The Prodigal's Return

by Anna DeStefano

  “I…I’m sorry.” She edged away and stood. “You came here to talk about your father, didn’t you?”

  His eyes narrowed as he stood, but it wasn’t a stranger studying her now. It was Neal, his concern pulling on her emotions in that familiar way of dreams just before they distorted into nightmare.

  None of it was your fault.

  “I’ve already seen Nathan,” he said. “I’m dealing with him, what little he’ll let me. I came here to talk to you. Because once I found out what you’d been through, I needed…” He shook his head.

  “It’s okay, Neal.” She took his hand. Not because she wanted to touch him again, but because it was important that he believe her. That he stopped making her want to give him more than the clear conscience he’d come looking for. “I’m fine now. Mandy and I are doing great. You don’t have to say anything else.”

  He squeezed her fingers. Looked so deeply into her eyes, she was certain he could see straight to her soul.

  Don’t go there, Jenn. He said he was sorry, and that’s the end of it.

  It had to be.

  “Jennifer—”

  “You should go.” She stepped away from his use of her full name.

  He followed. “Jenn—”

  “Please,” she begged through the panic building inside. The memories of loving him and losing him shrieked through her mind like opposing demons that would destroy everything they touched as they battled. “I need you to go.”

  She was going to scream if he didn’t.

  The phone’s ring saved her. Pulled her back from both craving and dreading more of this man’s attention.

  “My dad and I are in the middle of something else, and…” And I can’t need anything the way I still need you. “I have to go check on Mandy.”

  Neal nodded, relieved no doubt to flee her nonsense. He’d told her his story yesterday morning at the grocery. Now he knew hers. There was closure in that. A chance to move on. And as soon as he left she’d find a way to be grateful that he’d come back and given her at least that much.

  “I don’t know how things will go with Nathan,” he said. “I’ll stay for as long as I can. Try and get him to let me move back in. But who knows when that will happen, and he…he still needs someone watching out for him. Will you still stop by the house whenever you can…?”

  It meant they’d run into each other again, but she’d made a commitment to Nathan. Her messed-up feelings for the man’s son weren’t going to be the reason she let him down.

  “Of course,” she heard herself promise.

  Neal looked almost as if he wished she’d change her mind.

  “Jenn, for as long as I’m here… If there’s anything you need—”

  “No!” she rushed to say, not caring how desperate she sounded. It was important that he not misunderstand. That neither of them did. “I’m fine on my own. Really. Give your conscience a rest, and let me live my life. You’ve got enough to deal with on your own.”

  “YOU GOT NO IDEA just how good you have it, do you girl?” Nathan asked the pesky teenager who’d invaded his kitchen.

  Jenn had brought Traci over early that morning when the girl had claimed she was too sick to go to school. Morning sickness, for crying out loud. And Jenn hadn’t felt right leaving the kid at Joshua’s all day while she was over here harping at Nathan. Now, for at least the next half hour while Jenn picked her daughter up from school, it had fallen to Nathan to supervise the sullen, really-needed-her-britches-tanned teenager.

  His own boy hadn’t shown back up yet. Nathan hoped that meant he’d hightailed it to that center of his in Atlanta. The center that, by its very existence, reassured him that Neal was going to be okay. No one spending that much energy helping others, whatever the reason, could stay lost forever. And he wanted Neal to have his life back. It’s all he’d ever wanted.

  “What’s so good about any of this?” Traci Carpenter asked without looking up from the nondescript casserole Jenn had left instructions for her to make. “Excuse me for not tripping all over myself in gratitude because you haven’t kicked me out yet. I know you don’t want me here.”

  “You’re right, I don’t.” He scratched the back of his neck. “But I’m not doing this for you.”

  Bob Carpenter had become a deacon at the church around the same time as Nathan. Now Nathan was a day-care program for the man’s knocked-up daughter. Go figure.

  “Then why am I here?” The girl was dressed in some pink excuse for a top and skintight jeans. If she didn’t stop smacking her gum, he was going to reach in there and yank the wad out himself.

