Love Inspired August 2014 – Bundle 1 of 2 (36 page)

“I think you’re really good for him, Heather. I admit, I was nervous at first—Max
was a veteran heartbreaker before the accident—but I think God’s up to something here.”

“Oh, I...”

“He was really touched by the knitting ladies, you know. I’m sure he never admitted
it, but he talked about them for half an hour when I saw him the other day. Alex and
I have been trying to drag him to church again since the funeral, but
you
made it happen.” JJ pulled in a deep breath. “Can you imagine what God could do with
a guy like Max? The people he could reach? The lives he could change?”

She’d had the same thought herself. Max never did anything halfway—if his faith ignited,
it would be spectacular. “He told me he’s still angry at God for dropping him.”

A sister’s heartbreak filled JJ’s eyes. “I know. What did you say when he told you
that?”

“I told him I believed God caught him just in time.”

Affection replaced the heartbreak in JJ’s features. “What did my little brother say
to that?”

Heather took a deep breath. “He kissed me. Actually, I think I may have even kissed
him first.”

JJ blinked back tears, something Heather hadn’t seen this tough warrior of a woman
do very often. “I was wrong, Heather. I think you’re good for Max. Really good. Don’t
give up on him when he makes a mess of things, okay? He needs you.”

I think I need him,
Heather thought.
But he needs You most of all, Lord. You’ll have to shout loud to get through to Max
Jones.

Chapter Seventeen

M
ax’s wheels skidded on the firehouse floor as he zoomed in one of the open bay doors.
The older guy everyone called Yorky looked up from the supplies he was shelving. “Hi,
Max. JJ’s in the kitchen.”

Max knew the way, but his path ended up being blocked by the tightly packed tables
in the dining room. After a conversation with Simon an hour ago, Max was angry enough
to knock over every table in the county, but that wouldn’t solve anything. Frustrated
and stalled, he resorted to yelling “JJ” until her head popped out of the pass-through
window from the firehouse kitchen.

She’d either talked to Heather or Brian, because she already knew. Her expression
said that loud and clear. Fine. He wasn’t in the mood to recount the gruesome facts
anyhow. She took her time coming out of the kitchen, wiping her hands instead of looking
him in the eye. Without a word, she moved a series of chairs so they could sit at
the farthest dining room table. “You want a soda?”

As if that would help. “No,” he snapped. “I do not want a root beer to make it all
better.” He liked the stuff, and the firehouse was always in full supply of Gordon
Falls’s official beverage, but he wasn’t even remotely in the mood.

“I’m sorry about what happened to Simon.” After a second, she added, “Aren’t you supposed
to be in Iowa today?”

“I was.” He didn’t want to offer any further explanation than that.

JJ frowned. “I know you’ve invested a lot in that kid. I’m really sorry he got a week
of detentions. Doesn’t seem fair, does it?”

Max ran his hands down his face. “According to Heather, it’s all equal as far as the
school’s concerned. Kikowitz’s mean left hook is just as punishable as Simon’s weak
attempt to fight back.” He looked up at JJ. “Am I wrong for being glad Simon tried
to stand up for himself? If it was me, I’d have slugged the guy, too.”

JJ offered a melancholy smile. “You did, back in school. Twice, if I remember right.”

Max laughed darkly. “I beat up Noah Morton for leaving you at the homecoming dance,
didn’t I?”

“Not your best moment, but you meant well.”

“He’s going to keep baiting Simon—I know he is. The kid’s a predator, and he’s picked
out Simon as the weakest of the herd. Someone needs to teach that bully a lesson.”

“That someone is
not you.
The last thing Simon needs is you deciding to show Jason that a guy in a chair can
throw a decent punch.”

“Do you know how much I want to?” Max planted his elbows on the table, hands fisting
at the thought of what Jason had done to Simon for no reason other than pure meanness.
“If I saw him across the street right now, I could—”

JJ put her hand on Max’s arm. “But you won’t. Max, Simon looks up to you. What you
do now is going to teach Simon how to deal with the world. Look, you’ve made some
progress with Brian—he told me so just yesterday. You’re helping Simon. Don’t blow
it all to pieces over someone like Jason Kikowitz.”

Max rested his forehead on his upright fists. “I’m just so...mad. We work so hard
to give people an equal shot and guys like Kikowitz can wipe it all away in ten minutes.”
He’d always wondered when his passion for Adventure Access would rise to the level
of Alex Cushman’s, but he hadn’t counted on it happening out of sheer vengeance. He
doubted this was the kind of motivation Alex would condone.

