family honor. Gavin hadn’t even known Sean existed for a year. The thought of those missed moments, and of Allison’s broken heart, made him sick inside.

  “Gavin?” Evie was watching him, a question in her eyes.

  “Sorry, I was thinking.” About you and love and complications. He tried to catch up to the topic they’d been debating. He couldn’t let his feelings dictate his actions. That was for weaker men, men like McHale. Commitment and focus was his rule, because the world didn’t need more messy drama.

  * * *

  “It’s Friday. Go have some fun. You never take a day off.” Jack slouched in the chair across from Evie’s desk, feet propped on the corner of a cabinet. He sounded bored, which was his usual reaction to frustration. He’d spent the morning schmoozing new clients.

  “If I did, I wouldn’t spend it snowboarding.” Evie shuffled papers and tried to ignore her brother’s annoying presence. He’d had only one meeting today and the rest of the day was free. That’s what happened when you were a figurehead and not a real manager. He knew it. She knew it. They didn’t really talk about it.

  “Do you even know how to take the day off? Or would you end up back here, sorting through stories and fighting with the lawyers?”

  Evie rubbed her temples and tried to beat back the angry words that swirled in her head. Jack was acting like she didn’t want to have a life. She did. It just didn’t include acting like a teenager. She wanted to do something real.

&n
bsp; There was a light knock on the door and Amy Morket popped into view. Evie was fairly sure what was going to come out of Amy’s mouth in the next few seconds.

  It was a surprise she’d gone most of the morning without bumping into the overeager reporter. Working dynamics were complicated, especially where women were concerned. A woman who took charge was labeled differently than a man who had initiative. But Amy grated on her nerves. She was always nosing into stories that were assigned to more senior reporters. Where Jolie was bright and tough, Amy was sly and determined.

  “Ms. Thorne, I’ve heard there was a lot of trouble with the sweatshop story. I think I could help out, if you’d let me in on it. I could go undercover.”

  Evie wanted to drop her head to the desk. Amy had dark hair but ivory skin that paired perfectly with her bright blue eyes. She was going to infiltrate a slave labor ring that shuttled groups of South American aliens from warehouse to warehouse? It would have been laughable if it wasn’t such a terrible idea.

  “We’re working on it. We’ve got source issues. When it’s back on the front burner, I’ll let you know.”

  “I have lots of contacts. I hear rumors.” Amy leveled a gaze at Evie and narrowed her eyes. One manicured hand on her slim hip, shoes that cost more than the normal weekly take at The Chronicle, and Amy was probably the last person to hear rumors about slave labor. But Evie wondered what she could have been hearing. She cut her eyes to Jack, who shrugged.

  “What kind of rumors?”

  Amy’s eyes widened. “Does this mean I’m on the story?”

  “No, it means if you have something helpful, we could see if it will save the story.”

  Amy looked like she was deliberating. “I’ll write up what I know and send you an email.”

  “Okay, that’s fine.” Evie gave her a smile and waited for the door to close. Then she waited another few beats. “What do you think she knows?” she asked Jack softly.

  “When all the big sales are scheduled. She has nice shoes. And legs.”

  Evie rolled her eyes. That story was on hold, and it made her angry that they couldn’t run something that would save people from modern-day slavery.

  “She sort of reminds me of you.”

  “Excuse me?” Evie tried to put all her umbrage into two words.

  “I don’t know what it is. Her drive, maybe.” Jack was staring at the door, frowning.

  She wanted to protest but felt the uncomfortable brush of the ugly truth. Amy was driven, just like she had been. No matter the cost, she was going to be successful.

  Shaking off the thought, Evie rubbed her eyes. “I just want to do something real. I’m tired of stumping for advertising dollars.”

  “Real? Everything you print is real.” Her brother paused, choosing his words carefully. “I think you’re overcompensating. You made bad choices, repented, changed your life and bought The Chronicle. But that doesn’t mean you can’t have fun once in a while. Plus, nobody even reads papers anymore. If you really want to do some good, you need to get an online presence.”

  “You call it overcompensation and I call it doing something worthwhile. And we’re working on the online subscription system.” They’d told her it would be up by the end of the month. She hoped they could hold out that long. If the paper lost many more subscribers, she wouldn’t have to argue whether running so many community service articles was overcompensating or not because there wouldn’t be any articles at all.

  She rubbed her temples. The hum of the enormous machines running thirty feet of newsprint a minute echoed through the floor below. Of course she could do good in the world without a paper, but this was what she did best. God knew her strengths and weaknesses, and this paper was a weapon she could wield against poverty and injustice. As long as she could keep it running.

  “Good. You can’t afford to ignore the internet.” He sat forward, eyes somber. “Seriously, Evie. I don’t want to see you beat yourself up about a few mistakes made a really long time ago. I think if you weren’t still holding on to guilt, you’d be away from this desk a lot more.”