  “Because Jenn’s father’s busy handling the fallout that came with helping you, and she needed someplace out of the way for you to spend your time. Lucky for you, I’m about as out of the way as it gets.” A dying, unfriendly man Jenn hadn’t spoken to for almost a decade was her only confidant in Rivermist besides her father. What the hell had happened to this town? “That woman’s the best friend you’re ever likely to have, so don’t mess this up for her.”

  “Mess what up for her?” Several more smacks followed. “I’m the one who’s pregnant. I’m the one the whole town’s talking about.”

  “Why are your parents going after Reverend Gardner, if it’s all about you?”

  The girl gave a nonchalant shrug. “What’s the big deal? I’d have run away anyway whether he helped or not.”

  “Too bad no one in town’s believing that but me.” The girl could definitely benefit from a healthy spanking.

  The fact that she was in his home at all was a testament to how much Jenn Gardner had come to mean to him in an unbelievably short time. There was something about the woman’s bossiness, her determination to care about him when there was really no point anymore, that felt better than anything had in years. And that daughter of hers, Mandy.

  He’d only met the child for a short time that morning, when Jenn dropped Traci off on her way to taking the little one to school. But like her mother, Mandy hadn’t known how to be afraid of him. The two of them had become fast friends. She’d even asked if she could call him Grandpa Nathan.

  Never figured on being a grandpa. It felt pretty amazing. In fact, given that his head was constantly threatening to throb off his shoulders, he felt closer to amazing than should be legal.

  Jenn had managed to give him back a bit of what was left of his life, and he reckoned he’d do just about anything to repay her. But his newly discovered loyalty didn’t extend to coddling other people’s spoiled brats.

  “Thanks to you—” He leveled a finger at the Carpenter girl “—the entire town’s taking aim at Jenn and her father. Drumming up all the mistakes Jenn made almost a decade ago. Her working here with me—” not to mention Neal’s reappearance “—ain’t helping matters. The woman’s got a battle on her hands, and it chaps my hide that you don’t seem to give a damn about your part in it.”

  The child had the decency to swallow whatever sarcastic quip she’d been about to make. The moisture in her eyes threatened an oncoming flood.

  “Don’t you dare start feeling sorry for yourself.” He grabbed one of the cans of condensed soup she needed for the mess she was making in the baking dish and shoved it at her. “Jennifer Gardner has a knack for knowing how to help people, even people like you and me who refuse to believe they need any help. So stop feeling sorry for yourself, and make her job a little easier, why don’t ya.”

  “I’m not feeling sorry for myself.” Traci wiped at her eyes with the ridiculous, fuzzy cuffs of her shirt. “And I know I need her help. Without her I’d be—”

  “You’d be up a creek without a paddle, little girl.” He saw reality creep into her eyes. “So I expect you to keep holding up your end of the bargain. Be where you’re supposed to be, doing what you’re supposed to be doing. Take care of yourself and that baby you’re making. And get yourself to school, I don’t care if you are feeling a little queasy. You can mope around there all day as well as you can here. And while you’re
at it, work things out with your parents before you make even more trouble for the Gardners.”

  Nathan Cain. Down-and-out bum and den mother.

  The image was enough to make him smile.

  With a grunt, he turned and stomped down the hall.

  The front door swung open. Jenn trudged in, Mandy holding her hand and trailing slightly behind.

  “But Mommy,” the six-year-old said. “What did that lady mean?”

  “Nothing, honey.” Jenn began stripping the little girl out of her backpack, winter hat and coat. “It’s nothing for you to worry about.”

  But from her posture he could tell Jenn was plenty upset. Why couldn’t the people around here leave her the hell alone? And why wasn’t her father running interference for her? Nathan had zero community clout anymore, but Joshua Gardner taking a public stand would go a long way for a lot of people.

  “But what’s everyone so upset with Grandpa about?” Mandy asked.