“Go take the boat out, go shoot hoops with the guys here until you’ve burned it off,
but
burn it off.
Don’t show Simon the wrong way to handle this.”

Max simply groaned. He really wasn’t in the mood for a big-sister lecture.

“We just had a training session, so there’s a bunch of the younger guys out back.
Go shoot hoops.” As if to drive the big-sister thing home, she stood up and planted
a kiss on the top of his head. “It’ll feel good.”

He knew what would feel
terrific
right now, and it wasn’t the condoned plan of behavior, that was for sure. Anger
boiled up in him like a furnace fire, heating his thoughts and shredding his patience.
This thing with Simon and Kikowitz touched on so many parts of his life, he couldn’t
seem to escape it. He couldn’t outthink it, couldn’t solve it, couldn’t appease it;
he could only endure it. While he had a lot of physical endurance, his emotional endurance
had pretty much run dry in the months since he’d fallen off that cliff.

“Hot Wheels!” Jesse Sykes waved to him from under the basketball hoop that stood at
the little concrete yard in the back of the firehouse. “Good. I need somebody I can
beat.” He bounced the basketball straight at Max.

Max caught it in one hand, aimed and sent it through the hoop. “You mean you need
a beating to take you down a notch.” The sound of the ball clanging through the chain
net was satisfying. They started a rousing game of one-on-one, which eventually became
two-on-two as some of the other guys came out to join. Without making a big deal out
of it, these guys always found a way to make Max feel as if he fit in. It just made
him ache harder for Simon to have the same experience.

He missed two shots in a row because his thoughts were tangled around Simon’s plight,
losing the game for his team. Jesse reached into a bin and tossed Max a towel. “What’s
up with you?” Jesse asked, wiping the sweat from his own brow.

At first Max hesitated—talking about it would just make it all surge back up. Only
these guys knew Brian Williams as one of them. They knew Simon, and many of them had
taken a shine to him like Max had. Maybe they could help the boy feel as if he wasn’t
so alone. “It’s the thing with Simon Williams.”

“Oh, man,” said Wally Foreman, collapsing on a bench that sat at the edge of the concrete.
“Heard about that.”

“I had Kikowitz’s older brother in my class when I was in high school,” another guy
shared with a grimace. “Big and mean runs in the family, if you know what I mean.”

“I’ve never seen Williams so mad,” Jesse said. “That kid means everything to him.”

“I feel for Simon,” Wally offered. “Hard to live something like that down, you know?
Kid’s gonna hear
babysitter
called after him in the hallways for years.” A little geeky himself, Wally’s eyes
went hard and narrow. “I hated high school.”

Jesse leaned in. “I hate to say it, and I’d never tell Brian how to parent his son,
but I was glad to hear that Simon stood up for himself this time. That kid needs to
strike back and strike hard if he’s ever going to be able to hold his head up at that
school. Guys like Kikowitz feed on this stuff unless you shut them up.”

The churning in Max’s gut was growing by the minute. “I can’t tell you how much I
want to string that kid up by his expensive sneakers and show him he’s not as tough
as he thinks he is.”

Wally raised one eyebrow. “So why don’t we?”

Jesse stilled. “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying we should show Kikowitz that the Gordon Falls Volunteer Fire Department
looks after its own. You mess with Williams’s kid, you mess with us. I’m not saying
we should hurt the guy, just give him reason to think twice before he gets into it
with Simon again.”

“Let Simon know we’ve got his back.” Jesse nodded.

Stop this,
a little voice in the back of Max’s mind whispered. It was far too easy to ignore
it. “I don’t think Brian would go for it.” Some part of him knew the weakness of that
objection.

“Who says Brian has to know?” Wally grinned. “Probably better if he doesn’t, actually.”

“I’m in,” Jesse said. “I’d happily put Kikowitz in his place. A little community service,
if you ask me.”

This is wrong,
the little voice began to shout. It sounded way too much like Heather. Well, all
Heather’s ideas and spiffy activities hadn’t helped Simon one bit, had they? Bullies
only spoke one language, and Max had been fluent at his age. He’d know just how to
pick on Kikowitz’s weak spots. He’d tell the guys how best to frighten Kikowitz but
stop them before they went too far. Simon would know there were more people on his
side. “Appealing as it sounds, we can’t hurt him. This has to be a warning, not a
payback. And I can’t really be involved.”

