Luke’s sweet mother had been praying for Aiden’s situation to improve.
Luke used to pray. Back before he realized the improbability of a just and beneficent God. Because if God did exist, He’d messed up the job, and Luke knew that firsthand.
But if it made his mother feel better to pray, who was he to argue? Jenny Campbell was a great lady, a wonderful mom and grandma, and Luke loved and admired her. He’d leave the praying to her and her church friends.
An aging Camry darted into the school driveway ahead of him, then pulled to a quick, crooked stop in the mostly empty parking lot.
Luke angled into the spot alongside the other car and climbed out. He turned and locked gazes with the dark-haired woman staring at him, her unadorned hands grasping the top of the car door.
Breathtaking beauty. Tall and slim. Scared to death.
You’re in uniform, Einstein.
Of course. She thought he’d followed her into the school lot to issue a ticket, but she hadn’t done anything wrong. The posted signs were school-in-session speed limits, and she hadn’t exactly careened around the corner on two wheels.
But her face held more than concerned chagrin. It held fear, and the cop in him wondered why she feared police. He jerked his head toward the building as he walked that way. “You here for a meeting, too?”
Relief eased her jaw and the set of her shoulders. She nodded as she matched his stride. “Yes.”
Vulnerable but tough; they were two red warning flags, despite the instant attraction. Luke stayed away from vulnerable women. Once burned, twice shy.
Tough women weren’t his cup of tea, either.
His older brother Jack had scolded him the week before. Said he was afraid to shop around because he couldn’t find June Cleaver.
Was Jack right?
Most likely. But this woman wasn’t making eye contact with him, so the attraction must be one-sided.
Or she’s hiding something.
And that was just one more reason to keep his distance. If he could get beyond the caramel skin. The past-her-shoulders, wavy dark hair. Eyes round and deep-toned. “You’ve got a kid here?”
“Two.”
That surprised him. She looked young, mid-twenties. Too young to have two elementary school kids, at any rate. But maybe she wasn’t too young. He might be feeling old before his time.
He stepped forward and swung the door wide for her.
She glanced up to thank him.
Time stopped.
So did she.
Her eyes, a blend of storm-cloud gray and milk-chocolate brown, were a shade he had no name for. Brows, thin and arched, framed long lashes that looked real. Her mouth, soft and full, was perfectly shaped....
No makeup.
Unusual. Didn’t all beautiful women wear makeup these days?
She opened her mouth as if to speak, then stopped, pressed her lips together, turned and moved through the door. But that moment—seconds that felt like long, drawn-out minutes—assured him the electricity went both ways.
They walked down one hall side by side, turned right, then proceeded to the principal’s office.
Mr. O’Mara stepped through his door. He nodded to Luke and sent a look of commiseration to the woman. “Rainey, I’m sorry, but you’re late. Deputy Campbell’s meeting is scheduled to start now. Can you wait here and we’ll meet about the twins once we’re done talking with Luke?”
Rainey.
Rainey Cabrera McKinney, the woman who’d done time years ago for a crime she didn’t commit. A woman who’d skated the edge of the law too often as a kid. His friend Piper McKinney had been raising Rainey’s twin daughters until Rainey returned to the family farm last month.
“Rainey wants to make amends,” Piper had told him.
The word on the street, and the look on her face, said the whole making-amends thing wasn’t going too well. Luke’s mother had a saying: “Small-town folks have little to talk about, and drawn-out winters to do it.”
With winter approaching, Piper McKinney’s sister might be in for a long, hard haul.
Rainey nodded, stepped back and took a seat on the hand-crafted wooden bench outside the office. “It’s no problem, Mr. O’Mara. I’ll wait here.”
Deep and poignant, her soft “Tex-Mex” voice complemented her looks, but that could be another strike against her. Kirkwood Lake was a great town, but with the summer recreational season over, people would have too much time on their hands. That could make things tough for the woman to his left. As if taking the fall for a dishonest friend and doing prison time wasn’t rough enough.
But right now he had his own personal dragon to face. He stepped into the office, gave a brisk nod to Miss Patterson, Aiden’s teacher, and took a seat. “About my son...”
* * *
Rainey drew a deep, calming breath.
The deputy had surprised her in the parking lot. She’d turned, seen his cruiser and frozen.
His look said he’d wondered why, but when the principal called her by name, she’d read awareness in the officer’s eyes.
He knew who she was. What she’d done. And what she’d failed to do by leaving her daughters in others’ care for three long years.
You have been cleansed, my daughter, clothed in the light. Grace has come upon you as the dewfall....
She loved that image. Silent, encompassing, peaceful.
Then why did her gut clench? Her thoughts ran rampant, wondering what the girls’ teachers would say.
Rainey stared at the door, wishing her mother or sister could have come along. But they were shorthanded at their Western New York dairy today, and someone had to watch Sonya and Dorrie.
You won’t have to worry about being shorthanded if your customer base keeps shrinking.
With Rainey’s return, customers at the dairy had diminished, sales were down and profits eroding, all because Rainey had taken the helm a few weeks back.
Her mother brushed it off. Lucia McKinney embraced an “and this too shall pass” mentality. She believed things would work out in God’s time, one way or another.
So did Piper.
Not Rainey. She hadn’t come home to mess things up more thoroughly; she’d come back to make things right. Set the record straight. And reclaim her position as the twins’ mother, a role she’d abdicated to keep them safe when a rogue cop threatened Rainey’s freedom...and her baby daughters.
Old guilt pricked her new and growing faith. Her girls were having trouble in school.
Were they following her example? Were they incorrigible? Or were they just normal kids fighting change, as Piper and her mother insisted?
The murmur of voices in the room said the officer—Luke Campbell, she remembered—was being bombarded. Maybe they’d get it out of their systems with the big, strong deputy and go easy on her.
The door to the office opened.
Luke came out, looking none too happy.
Mr. O’Mara’s expression wasn’t any better.
The teacher looked aggrieved. None of this boded well for Rainey’s time in the hot seat.
Luke waved her in. “Your turn in the line of fire,