by Lois Richer
Jack.
The worry returned, nipping at her conscience. What if he was in trouble? What if he wasn’t at the library?
I trust you, God. You are in charge.
“Cassidy, I need to tell—”
The door flew open, crashed against the wall. Mac stood in the doorway, breathing heavily.
“Ty, you have to come. The police are on the phone.”
Ty’s arm dropped from her. His face turned to granite as he rose slowly.
“Police. What do they want?”
“They have Jack in custody.”
“I’m coming.” Ty stepped back so Cassidy could precede him down the stairs. He dragged the door closed and locked it behind him. In his office he picked up the phone, said his name and listened. By the time he hung up his eyes were stone cold.
“What is it? Is he hurt? What happened?” she demanded.
“He was in a car.” The words dropped from Ty’s lips like ice cubes. “Driving. He hit another car. He will be charged.”
“Oh, no.” Cassidy reached for his hand but Ty stepped back, out of reach.
“I have to go.”
“I’ll go with you.”
“No.”
Cassidy jerked back, stunned.
Ty must have seen how his words impacted her for he reached out, patted her cheek with icy fingers. His perfunctory smile didn’t reach his eyes.
“Thank you, but it could take a while. Go home, Cassidy. Try to get some rest. We have a little over a week to prepare for the grand opening, and I know you’ve got a lot to do. Don’t worry about this. I’ll handle it.”
“Don’t worry?” She grabbed his arm, holding him back so he couldn’t leave. “I’m already very worried, Ty. I won’t rest until I know you and Jack are both all right. Promise you’ll call me?”
“Yes. All right.” Distracted, he glanced around for his jacket.
She held it out so he could slip into it. Then she stood on tiptoe to look him straight in the eye.
“I love you, Ty. I’ll be praying—for both of you.”
“Yeah. Thanks.” He glanced at Mac, a question on his face.
“Go. I’ll handle things here.”
Ty nodded. He turned at the door, studied Cassidy for a moment as if he wanted to say something, then shook his head and left.
“Oh, Mac. This is awful.”
“It’s worse than that, Cassidy.” The old man flopped down into a chair, threw back his head and sighed.
“Worse? How?”
“Jack was on drugs.”
“Drugs?” Understanding. Disbelief.
Ty was about to face a replay of his brother’s rebellion.
“Oh, Lord.” She squeezed her eyes closed and began praying.
Ty stared down at the lanky boy sprawled across his own bed, now softly snoring.
This time the flashback was from his own youth.
Donnie. It was happening all over again and there was nothing, nothing he could do to stop it.
No, that wasn’t true.
There was something.
Ty had to get Jack out of here, away from the punks who’d sold him the junk, away from the same streets that had claimed his brother.
And the Haven? his conscience prodded.
“I’ll find someone else to do Your work, God.”
Ty checked every place in the boy’s room where Jack might have hidden drugs and found nothing, which could mean it was the first time Jack had used. But once might be enough. He tiptoed out of the room, drew the door closed behind him and sagged against the frame.
“Oh, God, why?”
There was no answer. In truth he hadn’t expected one.
His big easy chair sat in the corner. Ty sank into the soft leather, ignored the leather-bound Bible, too tired to read. Instead, he let his head sink onto his chest as despair took over.
Jack’s actions tonight, the upcoming court case, the negative publicity that could be expected now that a reporter had seized on the story, the questions he’d had to field about his ability to help others when he couldn’t help his own nephew—those were simply the last push toward a decision he actually welcomed.
It was time to leave.
Ty picked up the phone and dialed Elizabeth Wisdom.
Chapter Thirteen
For a week Cassidy fought the heavy atmosphere, filling the Haven’s kitchen with constant prayer.
