Family Lessons

by Allie Pleiter

  “A bad seed is a bad seed. He might not have stolen my gate, but I’m certain he’s stolen before. I’m sure the reverend would agree with me that we can’t have Evans Grove’s children exposed to that kind.”

  “I have to say I’d...” the reverend started in.

  Holly had no interest in hearing his opinion. She squared off in front of the old woman, not caring how her voice raised right there on the street. “That kind of boy ran for help two weeks ago into an unfamiliar town and saved my life. That kind of boy has looked out for his companions and worked hard at his studies. That kind of boy has put up with your cruel attitude long enough, Beatrice Ward. So help me, that kind of boy is staying in Evans Grove if I have to take him in myself!” Holly had always viewed facing down Beatrice Ward as not much different than facing down the bandit’s gun barrel, but a surprising new strength now roared out of her heart. If there was one thing she knew, it was that each and every one of these orphans had become dear to her and was worth fighting for.

  “You couldn’t!” Beatrice sniffed, insulted. “Why, a woman alone couldn’t possibly hope to raise a child.”

  “I’d find a way,” Holly shot back. “Would that you could find a way to show them the kindness and Christian love they deserve.”

  “Now, ladies, let’s all try to...”

  At his words, Holly turned to the reverend. “I’m going to try and find Liam before he does something rash. He’s had his feelings terribly hurt, and Heaven knows what he’ll do if he’s frightened enough. I’m going back to the schoolhouse to see if he’s taken any of his belongings. I’m going to pray for his safety the whole walk back and I’ll kindly ask you to do the same.”

  Holly turned toward the schoolhouse without a single look back. Forgive me, Father, she prayed, still shocked at the strength of her words, but that woman annoys me so! Half of her wanted to dash all over town, peeking into every shadow until she found Liam’s wide brown eyes. The more sensible half of her knew he was too skilled at hiding. He wouldn’t be found until he wanted to be. The best thing she could do was to be waiting when he ventured forth from his hiding spot. And pray.

  She was praying for Liam, and for Mason to find Liam, when Rebecca came out of the schoolhouse. The look on her face told Holly Liam was still nowhere to be found. “I haven’t seen him since he took off with Miss Ward behind him. Holly, what’s happened?”

  “Beatrice accused Liam of stealing. Of being behind all the things going missing around town. Oh, Rebecca, he’s run off.”

  “To the sheriff’s office?”

  “No,” Holly countered, “he ran off from there. Beatrice was dreadful, evidently. Even to me she said the most horrid things about the children. Even after Reverend Turner told us the missing items have turned up replaced.”

  “Replaced?”

  “Yes, someone has repaired Charles’s shop tools and left the Gavins a new wheelbarrow, and even fixed Beatrice’s broken gate.” Holly looked at Rebecca. “How could she be so cruel when someone has shown her such a kindness?” She stopped walking, realizing the school yard was empty. “Where are the children?”

  “It was chaotic after you left, so Mrs. Turner took them to the church parlor. She said something about needing a hall swept, but honestly, I think she was just inventing something for them to do. I started looking for Liam when you didn’t come back, but didn’t know what to think when I found the sheriff’s office empty.” They reached the schoolhouse door, and Rebecca pushed it open. “Is Sheriff Wright looking for Liam?”

  “Yes.” Holly shut the door behind her. “I was terrible to Beatrice, Rebecca. I said the most dreadful things to her.”

  “She has a habit of bringing that out in people, I think.” Rebecca paced the floor. “Where could Liam be?”

  “Anywhere. You know how good he is at hiding. He’s snuck out more times that we realized, and Beatrice knows that. She called him a bad seed.” Holly looked up at the woman. “He’s not a bad seed. You know that. He’s come through so much; they all have. Evans Grove needs to be their home, I know it.”

  “They know it, too, Holly. They know how much you care for them, how you’ll fight for them to stay. We’ll both fight for them to stay.” Rebecca pressed her fingers to her temples. “We’ve got to find him. Why don’t I go talk to the children and see what I can find out? Some of them must know his favorite hiding spots. You should stay here in case he comes back.”

