Love Inspired May 2015 #2 (31 page)

His warm smile of appreciation washed away most of her earlier insecurity about Ari and herself.

“Okay,” he said. “You can stay. I'll pick you up at four o'clock. If you want to come home before then, ask Mrs. Hill to call me.”

Hope flung herself at Jared and wrapped her arms around his legs. “I love you, Jared.”

He went perfectly still and the love on his face for the little girl melted Becca to the core. Jared Donnelly had so many facets. He wasn't an easy man to know.

He lifted Hope and hugged her back. “I love you, too. Remember, Mrs. Hill will call if you need me.”

“We'll be fine,” Karen said. “Won't we, Hope?”

“Yep,” the little girl answered.

Becca touched his arm. “This is a good time for us to slip out before Hope has a chance to change her mind.”

“Maybe I should stay with her.”

“No.” She grabbed his arm and guided him out of the room toward the outside door. “Trust me.”

His faced tensed in a tight smile.

“I know what I'm doing.” Or at least she did concerning Hope.

As they walked to his truck, they passed a car Becca didn't recognize that had a bumper sticker with the awful X-ed out picture of Jared on his bike that she'd seen on the signs the protesters outside the town hall had carried. From the way Jared accelerated his pace, she knew he had, too.

He jerked open the back door of his truck and Becca recoiled, her stomach churning from the smell of stale beer that hit her.

“Awful, isn't it?”

“Yeah,” she squeaked out, not sure she wanted to hear what he might say next as an excuse. She'd heard them all.

“Connor borrowed my truck to pick up a furniture donation for the fall fair. While he was at the donor's house, he talked him into donating a stash of returnable bottles the man had out in his garage along with the furniture. Connor had to put them in the backseat because the back of the truck was full of furniture. Some of the bottles weren't empty. I've tried everything Gram has suggested to get the smell out of the rug.”

Now that was one excuse she hadn't heard. She wanted to trust him, believe he wasn't like Matt, wasn't like his father. But after the strain of this morning, all she could think was
I have to give Jared extra credit for creativity.

* * *

“It's kind of like washing Dad away,” Josh said Saturday evening when he and Jared went out to check on the success of the industrial-strength cleaner Josh had brought over to get the beer smell out of Jared's truck.

Jared hated to feed his brother's bitterness, but he could relate. Every time he'd opened the truck door, the smell had reminded him of their father. It was good to have it finally gone.

“Jared, Josh.” Connor came of the house, letting the door slam behind him. “I need one of you to help me.”

“Do what?” Josh asked first.

“Sandy Schuyler called and asked me if I'd help her track down her son, Toby. He came home last night half-drunk, and she took the keys to his pickup away, along with the fake ID she found in his jeans pocket when she threw them in the washer before work. He found them while she was at work today and took off. She called one of his friends from school, and he said he might be playing pool with some older guys Sandy doesn't like. The friend gave her the name of a couple bars they might be at. Not places she'd want to go by herself.”

“I'll come,” Jared said. He had a hard time picturing the demure widowed town librarian trolling bars to find her teenage son.

“And I'll stay with Hope.” Josh's voice had a tone of relief Jared couldn't quite figure.

“Yeah, thanks,” Jared said.

When their brother was in the house, Connor said, “After you left, once Josh could drive, Mom used to ask him to find Dad, bring him home,” Connor said. “He hated it.”

As if I didn't.
Jared felt a twinge of guilt that that job had fallen to Josh when he'd left. Josh seemed to have taken their father's actions and abandonment the hardest of the three of them.

“Where are we headed?” he asked as he opened the door to his truck.

“Sandy said The Road House is the most likely place.”

Bile filled Jared's throat. “One of dear old Dad's favorite haunts
.
”

He ignored Connor's sidewise glance.

“That's Toby's father's truck,” Connor said as they neared The Road House.

Jared had a fleeting thought that they should have taken Connor's car. He didn't need someone seeing his truck here and reporting it to the Sheriff and Becca.

He made a sharp turn into the parking lot, parked and they went in.

“Toby,” Connor said when they spotted him at the pool table.

The teen raised his cue. “Pas...” He glanced at the guys with him. “Connor, Jared.”

They crossed the bar in a few strides.

