“So the cycle never ends.”
“We work to educate here,” Susan told him. “To reduce the odds. As far as a single church’s ratio of domestic violence cases, the probability gets higher, the more people you have in a congregation.”
Gabriel looked troubled. “But you can’t tell by looking?”
Susan shook her head. “That’s one of the challenges we face—the perception that you can just look at someone and tell if that person is being abused or is an abuser. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work like that. Domestic violence doesn’t know income, economic, racial or cultural boundaries. And domestic violence doesn’t just mean physical violence. It can take many forms.”
Gabriel had seen no less than five women he recognized from Good Shepherd. Unless he’d completely missed his mark, Good Shepherd was having a domestic violence problem. And if what Susan said was true, there was no way for him to know if a church member or couple was in trouble unless something was said or a couple came in for counseling.
Was he so out of touch with his membership that he hadn’t even realized that?
As if reading his mind, Susan said, “It helps when local leaders can see firsthand the work we do here. I especially wanted you, as the new pastor of Good Shepherd, to be on board with our mission and goals.”
“I’m seeing your mission,” he said. “What are those goals?”
“You’re just seeing a part of the big picture, Reverend. I’d like to show you the rest on another day.”
He hedged. “I have quite a busy schedule.”
“Too busy to make a connection with a neglected part of the community? To meet the people who for too long have had a blind eye turned to their suffering?”
“I sense of note of censure,” he said.
Susan shrugged. “I think it’s deserved,” she said, pulling no punches.
He raised a brow, reminded that beautiful roses had deadly thorns.
“Pardon me for being so blunt,” Susan said. “But there is a need here in this community, the very community served by Galilee, yet despite today, we haven’t been able to get an audience with anyone from Good Shepherd.”
“I’m here now.”
“Only because I corralled you.”
He tucked his hands in the pockets of his slacks. “You have an interesting approach, Mrs. Carter. I thought the idea was to garner my cooperation.”
“It was. And is,” she said. “The frustration is a result of what it took to get your attention.”
Gabriel looked at her in a new light. Had she flirted with him at the picnic just to get him to agree to visit her shelter?
Chapter Five
“That’s why I wanted you to visit Galilee, Reverend Dawson. It’s one thing for people to make a financial commitment to a nameless, faceless charity or cause. It’s something else entirely when you can make the personal connection. When you can look into the eyes of someone who needs help or talk to someone who has been helped.”
Gabriel considered what she had said. This time he didn’t mistake the censure in her voice. It was a quiet but definitive reproach. “What have I done that makes you so hot under the collar?”
There was a time to be coy and a time to be blunt.
Folding her arms across her chest, Susan stared him down. “It’s not what you’ve done, Reverend. It’s what you haven’t done.”
Since he’d been called to Good Shepherd, Gabriel’s focus had been on getting to know community leaders, assessing the congregation’s many needs, and encouraging members to take part in the whole church, existing programs as well as ones he proposed. In addition, he had to stay a step ahead of all the matchmakers who filled the pews. He had a vision for the church, one that he’d promised to implement when he’d been hired as pastor. So he didn’t take too kindly to Susan Carter’s assessment of him as a slacker.
He leaned back in his chair, steepled his hands and met her direct gaze. “What is it, Mrs. Carter, that you see I’m not doing?”
Rising, Susan came around her desk and faced him. “For starters, don’t you think it’s odd that so many of your members or regular visitors call the Galilee Women’s Shelter home? You asked me about the odds, but you didn’t ask the next obvious question.”
“Which is what?” He folded his arms. Then, recognizing the defensive gesture for what it was, he carefully placed his arms along the chair rests.
“Have you given any thought to how you and Good Shepherd might reach out to those women and others in need?”
“I take it you have a proposition?”
“Not a proposition, Reverend. A reality check.”
He shifted in his seat, bristled at her characterization. “My feet are firmly planted on a solid foundation, Mrs. Carter.”
“Let me show you the community. Let me show you what we’re fighting every single day.”
She leaned over and pulled from a stack of file folders a single thick file. Handing it to him, she said, “That’s just the last two weeks of articles from the local newspapers, The Gazette and the Colorado Springs Sentinel, as well as the Denver Post and the Rocky Mountain News. Street crimes, domestic violence calls to police—up. Drugs and crimes that can be directly attributed to drugs—up. The problems here in Colorado Springs have the potential to spill into other areas. Containment is what city officials like Mayor Montgomery are after.”
Gabriel flipped through some of the clippings. He’d read many of the same stories and had seen television news reports, yet he hadn’t connected the dots in quite the same way as Susan.
“What’s the trickle-down effect of this?” he asked, holding up the folder.
“The woman who ran in here earlier,” Susan said. “That’s trickle-down. An increased number of women and children seeking shelter. More and more children and teens left alone, fending for themselves, they find solace in the very thing that’s destroying this community.”
“Drugs?” he asked.
Susan nodded. “And gangs, where they find the family or the bonding they don’t have at home.”
He glanced at more of the newspaper articles before closing the folder and placing it on her desk.
“Let me show you the human effect.”
He nodded once. “All right.”
When he left the shelter after almost two hours, Gabriel had a handful of handouts featuring statistics, demographics. But he hadn’t seen these statistics. Susan was right. He hadn’t been out in the trenches.
That would change tomorrow afternoon.
Susan wasn’t sure she’d gotten through to him, but she knew one thing for certain: he’d gotten through to her. She chided herself for getting distracted by his eyes, the color of dark chocolate and so penetrating that she wondered if anything ever got past him.
She thought herself prepared to impartially lead Reverend Gabriel Dawson on a tour of the Galilee Avenue area the next day. She’d dressed carefully—for both the minister’s benefit and to acknowledge that they’d be doing a lot of walking—in a pair of blue pants, a cream twinset rimmed in blue, and comfortable flats.
She’d expected him to show up in one of his designer-looking suits, clothing that would immediately peg him an outsider in the neighborhood, as maybe a cop or a government worker. Susan’s mouth dropped open when he stepped into the reception area.
“Gorgeous, isn’t he?” Jessica said.
Susan