A Father's Promise (14 page)

And maybe she was, but one thing she knew for certain; she couldn’t stay here anymore. Not in the same town as her daughter.

The daughter of a man she thought she loved.

She took mental stock of her situation, her mind listing all the pros and cons.

She needed some time away from town, away from the possibility of running into Zach. But how was she supposed to do that? Her mother still needed daily care.

Suddenly, she had an idea. She called the store and Ashley answered.

“I have a huge favor to ask you,” she said, looking out over the street. “Would you be able to mind the store with my mother for the next couple of days?”

“Of course I can. I’m not really busy, so that works out perfect.”

“I know it’s super short notice, but I need a couple days away from the store.” She could head over to Cranbrook. Maybe go for a hike up to Fairy Creek Falls. She’d been meaning to do that, but she’d never had the time.

“That’s just fine. Will your mother be needing any help?”

“I’ll be home in the evenings,” Renee said. From the way things were progressing with her mother and Arlan, she didn’t need to worry about Brenda being lonely, either.

But could she leave?

Don’t think about that now,
she told herself.
Take it one step at a time. Go away for a while. Give yourself some space.

Yet, even as she grabbed her purse and headed down the back stairs to leave, deep in her lonely soul, she knew exactly what she had to do.

Chapter Fourteen

A
rlan folded his hands on the desk between him and Renee, and acted as if he wasn’t sure what to think of her presence in his office.

“You wanted to discuss something with me?” he asked.

Renee felt a sense of déjà vu as she looked at him. Eight years ago she had sat here, making another momentous decision.

“Yes. I don’t know if my mother spoke with you, but I need some help with the sale of the store.”

Arlan nodded slowly, as if absorbing news Renee was fairly sure he already knew. “Your mother did talk to me about your decision. She said that she hadn’t been able to persuade you not to do it.”

Renee took a long, steadying breath. “I feel badly for her, but the store was always more my dream than hers,” she said quietly. “I know she said she didn’t want to keep it up if I wasn’t going to be there, so I want to go ahead with the sale.”

“But you love working in that store,” Arlan prompted. “I know Zach had said that you did an amazing job helping Tricia with her scrapbook.”

Renee was suddenly angry with Arlan for mentioning Zach. She knew that he was at Tricia’s school play today.

“I do, and I will miss it, but I have good reasons for my decision.”

“Your mother doesn’t want the therapy in Vancouver, so it’s not to pay for that,” Arlan said.

Renee shook her head.

“Why do you feel you need to do this?”

Renee fought back a sob. Her emotions were fragile, and she couldn’t defend herself against his quiet onslaught. He was the one person who had known, all along, everything about Tricia.

“I...I can’t stay here” was all she could manage to say.

He said nothing for a few beats, nodding slightly.

“Because of Zach?”

“Yes.”

“That seems extreme, don’t you think?”

She shook her head, not trusting herself to speak.

“He misses you.”

Renee squeezed her eyes shut, still silent.

“Tricia misses you, too.”

Renee held up her hand. “Please. Stop.”

Arlan sighed lightly. “I’m sorry. I’m overstepping my boundaries. I’m just being a father and a grandfather.”

“And I’m trying to be responsible,” she blurted, twisting her hands together.

“What do you mean?”

Renee wanted to ignore his question. They had already veered far away from the usual lawyer/client relationship.

Renee lifted her head and fastened her gaze on him, swallowing against the pain sliding up her throat.

“Zach and I...it was a dream. A silly dream for the perfect happy-ever-after. But it’s not going to work. And for that reason, I have to leave. For Zach’s sake as much as for Tricia’s. Zach and Tricia are building a life here. I can’t be around them knowing that I can’t be with them, and I can’t run the risk of Tricia finding out who I am. So, I’m leaving.”

Arlan leaned back in his chair. “So you would sacrifice the store you and your mother so lovingly built up for the sake of my son and my granddaughter.
Your
daughter,” he added.

“Please stop doing that,” she cried. “Can we just keep this businesslike?”

Arlan carefully smiled. “Renee, if you wanted to keep this just business, you could have gone to any of the other lawyers in the area. I think you had another reason for coming here.”

His words wormed their way through the cracks of her defenses.

Arlan rocked in his chair, nodding slowly. “Maybe it was a cry for help,” he continued. “I can’t talk you out of this?”

She shook her head. “No. My mind is made up, though I am worried about my mother. But I’m guessing that you’ll take care of her.”

