The librarian in Emma couldn’t help but be pleased. “Let me guess—a book about fishing.”
“Nope.” Jeremy slid open the drawer in the nightstand and reached inside.
Emma sat down hard at the foot of the bed, her gaze riveted on the little white Bible Jeremy had tugged out of the drawer. “Where did you find that?”
“In a box of books downstairs.” Jeremy looked surprised by the question. “Mr. Redstone told us that the Bible is one of the ways God talks to us, so I read it every night before I go to bed.”
“I see.” Emma moistened her lips, unsure of what to say. Or do.
A few days ago, she would have kissed Jeremy on the forehead and fled. Today, guilt weighed her down. She had always prided herself on having a close relationship with her son. Had always encouraged him to share his thoughts and ideas…until recently, since they’d started attending church.
Emma’s conflicted emotions about faith clashed with the desire to understand her son’s.
“What are you reading?”
Jeremy’s shoulders relaxed and Emma knew she’d
asked the right question. It hurt to realize that Jeremy hadn’t thought he could share a part of his life that had become so important over the past few weeks.
“I’m reading the New Testament right now, but I told Jake that I’d look up his verse.”
“
His
verse?” Emma said faintly.
Jeremy nodded. “He doesn’t know many verses cause he’s a new Christian, too, so he said he’d help me memorize mine if I helped him memorize his.”
It didn’t surprise Emma to discover that Jake was a Christian. He had volunteered with the mentoring ministry, after all. It was the “new” part that stirred her curiosity.
“Jake said his brother, Andy, told him to learn this one.” Jeremy thumbed through the translucent pages with a speed that made Emma blink. “Andy is a pastor, like Pastor Matt, only he talks to kids. He’s the one who told Jake about God.”
Emma’s head started to spin. Apparently Jake and Jeremy had done more than fish that evening. Judging from the amount of information her son was sharing, they must have spent as much time, if not more, in conversation!
“Here it is. It’s in Ephesians chapter three.” Jeremy squinted at the tiny words. “Do you want me to read it out loud?”
Emma nodded, not trusting her voice at the moment.
“And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have the power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ.” Jeremy read slowly, the tip of his finger tracing each word. “Wow, that’s a long one,” he said when he came to the end of the verse.
“Yes, it is.” The room felt hot as the meaning of the words soaked in.
Why had Jake’s brother chosen that particular passage of scripture? Did it hold some sort of special significance?
Why do you care? an inner voice chided.
Emma brushed the question away, afraid of what the answer might be.
“It’s time for you to get some sleep now,” she murmured.
“Are you going to pray with me tonight, too, Mom?”
Emma saw the expectant look on Jeremy’s face and couldn’t turn him down, even though it had been years since she had talked to God. But she wasn’t willing to let her own doubts and insecurities sever the closeness between them. “All right.”
“I’ll go first.” Jeremy bowed his head. “God, thank You that Mom let me go fishing with Jake. Thanks for all the fish we caught and that it didn’t rain. Help Jake memorize the long verse, because he said it gets harder to remember things when you get older…”
Emma found herself smiling, until Jeremy’s elbow nudged her side. “It’s your turn, Mom,” he whispered.
“Sorry.” She’d missed her cue.
As she opened her mouth, a wave of panic crashed over her.
Don’t be silly,
she thought,
just say something. Thank God for the sunshine…
“You can tell Him anything, Mom,” Jeremy whispered. “Mr. Redstone told us in Sunday school that you can be honest with God because nothing you say is going to change how much He loves you.”
What about the things you
didn’t
say, Emma thought. What if you’d stopped talking to God because you couldn’t find the words that described how you were feeling?
Or because you weren’t sure He loved you at all?
She squeezed Jeremy’s hand. At least there was one thing she could say with absolute certainty. “Thank you, God, for Jeremy. Amen.”
“Amen.” Jeremy burrowed deeper underneath the covers.
“Now good night.” Emma planted a kiss on his forehead and stood up. “We have to be at the library by eight tomorrow.”
“Okay.” He stifled a yawn. “’Night, Mom.”
