“Well, don’t do anything they’d want to snitch about.”
“Bor-ing.”
“Maybe, but you’ll survive it. Anyway, if you want to go to the ballgame with Dillon after church Sunday, you have to get your homework done tonight. End of story. So, what do you have?”
“Just some English, if you really have to know.” Corey huffed and stared out the window as a breeze whipped his hair across his forehead. “And by the way, I despise English. I think I might start speaking a foreign language in protest—anything but English. I wish Mrs. Baldwin didn’t retire. Everyone says she was easy and fun, and this new teacher’s such a dictator she makes even
you
look like a real softie.”
“Impossible.” Jake tapped the brake as they came to a red light. “But I can toughen up even more if you’d like.”
“No, thanks.” Corey shook his head. “This teacher’s more ruthless than King Henry the Eighth. We’re learning about him in social studies.”
“You don’t say. And the English teacher…?”
“Miss O’Malley.” Corey shrugged. “She thinks English is the only class on the face of the earth. She makes us write until our fingers fall off. She’s, like, the writing Nazi. Dillon and I are thinking about starting a petition to ban all the writing. I’ll bet every kid in the school would sign it. Then she’d have to back off. She must be killing a million trees a day with it. There has to be some Go Green law she’s breaking. Besides, I think I’m developing writer’s elbow or something.” To prove his point, he rubbed his arm through the sleeve of his dirt-splattered football jersey.
“Is that so?” Jake glanced at him. “Maybe a little time away from the football field would cure that problem. Throwing a football can’t be good if you hurt that much. And the extra study time might haul your grades from the cellar.”
“No!” Corey’s eyes widened as he wagged his head. “I mean, we wouldn’t really start a petition. Dillon’s mom would ground him for life.”
“And you think I wouldn’t do the same to you?”
“Yeah, yeah, I know.” Corey sighed, shoulders slumped. “I guess this is where I’m supposed to say I’ll try harder.”
“Only if you mean it.”
“I do, I guess…” Corey hesitated, and Jake knew instinctively that more was coming. “But…well…Miss O’Malley wants to have a conference with you.”
“Is that so?”
“Don’t worry. I told her you’re on an extended cruise to the Caribbean, and when you return you’ll probably be too busy to meet with her. Besides, you’re just glad I’m not planning to run away to that commune in Tasmania anymore—”
“You did not! Corey, I’m going to—”
“Gotcha!” Corey grinned as if he’d just told the best joke in the world.
“I am not amused, little brother. You’d better get serious real quick.”
At the stern tone of Jake’s voice, Corey sobered immediately. “She said she was going to call the church, since Miss Jackson—um, Hailey, told her that’s where you work.”
Hailey…she teaches a Sunday school class at the church. How is she connected to all this?
“But I guess she forgot, so I just snitched on myself. Pretty dumb, huh?”
“Hmmm…” Jake’s mind flashed back to mowing…and to jewel-green eyes framed by soft blonde curls that danced on a gentle breeze. “What’s Miss O’Malley’s first name?”
“I dunno. Carin, I think. But we all call her Slasher because she scribbles notes in neon green pen from one end of our papers to the other. She calls it critiquing, but when we get the papers back they look like alien creatures have puked all over them. Even Amy MacGregor can’t snag so much as a
B
from the Slasher, and Amy
always
makes
A’s
in
everything
.”
Jake drummed the steering wheel with grass-stained fingertips. “What does Miss O’Malley look like?”
Corey shrugged. “She’s got curly blonde hair about this long.” He lifted a hand to his shoulder. “And she talks, like, nonstop and she’s got these laser-green eyes that just kind of bore right through you when she’s lecturing you, which she does
a lot.
And…”
Jake remembered the petite woman with a smug grin and an attitude to match that he’d shared words with earlier that afternoon. In his mind’s eye he saw her abundant blonde curls and deep emerald eyes that had seared right through him as he’d laughed at her twist of words. So this was Carin O’Malley, A.K.A. Slasher.
“Hey, you’re not listening.” Corey jabbed a finger into Jake’s shoulder. “What’s wrong? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“Not a ghost, little brother, but someone much more intriguing.”
“I don’t get it.”
“Oh, but you will.” Jake’s cryptic response left Corey blissfully speechless. Sunday might prove to be more explosive than a Fourth-of-July finale.
