by Annie Jones
“No, Josie.” He stabbed a bite of meat loaf. “This is nothing like that.”
“It certainly seems—”
“No. The prodigal son came crawling back, willing to live as a servant or to eat with the animals.” He gestured with the meat loaf still on his fork. “That is not the case with me. No.”
“Adam…”
“I’ve returned to Mt. Knott with a plan, and humbling myself before my father is not part of it.” He took the bite, chewed, then struggled to swallow.
Josie couldn’t decide if the food or the feelings were responsible for that. Just in case, she jumped up and got the gallon of milk from the fridge, poured him a big glass, then plunked it down in front of him. “If you don’t hope to reconcile with your family, then just why did you come to Mt. Knott?”
He froze with the glass of milk halfway between the plate and his mouth. He shifted his eyes quite pointedly in Nathan’s direction.
“Don’t give me some noble story about coming for your son.” She beat him to the punch.
By the look on his face he didn’t know whether to respond with indignation or by being impressed.
“If all you wanted was to claim Nathan, then you could have sent a lawyer or the sheriff or, more logically, shown up on my doorstep with both of those.” That’s how she’d envisioned it happening when she had nightmares about it. “You needn’t have bothered ruffling your hair with a long, nighttime Harley ride for that.”
“I would do far more than inconvenience myself for my son.” He touched his hair where the orange baby food had been. “But I would never send a stranger to take him from his mother.”
“His mother,” she murmured.
No matter how many times she heard it from his lips, it still took her breath away. Ophelia had signed the proper papers and this man saw her, Josie—not her sister—as Nathan’s mother. The thought of it caused a rush of hope to flood her being and she said a quick prayer that the Lord would bring to pass legally what she and Adam knew in their hearts to be true.
Then she went back on the defensive. Where her son was concerned, she could not afford to let down her guard for anyone. And she had to make sure Adam knew that, knew just what kind of person he was dealing with. “I’m saying I may not be one of those worldly, sophisticated women you are accustomed to—”
“What women?” he asked around a mouthful of okra.
She did not stop to answer his question, but just plowed right on with her thought. “But don’t make the mistake of thinking I’m so naive I can’t understand what’s going on.”
“I can assure you, I don’t think of you that way at all.” Another swig of milk. His dark brows angled down, he leaned forward on his elbow. “That said, I just have to ask—what is going on, Josie?”
“I have no idea,” she admitted freely. “There. Now you know exactly who you are dealing with. A lunatic.”
He laughed, then helped himself to a thick slab of pie.
She conceded her humility with a soft chuckle, then she sat back in the chair. “But you’ve told me this trip home, the timing, your plans are not just about Nathan. If not specifically, then by the things you don’t say and the way you say them.”
He set his fork down and allowed what she had just said to sink in.
He made her nervous. “See? A lunatic. But not one that’s entirely off base on this. I know things are not what they seem on the surface. And I know that I would be foolish not to be wary about that. I also know that—”
“What I know is this is very good pie.”
“Don’t change the subject,” she warned, then watched him stuff down a whopping bite, she went all mushy inside and had to ask, “Do you really think so?”
“I do.” He laughed over her response and took another bite. “I’ve certainly tasted a lot of pastry products in my lifetime. Desserts and more than one person’s share of snack foods, but this…this is special. Old family recipe?”
“I don’t even have an old family.” She shook her head and hoped that hadn’t come off too pathetic. To try to counteract that, she scooted her seat in close and decided to share what she had discovered today, “I’ve got a secret ingredient that comes from an old family recipe, though.”
“I bet you have a lot of secrets, Josie.”
“No.” She sat back. “I’m pretty much an open book.”
“And me without my library card.” He touched her hand.
She blushed. “My grandmother taught me how to cook. I lived with her from the time I…”
Became a Christian. She wasn’t embarrassed to talk about her faith, but she didn’t know any way of doing that without bringing up how her mother and sister had rejected her. And in doing so remind him that she was not Nathan’s mother by birth. She wondered if that was a weakness of faith on her part? “From the time I moved to Mt. Knott in high school until she died a few years later, when I already had a job at the Crumble.”
“You worked at my family’s factory?”
“I told you that. Didn’t I tell you that?”
Neither of them seemed to recall. That should have sent up a red flag to Josie that either the man wasn’t listening to her or she wasn’t paying attention to what all she said to him. Or perhaps that when they were together they were too…sidetracked to bother with the small details of a conversation.
She stared at her hands, determined not to look into his eyes in hopes she would remember this exchange in detail. “I didn’t survive the first round of job cuts.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Thanks. But in a way it was a good thing. It put me in motion to open the diner.”
“Yeah. Sure. What seems like a disaster can often provide people with the push they need to take control of matters, to make bold moves, to better their lives.” He sounded as if he needed convincing.
Josie found this odd as he hadn’t been a part of the mess at his family’s factory.
“I had Nathan to support after all.”
“You must have been terrified.”
“Not really. I had my faith.”
“In yourself?”
