Standing Guard

by Valerie Hansen

Right now, it was telling him that his defense of Lindy and Danny was only beginning and if he didn’t hurry, he wouldn’t be there when they arrived at church.

  Fortunately, he spotted them pulling into the lot mere moments after he’d parked. He jogged up to their car and opened the driver’s door. “Good morning!”

  “Morning.”

  “I’m glad I got here in time,” Thad said as Lindy climbed out. “I was afraid you might change your mind if I wasn’t around.”

  She smoothed her skirt. “I promised we’d be here. I always keep my promises.”

  “Good for you.” Thad reached to ruffle the boy’s hair and was surprised when Danny ducked out of reach.

  “He got ready all by himself this morning. Even combed his hair. Doesn’t he look nice?”

  “Not half as great as his mother looks,” Thad said, smiling and cupping her elbow to guide her into Serenity Chapel.

  “You don’t think this dress is too bright?”

  “It’s perfect. You’ve never looked prettier.”

  Trailing them, Danny gave a loud, “Ewww,” making both adults chuckle.

  Thad glanced over his shoulder with a smile. “Hush. It’s not polite to contradict grown-ups, especially when somebody’s saying something nice.”

  He opened the heavy glass door to the brick building and held it for them to pass.

  An usher inside handed Lindy a bulletin and gave her a welcoming smile. “Good morning, folks.”

  “Morning, Bob,” Thad said. “You remember Mrs. Southerland and Danny, don’t you?”

  “Sure do,” the older man replied, his grin spreading. “Good to see you again, ma’am.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Danny is going to be in my class, so if you catch him wandering around, just point him in the right direction.”

  As they walked down the hallway, Lindy looked up at Thad. “Why would Danny be wandering anywhere? If he’s in your class I’ll expect him to stay there.”

  “Unless he needs a bathroom break or wants a drink of water.”

  On cue, the boy broke away and ran to the water fountain.

  “See what I mean? Most of the boys in my class are good kids but they are kids. When one suggests a drink, all of them want one. It’s natural.”

  “I guess so. I just...”

  “Would you like to come in with him? I don’t mind.”

  “Is that wise?”

  “If you want my honest opinion, no. Having his mama there, watching his every move, might be a bit stifling.”

  “You’re right. I just hate to leave him.”

  Drawing a finger in an X across his chest, Thad raised his other hand as if taking a solemn oath. “I promise to keep an eye on him and deliver him to you in the sanctuary right after class. Sit in the back row so we can find you easily, okay?”

  “Okay.” Nodding, she sighed. “I’ll hang around out here in the hall until I’m sure he’s settled, then go into one of the women’s classes. I don’t want to go back into the couples’ group Ben and I used to belong to.”

  “Fine.” Thad held the classroom door for Danny, followed him through and began to introduce him to the other boys who had already arrived.

  Glancing back as the door swung shut, he saw a flash of Lindy’s purple dress and hoped she’d trust him enough to take his advice. There was a point at which she was going to make her child feel trapped if she wasn’t careful. Parents walked a fine line between overprotectiveness and neglect.

  The age and maturity of a child had a lot to do with their perception, of course. So did their peers. That was where being brought up in the church helped.

  Anybody could go astray. What Thad tried to teach his class was how to own up to it and turn their lives around if they realized they were headed in the wrong direction.

  A lot of adults could use that same lesson, he mused, hoping that his judgment of Lindy’s innocence wasn’t being skewed by his emotions.

  Thad gritted his teeth. He could not be wrong about her. So why was she in the crosshairs of some obscure government agency and what was he going to do about it?

  In retrospect, he wished he’d thought to ask the agents why they had resorted to breaking and entering and why they had left such a disgusting thing in her kitchen.

  “If they did,” he muttered.

  Suddenly uneasy at the direction of his thoughts, he glanced toward the door, imagining the lovely woman he’d left in the hallway.

  If they had been anywhere but in church, he would have been a lot more worried.

  NINE

  Standing outside the door alone hadn’t bothered Lindy until the classes had started and the passing crowd thinned. There were still official greeters stationed at the exterior doors but other than them and a few late arrivals, she was all by herself.

  She turned her back to the wall beside Danny’s classroom and folded her arms. Her dress had long sleeves and the loose, uneven jacket hem fell below the belted waist, making the outfit well suited to early spring weather, so why was she shivering?

  On the opposite side of the closed door, she could hear Thad beginning to lead the children in prayer. Reedy little voices added the names of others for whom they were praying before she heard her son.

  “I wanna pray for my daddy,” Danny said. “He died.”

  “Go ahead,” Thad urged.

  Holding her breath and straining to hear, Lindy couldn’t make out Danny’s response. It had apparently been negative because the teacher then spoke for him.