3
A stab of homesickness speared Carin as she slipped a frozen dinner into the microwave at her small rental house. Though she’d lived there nearly four months, she’d had little time to decorate, and the walls were still painfully bare. She’d managed to arrange a few baskets along the cabinet tops and had found a set of floral canisters at the home supply store that she’d filled and set on the counter.
The phone call from Phillip hadn’t helped. When his number popped up on her cell phone caller ID, she’d known better than to answer, but he’d caught her off guard—again.
“Let’s talk things out, Carin. We can fix this.” His voice slid over the line, deep and smooth as warm molasses. She figured that’s what had lured her in the first place—the smooth talk.
“There’s nothing to discuss.”
“Be reasonable.” The tone of his voice had escalated when he realized she wasn’t going to cave. “Your father’s starting to ask questions.”
Panic stabbed her. “What are you telling him?”
“What do you want me to tell him?”
The truth
, she thought, but knew that wasn’t the answer. The truth would wound her father, because he’d thought of Phillip like a son since Cameron had died.
“You can’t frighten me anymore.” The lie scorched her lips. He
did
frighten her. He could hurt her—again—without so much as a second thought. “Quit calling me, Phillip. Just leave me alone.”
“Aw, baby, stop this nonsense and come home. I want you back.”
“What?” Bile rose in Carin’s throat. She gagged. “Are you serious—after what you did? After all the lies? This is my home now. I’m not coming back to Nashville.”
She heard him breathing on the other end, weighing his words carefully as the microwave whirred and her fluffy gray cat, Scooter, motored restlessly around her feet.
“Maybe I should come to see you…work this out face to face.” The words were laced with threat.
“No!” She’d get a restraining order if she had to, not that it would do any good. A year at the law firm, writing and filing reports, had made that perfectly clear. “If you even try to come near me, I’ll…I’ll—”
“You’re guilty, too.” The words scalded. “Just as guilty as I am—maybe even more. You let Cameron down. You weren’t there for him…not when he needed you most.”
Carin gasped and jabbed the end button, then tossed the phone on the counter as if it had burst into flames, burning her. Phillip’s words echoed like thunder in her ears.
You’re guilty, too. Maybe even more.
He was right to some degree. Even now, the thought tore at Carin.
The microwave chimed. She drew the meal from the turntable and dumped it in the sink. Her stomach soured, and her appetite fled.
How was she ever going to step foot in church tomorrow to follow up on the issue with Corey Samuels? Surely God would take one look at her striding through the door and strike her down, quick as lightning. She had no place there, yet she had to go.
The kid—Corey—needed her. He was in crisis; she felt it in her gut. And she couldn’t let him down. Not like she’d let Cameron down. No, sir. Not again—never again.
****
“She won’t show up,” Jake muttered as he organized sermon notes at his office desk. He struggled with a serious case of guilt because his mind was as far from the message he was about to share as the sun is from Pluto. Instead, his head was filled with images of curly blonde hair and fiery emerald eyes set in a round, determined face. And that voice…full of frustration with a hint of indignation as Carin O’Malley stood in the warm sunlight with arms crossed, the scents of sandalwood and freshly-mown grass dancing around her.
No, she’ll show up. If Corey’s been pulling the same old stunts, she definitely will.
Corey’s antics, especially at school, could easily fill a notebook cover to cover.
“Who on earth are you talking to?” Corey loped through the office doorway and glanced around. Seeing no one but Jake, he shook his head. “You’re losing it, Jake, talking to yourself.”
“Maybe so.” Jake forced his mind to focus. It was no wonder he was going crazy. Worrying about Corey, keeping up with his duties at the church, and now Carin O’Malley—A.K.A. Slasher—tossed into the mix, really stirred things up. There was only so much one person could handle, even with God’s help. “Take my sermon notes and lay them on the podium near the altar. Keep them in order, OK?”
“Sure. But how can you make heads or tails of any of this?” Corey flipped the papers, which were stained with muddy-brown splotches.
“I did battle with the coffeemaker last night.” Jake had done battle with more than the coffeepot. Memories had played havoc with him, and sleep had been a long time coming. He shouldn’t have toyed with Carin O’Malley. “But it all makes sense, at least to me, so don’t mix up the pages.”
