by EMILIE ROSE
Carol intercepted their exchange. “Pam was our rebel. Like you, Rachel, she seemed determined to stir up trouble.”
Mortification stung Rachel’s cheeks. Foolishly, she’d allowed herself to believe that everyone had forgotten what an immature brat she’d been.
“Remember the Mohawk?” Jake said.
Matt’s father shook his head. “The one that got me was the tattoo on your—”
“Daddy, shush.” Pam looked panic-stricken. “The kids don’t know about that.”
“We probably wouldn’t have, either, if it hadn’t gotten infected,” Carol interjected. “But you refusing to sit down and the disappearance of my frozen bag of peas was a bit suspicious. And your insistence on going to a doctor out of town was even more telling.”
The family laughed, but for Rachel the idyllic mood had been shattered. No one seemed to consider Pam a bad seed. But Pam’s misdeeds hadn’t come close to Rachel’s, and Pam had only hurt herself.
Hope had always fixed Rachel’s mistakes, but she’d also troweled on the guilt, making sure Rachel realized the effort it took and how disappointed she was in her. Their parents had responded with oppressive silence. One thing had never been in doubt. Rachel’s recklessness had been a nuisance—such a bother her parents had sent her away.
“I’m proud of all my children. Jake works at the bank. Pam’s a nurse with Dr. Miller’s practice in town. Now that Matt’s back home, all I have to do is get him married, and my job will be done.”
Matt choked on his tea. Jake laughed and slapped Matt’s back until he stopped wheezing. “She won’t let up until you’ve given her a few grandkids, bro. Might as well bite the bullet.”
Another shard of guilt pierced Rachel’s conscience. She focused on Matt. “You’ve been away?”
Pam nodded. “Matt was a football star before—”
“In college,” Matt interrupted. “Rachel knows that.” The others around the table exchanged looks. What did Matt not want her to know?
“I moved home to take the job at Johnstonville High when my old coach retired. I might have stayed gone if I’d known Mom’s evil plan.” His teasing grin was a shade too tight.
“Do you follow sports, Rachel?” Jake asked.
“Baseball. I’m a Braves fan.”
“You catch many games?” Bill asked.
“I have season tickets.”
Pam’s husband whistled. “Expensive.”
“But worth every penny. I use them to motivate the kids in my neighborhood. If they stay drug free, out of gangs, and work hard to earn good grades, I reward them with tickets to a game.”
“Does that work?” Pam asked.
“It’s been so successful I’ve had to recruit businesses from the surrounding communities to sponsor blocks of tickets at progress report time.”
She caught Matt’s speculative gaze. “Inner-city kids?”
“They’re often the ones who can’t afford to attend.”
“You’re missing games while you’re here,” Jake said.
“I’ve left the tickets in good hands.”
“You’ve never followed football?” That earned Jake a fierce scowl, and from the way he jumped, Rachel suspected Matt had kicked his brother under the table.
“No. As a missionaries’ kid, I didn’t have an opportunity to watch or play sports. I didn’t get into baseball until I was older.” And after Matt, she hadn’t watched a single football game. She’d always been afraid she’d see him on the field, or worse, with some cheerleader in his arms after a game.
Bill’s cell phone rang. He glanced at it. “Looks like the mayor doesn’t get a day of rest even on Sunday. Excuse me.” He left to take the call.
Matt’s dad was the mayor?
The bantering continued, but the atmosphere had changed. Was it because of the phone call? Or the conversation before it?
By late afternoon Rachel was emotionally exhausted from being on guard. It was a relief when Pam rounded up her kids.
After she and Chastity said their goodbyes, Matt walked them to the car. He leaned in the window while she buckled her seat belt. His handsome face was close enough for her to see the silver flecks mingling with the blue of his irises, close enough for her to be overwhelmed by the scent of sunshine, aftershave and man. Close enough for her to lean forward and brush his mouth with hers—if she dared. But she didn’t.
“Thanks for coming,” he said.
Her heart and respiratory rates increased. “I— We had a good time,” she replied huskily and surprisingly, meant it.
Chastity pushed the button to lower the convertible top, making Matt spring back and breaking the connection between Matt and Rachel.
“See you at school tomorrow, Coach.”
“But not in detention.”
“No, sir. Second offenders get litter patrol, and I’m not real keen on picking up trash.”
“And third offenders get stuck cleaning the boys’ locker room after practice,” he warned.
“Eew. Gross.”
“You have no idea,” he added with a comical face.
He had an easy way with the kids that Rachel envied. Would she ever be that relaxed and comfortable with her daughter?
Rachel drove away, watching him in the rearview mirror. He was still standing where she’d left him when they turned the corner. Chastity deserved a family like the Johnstons, but giving her this one meant taking away so much more. Everything Chastity believed about herself was based on lies.
Why did doing the right thing feel so wrong?
CHAPTER FIVE
CHASTITY BURST THROUGH the front door Monday after school and stopped to stare at the pile of boxes in the den.
“Hi. Have a good day?”
