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Sure, Andrew had mentioned it, and Kyle had been quick to nix the idea. Still, though Hannah’s approach had been about as subtle as a two-by-four to the head, Kyle couldn’t resist sneaking a peek at Julia.
She rolled her eyes and frowned.
“Julia teaches first grade at Johnson Elementary,” Hannah continued. “She’s a great teacher and a great catch.”
“Gee, thanks, Hannah.” Julia shook her head, looking embarrassed.
“No problem. Now, Andrew and I are going to see if anyone needs help in the kitchen. You two enjoy your dinner.”
She grabbed the youth minister’s arm and pulled him toward the kitchen. Over his shoulder Andrew gave an apologetic shrug and disappeared through the swinging door.
When Kyle turned back to Julia, her light olive complexion had deepened to a pretty maroon, but she was too polite to cut and run.
“Sorry about that. You’ll have to forgive Hannah. Ever since she got married a year and a half ago, she’s been setting up everyone.”
“I’ll remember to keep my distance then.”
Julia nodded as though she’d received the message that he wouldn’t be a player in the local dating game. He had no business even thinking about the opposite gender, anyway. He had so much hard work ahead of him for the next few months. So much to prove.
“Well,” she began again, “we still have to eat. So, do you want to…” She let her words trail away in an unspoken dinner invitation.
He glanced at his plates, all but forgotten on the salad table. “Sure.”
As he collected his food, Julia reached for the brownies, placing two on a dessert plate. “Get your own,” she said when she caught him watching.
He couldn’t help grinning at her since she didn’t have any dinner and was still making sure she didn’t miss dessert. He had to respect a woman who had her priorities in order.
She led him to a long table, set down her plate, indicating for him to take the spot opposite hers. As soon as he took his seat, though, she hurried off to the serving table. When she returned, she was carrying a salad to go with her brownies.
“That’s great that you’ll be working with the Homecoming committee. Do you know which subcommittee you’ll be working on? I’m on the Search and Invitation committee. We’ll be trying to locate and invite as many former members as we can.”
“I still don’t know what I’ll be doing for the celebration. They’ll probably assign me where they need the most help.”
She nodded, but he wondered if he saw disappointment in her expression. Instead of saying something more, Julia forked a bite of her brownie into her mouth and then started on her salad.
“So, you’re a member of the singles’ group.” Kyle blinked. Where had that come from, and how could he take it back?
Julia lifted her head. “I guess you could say that.” She chewed her lip before continuing. “But I’m not the best advertisement for it.”
Kyle managed to keep his face blank, which was no small feat because in his opinion, a picture of Julia Sims would be exactly the kind of advertisement a singles’ program could use. If group organizers wanted to attract new singles of the male persuasion, anyway.
“Why would you say that?” he asked.
“I’ve been a member for three years and I’ve never really, you know…met anybody.”
“You’re kidding.”
She flitted her gaze his way but looked away again, something in her salad requiring all of her attention.
“Sure, I’ve met people,” she began, still looking at the table, “but just no one special…for me.”
“I still find that hard to believe.” He also found it hard to imagine why he couldn’t keep his mouth shut.
She looked up at him with a sheepish grin. “There were extenuating circumstances with a few of the men I met. In one case, my friend, a young widow, tried to set me up with this guy, and then she realized that God intended for them to be together.”
“You mean…?”
“Yes. Tricia tried to set me up with your brother.”
“You never went?”
Julia shook her head but was quick to add, “Brett never asked, either.”
“Oh.” His relief was more for Julia’s sake than his own. His boring Dudley Do-Right brother would never have been a good match for an intriguing person like Julia Sims.
As if you would be.
“There were some others, too. Hannah tried to convince me to go out with her best friend, Grant. The only problem was that Grant was more interested in Hannah and hasn’t dated anyone else since she got married.”
Kyle shook his head, chuckling. “You’re making this stuff up. It sounds just like a soap opera.”
“It gets better. Tricia wanted me to go out with Brett’s former partner, but she couldn’t even convince him to visit the singles’ group.”
“Ouch.” It sounded like a comic routine on the trials of dating in the new millennium—a regular comedy of dating-scene horrors—but he didn’t tell Julia that.
“Yeah, ouch.” She tore a corner off her second brownie and nibbled on it. “You see, if the church used me as an advertisement, Christian Singles United wouldn’t look too successful.”
“Those guys wouldn’t come off looking too smart, either.” The words were out of his mouth before he had the good sense to stop them. He was definitely out of practice talking to women.
Her cheeks reddening again, she glanced at the serving window, the salad table and the other dining tables to avoid looking at him. For such a lovely woman, she wasn’t comfortable with compliments. That surprised him, but he suspected there were many surprising things to discover about Julia Sims.