But as the grand opening loomed, strain showed on everyone, especially Ty. Gone was the teasing man she’d first met. This Ty seldom smiled and never laughed. He pushed too hard and had lost weight he couldn’t afford to lose. And he avoided her. Cassidy tried to talk to him many times, but he always had an excuse. In the mornings he disappeared, in the afternoons he counseled and in the evenings he and Jack left right after dinner.
Worst of all, Ty didn’t go up on the roof anymore. Cassidy checked, found his telescope tightly wrapped under a thick tarp. The seating area looked abandoned, like no one bothered to use it. Doubts assailed her but she kept praying.
The morning before Good Friday, Cassidy slept in. By the time she arrived at the Haven, Ty was gone. He’d done that a lot lately, canceled appointments and disappeared. Cassidy was determined to speak to him as soon as he returned.
Jack’s associations with others outside of school were limited. So when he and Red came sauntering down into the kitchen that afternoon, Cassidy couldn’t believe he’d broken the court order right before the Haven’s official opening.
“What are you doing here? School’s not out yet.”
“I’ve taken the afternoon off with my friend Red. It’s our last afternoon together. You don’t have a problem with that, do you?” His smirk told her he didn’t much care if she did. “Don’t worry—I’ll be out of your hair soon.”
“You know Ty will do everything he can to keep you out of jail.”
“I won’t be going to jail, Cassidy.”
The cocky way he said it irritated her.
“You don’t think what you did deserves punishment?”
“Yep.” He grinned at Red, who didn’t seem to share his forced joviality. “Lock me up and throw away the key.”
She studied him. “Are you high?”
“No,” he shouted, lurching to his feet. “Anyway, I’m not your business. Not yours. Not his.” His voice broke.
“Yes, you are.” She touched his cheek. “We love you, Jack.”
“Yeah, sure. My uncle Ty loves me a whole bunch.”
“He does. Neither of us wants to see you make any more mistakes.”
“Like moving to New York is going to help.” His face contorted with rage.
“You’re not going to New York.” She stopped because Jack’s face told her he was telling the truth. “He’s sending you away?” Shock vied with hurt. Ty hadn’t told her. “Oh, Jack, I’m sorry.”
“Not me, us. He gets his big fancy practice and I get private school at some place where they straighten out rotten kids like me. We’re leaving Sunday if the judge agrees to it today. That’s what he’s doing now.”
Yesterday she’d asked Ty how the case was going, if the lawyer thought something could be worked out.
“No news, Cassidy. Trust me, I’ll let you know if anything changes.”
He’d lied.
Worse than that, he’d shut her out.
She’d trusted his promises of love, even thought that she might have a future with him. She’d made a mistake. Ty had betrayed her as surely as her father had all those years ago when he’d promised he’d come back home and he never had.
Oh, God, how could You let it happen all over again?
Fierce pain ripped through her heart and shot a bullet of agony to her brain. She grabbed the back of a chair, sank into it while her dreams imploded. He didn’t love her. He couldn’t. Love didn’t lie.
“Cassidy?” Jack knelt in front of her, brown eyes teary. “I’m sorry I told you like that. I was mad.”
She smoothed her hand over hi
s glossy head, hugged him close.
“Oh, Jack.”
“Don’t cry, Cassidy. I didn’t mean to take any drugs.” He scrubbed the tears from his cheeks. “Somebody slipped it into the soda. At least I thought it was soda. Red said those guys were no good. She warned me, but I wouldn’t listen.”
Cassidy shot Red a watery smile of thankfulness.
“Why wouldn’t you listen to Red, to me, to your uncle?”
“I wanted him to love me. I hurt so bad after my mom died, and I just wanted him to love me. But nothing is right. He’s mad all the time. At me.”
“He’s your guardian. He’s supposed to take care of you.”
“He’s my uncle. He’s supposed to love me, too. But he can’t.”
“Jack, that isn’t true.”
“I heard him on the phone.” His pain tore her heart. “I heard him telling his friend that I am such a mess that military school is the only thing that will straighten me out. He hates me because I cause him too many problems. He’s trying to get better and I make him sicker. I don’t mean to, but I do. Ty doesn’t want me around.”