  “Father, we want to ask You to help our new friend, Danny, and his mother. You know what they need and we trust You to take good care of them. Please help Danny to understand why his daddy is gone and not be too sad. Amen.”

  A tear slid down Lindy’s cheek. She pressed her fingertips to her lips, ducked her head and hurried to the nearby ladies’ restroom.

  Thankfully, it was deserted. She grabbed a handful of tissues and blotted her face before blowing her nose and peering at her image in the mirror above the sink.

  Her mascara was smeared, her nose was red and her eyes were getting puffy. She couldn’t enter a new class looking like that. It was too reminiscent of the way she had often appeared after one of Ben’s tirades and she was certainly not going to give that impression again.

  The only sensible option was to wait outside in her car for an hour or so until the main worship service began. That would give her enough time to pull herself together so she didn’t look as if she was upset.

  Concentrating on escape, Lindy rushed into the parking lot and keyed the remote control to unlock her car. She was about to toss her purse in ahead of her when she looked down at the black leather seat.

  Another note!

  Her first reaction was relief that it hadn’t come attached to anything revolting or dead or both.

  Then, she bent closer and peered at it.

  It was in Ben’s handwriting. Again. And it referred to money, which made sense since he’d made his living managing funds for lots of people. The question was, where had these old memos come from and who was leaving them for her?

  An additional jolt of adrenaline suddenly brought her to full awareness. This wasn’t simply another foray into her home. It was far worse.

  Someone had followed her to church. Had broken into her car without leaving any sign of tampering.

  Not only was that frightening, it was a sure sign that she was still being watched. Perhaps, even
at that moment, her enemies were closing in.

  There was only one smart thing to do. One place to go that was safe.

  Lindy slammed the car door, ran back into the chapel past the surprised-looking greeter and made a beeline straight for Thad Pearson’s classroom.

  Her hand was reaching for the knob when she came to her senses and paused. If she burst into that room, her son was going to be mortified, everybody was going to get upset and she was liable to scare those poor kids silly—not to mention their teacher.

  Although she was trembling, inside and out, Lindy pulled herself together enough to reason. She needed to call the sheriff herself, meet them in the parking lot when they arrived and calmly make the report.

  Until a few weeks ago she wouldn’t have had anyone to turn to. No family. No close friends except maybe Samantha. And definitely no Thad Pearson. Therefore, what she needed to do was act the part of the strong, self-reliant woman she kept insisting she was.

  “I am,” Lindy assured herself. “I don’t need babysitting, I don’t need a man and I don’t need...”

  She slowly backed away from the door to Danny’s class while feeling around in her shoulder bag for her cell phone. She’d been about to voice the troubling thought that she didn’t even need divine help—and do so while standing inside a church, of all places!

  Flipping open her phone she hesitated and murmured, “Sorry, Father. I know better than that. I’m just so...”

  What? Scared? Confused? Alone?

  The first two, maybe. The last, no. She might be standing in an empty hallway and shaking like a leaf in a gale but she wasn’t alone. She never had been. It wasn’t that the Lord had forsaken her. She had turned her back on Him.

  Yet, in spite of her actions and her hardened heart, God had sent a warrior, a defender, into her life.

  Mere feet away, on the other side of that classroom door, was Thad Pearson. He guarded her son better than she ever could.

  She might manage to convince herself that the cyber attacks on her finances were random but she would never believe for a second that meeting Thad and making such an easy connection with him had not been divinely inspired.

  Thankful beyond words, Lindy whispered, “Thank You, Jesus,” lifted the phone and called the sheriff.

  * * *

  Flashing red lights were the first thing Thad noticed through the church’s side windows when he dismissed his class and headed toward the sanctuary with Danny.

  The boy tugged on his hand and pointed. “Look! That’s my mama.”

  “I see her.”

  “C’mon. Let’s go.”

  “Hold your horses,” Thad said. “She looks fine. We don’t want to distract her while she’s busy with the policeman.”

  He scooped up Danny and carried him rather than take a chance the child would take off and run across the lot. Some worshippers were just arriving for the main service while a few others were leaving. The last thing Lindy needed was to have her son carelessly racing through traffic.

  The boy looped an arm around Thad’s neck. His obvious trust and reliance touched the ex-marine and carried his thoughts back to other children in other countries. Children he had tried to help in spite of orders to keep his distance.

  Lindy seemed to sense their approach. She turned and waved. “Hi, guys.”

  “What happened?” Thad asked evenly. He wanted to shout at her, to chastise her for coming outside without him, but he figured that wasn’t such a good idea, especially in view of the negative reaction she’d had to his nightmare.

  “I found another note. In the car. On the seat,” Lindy said. “I called to report it, expecting the sheriff to respond. The church is in the city so I got the police, instead.” She gave a weak smile. “You know Samantha’s husband, John, don’t you?”