  Holly flailed her arms in frustration. “I can’t just sit here.”

  “Of course not.” Rebecca laid a hand on Holly’s arm. “You can pray. Pray as hard as you can that one redheaded boy comes home where he belongs.” With a quick hug, the OSS agent turned and headed out the door in the direction of the church.

  Holly turned agitated circles around the empty room. The silence hung heavy and choking. The room had become so continually boisterous that the lack of noise felt unnatural. Devoid of life. Holly fell into a desk chair—Liam’s desk chair—and sunk down, laying her head in her hands. I’d take him, Lord. You know that. If that’s what all this was for, to bring Liam into my home, then make a way. I’ll be strong enough if You stand by me.

  Mason would stand by Liam, too, even if he still kept a rigid distance from her. “I’d thought it so dreadful when he ignored me,” she told the empty room, “but this is worse.” Bad as it was, she’d endure it if Liam had Mason in his life, for there could be no doubt the boy did something to the sheriff’s hardened heart. “Something I was never able to do,” she told Liam’s desk as she ran a hand down one side. “Oh, I can’t stand here and wait. I’ve got to do something.”

  She had to go look. Frustrated, Holly rose from the desk, dashed to the door and pulled it open.

  Mason stood before her.

  * * *

  “He’s fine. I found him.”

  “Thank you, Jesus!” Holly closed her eyes and sank against the door frame, relief flooding her features. Mason fought the urge to put an arm out and steady her. Glory, but he didn’t know how to do this. The whole walk back he’d been trying to form words in his head, but his mind went blank at the sight of her.

  She put her hand to her chest as if her heart were pounding. He knew the feeling. “Where is he?”

  “I found Miss Sterling outside the church as we went by. She wanted a few words with the boy.” Mason was pretty sure Liam’s next hour wouldn’t go nearly as well as the one he was hoping to spend. Miss Sterling looked like she had more than a few choice words for the boy, despite her clear relief that he’d been found safe and sound.

  “You didn’t bring him here?” For a moment, Mason was annoyed she was so preoccupied with Liam when he was standing in her doorway, but then he remembered Holly had no idea what he was about to say. She couldn’t know how much he’d changed in the past hour, in the past day, in the past two weeks.

  “I wanted a few words with you.”

  He must have been trying too hard to hide his smile, because she turned and walked into the schoolhouse as though she were expecting a lecture. “Yes, I know we’ve been horrid to each other lately,” she began, “but you seem to bring out the most dreadful stubbornness in me. You’ve simply got to see how much you mean to that boy. You’re always storming off without answering anyone, I don’t see how—”

  There was nothing for it. Before she could work herself up into a dither, Mason grabbed her hand. Holly spun toward him, mouth still open midword, startled by his sudden touch. She was so perfectly, simply beautiful just then. Strong and filled with all the wonder he was sure he’d lost. She’d never, ever stopped pushing through toward him, and evidently God was right behind her, pushing toward him as well. It was such a release, such a new grasp at life to take her hand and pull her toward him. This was no torrent of impulse as his first embrace had been. This was a deliberate, willful response to the grace he’d ignored for so long.

  “Mason?”

  It was a sheer delight to watch her stumble back into using his first name. He
slid one hand around the tender curve of her waist, watching her eyes go wide like a new foal. “Thank you.” He wanted a flood of words, some bunch of adjectives to match what he was feeling, but those words were the first and only ones that came to mind.

  “For?” The breathless, surprised quality of her voice danced down his spine.

  “For never giving up on me. For being stubborn and...” he tried to remember the long word she’d called him, the one that meant bullheaded and uncooperative “...recalcitrant.” He pulled her in an inch closer, enjoying it when the hand that had been on her chest turned to lay against his. He’d thought this would be so hard, but it was so easy. Like letting go of something he’d fought for ages—which wasn’t that far off, was it?

  Her brows furrowed, delightfully confused. “That’s not the meaning of the word. You must mean...”