Rachel’s greeting earned her a drop-dead glare, then Chastity threw her book bag on the sofa and tromped off. Rachel’s excitement over their afternoon together crashed and burned.
She may be new at this parenting thing, but she’d had enough run-ins with teens at the center to know she must be firm and stand her ground. Girding herself for the encounter ahead, she rose slowly.
She walked down the hall and blocked Chastity’s bedroom door with her palm before it slammed in her face. “Chastity, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” Chastity snapped back, then sat at her makeup table and turned her back.
“Listen, kiddo, I won’t tolerate disrespect. Either you adjust your attitude or all deals are off, and I’ll pack you up and move you to Atlanta today.”
The girl spun around, radiating defiance. “I’ll just run away.”
Rachel tamped down her panic. She’d learned from the counselors she’d worked with that threats to leave were often empty. She couldn’t back down again, or this would become a way for Chastity to control her. She’d have to talk tough and try to be convincing.
“If you run away I’ll report you, and if you’re lucky enough for the cops to find you before some thug rapes you or forces you into prostitution, then you’ll spend time in juvenile detention. That means you won’t be coming home to your friends. You’ll be locked up. And just so you know, asking Jessica’s family to help you would get them charged with contributing to the delinquency of a minor.” At least she thought it would.
Chastity’s eyes widened, then she gulped. “You wouldn’t report me. Or them.”
“Yes, I would. I love you. Your mother entrusted me with your care. I’m going to do my best to keep you safe—by whatever means at my disposal. Stunts like the other night’s when you took off without telling me where you were going, when you’d be home or how to reach you will not be tolerated.”
“You’d be able to reach me if I had a cell phone.” More defiance, but this time with manipulation thrown in for good measure.
�
��I’m not rewarding you for bad behavior. If you keep this up, you’ll get the opposite—grounded for the rest of our time here.” She inhaled slowly, then exhaled, grappling for patience, strength and the right words. “Let’s try this again. What’s wrong?”
Tense silence stretched until she believed she’d have to enforce her threat. “I had a shitty day,” Chastity blurted. “And then I came home and you were packing.”
Rachel debated reprimanding her for swearing but feared it would put up another wall. “You knew we’d be packing. So what went wrong before you got here?”
Chastity slicked on a fresh coat of black nail polish. “My English teacher is having problems with her pregnancy. She has to stay in bed, so today we got our new teacher for the rest of the year. He made me look like an idiot.”
The automatic urge to defend her child roared to life. But Rachel reined it in. She needed facts first. “Was it Matt?”
“No. Mr. Gold is some fresh-out-of-school weirdo who thinks he knows everything.”
“How did he make you look foolish?”
“He made me read out loud in front of the class.”
“Reading aloud is pretty standard stuff.”
“My other teachers never make me do it. I suck at it.”
“Suck how?”
Chastity shifted restlessly and wouldn’t meet Rachel’s gaze. “I just do.”
The reaction seemed over the top. “How did acting up here solve your problem at school?”
Chastity shot her a fierce scowl but remained mute.
“If reading aloud is an issue for you, then your best bet is to speak to the teacher privately. I’ll go with you if you like.”
“No,” she answered a little too quickly. “I’ll handle it myself.”
“If you change your mind, let me know. Now, I need help getting things down from the attic before you start your homework. Please.” She tacked on the last politely but firmly, letting Chastity know her assistance wasn’t optional.
The teen sighed as if greatly put out. “I’ll mess up my nails.”
“Then you can redo them after homework. If you have time.”
Chastity followed Rachel into the hall. Rachel ignored her sullen attitude and pulled down the attic stairs. “The attic is too hot and dimly lit for us to examine the contents up there. So I’ll pass the boxes down to you. Stack them along the wall in the dining room, then later, we’ll go through them and sort the contents into keep and donate piles.”
“Whatever,” Chastity muttered with zero enthusiasm.
Rachel ascended the ladder and headed for the neat pile of boxes in the far corner. She carried them one by one across the plywood floor and handed them down without doing more than a cursory check for spiders.
When she returned with the eleventh box, Chastity was gone. “Hey! Where’d you go?” No answer. “Chastity?”
“What’s all this?” came the muffled reply, the previous belligerence missing from Chastity’s tone.
Rachel looked through the opening and spotted the teen sitting on the floor with a pile of photographs scattered around her. Rachel descended the steps. Her breath snagged in her chest when she recognized the shots.
Each time they’d vacationed together Rachel had asked bystanders to take pictures of the three of them. And sometimes Hope had used Rachel’s camera to take pictures of Rachel with Chastity. Rachel had always gotten extra prints made and mailed the duplicates to Hope. And here they were. Crammed in a dusty box in the attic, their edges yellowed and curling from the heat.
“You’ve never seen these before?”
“No. There are a lot of them. You’re in most of them.”
Rachel sank onto the floor beside her. “You, your mom and I used to vacation together.”
“I kinda remember that. I wish we hadn’t stopped.”
“Me, too, kiddo. I guess your mom got too busy with work and volunteering.”
