Her Surprise Hero

by Abby Gaines

  Cynthia groaned.

  “Is that a problem?” he said coolly.

  She pressed the Coke button on the vending machine as an excuse not to meet his eyes. “I told you what I want in a relationship—the level of emotional security I need. It didn’t sound like what you wanted to give.” And now she was a hot prospect for the judgeship in Atlanta, so it might not even be relevant.

  He stepped closer, forcing her to look up. “We had one date. Isn’t that a bit early to decide how far it’s going to go?”

  “I like you a lot, Ethan. More than I can remember liking anyone in a long while.”

  His head jerked back.

  “See?” she said. “I scared you.”

  “You didn’t scare me.” He folded his arms and stared her down. “But do you have to always say exactly what you’re thinking? Couldn’t you wait until maybe I’m ready to hear it?”

  “No,” she said. A nurse going past turned at Cynthia’s sharp tone. She lowered her voice. “I don’t want to get distracted by thoughts of a relationship with you that in all likelihood would be a disaster, when I should be thinking about getting back to my family.”

  She slipped by him, out into the corridor, removing the privacy from the conversation.

  “So that’s it,” he said, “we’re not dating because you think I’m never going to be able to give you the emotional commitment you want, and you’re not willing to wait and see.”

  She felt as if she was letting go of something very precious…something too hard to hold. She spread her fingers at her sides. “That’s it,” she agreed.

  LINNET PERUSED HOLLOW HARDWARE’S range of tape measures. Ethan was impossible to buy for, but she couldn’t ignore his birthday. Not without sending a message she didn’t intend. Not when they were finally making some progress, thanks to Cynthia.

  She started down aisle five. Safety, Security, Flashlights.

  Everyone needed a flashlight—the old ones always broke. Not the most meaningful gift. Did it say, Don’t keep me in the dark, son? She smiled to herself. It would certainly be apt.

  Linnet wondered if Cynthia knew it was Ethan’s birthday next month. Mind you, the judge would probably make a choice in five minutes. It always took Linnet weeks of anxious browsing, and she was never satisfied with her decision. Rather like her life.

  Linnet wasn’t crazy about Cynthia, but she figured the judge might grow on her. And Ethan sure needed someone strong like that, a woman who wouldn’t let herself be stymied by his refusal to engage.

  “Hi, Gram.” Sam appeared at the end of the aisle.

  “Sam, honey.” Her smile widened. What a treasure to have a grandchild. She might have known she wouldn’t end up with one of those easy ones, like Jackie Browne’s angelic choirboy grandson. She didn’t care. However difficult Sam was, he was a part of her. Always would be. “What are you doing here?”

  “Al has me running errands, because of this.” He held up his injured arm, in a cast and a sling.

  “I’m hunting for something for your dad’s birthday. Did you know it’s August first?”

  Sam scowled. “That’s ages away.”

  “To you, maybe.” Linnet wondered if Ethan had gotten mad about the rodeo. Probably not—he would have had another of those reasonable discussions that got Sam so riled up. She sighed and picked up a super heavy-duty flashlight. “August feels like tomorrow to me. Do you think he’d like this?”

  Sam shrugged.

  Linnet returned the light to the shelf. “How’s your wrist?”

  “No pain, just a pain in the butt.” The cast explained why he was wearing an old plaid shirt of Ethan’s rather than one of his ubiquitous black T-shirts. The plaid suited him. Softened him.

  “What’s happening with your community service in the park?” Linnet asked. Sam had been assigned to planting, but that would be impractical with his injury.

  “I’m on litter detail.” A sneer told her what he thought of that.

  “Judge Merritt been out to your place recently?” Did he know the sheriff had walked in on Ethan and Cynthia in a clinch? Hot stuff, by all accounts. She presumed that was why they hadn’t been seen together the past few days. But it took more than lying low to dampen a rumor around this town. Especially after they’d kissed outside Sally’s.

  Sam picked up a flashlight, a Maglite, and read the packaging. “Haven’t seen her.”