He jerked away from her.
“When he asked me to live with him, I thought it would be fun—that we’d do things together, that he would be like my dad would have been if he hadn’t died when I was a baby.” Jack smashed a hand against his thigh. “Since I’ve been around, his nightmares have gotten worse. It’s my fault he doesn’t sleep.”
“Ty loves you, Jack. So do I.”
Jack shook his head, but didn’t say anything more. He cast a quick glance at Red, then before her eyes, he seemed to alter, harden.
“I have to go.” He walked toward her, hugged her. “I just came to say thank you. You’ve always been great, Cassidy.”
“I’ll see you tomorrow, won’t I?” She drew his tall, lean body into her arms, trying to find comfort.
“Tomorrow? Yeah, uh, sure.”
“I love you, Jack. If you ever need anything, you come find me. Promise?”
“Sure.”
“I mean it.”
“Okay. We’re going upstairs.” He wriggled away, headed toward the door. He paused there for a moment, then beckoned to Red and they left.
Minutes later, Cassidy heard the big door upstairs slam.
Cassidy wondered how long Ty had known he was leaving. He could have explained. Instead he’d deliberately kept his secret, refused to trust her. That wasn’t love. Not the love she wanted or needed.
When things got tough, Ty ran away. Just like her father.
How could she love him?
She hurried up to the roof to talk to the only One who understood her bleeding heart.
Surprised to find the door unlocked, Ty stepped onto the roof, struggling to adjust his eyes to the gloom.
“It’s about time you showed up. It’s going to storm.”
She knew.
From the sound of her voice, Ty understood that Cassidy had learned of his plans.
The noise in the hallway—Jack must have overheard him on the phone.
“When were you planning on telling me? Or were you just going to leave and hope I figured it out on my own?”
“I wanted to get the details nailed down, to make sure it would actually happen before I told you.” He touched her shoulder but she flinched away. “I didn’t want to worry you.”
He saw the tracks of her tears. But she wasn’t crying now.
Cassidy was blazingly angry.
“Add that lie to the rest you’ve been telling. You didn’t tell me because you knew I’d disagree, or because you didn’t want to hear my opinion at all. You were doing what you always do, taking the easy way out.”
“Now just a minute.”
“Hear me out, Ty, because what you’ve done is a colossal mistake.”
“It’s a solution.”
“To what? Your embarrassment over a news story? A way out of failing to make the Haven what you think Gail wanted it to be?” She hugged her arms around her waist, though the spring evening was warm. “All these months you’ve talked about God. Did you even bother to ask His opinion?”
He hadn’t, Ty realized belatedly.
“I have to get Jack away from here, away from what he could become.”
She shook her head, dark hair dancing in the breeze, silver eyes boring right through his veneer of composure.
“The problem is not Jack, Ty. It’s not the Haven, either. The problem is you. You have no faith. Not in Jack. Certainly not in me and more importantly, not in God.”
“I think I’ll do better in New York.”
Scorn tinted the edges of her laugh.
“You mean you’ll hide there, until it gets too uncomfortable. Then you’ll run away from New York, too.”
Her words cut deep. “You don’t have a very high opinion of me. I thought you said you loved me.”
“That’s why this hurts so much. I trusted you. I believed in you. I saw that when needed, you could set aside your problems, reach into your heart and draw out a wealth of compassion and generosity.”
Her silver eyes lost their gleam, dulled by hurt. His fault.
“I saw you ache for wounded families and I thought, now there is a man who will never act as my father did. Ty will never lie to me.”
Heat scorched his face.
“If this is about your restaurant, you could still have one in New York. A better one.”
Cassidy shook her head. “No, I couldn’t.”
“There’s nothing in Chicago that New York can’t offer.”
“I’m not going to open a restaurant. I don’t believe that’s where God wants me.”