  “Yes.” Thad paused long enough to offer to shake the man’s hand before he said, “What I don’t understand is why you were out here in the first place. You weren’t planning to ditch me and my little buddy, were you?” He felt the child’s grip tighten.

  “Of course not. I planned to meet you for church, just like I promised.”

  “So, John, are you done with Lindy?” Thad asked the solemn-looking officer.

  “Apparently.”

  “What about the note? Did you pick it up already?”

  “No. We didn’t find anything. I guess she was mistaken.”

  Thad frowned, first at John Waltham, then at Lindy.

  She shrugged. “I know I didn’t imagine it. There was a note lying right there on the seat. It looked like the one we found at my house, only it was just loose paper. And definitely Ben’s handwriting.”

  “You searched the entire car?” Thad asked.

  “Yes,” Lindy replied, cocking her head in the direction of the waiting officer. “First John did, then I did, after he said he couldn’t find any sign of it.”

  “And it was really gone.”

  “Unfortunately.”

  Thad saw Lindy shiver so he stepped closer and slipped his free arm around her waist. “Okay. Since all the excitement is over, let’s go back inside and warm up.” He eyed the other man. “Thanks.”

  “Any time. If you see my wife inside, tell her I have another call so I can’t join her this morning.”

  The black-and-white was driving away when Lindy asked Thad, “You do believe me, don’t you?”

  “Oh, yeah. I believe you. I also know that whoever left the note in the first place, then got rid of it before the cops came, had to be watching you. That’s why I didn’t want to stand around in the parking lot where we were too exposed.”

  “I’d thought of that, too. I figured as long as there was a police car right there I’d be safe enough.”

  “You were only safe assuming Waltham was as alert as he should have been. I got the idea his mind was on wanting to join his wife in church, more than it was on his job.”

  “I think it’s nice that guys like John get to go to services while they’re on duty, but I really wish I hadn’t called anyone this time,” Lindy said. “You should have seen the looks I got when I had to stand out there by the police car and talk to him. People already suspected I might be a crook because of Ben. Now, they’re going to be sure I am.”

  “They just need to get to know you the way I do.” And I will never believe you’re anything but totally honest, no matter how many spooks in black suits and sunglasses try to convince me otherwise.

  “Has it occurred to you that it might be best if I moved away? Left Serenity?” she asked softly.

  The idea of Lindy purposely stepping out of his life hit Thad like a sucker punch. He could not let her do that. Not now. Maybe not ever.

  Because I need to be nearby to protect her, he insisted silently.

  That much was true. The problem was, there was a lot more to his motives than simply guarding Lindy and her son. The mere thought of not having her involved in his life cut to the quick. She was his God-given assignment, among other things, and he was not about to shirk that duty.

  You care too much already, his conscience insisted.

  Thad had no rebuttal for such raw truth. He did care. For Lindy and for Danny. It was as if he’d been given a chance to atone for not only his actions in combat but also for his failure to avert the tragedy that had taken his brother’s life.

  That rationale made little sense, yet Thad clung to it with a desperation that came straight from his core.

 
* * *

  As Lindy entered the sanctuary with Thad and her son, she was almost overcome by her emotions again.

  Being that disturbed, that moved, came as a shock to her. She’d had no idea how much she’d truly missed coming here or how deep her feelings for this particular body of believers went. Her late husband had always been the one to insist they attend—looking for business contacts—and until this very moment Lindy had not realized how much this pastor and congregation had meant to her, personally.

  Although she had assumed she was angry to have been ignored, what she was really feeling was a terrible loss of belonging, of being a part of God’s family.

  Now, standing in the rear of the sanctuary, she could finally see that a lot of her isolation came from her own choices. She had decided to stop coming to church. She had failed to return calls from the few people who had reached out to her. And she had refused to agree when Pastor Malloy had suggested counseling.

  Walking beside her, Thad leaned closer to ask, “Front or back?”

  “Definitely the back, if you think we’re not too late,” Lindy whispered. “Remember that old joke? You have to come to church early to find a seat in the rear.”

  “I know.”

  Eyes downcast, she joined him in the closest pew, thankful he’d managed to find room for them without leading her all the way to the front past so many curious worshippers.

  It was embarrassing to have admitted how standoffish and unfriendly she’d been and she was still coming to terms with her confusion over where the real blame lay. Some of it was undoubtedly hers, yet she kept wondering if there wasn’t some way to pass it off on others.

  That silly thought amused her. It also hit her in her conscience. If there was ever a perfect place to admit to a failing and find peace, it was right here.

  Danny cuddled up to her as soon as Thad put him down and she smiled at the boy. “Can you sit nice and still for Mama?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  As Lindy watched, the child looped one arm through her elbow and the other through Thad’s. He had never acted that way with his father. Never.