  Mason let go of her hand and brushed his thumb over her soft pink lips. Nothing he’d ever touched felt softer, and the smile he felt when she fell silent seemed to spring to life out of every dead part of him. “Let me put it this way.” He let his lips brush against that softness, feeling her breath catch at the contact. The hand against his chest fluttered, and she made the most delightful noise of astonishment. Had he just now come to love her? Or had he loved her all along and denied it?

  Holly stiffened for a moment, and Mason felt a bone-deep stab of regret for the way he’d rejected her after the first time they’d kissed. He never again wanted her to fear her welcome in his arms. Then, somehow sensing his feelings, she softened and melted against him. Mason tried to let his touch say the thousands of things he couldn’t find words for, to extend to her the endless grace she’d given him. When she fully softened, when her hands wandered up his chest to wrap around his neck and pull him close, Mason thought he’d drown in the sensation. It felt like the whole world welcomed him back to life in the circle of one woman’s arms.

  When he finally pulled back, the two of them dragging in lungfuls of air as their foreheads fell together, Mason felt the pieces of his broken life slip neatly into a whole again. “Forgive me,” he whispered, his eyes falling closed at the world-tilting wonder of it all. “I’ve hurt you so much. I thought if I hurt you enough, you’d stop coming after me and I wouldn’t have to risk my heart ever again. I thought making you hate me would stop me wanting you. I was so wrong.”

  She looked up at him. “You’ve... All along? I didn’t imagine it?”

  “You’re too clever for me to hide it.” Mason shook his head, running one finger down the delicate waves of hair that framed her face. “And beautiful. So beautiful.”

  Now it was she who shook her head. “No, I’m not.”

  He held her face in his hand. “You are. Can’t you see it? Can’t you see how I’ve looked at you all this time?”

  Holly pulled back. “You’ve hardly looked at me. Why, before all this business I couldn’t get you to say two words to me.” Her words were sharp but her smile could have filled the room twice over.

  “I didn’t handle that very well, did I?” He laid a half-dozen tiny kisses on her forehead, feeling like twenty tons had slid off his weary shoulders.

  “I should say not.” He found her schoolmarm scolding endlessly endearing. Mason couldn’t remember the last time he felt anything close to playful. Her face grew more serious. “So when you kissed me that night, it really was a moment of weakness.”

  “I suppose it’s closer to say I couldn’t fight it anymore. It was so wrong of me to make you feel as though that was some fault of yours. I’ve been so awful. Please forgive me.”

  Her smile told him she did long before her words. “Plain old me drove the sheriff to awful behavior? How amusing. I ought to be ashamed of myself.”

  “You ought to be proud of yourself. You’ve never wavered, never faltered in your faith, or your faith in me. I think you loved me back to life, Holly Sanders. You kept thrusting my forgiven future in my face until I woke up to realize it was there.”

  “The book?”

  “It was the beginning of all of it. You scared me to death with that gift. When you came out and said what you felt, it was as if I couldn’t pretend it wasn’t there anymore. I’m sorry I punished you for that. I am. I’ll replace the book, I promise.”

  She traced his jaw with one finger, and he felt the touch go through him like a lightning bolt. How had he ever hoped to fight something so powerful as this woman’s love? “You don’t have to replace it. I kept it. I wanted to throw it into the creek that night, I confess, but I couldn’t. Now it’s only missing a page.”

  Mason reached for his shirt pocket. “No, it’s not.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Holly could barely get a deep breath, and her knees felt as if they would go out from underneath her at any moment. She was sure she’d search for a hundred years and not find the words to describe the look in Mason’s eyes right now. It was as if every feeling he’d held back over so many years was bursting out from behind his smile. A smile that was for her. For her. While she wanted to ask him endless questions about whatever it was that had made this glorious transformation in the man, she was conscious of the moment’s singular wonder. Too many words might ruin it, and she wanted to remember this time forever.

  “I kept it,” Mason said as he pulled the page from his shirt pocket. She recognized it immediately, feeling as if she could float right up and sparkle in the sky like a star. “At first I didn’t know why.” He unfolded the small thin page with a reverence she could feel—as if her heart unfolded with the paper. “Then I knew I’d keep it because it was the only part of you I’d ever get to have.”