“Then—?” He didn’t understand. She was giving up her dream?
“I do love you, but not even for you, Ty, will I walk away from God’s will. I realize now that He wants me here, in the Haven, making soup, frying doughnuts, whatever.” She stopped, swallowed. “And I’m glad.”
“You want to stay here?” It didn’t make sense.
“As long as He wants. Having my own place couldn’t match the joy I find here every day.” For a few moments her face glowed, until she looked at him. “I thought we’d both be here. I guess I was wrong.”
“I can’t stay, Cassidy. The place chokes me, Jack is getting worse. It’s not working out.”
“Why do you think that is?”
He had no answer.
“When I first came here, Ty, you talked a lot about God. You kept telling me how much God wanted me to be whole, to be His child. Don’t you believe He wants that for you?”
“It’s different.”
She smiled.
“It’s exactly the same. But until you let go, quit manipulating and finally surrender everything to Him, I don’t think you’re going to find total healing. If I’ve learned one thing it’s that He’s God of all or He’s not God at all.”
“But I love you, Cassidy. I thought everything would be great—”
“Once you shipped Jack off to military school?”
“I don’t know what to do with him,” he exploded. “I don’t want to lose another member of my family to these streets. I can’t make him understand.”
“Did you tell him you love him? Did you tell him that if you lose him to the same streets where Donnie died, that you would be devastated?” Cassidy stood so close he could breathe in her familiar fragrance, smell the hint of mint on her breath. “Did you tell your nephew that you will do anything in your power to save his life—because you can’t imagine a future without him in it? Or are you too afraid to let Jack see how much you care?”
“I—I—” Frustrated, Ty shoved his hands in his pockets. “I’m doing the best I can.”
“For you or for him?” A sad little smile tipped the corners of her lips upward then disappeared. “You live your life in fear, Ty. You scrape through. I feel sorry for you.”
He hated that.
“I feel sorry because you taught me so much about learning to stop being afraid, to
trust and let God take care of me, to depend on Him.” She touched his cheek. “I wish you could do the same, Ty. Stop worrying about the bad things that could happen and focus on the good that God has in store. I hoped we’d be able to stay here, work together. I’m staying, but it won’t be the same without you.”
“I didn’t mean to hurt you, Cassidy. I wanted to protect you.”
“I know.” She leaned forward, hugged him tightly for a moment then stepped back. “But that’s the problem. People get hurt. You can’t protect everyone.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying we trust that God is bigger than the bad things, bigger than the punks who slipped a drug into Jack’s drink, or the drugs that took over your brother’s world.”
“Is that what happened?”
“Why not ask Jack?” She pointed up, toward the evening sky. “If God could create the glory of the heavens, if He could make the earth spin around the sun and the planets stay in their orbits, if He can direct the rain and the thunder, don’t you think God can keep Jack safe? Don’t you think He can help you, Ty?”
“You don’t understand.”
“I don’t think you understand the God you serve.” Her earnest voice grated on his raw nerves. “He can protect you and Jack if you let Him. And if something happens He’ll use it benefit you. He can’t do that if you won’t trust Him.”
“I know you can’t forgive me. I’ve acted like your father and—”
“It does hurt to know you didn’t trust me, Ty.” Fat, glossy tears hung suspended on the ends of her thick black lashes, but Cassidy was smiling. “But don’t worry about me. God gave me forgiveness for my father and He’ll help me forgive you. I’ll learn how to build my life again. It won’t be as fulfilling without you, but I trust God. Do you?”
Her simple words burned away all his excuses. Even almost changed his mind.
Then lightning flashed across the sky. Thunder rumbled and sent him hurtling back into the past where fear crouched.
“We have to get inside.”
He heard her voice, felt her drawing him along, pushing him through the door. She slammed it closed.
“I’m going home. Everything is ready for tomorrow.” Cassidy fled, tears spotting her pristine white jacket.