Her easter prayer, p.7
Her Easter Prayer, page 7
“Eleven!” Landon said from where he lay on the floor, waving a toy in front of Lady’s long nose. “Dad lived with eleven different families when he was a kid.” He said it like it was some kind of achievement.
Emily looked quickly at Dev and caught the slightest pinch in his expression before he smiled. “Everybody’s a record setter in some way or other.”
“Sounds rough.”
“It was at times, but hey. I learned Spanish and I learned to cook.” He used a garlic press to squeeze garlic into a bowl of soft butter, stirred it and then spread it on a split-open loaf of Italian bread.
She leaned back, watching him.
Curiosity about this man who could make the best of a difficult childhood—and who actually owned a garlic press—flashed through her, warm and intense. She didn’t want to be nosy, shouldn’t be. His childhood wasn’t her business, and she ought to be polite and drop the subject.
But this man and his son tugged at her. The more she learned about them, the more she felt for them. And maybe part of it was to do with Landon, with his being the same age her son would have been, but that wasn’t all of it. They were a fascinating pair. They’d come through some challenges, Dev with his childhood and both of them with a divorce, and yet they were still positive. She really wanted to know how, what their secret was. “Did you grow up in the Denver area, or all over?”
“Denver and the farm country around it.” He slid the bread into the oven. “How about you?”
“Just a few towns over on the other side of the mountain.” Indeed, she’d spent most of her life, including her married life, in this part of the state.
He didn’t volunteer any more information about himself and Landon, so she didn’t press. Instead, she leaned down and showed Landon Lady’s favorite spot to be scratched, right behind the ears. Now that they weren’t working anymore, he was talkative and happy, asking her a million questions about the dog.
It was hard to leave the kitchen, cozy and warm, infused with the fragrances of garlic and tomato and bread. Her quiet home and the can of soup she’d likely heat up for dinner both seemed lonely after being here. But she had her own life and couldn’t mooch off theirs. “I’d better let you men get on with your dinner,” she said and started gathering up her books.
“You want to stay?” Dev asked.
The question, hanging in the air, ignited danger flares in her mind.
The answer was obvious: yes, she did want to stay. But an Unwise! Unwise! warning message seemed to flash in her head.
Spending even more time with Dev and Landon was no way to keep the distance she knew she had to keep. As appealing as this pair was, she couldn’t risk getting closer. Her heart might not survive the wrenching away that would have to happen, sooner rather than later.
She fumbled with her book bag, reluctant to give the answer she knew she had to give.
* * *
Now, why had he gone and invited Emily to dinner?
It was bad enough to have the pretty reading teacher in his kitchen for the after-school hour, talking with and teasing and teaching Landon, getting more thinking and work out of him than Dev ever could’ve.
If she joined them for dinner, he and Landon would both start to get attached. And that was exactly what they couldn’t do. They were her clients. Landon was her student. It was important that things stay at that same simple, professional level.
“It’s a really nice offer, but I shouldn’t stay.” She stuffed the rest of her books and papers into a huge tote bag.
Relief and disappointment wrestled inside him. “That’s fine. It was just a thought.”
“Stay, Ms. Carver. I want to keep playing with Lady.” Landon looked up at her. “I’ll walk her for you after dinner.”
“Ms. Carver needs to get home,” Dev said, wishing it weren’t so.
“Please? I worked really hard today.” His eager face looked pleadingly from one adult to the other, his arm wrapped around Lady.
Emily glanced over at Dev, her expression amused, reflecting the way he felt. Manipulation. Kids were such pros at it. But who could say no to that face, those eyes?
She must have seen that he was caving. “Well,” she said, “that garlic bread does smell really good.”
“Yes!” Landon pumped his arm. “You’ll love it. Dad’s garlic bread is the best.”
She smiled. “How could I turn that down?”
Dev’s heart was light as he spooned spaghetti and sauce onto plates. Emily filled water glasses at his direction, and Landon got out the silverware and napkins. At the table, they held hands and prayed before digging in.
It could have been awkward—they didn’t know each other well, and there had been that weird moment in the truck, when he’d gotten so tempted to pull her close—but Landon and Lady kept things light. Lady scarfed down a crust of bread that got knocked to the floor, so quickly that they all laughed. Landon talked about some of the boys in his classes in a way that suggested he was starting to make some decent friends. Which Dev was glad about but still wanted to keep an eye on, given that it was a school for troubled boys.
When they were clearing the dishes and Landon had gone into the front room to watch TV, Dev asked Emily about it. “Do you think there are kids here Landon should stay away from?”
She shook her head. “Not really. I don’t know every boy’s story, but I know if they’ve engaged in criminal behavior that’s considered dangerous to others, they’re not admitted. We’re sort of midrange in terms of behavior issues.”
He nodded, filling the sink with hot water, squirting in dish soap. “I guess from the outside, any kid’s issues can look bad, including Landon’s. I know he’s not going to set another fire, but that’s not obvious to everyone.”
“He seems like a gentle kid.” She brought over the rest of the dishes. “That’s true of most of the kids here. Half of the trouble is that they didn’t get the help they needed in school, and they fell behind and got frustrated.”
