Love Inspired January 2014 - Bundle 1 of 2: Her Unexpected Cowboy\His Ideal Match\The Rancher's Secret Son (52 page)

Until it was time to reverse, and the tormenter became the tormented.

“The golden rule exists for a reason, guys,” Max hollered as snickers rose from revenge being played. Ashton crashed into a chair as David snorted in amusement. “Do unto others, and all that. Not so fun on the other side, is it?”

The lesson finally sank in as the boys began taking the course seriously, leading each other through unscathed. Finally. “Chairs are next.”

More groans, along with quibbles over who would go first and on which team. “That'll be Tim's decision.” Max shut down that argument quick. “Emma? A second?”

She joined him on the fringes of the group as Tim began lining up the teams in front of the row of chairs. “You okay with this? I know I put you on the spot.”

“It's fine.” Her eyes darted to Tonya, then back to his face, something guarded and downright strange in her gaze. “It's just...I found out...” Her voice trailed, and he wished they were alone so he could cup her chin and make her look at him.

“Found out what? Her secret?”

“It's not what you think.” Emma glanced back at the girls before meeting his eyes briefly. “I can't tell you here.” She pulled in her lower lip, looking nearly like a teen herself.

Not what he thought? Then what else was there—and why was it bothering Emma so deeply? He grazed her arm with his fingers, forgetting about their audience. “Are you all right?”

She jerked at his touch but didn't pull away. “We'll talk later. Let's do this.”

She was more willing to fall backward off a chair than talk about Tonya, so it had to be bad. Or maybe it really was that private.

He led them back to the group, where Tim had gotten the first set of teams on the chairs and ready. This time, one person would fall while three caught them. They couldn't do their original teams of one on one, since there were several teams where one person significantly outweighed the other. He didn't want to send a whole crew to the E.R.

“Hands crossed across your chest, cupping each of your shoulders.” Max pointed to Cody, who stood on the chair, for once looking vulnerable. Jarvis, David and Ashton gathered beneath him, arms outstretched. “When you're ready, trust—and fall backward.”

Cody snorted in disbelief, and Tonya, who stood on the chair beside him in front of Emma, Stacy and Katie, looked as if she might faint again.

“When you're ready.” Max waited. So did Cody and Tonya, not budging. The seconds on his watch ticked away, and the groups of teens with outstretched arms grew restless, shifting their weight and sighing.

“Okay, forget that. On three.” He cleared his throat, a wariness of his own suddenly creeping into his stomach. Must be picking up the kids' nervousness. “One.”

Cody coughed. The kids below him stretched their arms farther, gathered in tighter.

“Two.”

Tonya sucked in her breath. Katie and Stacy squeezed in, Emma's eyes darting back and forth from Tonya to Cody as if she weren't sure who she'd rather catch.

“Three.”

Tonya fell into the arms of her friends.

And Cody landed flat on his back in the dust.

Chapter Sixteen

“W
hat a day.” Max leaned against the wooden fence railing, propping one booted foot on the rail behind him. He yanked off his hat and rubbed his hair, the gesture familiar and comforting yet at the same time, unnerving. Moonlight against his profile highlighted his rugged features, which looked as weary as she felt.

“You can say that again.” Emma tried not to let him see her watching, tried not to let him see her hanging by a rapidly fraying thread. Was that even possible to hide anymore? Voices from the past rose up in a suffocating mist. She squeezed her eyes closed as memories assaulted, some from a decade ago, some from that very afternoon, sounds and images mixing and twirling in a cyclone she couldn't escape. The comfort of snuggling in Max's embrace on her parents' swing. The hardness in his eyes the day he accepted that last delivery of drugs. The beeping of the monitors while she was in labor with Cody. The slamming doors of his rebellion. The thud as Cody landed flat on his back in the dirt.

Max's voice softened. “He's okay, Emma. I promise.”

He'd probably uttered those same words thirty-seven times in the past three hours, even after she'd seen for herself Cody was fine and moved on to the next activity as planned. But the assurances refused to soak into Emma's heart. Maybe physically he was okay from his fall. But she wasn't okay. And neither was Cody. Not really. Not where it mattered. How could he be?

“It's my fault.” All of it. No, most of it. There was a good bit that was still Max's fault.

But the fall was her fault.

She gripped the fence rail with both hands, aware of possibly gaining a splinter but unable to care. “I'm the one who had the bright idea to make the teens fall off chairs.” Stupid, stupid, stupid. Exercises like that at church youth camps were one thing—but among a group of potentially reforming delinquents? What had she been thinking?

“It's not your fault.” Max leaned in and parroted back everything she needed to hear, everything she would tell someone else if the roles were reversed, but she knew better. Deep down, she knew better. She should have seen this coming.

