“We advance to the finals after dinner!” Simon pumped his fists into the air. Max gave him a high five, enjoying the boy’s enthusiasm. It was clear the boy felt less stress here than at school.
“I’m too old for this,” complained a grandfatherly type Max recognized as George Bradens, the retired fire chief and Clark’s father.
“Aw, c’mon, Chief—you used to be full of hot air,” another man Max vaguely knew from the firehouse kidded George. Max had fun watching the two tease each other. His own dad was always so serious and task oriented—Max could have never invited his father to something so raucous as Friends Night. Max found it a pleasant surprise to know that, at least at Gordon Falls Community Church, “spiritual” didn’t always have to mean “serious.”
“Hey,” Simon pointed out, “Ms. Browning is here.”
Sure enough, Heather sat down at a dinner table with a gaggle of high school girls. “She didn’t mention she was coming,” he replied, trying to keep the warmth of her tender kiss from creeping into his voice. He hadn’t seen her since that night, and the memory flashed through him as he watched her laugh at something. She was really getting to him.
“She shows up for dinner a lot. She’s like an adviser or something.”
During dinner, Max tried to keep up a conversation with Simon and meet his friends while at the same time he could feel Heather in the room with him. He would sense her gaze and look up from spaghetti or chocolate pudding to find her eyes across the room. It was as if the world were moving on two different levels—one with Heather and one with everyone else. He couldn’t decide if the sensation was unnerving or exhilarating. Maybe even both—a whole new thrill for this consummate thrill-seeker.
He was elated when Team Si-Max took first place in the air-ball finals, winning an absurd trophy fashioned from tinfoil-covered paper cups. “Our champions!” Heather beamed, giving Simon a quick hug and Max one that lasted just a bit longer. Max was starting to find the scent in her hair downright addictive. From the flush in her cheeks as she stepped away, he was starting to have the same effect on her. “So, how are you enjoying Friends Night?”
“It’s not at all what I expected,” Max admitted.
Simon launched a superior look at Max. “Told you it’d be fun.”
“You did. And you were right. Try not to lord it over me, okay?”
“I dunno.” Simon’s face lit up in the smirk that was quickly stealing Max’s affections. “That’d be hard.” He looked at Heather. “I need something to drink after all that huffing. Want anything?”
“I’m okay. I’ll supervise Max while you’re gone—just so you don’t worry.” Max had always found sparkling such an overdone description for a woman’s eyes, but the word sure fit tonight.
“Yeah,” Simon said as he headed off toward a tub of ice filled with bottles of root beer. “He can’t be trusted.”
“Funny.” Heather sighed as Simon wheeled off to join some friends. “I told Mrs. Williams just the opposite Thursday morning.”
Max’s mood lost some of its joviality. “Convinced I was behind Simon’s escape, was she?”
“I think she’s just trying to figure out who this new Simon is and whether or not the changes she’s seeing are a good thing. Don’t fault her for her suspicion. I’ve got files of stories of teens led down wrong paths by the very adults who were supposed to be helping them.”
Suddenly, it was crucial that he know. “Do you think I’m helping Simon?”
“I do, and that’s exactly what I told her. I think the fact that Simon felt he could come to you kept him from making a far worse decision Wednesday night.” She tucked her hands into her pockets, and Max knew why. The urge to reach out and touch her was so strong, but this wasn’t the time or the place. Max Jones erring on the side of discretion. It was a wonder the world didn’t tilt in alarm. “Yes.” She sighed the word in a way that spread a cheesy but wonderful glow in Max’s chest. “You are helping Simon more than probably either of us will ever know. Will you cringe if I call you an answer to a prayer?”
Max had been called a lot of things in his day, but never that. “Yeah, I will. But go ahead.”
