As if he could.
Janie was locking up for the night, and people were slowly heading to their cars and off to wherever they were staying. For some, it was an overcrowded house, with people who had lost everything. And for others, it was a temporary place until they could figure out where they were going next.
Janie came to stand beside him. “Are you ready to go home?”
Home. He wasn’t sure what that word meant anymore. His townhome in Denver was the place he called home, but as he’d interacted with people whose homes had been lost, Alexander had to admit it was just a place to lay his head. The ranch? Ricky had told him it was his home, but he couldn’t feel comfortable there, not with his secret mission in the back of his mind.
But he turned to Janie and said, “Yes. Did you get everything done that you needed to?”
Janie shrugged. “Everything? Not by a long shot. But it’s progress. I’ve got some things I need to bring back to the ranch. Can you help me carry them out to the truck?”
Ricky had let Alexander borrow one of the ranch trucks. His car remained parked next to the church, and while it had survived the fire, the smoke damage was another issue. An insurance adjuster would be by in the coming week to look at it, but until then, it needed to remain where it was because the smoke smell inside was too unbearable to handle. He was glad he’d thought to at least grab his briefcase and wallet. Everything else might be a loss, but he had the most important things for his mission.
“Of course. You know I’m here to help,” Alexander said.
“I just wanted to say—” Janie hesitated, like she was treading on uncertain ground.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” he said.
“You don’t even know what I was going to say.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I know I said I’d do better about accepting praise for my work, but I’m tired, and it’s been a long day.”
She reached over and touched his arm. “I understand. But that’s not entirely what I wanted to talk about. I mean, yes, what you’ve been doing here is a big deal. But I feel bad that you came here for one purpose, and you’ve spent so little time with your family so far. It must be frustrating for you not to get to know them because you’re spending all your time helping me. I wanted you to know how much that sacrifice meant to me.”
Except that he was fulfilling his purpose. That was the part she’d missed. The part he couldn’t tell her.
But even worse was that same light shining in her eyes that he’d seen earlier. He was grateful he was driving, because it would’ve been so easy for him to take her into his arms.
“Maybe it’s not a sacrifice,” he said. “Maybe I’m nervous about being around them and I don’t know what to say or how to feel. And just like all this busywork is keeping you distracted from your feelings about losing your mother, maybe it’s doing the same for me.”
She murmured, as though she agreed. Giving his arm another squeeze, she said, “You don’t have to be afraid of them. Surely by now you’ve seen for yourself what good people they are.”
Yes, but that was the problem. The more he grew to like everyone here, the harder it was to remain focused on a mission that would surely hurt Janie.
“What do you need me to bring out to the truck?” he asked.
He took a step toward the Sunday School area, where they’d been sorting things most of the day, but Janie stopped him.
“At some point, you’re going to have to deal with the difficult emotions about your family.”
Alexander turned to look at her. “And what if that’s not what I’m afraid of? You think you know me, but you don’t. You’re trying so hard to psychoanalyze me and figure me out, but there’s a lot about me you don’t know. Stop trying to fix me. There are so many other things happening right now that you are one hundred percent capable of fixing, but I’m not one of them.”
The wounded look on her face was exactly why he didn’t want to have this conversation. Why every deep conversation with Janie was difficult. He couldn’t share his feelings with her. And he couldn’t let her count on him to share hers.
“You’re right, I don’t know you. There’s so much I don’t know about you, and every time I try to get to know you, you shut me down. I don’t know your favorite color, your favorite food, what you like to do for fun. I don’t even know if you’re married or not.”
Her own words seemed to startle her as she removed her hand from his arm and scooted back on the seat. “Is that it? Are you afraid you’re betraying someone else? If so, you should just tell me.”
He should tell her he was single. Was it possible that something could grow between them, and he could use that to get her to trust him enough to find a solution that would work with the senator?
But doing so would probably ruin his hope of getting to work with the senator in Washington, a plum position for someone with his aspirations. The senator already thought he was falling for Janie, and as a result, he didn’t trust Alexander’s judgment as fully as he should.
Why did this have to be so difficult?
He glanced over Janie, and she scooted away, like she was bracing herself for his rejection.
“I’m not married,” he said. “But I have a life back in Denver. And while I’ve taken time off to be here, at some point I have to go back to my life, my family.”
Her body relaxed slightly. “It’s funny, you never did tell me exactly what you do. You keep dodging the question. Are you a criminal or something?”
Alexander laughed. “I guess it probably seems like that. But no.”
He’d been cagey because he didn’t know how to explain what he did without revealing the truth. But he owed her something.
“I work as an advisor to a wealthy and powerful man. Most of what I do is covered by a nondisclosure agreement, and while I can safely say that I’ve never done anything illegal as part of my job, and neither has my boss, I also have to be careful about what I say because I don’t want to violate that agreement, and I don’t have his permission to talk about it.”
