Genesis: A Harte's Peak Prequel (3 page)

It used to be so much easier in the days when I could bandage a cut and make it all better with a kiss.
Lord, I need Your help.

Until today life had been calm on the home front for the past week, without any calls from Lexi's frustrated teachers. It gave her a sense of hope that maybe the bad times were finally in the past. And now this.

Thank God it had been a big misunderstanding. She couldn't cope with one more thing going wrong.

At the same time as she railed against her lack of freedom, Lexi constantly demonstrated why she didn't deserve it. But, somehow, Maggie couldn't get that across to her thirteen-year-old, no matter how hard she tried. Now she lay deep in the middle of another parenting conundrum. If she gave Lexi a key now, she'd be rewarding bad behavior.

Maggie glanced down and realized she still wore her café apron, a splatter of chocolate stains all over it.
Great first impression.
He must think you're mother of the year. Maggie sighed.

Cops should only be that good looking on television. Jack Butler had a build that showed he spent time at the gym and light brown closed-cropped hair that set off his steel blue eyes. A good thing that she'd resolved not to date until Lexi was grown, because the deputy was precisely the kind of man that made her heart skip.

But her mission was to be a good mother, and she would not fail at it.

Parenting Lexi on her own had so far been much harder than she'd ever imagined. She needed help, but the last time she'd let someone render assistance, they'd almost taken everything from her. That would never happen again.

And then the seed of an idea germinated in her mind. Whether she realized it or not, Lexi needed the presence of an adult man in her life, and Maggie wouldn't be dating anytime soon. She had to concentrate on her daughter and easing the pain of losing her father.

Jack had asked about Lexi's father, but as usual, Maggie couldn't even say the words out loud.
Matt is never coming home.

She walked into the small and crowded kitchen where she found a simmered down Lexi at the table, her textbook open. She had a boxed juice drink in front of her and had pulled the bowl of grapes out of the fridge.

Maggie gazed at her daughter's profile only to feel a hitch in her breath when, for a second, Lexi looked just like Matt, her lips pursed as she concentrated, holding the pencil in her left hand.

Having Lexi was like having Matt with her all the time, reminding her that she'd better do a good job and not ruin the best, maybe the only, good thing they'd ever done together.

She sat down across from Lexi at the same stained and marked table she and Matt had owned since the early days of their marriage. Lexi had colored on this table since the time she could hold a crayon in her hand.

“I'm going back to work, but first I want to talk to you.”

“What now?” Lexi met her eyes as though it took a Herculean effort.

Maggie sat down next to her. “First things first. You were rude to Officer Butler. I want you to apologize to him.”

“Apologize? To him? He thought I broke into my own house.”

“He apologized for his mistake. You didn't have to be so short with him.”

“What can I say? I didn't want to stand there and watch you flirt with him.” Lexi rolled her eyes.

Maggie closed her eyes and counted to ten. Lexi always knew what buttons to push, and if Maggie didn't make the offer soon, Lexi would talk her way right out of it.

“I've decided to give you a key, and please don't make me regret it.”

Lexi's eyes brightened, and she dropped her pencil. “Really?”

“But it's not because of what happened today. It's in spite of what happened today. I feel safer knowing we live near a cop, and now I want to give you the chance to prove to me that you can be responsible.” She prayed she wouldn't come to regret this decision, like so many others.

“Great. Are you going to have him spy on me now?” Lexi's eyes narrowed into slits.

“Of course not. He has an important job to do, and it's not to babysit you.” Not babysit, but guide, lift up, encourage. That's what she hoped for, anyway.

“That's good, because I don't need a babysitter.” Lexi frowned.

They'd have to set a few ground rules, and she'd make sure they were enforced. It would help to have another set of eyes at least some of the time. She only hoped the officer didn't mind the intrusion, because right now she desperately needed his help.

If she didn't get control of Lexi soon, she could risk losing her all over again.

