Love Inspired August 2014 – Bundle 1 of 2

by Ruth Logan Herne, Allie Pleiter

  He heard his front door open. “You are,” JJ said. “That’s the worst part of it. If you’d only—”

  She stopped talking as Heather walked silently into his kitchen.

  “I think I’d better go now,” JJ said quietly. “We’re shorthanded at the station, since three guys just got suspended from duty for a week.” She looked at Max. “Dishonorable conduct.” She said the words as if pronouncing sentence on him.

  Heather stood eerily still, her mouth drawn tight and her eyes cold. He wouldn’t meet her glare, instead staring into his coffee and stirring it with a false indifference.

  “Why?” It was more of a whisper, a moan, than a question.

  “Because it had to be done.”

  “I can’t think you believe that.”

  He leaned back in his chair. “Know me that well, do you?”

  “I thought I did. Today, I’m not so sure.”

  Max didn’t answer.

  She took a step into the kitchen, and Max got a whiff of whatever it was that made her hair smell so good. A tiny knife twisted in his gut. “Do you remember how I told Mrs. Williams I trusted you to do right by Simon?” She looked up and breathed in, doing that thing women did when they tried not to cry. The knife twisted harder. “I told her I believed in you. Do you know what it felt like to face her this morning? For me to agree with her that Simon should never spend time with you ever again?”

  “Simon will be fine from here on in. Kikowitz will leave him alone. He doesn’t need me.”

  “You think he’ll be fine? You are so wrong. Simon’s parents asked me about homeschooling him. They’ve decided the public school system can’t meet his needs. That glass you think Simon is trapped under? It just came down hard and fast and airtight around him. I hope you’re happy.”

  The anger—and yes, the regret—Max had been swallowing all morning roared up with a force too strong to stop.

  He fought back with the only weapon he had. “As happy as you would have been with Mike Pembrose?”

  * * *

  Heather felt as if she’d been struck by lightning. Mike Pembrose? How had Mike been dragged into this? The shock of Max’s question was instantly swallowed by a wave of regret. How could she think that what had happened with Mike would not follow her to Gordon Falls eventually? Wanting to put that sad chapter behind her was never the same thing as being able to escape it. She’d not made peace with that episode, and now she was paying the price.

  “How do you know about Mike?” She hated how pain laced her words.

  “I think the question is, why didn’t you tell me about Mike?”

  There wasn’t a simple answer to that question. “He isn’t part of my life anymore.”

  Max scrubbed a hand across his chin. “Yeah, you saw to that, didn’t you?” He hadn’t yet shaved, and the scruff gave him a regrettably rugged handsomeness she didn’t want to notice. She’d come to Max’s doorstep thinking life couldn’t have tangled any further, and he’d proved her wrong.

  She leaned against the counter, feeling slightly ill. A stronger woman would have been able to push back against this clear diversion, but this morning she wasn’t that woman. “Tell me what you know.”

  Draining his coffee cup, Max gave her a hollow look. “Not much of a story. According to Mr. Pembrose, you found out he had diabetes and couldn’t hack it. Did you give him the real reason you broke off the engagement? Or did you make up an excuse?”

  It was so much more than that, but Heather wasn’t sure she was capable of explaining it to Max. Not in the middle of all this. The words wouldn’t come.

  “You can see how I might find this crucial information.” Max’s bitter tone sliced the air between them. “Since we’re on the whole trust issue, as you say.”

  She shut her eyes. One black moment piling onto another—it seemed beyond unfair. “I can’t discuss this now. Now has to be about Simon. Can you see that?”

  “I’ll talk to Simon. I’ll explain why we did what we did, why Kikowitz will likely leave him alone now. His dad will come around.”

  “No.” The one clear point in all this was that it had to stop. Here. Now. Before any more harm was done to anyone—including her. “You will not talk to Simon. Your relationship as his mentor is over. Your relationship—” she took a breath to steady her voice, feeling as if her throat were tying itself into knots “—with me is over. You are not to come to school.” To see me or Simon, her broken heart added. “Simon’s parents have forbidden you to contact him, so don’t call or text him or go by the house.”

