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“He’s been going to the youth center for the past month and nothing about his attitude has changed.”
“It takes time, Mr. Givens,” Anne said, shifting next to Caleb, her hand brushing up next to his fist, as though she sensed his tension and was trying to reassure him.
Her soft voice tempered Caleb, and he uncurled his hand. Lord, what do I do? Dylan needs me.
“I can’t let the boy disrupt my household and set the wrong example. I have four other children to think about.”
Caleb didn’t want Dylan to be moved from foster home to foster home if there was a better solution. “Give me until the end of this month before you make a decision. Please.” He gave up fighting his feelings and took Anne’s hand. Out of the corner of his eye he saw her surprise reflected in her expression, but he didn’t release his hold nor did she pull her hand away.
Rex rose. “Fine. But if things don’t get better soon, I’ll be talking to Dylan’s case manager about another foster home.”
Caleb stood at the same time as Anne, their clasped hands dropping to their sides. For a second he had a strong urge to grab hold of her again. Stunned by the need, he stepped away. “Don’t say anything to Dylan about your plans.”
“You’ve got four weeks, Reverend. Things have got to get better or Dylan needs to go back to the state.”
Anne stiffened and started to say something but stopped herself. Instead, she stalked down the steps and walked toward his Suburban. Caleb watched her until she stopped at the curb and waited for him. He, too, fought the anger roiling in his stomach. Rex Givens wanted only easy children to raise. Life wasn’t that simple. Caleb wondered how much of the man’s attitude Dylan was aware of.
“What’s her problem?” Rex asked, tossing his head in the direction of Anne.
Caleb bit back what he really wanted to say to the man about children being precious resources, not commodities to trade in when something didn’t go just right. He needed a chance to counsel Dylan and that meant going through Rex Givens. “I’ll start working with Dylan after school on Monday if that’s okay with you,” he said, rather than answering Rex.
“Fine.” The large man shuffled toward the screen door. “Personally I think it’s a waste of your time. But then it’s your time, not mine.”
Caleb hurried from the porch before he said something he shouldn’t. Anne leaned against his car, her ankles crossed, her arms folded over her chest, nothing casual about her stance. When she lifted her gaze to his, all the anger he felt was deep in her eyes. He reached around her and opened the door. She slipped inside.
When he slid in behind the wheel, the swirling tension in the small confines of his Suburban escalated to a minitornado. He twisted around to look at her and try to defuse the moment.
“I can’t believe that man! Did you hear him? Those children don’t mean a thing to him. I know foster parents aren’t always easy to find, but he and Cora shouldn’t be ones at all. I—” Her mouth closed about the words she was going to say, the line of her jaw hard.
Anne’s face in her self-righteous anger was a beautiful sight to behold. She was like a female bear protecting her cubs, intending to throw her body in the way of danger. The zeal in Anne appealed to him. Why had he never seen it before? Because she was a master at keeping herself in the background, of blending in so no one noticed her. But he noticed her now—the flushed cheeks, the blue sparkle in her eyes, the full pouty lips.
“I know. I wish I had an—” Caleb stopped, an idea forming in his mind.
“What?”
“I could apply to be Dylan’s foster parent.”
The fury siphoning from her, Anne smiled. “That would be perfect! Then he wouldn’t have to leave Chestnut Grove if there wasn’t another family to take him in. He’s been making friends here. I would hate to take that away from him. And the best part is, you can work with him and maybe help him.”
Caleb started the engine. “It might work.”
“It will work. I have a good feeling about it.”
He slanted a look toward Anne. “It’s dinnertime. Want to go grab something to eat at the Starlight Diner?”
“I—I—” Flustered, Anne snapped her mouth closed, color tingeing her cheeks a pretty rosy hue.
“What? No? Yes?”
She nodded.
“Good. I’ve just realized I’m starved. It’s been a long day looking for a runaway, making flyers, dealing with Rex Givens. I hope you’re hungry, because I’m planning on having dessert in celebration.”
“Celebration?”
“Yeah. Hopefully I’ve found a way to help Dylan.” Caleb’s spirits lifted even more when he saw the smile grow on Anne’s face. He grinned in return, feeling like a teenage boy discovering the appeal of girls.
“What if the Givens decide to keep Dylan?”
Pulling away from their house, Caleb said, “I’ve got the feeling they won’t mind me applying for the job. They’ll probably welcome it. From what Rex said, they would much rather have an easier child to parent.”
“And if Dylan leaves their house, they’ll have room for another one?”
“Yep.”