“We saw the way those guys acted on the blindfold course.” She spun around, not realizing he'd edged as close as he had. The stars provided a canopy of light across the darkness above his head, enveloping them in the still quiet that could only come from a ranch after hours. The kind of quiet she wanted to embrace and tuck into her soul and keep once she was back in the hectic bustle of Dallas.

Assuming she and Cody ever made it back in one piece.

“We had no idea they'd team up against him like that and let him fall.” Max's brow tightened, probably remembering the same thing she had. After making sure Tonya was safely on the ground, Emma had run to Cody, only to find Max had beaten her there. He'd single-handedly shoved the teens back, helped Cody catch the breath that had been knocked out of him, and doled out punishment to the boys at fault.

While Emma stood back. Helpless.

Guilty.

Her stomach roiled. “I don't know why I'm here.”

“You're here because you're needed.” Max's answer came swiftly, as if he'd kept it ready for just such a declaration. “You can't control everything, Emma.”

No kidding.

She rubbed her eyes with the palms of her hands. “Tonya's pregnant.”

“Pregnant.” He said the word as if it tasted bad, as if he wished he could spit it back out. She knew the feeling; she'd felt the same the first time she stared at two pink lines crawling up a tiny display window. He let out a huff of surprise. “Never thought I'd wish for an eating disorder instead.”

“She confided in me after I caught her.” Emma hitched herself up on the fence, tired of standing and carrying her own weight. She perched on the top rail, now face-to-face with Max. “I found the test in the bathroom.”

Surprise flickered. “She didn't even try to hide it?”

“I think she knew it was a matter of time at that point.” She'd held Tonya's braids back as the girl dry heaved in the bathroom later that evening after the trust exercises and promised her they'd figure it out. She was in for a long road.

Max sighed as if releasing the burdens of the entire world. “I'll have to call her parents in the morning. She can't stay here in that condition.”

“I figured.” She hated to let Tonya go, but this required a different level of care than Camp Hope could handle. Tonya needed counseling and support and a health plan. “I'm going to keep in touch with her.”

“Of course.” Max nodded as if he'd never expected less.

“Why do you believe in me so much?” The words left her lips in a whisper, and she half hoped he didn't hear.

He took her hand from the fence railing and brought it to his lips for a quick kiss. “Because I know your heart.”

She pulled her hand free. “No, you don't.” If he did, if he really knew what lay beneath the surface, he'd run. Just like she'd run thirteen years ago. He'd hold against her everything she deserved for him to, and it would hurt. Worse maybe than it did a decade prior.

She wasn't strong enough to make it through that kind of pain a second time.

“Just because we haven't kept in contact over the years doesn't mean you've changed so much I don't know you.” He tucked her hand between both of his, craning his head up slightly to speak into her eyes. “I've seen your heart for the girls. I've seen your heart for Cody. I've seen your heart for his freedom.” His voice caught, and he looked away before taking her gaze hostage once again. “It's beautiful. You're making a difference.”

“Some difference.” She couldn't pull her hand away if she tried, but she didn't really want to. After her emotionally draining day, the human contact warmed a piece of her she wasn't sure she should thaw. “I didn't even realize Tonya was pregnant. It's so obvious now....”

“Hindsight is always clearer. You were great with her, and she trusted you. She showed us that over and over.” Max rubbed his thumb across her knuckles. “You didn't have to confront her about the test. She came to you. That's huge.”

True. And the trust exercise
was
a large part of what had prompted the confession. Maybe she hadn't completely lost her skill, but what did that say about Cody? Was it really that different just because she was his mom? Max had gotten through to him in ways she couldn't, and he was Cody's father.

But he didn't know.

Her chest tightened. Maybe that was the difference. If she confessed before the graduation, she could literally mess up Cody's entire progress. Before, it'd just been a fear and a gut instinct prompting her toward that decision. But now, it seemed more like proof. The odds were already stacked so high against Cody, and the fact that the kids were continually picking on him as the runt of the litter didn't help at all. It only urged him to prove himself harder and faster—with more rule breaking and chest thumping.

She really missed the days of superhero sheets and cracker crumbs and stepping on building blocks. They were alone, but they had each other, and life was so much easier. Back when only Emma knew what they were missing, and she could make it up to Cody in the form of ice cream cones and tent sleepovers.

Now she had nothing. Nothing to offer but a court ordered camp and a desperate arsenal of prayers.

Would it be enough?

“I want to start over.” Max's confession blasted like a shotgun in the silence of the star-studded night. “I want another chance.”

She stared at him, mouth slightly open, all too aware of the responding pound of her heart.

Then before she could decide what to say, he broke the silence for her.

His mouth against hers was familiar in a bittersweet way, but the gentleness in his fingers threading through her hair was brand-new. So was the caution he exhibited as he kissed her, carefully, as though she was a treasure that might break. Gone was the selfishness from the touch she remembered years before. And in its place lingered something she wanted to hold on to forever.