As soon as Emma closed the door, she sank against the wall and let the tears spill over.
“Well? How did it go?”
Jake sighed into the phone and heard Andy chuckle. “That bad, huh?”
“Define ‘bad.’”
“But Emma didn’t change her mind, right? She let you take Jeremy fishing.”
“This time.” Right up until the moment Jake put the car into Drive, he hadn’t been sure. He stepped out onto the deck and stared at the narrow strip of moonlight shimmering on the surface of the lake.
“Did the two of you get along?”
“Things were okay. Until I touched her—”
“Jake—”
“It wasn’t inappropriate,” Jake hastened to assure his younger brother.
The pastor.
“Her hair had come out of that little clip she wears and I just…”
Gave into the irresistible urge to see if it felt as soft and silky as it looked.
Jake gave himself another mental smack upside the head. If he wanted to earn Emma’s trust, that hadn’t exactly been the smartest way to go about it.
“Jake!”
“What?”
“I was asking if you and
Jeremy
got along,” Andy said. “But if you want to talk about Emma, that’s fine with me.”
The undercurrent of laughter in his brother’s voice warned Jake that he would never live this one down. “It’s not what you think.”
“What am I thinking?”
Jake’s back teeth snapped together. “Can we
not
talk about Emma?”
“Sure,” Andy said mildly. “But you’re the one who brought her up. I was asking about Jeremy, re member?”
“Jeremy is a great kid.” Jake grabbed at the opportunity to steer the conversation onto safer ground. “He didn’t hold it against me that I promised to take him fishing and then, an hour later, I had to admit that I’ve never fished before in my life.”
“That isn’t entirely true, you know.”
“I know you didn’t believe this when I was
twelve,
and you probably aren’t going to believe me now, but I wasn’t trying to
catch
your goldfish,” Jake grumbled.
“I found a string with a paper clip attached to it next to the aquarium. It doesn’t take a background in law enforcement to figure out what was going on.”
“Circumstantial evidence,” Jake muttered. “And you accused
me
of holding on to the past.”
“You do,” Andy said without malice. “But I have
things that God is working on, too. Which means we’re both under divine construction.”
That might be true, Jake thought, but he had a long way to go to catch up to his brother. The foundation of Andy’s faith had been built long ago, before their parents had even met. Not for Jake. God was starting from scratch with him. Most days Jake felt as if he were clinging to the cornerstone for strength, still surrounded by debris from the past.
“Jeremy would probably do better with someone who can answer his questions.” And the boy had been full of them. In order to stop the flood, Jake had finally confessed that he was a new believer. But rather than being disappointed, Jeremy had seemed excited to discover they had something in common. Go figure.
“If the Lord asks us to do something, He gives us the strength to accomplish it,” Andy reminded him.
“See, that’s what I’m talking about,” Jake complained. “You always know what to say.”
“Don’t let the enemy convince you that you don’t have anything to offer them,” Andy had said right before he’d hung up.
At two-thirty in the morning, his brother’s words cycled back through Jake’s memory. Offer
them?
What had he meant by that?
He’d agreed to be a mentor because Jeremy needed someone willing to spend time with him.
But as Jake lay in bed, staring up at the ceiling, his thoughts drifted to Emma once again. What did
she
need?
Emma didn’t need this.
No matter how hard she tried to focus on her job,
Jake kept invading her thoughts. And even when she wasn’t thinking about
him,
the verse that Jeremy had read—
Jake’s verse
—continued to play in her mind like the refrain of a familiar song.
Keeping her wayward thoughts in line proved difficult enough, but over the course of the day, Emma caught her gaze straying to the windows overlooking Main Street. In desperation, she began to contemplate rearranging the furniture in the library. Beginning with her desk.
By closing time, Emma couldn’t wait to get home.
She locked the front door of the library and went to look for Jeremy. The last time she’d seen him, he had swiped a notebook and pen and disappeared into her office, a tiny cubbyhole located in the back of the building. “Jeremy?”
“I’m over here, Mom,” came the muffled reply.
She followed the sound of his voice to a corner at the far end of the library and found him sitting on the floor with his back against the oversize book section. “It’s almost time to close up. Are you ready to go?”