  “Why don’t you go see if you can help Traci in the kitchen?” Jenn gave her child’s bottom a pat to scoot her down the hall. “You like stirring the chicken and rice, and I think there’s a box of brownie mix in the pantry.”

  “Brownies!” The kindergartner took off toward the kitchen, the hallway echoing with the sound of her tennis shoes slapping on the hardwood planks.

  Jenn stood and shrugged out of her own winter gear.

  “Catherine Compton was in the school office when I went in to get Mandy,” she said, hanging her and Mandy’s things on the coat tree beside the door. “She was talking with Nettie Hastings. She never looks at me, let alone speaks, but…”

  “She decide today was the day to stir up the dirt between the two of you?”

  “Not exactly.” Jenn looked ready for battle. “She wanted me to know that she and the rest of the church council have called an emergency meeting tonight. The Carpenters can’t get to their daughter through me, so they’re going after my father’s job.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  “HELLO?” TRACI SAID after opening Mr. Cain’s front door to the total stranger who had to be the man’s son.

  No one could look that much like the guy and not be related. And for days she’d been hearing the gossip that the notorious Neal Cain was back.

  “Who…who are you?” He looked behind her as if he didn’t really care.

  “Traci Carpenter,” she said. Like that would mean anything to him. “I—”

  “I need to speak with my father.”

  “He…Mr. Cain’s in the den, but he fell asleep watching the news.” The grumpy old man must be really sick. Jenn acted like he was going to keel over any moment the way she fussed over him one minute and looked ready to cry the next.

  “You want me to wake him up?” She let her eyes roam over the stranger’s gorgeous face and the to-die-for body wrapped up in fitted jeans and a sweater. So this was the tough guy they said had killed his best friend at the homecoming dance, like a hundred years ago. The guy Jenn had been dating before she turned all bad girl and everything.

  Her gaze came to rest on the leather duffel bag he held in one hand. “Um—”

  “Is Jenn here?” Eyes the same dark brown as his father’s locked with Traci’s. “Maybe I can speak with her.”

  “I…um.” Traci heard sneakers squeaking on the wooden stairs behind her.

  “Who is it?” Mandy grasped the knob out of her hand and swung the door open until it bounced off the wall.

  “Oh, hi,” she prattled. “You’re Grandpa Nathan’s little boy. Are you going to the meeting with my mom?”

  “I…What meeting?” the man asked Traci before staring back down at Jenn’s daughter.

  “The one where the church is going after Reverend Gardner, because of me.” Ever since Mr. Cain had said the same thing, Traci hadn’t been able to think of much else.

  She’d finished making dinner, hadn’t eaten much more than anyone else, and had dutifully cleaned up afterward. When Jenn left for the council meeting alone, Traci hadn’t known what to say. What to do. Only she felt lousy now for not even trying to help.

  “What did you do that has anything to do with Reverend Gardner?” Nothing flickered in the guy’s eyes as they locked back onto hers.

  Cold.

  She searched for another word as she gazed at him, but nothing came to her.

  This guy was ice cold.

  “I asked Jenn to help me, that’s all.” She dragged Mandy behind her and began closing the door. “I’ll let her and Nathan know you came by—”

  A large hand stopped the door and gently pushed until Traci was forced to move out of the way. The man’s bag hit the foyer’s hardwood with a thud as he stepped inside. He took his time studying the way Traci kept a squirming Mandy safely behind her.

  The kid was slippery as an eel.

  “Let me go.” Mandy gave one final yank and succeeded in stepping around Traci.

  “Not too close!” Traci jerked Mandy to her side once more.

  The man kept staring.

  Traci gulped at the size of the muscles bulging beneath Neal Cain’s sweater.

  “Where can I put my things?”

  “You…You’re moving in here?”

  His eyebrows shot up.

  “I mean, I know you used to live here and all, but—”

  “Why don’t we let Nathan and Jenn worry about where I’m staying after I speak with her.” He turned to go.

