Love Finds a Home (8 page)

“He knows me,” Jake said.

“You?”
Emma almost choked on the word.

Jake didn’t look offended by her strong reaction. “He called Pastor Matt this morning and requested that I be his mentor.”

Requested. Jake Sutton.

Oh, Jeremy.

“But…” Emma pressed one hand against her forehead, trying to sort through this latest complication. “I don’t understand.”

But then again, maybe she did.

On her way to bed the night before, Emma had noticed a sliver of light under Jeremy’s bedroom door. That hadn’t surprised her. More often than not, she would find her son sound asleep with a book still propped up in his lap.

Only he hadn’t been asleep. He’d been sitting up in bed, his gaze fixed on the arrowhead in his hand.

“And here I thought I’d find you reading up on Native American artifacts,” Emma had gently teased.

“It’s not the same.” Jeremy had run his thumb over the jagged edges of the stone. The sparkle in his eyes
had warned Emma that a change was coming. A change she didn’t understand but knew she couldn’t prevent.

He wanted to
find
arrowheads, not read about them.

That simple statement forced Emma to face her own limitations. Forced her to acknowledge that Jeremy needed something that she couldn’t give him. She remembered the way Jake had boosted his confidence by letting him dig the hole for the apple tree.

How had Jake put it? That boys needed to test themselves?

The thought both terrified Emma and made her proud of her son at the same time.

But Jake Sutton?

A man who, like Brian, had chosen a dangerous career. A man whose scarred jaw and measured gaze were an unsettling contradiction to the one who’d clapped a battered cowboy hat on his head and completely charmed a rambunctious group of children.

If he saw Jeremy on a regular basis, did that mean she would have to see
him?

Emma’s knees turned to liquid at the thought.

“Would you consider letting Jeremy and me spend some time together for a trial period?” Jake asked. “After that, if you still believe it’s a bad idea, you can withdraw him from the program. If you explained it to Jeremy, I think he would agree to that.”

So did Emma. After all, as her son was quick to point out these days, it was
reasonable
for a person to check things out before they made a decision. If only she’d known her favorite saying would be used against her!

“A trial period,” she repeated.

“How about a month?”

“I don’t know.”
I don’t know you.
“What are your
qualifications? Have you been involved in a mentoring program before?”

Jake looked up at the ceiling, providing Emma with a closer view of the pale grid of scars etching his jaw. “I don’t have any experience with kids. This is all new to me, too.”

It was the last thing Emma had expected him to admit.

“Then give me one good reason why I should trust you with my son.”

“Because Jeremy wants you to.”

Now who wasn’t playing fair? Emma thought. Jake had to know that Jeremy was her reason for getting up in the morning. The last thing she wanted to do was deny her son something that put a sparkle in his eyes. Like the one she’d seen when he’d shown her the arrowhead…and talked about the crime that he and Jake had “solved together” on Saturday. “Why do
you
want to do this?” Emma asked.

Jake’s lips quirked. “Because Jeremy wants me to.”

The same reason. Like it or not, concern for her son had become a connecting point between them.

“I’ll agree to a month.” Emma hoped she wasn’t making a huge mistake.

“I’ll tell Pastor Wilde.” Jake started to walk away but paused when he reached the door. “And Emma?”

She forced herself to look at him.

“You
can
trust me.”

As soon as the door closed, Emma sank against the desk.

Trust him?

At the moment, it was the feelings Jake stirred up inside of her that she didn’t trust.

Chapter Eight

J
ake’s cell phone rang less than five minutes after he walked into the house.

He glanced at the tiny screen to read the name before answering it. It seemed that someone—and Jake had a hunch that someone’s name was Delia Peake—had given his private number to everyone in Mirror Lake.

This time, however, it was safe to pick up.

“Whatsup, Bro?” Andy’s cheerful greeting came over the line. “Whatsup,
Bro?
” Jake echoed. “You’ve been spending too much time with the kids in your youth group.”

