by Deb Kastner
“You neglected to mention yourself in this equation.”
“Me?”
“You’ve got to pull in a living from this, right? Put food in your own mouth. Buy an occasional new outfit?”
She shrugged. “In theory. When I started out I was using money left over from double-mortgaging the ranch.”
“You double-mortgaged your home to invest in your ministry?”
“Not really. My primary purpose was to get Vivian through cosmetology school. There was a little money left over, and I used that. The truth is that recently I’ve been tapping into my very limited 401k, which I’d built up before I’d started working at the ranch full-time. I just discovered tonight that it’s completely drained. I’m done. I’ve literally poured every cent I have into this ministry, and I have failed at finding a way to keep it going.” Her sentence ended with a sob that wrenched Griff’s heart.
He chucked her on the chin, forcing her to meet his gaze. “Not yet, you haven’t. It sounds to me like all you need is to find some new investors.”
“I’ve tried. But I guess I’m really not any good at asking people for money. At one point I had a few ministry sponsors—I hesitate to call them investors—but most of them have dropped off, what with the economy being what it is. I’m not sure what role I played in the failure, if maybe I wasn’t as good as I should have been at providing updates and the like, or I didn’t say the right things. The teens take up most of my time, and the paperwork—” She paused and gestured toward her desk. “Well, you can see how behind I am on that mess. Before you say it, hiring a personal assistant is out of the question.”
“Right. Back to finances again.”
She groaned and scrubbed her palms against her eyes. “The story of my life. Literally. I really hate money.”
“I may be able to help you.”
She glanced up, her glassy-eyed gaze displaying a shimmer of hope before they dimmed. She nibbled at her bottom lip and shook her head. “I didn’t share my story to get something from you. I know you… That is…” She sighed instead of finishing her statement. “I’ll figure it out. There must be some way out of this mess. I just need to spend more time on my knees praying about it and to look for God’s answers.”
Right. God’s answers. Because, of course, God had time to listen to the prayers of a simple country girl.
Griff knew better. God was too busy to answer the prayers of mere mortals. How many times had he called out to God as a youth? God hadn’t listened then. There was no reason to suppose He would bother now. Alexis was wasting her time.
“God helps those who help themselves,” he reminded her.
She chuckled drily. “That isn’t in the Bible, you know.”
“It isn’t?”
“Nope. I don’t know who made that saying up, and I personally wouldn’t want to try living my life without knowing I can rely on God’s help, no matter what.”
Griff’s jaw tightened. The only thing that kept him from snapping at her was the fact that she was already upset and he didn’t want to make it worse by spouting off his opinions on the subject of divine intervention.
“All I can do is keep doing what I do best, which is work with the teenagers, and let God handle the rest of it.”
How’s that working out for you? He wouldn’t ask that question out loud, but it riled him nonetheless.
“But you have a plan?” he prompted. Surely she was going to do something, not just pray about it.
“Not really. As I said, I’m not good at asking for money. And I don’t have time to travel all over the countryside making presentations, even if I was good at that kind of thing. Which I’m not.”
“What about a loan? Family? Friends?”
“No one around here is particularly well-to-do, and even if they were, I wouldn’t dream of taking advantage of loved ones that way.”
He’d never had loved ones, so he wouldn’t know. He shrugged noncommittally and glanced away.
“I’ll deal with it,” she promised with a shaky laugh. “The cup is half full until it’s not, right?”
“If you say so.” He wasn’t convinced.
“I do. And I need to concentrate on what I can do. Take care of my teenagers. If this is the last group I’ll be able to help then I want to do all I can for them. The real work starts tomorrow. They’ll learn all kinds of exciting skills useful in ranching. You’re always welcome to join in. Anytime you want, okay?”
“Okay,” he agreed, knowing even as he acknowledged her offer that he’d never take her up on it. Yes, he needed to learn everything he could about the ranching lifestyle, but he wasn’t about to hang out with a bunch of juvenile delinquents, no matter how redeemable Alexis believed them to be.
Just one more fact in a long line of them that Alexis didn’t need to know.
* * *
Griff shrugged on a new burgundy-colored Western shirt and snapped it up, then tucked the tails into his blue jeans. Country comfort beat suits and ties by a mile. These new clothes fit him and his new lifestyle—or what would be his life, once he was settled. Now all he needed was to buy a couple of horses and set himself up on a nice little patch of land.
Despite Alexis’s offer, he had no intention of spending any time at Redemption Ranch observing her with the teenagers. He couldn’t think of anything that would bring more discomfort to him. The sooner he scouted out his new land and made his purchase, the sooner he could walk away from this ranch—and Alexis—for good.
The sooner, the better, as far as he was concerned.
Staying here was messing with his head. He’d promised himself he wouldn’t get involved in another person’s problems ever again. He was dealing with enough issues of his own—a whole slew of nasty stuff that would take a lifetime to conquer. But then he’d butted his head in where it didn’t belong with Devon, and had effectively broken his own promise to himself. As if that wasn’t bad enough, ever since Alexis had opened up to him the night before, he couldn’t seem to put her out of his mind.