Anne thought of her own parents and their lack of involvement in raising her. They had been wrapped up in their teaching at the college and their research projects. Although she still lived with them, even now she rarely saw her parents. She sometimes wondered if the only reason they had wanted her to live with them—in fact, they’d insisted—was so she could watch the house when they were gone, which was a lot lately with her father on the lecture circuit.
“Parenting shouldn’t be a business,” Anne said, then instantly regretted revealing her thoughts. She bit down on the inside of her cheek to keep from expounding on the subject.
Caleb stopped at a red light, throwing her a glance. “I agree. Being a parent is the most important job there is, and it should never be taken lightly or for granted.”
“Are your parents still alive?”
“No. They were in their forties when they had me. They tried for years and had actually given up when I came along. They told everyone I was God’s little surprise for them.” Pressing his foot on the accelerator, he drove through the intersection.
Anne heard the love in his voice. “Then you were an only child?”
“Yes. Even though my parents were older, I kept bugging them for a brother. It never happened.” He parked in front of the diner and switched off the engine, angling toward her. “I didn’t like being an only child. When I have a family, I want a whole house full of children. How about you?”
“I was an only child, too. I didn’t much like it, either.” She purposely avoided answering him about having children of her own. She also wanted a whole house full of them, but she didn’t think that would happen. Her marriage prospects were slim. They shared a dream but not a future.
He started to say something, seemed to think about it and decided not to. Instead, he turned away and got out of the car. Hurrying around the front of the car, he opened her door for her before she had a chance to gather her purse from the floor and do it herself. For a second she almost felt as if she was on a real date, but then reality hit when she glimpsed herself and Caleb in the plate glass window along the front of the diner. They were such an unlikely pair. The best she could hope for with Caleb Williams was friendship.
Inside he grabbed a booth with bright blue vinyl seats near the front and slid in, peering at the poster of James Dean on the wall above him. She gave James a quick smile. An old Elvis song played on the jukebox at the back of the diner, its catchy tune causing her to tap her foot to the beat. So many odors vied for dominance. Anne drew in a deep breath and relished the scent of beef sizzling above all the other aromas.
“Hmm.” He flipped open the menu. “It always smells so good in here. I wish I was a better cook than I am.”
“You don’t cook?”
He shook his head. “What I do when I’m desperate isn’t what you would really call cooking. I have a lot of frozen dinners and prepared foods. How about you? Do you like to cook?”
“I can cook, but I can’t say that I like to. It’s not that much fun to cook for just yourself.”
“Don’t you live with your parents?”
“Yes, but they aren’t home that much to eat what I make, so I resort to frozen dinners, too.” Anne opened the menu and skimmed it, already knowing what she was going to have.
When the waitress, Miranda Jones, came to the table a few minutes later, Caleb gave her their orders, then took a long sip of his ice water. “I’m so relieved that you’ll be helping with the decorations this week. I hope it won’t be too much extra work for you.”
Unwrapping her utensils, Anne smoothed her napkin in her lap. “No. The only night I can’t make it is Wednesday night. I volunteer to hold babies at the hospital that evening.”
“Hold babies?”
“Actually, I usually do it twice a week, but I think I can get someone to do my Friday shift since that’s when we’ll be putting up all the decorations for the carnival on Saturday.” She leaned forward, loving the topic of conversation. “I sit in a rocking chair and hold, talk to and even feed the babies, who need someone to do it for them. There are some babies—many of them preemies—who are in the hospital for weeks and need to be held and loved, either because their parents can’t always be there to do it or because they don’t have parents who want to. I think it’s the best job in the world.” Especially since I don’t know if I will ever have my own children to hold, she silently added.
“I didn’t realize there was such a job. You’re right. It would be great. You would probably enjoy working in our nursery on Sunday.”
Anne stared down at her plate. She knew so little about God and Jesus, only what Grandma Rose had told her as a little girl. When her gaze returned to his, she said, “I can’t remember the last time I’ve been to a church for a service other than a funeral or a wedding.”
Chapter Three
Caleb relaxed back in his seat, the noise of the jukebox and the patrons in the diner fading into the background as he riveted his attention to Anne. “Then you should come to our service one Sunday.”
“I don’t know.” She fidgeted with her napkin, balling it up. “My parents are atheists.”
“And you?” Caleb gritted his teeth, almost afraid to hear her reply.
“Confused. I don’t know what I am. When I was a little girl, I used to visit my grandma and go to church with her. Then I would come home and my parents would have nothing to do with going to church even when I would ask them about it.”
The tension washed from him as he sat forward, placing his elbows on the table. “On Sunday afternoons I have a group at the center. We discuss our faith, the Bible, the challenges of being a Christian in today’s world. Come join us. Some talk, some just listen.”
