Love Inspired August 2014 – Bundle 1 of 2
Page 22
“All right. I’ll see you Saturday morning.” Clara turned and hurried back the way they had come, but instead of going home, she stopped at the bend in the road that led to Ethan’s farm.
She rubbed her damp palms on the sides of her dress. What reason would she give for returning? She could hardly tell a man she’d just met that she feared he beat his children. Even if she saw him punishing Micah, what right did she have to interfere? None.
Yet how could she stand by and do nothing? It was partly her fault the boy was in trouble. If only she knew what was happening to the child.
Ethan might be a kind and fair guardian. Her Amish faith dictated that she see only the good in every man until shown otherwise. She certainly had no business suspecting Ethan Gingerich of evil, but she had to know that Micah was all right. Her life and her sister’s lives might have been so much better if someone had cared enough to check on them.
None of them had admitted their abuse to anyone. They had been too ashamed to speak of it. Only her sister Lizzie had been strong enough to break the pattern by running away. She found a wonderful home for them with their grandfather. She freed them all and saved Clara from being forced to marry an odious man.
She shuddered at the thought of what her life might have been like without her sister’s bravery. God put more courage in Lizzie’s little finger than Clara had in her whole body.
She glanced at the cornfield separating her from Ethan’s home. She might not be brave, but a child’s welfare could be at stake. She couldn’t turn away from that.
Gathering what small courage she possessed, Clara moved off the road and into the cornfield beside the lane. The tall green stalks would hide her from view. If her suspicions were groundless, Ethan need never know she had come back to check on him.
The corn patch ended a few dozen yards from the back of the house. With her heart pounding in her throat, she ran across the open strip of grass and flattened herself against the back wall of the house. Had she been seen? She waited for sounds of discovery.
It was the height of summer, so the windows were all open to catch the slightest breeze. She heard the sound of voices coming from the window near the north corner of the building. Ducking low, she passed beneath one window and stopped under the next. Two more steps would put her beside the front porch. She thought the kitchen must be on the other side of the wall where she crouched.
“I’m asking for an explanation, Micah. Now’s your chance to set the record straight.”
Only silence followed Ethan’s words. She strained to hear Micah’s reply.
“What were you thinking?”
Clara nearly jumped out of her skin. Ethan had moved to stand beside the window where she was hunkering. He was directly above her. She squeezed her eyes shut and tried not to breathe.
Please, Lord, don’t let him see me.
Finally, she heard heavy footsteps moving away, followed by the scrape of a chair across the floor. She took a badly needed breath. Ethan said, “Micah, what am I to do with you?”
“Are you going to send me away?”
It was the first she had heard from the boy. He didn’t sound as if he was in pain, but she heard the worry under his words.
“Nee.”
“Because no one wants me?”
“Why do you say that?”
“I overheard Great Aenti May say that she would take Lily if Great Aenti Carol would take Amos. Neither of them wanted to take me.”
Clara pressed a hand to her lips. The poor child. To know he wasn’t wanted had to hurt deeply.
Ethan cleared his throat. “I’m not sending any of you away. Your papa wanted all of you to stay together. Your actions today show your disrespect for his memory more clearly than words. How would he feel if Mrs. Lapp came to him to complain you injured one of her animals? Your papa loved animals.”
Why didn’t Ethan tell the boy he wanted him? It was what the child needed to hear. Clara knew how it felt to be unwanted and unloved. Her heart broke for Micah.
“I reckon I’d get a spanking for what I did.”
“I reckon you would if he was here. Go to your room and think on how disappointed he would be with you. Send your brother and your sister down. You will sit and reflect alone and in silence.”
“They aren’t upstairs.”
“Are you sure?”
“I checked before you came in.”
“Where are they?” Ethan demanded.
“I don’t know.”
A chair scraped again. “Lily! Amos! Where are you?” There was an edge of panic in Ethan’s voice. She heard his boots pounding up the stairs inside.
He wasn’t going to beat Micah. She’d put herself in this foolish position for nothing. Now was her chance to leave, but what if he looked out one of the upstairs windows and saw her running across the lawn? Should she risk it? Could she make the cornfield before she was spotted?
Suddenly, she heard a childish giggle that was quickly smothered. It came from under the porch. Clara noticed a small opening in the latticework where the porch met the house. Looking through the gap, she saw a little girl of about four sitting cross-legged in the dirt with her hands clasped over her mouth. A boy a little older was seated behind her.
Taking her hands away from her mouth, the little girl pouted. “Oh, you found us.”
“What are you doing under there?” Clara whispered. She could hear Ethan calling for them from the upstairs.
