Child Wanted

by Renee Andrews

  Lindy was rocked to her core by the truth. This man not only had the power to take her son, but he also had the power to crush her heart in the process.

  God, please help me control this bizarre feeling. The last thing I need in my life is another man letting me down. Especially the one trying to take Jerry.

  She opened her mouth to tell him again that she didn’t need his help, but she didn’t get the chance.

  “Lindy, don’t. Don’t keep trying to do everything on your own.” He shook his head subtly as his eyes connected with hers. “I don’t know what’s happened in your past, who made you so fearful of people who want to help, but I promise you, that’s what I’m trying to do—help. Let me do that, okay? We’re going to be seeing each other fairly regularly with this whole fishing gig, and I’ve noticed—The thing is, it seems like Jerry comes out of his shell around you.”

  Her knees were a little wobbly, either from his proximity, the way his hand still rested on her forearm or his words about her son. She’d thought she wanted to get some distance from him, but hope ebbed through to her very soul at his observation, and she found herself asking, “You noticed he comes out of his shell around me?”

  Did she and Jerry still have a semblance of that bond they’d made way back when?

  And what would Ethan do if he ever figured out why?

  “I did. Jerry is comfortable around you, and I want him to be that comfortable around me, too. I mean, he’s going to be the biggest part of my life really soon.”

  She didn’t like the sound of that at all. She slid her arm away from his, then turned to begin gathering the quilts from her backseat. “What does that have to do with letting you help me out?”

  Mrs. Bowers had laundered all of the patchwork quilts that they provided for folks fishing at the pond, and three stacks of them filled her backseat. It was way more than she could carry in a single trip. And he noticed, sliding beside her to grab the second batch before she had a chance to close the car door with her hip. Which made her notice the crisp scent of his aftershave, even more intoxicating than the floral scent of fabric softener wafting from the quilts.

  Truly, the fabric softener wasn’t even a close second to the scent of Ethan Green.

  “Just see it as my way of thanking you,” he said, and she pressed her face closer to the quilts to take in more of the fabric softener smell...and less of the man tempting her senses.

  She walked swiftly toward the large cedar chests on the front porch where the quilts were stored. “Thanking me for what?” He got to the chests first and lifted the lid on one.

  She was grateful for the sweet scent of cedar spilling from the chest, and the fact that it overpowered every other smell around.

  Lindy suddenly recalled the hope chest her grandmother had given her when she turned thirteen. The one she’d filled with all the typical things a teenager thinks she might need when she gets married. Gil hadn’t liked the cedar scent of the items that she’d stored inside so, wanting to make him happy, she’d ended up selling all the sentimental contents at their first yard sale.

  She’d cried all night after.

  “Lindy, are you okay?”

  Why did he keep asking her that? “I’m fine.”

  And why did she keep answering with a lie?

  Because she knew the truth. The pain of her past, not only the prison time but also the time she’d spent with a man who had no qualms about hitting her when she didn’t behave the way he wanted, had made her far from “fine.”

  He gave her the look she’d seen from him before, the one that said he knew she wasn’t being completely forthright, but he wouldn’t press the issue. She thanked God for that small favor. And that reminded her that Ethan had never answered her question. “You said you were helping me as a thank you. Thanking me for what?”

  “For helping my little man open up.” He closed the lid on the chest. “Because by helping him, you’re helping me.”

  “How’s that?” she asked as they made their way back to the car.

  “You’ll help me get closer to my son, and I’ll be able to adopt him before...”

  She stopped walking just shy of the car door, turned and asked, “Before what?”

  “Before something happens that would cause him to be hurt again.” He moved past her, leaned into the car to retrieve the quilts that were farther away and bring them out on his own. Meanwhile Lindy tried to formulate the words to ask what he was talking about, preferably without giving away too much.

  Before she could say a thing, he asked, “Did you need anything else from the car?”

  She shook her head and decided to see just how much he knew about her son’s past. And hers. “Jerry’s been hurt?” Then she held her breath and waited to see how he’d answer.

  He nudged the door shut. “He has, but I’m going to do my best to prove to him that he can trust again and show him what a parent should be.”

  Lindy walked alongside him toward the cottage, while trying to figure out how she’d ever compete with this seemingly perfect man in court. She knew how a parent should be, and that was the kind of parent she’d always wanted to be to her son. The kind of parent she would be if given another chance.

  Would a court believe her?

  Since his arms were filled with the quilts, she moved ahead of him and opened the next cedar chest for him to place them inside. “Thanks,” he said, and again threw her off balance just by standing so near and appearing so nice.

  Lindy still needed to get the rental equipment ready inside the store, but they had a little more time, and she wanted to know...

  “The other day you said Jerry needed protection. And today you said he’d been hurt.” She moved toward the red door, just in case his words caused an emotion she didn’t want him to see, and attempted to ask another question without letting on how very much she wanted to know what Ethan would say. “Who does he need protection from?”

  “His mother.” The answer was delivered matter-of-factly, as if there were no doubt in his mind. He might as well have punched her in the stomach like one of those women in prison had.

