Unexpected Son Page 5

  Brick opened his mouth as if to say something, but Michael held up his hand. “I grew up on the streets in Miami, Sarah. My mother died when I was thirteen. I never knew my dad. My grandmother raised me. She did the best she could, but I was too wild and headstrong to be reined in.”

  “But you were only a child then.”

  Michael nodded. “Just a know-it-all kid.”

  Sarah lifted her chin. She might have doubts sometimes about her spiritual strength, but she didn’t have doubts about her ability to read a person’s character—at least, not many. Whatever Michael Kenton had done in the past was just that. In the past. For the ten days he’d been living above her garage he’d been a model citizen.

  She made herself smile at Brick. “Thanks for coming by. I appreciate your concern, but I don’t see any reason to change the way we’re doing things here. Michael’s paid his debt to society, just like he said. He’s not a threat to me or anyone else. He deserves to be left in peace. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a lot of work to do this evening.”

  Brick studied her face for a long moment, then his dark gaze flicked to Michael’s hard, set features. “If that’s the way you want it, Reverend Sarah.” He touched his finger to the brim of his hat. “Good night, ma’am. Kenton, I’ll see you around.” It wasn’t a threat, just a statement. But the warning in Brick’s voice was unmistakable.

  “Good night, Brick.” Sarah watched him walk back to his car.

  “Did you mean that?” Michael asked, as the police captain pulled away from the curb.

  Sarah lifted her eyes to his, wishing she could read just a fraction of his thoughts so that she could know what he was feeling at this moment. “Of course I meant it. What you did in the past is none of my business. Or anybody else’s in this town, as a matter of fact.”

  “I’m an ex-con. A felon,” he said, emphasizing the word ever so slightly. “You heard what the cop said.”

  “Are you trying to trick me into quoting Scripture here?” she asked, trying very hard to lighten the darkness in his eyes. “How about ‘he who is without sin, let him cast the first stone’? That’s a good one.”

  “Does that mean you’re not going to throw me out of the apartment?”

  “The thought never crossed my mind,” she said truthfully. “I told Brick it doesn’t matter what you did before you came to Tyler. I’m only concerned with how you conduct yourself now.”

  “I could be a danger to you and your flock, Reverend Sarah,” he said, taking a step closer.

  “Don’t be ridiculous.” Sarah held her ground with difficulty. Not because she was frightened of him, of his size and strength, but because during the past ten days she’d discovered she liked his coming near her. Liked the thought of his being close enough for her to feel the warmth of his body and imagine what the work-roughened touch of his hands on her skin, and his mouth on hers, might feel like.

  “Do you want to hear my side of the story?”

  “If you want to tell me,” she managed to reply with only the slightest of hesitations. “I’m not going to force it out of you.”

  “I was framed,” he said bluntly.

  “Framed?” Unbidden, a thought popped into her mind—something she’d read somewhere or heard on TV. Every man in prison claims he’s innocent, a victim of a frame-up or a dishonest cop.

  “Yeah. Framed.” Michael seemed to be waiting for her to say more. She kept her mouth shut. Let him explain, let him do the talking—that was what a good counselor, a good preacher did. “Aren’t you going to ask why I didn’t tell Barney Fife that?”

  “He’s not Barney Fife. He’s a good man and a good cop. And I imagine he’s heard that excuse before,” Sarah said, refusing to back down despite his dark scowl.

  Michael stared at her a moment, then the darkness seemed to lessen, just a little. The faintest hint of a smile curled the corners of his mouth. “Yeah, that’s why. Every con in the joint was framed and every cop in the world has heard that sob story a hundred times over.”

  “Is it just a story, Michael?”

  He ran his hand through his hair. He hadn’t had it cut since he’d come to Tyler. It was longer now, just brushing the edge of his collar. “No, dammit. It’s the truth. But it’s getting dark and cold out here. Someday I’ll buy you a beer and tell you the whole sorry mess, just the way it happened.” The mockery in his voice was directed at himself, not at her.