“We’re playing hide-and-seek. We’re hiding from Onkel Ethan.”
That was exactly what Clara wanted to do. She heard his footsteps pound down the stairs. Now was her chance to run. “Micah, check out back,” he yelled.
No! If Micah was out back, she couldn’t pass him without being seen, and he was certain to recognize her.
In a few seconds, Ethan would be on the front porch. He was sure to check along this side of the house. He would find her snooping like a thief outside his home. How would she explain herself?
She couldn’t. There was only one choice.
She smiled at the two children and pleaded, “May I join your game?”
They nodded. She quickly wiggled into the opening and held her breath as the front door banged open above her.
Copyright © 2014 by Patricia MacDonald
ISBN-13: 9781460337424
HIS MONTANA SWEETHEART
Copyright © 2014 by Harlequin S.A.
Special thanks and acknowledgment to Ruth Logan Herne for her contribution to the Big Sky Centennial miniseries.
All rights reserved. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental. This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
® and ™ are trademarks of the publisher. Trademarks indicated with ® are registered are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the Canadian Intellectual Property Office and in other countries.
www.Harlequin.com
The Courage To Hope
Guidance counselor Heather Browning is desperate. She needs a mentor to help Simon, a disabled student wh
o is struggling at Gordon Falls High School. Unfortunately, hotshot Max Jones is her only option. Confrontational and cavalier, Max uses his flashy persona to hide the bitterness he’s felt since his life-changing accident. Perpetually cautious, Heather finds Max’s bad-boy bravado as intriguing as it is infuriating. But as Heather and Max work together to build Simon’s self-confidence, they begin to trust each other. Max has never been slow and careful with anything. Can he be gentle with Heather’s heart?
Gordon Falls: Hearts ablaze in a small town.
“Have dinner with me.”
Her jaw clenched—he hadn’t even framed it as a question. “No.” She gave the word all the finality she could muster.
“Because of the chair?”
“Not because of the chair, because we are currently working together on a school matter.”
He leaned back. “It’s because of the chair.”
Heather planted her hands on the table. “It’s because of the arrogant, pushy man in the chair.” She let out a breath and began putting the notebook back into her handbag. “I was just trying to be nice, to celebrate all the good you’ve done with Simon, but I should have known it’d get like this. I’ll walk back to school, thanks.”
Max put his hands up. “Okay, okay. I’ll take it down a notch. Let’s have pie and coffee and talk about Simon, and I’ll keep my dinner plans with Alex and JJ and pretend this never happened.”
She glared at him. “You were going to ditch Alex and JJ for dinner?”
“Well, not really. I was pretty sure you’d say no.”
Heather put one hand to her forehead. “You are absolutely impossible. You should come with a warning label.”
Books by Allie Pleiter
Love Inspired
My So-Called Love Life
The Perfect Blend
*Bluegrass Hero
*Bluegrass Courtship
*Bluegrass Blessings
*Bluegrass Christmas
Easter Promises
*“Bluegrass Easter”
†Falling for the Fireman
†The Fireman’s Homecoming
†The Firefighter’s Match
†A Heart to Heal
Love Inspired Historical
Masked by Moonlight
Mission of Hope
Yukon Wedding
Homefront Hero
Family Lessons
The Lawman’s Oklahoma Sweetheart
Love Inspired Single Title
Bad Heiress Day
Queen Esther & the Second Graders of Doom
*Kentucky Corners
†Gordon Falls
ALLIE PLEITER
Enthusiastic but slightly untidy mother of two, RITA® Award finalist Allie Pleiter writes both fiction and nonfiction. An avid knitter and unreformed chocoholic, she spends her days writing books, drinking coffee and finding new ways to avoid housework. Allie grew up in Connecticut, holds a B.S. in speech from Northwestern University and spent fifteen years in the field of professional fund-raising. She lives with her husband, children and a Havanese dog named Bella in the suburbs of Chicago, Illinois.
A HEART TO HEAL
Allie Pleiter
The light shines in the darkness,
and the darkness has not overcome it.
—John 1:5
To Jeff
And he knows why
Acknowledgments
Some stories beg relentlessly to be told, even if it poses a challenge. My thanks to Erin Kinahan for sharing her experience of life in a wheelchair with me, and for the ongoing assistance of Dr. David Chen from the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago for his medical expertise. I also owe a debt of thanks to author and wheelchair rugby star Mark Zupan for his frank and compelling memoir, Gimp, which helped me to understand Max’s experience. If any of the medical or disability facts of this book are incorrect, the fault lies with me and not with any of these generous experts.
