A Season for Family

by Mae Nunn

  Of course, there were the canvases, but they weren’t important except to Olivia. Her painting never would be of value without art classes to develop her raw talent. So she used her limited ability as a means to find solace during times when her spirit was restless. It was a blessing to concentrate on something besides problems once in a while. Olivia glanced across the hall at one of the murals she’d created during those final weeks of construction. The walls had to be painted anyway, and she got some stress relief as a trade-off for her hours of work.

  There was a thud at the end of the hall as the heavy security door closed. She imagined Heath would be climbing the stairs, almost to the top. As he stepped inside, would he judge the secondhand furnishings, contrasting them to his own and find them wanting?

  Web guys were supposed to be well-paid. Did Heath have a fine place in the suburbs of Austin? Or maybe a bachelor’s loft in a restored downtown building near the nightlife of Sixth Street? Had the skills that allowed him to hack into the city network also earned him a lifestyle that made hers look pathetic by comparison?

  He’d questioned how her present choices would limit her future potential. Did Heath think she was a failure? The breath caught in her throat as she considered the answer.

  “Miss Livvy,” Mary Sue called from the end of the hall, interrupting her thoughts. “Erica just checked in for volunteer duty. But she’s coughin’ as if she might bust a gut. I felt her forehead and she’s roastin’ like a chicken on a spit.”

  Olivia lifted her eyes to the ceiling in surrender. Forgive me and my big mouth for even mentioning a sign, Lord. I know what I have to do now.

  Two hours and a dozen phone calls later, a crisis plan had been set in motion. The good folks at My Brother’s Keeper agreed to use their fifteen-passenger van to shuttle clients for a few days as long as Olivia would help with meals. She was busy rolling fat hoagie sandwiches in plastic wrap when the black wall phone jangled. She grabbed the handset, praying it wasn’t more bad news.

  “I’ll be in there to help you as soon as I get these guys downstairs into the showers and then squared away in the men’s dorm.”

  “I don’t know what I’d have done the last few days without you, Heath.” Olivia heard the quiver in her voice. It was depressing to be so exhausted when there was so much yet to do. “You must think I’m a big baby.”

  “Yeah, a big tired baby. And once I’ve scrubbed your place down with Lysol you can crawl into your own bed and sleep while I keep an eye on things tonight.”

  “You’ll have some help,” she was glad to say. “Dick’s back and he’s working the front desk right now. As soon as everybody’s shuttled over to My Brother’s Keeper, he says he’ll be right up.”

  “I’ll just bet he did,” Heath muttered.

  She opened her mouth to ask what he meant by the comment but decided it really didn’t matter. As much as she wanted everybody under her roof to get along, that simply wasn’t reasonable to expect. Men forced into situations not of their making generally suffered from battered egos. Add alpha characteristics and you got a mad dog looking for a fight. Even so, this was still her place.

  “Heath, if Dick’s willing—”

  “Look, I’ve got the cleanup covered,” he interrupted. “And once you’re back into your apartment, I don’t want you opening your door to anyone else, you understand?” He was emphatic, speaking to her like he had some right.

  “It might shock you to hear that before this flu hit I was doing quite well for myself. I don’t need to be told how to run my business.” Olivia was equally adamant.

  “I’m sorry, I know I’m stepping on your toes.” His apologies were becoming more frequent and less sincere.

  “I just don’t want you to risk filling your place up with germs again once we get it disinfected and aired out. Make sense?”

  “Well, when you put it that way, I guess it does.”

  “Okay, let me off the phone so I can get these guys down one at a time. And before you go there, no I don’t need Sheehan’s help.”

  “Heath?”

  “What?”

  “Have you eaten today?” Olivia asked

  “Not since breakfast.”

  “Grab an apple from my little fridge in the kitchen. Didn’t your mama ever tell you low blood sugar makes you grumpy?”

  “My mama told me I was grumpy in general.”

  “Once again, your mama was right.”

