The Prodigal's Return (11 page)

Her thundering heart felt as if it were shaking her from the inside out. Nothing he could have said would have meant more to her.

He cleared his throat, then turned to stare into the den's fireplace.

“Bob said you'd counseled the girl to have an abortion. That you'd been talking with her during some of the youth activities. I assured him that couldn't be true.”

“I…” Her father defended her to Bob Carpenter? “I tried to talk her out of making a hasty decision about terminating the pregnancy.”

“Bob's also convinced you know who the father is.”

“I wish I did. She barely says anything about this other guy she's been seeing—”

“It's really not Brett Hamilton?”

“No.” Memories of Traci's bruised eye collided with images of Brett's lopsided, homespun grin. “She wouldn't tell me who the father was, and she didn't want to see a doctor in town. The best I could do was bully her into going to see a friend of mine at a nearby clinic.”

“Instead of calling her parents?”

“She promised to keep talking to me as long as I didn't. Otherwise, she was going to move in with the guy.”

“And this boyfriend is where now?”

“Out of the picture.”

“Before or after she got that bruise on her face?”

“They both happened right about the same time.”

Her father's frown deepened. He was holding himself together, she realized. Getting all the facts. Erring on the side of believing her until she gave him a reason not to. She longed to throw her arms around him again, despite how terribly serious the situation was for both his career and the teenager sleeping upstairs.

“At least I know what's been on your mind the last few days, besides Nathan and Neal Cain.” He sank wearily onto the couch. “How did you talk Traci into telling her parents?”

“I didn't.” She shook her head as she sat, too. “I told her what I thought, how I'd felt in the same situation, but that she had to make her own decision. She went to her parents on her own. Traci's starting to take responsibility. Forcing her to go back home now could ruin that.”

“You can't keep her from Bob and Betty forever, Jenn.”

“I'm not keeping her from anything.”

“That's not the way people around here are going to see it.”

“Then I'd suggest people start looking at things a little differently. This is a woman with a lot to deal with, I don't care how young she is in years.
She needs our support, not her community passing judgment on what she's done. Why is it so hard to consider what Traci needs first, rather than what everyone else is going to think about it!”

She was wringing her hands. Staring at her lap. So unlike the professional she was supposed to be. Only the leftover frustration and pain of the misunderstood teenager she herself had been wanted to have its say. She looked up to see the worry on her dad's face.

“If Traci really wants to run away, you can't stop her,” he said.

Jenn bit the corner of her lip against the fear that, come morning, that's exactly what Traci was going to do. “She already has a plan for where to go. I either convince her to stay with me, or she's on the next bus out of town.”

Her dad rubbed his fingers across the fraying edge of one of the cushions her mother had covered herself. From out of nowhere came a deep, rumbling chuckle she hadn't heard in years.

“It definitely hasn't been boring around here the last few days.” His smile washed over her. “I already knew it was going to be a challenge to make this second chance with you and Mandy work. But as usual, you've exceeded my expectations.”

“Dad…” It was a priceless compliment. She had absolutely no idea what to say.

He leaned back into the couch.

“Your mother and I didn't listen to you when you were in trouble, did we? We couldn't stop wanting things back the way they should have been. Instead, we let them get more and more messed up.”

“You and Mom did the best you could,” she said, really meaning the forgiveness she was offering for the first time. “But we have a chance to do it differently for Traci. To help her and the Carpenters make better choices. And to do that, we have to do whatever we can to keep Traci and her baby safe.”

Just a week ago, her father had said the exact same words, when he'd spoken about what he and her mother had wanted for Jenn. She held her breath. Said a silent prayer for the first time since she'd stopped believing prayer could make a difference in her life.

Her father stared for several long breaths, then his head gave a small nod.

“Keep the girl here for as long as you can,” he said. “I'll call Bob back. Deal with him and Betty. Maybe after they give Traci a day or two to cool off, we'll be able to get the three of them together and figure something out.”

He wanted them to stay.

He was saying
we.

“But what about the church? This council meeting Bob is threatening…” The rumors were no doubt
flying all over town. “Helping me means messing things up for you all over again.”

“Oh, there'll be a mess.” Her father's philosophical tone gave way to a wink. “But sometimes the biggest messes are the ones that finally show us our way.”

She couldn't be sure, but she could have sworn he'd just called her his biggest mess.

A mischievous smile slipped out, the smile of a little girl goofing around with the father she loved with all her heart. “Glad I could help you out, Dad.”