  Her hand tightened on the doorknob. What had he been told? And what did he believe? What would a judge and jury believe? “His mother hurt him?”

  “Yes,” he said. “Not personally, or at least not from what the courts could tell, but she didn’t stop him from being hurt, either. And I’m going to do my best to keep him from being hurt again.”

  A low rumble in the distance caused both of them to turn and see the noisy school bus slowly creeping along the gravel drive with several pickup trucks and cars following.

  “That’s them. I’m going to get my gear.” He left the porch and headed toward his SUV.

  Lindy didn’t respond, but kept her eyes peeled on that approaching bus, the one that held her son. Ethan said he planned to do his best to keep him from being hurt again.

  She believed him.

  A court probably would, too.

  But somehow, she—and her new attorney—had to convince them all that she wanted to keep him from being hurt again, too.

  * * *

  Ethan and Jerry were scheduled for two hours of fishing this morning, and an hour and a half in, they still hadn’t gotten a single nibble. Or at least one that counted. Their bait had been swiped a few times, but with no fish to show for the effort. And Ethan was clueless about how to fix the problem.

  A cheer from a short distance away caused him—and his little man—to turn and watch, again, as more of their peers found success in the pond.

  “They got one,” Jerry said glumly. But still, he was sitting by Ethan, communicating with him and sharing a father-son activity with him. So Ethan couldn’t be that disappointed that they hadn’t yet mastered this whole fishing thing.

  “Yeah, they got one.�
�� He turned to look at the little boy beside him instead of their red-and-white bobbers floating on the water. “Pretty cool, huh? Hey, maybe we’ll get one soon, too.”

  Jerry sat beside him on one of the patchwork quilts Ethan had helped Lindy with earlier and squinted up at him. “We haven’t got one yet.” It wasn’t the first time he’d said this.

  “That’s true.” Ethan looked back to the bobbers just in time to see Jerry’s jiggle, making tiny waves in the surface. “But hey, we may have one now. Look!”

  Jerry turned as the floating sphere disappeared into the water. “I got one!”

  “Pull it up and see,” Ethan encouraged him, hoping it would be one of those small speckled fish that everyone else seemed to be catching.

  Jerry jerked the red fishing rod, yanking the line out of the water and the empty shiny gold hook at the end mocked them. “Aw,” he sighed, his tiny shoulders lifting and dropping. “We got nothing. Again.”

  If this was an ordinary occurrence, the two of them spending a morning together trying to catch a fish, their lack of success might have been funny, something they would tease each other about and laugh at, but this wasn’t an ordinary occurrence, at least not yet. Ethan had really hoped they would find themselves cheering, too, like the woman and little girl on the opposite side of the pond who had apparently caught another fish and were now doing a celebratory dance.

  Jerry blew out another breath of disappointment.

  Okay. So Ethan hadn’t thought he knew anything about fishing, and clearly, he’d been right. But he didn’t want this first attempt of a happy memory with his future son to go down as a total failure. And it hadn’t been a complete loss, since Jerry had seemed to enjoy their time tossing the practice sponge bait into the water and reeling it in. However, if Ethan had known that would be the best part of the experience, he would have extended their practice time to an hour, instead of merely the first ten minutes.

  “You know—” he glanced at his watch and saw they had fifteen minutes until the kids would head back to Willow’s Haven on the bus “—I think we’ve given it a good effort today, and I’m pretty sure I saw some fruit Popsicles in the freezer at the store up there. Wanna go get one?”

  Jerry glanced toward yet another pair clapping in the distance, then at the water in front of them, and then back at Ethan. “Sure.”

  Ethan had thought the Popsicle offer would take his mind off the finicky fish, but he could tell that the little boy had really wanted to experience the same excitement his friends had this morning. “We’ll get a fish next time.” He sure hoped he wasn’t lying.

  “Okay,” Jerry said, visibly unconvinced, which made Ethan regret the statement. How many adults had promised the boy something and then fallen short of delivering?

  God, I know nothing is too small for You. So when we come back on Monday, can You help us catch a fish? Help me figure out what I’m doing wrong here.

  Jerry placed his rod beside his tiny tackle box, which held nothing more than bobbers and sponge bait, since they were using minnows Ethan had purchased from Lindy at the store. Then he opened the lid of their small minnow bucket and watched the tiny bait fish swimming madly around the water.

  Ethan peeked in, too. “They didn’t do their job today catching fish for us, did they?”

  Jerry shook his head and dropped the Styrofoam lid back in place. “No, sir. They sure didn’t.”

  “We’ll get some next time,” he assured Jerry again—and then said another quick prayer that he was telling the truth. “Come on, let’s go see what flavors of Popsicles they have.” He tousled Jerry’s hair, gave him a smile and was rewarded when the right corner of the little boy’s mouth lifted, sending a sprinkle of freckles dancing on his cheek.

  They passed several pairs of adults and children fishing on their way to the store. Ethan had already gotten to know a few of the mentors, and he took the chance now to say hello and ask how they were faring with their attempts at catching anything. Most had caught plenty, except for one pair who had only caught one bream, which Ethan now recognized as the name of the small speckled fish the group was searching for.