She kissed him back with more than a decade's worth of longing, then turned away, her lips trailing across the stubble along his jaw. He let out a ragged breath in her ear, his hands gripping her waist firmly even as he pushed away, putting distance between them while keeping her balanced on the fence.

“I know you have your own life in Dallas.” Max rested his forehead on hers, snuck another kiss, then backed away completely as if realizing he just couldn't get that close.

Own life. Dallas. Yes.

The fog cleared, and snatches of life—real life—pressed back to the surface. But she didn't want real life. She wanted to stay in this pocket of stillness, where teen pregnancies and teen rebellion and life-altering secrets didn't exist. Where there was only the twinkle of the stars and the love in a certain cowboy's eyes and the whisper that life—her life—could still be different. Could be restored.

“But maybe...” His voice trailed, and he tucked a wisp of hair behind her ear. His touch burned a trail along her cheek and she shivered. “Maybe.”

Maybe. So much potential in that word. So much hope. When was the last time she'd hoped? She wanted to hope. Wanted to feel again. To believe. To trust. Was it possible?

“Maybe.” She breathed out the word, and the smile that started at the corners of his mouth let her know it hit its target.
Maybe
would have to be enough for now.

Maybe
would hold back real life a little while longer.

* * *

She felt the exact same in his arms. Maybe better. Max couldn't believe he stood near a fence on his own property, hosting a ministry near to his heart and holding the hand of the one woman who'd branded him years ago as her own. He finally felt whole.

He squeezed Emma's hand, debating kissing her again but afraid he wouldn't want to stop. He took in her flushed cheeks and heavy-lidded eyes, and his breath caught. No, he definitely wouldn't want to stop. Some things never changed, but keeping any developing relationship under God's direction this time would be one thing they'd for sure do differently.

Better to get back to conversation. And maybe movement.

“Let's walk. Check on the horses.” He extended his arm and Emma hopped down from the fence, linking her arm through his as they plodded through the shadows toward the barn.

“Caley said she enjoyed meeting you.” He watched Emma's face carefully for her reaction, knowing how guarded she'd been around the firefighter earlier that morning. “The girls seemed to take to her. She said she'll be back.”

She nodded, eyes cast on the ground as she dodged a hole. “Good. I think her talking to them about their careers is a great idea.”

He did, too—though Tonya's immediate future was definitely altered at the moment. The reminder sobered Max's spirits. Still, the girl had clearly made her choices before she came to Camp Hope. It wasn't their fault, but they could still at least propel her on to the right course from here on out.

Which brought up another question.

“Why did Tonya's pregnancy hit you so hard?” He opened the door to the barn, and the automatic lights lit the sharp corners of the darkness.

“What do you mean?” A wall went up; he could see it climbing as tangibly as construction workers laid brick.

Oops. “Nothing. You just seemed to take it almost personally. I didn't want you thinking that was your fault, too.”

Remington popped his head over the stall door, and Emma reached in and rubbed his mane. “It's a long story.”

“I have all night.” He crossed his arms and grinned, but the effect was wasted. Emma had officially launched into her own world, and she didn't seem to be issuing any invitations to join her. “You don't have to bear the burdens of the world, you know.”

That got her attention. Her eyes narrowed, and the warmth between them began to cool. “You don't know a thing about my burdens.”

“Whoa.” He held up both hands in defense, causing Remington to toss his head and duck back into his stall. “I'm trying to help here.”

“I know you are. But Cody is...impossible. He's not who he used to be.” Emma turned to face him, tears glistening. “Not everything is an easy fix, you know. Not Tonya. Not Cody. And not—” She stopped herself, and he'd have given his back forty acres to know what she'd been about to say.

He tried a different approach. “I never said it was easy. Cody is just tired of being treated like a textbook. He wants a mom, not a counselor.”

Her eyes widened as if she'd been struck, and his heart shifted toward his boots. He'd said too much—crossed a camper confidentiality line, and at probably the worst possible time.

He tried to backtrack. “Emma, I'm on your side.” He reached out to touch her, but she didn't soften. If anything, she grew stonier. This was not what he'd intended to do. “I just meant it's not all your responsibility.”

“So whose is it?” Her eyes flashed. “Who
is
responsible for wayward kids? Whose fault is it?”

“Fault?” They'd gotten way off topic, but clearly this was something Emma had been keeping just below the surface. As much as he'd wanted to know what was going on in her head, he wasn't sure he could handle this much roller coaster. Not tonight, with the weight of the day still pressing in. He struggled to take a breath against the heaviness suddenly covering the barn. “Why does it have to be anyone's fault? Stuff happens. Kids are influenced or hurt and no one can necessarily prevent—”

“But some can. Some can be prevented. And in those cases, there
is
someone to blame.”

She believed a lie, and it was killing her. His heart softened at her burden. “You're not to blame, Emma. There's no way.”