  “Are you going to the church council meeting?” It was a meeting Traci should be at herself, except, according to Mr. Cain, she was too much of a loser to stand up and admit that she was to blame for all of this. “Can I come with you?”

  “Why?” If the guy had actually looked like he cared, maybe she’d have hesitated before answering.

  “Because I owe them. Jenn and her father. She’s helping me think through what to do about my baby, and Reverend Gardner’s helping keep my parents on a leash while I do.”

  Her hand smoothed over her stomach as she faced up to the opportunity Jenn was giving her. What all this was costing the Gardners.

  Neal Cain seemed to be sizing up her age. That and the purplish bruise still shadowing her eye. With a nod, he turned to head out.

  “So can I come?” She grabbed his sleeve.

  He pulled his arm away as if she’d shocked him.

  “Please,” she begged. And not just because she was dying to ride in the bad-boy sports car parked at the curb. Something was churning inside her, something besides the baby making her sick every morning and half the day. Thanks to Jenn, and even grumpy old Mr. Cain, she cared about something besides her own problems for a change. Even worse, she was suddenly mortified that she hadn’t all along. “Jenn shouldn’t be standing up for her father alone. I should be the one explaining everything.”

  “Aren’t you babysitting?” He glanced to where Mandy stood just inside the door.

  The longer Traci looked at him, the warmer those scary eyes started to look. Especially every time Jenn’s name came up.

  Man, a few days with the woman and she was developing a bleeding heart of her own. A heart that felt good for a change, instead of like it was going to explode right out of her chest. Wanting to help Jenn and Reverend Gardner felt good. A whole lot better than obsessing about herself 24/7.

  “Give me a minute to start a video for Mandy. She’ll be fine in the den with your dad until I get back.”

  Neal stared beyond her at the den’s curtained windows.

  “Get your butt in gear.” He turned away, almost as if he were worried he might head inside himself. “I’m pulling out of here in two minutes, with or without you.”

  She hustled back to Mandy and settled her with her favorite Disney movie and very clear instructions that she wasn’t to leave the house. A quick note for the snoring Nathan was all that was left. Then she grabbed her purse and the designer jacket that didn’t protect her from the winter temperatures as much as it went with her outfit, and headed toward the now-idling car a
nd the blank expression of the man who was already behind the wheel. Gulping down lingering worries about his rep, she climbed inside.

  He was a friend of Jenn’s. Traci didn’t care what the rest of the town said. If Jenn thought Neal Cain was okay, then he was okay with her.

  “Before we get there,” he surprised her by saying—she’d figured on a chilly, silent ride all the way into town “—why don’t you fill me in. Exactly how much trouble are Jenn and Reverend Gardner in?”

  “A CHILD’S FUTURE IS AT STAKE, and her parents should be guiding her in her decisions.” Catherine Compton stood proud and tall as she addressed the church council.

  She’d rallied behind the meeting, even though she wasn’t a member of the council. She’d arrived with Traci’s parents and a belligerent-looking Jeremy in tow, ready to discuss the latest flaw in Jenn’s character, as well as why Jenn’s father was partially responsible.

  Jenn scanned the conference room. Half of Rivermist had turned out to watch the show.

  “Reverend Gardner and his daughter have no right interfering in this family’s ordeal,” Catherine continued. “Simply because—”

  “My father hasn’t interfered with anything.” Jenn ignored her dad’s look of warning. He was sitting with the council, of course. They’d known tonight was going to turn ugly, and he hadn’t wanted her subjected to it. He’d tried to talk her into staying away, into bringing Traci back to the house and waiting for him there. “He—”

  “He has no more control over you now than he did when you were Traci’s age,” said the still-grieving mother who glowered at Jenn. “And now he’s assisting you in ruining another teenager’s life. How this council ever thought you’d be a good choice to work with our impressionable children, I can’t begin to understand.”

  “I’ve resigned from coordinating the teen outings,” Jenn said quietly, determined not to react to the growing tension in the room. Not to give anyone more reason to question her professionalism, or her father’s for trusting her. “As soon as—”