  “That’s the most powerful light for its size.” Linnet had read the packaging, too. “Maybe I should check out the screwdriver sets. I gave your dad one of those when he was twelve years old.” She wondered what message a screwdriver set would send. You screwed me up, Mom. Or was that screwed me over? Linnet rubbed her forehead. She had to accept Ethan for who he was, if she ever wanted him to do the same for her. She pulled a fire blanket down from a higher shelf. Every home should have one. You smothered me? No, he could never accuse her of that.

  “My mom never called,” Sam said suddenly. “After I broke my wrist. Dad phoned to tell her I was in the hospital, and she said she’d call me but she never did.”

  “Honey, I’m sorry.” Linnet put the blanket back on the shelf. “She’s probably working long hours and can’t get—”

  “My mom once told me you threw my dad out when he was my age. Did you?”

  Her hands fluttered at her sides. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said automatically.

  That wasn’t going to work this time.

  “Did you throw him out?” Sam demanded.

  “I—he was in a lot of trouble, Sam. I couldn’t deal with it.”

  He flipped the Maglite flashlight between his fingers, urgent, agitated. “Dad told me he did some stupid stuff. He didn’t tell me what.”

  Linnet’s hands flapped. “It’s not for me to say. Your father—he didn’t get along with Wayne, my husband.”

  “So you threw out your son and kept your husband?”

  A deep, inner shame broke out of the place deep inside where she kept it locked away. “Honey, these things aren’t simple.”

  “Forget it.” He tossed the flashlight in the air. Just when she thought he would drop it and she would have to pay for it, he caught it.

  “I hate to argue with you.” A headache pulsed behind her eyes. “I’ll get your dad’s present another day.” She turned her back on the shelves laden with potential mistakes. “How about you finish your errand, then we go to my place for some—” She stopped, cold to the marrow.

  “Some what?” Sam asked.

  Linnet swallowed, tried to keep her gaze on his face while she checked out what she’d seen in her peripheral vision. There. Inside the concealing folds of Sam’s sling, she glimpsed the edge of the Maglite packaging.

  “Gram? You okay?” He had no idea she’d noticed.

  Her teeth chattered; she bit down. What to do? She and Sam…he was so good with her, they got along so well, apart from the argument they’d had just now. Stealing the flashlight was probably a reaction to that—it was practically her fault.

  If she confronted him, Sam would be angry. Angrier. He’d make a fuss and they would attract attention. Miles Drake, the store owner, would hear and have Sam arrested. Even if he didn’t, she and Sam would both know she couldn’t trust him anymore. What then?

  “Some tea,” she murmured, finishing her original sentence. I can’t let him get away with it. It’s stealing. Dear God, he’s getting worse. What should I do? She wanted to help Sam—getting him into more trouble wouldn’t help. Neither will letting him become a thief.

  He was Ethan’s son. Ethan’s problem. She would let Sam go, then she would phone Ethan and tell him what happened. He could deal with it.

  She’d let Ethan deal with that other mess, all those years ago, hadn’t she?

  “Tea sounds good.” Sam’s eyes were bright with adrenaline, with the high of gambling he could get away with his crime. “Let’s go.”

  He started down the aisle, his arm held close to his torso as if it hurt. W
ouldn’t want to dislodge his loot.

  Linnet wrung her hands. It’s not my responsibility.

  What exactly was your role in my upbringing, Mom? She remembered the bitter question from Ethan when she’d first shown up in Stonewall Hollow and told him they were family so it was good to live in the same place. It had hurt at the time, a searing pain with the sting of truth in its tail. Because she hadn’t done all she could for Ethan. All she should have. She hadn’t wanted to rock her fragile, patched-up, second-rate marriage.

  Wayne had done wrong, and she’d let him. Let him order her around, disrespect her, be tougher on Ethan than he had any right to be. Then Ethan had done wrong, and she’d turned a blind eye, on the complicit assumption that anything was permissible, so long as Wayne didn’t find out. That was all she wanted to know back then: Would Wayne find out? She’d told herself she was giving Ethan the freedom he apparently craved, while preserving the stability of life at home.

  I’m a coward.

