“May I pet her?” Renee asked.
“Certainly. As you can see, she’s very well behaved,” the woman holding Fancy’s leash said.
Renee knelt and rubbed the dog’s head. Fancy rewarded her with a wet dog kiss.
“And loving,” the woman said.
“I can see that.”
“Would you like to take her for a walk?” The woman pointed to the grassy area behind the tent.
Owen and Dylan nodded like little bobbleheads.
“Yes.” Renee laughed.
The woman handed her the leash and a plastic bag and scoop.
With the boys dancing around her, Fancy became more animated on the walk.
“Do you like her, Miss Renee?” Owen asked.
“I do, and Claire will, too. You did good research for me.”
Owen smiled big, evidently proud of himself, and Rhys couldn’t help the fatherly pride that welled up in him.
“We want Fancy,” Renee said when they returned to the adoption tent. “I already filled out an adoption application online.”
“Great, I’ll pull your application up.” The adoption volunteer walked them a couple feet down the table to the laptop set up there.
“Dad, while you’re doing that stuff, can Owen take me to look at the cats?” Dylan asked.
It seemed safe enough. He’d be able to see them from here. “Yes, just both stay where I can see you.”
“Okay, come on, Owen.”
“Your boys are adorable,” the woman said, more to Renee than him.
“They are,” Renee said. “But they’re not my sons. Just special friends.”
Rhys shifted his weight and stuffed his fingers in the front pockets of his jeans. He wouldn’t mind being Renee’s special friend, too. But he was working on that.
Renee finished the paperwork, assured the woman that she had a crate in the car for Fancy’s ride home and they joined Owen and Dylan at the cat cage and display.
“Daddy, Miss Renee, this is Midnight.” Dylan snuggled the black cat in his arms under the watchful eye of a volunteer. “You said no dog, but can we get a cat?” He rubbed his face in Midnight’s fur.
Rhys looked to Renee and she lifted her hands up, palms out.
He was on his own on this one. The expectation on Dylan’s upturned face melted any resistance he may have had. “Yes, we can get Midnight. But you’ll be responsible for taking care of it.”
“I can do that.” Dylan nodded.
“And we can still get a dog later, right?” Owen asked.
“Yes, once I’ve fenced an area for one.” And got a little further ahead on his finances. Dogs could be expensive. Rhys studied Dylan and Midnight. Cats had to be cheaper, right?
“I’m going to take Fancy home,” Renee said. “Thanks for helping me pick her out, guys.”
“You’re welcome,” Owen and Dylan said.
“See you tomorrow.” Rhys watched her and Fancy walk to the parking lot.
“Sir?” The volunteer who’d been keeping an eye on Dylan and Midnight prodded him.
“Right.” Rhys pulled his gaze away. “What do I need to do to get the cat?”
Rhys completed the adoption process, then the volunteer put Midnight in a cardboard cat carrier and gave Dylan a cat goody bag, and they drove home.
Once home, Owen and Dylan pulled a jingle ball from the goody bag and rolled it across the living room floor for Midnight to chase. While they were entertaining the cat and themselves, Rhys paced the kitchen, working out a reason to call Renee that didn’t sound too lame after being with her less than an hour ago. He finally gave up on finding the right line and just punched in her phone number.
After seven rings, he poised his finger above the phone screen, ready to end the call before it went to voice mail. It was a bad idea anyway.
“Hi,” Renee said.
“Hey, you thanked the boys for helping you, but I never thanked you for inviting us. Ah—thanks.”
“You’re welcome.”
Silence hung between them.
“Was there something else?” she asked.
“Yes.” He swallowed hard. He hadn’t done this in more than eleven years. “I was wondering if you’d like to catch a movie Saturday night. Just us.” It wasn’t smooth, but he’d gotten it out.
“I would.”
It took all of Rhys’s strength not to let loose with an Owen-like All right! “Okay, I’ll check the listings and let you know Thursday what time I’ll pick you up.”