Arlan’s wide smile wasn’t hard to decipher. “I love your mother. A blessed by-product of us trying to matchmake you and Zach.” He held up his hand as if recognizing he had overstepped again. “Sorry. But I want you to know that I love your mother unconditionally and will take care of her with every fiber of my being. And, if God wills it, I might try to persuade her to follow through on the therapy, but for her own sake, not anyone else’s.”

Renee felt as if the heavy bonds of responsibility for her mother were loosening, and with that came a relief she wasn’t sure how to handle.

“I’m so glad,” she said, her voice quiet in the office. “So thankful that she has found you.”

Arlan folded his arms over his chest. “I know any mention of Zach is off the table, but I am a father, and I see him hurting.”

Renee couldn’t allow this conversation to go further. “I have good reasons for what I’m doing.” Her voice faltered, mocking her determination. “Like I told Zach, I can’t give Tricia what she needs. I can’t be the mother to her that Molly was. She has good memories of her, and I think that’s for the best. Maybe someday Zach will find someone else, but it can’t be me.”

“Can’t?”

Trust a lawyer to pick up on that small slip.

Renee gathered her scattered emotions. “At any rate, I’m not exactly sure what the next step will be with the buyer.”

“She has to make an offer to purchase. Your real-estate agent should have told you that.”

“I’m not dealing with a real-estate agent.”

“In that case, I can take care of it.” Arlan’s voice shifted, sounding suddenly professional. For a moment Renee missed the fatherly tone he had taken with her. Missed the idea that he cared about her.

As they went over the details of the sale, she realized this was how it had to be.

When everything was completed, Renee stood and slipped her purse over her shoulder. “Thanks for all your help,” she said. “I really appreciate it.”

Arlan came around the desk to escort her out of the office, but before he did, he stopped in front of her and put his hand on her shoulder.

“I’ll be praying for you,” he said quietly, his touch gentle. Warm.

Renee struggled with a sudden sense of emptiness. “Thank you.”

He gave her a one-armed hug that threatened to loosen the razor-thin grip she had on her self-control.

“Take care, my dear,” he whispered, then released her and opened the door.

Renee couldn’t help glancing toward Zach’s office. The door was open, but the office was empty.

“You should be okay,” Arlan said. “The play isn’t over for twenty minutes.”

She nodded, relief and disappointment sluicing through her. Then she walked down the stairs, her footsteps echoing in the silence, loneliness dogging each step.

When she stepped out into the sunshine, she lifted her eyes to the warmth and released a sigh.

I need Your strength, Lord. I need Your promises. More than I ever did.

* * *

“Are you busy? Can I come in?”

Zach looked up from his computer. His father stood in the doorway of his office. “Of course you can,” he said.

Arlan closed the door behind him, then ambled into Zach’s office. “This is a good place,” he said. “A good place for a family.”

Zach pushed his shirtsleeves up his arms and leaned back in his chair. He guessed this was a preamble to what his father really wanted to talk about, so he just waited.

His father slipped his hands into his pockets and leaned back against the wall behind him.

“What’s troubling you, Dad?” Zach asked, giving Arlan an opening. “I’m thinking it isn’t the lease agreement you’ve been struggling with for that new development on the edge of town.”

“Actually I think there’s more that’s troubling
you.
”

“What do you mean?”

“I had a visit this morning while you were at Tricia’s play. From Renee. She’s putting the scrapbook store up for sale.”

Why did that send a sliver of dread through him?

“Probably for the best,” he said, trying to sound more casual than he felt, trying to still the pounding of his heart.

“Why do you say that?”

Zach swiveled his chair back and forth, back and forth. “It’s an awkward situation. What with Tricia and all.”

“And you and all,” Arlan added.

Zach shrugged. The past few days had been empty and lonely. He hated the way he felt, and hated that Renee had made him feel this way. He had been so careful to guard his heart, but she had burst through his defenses.

“She’s selling the store because she doesn’t want to cause problems for you and Tricia. I can’t think of a more unselfish and admirable act.”

Zach didn’t know what to say.

“She looks incredibly sad,” his father continued. “I don’t think it’s because she’s selling the store, though.”

Zach missed Renee more than he thought possible, but where to start? “So what am I supposed to do?” he asked.

“I think you should go talk to her.”

“We tried talking,” he said. “That didn’t end well.”

“And you’re going to leave it at that? What kind of lawyer are you to let someone walk all over you?”

Zach acknowledged his father’s attempt at humor with a wry smile. “I’ve spent enough of my married life running after a woman, trying to placate her. Trying to figure out what she really wanted. I can’t...I can’t do it again.”