His chuckle wound down into a long pause. “Since we're exorcising the past and laying down bets on whether we'll handle
now
any better than we did
then
, you should know that Neal was here earlier.”

Jenn found herself standing, not even sure why, except that running suddenly sounded like a fine idea. “He's back to see Nathan?”

“I got the impression he was here to talk to you,” her father countered.

“He wants me to get involved in things between him and Nathan.” She shook her head. “I told him I can't.”

“But you wish you could?” Understanding filled her father's eyes. “Are you taking on the responsibility for fixing that relationship, too?”

“It's not that simple, Dad.” Clearly, nothing be
tween her and Neal Cain could ever be simple again. Certainly not how connected she still felt to him and Nathan after having nothing to do with either of them for years. “But I've got all I can handle with Traci. Neal will have to figure things out for himself.”

The peal of the doorbell made them both jump. Her father's knowing expression as he left to answer the second ring said they'd made the same guess about the identity of their visitor.

“I'll be in the kitchen,” he said as he led Neal into the den. “I have some phone calls to ma—”

“Mommy!” The sound of tiny feet thundering down the carpeted stairs was all the warning Jenn got. “Who's at the door?”

She felt herself falling into the startled depths of Neal's eyes, then she was enveloped in the sweet smell of her little girl's hug.

She'd dressed Mandy in a pink nightgown.

The color of spring.

Of eternal hope and renewal.

She cupped Mandy's tiny shoulders and pulled her beautiful child closer.

“Neal,” she said to the one person she'd wanted to share her past with least, “I'd like you to meet my daughter.”

N
EAL COULDN'T TEAR
his eyes away from the picture of Jenn's daughter he'd found on the mantel above the fireplace. Reverend Gardner had hustled the child into the kitchen for a snack, but not before Neal had seen how perfect a reflection the little girl was of her mother.

“Your daughter must be at least…” He couldn't complete the sentence as he returned the framed photo to the mantel.

“Six,” Jenn finished for him in a quiet voice. “Mandy will be seven in February. I had her about a year and a half after you left.”

She sat on the edge of the paisley-printed chair, her shoulders drooping.

She's been through enough
, Buford had said.

The investigator's report had noted a teenage pregnancy, the birth in a clinic in North Carolina. There'd been no real details beyond that and the extended break with her parents and the wild rebellion that had started soon after his conviction.

“And the father?” Neal flinched at the sound of the child's laughter from the other room. Another man's child. “Does he live in Rivermist?”

“There is no father.” Her voice took on a cool edge, worlds more jaded than the Jennifer Gardner he'd once known. “At least none I've ever been able to pin down. I was a little—” she shrugged “—lost, for a while after you left.”

Neal glanced once again at Mandy's picture.

“I know,” he said. He knew the facts at least.

But nothing had prepared him for seeing Jennifer Gardner's child. Now knowing only the facts about her life wasn't nearly enough. Neither was just standing there, when he could hear the pain in her voice.

“You know?” She looked confused, appalled. “So you did read my letters. But I thought…I guess I figured since you never responded to any of them…”

“No, Jenn. I've never read the letters.” Lying might have been kinder, but she deserved the truth.

“Oh,” she replied, as if that settled everything. “I mean, I understand completely why you didn't.” Her quiet, no-big-deal
understanding
cut through him. “You had every right to be angry, to blame me for what you were going through—”

“Blame you?”

“For being in that car with Bobby. For you going to prison.” At his incredulous stare, she sat a bit
straighter in the chair. “You stopped talking to me weeks before the hearing, Neal. You wouldn't even look at me. Take my phone calls. And I never heard from you after you left. If you didn't bl—”

“I loved you, Jenn.” He said the words to her daughter's picture, unable to look her in the eye as he forced out the explanation she deserved. “But I was going to prison. I was too messed up about what I'd done to deal with anything else. I didn't know how to think about you, want to be with you and survive the rest…. I wasn't thinking about you at all. I had no idea what you were going through. That's why I came here tonight, to say I'm sorry. For everything you've been through. I never meant to hurt you.”

“You still loved me?” Her mouth actually gaped open. “You're sorry?”

It was a toss-up which revelation had shocked her more.

“I'm not sure I was that aware of anything but surviving my first couple of years inside.” The memories hardened his voice. “By then, my father had washed his hands of me, and I'd stopped getting your letters, and…I'd changed. I figured it was kinder to leave you two alone.”