* * *
Heather could barely contain the bubbly joy she felt watching Max and Simon say good-night as the evening’s victors. There was no formal reason for Heather to be there tonight. As a youth-group adviser, she was welcome at any of the Sunday night youth-group events, and she’d wanted to watch Max discover how much fun church could be. Her heart was in a dangerous place with Max: if things were going to move forward, she wanted to know faith was becoming a part of his life. The way he looked tonight—laughing and cracking jokes and meeting people—that was as much a gift as his exquisite kiss. Am I ready to trust him with my heart? Has Max healed enough to be slow and careful with it? Or will I be hurt again?
“Hey there.”
Heather turned to find Melba Bradens. “Hi. Your father-in-law sure had a good time tonight.”
Melba’s sigh reminded Heather it had barely been two weeks since Mort’s funeral. “It’s good to be silly after all that other stuff.”
“How are you feeling?” Heather touched Melba’s arm. “Is it still really hard?”
“Yes.” Melba blinked back a few tears. “And no.” She smiled. “I wanted you to hear it from me.”
“Hear what?”
Melba’s hand slid to her stomach. “I’m pregnant. A little girl. In March.”
Heather wrapped Melba in a huge hug. “Oh, that’s wonderful. Really wonderful.” She pushed the woman to arm’s length. “You don’t even show. I mean, you do—you look wonderful. Did—” she was almost afraid to ask “—did your father know?”
Now a tear slid down Melba’s face. “We told him.” She laughed and swiped the tear away. “Actually, I think we had to tell him about twelve times, but I’m positive it sunk in.”
“That’s so sweet. What did he say?”
“He asked if we could call her Maria after my mom. He actually laughed and said he was glad it was a girl because he’d feel bad asking us to give anyone a name like Mort.” She sniffled. “I would have, you know? Well, okay, maybe as a middle name, but I would have.”
Heather squeezed Melba’s hand. “So it’ll be Maria Bradens?”
Another tear escaped to slide down Melba’s cheek, and Heather felt her own eyes brim over with the bittersweet balance of it all. “Clark gets to choose the middle name, and he hasn’t done that yet, but yes.” She managed a damp laugh. “He made a joke about Morticia the other day, though, so I know he’s working on it.”
Heather leaned in. “So, how many pairs of baby booties have you knit?”
Melba winced. “Six. It was the only thing I could do until I could tell everyone. I’ve knit dozens of baby booties before, but in a way I feel like I’ve been waiting my whole life to knit my baby’s booties. That’s kind of sick when you think about it, isn’t it?”
“Not at all. Congratulations. I’m so happy for you and Clark.” One of the reasons Heather wanted to learn to knit from Melba was so that someday she would be able to do exactly what Melba was doing. It had always stung her that she’d never found the time to let Grannie Annie teach her to knit before the wonderful old woman had passed on. How many pairs of socks had Grannie Annie knit for her as her leg was healing? Families were where healing was born. How life went on. Heather hoped that when God gave her a family of her own, she’d glow just as much as the woman smiling in front of her.
“So what about you and Max Jones? Don’t think I didn’t notice the way he looks at you. And let’s just say your dinner at The Black Swan didn’t go unnoticed.”
Some days it seemed as if nothing in Gordon Falls was ever private. Not to mention how impossible it was to blend in beside Max. Heather wasn’t quite sure she w
as ready to be that public about Max, even to a friend like Melba. “He’s doing wonderfully with Simon.”
Melba leaned back against the wall and crossed her arms over her chest. “That’s not what I asked.”
Heather felt her face heat up. “Well, maybe there’s something there, but...”
“Oh, there’s something there all right.” Melba’s eyes were kind behind the teasing.
Heather simply pushed out a breath and shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t really know yet. Parts of him are so amazing. But he’s wild and loud.”
“Well, you know what they say about opposites.” Melba cocked her head to one side, offering a smile. “Maybe you’ll be perfect for each other.” She looked into the room, where Max was telling some rousing and evidently funny tale to an audience of teens. “The kids love him. That’s always a good sign, right?”