“I hear that,” he said, letting too much feeling leak into his voice.
And then he wished he hadn’t, because her eyes darkened with sympathy. “It must have been tough living with all those different families, especially if it involved changing schools a lot, too.”
He nodded and busied himself scrubbing the pan he’d used to brown the beef.
“Did you struggle in school?”
A flash of remembered frustration brought sweat to the back of his neck. Every school he’d attended had been at a different spot in the textbook. Every one had given different sorts of tests. And had different expectations of behavior.
He’d gotten assigned to low-level reading classes, and once he’d been pulled out of class for special help with reading. But just as he’d started to connect with the teacher and learn, he’d gotten moved to another foster home, another district. And the process of failing had started all over again.
He’d envied the kids comfortable enough in the classroom to joke around, the ones who could sneak a handheld game under their desk or pass notes and still manage to find their place in the book or come up with the right answer when the teacher called on them. Emily had probably been that kind of kid, though he already knew her well enough to speculate that she was more likely to have sneaked an unauthorized book to read than played video games or passed notes.
And that was just a reminder of why she wasn’t for him. “Listen,” he said without answering her question, “I know you have things to do back at your place. I’ll finish up here.” He hated his own tone, abrupt, ungracious.
She’d been smiling, looking sympathetic, but at his rude dismissal, the smile slid off her face. “Oh, sure, okay,” she said. She dried her hands without looking at him again, grabbed her bag, snapped her fingers to get Lady to her side. “See you in school tomorrow, Landon,” she said, and she disappeared out the door before he could feel more than a pang of regret that he’d hurt her feelings by pushing her away.
Keeping his reading inadequacy a secret was going to be harder and harder the more Emily Carver infiltrated their lives.
Chapter Seven
On the Friday after she started tutoring Landon, Emily headed toward the group of students and staff clustered outside the school building with a firm goal: not to be assigned to the same hiking group as Dev and Landon.
It was Earth Day, and the school had taken advantage of the good weather with an outdoor activity—an all-day, all-school hike.
“Everyone listen up,” Ashley Green called over the talking and laughing of students excited to be let out of class. She wore casual shorts and a Bright Tomorrows T-shirt, her hair in a simple ponytail instead of its usual neat bun, and Emily realized, with surprise, that she was pretty. She seemed less intimidating than usual, as well. Ashley was relatively new at Bright Tomorrows and didn’t seem to have many friends yet. For the first time, Emily realized she ought to reach out to the woman, despite the fact that Ashley was her boss.
“Two rules,” Ashley continued when everyone had quieted down. “No one hikes alone, which means you have to keep a lookout for slower members of your group. Don’t keep going if they’re falling behind. And rule number two, every student has to have an adult in sight at all times.”
“Aw, they aren’t much to look at,” one of the older students yelled, earning glares from the adults and laughter from the students.
Ashley laughed, too, but then her face got serious. “It’s no joke, Byron. Hiking in the Colorado mountains always has an element of risk. We’ve assigned someone trained in first aid and someone experienced with maps and compasses to each group, but everyone needs to have their wits about them.”
So the groups were already assigned. It made sense. Emily looked across the crowd and spotted Landon and Dev. Of course they were already here; she’d waited until they were out of sight before leaving her cabin.
It was what she’d done the whole week since their first tutoring session, when Dev had invited her to share their cozy meal and then kicked her out.
The man was good to look at, as Hayley kept saying. Interesting, too, with a kindhearted side. A good dad. She couldn’t deny that she felt a spark when she spent time around him.
Maybe he sensed it, and that was why he’d pushed her away. He was way out of her league lookswise, that was for sure.
But even if he’d looked more ordinary, like she did, nothing was going to happen between them. No-thing. Nothing. Emily didn’t do relationships, not anymore.
Funny how often she was having to remind herself of that these days.
It was just that this was the first time she’d found a man appealing since she’d become a widow. It didn’t mean anything special. She just needed to ride it out and take care of herself so the awareness of all she’d lost and all she couldn’t have didn’t start her on a downward spiral.
She couldn’t drag her own heart and her ticking biological clock through the mud of a doomed attraction. So she’d suggested that Landon meet her in the library for tutoring one day, and in her own kitchen the next.
The tutoring sessions had been okay. It was early times, and she was still assessing his status at the same time she helped him with his immediate issues. She’d sent an email to Dev, copying Ashley and recommending that Landon be tested for dyslexia by a licensed educational psychologist. Meanwhile, she’d worked with him on a test review, and she was pretty confident that Landon had passed the test, so that was something.
On the other hand, he had trouble sitting still and got frustrated easily. She had her hands full trying to keep him on task and engaged after a full day of being in class. So ADHD was something they should also keep in mind, but she wasn’t going to dump all that on Dev and Landon at once.
Today’s excursion would be good for Landon, a chance to burn off some energy and find out what the Colorado mountains were really like, since she’d guessed from things he’d said that he hadn’t had much time out in nature when he’d lived with his mom in Denver.