“Kinder! How could you have been so…so stupid!” Her eyes heated from pain to something else, then acceptance cooled them. “I died when you
left. I lost everything, piece by piece. Threw it all away, because you were gone. Because it was all my fault.”

“Stop saying that!” He knelt in front of her, longing to will into reality the peaceful life he'd always wanted for her. “None of it was your fault.”

Her laugh was full of the kind of bedrock honesty he used when he told clients about his felony conviction.

“I was a whore, Neal. Why do you think Jeremy Compton was sniffing around me yesterday?”

“Don't say that!”

“I drank,” she continued in a determined voice, as if she needed to purge the memories. “Did drugs. Slept with everything in pants. Took whatever I could get my hands on. Tried a hundred different loser ways to kill myself, because I was too much of a coward to end it cleanly for everyone. If I hadn't turned up pregnant with Mandy, I doubt I'd have survived.”

“I know,” he said again. “I have a file on all of it.”

All she did then was blink back at him.

It blew most everyone's minds, her coming back here in the first place, after everything she's been through.

“I had it pulled together last night, after I got back to Atlanta,” he explained. He made certain there wasn't a speck of judgment in his voice. He'd be
damned if he let her believe he thought any less of her for the hell she'd fought back from. “There was a lot of shit in that file, but there were also notes about you getting your degree. Your social work with kids. You were a kid yourself, in pain and with no one to help you. I can't tell you how sorry I am for what you went through, but look at all you've accomplished.”

Jenn gulped in several shallow breaths, emerging from the temporary insanity of discussing her past with Neal Cain. Of having him on his knees in front of her, saying he was sorry the same as her dad just had. She could waste energy being angry, but Neal had done what he'd had to do. She should be mortified, but she'd blasted him with everything—everything he'd already known—and he hadn't turned away. He was still there, trying to make her feel better, his compassion and understanding far worse than if he'd walked out in disgust. Because him staying made her want more. Way too much more.

“I…I'm sorry.” She edged away and stood. “You came here to talk about your father, didn't you?”

His eyes narrowed as he stood, but it wasn't a stranger studying her now. It was Neal, his concern pulling on her emotions in that familiar way of dreams just before they distorted into nightmare.

None of it was your fault.

“I've already seen Nathan,” he said. “I'm dealing
with him, what little he'll let me. I came here to talk to you. Because once I found out what you'd been through, I needed…” He shook his head.

“It's okay, Neal.” She took his hand. Not because she wanted to touch him again, but because it was important that he believe her. That he stopped making her want to give him more than the clear conscience he'd come looking for. “I'm fine now. Mandy and I are doing great. You don't have to say anything else.”

He squeezed her fingers. Looked so deeply into her eyes, she was certain he could see straight to her soul.

Don't go there, Jenn. He said he was sorry, and that's the end of it.

It had to be.

“Jennifer—”

“You should go.” She stepped away from his use of her full name.

He followed. “Jenn—”

“Please,” she begged through the panic building inside. The memories of loving him and losing him shrieked through her mind like opposing demons that would destroy everything they touched as they battled. “I need you to go.”

She was going to scream if he didn't.

The phone's ring saved her. Pulled her back from both craving and dreading more of this man's attention.

“My dad and I are in the middle of something else, and…”
And I can't need anything the way I still need you.
“I have to go check on Mandy.”

Neal nodded, relieved no doubt to flee her nonsense. He'd told her his story yesterday morning at the grocery. Now he knew hers. There was closure in that. A chance to move on. And as soon as he left she'd find a way to be grateful that he'd come back and given her at least that much.

“I don't know how things will go with Nathan,” he said. “I'll stay for as long as I can. Try and get him to let me move back in. But who knows when that will happen, and he…he still needs someone watching out for him. Will you still stop by the house whenever you can…?”

It meant they'd run into each other again, but she'd made a commitment to Nathan. Her messed-up feelings for the man's son weren't going to be the reason she let him down.

“Of course,” she heard herself promise.

Neal looked almost as if he wished she'd change her mind.

“Jenn, for as long as I'm here… If there's anything you need—”

“No!” she rushed to say, not caring how desperate she sounded. It was important that he not misunderstand. That neither of them did. “I'm fine on
my own. Really. Give your conscience a rest, and let me live my life. You've got enough to deal with on your own.”