Strange how he suddenly wanted to know more about her. Not the details he might find listed on some dating service data sheet or even the casual information fellow church members might know, but the deeper stuff. What made her nervous around him, especially if she didn’t even know who or what he was? What made it so difficult for her to look him in the eye?
He shouldn’t be curious. Rebuilding his own life would be enough like an uphill march after an ice storm without adding anyone else’s dramas to the mix. But wisdom had never been one of his stronger points. He would have asked her some of his questions if someone hadn’t entered the room then, announcing that prayer service would begin in ten minutes.
That announcement must have signaled the church greeters because several approached and introduced themselves, too many for Kyle to ever recall their names. Several asked questions, so he kept his answers vague.
The task would have been easier if he weren’t so distracted by the woman who’d moved across the room to throw their trash away. Maybe he would give the singles’ group a try, after all. At least it would give him something to look forward to besides meetings with his probation officer.
At the sound of the heavy gym doors opening, Kyle glanced over to see his brother in full Michigan State Police uniform, scanning the room as if he’d entered a crime scene. When his gaze landed on Kyle, Trooper Brett Lancaster took several long strides toward his table.
“I tried calling you tonight.” Brett’s words sounded more like an accusation than a statement. That he was staring down at Kyle the way he would a suspect during questioning didn’t help, either.
Kyle glanced sidelong in the direction Julia had gone, and, sure enough, she now stood just a few feet away.
“I wasn’t home.”
“I’d gathered that. I wondered where you were.”
What’d you think, a breaking and entering or a drive-by shooting? He pushed back his chair and stood. With effort, he calmed his breathing as he’d done so many times on the inside. He lowered his voice and leaned close to the brother he’d once admired.
“I’m not on a tether. I don’t have to check in.”
Kyle didn’t expect an apology from his holier-than-thou brother, but Brett’s stiff stance surprised him. Stepping back, Kyle crossed his arms and waited.
“I called Andrew a few minutes ago, and he said you were here.”
“And you just drove right over?”
“I didn’t figure—”
“What? That I should be here? At a prayer meeting dinner?” Kyle’s eyebrows drew together as he studied his big brother. Though Kyle stood two inches taller than Brett’s five-eleven and outweighed him by fifteen pounds, it was hard not to feel outsized by the ten-gallon hat that Brett wore.
Brett shook his head, appearing to search for the right words.
Kyle didn’t give him time to find them. “I don’t get it. You agreed to help me get a job, made a call about my apartment—” As realization dawned, he stopped himself, the stab of pain fresh though he should have been immune.
He stepped closer to his brother, too angry to be intimidated by the uniform and the badge. He spoke in a low voice. “Oh, I get it now. You’re not upset that I work here, just that I’m here with these people.”
“You’re not making sense, little brother. And you’re making a scene.”
“As if you racing in here didn’t make one?”
Brett gripped Kyle’s shoulder, but Kyle shook off his hand and backed out of his reach.
“It’s okay for me to live in town as long as I keep my head low. And it was okay for you to give me a recommendation at your church. I could work here as long as I stayed invisible. I don’t know how you expected me to do my job that way, but that’s not the point right now. I went too far by socializing here. You don’t want your ex-con brother anywhere near your friends.”
Trooper Lancaster’s body became still, but he turned his head from side to side. Dread gripped Kyle’s insides as he glanced at the startled faces around him. He’d forgotten their audience, and from the way everyone scattered and pretended to be involved in their own conversations he realized he’d been overheard.
Brett turned back to him, his eyes narrowed. “You’re a one-man demolition team. You destroy everything in your path. Just like always.”
“Maybe there’s a quota. Only one perfect son per family.”
“You’re not worth it.”
It was only a frustrated comment that Brett made under his breath, but Kyle didn’t miss it. He lied to himself, saying it didn’t bother him. Brett glanced around once more and then stalked toward the door. In his life, Kyle had never followed his older brother’s example, but it didn’t sound like a bad idea now.
He took two steps, catching Julia’s image in his peripheral vision. A wave of melancholy filtered over him. It was best that she found out now, before she thought they could be friends or something. She didn’t seem like the kind of woman who would be friends with a guy like him, anyway. The people around her probably had award lists…not rap sheets. None of that mattered. He didn’t need friends. He didn’t need anyone.
Still, one look at her wouldn’t hurt. He turned his head toward her, hoping to steal a parting glance. He expected her to look away, to begin a conversation with someone else, to busy herself doing something—anything—so she didn’t have to see him. But as his gaze touched her lovely face, she was doing none of those things. She was staring right at him.
Chapter Two
Julia stared into Kyle’s wary hazel eyes, and she couldn’t have looked away if a tornado had struck the church, collapsing the roof on all of them. The things Kyle and his brother had said to each other caused a powerful ache to build inside her, as if she had been a target of those hurtful words. Destructive words. Phrases that could never be taken back.