 

****

 

The beautiful mess of a woman who lived two doors down was that rare woman he heard about often but never met in real life: a woman who appeared to be unaware of her own beauty. Legend held that there were women like that in the world, but until now, Jack had not believed it to be true.

She had obviously dropped everything when her daughter called, evidenced by the black apron from The Bean. That was a first. Most parents he'd dealt with in the past came in red faced and ready to tear right into their kid. And then him, for having the nerve to catch their little darlings doing something wrong.

He was thinking about Maggie's long and wavy hair when his doorbell rang, causing him to startle and instinctively grab his Glock.
Calm down.
He'd just moved in recently, and even Ryan Colton, his best friend and fellow deputy, had yet to drop by. Mostly because Jack liked to keep to himself, even though it went against doctor's orders. Those orders were to reconnect with society, understand the inherent good in people, and a lot of other nonsense he'd already forgotten.

He peered at his new neighbor through the keyhole.
Maggie.
Even the name was beautiful and rolled off the tongue like an Irish melody, and surely the Big Guy didn't mind him looking a bit now since Mr. Bradshaw was out of the picture. No, still not a good idea. Single mom and all that, and the kid was a deal breaker.

He opened the door with his cell phone in hand, so maybe she'd think she interrupted him in the middle of something important. That usually did the trick. Act busy and maybe they'll leave faster. “Can I help you?”

“I'm sorry to interrupt. May I speak to you for a few minutes?”

He'd be willing to talk to her for hours, but there was the matter of the kid. “Come in.”

She brushed by him, a coconut scent in her strawberry blonde hair leaving a trail in his wake. He swallowed hard.

“Sorry, I don't have any furniture yet. I haven't had much free time since I moved in.” Best to keep busy, he'd found, since it left so much less time for thinking.

There were two seats in his kitchen—one of them a milk carton and the other a stool. He offered her the stool as he leaned against the kitchen counter.

“This won't take long,” Maggie said.

And for some odd reason, that didn't make him feel better. “So what's up?”

She looked at the floor and didn't meet his eyes, so either she was uncomfortable or had just committed a crime. He settled on the former.

“It's Lexi. She's been difficult since we moved here. I don't know what to do anymore.”

“Is she skipping school? Hanging out with a bad crowd?” He wouldn't be surprised, since kids from single parent households were at a higher risk.

Maggie's green eyes widened. “No. I hope not. She's had some problems at school, but I want to make sure things don't get any worse. She just needs a little guidance.”

Good idea, but what did it have to do with him? “There are some programs at the county level. I'm not sure, but I could look into it for you…”

Maggie smiled with a longing in her eyes that made his chest tighten. “I hoped you would help personally. You're our neighbor. We always taught Lexi to trust law enforcement. You could talk to her sometime, and tell her how important it is to stay on the straight and narrow.”

Anything but that. He didn't want to be around kids. They were too unpredictable. And tragic. “Thing is though, I'm uh—not great with kids.”
Quite possibly the understatement of the year, buddy.

“You've never had any of your own?”

He shook his head. “Nope.”

“I wouldn't say Lexi is the easiest kid to get along with, but she really is a good kid once you get to know her.” Spoken from the mouth of a hopeful mother.

“I'm sure she is.” He was not sure of any such thing.

“Lexi needs a positive male role model in her life. She and her dad were so close.” Her eyes darkened.

Nice. Another absentee father. “So there's no one else—no uncle, grandfather?”

At the mention of grandfather, he didn't imagine it when she visibly tensed. Definitely something going on there.

“Grandfather, yes, but he's a busy attorney here in town.”

“It sounds like he just needs to re-prioritize.” Attorneys often had that problem. Take Tim, for example.

She stared at him. “Please. Just talk to her.”

Every muscle in his body tensed. He wanted to help with clogged sinks, jump-starting cars, maybe even killing a spider or two. Why couldn't she have asked him for anything but this? “But—”

“I don't know what I'm going to do with her. She's not the girl she used to be. She talks back, skipped class once, cheated on a test at school, and she doesn't ever want to go to church anymore.” Maggie wrung her hands.

