Miranda couldn’t argue with that. Hal had swept into her life with hurricane force. His magnetic charm and good looks had initially blinded her from seeing his true self. She’d ignored the warning signs. And she wasn’t going to make the same mistake again.
“Uh-oh. Here comes trouble,” Darcy sang out. “Make that double trouble.”
Daniel and Olivia Cavanaugh burst into the diner, dodging several customers who were on their way out the door. Leah followed in their wake; baby Joseph sleeping peacefully against her heart in a baby sling fashioned from a length of eye-catching purple batik. It was a colorful contrast to the vintage-style lavender dress she wore.
“Hi, Mom,” Daniel panted. “Mrs. Cavanaugh wants to talk to you.”
“I promised Naomi I would hand deliver this, Miranda.” Leah pulled a bright yellow flyer from the crocheted bag slung over her other shoulder. “The final program for camp is tonight and all the parents are invited. The volunteers are recognized and the children sing a few of the songs they learned during the week and put on a short skit.”
“And cookies.” Olivia scrambled onto one of the stools and pushed off the floor with her pink sandaled foot, sending it into a slow spin.
“And cookies.” Leah smiled at her irrepressible daughter.
Miranda glanced down at the flyer in her hands instead of the hopeful look in Daniel’s eyes.
“I’m going to finish my birdhouse tomorrow but the paint won’t be dry until after the program. Then I can bring it home.” Daniel offered another reason to attend the program.
Which, Miranda acknowledged ruefully, tipped the scale in his favor. Lately, there’d been three topics of discussion at mealtime—baseball, the birdhouse he was building during craft-time…and Andrew Noble.
“We better not miss it, then.” Miranda wrapped her arms around him in a fierce hug and Daniel giggled.
“We can sit together if you’d like,” Leah offered. “Daniel and Olivia will be part of the program. I’ll be in the back row in case this one starts to fuss,” she said gesturing to the sleeping baby in the sling.
At the moment, with his golden-brown eyelashes fanning his pudgy cheeks and his bow-shaped mouth pursed in sleep, Joseph Cavanaugh didn’t look as if he had a fussy bone in his body. But if Miranda had to go to church, the back row sounded like the perfect place to be.
“I think I’ll take you up on that.”
“Great. Six-thirty. We’ll see you there.” Leah took hold of Olivia’s hand as she jumped down.
“How is Ben doing?” Sandra asked, her voice full of compassion.
The baby stirred in Leah’s arms, as if sensing his mother’s sudden change in moods. “He’s been talking to Reverend Fraser the past few days…and praying a lot. We all have. He hasn’t called the Watsons yet, but he’s close.”
“It’s a hard thing—stepping back into the past. But sometimes it’s the only way we can move into the future.” Sandra sighed. “Knowing I could trust God and that He was with me was the only thing that gave me hope when I was searching for Kelly.”
The look of complete understanding the two women exchanged—born from the faith that connected them—made Miranda feel like an outsider again. She knew Sandra and Leah had both been through difficult situations. Why had their faith flourished during the heat of their trials while hers had withered and died?
It was another reason she felt inadequate. Flawed somehow.
Sandra gave Leah a bracing hug, stirring the air with the scent of vanilla and cinnamon. “You tell Ben that Sandra’s praying, too, sugar.”
“I will,” Leah promised as she shepherded Olivia toward the door.
“I can hear Isaac talking to himself in the kitchen. I better see what the problem is.” Sandra blew Daniel a kiss. “I’ll be right back with your lunch, young man.”
Daniel imitated Olivia’s spin on the stool. “Mom? Do you think Andrew will be at the program?”
Miranda’s heart skipped a beat. She hadn’t even considered the possibility. As far as she knew, he’d only volunteered one morning.
“I don’t think so, Daniel. I’m sure he’s got better things to do.”
Just like he had better things to do the day he had lunch delivered to the park.
Disappointment clouded Daniel’s face. “I wanted to tell him that Pastor Caleb let me pitch today and I struck out Cam Butterfield.”