“Whatever.” A clatter down the hall drew Corey’s attention. “Dillon’s here. His mom’s probably arrived early to get the music ready for the service.”
Julie Raulston was East Ridge Church’s music director, and a savant as far as anything musical was concerned. She’d taught Dillon to play the guitar and had begun to work with Corey, as well, since he showed some interest in learning.
“Can Dillon and I go out back and toss a baseball until the service begins?”
“Sure, just remember…no batting in the parking lot. You know what happened last time?”
“How could I forget?”
He’d smashed a beauty of a homerun right through the windshield of Mr. Humphrey’s brand-spanking-new extended-cab Ford Ranger.
“You grounded me for a whole week.”
“Because you disobeyed me, and you deserved to be grounded.” Jake jabbed a finger in Corey’s direction. “So stick to throwing and don’t be late for the service.”
“We won’t be.” Corey’s mouth twisted into a scowl. “Dillon’s mom would lecture him for, like, three years. And I don’t even want to think about what you would do.”
“A little fear is good.” Jake switched off the computer on his side-desk, remembering the favorite phrase his dad would share whenever Jake tested the boundaries as a boy. “Just consider the consequences.”
“Whatever. Gotta go. Dillon’s waiting.”
Corey spun in the doorway and bounded down the hall, dark hair flying as his tennis shoes slapped freshly-waxed tile.
“Give me patience, Lord. Make me strong.” Jake lifted his eyes to the heavens and prayed.
“Maybe this will help.” Patrick Raulston came through the doorway to hand Jake a foam cup filled with coffee. “Fresh from the kitchen. You look like you can use a strong jolt of java.”
“Thanks.” Jake downed a sip, and the bitter brew warmed his tongue. “Ahh…hits the spot.”
“Rough night?” Patrick slipped into a chair near the desk and scratched his short-cropped beard. He had an easy laugh, and his eyes, the color of bright copper pennies, rarely failed to smile. He and Julie made a good team; their interests were similar since Patrick worked at the church as a youth pastor. They’d met years ago, while on a summer-long mission trip to inner-city Philadelphia. Marriage and children had quickly followed.
“Just a little sleepless.”
“Corey OK?”
“Maybe…I don’t know.” Jake scratched his chin, and felt the makings of a five o’clock shadow, though it was barely nine o’clock in the morning. He’d shaved, hadn’t he? He struggled to remember…the morning was a blur. “I think one of his teachers is stopping by today…Miss O’Malley?”
“Carin O’Malley?” Patrick leaned forward in the chair and placed his coffee cup on the edge of Jake’s desk. “I’ve heard Hailey Jackson mention her. The two are good friends.”
“Ahh, so
there’s
the link.”
“Excuse me?” Patrick smoothed his beard again.
“Just mumbling to myself. Forget it.” Jake downed another gulp of coffee. “Did you get a quote on the materials for the playground renovations?”
Patrick pulled a slip of paper from the pocket of his khakis. “I did, and the estimate came in significantly higher than we planned. So, we’ll either have to shelve the project or do the lion’s share of the work ourselves.”
“Well, shelving it’s not an option.” Jake took the paper and scanned the figures Patrick had jotted. “We need to consider the safety of the kids. If we don’t give the playground area the facelift it desperately needs, someone’s bound to get hurt playing out there…eventually. And that’s unacceptable.”
“I agree.” Patrick drained his cup, crushed the foam, and tossed it into the trash can beside Jake’s desk. “So, should we move forward with the plan?”
“Let’s make an announcement today—a call for volunteers—and see who signs on. I’ll bet we get a decent turnout.”
“Sounds like a step in the right direction. I’ll firm up the details with the trustees and ask Stuart to order the materials. They should arrive by next weekend.”
“Good. Now, we’d better head to the sanctuary. I hear the halls coming to life.”
“Hold up.” Patrick shifted in the chair and lowered his voice. “You know I never mince words and, well, I have to tell you that I sense a restlessness in you, Jake.”
“I have been a bit out of sorts.” Jake ran a hand through his hair. “This issue with Corey—and school—it’s keeping me up at night. I’m failing him, Patrick. He needs more than I can give. I don’t know what else to do to help him. I’d hoped with time things would improve, but it’s just not getting any better.”