Toby leaned the cue against the wall. “Ya know, Jared Donnelly, the motocross racer,” he slurred to his friends, waving his arms expansively.

They nodded in Jared's direction.

“Come on, Toby,” Connor said. “Time to go.”

“No,” he said with the petulance of a two-year-old. “I'm playing a game.”

Connor touched Toby's arm and repeated, “Time to go.”

Jared saw the teen start his swing at Connor before Connor did and nudged his brother out of the way, raising his forearm to deflect Toby.
Too late.
The wild roundhouse hit Jared square in the left eye. The guys with Toby snickered, and Jared had to draw on the strength of his faith to stop himself from turning on them.

Toby lost his balance, crashed into some chairs and wiped out a table full of bottles and glasses. Jared blinked his already-swelling eye and caught Connor grabbing Toby from behind as the sound of a police siren filled the bar.

Great!
Someone must have called the sheriff's department.
He winced, not entirely from pain. Forget someone seeing his truck in The Road House parking lot. It probably would be all around town that he'd been in a bar fight, and he'd have one beauty of a black eye to back up the gossip.

Chapter Eleven

“W
hat happened to you?” Brendon intercepted Jared when he brought Hope to The Kids' Place the following Monday afternoon.

Jared gripped Hope's hand.

“He got a black eye helping Connor get a bad boy for his mommy,” she answered for him.

Brendon bounced on his toes. “Then, what Grandpa said is true. You and Pastor Connor got in a bar fight. Cool!”

Leave it to the Paradox Lake grapevine
. He should have gone to church services yesterday rather than thinking he could avoid causing gossip by keeping himself and his black eye at home.

“Brendon Michael,” Becca said. “That is not cool. Go help Ms. Leanne take down the lunch tables.”

No, a bar fight wasn't cool, but Becca's voice was. Beyond cool. Downright icy.

“Jared, can we talk in my office after you sign Hope in with Karen?”

“Sure.” He walked Hope to her classroom and back to the Fellowship Hall feeling all the dread of a man facing death row. She couldn't hold his action against him or his racing-school project once she heard what really happened. Could she? He walked into the office, and Becca closed the door behind him.

She stood behind the desk. “Tell me it isn't true.”

“It isn't true.”

She narrowed her eyes and glared at him. He wondered how many years of teaching it had taken her to perfect the look.

“Can I sit?”

She nodded and remained standing.

He pulled the chair over and sat in it backward, his arms crossed on the back, forming his own line of defense. “I know it looks bad. I look bad.” He gave her a slow smile he usually found to be effective in softening women's anger.

She crossed her arms and looked down at him.

Okay, if that was what she wanted.
“I did get the black eye in a fight at The Road House with a seventeen-year-old kid.”

“You...a seventeen-year-old...The Road House. How could you?” She spat out her words. “Kids like Brendon look up to you. And you want to run a program for teens? Hate to tell you, but that's not the way to get supporters.”

“Sit down.”

Her gaze burned through him.

“Please.”

She sank into the chair behind the desk. “It gets worse?”

“No. Connor got a call from Sandy Schuyler about Toby. He's been hanging out with some older guys she doesn't like. He'd come home Friday night smelling of beer and she took away the keys to his pickup. He's seventeen. He was furious with her. He found the keys in her room while she was at work at the library on Saturday and was gone when she got home.”

Becca placed her hand over her heart. “Poor Sandy. She's had such a hard time with Jeff's illness and death.”

“She asked Connor if he would help her track Toby down. She was afraid to go after him herself, especially after the blowup they'd had the night before. And the places where she suspected she might find her son aren't exactly her usual type of hangout. Connor asked me to go with him instead.”

Becca nodded.

“He was trying to reason with the kid when Toby took a swing at him. I tried to deflect it, and I did with my face.”

Jared tried the slow grin again with more success. Becca's features softened with almost as much concern as she'd expressed for Sandy.

“That really is some shiner you have. Does it hurt?”

“Nah, not really.” He didn't need to tell her he'd iced it numb this morning.

“What's going to happen to Toby? He was in my honors eleventh-grade history class this past year, doing really well until the Christmas break. Then his dad died. His grades and behavior both tanked after that.”

Jared wondered what it would be like to have a father he'd miss like Toby obviously did his. He hadn't felt much of anything when Mom had started the proceedings to have his father declared dead so she could sell the family house in Paradox Lake.