But even as he gave Andy a hard time, Jake was glad the term “brother” came so easily. Jake had been twelve, Andy three years younger, when Jake’s mom and Andy’s dad had fallen in love. They had become linked together by their parents’ marriage certificate, not blood. Jake and his best friend, Sean, had tormented the poor kid every chance they got, but Andy had never complained or tried to get back at him. Jake had thought of Sean as his brother, but when push came to shove, it had been Andy who hadn’t given up on him. It was his prayers that had pulled Jake out of the darkness.

“There’s no such thing as too much time with my kids,” Andy said loyally. The thing was, Jake knew he meant it. “Are you on duty or off?”

“Am I ever off duty?”

“Should I get out my violin?” Andy paused. “Or my harp?”

“Did you call just to harass me?” Jake laughed, the sound of his brother’s voice easing some of the tension that had settled in his shoulders after his visit to the library that morning.

“As entertaining as that can be, I called because God brought your name up while I was praying today.”

“What time was that?” Jake asked suspiciously.

“This morning. About eleven o’clock.”

Eleven o’clock. Roughly the same time he had gone to see Emma at the library.

Was he being tag-teamed?

“Really?”

“Yes, really. So, are you going to tell me why?”

Jake knew he could sum it up in two words. Emma Barlow. But he wasn’t sure what would happen if he trusted that kind of intel to his kid brother.

That Emma had agreed—albeit reluctantly—to let him spend time with Jeremy on a trial basis had been nothing less than a miracle. Jake hadn’t been quite sure how he’d come up with the idea…until now.

“Probably because I needed an extra dose of courage,” Jake admitted.

“You?” Now it was Andy’s turn to laugh. “The undercover drug officer? The guy who walked into crack houses without a weapon? Made deals with the thugs whose pictures are on the bulletin board at the post office?”

Compared to Jake’s newest assignment, his previous job
still
looked easier.

“The church I’ve been attending started a mentoring ministry. I got drafted.”

And even more specifically,
requested.
In spite of his misgivings, that had been the reason Jake hadn’t been able to say no.

That and two matching pairs of wide, gray-blue eyes.

“You? You’re going to be a mentor to a…kid?”

“That’s usually who needs a mentor. Are you laughing?” Jake demanded.

“No…” A series of muffled snorts followed the word.

“Uh-huh.” Jake didn’t have to be in the same room as his brother to know he was rolling on the floor. “I tried to tell the pastor it was a bad idea.”

“What are you talking about?” Andy sobered immediately. “It’s a great idea.”

“You of all people should know that isn’t true. Some people could question my judgment. My ability to be a good influence.”

On the other side of the line, Andy expelled a slow breath. “You have to let it go, Jake,” he said quietly. “No one saw the signs.”

That wasn’t much of a consolation. “I should have seen it. Sean was my best friend.”

That was the thing about dwelling in the shadows for so long. Eventually, they began to blur a person’s perspective. Wrong started to look like…right.

“Sean made his choice. And if he’d had his way, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

A shared memory weighted the silence that fell between them. Andy’s stricken face staring down at Jake
when the paramedics wheeled him into the E.R. Both of them unsure if they’d ever see each other again.

As often as Jake had brushed aside Andy’s faith or, even worse, poked fun at his brother for dropping out of medical school to attend the seminary instead, he hadn’t felt as if he could appeal to God for help the night of the drug bust. The only thing Jake could do was look into the cold eye of the gun pointed at him and apologize to God for being stubborn. Tell Him that he wished he would have taken time to know Him when he’d had the chance—that he would do things differently if he could.

God hadn’t only heard his prayer, He had intervened in a way that left Jake feeling a little like the apostle Paul on the road to Damascus.

Because the second bullet—the one aimed at his forehead—never left the gun. It jammed. And then the man holding it had crumpled to the floor, two feet away from Jake, before he could try again.

In his head, Jake knew what Andy said about Sean was right. It was taking his heart a little longer to catch up.

He rose to his feet and took a restless lap around the room. “For now, it looks like God wants me to spend some time with Jeremy, but I could definitely use some pointers.”

“You’re asking me for advice?” Andy’s tone lightened, as if he sensed Jake’s reluctance to talk about Sean.

“Don’t let it go to your head. Kids are your thing, not mine.”