 

“Y
OU GOT NO IDEA
just how good you have it, do you girl?” Nathan asked the pesky teenager who'd invaded his kitchen.

Jenn had brought Traci over early that morning when the girl had claimed she was too sick to go to school. Morning sickness, for crying out loud. And Jenn hadn't felt right leaving the kid at Joshua's all day while she was over here harping at Nathan. Now, for at least the next half hour while Jenn picked her daughter up from school, it had fallen to Nathan to supervise the sullen, really-needed-her-britches-tanned teenager.

His own boy hadn't shown back up yet. Nathan hoped that meant he'd hightailed it to that center of his in Atlanta. The center that, by its very existence, reassured him that Neal was going to be okay. No one spending that much energy helping others, whatever the reason, could stay lost forever. And he wanted Neal to have his life back. It's all he'd ever wanted.

“What's so good about any of this?” Traci Carpenter asked without looking up from the nondescript casserole Jenn had left instructions for her to make. “Excuse me for not tripping all over myself
in gratitude because you haven't kicked me out yet. I know you don't want me here.”

“You're right, I don't.” He scratched the back of his neck. “But I'm not doing this for you.”

Bob Carpenter had become a deacon at the church around the same time as Nathan. Now Nathan was a day-care program for the man's knocked-up daughter. Go figure.

“Then why am I here?” The girl was dressed in some pink excuse for a top and skintight jeans. If she didn't stop smacking her gum, he was going to reach in there and yank the wad out himself.

“Because Jenn's father's busy handling the fallout that came with helping you, and she needed someplace out of the way for you to spend your time. Lucky for you, I'm about as out of the way as it gets.” A dying, unfriendly man Jenn hadn't spoken to for almost a decade was her only confidant in Rivermist besides her father. What the hell had happened to this town? “That woman's the best friend you're ever likely to have, so don't mess this up for her.”

“Mess
what
up for her?” Several more smacks followed. “I'm the one who's pregnant. I'm the one the whole town's talking about.”

“Why are your parents going after Reverend Gardner, if it's all about you?”

The girl gave a nonchalant shrug. “What's the
big deal? I'd have run away anyway whether he helped or not.”

“Too bad no one in town's believing that but me.” The girl could definitely benefit from a healthy spanking.

The fact that she was in his home at all was a testament to how much Jenn Gardner had come to mean to him in an unbelievably short time. There was something about the woman's bossiness, her determination to care about him when there was really no point anymore, that felt better than anything had in years. And that daughter of hers, Mandy.

He'd only met the child for a short time that morning, when Jenn dropped Traci off on her way to taking the little one to school. But like her mother, Mandy hadn't known how to be afraid of him. The two of them had become fast friends. She'd even asked if she could call him Grandpa Nathan.

Never figured on being a grandpa. It felt pretty amazing. In fact, given that his head was constantly threatening to throb off his shoulders, he felt closer to amazing than should be legal.

Jenn had managed to give him back a bit of what was left of his life, and he reckoned he'd do just about anything to repay her. But his newly discovered loyalty didn't extend to coddling other people's spoiled brats.

“Thanks to you—” He leveled a finger at the Car
penter girl “—the entire town's taking aim at Jenn and her father. Drumming up all the mistakes Jenn made almost a decade ago. Her working here with me—” not to mention Neal's reappearance “—ain't helping matters. The woman's got a battle on her hands, and it chaps my hide that you don't seem to give a damn about your part in it.”

The child had the decency to swallow whatever sarcastic quip she'd been about to make. The moisture in her eyes threatened an oncoming flood.

“Don't you dare start feeling sorry for yourself.” He grabbed one of the cans of condensed soup she needed for the mess she was making in the baking dish and shoved it at her. “Jennifer Gardner has a knack for knowing how to help people, even people like you and me who refuse to believe they need any help. So stop feeling sorry for yourself, and make her job a little easier, why don't ya.”

“I'm not feeling sorry for myself.” Traci wiped at her eyes with the ridiculous, fuzzy cuffs of her shirt. “And I know I need her help. Without her I'd be—”

“You'd be up a creek without a paddle, little girl.” He saw reality creep into her eyes. “So I expect you to keep holding up your end of the bargain. Be where you're supposed to be, doing what you're supposed to be doing. Take care of yourself and that baby you're making. And get yourself to school, I don't care if you are feeling a little queasy. You can mope around there
all day as well as you can here. And while you're at it, work things out with your parents before you make even more trouble for the Gardners.”