  “I’m not cold,” she said, reaching out to touch his arm before she could stop herself. It was only a fleeting touch, feather light, over in a heartbeat, but Michael pulled back as if he’d been burned.

  “Yes, you are cold. And probably hungry. Look, would you mind if I give you a rain check on that dinner at Marge’s Diner tonight? I don’t have much of an appetite anymore.”

  “Of course.” She tried very hard not to let her disappointment show. “I could bring you some soup and a sandwich. Grilled cheese or fried eggs?” Heavens, she sounded like a babbling idiot.

  “Don’t bother.” He turned away, took three steps and then stopped, looking back over his shoulder. “And Sarah?”

  “Yes?”

  “Thanks for sticking up for me back there.”

  “You’re welcome,” she whispered, but he had already disappeared into the darkness of the backyard.

  * * *

  “NO, MARGARET ALYSSA, you cannot finger-paint with your peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich.” Gently but firmly, Glenna McRoberts took the mutilated snack from the little girl’s sticky fingers and guided her toward the rest room.

  “Why not?”

  “Because I said so. And because if you finger-paint a picture for your Grandma Alyssa with peanut butter and jelly, it won’t last. It will start to smell funny in a couple of days and your grandma will have to throw it away. If we use paint she can keep it for a long, long time.”

  “We want to paint, too,” Annie Baron piped up.

  “Me, too,” Belle seconded. The twins, not quite a year younger than their outgoing cousin, were quieter, more reserved, but no less stubborn.

  “Babies can’t paint,” Margaret Alyssa said, sounding superior.

  “Momma!” Belle looked at Cece with tears in her gray eyes.

  “If Miss Glenna says you can paint, then it’s all right with me. Go with Miss Glenna. I’ll pick you up when I get done with my work, okay?”

  “Okay, Momma.”

  “Sorry, Angela,” Cece muttered, waving her offspring back into the group of preschoolers. “Everything got off on the wrong foot today and the twins aren’t in a very good mood.”

  “Don’t worry, Cece. They’ll be fine.”

  “Then I’m off,” she said, buttoning her coat. “I’m so sorry I had to cancel our lunch date, Sarah. Maybe tomorrow.” She looked distracted. “Or maybe next week would be better. By then I should have this bout of stomach flu at Worthington House under control.”

  “It’s all right, Cece.” Sarah smiled. Cece was devoted to her patients at the nursing home. “Give me a call when you have some free time.”

  “Thanks. I will. Bye, girls.” She blew her daughters a kiss. “Be good.”

  “We will. But we want to paint.”

  “Then hurry up,” Margaret Alyssa warned them. “Or Miss Glenna will change her mind.”

  Glenna wasn’t about to let her small advantage dwindle away. “Exactly. Let’s wash your hands and faces and then we can have an apple for a snack before we start to paint, all right?”

  “All right,” Margaret Alyssa agreed.

  “Okay,” the twins echoed.

  “It’s a deal,” Glenna said calmly. She was one of Anna and Johnny Kelsey’s daughters, whom Sarah was acquainted with from community functions. Recently divorced, she was about Sarah’s own age and had the same blue eyes and luxuriant black hair th
at all the Kelseys possessed, but she was shy and quiet away from the children, and Sarah hadn’t gotten to know her very well in the weeks that she’d been working at TylerTots.

  “She’s doing quite well with the kids,” Angela Murphy, the center’s director, remarked to Sarah as she guided six toddlers into the quiet room for a story and a nap. “I always like it when we get a clinical student who’s got kids of her own and knows how to diffuse a crisis in the making without a fuss.”

  “The affiliation with Sugar Creek Community College is working out well, isn’t it?” Sarah agreed, as she helped settle the toddlers into beanbag chairs and onto cots to listen to the story Angela was selecting from the bookcase.

  “It’s a godsend. The students get the experience and we get the extra help free of charge. I’m glad the church board agreed to the program. I may even turn a profit this year, and the board can raise my rent.”