  The rooms smelled of sickness. Heath raised the kitchen window an inch, glad to find solid burglar bars beyond the glass. Fat lot of good it did when Olivia not only let the criminals come inside, but also fed them dinner and gave them a place to sleep!

  Before he got busy with the sick guys, he double-checked the closet. The bag of “X” was definitely gone. Heath wished he’d followed through on his fantasy of putting a spring-loaded rat trap beside the stash of pills to smack that creep Sheehan’s fingers! He was definitely the culprit. He’d come up that morning just long enough to retrieve his junk and then took off, probably to make a sale.

  If not for this blasted flu outbreak, Heath would be in a beard and ski parka out on the street in search of his most reliable informant. He felt sure his buddy would know where those green pills ended up. It was tempting to follow through on that idea and set up some busts. There was nothing quite as rewarding as the look on a dealer’s face when he turned his product and his money over to the police. At gunpoint.

  But recreation would have to wait for another day. It was more critical to tag the source bringing the dope into Waco. Heath needed to work fast to get this mess away from Olivia and keep it that way before it ruined everything she’d built.

  He folded himself into a chair at her tiny kitchen table to ponder the fact that Olivia had also been in this apartment today. Even given her unlimited access, he didn’t for a moment consider the woman who was constantly on his mind to be a suspect. He shivered more from that revelation than from the freezing wind whistling beneath the windowsill.

  “I’m not thinkin’ like a cop anymore. It’s a good thing this is my last gig and now I’ve got backup.”

  With Biddle’s help on the outside Heath could afford to invest a couple more days at Table of Hope. This duty assignment had morphed into a service mission. Oddly, that didn’t bother him too much. Observing people helping one another was interesting. This whole charity thing was a different way of looking at behavior, something that had never been of the slightest interest to Heath. He’d find a way to recycle the experience, make something useful out of it.

  “Yeah, right,” he huffed aloud. “Doing community service in a homeless shelter will contribute so much to my résumé when I’m job hunting on the West Coast.”

  “Stone, is that you?” Amos’s voice sounded stronger.

  Heath rounded the corner to find the old man propped up against the cushions of the sofa bed. His face was scruffy with several days of growth and his cheeks were hollow from losing a few pounds the hard way. But Amos’s eyes were clear, a good sign that the fever was gone. Maybe he was past being contagious.

  “Hey, man. You’re lookin’ better.” Heath kept his voice low so they wouldn’t wake Bruce and Nick.

  “Any view of me besides curled up on the bathroom floor is bound to be an improvement.” Amos chuckled, which set off a fit of coughing.

  Heath grabbed a king-size bottle of cough suppressant, filled a plastic spoon and passed it to Amos. Seconds later, with the bout under control, he took a sip of water from the cup Heath offered. A big sigh escaped as Amos dragged a damp cloth over his face, then looked up to where Heath stood nearby.

  “I owe you an apology, Stone.”

  “For what?”

  “For being hateful and judgmental when you first got here.”

  “I didn’t even notice.”

  “That’s because we’re cut from the same cloth. We’re self-centered, don’t care much about other people’s feelings.”

  Heath kept his face passive, not w
anting the other man to see that his insult had hit the mark.

  “I don’t know how you can say that about yourself, Amos. You spend your days helping Olivia run this place.”

  “I’m not helping Miss Livvy—she’s helping me. She put a roof over my head and gave me a chance to get on my feet. All she asked in return is that I come to Bible study and stay away from the booze.”

  “You’re an alcoholic?” Heath settled into a chair beside the sofa.

  “I was headed straight for it and didn’t have any reason to do otherwise. But now that I’m sober my daughter wants me to come live with her in Houston.”

  “Does Olivia know?”

  “Not yet. I didn’t get a chance to tell her before this creepin’ crud hit me. Now I think I’ll save it for a Thanksgiving surprise.”

  “Unless things are a hundred percent better by then, I don’t think the lady can take any more surprises.”