“When do they match you up with someone?”

“They already did.”

Andy’s low whistle made Jake smile. “I told you
that God wasn’t going to waste any time. What’s his name?”

“Jeremy Barlow.”

“Troublemaker?”

“Not even close. Jeremy is on the shy side. Doesn’t seem to have many friends. He’s definitely a thinker.”

“Rough home life?”

Rough home life.

Jake turned the words over. In his mind’s eye, he could see an older house and the front porch that begged for a coat of paint. The twenty-year shingles on the roof that looked as if they’d been forced to last thirty. All home-maintenance projects that would have fallen on Brian Barlow’s shoulders and yet they’d become another burden for Emma to bear.

He had no doubt the citizens of Mirror Lake would have chipped in to help if Emma had only let people know she had a need. He had a hunch that something beyond grief added to her resistance. No one could find fault, however, with her parenting.

“Emma is doing a good job but she can’t do everything.”

“Whoa, hold on a second,” Andy said. “No need to get defensive. It was a question, not a judgment. And who is Emma?”

“Jeremy’s mom. Her husband was a cop here in Mirror Lake. He died six years ago in a high-speed chase. Jeremy was only four years old at the time.”

“That’s rough. So how does she feel about you mentoring Jeremy?”

“She doesn’t…approve of me.”

“But you’re one of the good guys,” Andy protested.

“I’m not sure she thinks so,” Jake said. “She’s very
protective. And she isn’t sold on the idea of her son spending time with someone she doesn’t know.”

“I have the perfect solution for that.”

“You do?”

“Let her get to know you.”

“Jake wants to take me fishing, Mom!”

Emma’s heart turned a somersault at the announcement. The fact that she knew this was coming, had even agreed to it, didn’t seem to matter when faced with the reality of what she’d agreed to.

For Jeremy’s sake, Emma tried not to let him see her reaction. “When?”

“Tomorrow night.” Jeremy’s thin frame practically vibrated with excitement. “But he said to make sure it was okay with you first.”

How nice of Jake, Emma thought. She didn’t want him to be thoughtful. Or considerate. It was easier to keep her distance when all she saw was a badge.

Jake had claimed he understood how difficult it was for her to let Jeremy spend time with him, and yet their very first outing was a fishing trip. Couldn’t he have chosen something that didn’t involve water? What was wrong with going out for ice cream? Playing catch at the ball field? Not that Jeremy
liked
baseball, but still…

“You don’t have a fishing pole.” A weak excuse, but the only one she could come up with on such short notice.

“I saw one in the shed.”

Emma turned toward the sink, blinking back the tears that blurred her vision. After Brian’s death, other than a few special mementos she’d saved for Jeremy, Emma had given the rest of his things to a local charity. She didn’t remember keeping his fishing pole.

“So, can I go?” Jeremy pleaded.

“I suppose.”

He let out a whoop that rattled the light fixture on the ceiling. “Really? You won’t be mad?”

The innocent question pierced Emma’s conscience.

Had she really been that unreasonable lately?

Yes, she had.

Emma forced a smile. “I won’t be mad.”

Jeremy lifted the telephone that Emma hadn’t seen clutched in his hand. “Mom says it’s okay.”

Jake was on the phone? Emma hadn’t even heard it ring! She stifled a groan. Had he heard her pitiful attempt to discourage her son from going? Probably.

“Okay.” Jeremy’s smile didn’t dim. “Here she is.” He handed her the phone. “Jake wants to talk to you.”

“H-hello.”

“Hi, Emma.” Jake’s husky voice raised goose bumps on her arms. “If I didn’t have a city council meeting tomorrow after work, I would accept your dinner invitation.” Her
dinner
invitation?

“I…understand.” Emma understood that she and her son were going to sit down and have a talk!

“I’ll definitely take you up on it another time, though.”

“Another time,” she echoed faintly.

“I’ll stop by around six o’clock to pick up Jeremy, if that works for you.”

“He’s looking forward to it.”

“So am I.”

Emma hung up the phone and turned on her son. “Jeremy Barlow—don’t you ever invite someone to dinner without asking me first.”