“In God.”
“I can’t…that is, I wish…”
“Your mother was such a strong woman of faith. Your brother has a wonderful, growing ministry. Don’t you share their beliefs?” There. She asked it outright. She had to. The man was not just Nathan’s father, it seemed that he was a seeker.
“It’s not my mother, it’s that…well, God is portrayed as a loving father, isn’t He?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t know how to relate to that.”
“Was your father really that bad?” Conner Burdett had always scared her. A powerful man, he tended to storm about not speaking, especially to an insignificant worker like her.
“Bad?” He cocked his head to the right and chewed slowly. “Wrong word.”
“What’s the right word?”
“Hard,” he said quietly.
“He was hard on you?”
“He was hard on everybody, including himself, I think.”
“Your mom balanced that out for him some.”
“Yes, she did.”
“But that didn’t make him any less hard, I suppose.”
“Hard?” He shook his head. “Maybe that’s not it, either. Because, as you say, my mother had some influence over that. And he wasn’t hard on any one person. There was a kind of fairness to it all. I think maybe the word I should have used is…unyielding.”
“That is different. Subtly, but…”
“Like your secret ingredient, it can change everything.”
She nodded. “I appreciate your being so honest with me.”
“Don’t kid yourself, Josie. Just because we’ve shared these few moments, you don’t really know me. You don’t really know what made me who I am.”
“Who are you?”
“Haven’t you heard? I’m the Stray Dawg.”
“But if you have a hundred sheep and you lose
one, that’s the one that’s on your mind. That’s the one you worry about and go out and seek so that you can bring him home.”
“You had Sunday school with Miss Minerva, too?”
“No. I told you, I didn’t grow up here. I never had a home or a family or a regular church where I went to Sunday school each week. But I’ve always had a Bible. And last night I looked up Luke 15, the story of the prodigal son.”
Adam pushed his plate away, his mouth set in a grim line. “Maybe I made a mistake. Coming here, coming to you first before…”
“Before what?”
He did not look as if he felt any inclination to answer her, just took another bite of pie and stared at Nathan.
“Before what, Adam? What is it that you came to Mt. Knott to do?”
Even if he had decided to tell her, which Josie doubted very much, he did not get the chance.
A thunderous pounding on the front door made her jump. “Hello?”
She looked at Adam. Her heartbeat had gone completely awry. “Is that…”
“I guess we didn’t get out of the diner fast enough to outrun the speculation.”
“What are we going to do?”
Adam pushed away from the table, stood and reached for Nathan. “I am going to keep my son out of sight and you are going to go and get rid of my father.”
Chapter Six
Adam stood behind the door of the bathroom, holding Nathan in his arms. In the split second he’d had to duck out of sight, it just seemed more prudent to do this rather than head to the door at the end of the hall. Josie’s bedroom.
Yeah, Nathan’s crib waited in that room, but so did every private thing about Josie. Her clothes. The pillow where she rested her head at night. The picture of her and Ophelia.
Adam had enough problems dealing with her without confronting those kinds of things right now. Besides, the bathroom was closer to the front door. Better situated to hear what Conner Burdett had to say.
“Hello?” the masculine voice boomed. The knocking did not relent. “Hello in there.”
“Just a…” Josie put her finger to her lips to remind him to stay quiet, then waved her hand to order Adam to close the door. “Just a moment, please.”
“I know you’re in there, young lady. Don’t think you can hide from me.”
“Hide? Me? Hide from…him?” Adam looked his son in the eye. “This is not hiding.”
“Ya-ya-ya.”
“No, really. That is not who I am. It’s important to me that you know that, kid. I’m not hiding. I’m exercising discretion. Control. Got that?”
“Ya-ya-ya.” Nathan waggled his head, his dark hair floating back and forth like down.
“Don’t buy that, huh?” What Adam had intended as a joke left him uncomfortable and defensive. He met his own eyes in the bathroom mirror and frowned. “How about this? I’m protecting your mother. Both of your mothers.”
“Hello?” Josie’s voice was steady but tentative as the front door creaked open. “May I, um, may I help you?”
“Josephine Redmond?” Conner got right to the point.
The door creaked even louder.
Adam could imagine his father blustering in past Josie as if she wasn’t even there. He clenched his jaw.
“Yes.” Hesitation and anxiety colored Josie’s usually warm, friendly tone.
“Good.” Heavy footsteps thudded farther into the front room.
“Mr. Burdett, I didn’t expect anyone to drop by today. Sir, if you don’t mind…” She let her voice trail off, leaving her uninvited visitor to do what anyone with even the most basic good manners would do—apologize and offer to return when it was convenient.
Poor naive Josie. She must not have known that not only did Conner not mind that he’d inconvenienced her, he had counted on doing just that.
Keep ’em off balance. Always maintain the upper hand. Hold business meetings in your own office and if you can’t, then never take a seat before your adversary. Conner had whole lists of edicts about interacting with others.
Adam had once asked, “What about people who are not your adversaries?”