“Toby's exactly the kind of kid I want to help. That my racing-school program could help.” He searched her face and found she hadn't closed down—yet. “He needs a boot in the right direction from someone other than Sandy who, I'm sure, is grieving as much as or more than he is. And a way to vent his anger. There's nothing like a good rough ride against a little competition to drain it out of you.”

“Ken said the sheriff's department was called.”

His jaw tightened at her abrupt change in conversation. So much for sharing some of his vision for the school. He couldn't read her at all. When she hadn't stopped his kiss, he'd thought she was letting him into her life. A place, he'd since realized, he wanted to be. He was letting her into his. Her seemingly nothing-but-the-facts attitude cut that short.

“The Sheriff had to call and spread the good news. He can't give it up, can he?” Jared shut his mouth. He wasn't good at playing by the rules. But for Becca he could try.

“No, he keeps his finger in a lot of pies.”

Including, from what he'd seen, Becca's life.

“The sheriff's deputy was really decent about not arresting Toby for disorderly conduct.”
Or us.
“The bar owner decided not to press it after I told him I'd pay for any damage Toby caused. I expect when I get the bill it'll be for a considerable amount of damage.”

“From one teenager swinging one punch?”

“That, and he knocked over a few chairs and smashed some bottles and glasses. He was pretty wasted. But, no, not that much damage. But I did see dollar signs in the owner's eyes when I made the offer and he realized who I was.”

“Does that bother you?”

“I'd be lying if I said it didn't. But if Connor and I can get through to Toby, it'll be worth whatever the owner tries to gouge me for.”

“What are you and Connor going to do?”

“The unofficial trade-off for no charges is community service for the church for the rest of the summer. Whatever Connor thinks is fitting. We talked yesterday. Connor is going to have Toby start by filling in for the church cleaning-and-maintenance guy who takes July off as vacation. And he and I are going to rebuild the engine in his truck.”

“Sandy's onboard with that? At the conference I had with her about Toby and his failing grades a few weeks before final exams, she was talking about junking the truck so it wouldn't be around for him to use to get in trouble. It's an old vehicle his father used only around the farm.”

“That's the beauty of it. The truck will be out of commission indefinitely. We're going to do a painstakingly thorough job of repairing it.”

Becca laughed an all-out uninhibited laugh. Then, she sobered. “Does Toby remind you of yourself?

Jared didn't have a ready answer. He didn't know the teen well enough. All he knew was that Toby and his mother needed help.

“You couldn't have been much older than Toby when you took out the Nortons' fence.”

He went numb. It always came back to the past.

“You remember that?”

“No. I was away at college. Emily told me after you'd returned.”

He didn't know whether to be angry with Emily or flattered that the women had been talking about him.

“I was a little older, and had been drinking at The Road House, too. Different owners, but the place is still the same. This time, the deputy cited the owner-bartender for serving a minor. I never could figure out why Sheriff Norton never had. He ran a tight ship about everything else.”

Becca flushed. “Because of Matt. He and his friends used to get together there and have a few beers when they came home on college breaks.”

Jared whistled. “I didn't think Norton would look the other way for anyone.”

“He has his blind side.”

Jared waited for her to elaborate. It might give him some insight into why the former sheriff had it in for him. But she didn't.

Several long seconds of tight-lipped silence ticked by. “If we're done,” he said, “I'd like to get going. The afternoons when Hope is in here are my work time.”

“Of course. I hope everything goes well with Toby.”

Jared told himself she meant it, not that she doubted his ability to turn around the teen. He opened the office door to Brendon and two of the boys from his day-care group sauntering down the hall.

“See. I told you.” Brendon pointed at his eye and continued with an admiration that made Jared sick to his stomach. “Just like the articles in the racing magazines my grandpa wouldn't buy me but I looked at in the store. Only I didn't know Jared then.”

“The ones you told me about with him beating up that guy and trashing his car?” the wide-eyed kid with Brendon asked. “He did that here, too? Cool!”

Jared exploded, echoing Becca's earlier words. “No, it isn't cool. And I wasn't in a bar fight last weekend. I didn't beat anyone up. And I didn't tear any place apart.”

The boys edged away from him toward the wall.

