Ellen glanced quickly back at the house as she said the words, knowing that her mother couldn’t hear, but feeling guilty anyway. As though she were betraying her somehow.
“And then she was the one who found Pastor Edwards doing the very same thing Dad had done. She took it really hard.”
Ellen wanted the new pastor to understand. To not hate her mother. Or judge her. There wasn’t a woman in Shelter Valley who was a better person than Ellen’s mother. There wasn’t another woman more deserving of the help Pastor Marks was offering them.
And Ellen knew they needed it. Even if her mother was too hurt to figure that out.
“It’s okay,” David Marks said again, smiling at her. Ellen smiled back, kind of surprised that she could after what they’d just heard. “If you’re worried I’m going to give up on her, you needn’t be. I don’t give up. I just get more determined.”
“Okay.” Ellen nodded.
“And, Ellen,” he said in a low voice. “I meant everything I told you in there. What your father did has nothing to do with you or the other kids. Or your mother. It’s not reflection on any of you. It’s the result of his own selfishness or insecurity, not some inadequacy on your part. Okay?”
The permanent knot that had taken up residence in Ellen’s stomach unwound a little further. She felt like an idiot but couldn’t stop grinning at him as she stood there, watching him open his car door.
“Anyway,” she said as he hesitated with one leg inside the car, raising his brows as he watched her, “I know you were only trying to help us. And you did. Help me, I mean. I never know what to do with all the bad feelings about my dad, and the stuff you said gave me some things to think about. The idea that it’s about him and not about me—I like that. Thanks.”
“You’re welcome,” the pastor said, giving her another smile. “I’m here anytime any of you need me. Just call. Okay?”
Embarrassed, and happy, too, she nodded. And then turned and ran back to the house.
Life had just gotten a little easier.
SHELLEY HURRIED UP the hill, hoping Drake would still be there. She’d had a hard time getting away from home that afternoon with Mom upset and all, but every time she thought about Dad’s phone call, she knew she’d do whatever it took to see Drake. Her mom thought she was at her friend Monica’s house. Shelley still hated the lies, couldn’t get used to telling them to her mother, but today she needed Drake more than ever.
And he didn’t like it when she made him wait, as if she was more important than he was. He had a thing about Shelter Valley girls thinking they were better than him and his friends, who mostly lived in a housing project outside Phoenix.
What if Whitney had been on the hill that afternoon? Everyone knew she wanted Drake. And he’d been staring at Whitney pretty intently on Friday night. Her stomach tensed with fear, Shelley remembered turning around from paying Drake’s friend, to see that look in Drake’s eyes as he stared at Whit. Whitney had been more out of it than normal, standing there in forty-degree weather with her shirt off, dancing like she was the hottest girl in town, even though Whitney was one of the least popular girls in school.
Of course, Shelley reminded herself as she ran out of breath three-quarters of the way up the hill, he’d looked at her even more intently when she’d taken off her sweater and unbuttoned her own shirt….
Eyes narrowed as she peered through the five o’clock Arizona dusk, she tried to see if Drake was at the top of the little hill nestled between two bigger hills in the desert outside Shelter Valley. Still too far away to hear voices, she could see some shadows. But she wasn’t sure one of them was her new boyfriend.
Oh, God.
She needed him so badly. Needed to feel his arms around her. Needed to know that she was loved.
“Please, God,” she whispered as she tried not to let her lack of breath slow her pace. “Let him be there. Especially tonight, let him be there. Without Whitney or anyone else. Let him be there waiting for me.”
She’d been hesitant to join his friends in their kind of fun, but this afternoon the preacher had made it all clear. “Things happen for a reason,” he’d said as he was leaving. “It’s up to you to see the signs and know how those things can help you.” He’d all but told her she’d been meant to meet this boy who’d never even stepped foot in Shelter Valley before this year. He and his friends could help her.
Tonight, more than ever, she just needed a little time to forget.
SINCE THE DAY SHE’D BEEN hired as program director for MUTV, Martha had loved her job. Today she hated it. Monday mornings were generally not her favorite anyway. Tim resisted the transition from weekend to school day more than most, which meant she’d already fought World War III before her workday even began. And today, just one week and a day after the good preacher of Shelter Valley Community Church had been in her home to witness the unveiling of yet another humiliation in the life of Martha Moore, she was supposed to trot on over to his place for a production meeting.
She’d been dreading the encounter so much she’d given herself a whopping headache and permission to skip church the day before. She’d expected the kids to celebrate the opportunity for a day off, as well, but Ellen had insisted on going. And on taking the younger kids with her.
Other than feeling like a slovenly mother shirking her responsibilities, Martha had thoroughly enjoyed the time to herself.
Still, the long soak in a bubble-filled tub, listening to seventies hits she usually got too much criticism over, and reading a book she’d been meaning to get through for months, had not been enough to rid her of the headache. Or the dread.
David Cole Marks mistakenly assumed it was his job to insinuate himself into the lives of the pathetic divorced woman and her four equally pathetic and father-deprived children. Anyone in his or her right mind knew that all Marks’s meant-to-be stuff and seeing signs was crap. Just because she’d received one of life’s hardest blows the only time she’d begrudgingly allowed him into her home, just because he’d witnessed her closer to falling apart than coping famously, did not mean they had any need of him. All it meant was one instance of bad timing.
She ought to know. Her life was filled with them.
Like now.
Dropping the note she’d been holding, the one she’d found taped to her office door as she’d come in moments before, Martha couldn’t imagine a worse time for Katie to throw up and her mother, Bonnie, to be in Washington, D.C., introducing her highly successful concept of child-adult day care for possible national funding. Because of that; Katie’s father, Keith, Martha’s boss and partner in the production of MUTV’s Sunday morning spiritual hour project, had left her in the lurch.
With her oversize black leather tote bag still hung over her shoulder, she slumped down in her seat, staring at Keith’s hurried scrawl on the sticky note.
Wasn’t it just like a man to dump her when she needed him most?
Damn him.
Not that Keith had any idea how much she was dreading this morning’s meeting.
Still, he was a man. And he was dumping her.
Or sort of dumping her. Letting her down. Leaving her to deal with life’s challenges all alone… Okay, she was being a bit self-indulgent here and feeling sorry for herself, but—
“Would a doughnut help?”
Cindy, the short, stocky and perennially cheerful student who was handling the daily computer entries to keep MUTV’s live bulletin board up to date, poked her head into Martha’s tiny office.
“Probably, but I didn’t bring any today. It took me half an hour to get Tim out of bed and another twenty to bully him into opening his eyes and getting dressed.”
“Keith