  “We’ll see,” Sarah said with a smile. She looked around the big, colorful, low-ceilinged room. When she’d come to Tyler with Eric four years earlier, the sanctuary basement had been a dank and dreary place, used only for occasional baby and bridal showers and fellowship breakfasts.

  Then she’d met Angela Murphy, the oldest daughter of the owner of Tyler’s hardware store, and the idea for TylerTots had been born. Angela had a degree in early childhood education, and Sarah had a dream for a child-care facility that would fill the sanctuary basement with laughing, well-cared-for children.

  It had taken nearly a year to acquire the necessary permits and to raise the money to make repairs and alterations to the basement to bring it up to code. But it had been well worth the effort. For a while after Eric’s death, getting TylerTots up and running was the only thing that had kept Sarah from giving in to her despair. She still spent as much time as she could manage helping out, but her parish duties were many and varied, and they limited her volunteer time at the center.

  “Come on, kids, settle down or no story,” Angela warned, as the toddlers continued to scoot and wiggle around on their chairs, demanding favorite toys and blankets and drinks of water. “They’re always so wound up on Mondays,” she lamented, as Sarah retrieved a stuffed dinosaur for one little boy and a much-abused and much-loved baby doll for the little girl beside him.

  “Michael Kenton will be over to fix that leaky faucet in the boys’ rest room this afternoon,” Sarah said, tucking up the little girl with the doll.

  “Michael Kenton?” Angela’s head snapped up. A frown appeared between her eyebrows. “Do you think that’s wise?” She signaled one of the aides to take the storybook she was holding and motioned Sarah toward the kitchen, where the smells of lunch preparation made Sarah’s stomach growl.

  Now it was Sarah’s turn to frown. “What are you getting at Angela?” she asked, but she was afraid she already knew.

  Angela had the grace to look a bit sheepish. “Well, I mean, do you think it’s a good idea having that man here while the children are around? He is an ex-convict, after all.”

  “Who told you that?” Brick had promised to keep the information under his hat. She’d never known Brick Bauer to go back on his word, but it seemed the only explanation. How else would Angela have learned of Michael’s past, if not from the police captain?

  “I’d rather not say.”

  “Who, Angela?”

  “Well, it was Betsy Arnold, my friend who’s an emergency-squad tech. She overheard a couple of the deputies talking about him when she was down at the police station filling out an accident report the other day. And my dad’s been kind of suspicious ever since Brick stopped by to talk about the guy last week.”

  “Whatever Michael Kenton did in the past is none of our business.” No one had confronted her with the information at church yesterday. Perhaps Angela’s friend hadn’t spread the rumor any farther, although she suspected that was wishful thinking on her part.

  “Where my kids are concerned, it is my business,” Angela reminded her. “Who knows what kind of man he is? I’d just rather you asked him to fix the faucet after six o’clock, that’s all. When the children aren’t here. I don’t think that’s too much to ask.”

  Sarah wanted to say that she thought it was too much to ask but she knew that Angela’s mind was made up. Angela took her responsibilities very seriously. She was in complete charge of the center, and Sarah didn’t have the authority to overrule her objection.

  “I’ll stop by the apartment and speak to him as soon as I leave here.”

  “Thanks, Sarah. I have to consider the children’s safety first. How do we know this guy isn’t some kind of sex pervert or something?”

  “He isn’t dangerous, Angela. I’m certain of that.”

  “I wish I could be certain, too, Sarah. But I can’t. And even though it’s an old cliché, it’s still better to be safe than sorry.”

  Angela was the first person to alert Sarah that Michael’s past was becoming common knowledge in Tyler, but she wasn’t the last. He wasn’t in the apartment when she left TylerTots, so she headed for the study in the drafty old parsonage to work on the lesson plan for December’s Sunday-school classes and to await his return. She had no more than settled herself behind her desk when the phone rang.