“Not if it’s because he’s just a great big kid himself.” Mr. Williams had said something to that effect after lambasting Max for aiding and abetting Simon’s escape.
Melba gave a small hum. “Maybe you should get your eyes checked, because that is most certainly a man. A handsome man who can’t seem to stop staring at you.”
“I just need to be more...sure...than I am now. It’s going to take time, and Max doesn’t strike me as the patient type.”
“So give it some time. I have a feeling Mr. Hot Wheels might just surprise you.”
Heather nodded. She was certain Max would surprise her. She just couldn’t be sure if the surprise would be a happy one.
Chapter Fifteen
Two days later, Max found himself in an Iowa college library. Such academic surroundings were not his home territory. An internet search was about the furthest he’d go in the name of research, but he’d uncovered a story of a World War II wounded aristocrat funding a nature-path renovation that would accommodate a wheelchair, and he thought it would make a nice bit of info to add to an event AA was planning in another Iowa city. The scarcity of available materials meant actually going to a library to do it old-school—microfiche readers and old files of yellowing newspapers. At first it seemed like a pain, but it was getting too cold to go out in the Sea Legs and Max had decided he needed the three-hour drive to think over everything that had happened lately.
“May I help you?” the librarian asked.
“I need newspaper files from 1980 to 1984 on the Baker trail-system renovation. Your website said those aren’t electronic yet, right?”
“No...sir, they’re still on microfiche. Our electronic archives only start in 2000.” Max found it amusing that she seemed to have to think about whether to call someone dressed like him “sir.”
“Can I get to the readers and the files in my chair?” Max pictured a musty file room down several flights of stairs.
“You can access the readers fine, but I’ll have to bring the hard-copy files up to you one year at a time.”
It sounded as if he was going to be there for a couple of hours. “That’ll work for me. Lead on.”
The librarian removed the chair from in front of one of the ancient-looking microfiche reading machines, gave him a few slips to fill out and within fifteen minutes Max was trudging his way through endless images, feeling like one of Heather’s high school students working on a boring research paper. Academic research was definitely not how he liked to spend his time.
By the third reel, Max needed a break. He wheeled up to the reference desk and put in an order for the files of hard-copy issues he’d managed to identify as likely sources for the information he needed, then asked for directions to the nearest decent cup of coffee.
The diner half a block down was not only accessible, it had free internet access. Max flipped open his laptop for a little twenty-first-century coffee break, deciding that not all small Iowa towns were boring and backward.
Come to think of it, Heather had said she was from Iowa, hadn’t she? Would an internet search bring up any high school pictures of her? Had the town made a big deal when she’d graduated despite such a traumatic injury? Normally, Max wasn’t in the habit of cyber-sleuthing women of interest, but the query seemed the perfect way to recharge his history-numbed brain cells. Counting backward, he guessed her high school graduation at somewhere around 2004, typed that and her name into his search engine, and started in on his very good coffee.
He found four photos of the small graduating class—there couldn’t have been more than fifty students—and a pair of articles on “inspiring seniors.” Heather looked young and fresh-faced, a cheerful but wobbly smile under her mortarboard cap. She had the beginnings of the beautiful woman she was now, but a shy and cautious nature came roaring through in the way she posed for pictures. In fact, he saw more of Simon in those photographs than the Heather he’d come to know.
The Heather he’d come to care about. A lot.
He clicked a few associated links, ending up at two articles covering her accident and the resulting burns. Another article covered the driver’s charges—the ones that had so angered Heather’s father. Max could see where Heather’s father’s fury came from: the article was clearly written to cast the boy as a victim of his youthful indiscretion. There wasn’t a single mention in that article of Heather’s injuries and the resulting medical consequences.
It was the next set of links that dropped his jaw. They were from a few years later—her senior year in college, as far as he could tell. They were engagement announcements. Heather had been engaged.