“Sounds good to me.”
“’Bye.” He collapsed in a kitchen chair feeling as wrung out as if he’d worked a hard twelve-hour day.
Owen and Dylan’s laughter drifted into the room, reminding him of his commitment to them. Lord, I pray I’m not getting myself into something deeper than I can handle right now.
* * *
Renee checked herself in the decorative mirror in the living room. “Are you sure I’m not too dressed up?” She didn’t wait for Claire to answer. “Maybe I should change into jeans.”
“You’re not too dressed up,” Claire said.
She smoothed the skirt of her sundress. “We’re just driving to the Marquis in Middlebury.”
“All the way to Middlebury? Isn’t the Majestic in Schroon Lake playing the same movie?”
“I...we thought it better if we went someplace where we wouldn’t run into a lot of people we know. You know how people talk. They’d have us engaged by next week.”
Claire’s eyes narrowed at Renee’s attempt at being casual.
“Rhys suggested it. He’s a private person and I respect that.” And I’ve gotten past any doubts I may have had that he’s anything different from how he portrays himself—a hardworking Christian man who would do anything for his sons.
“You’re not overdressed, but you might want to take a light sweater. The nights are getting cooler.”
Renee spun around in front of the mirror, making the skirt of the dress flare out and relieving some of her nervous energy. “Which one? The blue or the lavender?”
“The lavender one.”
Fancy, who was sitting on the floor near Claire, barked her approval.
Renee stopped to pat the dog on the head before she hurried to her room, remembering Melody’s innocent words about her mother’s boyfriend not liking it if her mother wasn’t ready when he came to pick her up. But Rhys wasn’t her boyfriend. They were simply friends going on a movie date. Melody’s question Do you go on dates? echoed in her head.
She yanked open the dresser drawer and pulled out the sweater. Now she was judging the status of her love life with the measures of a four-year-old? A glance at her alarm clock told her it was five minutes before the time Rhys said he’d pick her up. She caught her breath to calm her jitters.
“Come in.” Claire’s voice carried up the hall.
Renee’s pulse ticked up. Rhys was here. Early.
“How’s Fancy settling in?” he asked, leaning down to pet the animal as Renee looked around the corner.
“As if she’s always lived here,” Claire answered.
“Hey.” Renee stepped into the living room.
Rhys straightened to his full height.
Her breath caught for reasons that did nothing for her jitters. If she was overdressed, so was he. His light blue Oxford dress shirt brought out the blue of his eyes—eyes she’d once seen as icy—and somehow made his shoulders appear even wider than his T-shirts did. The shirt was tucked into a pair of sharply creased khaki pants. Brown Doc Martens were on his feet. All she’d ever seen him wear were boots or athletic shoes, even for church. Had Rhys gone clothes shopping for their date?
“Are you ready?” he asked.
“All set.” She tore her gaze from
him to pick up her purse and loop the sweater over her arm.
Rhys held the door open for her.
“You two kids have fun,” Claire said.
Rhys’s laughter echoed down the stairs to the outside door.
“What’s so funny?”
“Claire. ‘You two kids.’ I’m almost positive I’m older than her.”
She knew he was right. Rhys was thirty-three to Claire’s thirty-one, and to her twenty-six.
“Too true,” she said in a bright voice to lift the pall that had fallen over the already dim stairway, and to deflect him from thinking about their age difference. Would he think he was too old for her?
She turned the knob to the outside door and Rhys reached over her to push it open, treating her to the spicy scent of the aftershave she’d admired the day they’d painted the doghouse. She searched the street for his truck.
“Where did you park?”
“Right out front.” A grin split his face as he took her hand and pulled her to the sidewalk—reminding her so much of Owen and Dylan in action—and over to a sleek black-and-chrome supercab pickup.
“This is yours? When did you get it?”