  “I know that I can’t fix what I’ve done with a few columns.” How ridiculous to think she could. “But I’m not working from a place of unresolved guilt. I just don’t want to waste any more time.”

  “Do you ever think you’ll miss something important by working all the time?” His voice was quiet. The afternoon light from the large window put half his face into shadow, sharpening his features. “I just don’t want you to miss your chance at happiness.”

  She felt her eyebrows rise. “Do I only get one? Why the sudden philosophical bent?”

  “I’ve been thinking about things.”

  Uh-oh. So, it wasn’t just her that had a revelation while holding Gabriel. “Things?”

  “Specifically, my present employment.”

  Jack, groomed from birth to take over the family business and shuttled off to business school, rethinking his job? “Colorado Supplements would survive without you.”

  “Of course they would. I don’t really do anything. But Dad might never forgive me.”

  The sound of the busy newsroom faded away as Evie waited in the moment. She’d never believed it would come. “You have to be true to your purpose in life.”

  He looked up, eyes bright. “Exactly. I’ve let myself live a life that was designed for someone else. That’s like a slap in the face to God, don’t you think?”

  She nodded, her breath tight in her chest. She knew exactly what that type of life felt like.

  “I want to be who I was meant to be.”

  “And who is that?”

  He sat back with a sigh. “I have no idea. But you know, I’ll figure it out.”

  Evie nodded, eyes moist. “I’m proud of you. Have I said that recently?”

  He grinned over at her, his usual teasing tone back in evidence. “Not recently. But that’s gonna change.”

  She tried to wipe the tear from her cheek without being too obvious. Was there anything more powerful than watching a person embrace their calling? Jack wasn’t sure what his was, yet, but he was willing to be led wherever God wanted him to go.

  “Now that I’ve made you cry, I should say something to make you mad. It will be just like old times.” He put a finger to his chin and pretended to be deep in thought. “How’s Gavin? Seen him lately?”

  Evie rolled her eyes and pretended to straighten papers. Why did the phone ring all day long until this conversation? And where were all her reporters?

  “He’s got a thing for you.”

  Evie snorted. “He’s got a thing for the paper. We’re working on a series about the pertussis outbreak.”

  “And you don’t feel anything for him?”

  Evie felt her mouth drop open. Jack wasn’t one to ask about feelings. “I’m not sure what to say. There are feelings and then there is something that has an actual chance at surviving the reality we live in.”

  “Have you ever been in love?” Jack’s voice held no hint of sarcasm or teasing. In fact, he was deadly serious.

  She’d know if she had been, right? “I don’t think so.”

  “A few years ago you said there wasn’t a man in Denver you’d really consider.”

  Evie knew what he was saying; she’d felt it herself. Gavin was different. But she was afraid to hope, afraid to say anything in case it all crumbled to dust.

  “I think there’s one that deserves a second look.”

  “I’m not sure what I feel. Maybe it’s something important and I’m going to miss my one chance. Or just maybe it’s that he’s a disease specialist and he’s infected us with something horrible and we’re all going to die.”

  Her brother dropped his feet to the floor with a bang. “You’re the most unromantic person I’ve ever known.”

 
“I don’t really have the time to be romantic.” She tried to keep the frustration out of her voice but couldn’t quite manage it.

  “Maybe you should make some time.”

  She glared at him, weighing her words. The door cracked open and Jolie stuck her head inside. “Sorry to interrupt. You’ve got someone coming from the Downtown Association in ten minutes.”

  “Thanks for the reminder.” Evie gave her a smile and tried to ignore Jolie’s obvious appreciation for Jack’s backside as he stood up, stretching his arms over his head.

  “Later, little sis.” He leaned over the desk, dropped a kiss on her head and went to open the office door. “And where love is concerned, you better trust me.”

  He passed through the door and Jolie reappeared. “Safe to come in?”

  “Why wouldn’t it be?” Evie sat up straight and pretended like she wasn’t absolutely rattled. Jack was going to quit their family business. He’d given her a speech on getting a life. He said she needed to give Gavin more than a passing glance. As if she could help it.

  “Usually I hear you two laughing up a storm in here. Today was...quiet.” Jolie dropped into the chair across the desk, a folder on her lap, fluffy neon pink skirt in sharp contrast with her black-and-white-striped T-shirt, lime-green tights and black Converse shoes.

  “Well, we were just disagreeing on a course of action. And he doesn’t like it when I disagree.” She said the words lightly, as if it didn’t matter what her twin thought.

  “It’s about that vaccine guy, Gavin, isn’t it? Is Jack getting overprotective? Wants to run him over with his car?”

  Evie let out a startled laugh. “Why would you ever think that?”

  “I finally outsmarted Miss Observant, didn’t I?”

  “It’s not what you think. It sort of concerns him, but not the way you’re implying.” Oh, boy, Evie was digging a hole.