  Amos nodded slowly, as if movement would jump-start the coughing again.

  “Can you make it down the steps? I thought you might like to take a shower and get back to your own bed.”

  “We’re not worried about exposing our clients anymore?”

  “The fifth person came down with it in the past hour so Olivia’s closed the doors and worked out a deal with another shelter to help out for a few days.”

  Amos shut his eyes, pushed forward and then slumped back again. “I want to get up and help Miss Livvy but my body’s dead weight.”

  “I don’t doubt it,” Heath sympathized. “You’re wrung out from fever and stomach flu. The only way you can help Olivia is by taking it easy so you don’t relapse. That’s the last thing she needs.”

  Amos’s lips gathered tight like the closing of a draw-string bag. He looked hard at Heath. “You’re sweet on her, aren’t you?”

  Did it show? How could that be? Heath hardly even knew what being sweet on somebody meant, let alone being sure that’s how he felt.

  “Olivia’s a nice lady.”

  “She’s just a girl, up to her eyeballs in work. She doesn’t need the distraction of another heartache,” Amos said archly.

  “We are in complete agreement, sir.” Heath felt like he was being dressed down by somebody’s daddy.

  Commendable. But annoying. And unnecessary!

  “Glad to hear it, son,” Amos said, tossing the insult back. “She talks a good game, and she even believes it. But you could drive a Mack truck through that hole in her spirit.”

  “You mind telling me what that means?”

  Amos looked around as if they were in a crowded room where the pictures had ears. In a way that was true. Bruce and Nick hadn’t flinched a muscle, but that didn’t mean they weren’t awake and listening.

  “I don’t suppose it’d be breakin’ a confidence to mention her big shot daddy. When Dalton Wyatt ran off, it was all over the news in this neck of the woods. The Feds were worried about recovering money and locking Wyatt up. Nobody much cared that he’d abandoned a teenage daughter, left her to manage on her own.”

  “Didn’t she have any family to take her in?”

  “If she did, they were afraid of guilt by association and steered clear. Nope, she’s self-made the hard way.”

  “She seems accomplished and sure of herself.”

  “Don’t let that pretty exterior fool you. If it wasn’t for having her nose in a Bible at night, she might not make it through each day. She’s tough on the outside but her heart is tender. The residents are her strays. Miss Livvy takes us in and loves us, gives us a chance life says we don’t deserve. I’m certain her intentions are in the right place, but I think we’re just a substitute for a man in her life she can trust completely. A man worthy of her faith.”

  Nick began to stir, needed help getting to the bathroom. The conversation was over, but only for the moment. Heath needed to know more about Amos’s insight.

  So he could know more about Olivia’s motivation.

  Chapter Twelve

  “I’m conflicted,” Olivia announced to Heath that night when they finally took a break and settled in the big room, just the two of them. “How’s that?”

  “I’m torn between groaning and yawning and too tired to do either one.” She leaned her head back against the old tweed sofa and plopped her stocking feet on the scarred coffee table. “Serving dinner to a room full of hungry folks is definitely less stressful than caring for a handful of sick people.”

  “It’s a good thing you went into social work and not health care.”

  “Ain’t that the truth,” she agreed.

  “Why don’t you turn in for the night?” Heath encouraged. “Your place has been aired out, wiped down and mopped up. It’s ready when you are.”

  She rolled her head against the soft cushion to take in the amazingly kind man sitting to her left. He’d put in a grueling day and never uttered the words of complaint that had crossed her own lips a time or two. Their hours together had been a jigsaw puzzle experience. The more she knew about him, the more the pieces snapped into place. Heath Stone was a mystery wrapped around a contradiction, but his motives were sincere.

  A woman could love a man like that. More importantly, she could trust and respect him.

  “You’ve definitely repaid your debt to society and then some. How can I show my gratitude for your kindness, Heath?”

  “You can tell me something about your residents.”