“I went looking Monday and made the deal Tuesday. It had to be driven from the dealership’s other location in Vermont. I picked it up after work last night.” Rhys beamed like a boy with a new toy. He unlocked the passenger-side door for her and took her arm to help her in. When he released her to close the door, his fingers left a warm imprint on her arm.
Rhys climbed in the other side. “Listen to that,” he said as the engine roared to life with his turn of the key. “And I got a really sweet deal. Three years old, low miles. I posted the old truck’s sale notice at the Paradox Lake General Store on my way home Tuesday, and a guy came by Thursday and bought it. He picked it up last night.”
She rubbed her hand across the soft seat cover. “Nice.”
“And safe, with more room for Dylan’s booster seat. It bothered me having him and Owen in the front seat, even with the passenger airbag turned off. Now they can even have a friend ride along with us.”
“You, too,” Renee said.
He wrinkled his brow and she had to bite her lip not to laugh.
“Oh.” Understanding spread across his face. “Say, a friend like you?” He smiled. “Sorry, I told myself this was going to be an adult night. I wasn’t going to talk about Owen and Dylan. My new truck isn’t a much better topic. I’m out of practice. I haven’t been on a date in twelve years.”
“I don’t mind talking about the boys.” She didn’t. But their relationship, if there was going to be one, had to be based on more. She took a breath. “Change of topic. When we moved the boys in, I saw a legal thriller paperback on your living room table...”
During the rest of the drive to the theater, they talked about books and movies, their favorite scriptures, Rhys’s job and his career aspirations, and their childhoods—mostly hers. The bits he shared gave her further insight into him, beyond being a father.
After they left the theater a couple of hours later, Rhys checked his cell phone and frowned. “I hope you don’t mind getting something quick to eat.” He kicked a stone on the sidewalk. “I told Kaitlyn, the college kid who’s staying with Owen and Dylan, that I’d be home by ten. She works at a convenience store and has to open tomorrow morning at five.” He laughed. “I can’t remember the last time I had a curfew. Maybe never. Except...”
In prison. She silently finished his incomplete sentence. Her heart filled with compassion. That was far behind him. But a question she’d been carrying in the back of her mind slipped out. “How did you feel serving time for something you didn’t do?”
He released a rough laugh. “Everyone at Dannemora maintains he’s innocent. But how I felt was angry, stupid, ashamed, but most of all guilty for tearing my family apart. I did drive the getaway car for the one robbery, and I didn’t serve much more time than I would have for that count alone. As awful as it was, it made me a better man. It brought me to Pastor Connor and God and to you.”
Renee slipped her arm through his and squeezed it to her. “I’m sorry.”
“No, you wanted to know, and it’s part of who I am.”
“Do you like Mexican food?” she asked.
“Yeah,” he answered, accepting her abrupt change of subject.
“I know just the place.”
Over fat burritos, they argued the pluses and minuses of the movie and its actors. For the drive home, they switched to football. She and her family were die-hard fans of Rhys’s rival team. Before Renee knew it, he was pulling the truck up next to the curb in front of her house.
“Thanks. I had fun.” She pulled at the door handle.
Rhys swung his door open. “You don’t get away that easy. A gentleman always walks a lady to her door.”
“I see.” She looked up at the summer sky while she waited for him to come around. “Aren’t the stars beautiful?”
“Hey, isn’t that my line? The one before I ask you if you want to come up and see my etchings?”
Renee sputtered with laughter as he walked her the few steps to the porch.
“I had a good time, too,” he said. “I can think of only one thing that would make it better.”
“What might that be?” she asked, her lips parting.
“This.” He slid his arms around her waist and lowered his head.
She lifted her arms to his shoulders and met his lips with hers, savoring the way they melded together.
Too soon, he broke the kiss. “So you wouldn’t be against spending more time together?” His voice was a whisper in the night.
She reluctantly dropped her hands from his shoulders. “I can’t think of any reason we shouldn’t.”