  “Well, I was getting too busy for all this anyhow.” The worst thing of all was that Heather could see right through Max’s act: he was applying that hard shell, pretending as if this were no big deal. His cavalier words couldn’t mask the regret she saw pinching his features. The way his lips thinned and he swallowed harder. “I don’t think he’ll need my protection now anyways.”

  He needs your affection. She wanted to hate what Max had done. It was wrong in dozens of ways, and she had every right to be furious. But even all that couldn’t wipe away the fact that Max had done it because he cared about Simon. It had come out in the worst possible way, but hadn’t JJ said something about Max’s spectacular gift for messing up? Hadn’t she been warned?

  “You won’t lose your job or anything, right?” His voice pitched up just the slightest bit. “You had nothing to do with this.”

  “I don’t know. I don’t think so.” She said the next words with more bitterness than she would have liked. “You’re a grown man. No one expects me to control what you do on your own time off school property.” After a second she felt compelled to add, “No, I think the big loser here will be Simon. You’ve managed to snatch back everything you gave him. I hope you can live with that.”

  Max pushed away from the table, spinning away from her under the pretense of putting the coffee creamer back in the refrigerator. He kept his hand on the handle for a long moment after he shut the door, knuckles whitening from how tightly he gripped.

  Heather was nearly certain this would be the last time they spoke. She’d see him around town, of course, but there would be no more dances, no more dinners at The Black Swan or pie at Karl’s. The knowledge gave her enough courage to speak her mind.

  “Do you want to know why I broke it off with Mike?”

  Max neither answered nor turned around, although he took his hand off the refrigerator handle and let it fall to his lap.

  “Yes, I was scared when he shared his diabetes with me. I had spent so much time being the sick one that I was afraid I couldn’t help anyone else through something so big for a whole life. So I admit that was part of it.” Max’s shoulders fell a bit, an “I knew it” gesture.

  “But it wasn’t all of it. Mike became his condition once he stopped hiding it from me. He let it rule him, let diabetes drive every aspect of his life for every minute. He complained constantly. He made me watch him take his insulin injections, moaned about what he couldn’t eat, kept a list of side effects and complications in his wallet. There were conversations where he told people he was a diabetic before he introduced me as his fiancée. He lived in fear. He refused to have a family, afraid to pass along what he called ‘the curse of his body’ to our children. Mike chose to make himself a victim, and I knew I wasn’t strong enough to marry a victim.”

  She almost didn’t say it. But if this was going to be her only chance, she didn’t want to regret leaving it unsaid. “You are not a victim. That’s what I’d hoped you would teach Simon. You were the strong one—you are determined to have all the life you can despite what’s happened. I soaked that in, being close to you. I was starting to believe...” She let her voice trail off, and everything inside her wanted to crumple up into a ball of disappointment. Heather took a breath and made herself fin
ish. “You’re not a victim. Instead, you made Jason Kikowitz into a victim. And Simon. And me. So if you think that I’m walking away from you for the same reason I walked away from Mike, you couldn’t be more wrong.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  The door shut behind Heather, and Max’s cabin felt bombed out, hollowed out, whatever was twelve times beyond empty. Times like these he most hated the limitations of his body. The urge to kick, to explode in a running, throwing rage couldn’t be contained in arms and fists. He drew in angry, rumbling breaths, wanting to roar at something but having no target. This anger, this ticking time bomb of pent-up frustration was about to go off—had already gone off, if he really thought about it—and it needed speed and force to defuse. Speed and force—the very things he lacked.

  He’d done the right thing. He alone knew Kikowitz needed a good scare, and he’d seen to it. That had to be true. The creeping doubt, the black regret that started in his stomach and seemed to feed on the looks in JJ’s and Heather’s eyes, that was sentimental nonsense. After all, no one was breaking down doors and shouting lectures at the other three from GFVFD.