  He waited for Jerry to speak to any of the other kids they met along the way, but he didn’t say a word. Then again, neither did most of the other kids. Maybe they had all arrived at Willow’s Haven after sad situations and were having as difficult of a time interacting with others as Jerry. Or maybe they were merely concentrating on the task at hand, more concerned with catching fish before their time was up than communicating.

  But as Ethan and Jerry passed the last fishing pair before reaching the store, Ethan noticed that the mentor wasn’t quite an adult yet. It was Brodie and Savvy Evans’s teenage son, Dylan, whom Ethan had met when the group shopped for gear on Monday. Dylan, an outgoing kid with an obvious appreciation for life in general, leaned back on his quilt and gave Jerry a playful grin. “Hey there, Jerr-Bear, how’s it going?”

  Jerry stopped walking, flipped his small hands upside down to display empty palms, and explained, “We didn’t catch nothing.”

  Dylan laughed. “Hey, that happens to me sometimes. Actually, it happened to me the last time I was here.” He leaned a little closer to Jerry. “You know what my dad used to tell me about those days when you don’t catch anything?”

  Jerry shook his head, then he raised his eyebrows and opened his eyes wider to hear what the older, wiser kid had to say.

  “He said that sometimes those fish pick who they want to play hide-and-seek with, and today they must have picked you.” Dylan playfully pointed a finger toward Jerry.

  Jerry’s lip quirked to the side, his eyes squinting a little as he processed this. Then he looked up at Ethan and asked, “Will they play hide-and-seek again next time?”

  Dylan laughed, and Ethan answered, “I sure hope not.”

  “Me, too,” Jerry said. He didn’t look quite as disappointed as before, though. Ethan would need to learn ways to help his little boy cope with the disappointments in life. He supposed that was all part of parenting, and he’d wade through those challenges as they came. But for now he was thankful that Dylan had found a way to lift Jerry’s spirits.

  Then again, Ethan had thought of the Popsicles. He looked toward the store and saw Lindy, standing on the porch watching them, her hand resting against her chest the way he’d noticed her do a few times before, as though she were moved by whatever held her attention.

  And at this moment, that seemed to be Ethan and his little man.

  Lindy. Something else positive in their day. She seemed so mesmerized with ordinary life, which again caused Ethan to wonder exactly what hers had been like before he met the beautiful lady that first day in the Claremont square. And before he’d found himself thinking about her on a regular basis ever since.

  “There’s Miss Lindy,” Jerry said, the hint of enthusiasm in his voice matching what Ethan found himself feeling every time he saw her.

  “Yep, there she is,” he agreed, noticing the way the sun highlighted the red-blond waves that tumbled past her shoulders. Today she wore a creamy yellow sleeveless top paired with a multicolored floral skirt and sandals. Most of the women he’d seen today at the fishing hole had on shorts, or capris, or cutoff jeans. But Lindy stood out from all of them in the beautiful, feminine clothes.

  Then again, she stood out from all of them anyway. She was so incredibly stunning, as though she were painted into this picturesque scene instead of actually a part of it. There was just something about her that held his interest and made him never want to look away.

  Ethan watched her attention land on the little guy beside him, the smile that mesmerized him obviously meant for Jerry rather than him.

  Ethan shook away the odd pang of disappointment that she didn’t seem to have a smile for him. He wasn’t looking for any kind of relationship again, not after what happened with
Jenny, but he couldn’t deny that he’d visualized Lindy Burnett smiling at him that way too.

  “So, did y’all catch anything, Jerry?” she asked. Yup, her focus was definitely on the child, not the man.

  “No, ma’am,” he said, “but Mr. Ethan said we’re going to get some Popsicles anyway.”

  And with that, her gaze moved from Jerry to Ethan, and he saw a hint of appreciation in her eyes that went straight to his heart.

  Amazing what a little appreciation from a gorgeous woman did for a guy’s ego.

  “Good idea,” she said. “The Popsicles are in that freezer inside. What flavor do you want, Jerry? We have strawberry, grape, peach and pineapple. But you’ll want to make sure you wash your hands first. You’ve been touching those minnows, right?”

  Jerry gave her a lopsided grin. “They’re slippery.”

  She laughed, a soft, lilting sound that also teased Ethan’s heart. “Yes, they are. And that means you definitely want to wash those hands. The sink is at the back of the store. There’s one just for kids. And there’s some of that foaming soap beside it. You’ll want to use plenty of that.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he answered, then went inside, while Ethan stood, once again taken aback by the natural beauty and undeniable intrigue of the woman on the porch.

  “No fish?” she asked softly.

  “Not today,” he answered, glad for another opportunity to communicate with her. “And I’ll be honest, I have no idea what we’re doing wrong. We have the same bait as everyone else, and we’re all fishing at the same pond. I can’t understand why they seem to be hitting everyone else’s lines instead of ours.” He glanced toward the lake, where he saw one little fisherman holding up a bream and grinning toward his mentor. Ethan had so hoped to have that moment with Jerry today.

  Her teeth ran over her lower lip, as though she debated what she wanted to say.