She’d never mentioned it, and he’d have thought something that significant would have come up in the conversation by now. Who was this Mike Pembrose, this all-American farmboy-looking guy who had captured Heather’s heart in college? And, more importantly, what had broken them up? He began clicking on links about Pembrose, curious and surprised at the jealousy rising in his gut.
Pembrose was a medical student. “Dedicated,” one hometown paper announcement declared, “to the treatment of the diabetes that has afflicted him since childhood.” That felt significant, although Max couldn’t say why.
Two more links led to bits of information: one was an announcement of Pembrose joining a medical practice last year in Des Moines, his name mentioned on a fund-raising committee. The second, a post in a forum for diabetics, gave him the most telling detail of all. The comment thread was about when a man should tell his girlfriend he was diabetic. Pembrose—at least it sure looked as if it was Pembrose—wrote a long post about how challenging the issue was for some couples. “As involved as my disease was, my girlfriend knew about it, but we never really discussed it. I never tested in front of her. I kept my insulin out of sight. I never talked about the complications. That was a dumb thing to do, but I think I knew somewhere inside that she couldn’t handle it. I learned I was right. She ended up breaking off the engagement—my future marriage yet another victim of the Big D.”
That didn’t sound like Heather. Then again, did he really know her that well? It was a few years ago, but could someone’s basic nature really change? And given the nature of their conversations, why hadn’t this come up? Why hide that she’d been engaged before?
Granted, this was Pembrose’s side of the story—and at least the guy had the decency not to call the lady out by name—but could it be anyone other than Heather? Luke Sullivan’s words about women came back to him: They only think they can handle it. Then everyone finds out how ugly it can get.
She’s different, his heart argued with a force Max hadn’t expected. No, she’s not different, his head countered. When you let her in far enough to see all of what it’s like, it’ll be over. Sullivan said it. Pembrose said it. Could he even hope to have enough of a sense of things to call them wrong?
Talk to her about it. Alex had taught him the virtues of going straight to the source when a problem arose. Only he knew what would happen if h
e did. She’d swear by her loyalty now. She’d say all those sweet and hopeful things that turned his jaded defenses inside out. She’d convince him. He’d believe it because she’d believe it. And then, like Mike Pembrose, he’d be too far in when the bottom fell out. Reality never had to play fair—wasn’t he walking...rolling proof of that?
Max slammed his laptop shut and stared out the diner window at the charming little town. It looked like someplace Heather would have grown up, all quaint and friendly and rural. Then the corner of his eye caught the three people from the counter staring at him. They averted their eyes the minute he met their gazes—no smiles, no friendly hellos, just the embarrassment of having been caught gawking. For a handful of moments Max considered getting in his car and heading west instead of back east, of just ditching the whole “have a real life” dream and embracing his life as an oddity drawing stares.
You can’t do this alone. The infuriating truth was that Max needed other people to survive: doctors, aides, money, an accessible place to live. He couldn’t pretend not to need JJ; for all his bravado, he wasn’t ready to be all alone.
Max stared at his now-cold coffee. I don’t know what to do. He was surprised to find the thought feeling closer to a prayer. Alex always said he went to God with his problems—and Alex was the best, most creative problem solver Max knew. Heather, JJ and many of the other nice people at Gordon Falls Community Church had said the same. None of that made him feel better. I don’t know who to believe, he admitted, still staring into the fragrant brown liquid. I can’t believe God, Heather, Sullivan, Pembrose and Alex all at the same time. I’ll have to choose.
* * *
“Oh, no!” Heather dropped the file she was holding as Simon Williams rolled into the administrative suite with blood all down one side of his face. “Simon, what on earth happened?”
“Three guesses,” Simon said with a sneer, his voice dark and sharp. He spun his chair toward the nurse’s office as the door behind him filled with the algebra teacher, a hefty man who was currently wrestling a fuming Jason Kikowitz into the office by one elbow.
Love Inspired August 2014 – Bundle 1 of 2 Page 34