Not his problem.
Except for the fact that he could help her.
As if that counted for anything.
He dabbed his fingers into his hair gel and jammed them through the thick, unruly tips of his hair. As usual, it was difficult to tame. Just as his emotions were right now. He couldn’t stop thinking about Alexis. He had to stop thinking about her.
He hadn’t had much experience dealing with ministry-type organizations, but how different could it really be? He was a venture capitalist. His skill set lent itself to finding people to support ideas. If anything, the fact that Alexis’s program was a ministry ought to make it easier to fund. Religious folks loved to give to a good cause, right? It was all in how it was displayed.
Frankly, Griff couldn’t understand why Alexis was having such a hard time handling that aspect of the program. With her upbeat personality and dynamic good looks, she ought to be raking in the moola with ease. Clearly, her presentation needed a bit of tweaking.
But not by him.
Not. By. Him.
He scowled at his reflection. When was he going to learn to mind his own business? Now would be a good time—before he found himself neck deep in Alexis’s problems and headed for another broken heart.
No. Not for him, thanks.
Not today. Not ever.
He headed out of the bunkhouse, intending to hop in his sports car and scout the neighborhood on his own. If nothing else, getting the lay of the land would possibly help him hone in on what he was really looking for. At the moment his plans were still rather vague. Too much so.
He’d been in a hurry to get out of Houston after Caro had slam-dunked both his personal and professional lives. He wasn’t usually the kind of man who went off half-cocked. He was a planner.
Just look
at what had happened when he’d set his reservations aside and traveled by the seat of his pants. When he’d followed through on his whim to come to Serendipity, he’d ended up as the unexpected and, at least initially, unwelcomed guest of a woman who’d already bitten off far more than she could chew with this flailing ministry of hers. The last thing she needed was to have to deal with him underneath her feet. He was self-aware enough to realize he wasn’t exactly the easiest fellow to get along with—the previous evening’s dinner fiasco being a prime example. Surely, Alexis was wishing Griff would go elsewhere by now, no matter how graciously she treated him to his face.
Jingling his keys in his hand, he exited the bunkhouse and was almost to his little red coupe when he spotted Alexis in the yard. She and the teenagers were huddled in front of the house. From a distance, he couldn’t see what they were looking at, but whatever it was, it was clearly holding their interest, and they certainly sounded animated. The excited muddle of voices and occasional exclamation easily reached his ears.
He pressed the button on the key fob that unlocked his car. It chirped in response, drawing Alexis’s attention. She waved and he returned the gesture—he didn’t want to appear rude, after all. He hadn’t expected her to signal for him to join them, but her gesture was impossible to ignore.
He hesitated. He’d promised himself he’d simply avoid the teenagers and their drama. Problem solved. But then Alexis laughed and gestured again. Whatever stress had been weighing her down the night before seemed to have dissipated. He envied her the ability to put her problems aside so easily. The light in her eyes was contagious. He supposed it wouldn’t hurt for him to say hello and have a quick look at what was going on up there at the front of the house.
As he approached, he caught a glimpse of what he hadn’t been able to see from his car. Around the front of the house was a man in a sheriff’s uniform, a woman casually dressed in jeans and a cotton pullover and a couple of large black dogs of different breeds.
What were the police doing here? Had he misread Alexis’s expression? Had she been ushering him over because she was distressed? Had one of the kids gotten into some more serious trouble?
His gaze traveled over the group of teenagers until it settled on Devon, who was slouched against the porch railing, methodically scuffing his combat boots into the dirt at his feet. No one, not the cop or anyone else, appeared to be paying any particular attention to the boy, which for once was a good thing.
Griff released his breath. He didn’t know why he’d immediately assumed it might be Devon who was in trouble. Perhaps it was because Griff had encountered one or two scuffles with the law when he was about Devon’s age.
He was glad he was wrong, and a little annoyed with himself that it had been Devon who’d immediately popped into his mind with the possibility of trouble. He knew from experience that the other two boys were just as likely, if not more likely, to have initiated some kind of disturbance.
“What’s all this?” he asked as he reached Alexis’s side. He lowered his voice so that the teens wouldn’t hear him. “Not a problem going on here, I hope.”
“What?” Her eyes widened, filled with confusion. Then she giggled. “Oh, you mean Eli. He’s only wearing his uniform to put a little bit of the fear of God into the kids—lets them know right off the bat that I have friends in high places.”
Griff quirked a grin. “Wise man.”
“It doesn’t hurt my cause,” Alexis admitted with a knowing smile. She pointed to the woman at the sheriff’s side. “His wife, Mary, is one of my best friends. She trains K9s for local police departments. Eli and his dog Bullet were her first trainees.”
“Her husband was her first client? How does that work?”