He couldn't blame the kid about church. Who wanted to be dragged into a building every Sunday with all the other hypocrites? And as for the few sincere people, religion was just another crutch. Of course, he would put Maggie in that latter group, which only made him worry about her. Did she go around asking complete strangers for help? What if she ran into the wrong person?

“I don't know why you're asking me. You don't even know me.” There. He'd said it out loud, even if it felt like he'd just kicked a puppy.

It didn't seem to faze her. “My brother is a police officer in Colorado, and I have a good sense about people. There's a little bit of good in everyone, and my instincts are dead on.”

Jack cleared his throat. “What does your brother say about this instinct of yours?”

Maggie shrugged. “Well, he doesn't count. He's a bit overprotective. Actually, he might yell at me if I asked anyone else, but I know he'd trust another police officer.”

She'd picked the one person who couldn't help her. Wearing a law enforcement uniform didn't make him a good person. Yeah, sure, he tried and failed miserably every day, but he certainly didn't want to tell her that.

He stared at those green eyes, the trembling rosebud lips.
Look away, Butler.

But his lips moved as though independent of the brain that knew better. “Sure. I'll have a talk with her sometime.”

The sweat dripped down his back. A real excuse would mean explaining what had happened in Virginia, and that's the last thing he wanted to do.

 

 

 

 

3

 

Jack pulled into the Harte's Peak YMCA parking lot in his long-bed pickup and hoped for once Ryan wouldn't be late. They met on the basketball courts every other Saturday for pick-up games with a group that had assembled a couple of years ago and included a handful of cops and firefighters from all over the county. Basketball was one of the few things that calmed him these days.

Ryan would brag about his latest female conquest, when the only thing on Jack's mind was how he could get out of the arrangement he had agreed to with Maggie.
Maggie with the emerald eyes
. She'd just asked him to do the unthinkable. Mentor a teenager.

From what he had witnessed so far, Ryan managed to weasel out of most commitments. Maybe he had some advice Jack could use.

Maggie deserved a better man to mentor her daughter, certainly someone who could sleep through the night without waking up in a cold sweat. Someone who hadn't messed up as badly as he had.

Ryan pulled in right beside him, uncharacteristically on time. They greeted each other and walked in to the gym together.

“How do you like the new place?” Ryan asked.

“Funny you should mention that.”

“Why?” Ryan set his gym bag down and pulled out a water bottle.

“I have a problem with my neighbor.” Jack threw Ryan his basketball, and they began to play a little one-on-one before the others trickled in.

“Already?” Ryan whistled. “Hoo boy, Butler, you do have a way with people, don't you?”

“Not that kind of problem.” Jack scored a shot that would have easily been a three pointer if they were keeping score. Too bad they weren't, because Ryan needed to be schooled.

“Are you going to tell me or what?” Ryan asked, taking the rebound.

“It's my neighbor. She asked me to mentor her teenaged daughter.”

“So what's the big deal?”

“You know the big deal.” Ryan and their boss, Sheriff Calhoun, were the only two who knew what had happened in Virginia. And he planned to keep it that way.

Ryan stopped mid-dribble and stared at Jack. “It's like ripping off a bandage. You need to get over it.”

Easier said than done. He wasn't ready yet, and the way he was going, he might never be.

Jack scored another three-pointer. Where were the guys anyway? If Ryan wouldn't help him, they might as well start this game and stop talking. He wanted to start scoring.

Ryan roughly grabbed the rebound. Perhaps they were keeping score. “If you don't want to help, then just tell her no. What's the big deal?”

“She needs help. You should meet her kid, a real piece of work. And the dad is not in the picture.”

“Yeah? So what's this neighbor's name?” Ryan pressed, dunking the ball.

“Maggie Bradshaw.”