“What’s wrong with telling your mom you struck out Cam Butterfield? I happen to be your number-one fan, Mr. Jones.” She picked up a fluffy dish towel and shook it like a pompom.
Daniel giggled and the sound went straight to Miranda’s heart. “You’re weird sometimes, Mom.”
“Right back at you.” She dabbed the corner of the towel playfully against his nose, relieved he’d forgotten about Andrew Noble.
“Mom? Will you tell Andrew about Cam Butterfield if you see him?”
Or not.
“Daniel…” She had to do it. For Daniel’s sake. And maybe for her own. “Mr. Noble is a busy man. Remember how he left us in the park—”
“He had to, Mom.” Daniel’s eyes were wide. “He got the call.”
“The call?”
“He had to help someone.”
“Did he tell you that?” Miranda couldn’t remember Andrew saying anything to Daniel that afternoon other than goodbye.
“No.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Miranda said patiently. “If An—Mr. Noble—didn’t tell you he had to help someone, what makes you think he did?”
“I just know.”
To Miranda’s astonishment, Daniel’s eyes filled with tears.
Instinctively, she reached out and squeezed his hand. “Daniel, we don’t know anything about Mr. Noble. Sometimes we like someone and it makes us believe things about them that might not be true.”
“I know he’s one of them, Mom. He told me that day he fixed my bicycle.”
It was official. She needed to find a manual that would help her navigate the uncharted territory of a seven-year-old boy’s mind. “One of who?”
Daniel looked up at her earnestly. “One of the good guys.”
Oh, Daniel.
Miranda closed her eyes briefly against the crushing weight of regret that slammed against her heart. She didn’t want to be the one to contradict Daniel’s staunch belief in a man he barely knew. But the proof was there in Andrew’s lifestyle.
“We’ll talk about this later,” she said softly.
Even though everything inside her screamed that she couldn’t trust her instincts anymore when it came to men, the startling truth was realizing she was just like Daniel. There was something about Andrew Noble that made her want to believe in him.
She wanted to believe he was one of the good guys, too.
“Welcome back, stranger. I’m going to run out of pages in my scrapbook if your picture keeps turning up in the newspaper,” Rachel teased from her cozy nest on the sofa.
Great. Andrew slumped into the tweed recliner and plowed his fingers through his hair, not sure he wanted to see the article she’d referred to. He’d gotten so used to flashbulbs going off in his face when he walked out the door, he barely noticed them anymore. But now, because of Miranda, he was acutely aware that every article and every photo had become a potential roadblock to getting to know her better.
“I’m sorry I bailed on the Foundation for a few days,” he said. Call it denial, but he could wait to see whatever he’d done that had made the headlines. The adrenaline he’d lived on for the past forty-eight hours was wearing off, leaving him vulnerable to the fatigue chewing on the edges of his brain.
“Tell me why?” Rachel asked brightly.
“Sorry. No can do.” Lack of trust wasn’t the reason he hadn’t told his family about his work as Guardian—it was to protect them. It hurt a little that the people closest to him believed the same things the avid readers of the society pages did, but it was necessary.
Rachel gave a very un-Noble-like
snort and handed him the newspaper. “Fine. I can accept that your life is shrouded in mystery, but please tell me she wasn’t the reason why you left your post at the Foundation.”
He took one look at the newspaper clipping and crumpled it like an empty paper cup. It was worse than he’d thought.
Rachel blinked. “Wow.”
Dark color rushed up his neck and into his face. “Sorry. Did you want that?”
“Not anymore.” She flicked a curious glance at the wad of paper clenched in his fist.
“How does something that happened in Nashville, Tennessee—” Andrew began to methodically shred the paper into narrow strips “—make the gossip column in Richmond, Virginia?”
“Ah, your dedication to recycling is inspiring.” Rachel looked meaningfully at the former newspaper. “But I think the technical term is the society page, not gossip column. And it’s not where it happened, it’s who it happened to. You’re news, Andrew.”