Chapter Twelve
“Ms. Renee, can you come and live at our house?” Dylan asked, making Renee almost drop the handful of glue sticks she was putting in the cabinet in her Sunday school room after class the next morning.
She placed the glue sticks in the plastic container in the cabinet, buying time to frame a response. “It’s nice of you to ask. Any particular reason why?” Renee suspected Dylan was missing his mother or Suzi.
“To hug me when I’m scared.”
“Doesn’t Daddy hug you?” She couldn’t imagine Rhys not soothing his son’s fears.
“Sometimes, like last night, he can’t.” Dylan twisted the construction paper he’d carried from the table for her.
Ah. So this was about Rhys and her going out, his getting a babysitter for the boys. That was something they could work on in Bridges as a group. Most of the kids came from single-parent homes.
She took the paper from him and closed the cabinet door. “Let’s sit and talk.” They still had a few minutes before church service would start. Renee pulled out two chairs at the table, but when she sat, Dylan climbed onto her lap.
“Sometimes your daddy wants to go out with his friends, like when you go over to Robbie’s to play.”
Dylan nodded. “But I was scared later, after Daddy got home, when the scary man came.”
Renee stiffened. “Tell me about the scary man.” Then she relaxed. It was probably a dream.
“Hey.” Owen appeared in the doorway. “Dad’s waiting for you for service.”
“Dylan’s helping me clean up. Tell your dad we’ll be there in a minute.”
“Okay, we’ll save you a seat.”
“Did you dream about the bad man?”
“No, he was at our house. I woke up and went to Daddy’s room. When he wasn’t there, I went downstairs to make sure he was home.”
Renee’s heart squeezed at Dylan’s insecurities. The little guy had been through so much.
“I saw Daddy and the bad man, so I stayed in the kitchen where they c
ouldn’t see me. The man was saying mean things to Daddy about money and a deal and that he was going to get him good, burn our house down with us in it.”
By instinct, she tightened her arms around Dylan. Just before she had begun interning at CPS, there’d been an incident when CPS hadn’t intervened fast enough with a similar threat, and a woman’s ex-boyfriend had burned her apartment with her and her three children inside. The youngest child had been horribly injured.
“Then the man tried to punch Daddy, but Daddy stopped him and said he was going to call the police if the man didn’t leave.”
The weight pressing on her chest lessened. “Did Daddy call the police?”
“I don’t know. I ran back to my room and hid under the covers.”
“The police didn’t come?” Rhys would have called them, wouldn’t he? Or was he that wary of the law that he’d only threatened to call? The Rhys she thought she knew would protect his children at any cost to himself, even if he didn’t fully trust the law.
“I didn’t hear them come, and I was awake for a long time.”
“Did Owen see the man, too?”
“No, he never wakes up like me.”
She kissed the top of Dylan’s head.
“Would you know the man if you saw him again?”
Dylan nodded. “He came to our house before and gave Daddy money.”
Her stomach churned. What was going on? A picture of Rhys’s new truck flashed in her mind, along with the new clothes. She swallowed the bile that rose in her throat. This was a child’s version of what happened, and it contradicted what she and the Hazardtown Church community had come to know about Rhys. Or what they had come to believe about him.
Old doubts about him and the motives behind his faith pricked her. The last time she didn’t believe and report something—the deathbed plea of the mother in Haiti... Renee’s eyes teared up. That poor little girl.
“Miss Renee.” Dylan tugged at her arm. “Can you take me to Daddy now?”
She would. Had to.
“Sure, let’s go find your dad.”
That was all she could do for now.
Dylan quickly spotted his family and pulled Renee along to join them. She was thankful the boy placed himself between Rhys and her. Her mind and emotions were too jumbled to risk an accidental touch of his hand or brush of his leg. She stood and sang the hymns by rote and sat and prayed for guidance. If anyone at coffee hour asked her about the sermon, she’d be hard-pressed to comment.
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