  “Sam,” she called, her voice low and scratchy. Guilt must have sharpened his hearing. He slowed. “Put it back.”

  He stopped. Turned. “Huh?”

  “The flashlight. Put it back.”

  His face flushed. “Whaddya mean?”

  She might not know much about being a good parent, but she knew all about teenage boys and circuitous arguments that went nowhere. She said nothing, just stared at him.

  “It’s for Dad,” Sam said. “For his birthday.”

  Linnet wanted to weep. “You’d do that to your father? Something you know he’ll find so repugnant, and call it a gift?”

  He shrugged.

  A surge of protectiveness toward Ethan stiffened her backbone. Yes, she knew it was too little and too late, but it was the same instinct that had provoked her dislike of Cynthia, when she had refused to sentence Sam the way Ethan wanted. “I’ll report you.”

  He snorted. “Sure you will. Come on, Gram, let’s go have that tea. You can give me a lecture if you want.” He flashed her a charming smile that put her in mind of Ethan’s father. Who’d been a decent enough young man, but who’d never faced up to his responsibilities and had allowed his parents to provide what they could for Linnet and her baby. One thing about Ethan, he faced up to his responsibilities and then some. Who knew where he got that?

  Linnet forced one foot in front of the other. When she reached Sam, she grabbed his injured arm.

  “Ow, Gram!” He wrenched away from her.

  “Put. It. Back.”

  “It’s a friggin’ twenty-dollar flashlight.” He strode away, his walk just like Ethan’s as he headed for the main doors. No electronic alarms in this store, which he doubtless had checked before he started thieving.

  Linnet’s mouth filled with saliva, her eyes with tears; it was as if something inside her was dissolving. Half-blind, she made her way to the customer service desk.

  “Excuse me,” she said to the assistant. “That young man—he stole a flashlight. It’s in his sling.”

  As the man radioed Miles Drake, who moved swiftly to stop Sam, Linnet pressed her knuckles against her teeth and prayed that doing the right thing for someone she loved would feel good.

  It didn’t.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  ETHAN’S CELL PHONE rang as he wrestled with a hay wrapper stuck on the baler. “Can you see who it is?” he asked Connor, still working off the cost of that oil he’d spilled.

  Connor leaned over to check the phone clipped to Ethan’s belt. “Mom,” he read with a grin. “Yours, I guess.”

  Ethan grimaced. He didn’t want to talk to his mother. He hadn’t felt like talking to anyone much since Cindy had blown him off. But Linnet didn’t call without a reason. The ringing stopped, and a minute later he heard a beep to say he had a message. When he’d freed the wrapper, he called her.

  “Oh…Ethan.” She was jittery, quick little breaths coming over the airwaves.

  “Didn’t you just call?”

  “Yes, I, um, left a message.” She half sounded as if she didn’t want to speak to him.

  “What is it?” he said brusquely.

  “Sam’s been arrested,” she blurted. “For shoplifting.”

  The four-letter word he barked made the kids snigger. He didn’t normally swear in front of them.

  Linnet filled him in. Sam had stolen a flashlight from the hardware store. Stashed it in his sling—the badge of his heroism—of all places. They’d let him walk out the door, then nabbed him.

  “I asked Miles not to press charges,” Linnet said.

  “You were there?” Ethan’s picture of events shifted, changed.

  “But he said if he lets one kid get away with it, they’ll all have a go.”

  “You were there?” he asked again. “Couldn’t you have stopped him, dammit? Didn’t you see?”

  The silence was so complete, he thought they’d been cut off. He shook the phone. “Mom?”

  “I tried to stop him,” she said. “He wouldn’t listen.”

  Damn stubborn kid. “Thanks,” he said grudgingly. “I guess you did your best.” Just because he and Cindy had nothing going, didn’t mean he shouldn’t stick to the truce she’d inspired.

  “Ethan.” Linnet’s voice was almost a squeak. “It was me who reported Sam for stealing.”

  “What the—” He stumbled backward, almost fell over one of the kids, who’d sprawled on the grass while they waited. The need to count to ten came upon him like never before. Twice. Three times. He barked the numbers in his head.