“Well, he wasn’t her husband at the time.” Alexis laughed. “They fell in love during the process. Isn’t that romantic?”
“Very,” Griff agreed, suppressing his skepticism. Mary and Eli appeared happy, but for how long? Romance was nothing more than a ruse, a way for people to get what they wanted—which wasn’t love. Not in the long term, anyway.
Griff wandered nearer to where Devon was standing and silently observed as Eli and Mary demonstrated some basic commands with their dogs. He had to admit the process was interesting to watch, a fascinating glimpse into K9 training. Eli hid a tennis ball and allowed Bullet to sniff it out, then cracked the teenagers up when he showed the face he’d drawn onto the orange ball with a felt-tipped pen.
“Aren’t they just the cutest couple?” Alexis gushed, moving closer to Griff’s side and pressing his forearm. Griff suppressed the urge to gag, but thankfully Alexis didn’t appear to notice Griff’s aversion to the conversation. “And they’re so sweet taking time out of their busy schedules to work with my kids. It’s become sort of a tradition now that whenever a new batch of teenagers arrives, they come over and do a little demonstration with their dogs. You can see how the K9s hold everyone’s interest.”
Which was mostly true. The teens were surprisingly open with the dogs, if not the sheriff and his wife.
All except for one.
Devon.
The young man couldn’t have appeared less interested in the scene in front of him. He didn’t even look at the dogs, much less interact with them. He just stared at the ground as if he were willing a chasm to open and swallow him.
Griff could relate.
He laid a hand on Alexis’s arm and nodded toward Devon. “Not all the kids,” he whispered in a voice meant only for her ears. He led her a few feet away from where the boy was standing.
The smile dropped from Alexis’s lips but quickly returned. “Give him a little more time to adjust to these new surroundings,” she whispered back. “We’ll get him where he needs to go. He’ll be fine.”
“Will he?” Griff’s voice was low and coarse. For boys like Devon, there was no such thing as fine.
“Of course he will. Some kids just take a little longer to work things out than others do. He’ll come around eventually.” Her smile was sincere, and Griff realized she believed her own rhetoric. “Don’t worry, Griff. I have my eye on Devon. I have every intention of showering him with the extra love and attention he clearly needs.”
Was that how it worked? Why she was successful rehabilitating the teens?
Love and attention.
Two words so far out of Griff’s realm of experience that it was next to impossible for him to even begin to comprehend what Alexis did here at Redemption Ranch.
“Trust me,” she assured him.
He didn’t dare. Not even with all of the kindness she’d showed to him and the teenagers in her care.
Run, Devon, he thought, his pulse escalating despite his best efforts to tamp it down. Run, and don’t look back.
Chapter Five
Griff was certainly acting a little strange. Alexis cast a sideways glance at the man standing next to her. He had an odd, unreadable expression on his face and was shifting from foot to foot as if he was about to bolt.
She didn’t understand the man. Whenever they conversed, she always felt as though there was an underlying current to what he was saying that she didn’t get at all.
“Where were you headed in your car?” she asked Griff as Eli and Mary wound up their demonstration.
Griff jingled his keys in his palm. “Nowhere in particular. I thought I’d drive around town a little bit and try to start to get a decent lay of the land. Maybe see if I could connect with that real-estate agent you mentioned to me. Her name was Marge, right?”
“Right. Marge Thompson. Good idea. But before you go looking up Marge, you really ought to speak with Jo Spencer. She owns the Cup O’ Jo Café. I’m sure you saw it when you entered town. Jo will most likely turn out to be a better connection for you in finding your new home than even our official real-estate agent.”
“How so
?”
“When it comes to Serendipity, Jo knows everything about everyone. Folks of all ages gather at the café. The gossip train begins and ends with Jo, and she’s the prime conductor. If anyone is selling their property, or even just mulling it over, Jo will know about it. All you have to do is tell her what you’re looking for and she’ll advise you of your best options right on the spot. Not only that, but she’ll help you in ways you can’t even imagine. You’ll probably get a more accurate reading of what you’re looking for from Jo than you even realize you need right now.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Sounds promising. So then I just stop by the café and ask for Jo?”
Alexis chuckled. “Oh, you won’t have to ask for her. She’ll find you first. Trust me on this one. I would venture to guess that she already knows you’re staying here at the ranch, and possibly already the specifics on the plans for your future.”
“I’m not so sure I like the sound of that,” he admitted, shifting from foot to foot.
Alexis noticed his skittish behavior but waved off his concern. She guessed he was probably just nervous about being discussed by everyone in town. He’d soon realize that every neighbor in Serendipity was simply a friend he hadn’t met yet. “Jo has the largest heart in the county. She’ll be a really good ally for you.”
“Humph,” he grunted. “Anything else I should know before I take off?”
“You know what? If you can wait around for a few more minutes, I’ll go along with you and introduce you to Jo personally. I have a couple of errands I need to run, anyway. We can kill two birds with one stone, so to speak.”