The three other guys looked at him.

“But I can drive.”

* * *

Heather rested her head in her hands the next morning and tried not to cry. The only
grace was that Jason Kikowitz’s father had railed at her on the phone rather than
coming in to personally convey his outrage at what had happened last night.

“I agree this is an awful development, Mr. Kikowitz, but as it didn’t take place on
school property, I’m not sure what I can do.” A group of three young men—and there
was little doubt in her mind who at least one of them was, even though she couldn’t
quite yet figure out how, since no one had yet mentioned a wheelchair—had cornered
Jason in the parking lot of Dellio’s diner last night and pushed him around, shouting
threats should he try anything else against Simon Williams.

“Jason tells me the hoodlums that roughed him up got into a dark car with flames painted
on the sides,” Mr. Kikowitz growled into the phone. “He said you’d know who owned
that car, Ms. Browning. Do you?”

The “yes” of her reply felt like thorns in her throat, sharp and wounding.

“What are you going to do? I demand you do something about this!”

That was just it—this problem was so enormous and so painful she couldn’t even think
of how to respond. It was as if Max had handpicked the worst way to betray her trust,
the most painful act to shred everything that had grown between them since that night
on the porch where she’d told him he wasn’t broken. She was wrong. Max was broken,
and he’d now broken everything else within reach.

“Are you listening to me?” Mr. Kikowitz yelled. “Do I have to take my son’s victimization
up with the police?”

Victimization. While what happened to Jason was wrong in every way, did his father
really see his son as a victim? Did he have no sense of how Jason had begun the chain
of events that had brought everyone to this awful place?

“No, Mr. Kikowitz, I hope that won’t be necessary. I’m glad Jason wasn’t hurt. Where
is he now?”

“He’s at home of course—he’s been suspended for the rest of the week, remember? Besides,
why on earth would I let him back into school after a thing like this?”

“Believe it or not, I think school may be the best place for him right now. I might
be able to arrange an in-school suspension given the circumstances. It would give
me a chance to talk to him about all this.”

Mr. Kikowitz snorted angrily. “I’m not about to send him.”

“I understand. Please think it over and let me know if you change your mind.” Some
petty part of her wanted to remind Mr. Kikowitz that his son had been suspended for
doing what had just been done to him—in all honesty, for doing even worse, since Jason
had drawn blood.

It didn’t have much effect. “I lay this at your doorstep, Ms. Browning. I expect some
solution from you before the end of the day. That’s the only consideration that will
change my mind.” His voice held no hint of cooperation or concern, just pure demand.
She wondered if he barked orders like that to Jason every day. How fathers and sons
could tangle each other into knots. Fathers and daughters, too.

The world was one giant ball of hurt and it wasn’t even 9:00 a.m. Heather picked up
her keys and headed to the last place on earth she wanted to go: Max’s cabin.

Chapter Eighteen

M
ax was just finishing his morning coffee when he heard a car pulling into the cabin
parking lot. Seconds later his door banged open and JJ stalked into the kitchen.

“What is wrong with you? How could you possibly think that was a good idea?” Her eyes
flashed in anger.

He didn’t bother denying it. He hadn’t even made any attempt to hide what they’d been
doing last night, so he simply didn’t say anything.

JJ sat down carefully, as if moving too fast would let her temper loose. “I’ve just
come from a twenty-minute meeting—no, a twenty-minute department-wide
dressing down
—from Chief Bradens about a certain group of firefighters who roughed up Jason Kikowitz
last night. Brian Williams came storming into the department this morning furious,
and I don’t blame him.” She dropped her forehead into her hands.

“What are you doing? Reliving your glory days back in high school, shoving kids into
lockers? This is beyond stupid, Max.
Irresponsible
doesn’t even cover it. I’m—” she looked up at Max with sharp, angry eyes “—I’m ashamed
to be your sister this morning.”

He paused, making sure she was finished. “Not your brand of tactics—I get that.” He
didn’t mind taking the heat for this. Not if it called dogs like Kikowitz off Simon.
If having that kid’s back knocked him off the “inspirational survivor” pedestal JJ
and Alex kept shoving him on, then he’d gladly take the hit.

“What you don’t get is how much damage you’ve done. To hear him talk, Simon Williams
will be lucky Brian ever lets him out the door to pick up the mail now. Why didn’t
you just paint a bull’s-eye on the back of his wheelchair, Max? Brian is convinced
Simon is a walking target now, and I don’t think he’s wrong.”