The truth. A freeing thing. Everything he’d just said was true. All of the senator’s employees signed nondisclosure agreements. But he still felt guilty about the parts he could technically tell her, except that it would ruin everything.
“I understand,” she said. “I think. It’s so weird, how until recently I hadn’t heard anything about nondisclosure agreements. And now they seem to be everywhere. It’s like the world is changed, but I haven’t changed with it.”
Was this the opening he’d been looking for?
He turned more toward her and scooted a little bit closer. “I wouldn’t say that. Nondisclosure agreements aren’t all that common. Just when you’re dealing with a secretive line of work. Where else have you heard it recently?”
She hesitated, like she wanted to tell him, so he nodded encouragingly but she shook her head.
“It doesn’t matter. I just...”
For a moment, Janie looked like she was about to cry again. Then she said, “I used to talk to my mom about all these things. Well, not all of them, and that’s what I wish I could take back. I wish I had just been honest with her from the very beginning. Not that I lied. But I’ve kept a lot of secrets. And now that she’s gone and I desperately need someone to talk to who will understand, I feel so alone.”
God hadn’t been one for answering any of the prayers he’d uttered so far, and maybe it was because he still wasn’t sure what he believed in that area, but he knew God loved Janie, so he prayed that his next move wouldn’t be a mistake.
He held an arm out to her. “You don’t have to be alone if you don’t want to. I promise, I won’t judge you for your secrets. Maybe it would be freeing for you to tell the truth to someone who doesn’t have all the past baggage of expectations. I’m here for you, if you’ll let me be.”
S
he took a step toward him, but then she stopped. “Trust goes both ways. I understand you not wanting to violate your nondisclosure agreement. I respect that, and I’m glad you finally explained that to me. But you and I both know there’s a whole lot more that you aren’t opening up to me about. So I’m going to trust you with my secrets, then you have to trust me with yours.”
Janie had him there.
“I can’t,” he said. “There’s so much you don’t understand. I wish I could. If I were to open up to anyone in this world, it would be you. But I can’t.”
Janie nodded slowly. “I understood when you told me you were bound by a nondisclosure agreement. Give me a little credit.”
Could he lay all his cards out about his real reason for being here?
“Maybe we take this one step at a time. I just trusted you with something that I haven’t told anyone else here. Maybe you can trust me with just one of your secrets.”
For a moment, she looked like she was considering his idea. “All of my secrets revolve around one big one. And I’m not ready to share that, with you or anyone.”
Alexander took a deep breath. “Is it about Sam’s father?”
She stared at him, a shocked expression on her face. “What makes you say that?”
He shrugged. “Because you shut down every time it comes up. Why are you so afraid to reveal who he is?”
Janie bit her lip, hesitation in her eyes. “When I told him I was keeping the baby, he threatened me. He didn’t want to be a father, and when I tried to appeal to his family for help, they made it clear they wanted nothing to do with Sam or me. They threatened me that if I ever revealed who Sam’s father was, they would destroy me.”
That wasn’t exactly how the senator had said how it went. And if Janie was so afraid of them, why was she blackmailing them?
“Why do you think they would destroy you?”
The fear in her eyes was real as she responded, “Because they said so. That’s where I heard about the nondisclosure agreement recently. They want me to sign one, preventing me from ever saying who Sam’s father is.”
Now they were getting somewhere. “Why don’t you?” he asked. “It’s not like you told anyone. Are they offering anything in exchange for your signature?”
Janie nodded. “A lot of money, actually. When I said no, they told me to name my price. I don’t even know what I would do with the money they offered me, let alone more.”
Was it going to be this easy? “So why not take it? People were talking about how the community center was losing its funding, so you weren’t going to have a part-time job anymore, and with the elementary school burning down... Well, you haven’t complained about your circumstances, but based on what everyone else is saying about their situation, it’s not hard to glean that things are going to be very difficult for you. It seems like a no-brainer to take the offer, especially if it’s so much money.”
The look Janie gave him could have melted everything the fire didn’t. “You don’t get it,” she said. “I don’t want anything from him. He’s made it clear where we stand, and it feels wrong to take anything from him now. I get that he wants to buy me off. But I refuse to put a price on my integrity.”
She pointed at a stack of boxes. “Those need to go to the ranch. Hopefully it will supplement the things people got from the Red Cross.”
A stuffed bunny peeked out from the top of one of the boxes. Once again, Alexander thought about how much everyone had lost, and how precious such a small item would be to a child.
He understood the value of integrity. It was something he held dear, and the more time he spent with Janie, the more he understood how important it was to her. Which was why they were both here, gathering items like this toy so that people who’d lost so much could find hope.
Where was the hope for them in this situation?
“I understand the idea of not compromising your integrity,” Alexander said. “But I also believe that a father should support his child. If it’s true that Sam’s father has never paid a dime of child support, don’t you think you could at least accept that?”