“She said you were too busy for us.” Eyes so much like Rachel’s glared accusingly at her.
Rachel shook her head. “No. Never.”
“You could have come here.”
How did she explain Hope had banned her from Johnstonville? “Your mom didn’t want that.”
“Why?”
What could she say without blackening Hope’s name? Rachel shrugged and dodged the question by reaching into the box. The grinning gap-toothed face staring at her made her chest ache. “This was your sixth birthday.”
“How can you tell? There are no candles.”
“You were pony-crazy that year. I spent days making that pony-shaped cake. The candles were in the mini banana bread loaves decorated like hay bales that you can’t see in this shot.”
“You baked my cake?”
“Every year.”
They went through the entire box, culminating in Chastity’s eighth birthday—their last family vacation. In photo after photo the love in Rachel’s face was plain to see. Was that why Hope hadn’t shared the pictures with Chastity?
That, in addition to the visiting ban, made Rachel wonder if Hope had been trying to erase her from Chastity’s life. But no. Hope had been too good-hearted to do that. Hadn’t she? She’d helped Rachel too many times to be that petty.
“Mom said you were probably chasin’ a man and couldn’t be bothered with family.”
The unjustness of the unexpected attack robbed her breath. She struggled for composure and the right words. “I wasn’t. And for the record, I don’t chase men.”
“But you have before.”
What kind of tales had Hope told? Had her virtuous sister lied about more than Chastity’s parenthood? “Once.”
“Once?” Chastity’s disbelief was obvious. “Mom said—”
“Chastity, I’ve only chased one man in my life, and I caught him.” Rachel immediately regretted the outburst. The last thing she needed was for Chastity to ask more questions, but Hope’s betrayal stunned, hurt and angered her.
“So where is he now?”
Rachel frowned at Chastity’s smart-alecky tone. “I wasn’t the right woman for him.”
“Did he dump you or turn out to be a jerk? Was he married? Or gay?”
“No. He was perfect. Too perfect for somebody like me.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Rachel didn’t relish rehashing her mistakes. Chastity wasn’t old enough to understand. Maybe one day...but not tonight. “It means I haven’t always made the right choices.”
Chastity rolled her eyes. “Mom never made mistakes.”
Did the edge in Chastity’s voice mean she’d had as much trouble with Hope’s perfection as Rachel had? “Everybody makes mistakes. Some mistakes are more obvious than others.”
“Try selling that idea to the principal.”
A smile tweaked Rachel’s mouth. “Just do your best, okay? And always try to do the right thing. That’s all you can do.”
Chastity flipped through the earliest photos one more time. “I don’t remember any of these trips.”
“When we have more time I’ll tell you about them. I have more pictures back at my place.”
“You do love me.”
Shocked, she leaned back. “Of course I do. I have from the minute I learned about you.”
“Mom said—” Chastity stopped and ducked her head, her hair fell forward, shielding her face. “I thought you didn’t love me because I’m not perfect like Mom.”
Rachel’s heart ached. She tucked a dark lock behind Chastity’s ear, and the teen looked up with a face full of regret. “Neither am I, Chastity. Not even close.”
“I’m sorry for saying you’re not my real family.”
Rachel’s throat tightened. “Apology accepted. Remember, nobody’s perfect. We all make mista
kes. We all say things we shouldn’t. It happens.”
Chastity blinked her over-bright eyes and shook off Rachel’s hand on her shoulder. “I better start my homework. Can I keep these?”
“Absolutely. I’ll get an album for them tomorrow if you want, and after school we can fill the pages.”
“That would be cool.”
Together they returned the photos to the box, then Chastity carried them to her room. Rachel heaved a sigh of relief. This was the kind of relationship she’d yearned for with her dau—niece. She hoped more would follow.
* * *
THE DOORBELL RANG Tuesday morning as Rachel was pouring her first cup of coffee. She checked the clock on the microwave. Pam was early for carpool. And usually she just tooted the horn.
Shoving back her hair, Rachel crossed the den and opened the front door. Matt stood on the porch. Her stomach took a nosedive to her bare feet.
“G’morning. Is Chastity ready?” His gaze ran over her, and she wanted to hide. He’d caught her at a disadvantage. Again. She must look awful. She’d barely slept last night after discovering Hope’s betrayal.
“Where’s Pam?”
“Johnathan woke up sick. She’s taking the morning off to stay with him. Jessica was supposed to call Chastity to let her know that I’m the DD and my ETA.”
“I haven’t heard the phone ring. I don’t know if Chastity’s ready. I’ll check.” She stepped away from the door, and he followed. She didn’t know how to politely ask him to stay outside. He glanced past her, his gaze landing on the pile of boxes. “What’s all this?”
“Stuff to donate. I need to find a charity that will take it.”
“It won’t fit in that fancy red convertible you’re driving. How will you get it there?”
“I’ll figure it out.”
“I can help you haul it. But not tonight. I have Scouts.”
“Scouts? Aren’t you a little old for that?”
“I’m a troop leader.”