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Epilogue
Dear Reader
Questions for Discussion
Excerpt
Chapter One
High school guidance counselor Heather Browning was twenty minutes into The Backup Plan and regretting it already.
Principal Margot Thomas seemed to agree. “That’s who you called to help Simon?”
Simon Williams, the frail but brilliant freshman boy who was Heather’s biggest concern this year, had already become the target of a senior thug. “It’s still August. We’re two days into the school year,” Heather admitted. “I thought I’d have more time than this to get Simon settled before anyone bothered him.” But that wasn’t the way it had turned out. Her initial goal—help Simon find some friends who would be protective camouflage against getting noticed by bullies—hadn’t worked fast enough.
The principal looked out the school window at that “backup plan” as he appeared in the parking lot. A boxy black car with flames painted on the side pulled into the handicapped-accessible parking space. Max Jones had arrived.
“This afternoon at lunch, Jason Kikowitz decided Simon was sitting too close to the ‘varsity table.’ Evidently he grabbed the back of Simon’s wheelchair and spun him around, knocking most of Simon’s books out of his backpack.”
“Sounds like our Kikowitz,” Margot commiserated. “I’ll be glad when that boy graduates—if he graduates.”
“Simon spun around fast enough to whack Jason in the shins with the footrest of his wheelchair. It must’ve hurt, because evidently Jason hopped around on one foot and swore a blue streak in front of the lunch monitor.”
Margot gave the sigh of the weary. “Lovely.”
“At least it gave Simon a chance to get away. For now. You know Kikowitz,” Heather explained, feeling less and less sure of her course of action. “He’s likely to lay into Simon every day this week, even if I give him twenty detentions.”
The older woman looked at Heather with determination in her eyes. “You know I’ll back you up on those even if Coach Mullen gives me grief.”
Heather was grateful for Margot Thomas every single day. The principal was an outstanding administrator who cared enough to address problems head-on, even when it meant things got sticky. “Thanks, but you and I both know detentions don’t stop Kikowitz. What we need is help for Simon, and the assistance agency couldn’t come through with a proper mentor until next month. We don’t have that long, so I called JJ.” JJ was Heather’s friend and Max’s sister. And Max Jones, or “Hot Wheels,” as a local magazine had dubbed him during their coverage of his highly publicized injury and recovery, was quite possibly the last thing Simon Williams needed. Even if he was the only other resident of Gordon Falls who used a wheelchair, Max seemed to be everything Heather didn’t want Simon to be rolled up into one defiant renegade.
The foolishness of calling on him struck her anew as she spied the HTWELZ2 license plate on the car. “Help me, Margot. I need wisdom and calm and I recruit
ed a rolling tornado. Tell him I’ve been called into a meeting and that we don’t need a mentor anymore. I’ve made a huge mistake, and I don’t want Simon to pay for it.”
Margot leaned back against the windowsill. “I won’t tell him any such thing. I think I want to see how this turns out.”
“I don’t.” Heather rested her forehead in her open hand.
Together Heather and Margot watched Max perform the complicated task of extracting his wheelchair—black with flames on it that matched his car—and settling himself into it. He was athletic, graceful even, and managed to look casual, as if the process were no more taxing than tying a shoe. He wore blue jeans, expensive sneakers and a gray T-shirt with the words Ramp it up, baby running across his chest. It was easy to see that his shoulders and biceps carried most of his weight—his arms were toned and outdoor tan. His large hands boasted black leather driving gloves, and his mussed dirty-blond hair framed a strong face. Heather thought he needed a shave, not to mention a haircut and probably half a dozen diplomacy lessons. “Honestly,” she told her boss as Max started toward the ramp that led up the stairs to the school entrance, “that guy looks a far cry from an appropriate mentor for an impressionable teenager.”
“He’s a key executive at Adventure Access, which is supposed to be a fast-rising company in the adaptive recreation business. If they put faith in him,” offered the principal, sounding as if she was grasping at straws and not a little bit amused, “maybe he’s not as bad as...he looks.”
“Oh, I expect he’s worse,” Heather moaned. JJ’s husband, Alex Cushman, ran that fast-rising adaptive recreation company and had drafted Max as their spokesperson and development consultant. It wasn’t hard to see why. Max Jones had been so handsome, daring, arrogant and flamboyant before he’d injured himself that he’d been chosen for a nationally televised reality television show featuring adventure sports. As cruel chance would have it, he’d gotten hurt on that TV show during a risky night climb. Yet looking at him now, it seemed as if his disability barely slowed him down.