  Well, no one except Chief Bradens. Yeah, well, what did an upstanding do-gooder like Clark Bradens know about guys like Kikowitz? Thugs like he’d once been? People like Bradens, like Heather, they wouldn’t last a day in his world. He was kidding himself if he thought he was anything but alone.

  Alone. The word set fire to the exploding feeling again. Needing to smash something, Max took the empty coffee cup and hurled it to the floor. He wanted it to break into a thousand furious pieces, but the sturdy stoneware only bounced off the Formica, sending off one pathetic chip. He couldn’t even reach down to pick it up and hurl it against something else.

  It was good that Heather had ended it, no matter what she said. It hurt so much to watch her walk out that door now, it would have killed him if he’d gone ahead and fallen in love with her. He felt as if his heart was bound in barbed wire as it was. For the first time since the accident, Max wished he felt less instead of yearning to feel more.

  There was one person who would understand what he was going through right now. Max scrolled though the contacts list on his cell until he found Luke Sullivan’s number.

  A woman’s voice answered. “Hello?”

  “Is Luke there?”

  “Um...who is this please?” Whoever it was Luke had chosen as his companion for the night, she sounded decidedly unhappy.

  “This is Max Jones. We’re—” he groped for the right word “—business associates.”

  “Then you know Luke isn’t in a position to talk right now.” At Max’s pause, she added, “I mean, you do know, right?”

  “I’m not sure I follow you, Ms....”

  “Sullivan. Terri Sullivan. I’m Luke’s sister.” He heard her let out a big breath. “Oh, man, you don’t know, do you?”

  “Know what?”

  “Luke rolled his car Monday night. He was out drinking with some race buddies and he...well, he...” Her voice broke. “He’s in a coma, okay? So it’s not like he has time for business associates right now.”

  “I’m sorry.” What else was there to say?

  “Look, I gotta go. I... Well, I gotta go. I was supposed to be at the hospital ten minutes ago.”

  Max stared at the phone for a whole minute after the call ended. Sullivan’s original injury had come from a drunk-driving accident. And now this. Some hero. Some champion. What a waste of a life.

  Suddenly, the tiny cabin couldn’t contain him. He needed space and speed, and there was only one place to really get it. In two minutes he’d grabbed a sweatshirt and was out the door, rolling down toward the docks and the Sea Legs. Who cared that it wasn’t sailing weather? It was cold, but it was windy, and wind meant speed, wind meant power, and right now he needed as much of both as he could grab.

  Max worked so fast to get himself into the boat, he nearly slipped twice in the process. Everything took so long in a chair! He slammed his seat into place with such force the whole boat shook; he yanked the dock lines fast enough to send them humming along the cleats, leaving friction burns on his palms. The pain felt good. Pain meant he was alive, meant that he was feeling something other than the anger.

  The chilly late September wind sent the Sea Legs hurling through the river and whipped Max’s hair hard against his face. Max pulled the sails in tighter, wrestling every bit of speed he could from the wind. The current put up a battle, but he welcomed it. He was itching for a fight. The craft sped across the water, up daringly on one keel, fast and feisty and satisfying.

  His tension unraveled a notch with every mile, the speed and movement releasing the bristling ball of anger trapped in his chest. He took in a breath and yelled across the water, listening to the sound echo in the wide-open space. Gordon Falls and all its expectations faded behind him; the gray blustery sky ahead matched his thoughts. He bellowed again, just because it felt so good.

  No matter how hard he tried, Max could not stop his thoughts from turning to Simon. Simon would never be allowed escapes like this. Stranded at home, surrounded by fear disguised as care, the kid would slowly and surely rot. He’d never know that life—even life in a chair—outlived high school, opening up beyond that tiny, petty world into a place where sports, camping, travel, jobs and all kinds of things awaited him. He’d probably never kiss a girl.

  Kissing a girl was the most amazing thing. Kissing Heather had been like swallowing light, like drinking brilliance. Even now his neck remembered the feel of her hands. Even though relationships were off the table, Simon ought to know the exquisite sensation of a woman’s hand slipping around his neck.