“There are no such creatures, boy,” Conner had replied with a look bent on driving home the point that the man included his own sons in that sweeping generalization.
“You didn’t expect company,” Conner’s voice grew louder, a sure indication he had barged right into the house and had headed straight for the kitchen. “Yet here you just happened to bring a pie home from your restaurant in the middle of the day?”
Adam tensed. The last time he had heard that tone, that cadence of speech, that calculating manner, was the day he’d gotten a check, the lump-sum payment to buy him out of his share of the family business and the money his mother had left him in her will. He thought the next time he heard it, the man would be begging him to save the business. Now to hear him toying with Josie like this…
Adam flexed one hand over the doorknob. He wanted to go out there to rescue Josie.
Nathan squirmed.
He studied his son’s face. Despite having only recently become aware the child existed, much less knowing him, just looking at him filled Adam with so much emotion. And he knew he would do anything to keep him safe. He knew Josie would feel the same way.
“Is that your way of asking for a piece of pie, sir?”
Silence. Conner hadn’t seen that coming.
He wouldn’t. Kindness and hospitality were foreign concepts to the old man.
“Good for you, Josie,” Adam whispered.
“Uh, uh-huh. Pie would be nice.” The tone shifted slightly. “Thank you.”
Adam didn’t know what to make of it.
“But what I’d rather have—” the old bluster returned “—is to get my hands on my grandson.”
“Get your hands on?” Josie repeated the demand with hushed anxiety.
Adam hated this. Hated having to stand by and make her endure his father. He should be the one facing the old man down, bearing the brunt of the old man’s belligerence.
“Just to hold him for a moment, you understand.”
It was the quietest, most humble sentence Adam believed he’d ever heard his father speak to anybody but Maggie Burdett. Where did that come from? Who was this person standing in Josie’s kitchen insisting…no, merely asking in humility and faltering hope…to see his only grandchild?”
“Where is the little fellow?”
“I…I don’t think I should tell you that, sir.”
Something between a wheeze and a chuckle answered her. “You’ve already told me more than you realize.”
And just that fast the man Adam readily recognized as Conner Burdett resurfaced. He’d been a fool to think the seasoned bully could have changed. It had all been an act. An act to manipulate Josie and unearth answers.
“I haven’t told you anything,” Josie said.
“Oh, yes you have. For starters you didn’t deny he was my grandson. Nor did you say you didn’t know where he is, just that you didn’t think you should tell me.”
Adam drew in his breath and held it until his lungs ached. The Burdett offensive has just begun. Conner would go after Josie, hammer away at her with every tool in his considerable arsenal until he’d gotten every bit of information from her and left her in tears and fearing for her son’s future.
“I know you have my flesh and blood.” The words came slowly, though Adam did not know if that was for effect or because Conner was choosing them so carefully. Either way they made the bile rise in Adam’s throat. “The child is a Burdett and I have rights.”
“Please, Mr. Burdett…” Josie’s voice disappeared into a sob.
That was it. Adam could no longer stay out of this.
“This is my family, the son of my son,” Conner boomed.
“Wrong.” Adam stepped fully from the bathroom and reached the kitchen in just a few steps. “This child is my son. That makes him nothing to you but the child of some stray you took in and never really loved as
your own.”
You can know a man a lifetime and still not know everything that he is capable of, good and bad. That is not the kind of thing you can gauge in a matter of a few seconds. Unfortunately, sometimes a few seconds is all you have—so make them count.
Conner had taught Adam that a long time ago. Start with the details and work your way out. Listen to what a man tells you, but don’t dismiss what your own gut has to say. Adam applied those skills now to quickly size up the old man.
Eighteen months ago, Conner Burdett made an imposing figure. Though in his sixties, the tall, raw-boned man had still sported a full head of mostly brown hair, keen eyes that sparked with grit and vigor and the ever-present authority that came from knowing no matter what, he still owned fifty-four percent interest in the family business.
As far as Adam could see today, that controlling interest in the company was all he still possessed. He made a fleeting study of the man before him.
The elder Burdett had lost weight. His hair had faded to white and thinned considerably. The newly developed stoop of Conner’s shoulders had taken inches from his height. The man who had once seemed a veritable pillar of confidence to a younger Adam now stood almost eye-to-eye with him. And in those eyes Adam saw a weariness and remorse that had never been there before.
Adam clenched his jaw and reminded himself to listen to his own feelings. His son’s future could well be at stake and he wouldn’t risk it to something as deceptive as appearances or sentimentality. Conner Burdett was still capable of anything. Anything.
Adam braced himself to bear the full brunt of his father’s wrath.
“Adam? Son?” Conner reached out. His hand shook. He took one step forward and then another as if he couldn’t quite believe what he saw before him.
“Yeah?” Adam shifted his weight, pulling Nathan more to one side so that he could hand him off to Josie if he should need to.
“Thank you,” Conner whispered and it was clear he meant it as heartfelt gratitude to God.
That humbled Adam but did not reassure him.