“Simon
isn’t
walking. That’s the whole point here.”

She slammed her hands on the table. “Stop that!”

“Stop what?”

“Stop making everything about being in that chair. This has nothing to do with your
injuries and everything to do with the kind of person I thought you were.
Were.
Because obviously I was wrong.”

“You would have preferred I go over and have a deep, meaningful conversation with
Jason Kikowitz?”

JJ stood up, bristling. “I would have preferred you act like an adult. I would have
preferred you show Simon what it means to be a man instead of just another bully.”

“Didn’t the army teach you never to take a knife to a gunfight? The only way to deal
with Kikowitz is to back him down, JJ. Simon couldn’t do it, so I did it for him.
Well, with a little help from some guys who were
all too happy
to give Kikowitz what he deserved. It’s not like we beat the guy up or anything.”

“Threats. You think threats were the way to go on this one?” She blinked at Max. “You
think you stepped in on Simon’s behalf. You don’t even know how wrong you are on this,
do you?”

Actually, he had known it on some level all along. It wasn’t hard to go back to being
the bad guy when he was so practiced at it. It took way too much energy to be a good
guy with everyone staring at him. Luke Sullivan’s “stop caring” attitude was gaining
traction ever since he’d seen Mike Pembrose’s post. The whole pipe dream of a future
with Heather was a bubble that was bound to pop soon; he could see that now. Life
only afforded guys like him certain benefits, and being upstanding didn’t have to
be one of them.

“Alex is on a plane right now or I’d tell him to come over here and fire you this
minute. You’re an idiot, Max, throwing away every good thing you’ve been given.”

A sickening pity filled her eyes, and he hated that more than anything else she could
say. “Oh, yeah, look at me, swimming in blessings.”

He heard his front door open. “You
are,
” JJ said. “That’s the worst part of it. If you’d only—”

She stopped talking as Heather walked silently into his kitchen.

“I think I’d better go now,” JJ said quietly. “We’re shorthanded at the station, since
three guys just got suspended from duty for a week.” She looked at Max. “Dishonorable
conduct.” She said the words as if pronouncing sentence on him.

Heather stood eerily still, her mouth drawn tight and her eyes cold. He wouldn’t meet
her glare, instead staring into his coffee and stirring it with a false indifference.

“Why?” It was more of a whisper, a moan, than a question.

“Because it had to be done.”

“I can’t think you believe that.”

He leaned back in his chair. “Know me that well, do you?”

“I thought I did. Today, I’m not so sure.”

Max didn’t answer.

She took a step into the kitchen, and Max got a whiff of whatever it was that made
her hair smell so good. A tiny knife twisted in his gut. “Do you remember how I told
Mrs. Williams I trusted you to do right by Simon?” She looked up and breathed in,
doing that thing women did when they tried not to cry. The knife twisted harder. “I
told her I believed in you. Do you know what it felt like to face her this morning?
For me to agree with her that Simon should never spend time with you ever again?”

“Simon will be fine from here on in. Kikowitz will leave him alone. He doesn’t need
me.”

“You think he’ll be fine? You are so wrong. Simon’s parents asked me about homeschooling
him. They’ve decided the public school system can’t meet his needs. That glass you
think Simon is trapped under? It just came down hard and fast and airtight around
him. I hope you’re happy.”

The anger—and yes, the regret—Max had been swallowing all morning roared up with a
force too strong to stop.

He fought back with the only weapon he had. “As happy as you would have been with
Mike Pembrose?”

* * *

Heather felt as if she’d been struck by lightning. Mike Pembrose? How had Mike been
dragged into this? The shock of Max’s question was instantly swallowed by a wave of
regret. How could she think that what had happened with Mike would not follow her
to Gordon Falls eventually? Wanting to put that sad chapter behind her was never the
same thing as being able to escape it. She’d not made peace with that episode, and
now she was paying the price.

“How do you know about Mike?” She hated how pain laced her words.

“I think the question is, why didn’t you tell me about Mike?”

There wasn’t a simple answer to that question. “He isn’t part of my life anymore.”

Max scrubbed a hand across his chin. “Yeah, you saw to that, didn’t you?” He hadn’t
yet shaved, and the scruff gave him a regrettably rugged handsomeness she didn’t want
to notice. She’d come to Max’s doorstep thinking life couldn’t have tangled any further,
and he’d proved her wrong.