  And you shoved her away.

  The thought stabbed hard.

  His retaliation to Kikowitz had nothing to do with Heather. He’d done it to protect Simon, not in some kind of psychobabble lash-out against intimacy. He hadn’t sabotaged his relationship with Heather—it would have crashed on its own given time. Sure, this felt beyond lousy right now, but numbness was his gift in the world, wasn’t it? What had Sullivan said? The first letdown feels like being dropped a mile?

  A mile? Try ten miles. Try a thousand.

  And now where was Sullivan? Lying in a hospital bed trying to stay alive. Again.

  The boat shuddered and lurched, yanking Max from his thoughts to realize he’d come too close to shore and nearly beached the Sea Legs up on the muddy riverbank. He shook his head, pulled up the rudder a bit and luffed the sail enough to let the boat skid back into the deeper water. Pay attention, Jones. Don’t add stupid to stupid.

  You shoved her away. The convicting thought wouldn’t go away. Max brought the boat about, returning it to its smooth speed through the river. He wanted to stop thinking, to outrun his thoughts and burn off his anger. Only he wasn’t angry anymore. The wind and water had done their trick and tamped down the storm inside him. He just didn’t like what was left.

  You looked for reasons to leave her. You handed her a reason to leave you. Worse yet, you used Simon as your excuse to do it.

  He could run this river all the way up to its source, and he wouldn’t escape that conviction. On some level—maybe not then but certainly now—Max knew he’d helped orchestrate the revenge on Kikowitz because it would prove to Heather that he wasn’t worth her affections. And that was so much easier that trying to live up to them, because that meant risking an eventual heartbreak.

  The thought made him laugh. Max Jones, consummate risk taker, was running from risk. He pointed a finger at the blue heron standing gracefully in the shallows to his left. “That’s right,” he lectured the bird. “You know what those therapists say—pain is the mother of stupid. Fear is the father of stupid. And me, I’ve just been the prince of stupid, haven’t I?” The bird only blinked and turned away as Max turned the boat back towar
d Gordon Falls.

  He thought some sort of solution would come to him as he guided the boat back home. It didn’t. He only knew he didn’t want to be like Luke Sullivan, didn’t want to keep everyone at a distance when that distance would eventually strangle him. Because while the world thought Luke had everything, it turned out Luke had nothing.

  Now what? Max was pretty sure some whopping apologies were involved, only he didn’t know quite how to make that happen. Truth was, he still wasn’t sorry for getting to Kikowitz, just sorry for the fallout. And he was still terrified of getting in too deep with Heather only to learn she couldn’t handle life with a paraplegic. Only he was also just as terrified of losing her, which he was pretty sure he’d just done.

  How fair was it that Alex, the master problem solver and the guy who said he was on Max’s side, was in San Francisco for the week? This was not the kind of thing to handle in text messages and continually dropped cell-phone calls. Great. He scowled to himself. Now where do I go?

  Max nearly groaned aloud when he turned the boat about to see the gleaming white steeple of Gordon Falls Community Church poking above the fall foliage like some kind of sign someone had put there. “Aw, come on, really? That’s a bit Hollywood, isn’t it?” Max asked the sky.

  He knew what JJ would say. He knew what Alex would say. For that matter, he was pretty sure what Heather would say.

  The words of one of his therapists rang in his head. If you think you’re going to fall, grab on to the nearest sturdy thing.

  Well, okay, Lord, Max tentatively informed God as he tied the boat up. This is me grabbing.

  * * *

  Thursday morning, Heather stared at the vicious orange letters spray painted onto the sidewalk in front of Simon Williams’s house. Graffiti of any kind—much less the hateful outburst this displayed—seemed so out of place in quaint Gordon Falls. It shouted at her from the sidewalk. It poked at her from the fingers of the neighbors who pointed and stared. It pummeled her from the wounded look in Simon’s mother’s eyes as she peered out their living room window.