“I don’t know. I—I’ll think about it.”
“We start at three and go till we finish.”
“No set time to end?”
“Sometimes we’re in a talkative mood, other times not. There’s no pressure put on the group. It’s a time to explore our faith.”
Miranda brought their dinners and first placed Anne’s plate in front of her, then Caleb’s. The scent of roast beef, slathered in a thick, brown gravy, wafted to him, reminding him he was hungry. He watched Anne pick at her cheeseburger and fries and wondered what she was thinking.
Lord, help me to reach her. She needs me. She needs You in her life.
Caleb listened to Gina give the opening prayer before they began their Sunday afternoon faith session. When the girl finished, his gaze slid toward the door into the TV room at the center. Was Anne going to come? he wondered, fighting the disappointment that she wasn’t sitting with them.
He could remember Teresa in college and their long talks about God. He’d thought he could show her the importance of the Lord, but in the end he hadn’t been able to and he’d had to acknowledge he couldn’t marry someone who didn’t believe as he did. He would have been asking for trouble before their marriage even began. Cutting his losses had hurt him deeply because he had loved Teresa, but when he married, it would be for a lifetime.
“A friend at school asked me the other day that if Jesus was really the son of God, then why did He die like He did? Why didn’t He just save himself?”
Jeremy’s question pulled Caleb out of the past and firmly in the present. “What do you all think?” He scanned the fourteen faces of the teenagers in the group.
Tiffany waved her hand in the air, bouncing up and down on her chair. “I know why. I know! He died for our sins.”
“He died because He was finished with His message to us. Christ had done what He was sent to do,” Gina added.
As Billy gave his opinion, Caleb saw Anne at the doorway. She listened to the different children’s opinions but didn’t come any farther into the room. A lightness entered his heart at the thought she had come to hear about God. There was hope.
Leaning forward, Caleb rested his elbows on his thighs, clasping his hands loosely together. “What you say is all true. But more importantly, Jesus was resurrected to show us the way, to show us not to fear death, that He would be waiting for us when our time came. No other has come back from the dead like He did.” As Caleb talked, he noticed Anne step into the room. “He wanted His disciples to go out into the world and spread His word. And Christ wanted no doubt in their minds who He was. How would you have responded if He had shown Himself to you three days after He had died?”
Anne eased into a chair next to Nikki near the door. The young girl bent toward Anne and said something to her. Anne smiled, then glanced at him. Caleb’s heartbeat increased. The sound of voices melted away while his attention clung to Anne across the room, experiencing a connection to her that he hadn’t before.
She was here. She had taken her first step toward the Lord. His heart sang with the news and all the possibilities. Hope flared into a full-blown promise.
An hour later when the discussion died down, Gina announced, “I brought brownies for anyone who is hungry.”
The teenagers made their way to the table along the west wall where the brownies and some soda were set up. Anne hung back, moving toward the door.
“You aren’t going to leave without saying hi, are you?” Caleb asked, eager to see what her impression of the session was.
“Hi.” She sidled a step closer to the door. “You didn’t tell me I would be one of two adults at this meeting.”
He shrugged. “I didn’t think it was important. You know everyone here.” He spread his arms wide. “What did you think?” He positioned himself between Anne and the door, not wanting her to leave just yet.
“Interesting. I particularly liked Billy’s comment about seeing Jesus after He died.”
“I think ‘wow’ just about sums it all up. Leave it to a child to put it into one word.”
“Kids do have a way of getting to the point.”
“So?” He propped his shoulder against the door frame, folding his arms over his chest, hoping he appeared casual, nonchalant.
“This past hour has given me a lot to think about.” Anne looked back at the group. “Where’s Dylan?”
“He’s never come to one of these meetings.”
“So you haven’t had time to talk with him anymore?”
He shook his head. “But we’re going to meet tomorrow after school.”
“Before we work on the decorations?”
“Yep.”
“Anne, it’s nice to see you here,” Gina said, interrupting them. “Want a brownie?” She held up a nearly empty plate, thrusting it between Anne and Caleb.
“I’d better not. If I ate one, I would want two.”
“There’s nothing wrong with having two brownies. How about you, Caleb?”
“Thanks.” Caleb took one from the plate, his palms sweaty.
“Catch y’all later. Got to get rid of the rest of these. I can’t take them home! Mom would so not be happy.” She went back to the other kids for a soda.
“Only a child who is reed thin would say that about two brownies,” Anne said with a laugh, looking up at Caleb.
“I’m glad you came.”
She pinned him with an intense look. “Why?”