She leaned against the counter, feeling slightly ill. A stronger woman would have
been able to push back against this clear diversion, but this morning she wasn’t that
woman. “Tell me what you know.”

Draining his coffee cup, Max gave her a hollow look. “Not much of a story. According
to Mr. Pembrose, you found out he had diabetes and couldn’t hack it. Did you give
him the real reason you broke off the engagement? Or did you make up an excuse?”

It was so much more than that, but Heather wasn’t sure she was capable of explaining
it to Max. Not in the middle of all this. The words wouldn’t come.

“You can see how I might find this crucial information.” Max’s bitter tone sliced
the air between them. “Since we’re on the whole trust issue, as you say.”

She shut her eyes. One black moment piling onto another—it seemed beyond unfair. “I
can’t discuss this now. Now has to be about Simon. Can you see that?”

“I’ll talk to Simon. I’ll explain why we did what we did, why Kikowitz will likely
leave him alone now. His dad will come around.”

“No.” The one clear point in all this was that it had to stop. Here. Now. Before any
more harm was done to anyone—including her. “You will not talk to Simon. Your relationship
as his mentor is over. Your relationship—” she took a breath to steady her voice,
feeling as if her throat were tying itself into knots “—with me is over. You are not
to come to school.”
To see me or Simon,
her broken heart added. “Simon’s parents have forbidden you to contact him, so don’t
call or text him or go by the house.”

“Well, I was getting too busy for all this anyhow.” The worst thing of all was that
Heather could see right through Max’s act: he was applying that hard shell, pretending
as if this were no big deal. His cavalier words couldn’t mask the regret she saw pinching
his features. The way his lips thinned and he swallowed harder. “I don’t think he’ll
need my protection now anyways.”

He needs your affection.
She wanted to hate what Max had done. It was wrong in dozens of ways, and she had
every right to be furious. But even all that couldn’t wipe away the fact that Max
had done it because he cared about Simon. It had come out in the worst possible way,
but hadn’t JJ said something about Max’s spectacular gift for messing up? Hadn’t she
been warned?

“You won’t lose your job or anything, right?” His voice pitched up just the slightest
bit. “You had nothing to do with this.”

“I don’t know. I don’t think so.” She said the next words with more bitterness than
she would have liked. “You’re a grown man. No one expects me to control what you do
on your own time off school property.” After a second she felt compelled to add, “No,
I think the big loser here will be Simon. You’ve managed to snatch back everything
you gave him. I hope you can live with that.”

Max pushed away from the table, spinning away from her under the pretense of putting
the coffee creamer back in the refrigerator. He kept his hand on the handle for a
long moment after he shut the door, knuckles whitening from how tightly he gripped.

Heather was nearly certain this would be the last time they spoke. She’d see him around
town, of course, but there would be no more dances, no more dinners at The Black Swan
or pie at Karl’s. The knowledge gave her enough courage to speak her mind.

“Do you want to know why I broke it off with Mike?”

Max neither answered nor turned around, although he took his hand off the refrigerator
handle and let it fall to his lap.

“Yes, I was scared when he shared his diabetes with me. I had spent so much time being
the sick one that I was afraid I couldn’t help anyone else through something so big
for a whole life. So I admit that was part of it.” Max’s shoulders fell a bit, an
“I knew it” gesture.

“But it wasn’t all of it. Mike
became
his condition once he stopped hiding it from me. He let it rule him, let diabetes
drive every aspect of his life for every minute. He complained constantly. He made
me watch him take his insulin injections, moaned about what he couldn’t eat, kept
a list of side effects and complications in his wallet. There were conversations where
he told people he was a diabetic before he introduced me as his fiancée. He lived
in fear. He refused to have a family, afraid to pass along what he called ‘the curse
of his body’ to our children. Mike chose to make himself a victim, and I knew I wasn’t
strong enough to marry a victim.”

She almost didn’t say it. But if this was going to be her only chance, she didn’t
want to regret leaving it unsaid. “You are not a victim. That’s what I’d hoped you
would teach Simon. You were the strong one—you are determined to have all the life
you can despite what’s happened. I soaked that in, being close to you. I was starting
to believe...” She let her voice trail off, and everything inside her wanted to crumple
up into a ball of disappointment. Heather took a breath and made herself finish. “You’re
not a victim. Instead, you made Jason Kikowitz into a victim. And Simon. And me. So
if you think that I’m walking away from you for the same reason I walked away from
Mike, you couldn’t be more wrong.”