“As for the stories in the magazines.” Jared swung around to face Becca. He needed to tell her this more than the boys. “I was in a bad place in my life. I did some things I'm not proud of. That incident isn't one of them. The man I tackled, not beat up, was attacking a woman in the parking lot of a restaurant. I didn't trash his car. He threw his whiskey bottle through the windshield himself. People should get all the facts before they spread the news.”

“Boys, go back to your room,” Becca said.

They sped off.

“I'm sorry,” she said.

“No need. I've already asked for and received all the forgiveness I need. And to set the record straight, because I know people are talking, Hope isn't my daughter and I can prove it. But, if it makes you and everyone else happy, she could have been.”

The blood drained from Becca's face, and he wanted to snatch back his words. He was angry at people thinking the worst of him, not at Becca. Instead, he chose to leave.

* * *

Jared waited until Becca's car was the only one left in the church parking lot before going into the Fellowship Hall to pick up Hope. After being a jerk the last time he and Becca had talked, he had to handle this right. It didn't help that he'd stubbornly avoided her for the rest of that week because she'd been avoiding him. And then he'd been out of town for the past few days at an alumni race with other retired motocross champions for the grand reopening of the track where he'd won his first championship. He'd missed Becca. He needed to tell her he wanted her in his life on whatever terms she was comfortable with.

He strode into the hall with a lot more confidence than he felt.

“You're back,” Hope squealed.

“Sure am, pumpkin. I said I would be.” He scooped the little girl up in his arms and gazed over her head at Becca.

She smiled at him, a good sign.

“And I have an invitation from Grandma Stowe for all of us to come to dinner tonight.”

“Ari, too?”

“Ari, too, and Brendon and Becca.”

“Can we go, Mommy?” Ari asked.

Jared searched Becca's face for any sign of disapproval of his using the kid card to get her to agree.

“I don't see why not.” She put him out of his misery. “I'll close up the day care, and we'll meet you at Edna and Harry's,” Becca said.

“If it's okay with Jared, could I ride with him?” Brendon asked. “You don't like to talk about motorcycles or racing, and I want to know about the race he was in this week.”

“What race?”

Becca sounded bothered that he had raced.

“It was that alum, alum...”

“Alumni,” Jared helped Brendon.

“Yeah. I told you about it, Mom. Remember, Ian and I watched it on the sports channel his dad gets.”

“I remember. But I'd rather you ride with me.”

There was the disapproval he'd dreaded when he'd walked in. Was it because of Matt and the beer smell in his truck the other week? Or did she disapprove of him talking with Brendon about bikes and racing? He knew she wanted to discourage her son's interest in motocross. Maybe she'd tell him when he got her alone, if he succeeded in getting her alone.

* * *

Grandma engineered the dinner perfectly. Whether or not Jared's plan worked, he owed her big time.

“Edna, the dinner was wonderful,” Becca said when they'd all finished. “Thank you for inviting us. We had a busy day at The Kids' Place today. I wasn't looking forward to going home and having to cook dinner. Let me know if there's something I can do to reciprocate.” She pushed her chair back from the table as if she were getting ready to leave.

Jared looked at his grandmother.

“It just so happens there is. I'd like you to give Jared an hour of your time to hear him out, clear the air between the two of you.”

Becca tilted her head toward Grandma. That wasn't exactly what he'd asked her to say.

“Harry and I'll take the kids out to get soft-serve ice cream, so you two can have the house to yourselves.”

Somehow, Grandma was sounding more matchmaker than facilitator. His heart thumped against his chest. He half expected Becca to come up with a good reason she and the kids had to go.

“All right,” she relented.

Good.
But he could have done without her agreement sounding as if she was accepting a crew penalty for another member's violation.

“I made some coffee,” his grandmother said. “It's in the kitchen. That special kind you like, Jared. Harry and I can't drink coffee after dinner anymore. It keeps us up all night. Come on, kids.” Grandma whisked them out the door.

“Want a cup?”

“Special coffee?” Becca smiled. “I thought Connor was the one who liked gourmet coffee.”

“He is. But Grandma made it for us. I can't let it go to waste.”

“No, we couldn't do that.”

He went into the kitchen and brought back two cups of coffee on a tray with cream and sugar and honey that Grandma had left out on the counter next to the coffeemaker. “Let's have it in the living room.”