  “Ethan? Are you still there?”

  “You didn’t just say—”

  “What was I supposed to do?” she demanded, feistier than he’d ever heard her. “Let him think it’s okay to steal?”

  She’d turned a blind eye when Ethan did it. “You picked a fine time to learn how to be a parent,” he growled.

  “Shut up, Ethan.”

  He looked at the phone.

  “You need to come in and get Sam from the station,” she said. “If you don’t want to, I can deal with it.”

  “I’ll come,” he said sharply. “I’m not going to give up on my son.”

  He heard a gasp from Linnet, but she refrained from one of her digs. Ethan felt ashamed that he’d stooped to her kind of tactic. But not that ashamed.

  ON THE WAY INTO TOWN, he phoned Cindy. Whichever way he looked at it, it was the wrong thing to do—calling her because she was the judge was one of those conflicts of interest she got so het up about, and she wasn’t his girlfriend.

  But her voice…just hearing it lifted some weight off his shoulders. Despite what she’d said the other day, she sounded pretty happy to hear from him, too, her voice warm. Until she heard why he was calling.

  “What did he steal?” she asked, as soon as he finished explaining.

  “I don’t know.” Then he remembered. “A flashlight.”

  “So it must be worth less than three hundred dollars.”

  “What does that have to do with it?”

  “That’s the point at which Georgia law deems shoplifting a felony, rather than a misdemeanor.”

  A felony. Hell. A superior court trial, possible jail sentence. Ethan knew a wild gratitude that his son hadn’t been able to fit a chain saw in his sling.

  “My mother called the cops on Sam.” He told her what had happened.

  “Poor Linnet,” Cindy said, “what an awful position to be in.”

  “Poor her?” Ethan said, incredulous. “Why didn’t she just tell me?”

  “Would you have let Sam get away with stealing?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Then what does it matter?”

  “It matters,” Ethan said. It mattered because Linnet had never stood by him, and now she’d let go of Sam, too, even if it was the right thing to do. He knew his logic didn’t add up, but he wasn’t in a frame of mind to give his mother the benefit of the doubt. “So if shoplifting’s a misdemeanor,” he said, “Sam will appear before you?”

/>   Cindy’s sigh said it all.

  Ethan slowed for a bend in the road. “I’m not asking for special treatment.”

  “Just as well,” she said sharply. “I’ll transfer the case to Gonville. I mean, I know you and I aren’t seeing each other….”

  Was that an expectant pause?

  “I miss you,” he said, before he could think better of it. He found himself holding his breath.

  “I miss you, too.”

  Elation surged through him. “I might have been too quick to say you and I wouldn’t work out.”

  “Mmm,” she said noncommittally.

  This felt oddly like some of his conversations with Sam. Uncertain. Floundering.

  Only Sam was ruder.

  “I want to give us a chance,” he said, “to see if we can make sense of this. Please?” His voice had gone disturbingly high. He cleared his throat.

  He heard a soft laugh down the line. “You’ve got it.”

  Three simple words.

  CYNTHIA TRIED TO FOCUS on the facts being presented in the civil case she was hearing. She shouldn’t feel so happy, not when Sam was in trouble, and Ethan still hadn’t managed to put two emotional words together. Besides, she hadn’t dared think about having to choose between a life spent following her heart, or one spent chasing her father’s love. Between a man—who might, for example, be Ethan—and the superior court. But Ethan had said he wanted to try, and it seemed that was enough to produce a ridiculous amount of optimism in her.

  “Sustained,” she said in response to one of the lawyer’s objections. The case was a breach of contract, so minor she wanted to tell the interested parties to go home and get a life, but she was trying to be more tactful these days.

  She referred to the exhibit the bailiff handed her, a schedule of loan repayments. The numbers didn’t keep her attention.

  Meeting Ethan had forced her to hold a lamp up to her relationship with her dad, and she hadn’t liked what she saw. In her heart, she didn’t believe her father loved her only if she was meeting his expectations in her work. She didn’t want to live with that feeling that she could only be loved if she was good enough. That she wasn’t loved as much as she loved.