Which meant Miranda had probably seen it.
Juliana Overstreet was a popular Christian singer whose father happened to be one of the retired private investigators Andrew worked with on occasion. Charles Overstreet specialized in Internet crime and because the fourteen-year-old girl who’d disappeared had spent hours chatting online, Andrew had immediately pulled him in to help.
Within hours, the teenager had been located in a nearby shopping mall with the suspect, whom they’d taken into custody. Because it had been late in the evening by the time local law enforcement had wrapped things up, Andrew had taken Charles up on his invitation to have dinner with him and Juliana.
This wasn’t the first time the newspapers had linked Andrew and Juliana romantically, but she was happily engaged to one of the musicians in her band. She had become a good friend over the years and she’d listened patiently while Andrew had spent most of the evening talking about Miranda and Daniel. As they’d left the restaurant, a photographer had stepped in front of them and snapped their picture.
He’d assumed the photographer’s interest was Juliana, never dreaming the photo would be reprinted in the Richmond Gazette.
Frustration surged through him. “It was dinner. With a friend. Not news.”
“Do you want to talk about this?”
“No.”
Rachel’s lips twitched. “At the risk of pointing out the obvious, not many people have as many friends as you do.”
He scowled. “Why don’t the reporters torture you? We’re from the same family.”
“That’s true, but I live a boring life compared to you. No private island. No yacht. I don’t date European royalty.” She yawned for effect. “I’m just a working girl. At least, I was.”
“I don’t have a private island,” he muttered.
“And I exchanged the name Noble for Cavanaugh. It’s like wearing dark sunglasses and a wig.”
“Right.” Andrew rose to his feet and stalked toward the door.
“Where are you going? You just got here!”
“I’m hungry.”
“You don’t have to go out. People have been dropping off casseroles and salads all week,” Rachel called, trying to lure him back.
He kept going.
“I suppose if Miranda Jones was here to bring it out, you’d stay.”
Andrew stopped dead in his tracks. And slowly turned around. “What did you say?”
“You heard me.” She covered the lower half of her face with a cashmere throw to hide her smirk.
He stared at her in disbelief. “How did… You have spies.”
She gave an indignant huff. “I have friends.”
“What else do you know?” His eyes narrowed.
Rachel shrugged. “I know enough to know that answering that question will get me in trouble. Now, shoo. Miranda gets off work in a few minutes. If you hurry, you might catch her.”
He shot her a disgusted look and made for the door.
“I don’t hear you denying it,” she called after him.
He wasn’t. It was probably the best piece of advice his cousin had ever given him.
But he wasn’t about to admit it.
Chapter Nine
“Did you know he had the starring role in the skit?” Leah whispered.
Miranda shook her head, unable to take her eyes off Daniel, a tiny figure pacing the stage in a heavy terry-cloth bathrobe that dragged across the floor. An assortment of stuffed lions surrounded him.
“Daniel! Daniel! Was your God able to save you?” A little boy wearing a sequined crown rushed to the edge of the sheet-draped corner.
“My God saved me,” Daniel called back. “Come and see!”
The “king” pretended to pull Daniel out of the lion’s den and the boys embraced. Then, in an obvious ad-lib, they smacked their hands together in a high five.
Laughter rippled around the darkened room.
Miranda felt hot tears scald the back of her eyes as the other cast members scurried out, formed an uneven line and bowed. As the lights flickered on to signal the end of the program, Miranda barely heard Caleb Williams give a brief summary of the week and close the program with a stirring prayer.
She tried to convince herself the tears were because Daniel was part of the skit and not because of its message. She remembered seeing the fleeting disappointment in Andrew’s eyes in the park that afternoon when she’d told him the biblical account of Daniel was a nice story. Even if there’d been a time when she’d believed God really did intervene—that He cared enough to stretch out His hand and rescue those who belonged to Him—she couldn’t change the past. He hadn’t saved Lorraine and Tom. He hadn’t even saved her from Hal. How could she trust Him to rescue her in the future?