  “You’ve had my heart for so long. Don’t you know that?” She ran her hands across the edge of the page as he held it.

  “I didn’t deserve it. I hadn’t ever let go of all that darkness, and I couldn’t drag you into it. I wouldn’t do that to you.”

  “But now?” She already knew the answer. The Mason before her had no more darkness weighing him down. The storm that had always brewed behind his eyes was gone, leaving in its wake a stunning blue gaze—the clear eyes of a man at peace.

  “I remembered a wise woman’s words about a forgiven future. I told them to Liam, but I suppose I told them to myself, too. He was so hard on himself. And then I realized he’s just like me. When I wanted him to reach for his future, I realized I had no business asking him to do that when I wouldn’t myself.” Mason’s hand stroked her hair, and Holly felt certain she would dissolve of sheer happiness. “That night when I kissed you...”

  “I did kiss you back, you know,” Holly surprised herself by being able to tease him.

  “Boy, did you.” He smirked like a schoolboy. “But that night, I read that book. All of it. In there was a man who was as tangled up as I was. Who felt all the darkness I knew. Back then, I felt like the forgiveness in that book wasn’t something I could have. Now I know it’s been there for me all along. That’s what you’ve been trying to show me, why you gave me the book, isn’t it?” His hands moved to clasp hers, warm and strong. “I’ve been such a fool. I want that forgiven future, Holly, but only if it’s our future, not just mine.” He brought her hands to his lips and kissed them with a tenderness she’d never dreamed he possessed.

  “I want that, Mason. It’s all I’ve ever wanted.” She took his face in her hands, marveling at the perfect angle of his jaw, reveling in the clarity of those eyes that had been hidden from her so much. And then it was she who kissed him. A confident, courageous kiss. An invitation to life and love and all the grace God had for them to share.

  She nearly laughed when Mason pulled back and exhaled. She had the power to stun Mason Wright with a kiss. What an astounding thing that was. For this one moment, Holly luxuriated in the things she had resigned would never be hers. Feeling beautiful. Being loved by a man she loved. There couldn’t be a thing the two of them couldn’t conquer, not if God had brought them together now.

  Mason held her by both shoulders, su
ddenly serious. “I love you, Holly Sanders. I imagine I have for a long time. Only now I need you to be brave and courageous.” He shook his head, starting over. “I already know you’re brave and courageous. You’ve shown me in a dozen different ways. Only now there’s something we need to do, you and I.”

  “Yes?”

  “We need to make a family. Holly, I want to marry you. And I want us to adopt Liam. Not just an OSS placement—a real adoption, to make him really our son. That’s the family I want to make. Not just because of Liam, but because I see now this is what God had in mind for all of us all along. He brought us together, and brought Liam to us.”

  Holly knew there was no sense in holding back the tears. How many times had she daydreamed of just that? Seen some endearing spark in Liam’s eyes, had it remind her of the lack of spark in Mason’s, and crafted a dream of what they would be like as a family? Hadn’t she had that very dream as she watched Mason and Liam at the creek, felt a pang of envy at the father-son relationship they seemed to have? While she wanted all the children to stay in Evans Grove, there was no question that it was Liam who had stolen her heart. Right after Mason, that is.

  “Crying is a yes, right?” He shifted his weight, nervous. Mason Wright, nervous. The world really had turned upside down. “That’s a yes?”

  “It’s a hundred yesses. It’s a thousand of them.”

  Mason picked her up and twirled her around the room, laughing as his hat tumbled off his head. A full, clear laugh she felt down to her toes now dangling in the air. “I love you, Mason,” she whispered into his neck as he whirled her, feeling the reaction surge through his chest and the strong arms holding her tight. “I’ve loved you for so long.”

  Mason set her down, pushed out a breath and then bent down on one knee. “Say you’ll love me forever.” He took her hand, and for the first time ever, he looked up at her instead of the other way around.