Kyle must have worn some protective armor to shield him from his brother’s comments. At least it seemed that way since he wasn’t watching the door through which his brother had disappeared but instead continued to stare at her as if daring her to look away. Did he think she was the kind of person who would go screaming in the other direction at the word ex-con?
Okay, he couldn’t know what kind of person she was, and the term did make the hairs on the back of her neck stand up, but she didn’t long for her running shoes. That Kyle worked at Hickory Ridge Community Church made this new information easier to digest. Reverend Bob and Andrew Westin would never have hired Kyle if his crime made him a possible danger to church members or their children.
With a silence in the room so profound she could hear her heartbeat in her ears, Julia waited while those eyes continued to study her. Sage eyes that had probably seen far more than she had in her twenty-seven years. He seemed to search inside her for something more than she could give. She wanted to believe she was above judging a person for his past, but it wasn’t as easy as it sounded.
Still, Kyle looked away first. He glanced at the exit and then strode toward it, his hands striking the handle with a bang as he passed through the doorway. The door fell closed behind him.
Glancing around her, Julia found other church members watching the door as if they expected Kyle to reemerge through it. She doubted that would happen. He didn’t know many people here. And from the scene they’d all just witnessed, he didn’t even have a decent relationship with his brother, the only person in town he probably did know well.
Did he feel alone? She knew what that felt like. After her parents’ deaths, despite her faith, she’d felt adrift while the rest of the world appeared solidly anchored. But Charity had been there for her. The half sister she’d barely known had reached out to her, even encouraging her to move to Milford so what remained of their family could be together. Who was there for Kyle? Who would draw him into a circle of friends? The answer was clear: he had no one.
Before her mind had the chance to rethink her plan, Julia hurried to the door. She didn’t glance back, knowing curious eyes would follow her. Kyle needed somebody, and it didn’t look as if anyone else was volunteering for the job. Even someone as apprehensive as she was had to be better than no one at all.
Her cross-trainers tripping along the carpeted walkway, Julia reached the outside only to find the parking lot quiet, the cars of families attending the prayer meeting and choir practice filling half the spaces.
Disappointment filled her. Maybe it was true what her father used to say about her: he’d called her a champion for underdogs, a collector of strays. Injured birds, lost kittens, new kids in town—they all ended up in a warm box inside the door or at their kitchen table.
This time none of that would be enough. Not enough to help a guy as scarred as Kyle likely was behind his armor. Rubbing her bare arms and wishing she’d remembered to grab her sweater, she started back toward the church entrance.
Somewhere behind her an ignition turned over, but the vehicle didn’t start. Its driver tried a few more times, and the engine roared to life. An older model sedan backed out of its space, rolling toward the exit. As the car passed, Julia recognized Kyle in the driver’s seat.
“Kyle. Wait.” She rushed out so that he could see her waving her arms in his rearview mirror.
When she’d decided either he hadn’t seen her or was pretending he hadn’t, he stopped the car.
She hurried to the driver’s-side window and waited until he lowered it. At first he stared straight ahead instead of at her. The breeze lifted a few strands of his tousled deep-brown hair. He wasn’t wearing a jacket, and when he rested his elbow on the open window, his bicep strained against the cuff of his royal-blue polo shirt.
Finally he turned to look at her. “What do you want?”
“I wanted to see if you were okay.”
“I’m great. Now you’d better get inside or you’ll be late for prayer meeting.”
She brushed away the suggestion with a wave of her hand. “I thought you might need someone to talk to.”
“Didn’t you hear enough inside?”
She didn’t know how she expected him to react, but the hard set of his jaw surprised her. Well, she didn’t know much about Kyle Lancaster, but he had a stubborn bent as firm as his jaw.
“I guess I didn’t,” Julia said. She could be pretty stubborn herself when challenged.
His gaze flitted to her face and he pressed his thin lips together. “Then you weren’t listening closely enough.”
Julia rubbed her arms again, the chill this time coming from the man in the car rather than the spring breeze, but she refused to take his hint to back off. At least he hadn’t closed the car window yet or pressed the gas pedal to the floorboard.
“I listened well enough to know that you’re not getting much support from your one relative in town.”
His hands gripped the steering wheel. “Thanks for coming out here, but I don’t need your pity.”
Julia lifted a brow. “Pity? I don’t see anybody here pitying anyone else.” She braced herself and steadied her voice. Doing God’s work wasn’t coming as easily to her as she would have expected. “I just thought you might like to go for coffee or something. You’re new in town, and I thought you might need a friend.”
He was shaking his head before she even finished her offer. “I’m not worth the trouble. Didn’t you hear Trooper Lancaster?”