It was also a chance for him to feel like a part of things, rather than the new kid with the reading problems.
She’d like to see Landon discover the thrill of reaching the top of a mountain under his own steam.
“Have they assigned groups yet?” Hayley rushed over from the kitchen door.
“Not yet. Or rather, they’ve assigned them, but they haven’t told us yet. You get to go?”
“I’d better. I’m grilling the hot dogs. Listen for my name, will you? I have to grab my hiking boots.”
“Sure will. Hope we’re together.”
But it turned out they weren’t. Instead, she learned that Landon had begged to be in the same group as Emily and Lady, and whoever had assigned the groups had given in. So he and Dev clustered with Emily and the other members of their group of ten, waiting for further instructions. The other two adults in Emily’s group were Stan Davidson, the math teacher, and Maria, from the counseling department, whom Stan seemed intent on impressing.
“To make things fun,” Ashley said, “we’re going to race to the lake at the top of the trail.”
“Yeah, let’s go!” one of the boys said. Others pumped arms in the air, and two actually started running for the trailhead.
“Whoa. Stay here, guys. It’s not that kind of race—it’s a timed race. Each group will take off ten minutes apart, and we’ll see who reaches the lake in the least amount of time based on their start.”
Emily had participated in these challenges before, but being with the kids in the gorgeous Rockies never got old.
Being with Dev, though, was going to be more of a challenge. She gave him a little smile, but he didn’t return it. Maybe it was because he was focused on checking Landon’s knapsack.
Or maybe he just wanted to keep his distance.
Which was a good thing, she reminded herself, even though it didn’t feel that way.
Their group was second, and the kids rushed ahead. Stan gave a loud whistle. “Remember the rules,” he yelled. “Adults in sight all the time.”
“And pace yourselves,” Emily called out. “If you start too fast, you’ll get tired and hit a wall.”
The kids waved and yelled their agreement and hurried ahead anyway. But when they started around a bend, they stopped and waited until the rest of the group caught up.
Emily tried to talk to Stan, but he made it obvious her presence was unwelcome as he bragged to the pretty school counselor about his professional successes prior to coming to Bright Tomorrows. Dev was bringing up the rear, so Emily quickened her pace and reached the kids in the front of the group.
After just a few minutes of climbing, it wasn’t hard to keep up, because the kids had slowed way down. Everyone was short of breath.
They crossed a rushing, icy stream on a double-plank bridge. Surrounding them were pines and, beyond those, peaks capped and lined with snow. The ground was rough and the trail faint, and when the kids made a wrong turn, Emily called out and reminded them to look for the cairns—little stacks of rocks—that stood in for signs for much of the way.
She took deep breaths of the cool air and listened to the sound of water on rocks, mingled with kids’ voices and the caws of bright blue Steller’s jays. The path curved onto the edge of a drop-off and then climbed higher.
Some of the kids moved faster, and when they shouted, Emily hurried to find out what was wrong. But the boys were all whooping and jumping around at a spot where the trail opened out onto a wide, nearly flat field covered in white. “It’s snow!” one of the newer boys yelled.
It was no surprise to Emily that the snowpack remained in April, but it was a delight to the kids. They ran and slid along the snowfield and then picked up the path again on the other side.
The boys were getting excited as they climbed higher, wanting to be the winning team, and the other adults dawdled behind her, almost out of sight. Emily was thankful for Lady, trotting along beside her. She’d taken off Lady’s service dog vest and put her on a long leash so she could sniff and dodge back and forth across the trail like any other dog. Lady still checked in with her frequently, though, looking up, panting, seeming to smile.
She was a good companion. Better than another person. Especially a person like Dev. Sure, he was good-looking—very—and a good guy overall, but the way he ran hot and cold would be tough on any woman he dated.
Did he date anyone? It was hard to imagine he’d already met someone in Little Mesa or at the school, but maybe he’d left a hometown sweetheart behind in Denver.
Deliberately, she pushed thoughts of the handyman out of her mind and focused on the wind in the trees and the sunshine sparkling on the little stream that ran beside the trail. It was so beautiful here, so easy to see God at work, the artistry of His creation. She prayed without words, feeling gratitude for all God’s blessings. He’d brought her joy out of pain. No, she’d never forget the awful things that had happened to her, that she’d caused, but with God’s help, she’d built a life where she could be of service. She loved her work; she had friends; she lived in a beautiful place. That was a lot to be thankful for.
Most of the group had continued hurrying ahead, waiting impatiently whenever a bend in the trail threatened to put the lagging hikers out of sight. But Landon had fallen behind the other boys, and now he sat on a rock beside the trail, breathing hard. Another boy was with him.
“Taking a rest?” Emily asked as she reached them. She smiled her approval at the two boys. “Good for you, following the rules about how nobody should hike alone.”
“This is hard,” Landon complained between gasps.
“It’s the altitude, dude,” the other boy said. “You’re not used to it.”
“You’re right. Hank, can you run up and get the other boys to stop? Landon isn’t the only one who’s not used to the altitude. We should all take a break, get some water and maybe some trail mix.”