“Are you and Daniel staying for refreshments, Miranda?” Leah asked.
Miranda looked away so Leah wouldn’t notice her tears. “I think so.” She searched the crowd for a glimpse of Daniel. He was probably already in line with Olivia Cavanaugh for cookies and punch.
“Olivia and Daniel get along really well.” Leah’s words told Miranda their thoughts had taken the same path. “Joseph isn’t quite old enough for her to boss around yet so I think she’s using Daniel as practice.”
“She’s coaxed him out of his shell, that’s true.”
Leah laughed. “Coaxed. Yanked. However you want to look at it. I better get Joseph out of the nursery or he’ll be raising the roof for his bedtime snack.”
Miranda didn’t know her way around the church very well so she followed the exodus of people out the door to the fellowship hall. Olivia was close to the front of the line but Daniel wasn’t with her.
“Livy, do you know where Daniel is?”
Olivia shook her head. “He said he’d meet me here after he gave his costume back to Mrs. Fraser.”
“I’ll see if I can find—”
“He went with the man,” the little boy standing in front of Olivia interrupted.
“What man?” Fear stripped away her voice, leaving it a hoarse whisper.
The boy shrugged. “I don’t know him.”
Miranda’s knees felt weak but she pushed through the crowd on autopilot. Where was she supposed to start looking for him? One of the many rooms in the church? The parking lot?
Don’t panic, Miranda, think.
She began to catalog what Daniel had been wearing.
Khaki shorts. A green T-shirt with a tree frog silk-screened on the front.
“Daniel?” Her voice thinned as she walked through the crowd of people, calling his name.
Maybe Pastor Williams or one of the other male teachers who’d volunteered in his class during the week was with him, trying to find her.
She bumped into Anne and grabbed her arm like a lifeline.
“Have you seen Daniel?”
Anne shook her head. “No, but—”
Miranda didn’t wait for her to elaborate. The rational side of her knew she’d find Daniel safe and sound but a dark cloud stained her thoughts.
I’ll always find
him, Miranda. And then I’ll find you.
She stumbled up the stairs and blindly turned a corner. Sunday-school classrooms flanked both sides of the hall. Daniel had taken her into one of the rooms shortly after they’d arrived at church to show her the birdhouse he’d made. The lights were on but an eerie quiet had settled in that part of the building. The laughter and voices of the people in the fellowship hall had faded.
“Daniel?” Her voice cracked as she called his name again.
“I’m in here.”
Miranda’s knees went weak when she heard the familiar voice. Daniel, concentrating on wrapping the birdhouse in newspaper, barely looked up when she lurched into the room.
Relief and exasperation waged an internal battle. Relief won hands down. “Daniel Thomas Jones, where have you been?”
Daniel blinked. “Here.”
Miranda sank into one of the small plastic chairs, her hand over her heart as she willed it into its natural rhythm again.
“What’s the matter, Mom? Are you sick?” Daniel hurried over to her, his eyes huge.
“No. I was worried. Someone said you left with a…man.”
“I did.”
“What?” Miranda gulped the word. “Who?”
“Me.”
Her knees turned to jelly. Again.
Andrew. Her mouth worked but no sound came out. He was the last person she expected to see.
“Hello, Miranda.”
He looked tired. She was horrified by the sudden urge to brush her fingers against the rough stubble that shadowed his jaw and smooth a wayward strand of hair off his forehead.
“Andrew came to watch me in the play,” Daniel said. “And look what he gave me.” He picked up a leather baseball glove.
Miranda swallowed hard against the emotions that welled up inside and closed her throat. “Danny, I think Olivia is waiting for you downstairs. I’ll finish wrapping up your birdhouse.”
“Okay. Are you going to stay, Andrew?”
“I’m not sure yet, champ.” He gave Miranda a speculative look.
“I’ll save a cookie for you, Mom. Something chocolate.” Daniel dashed out the door.
“Are you all right? You look pale.” Two strides brought Andrew to her side. “Should I get Eli?”
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