Janie sighed, but he didn’t know if it was out of frustration that he was pushing the issue, or if maybe she was starting to break.
“For years, I’d hoped for child support. I would have done anything to get him to pay something. I even thought it would be nice for him to have a relationship with Sam. I didn’t have money for a lawyer, and when my letters to him were returned unopened, I figured this was God’s way of telling me to let it go. God has fought my battles for me, and I will continue to let him do so.”
The hesitation in her voice made him wonder if that’s what she believed, or if it was what she’d been telling herself to make excuses for Bucky’s actions.
“And what if this is God’s way of providing? Maybe God knew that you were going to lose everything, including your job, and he gave this to you as a gift?”
Janie shook her head. “I don’t think so. It’s dirty money. The only reason he’s offering it to me is because he wants me to sign a paper saying I will never reveal who Sam’s father is. Sam already has so many questions, but he’s too young to understand the answers. He deserves to hear the truth someday.”
On one hand, she had a point. Alexander knew that under the terms of the agreement, Janie was prohibited from telling Sam who his father was. The senator didn’t want the boy coming out of the woodwork sometime in the future, when he had more at stake, and ruining everything for the senator.
But on the other hand, it wasn’t like the senator would ever acknowledge Sam or have a relationship with him. It seemed silly to pass up money for something that was going to happen anyway.
“So tell him the truth. Tell him that his father didn’t want anything to do with him, and he didn’t want his identity revealed.”
Janie shook her head. “I can’t take away his right to the truth. That doesn’t sound fair. Think about what you’re going through. How it felt to realize you’d been lied to all this time. How hurtful would it be for him to know that I sold out his right to the truth?”
He hadn’t thought of it that way. But he wasn’t asking Janie to lie to Sam.
“That’s different. You haven’t lied to him. And surely it would be better for you to be the one to tell him that his father wants nothing to do with him than for him to show up on his doorstep and be rejected.”
“Maybe,” Janie said. “But I can’t take that choice away from him. You made the choice to find your biological family, even though you had a family who loved you. You came here even though it made your family angry, and your brother has chosen not to do the same. Who knows what will happen if Sam decides he wants to meet his father fifteen, twenty years down the line? Maybe his father will be more receptive. Or maybe he won’t. While he’s a child, I can make decisions for him, but I need the door open for him to choose when he’s an adult.”
Alexander couldn’t see a world in which the senator or Bucky would want anything to do with Sam. They already felt so strongly about that. Sam represented a mistake that the family would not and could not acknowledge. It would ruin the senator’s career. But he couldn’t tell her that.
The strained look on Janie’s face told Alexander he’d pushed too far. Too hard.
“I’m sorry,” Alexander said. “I just thought maybe it would be a possible solution to your financial troubles.”
Janie’s expression softened. “I know. You spent the past few days fixing everyone else’s problems, so you would naturally want to help with mine. But trust me, it’s not the solution.”
She hesitated, then continued. “Please don’t tell anyone about this. You’re the only person I’ve told about the nondisclosure agreement, and this is the most I’ve told anyone about Sam’s father. It’s not something I talk about.”
The vulnerability on her face convinced him there was n
o way she could be blackmailing the senator. He held his arms out to her. “I won’t. Thank you for trusting me.” But the words felt hollow in his heart. This was what he’d been trying to do all along. Get her to trust him about Sam’s father. Give him the opportunity to convince her to sign the nondisclosure agreement. But hearing the conviction in her voice and the pain in her words, he wasn’t sure this was the right thing to do anymore.
Someone was blackmailing the senator, that he knew for sure.
But if not Janie, then who? And how? He’d seen the documentation. While he wanted to believe there was a rational explanation, he couldn’t come up with one. And as Janie moved to accept his hug, Alexander wondered whose side he was on anymore.
The senator could do good things for the country, for everyone. But Alexander disagreed with how he was handling the Janie situation, especially now that Alexander had gotten to know her.
So who was he supposed to betray? His country? Or the woman he was growing to care for more and more every day?
Chapter Seven
Janie had thought that unburdening herself about Sam’s father would make her feel better. But since her drive with Alexander a couple of days ago, she’d only felt more unsettled. Was he right? As she trudged out of the high school from the impromptu board meeting to determine what they were going to do with the children from the elementary school, her friend Erin came up to her and put her arm around her. “I’m so sorry about your job,” she said. “It doesn’t seem fair that you have to lose it.”
The school board had decided the elementary school children would have classes at the high school. They’d combined various classrooms, and would be using some older, unused space to accommodate everyone for the time being.
Janie shrugged. “It wasn’t unexpected. Even though they need aides in some of the classes at the high school, there isn’t enough room for all of us. I get it. They promised that once the new elementary school is built, those of us being let go will have first priority on the jobs.”
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