  Olivia felt her heavy eyelids open wide. Why in the world… “Most guys would take a very different approach to a woman offering to show her appreciation.”

  “You really want me to act like most guys?”

  “Not at all.” She shook her head, sorry she’d voiced the thought. “I just figured you’d want me to call Detective Biddle and tell him you’ve been working around the clock and deserve to be out of here and home before Thanksgiving.”

  He squinted, his eyes the color of wet driftwood. “Why do you continue to think I’m in a hurry to get away from here?”

  “Oh, because a hundred miles up the road you have a life and a job and a home of your own. Anyone would be anxious to have community service over and done with so they could get back to normal.”

  “Well, that’s where your theory breaks down. I don’t know that I’ve ever had anything normal or even close enough to normal that I’m anxious to get back to it.”

  Since their first night he’d revealed bits and pieces about his past. He seemed to be inviting her to bring it up again.

  “From what you’ve mentioned about your adoptive parents, it seems like life with them was an average American experience, no?”

  He drew both shoulders to his ears and scrunched up his face.

  She couldn’t help snickering over the comic picture he made. His eyes were so expressive, communicating with glances what he couldn’t or wouldn’t say with words. “So, what does that mean?” She mirrored his silly posture.

  “It means that whether or not my experience was average depends on your point of reference. My friends hung out at our house all the time so they must have felt welcome—by my mom anyway.”

  “Sounds like normal guy stuff.”

  “Yeah, but I would see my dad off to the side with his arms folded, constantly sizing everybody up as if he didn’t approve. It was like he was always on the watch for somebody who would bring out the worst in me.”

  “Or maybe he just wanted you to have positive influences, Heath.” How different her life might have been if her own father had been paying that kind of attention. Instead, he was busy cooking up a second set of books to keep the IRS off his trail. Obviously, he hadn’t done a very good job of that, either. “Your dad was more engaged than most men are these days, and that certainly deserves appreciation.”

  “Speaking of appreciation, let’s get back to our original discussion.” Heath pushed off the sofa and moved toward the coffee station where he filled two cups with hot water and dunked a tea bag into each one. “You wanted to show yours, so I asked y
ou to tell me about the residents. How about starting with Amos? He’s an interesting character.”

  Heath returned to the sofa and handed her a warm mug fragrant with the aroma of Earl Grey.

  “I thought you didn’t care for Amos.”

  “He didn’t care for me,” Heath corrected as he fiddled with the string dangling from the mug. “But he apologized earlier when I was helping him move back downstairs, so I’m interested in knowing more about Oscar the Grouch.”

  Olivia smiled at the apt description of the man she’d quickly grown to love. “Amos was the first resident I accepted into the program. He used to be a Houston cop.”

  Heath’s chin snapped up. “Really?” The color of his eyes intensified at the revelation. “How long ago?” he asked.

  “I think it’s been fifteen years or more. He left voluntarily right after his marriage broke up. The application indicated he’d tried his hand at several trades but never found anything else that suited him.”

  “Why’d he leave the force?”

  “You’ll have to ask Amos. I ran a background check to verify his information. It was all straightforward and the interview went well so I accepted him for an indefinite period. He’s been a huge help to me, though I have to admit he’s probably run off a volunteer or two with his grumpy nature.”

  “How dare you talk about my new buddy that way,” Heath said with a wry laugh.

  She joined in the chuckle, knowing her suspicion about Amos was likely the truth. But losing the odd volunteer now and again was a fair trade for a grandfather figure who was so protective of her and Table of Hope.

  “He looks out for me the same way he would his own kin if they’d have anything to do with him. As far as I’m concerned, this is Amos’s home now, and for as long as he can stand to live out of a three-drawer chest beside his bunk.”

  Olivia’s gaze locked with Heath’s. “I’m glad to hear Amos apologized to you. He has a good heart, but he’s socially awkward and judges too quickly. Maybe that’s why he was unsuccessful as a cop.”