  By the time she finally closed the untouched plan book in defeat, she’d heard from two board members and one other concerned parishioner. She’d been right to be worried when Angela told her what she’d learned. The news was spreading like wildfire through the town. She switched on the answering machine so that she wouldn’t have to spend any more time on the phone explaining to her startled and suspicious flock that being a Christian meant being tolerant of another’s faults, forgiving others their mistakes. She felt as if she were talking to a brick wall.

  Her parishioners were good people, but many of them had been tested in life’s fires, as well, and they were not as forgiving of weakness as they might be. They lived by a strict code of honor and duty and accepting responsibility. Michael Kenton had failed that high standard. He was now a marked man.

  * * *

  MICHAEL GLANCED AT the clock above the chipped and rust-stained kitchen sink as he pulled a can of cola out of the refrigerator and popped the top. He took a long drink of the soda and let the sweet liquid burn its way down his throat. He’d started work on Alyssa Wocheck’s porch rail today. Alyssa Ingalls Baron Wocheck. And he’d met her granddaughters, Annie and Belle Baron, and Margaret Alyssa Forrester. Cute kids. Happy and healthy and cherished. It was easy to see that.

  Yeah, it had been quite a day. And it was still only a little after four o’clock. He had plenty of time to fix the leaky faucet at the day-care center. Maybe Sarah would be there and he could ask her out on the town. Michael let the corners of his mouth curl in a self-deprecating smile. A burger at Marge’s Diner—what a thrill for her.

  It had been five days since Brick Bauer had shown up and lowered the boom on him. Five days of watching and waiting to see what would happen next. But telling Sarah about his criminal record seemed to be as far as it had gone. He wasn’t used to small-town cops. Maybe they were different; maybe this one was different, a man of his word. A knock at the door interrupted his musing.

  It was Sarah, as he knew it would be, looking cool and calm in a soft beige sweater and brown cotton skirt, her hair pulled up into a soft knot on top of her head, small gold hearts gleaming in her ears.

  “Hi,” he said, opening the door a little wider. He hadn’t lighted the stove and the room was cold. It was cold and gloomy outside, too, with a hint of snow in the air. He’d been twenty-two years old when he first saw snow—through the window of his cell in the Tennessee prison where he’d spent the last six months of his sentence.

  “Hi.” She wrapped her arms around herself, pushing her breasts upward, highlighting the creamy expanse of skin visible at the V neck of her sweater.

  “I’
ve been working at the Wocheck place this afternoon, but I was just coming down to start on that leaky faucet at the day-care center.”

  “I thought that might be what you planned to do.”

  “After I’m done I’d like to take you to dinner at Marge’s. To make up for backing out on you the other night.”

  “I—I’d like that,” she said.

  “What’s wrong?” Something was bothering her, that was obvious. Her emotions were always close to the surface and easy to read.

  “I just wanted to tell you that Angela Murphy thought it might be less disruptive for the kids if you fixed the faucet after the center closes at six.”

  “She didn’t seem to think it would be a problem if I worked around the kids when I was over there Friday afternoon.”

  “That was Friday. This is Monday. The kids are pretty rambunctious today.”

  “Rambunctious?”

  She gave him a wan little smile. “It’s one of my mother’s favorite words for the way my brothers and I behaved when we were acting up.”

  “That’s not the only reason you’re here, is it?” A cold finger of apprehension skittered up and down his spine. There was only one thing he could think of that she would have to tell him that would make her this uneasy.

  “I—”

  “A bunch of hyperactive kids is just an excuse. This Angela Murphy doesn’t want me working on the sink right now, isn’t that it?”

  “No. Yes.” Sarah took a step forward, as though to put her hand on his arm, and then stopped with the table still between them. Instead, she reached out to curl her hands around the back of one of the mismatched wooden chairs. “Angela is concerned—”

  He leaned forward abruptly, making the salt and pepper shakers jump as he spread both hands flat on the table. “Your cop friend ratted on me, didn’t he?”

  “No.” She was quick to jump to Brick Bauer’s defense. “It was an accident. Someone overheard two of Brick’s deputies discussing you. That person told someone else—”

  “Who told someone else, who passed it along to their Aunt Tillie and half the free world.”