“Can’t or won’t?”

Zach sucked in an angry breath. “I have to take care of Tricia.”

“At this point, I think taking care of Tricia involves trying to find a way to make things work between you and Renee,” Arlan continued.

“A few days ago, when all this fell apart, I went up to the mountains,” Zach said. “I prayed that God would help me be a good father. And from what Renee told me, that involves leaving her alone. She pretty much told me that she can’t be a good mother to Tricia. I can’t put Tricia through that again, no matter how much it hurts me.”

His father nodded, as if slowly weighing what he was saying. “As a father you should put Tricia first. But why do you think Renee said what she did? About not being able to be the mother Tricia needed?”

Zach shrugged. “I don’t know. I...I got upset. I told her that she had given up on Tricia once and that she was doing it again.”

“You didn’t!”

His father’s shocked voice only underlined Zach’s own shame at what he had said.

“I was angry, upset and afraid. I’m responsible for Tricia, and I take that seriously. Especially after Molly’s haphazard mothering.”

“I don’t want to preach at you, but I think you need to know that while Tricia is your daughter, she is God’s child first.” His father gave him a lopsided smile. “It’s not completely on your shoulders to do everything for her.”

Zach nodded, and his father continued, “I think you need to find out what Renee meant when she said she didn’t think she could be the mother Tricia needed.”

Zach dragged his hands over his face, his fingers rasping on the whiskers he hadn’t bothered to shave this morning. Then he looked up at his father. “Why do I get the feeling that you already have a good idea why?”

“A good lawyer never approaches a case without knowing all the facts” was Arlan’s vague reply.

“So tell me.”

“It’s Renee’s story to tell.”

“Humor me,” Zach said, an edge of impatience entering his voice.

His father cocked an eyebrow at him, but he shifted his shoulder. “She compared herself to Molly. I’m sure there’s more that she didn’t tell me, but she has the idea that Molly was an exemplary mother, and she didn’t think she could measure up.”

“I think she got that idea from working on the scrapbook. I was always talking Molly up.” Zach eased out a sigh. “But you said you think there’s more?”

“That’s just a notion I have. The only way you’ll find out is by talking to Renee yourself.”

Did he want to go there? Did he want to open himself up to more pain if Renee was only hiding behind what she said as an excuse to keep him and Tricia away?

“She’s worth taking a chance on,” his father continued. “The fact that she’s willing to sacrifice the store, first for her mother and then for Tricia and you, should show you what an amazing woman Renee is.”

Shame licked at him. His father was right. What they had together was worth taking a chance on. Besides, how could he feel any worse than he did now?

He glanced at the clock, and his father waved him off. “Don’t worry about Tricia,” he said. “I’ll keep her entertained when she comes here from school.”

“Okay.” He rolled down his sleeves and ran his hands over his hair in an attempt to neaten it.

“You look fine,” his father assured him. “Now go. I’m sure Renee is at the store, even though it looks closed. Her mother told me.”

With a quick smile at his father and a prayer on his lips, Zach strode out of the office and down the stairs before he talked himself out of this.

He came to the store. A large Sold sign was placed in the window, the reality of what his father had said sinking in. She really was leaving.

He peered into the shop and, thankfully, didn’t notice anyone inside. He watched for a few moments, ignoring the people who walked past him, shooting him curious glances.

Probably wondering why he was stalking Scrap Happy.

He didn’t see any movement in the store.

The Closed sign hung in the door, but when he tested the doorknob, he found it was unlocked. He slowly opened the door, being careful not to disturb the bells that announced the entrance of a customer. As he stepped inside, he glanced around.

Still empty.

He walked quietly past the counter, looking toward the back. He could just make out the room where he and Tricia and Renee had worked on Molly’s scrapbook together. The one that had caused so many problems.

Then he saw Renee. She sat at the table. He quietly returned to the front door and locked it.

Taking a deep breath, he walked quietly to the back of the store.

Renee sat at the table, her Bible open in front of her.

He paused a moment, watching as she picked up a piece of paper from beside the Bible and held it up.

His heart shifted in his chest when he recognized a picture of him and Tricia. It must have been one of the discards. Probably because Molly wasn’t in it.

He heard a sniffle, then he saw her lift a finger and slowly, gently trace his face. The look of yearning on her features made his heart skip. Then the picture fluttered out of her fingers as she dropped her face into her palms, her shoulders shaking with quiet sobs.