“Almost.”
Emma hid a smile as Jeremy gave her a distracted smile. The notebook lay open on his lap and he continued to furiously sketch something on the page. She tilted her head but it was difficult to interpret the drawing upside down.
“What are you working on?”
“The design for our raft,” Jeremy replied without looking up. “Jake said he would get the supplies if I drew up the plans.”
Raft. Jake. Supplies.
Emma’s knees suddenly felt a little weak. She anchored an arm against the K–O shelf for support.
“The two of you are building a…raft?”
“For the contest during Reflection Days next weekend. We’re going to win, too, because I have a really good idea.” Jeremy nibbled thoughtfully on the end of the pen. “The raft that makes it all the way to the flag and doesn’t sink gets a trophy.”
Be. Calm.
“And Jake thinks this is a good idea?” Emma’s voice thinned out.
“Uh-huh.” Jeremy blinked up at her. “I just need five more minutes to think, Mom. Is that okay?”
“Sure, sweetheart,” Emma said between gritted teeth.
Five minutes would give her plenty of time to make a phone call!
Chapter Eleven
“G
o away.”
Jake froze in the doorway of the café, pinned in place by Kate’s scowl.
“All I want is a cup of coffee.” He tried to bluff his way past her suspicions, but someone must have gotten to Kate first. The Grapevine definitely lived up to its name.
“Sure.” Kate snorted. “You don’t want coffee, you want to upset the delicate balance of my life.”
“Phil said you love animals.”
“I do love animals,” came the prompt response. “I’m what is commonly referred to as a ‘cat’ person. In fact, I have two of them. And they rule over a very small house. Did you ask Abby?”
“I called her first,” Jake admitted. “She said she’d love to take him, but when she and Quinn get married, they’ll have Mulligan and Lady out at the lodge.” Jake didn’t add that he blamed Quinn O’Halloran for giving Abby time to come up with an excuse. Quinn had seen the dog turning somersaults in the backseat of the squad car after Jake had picked it up.
A thoughtful look entered Kate’s eyes. “A dog like
that needs a home in the country. And kids. Having a pet teaches responsibility. But not someone too young,” she added quickly. “Ten or eleven is a good age. You know what they say about the bond between a boy and his dog.”
Was it his imagination, or had she put delicate emphasis on the word “boy”?
Jake’s eyes narrowed. She couldn’t be thinking what he
thought
she was thinking.
“You don’t mean Jeremy Barlow.”
“Jeremy Barlow.” Kate clapped her hands together. “Wow, that’s a great idea, Jake.”
“Oh, no.” Jake was already shaking his head. “I can’t show up at Emma’s with a dog.” Especially
this
dog.
The campaign Delia Peake had single-handedly launched to capture the animal that had been terrorizing her neighborhood had come to a successful, if not surprising, conclusion. In the interest of maintaining public relations—and because he knew the woman wanted to gloat—Jake had responded to the call.
Upon his arrival, Delia had risen to her full height of four feet eleven inches, which brought her nose even with his badge.
“Chief Sutton.”
The tip of her pink walking stick had struck the ground with each syllable. “I don’t care what you do with that garden-destroying, Dumpster-diving creature as long as you remove it from my yard. Immediately.”
If Jake had known what he was getting into, he would have sent Phil Koenigs instead. Standing guard over the garden-destroying Dumpster diver had become his assignment for the rest of the day. Along with find
ing it a temporary foster home until more permanent arrangements could be made.
“Jeremy is an only child,” Kate said, building her case with the finesse of a seasoned attorney. “He would probably love to have a dog.”
Jake knew she might be right, but at the moment, Jeremy wasn’t the one he was thinking about!
“Do you know Emma at all?”
“No, and I feel bad about that.” Kate’s expression clouded. “I went to school with Brian. His death hit everyone pretty hard—nothing like that had ever happened around here before. No one had gotten to know Emma and because she was such a private person, we didn’t want to intrude on her grief. Maybe that wasn’t the best thing. For the town, or for her and Jeremy.”