Only Through Love: A Cane River Romance Novella (4 page)

            Shouldering
her way out the door and into the rain, Charlie knew there was no way to go
back. That girl was gone. She’d spent so much time hiding, she wasn’t even sure
who she was anymore, but she wasn’t going anywhere near those people she once
considered friends, or the places she once considered home.

The
first and worst of all frauds is to cheat oneself.

―
Phillip James Bailey

            “Austin,
can I speak to you in my office for a moment?” Cora asked. She nodded toward
the open door at the end of the hallway. Her lips were turned up in a smile but
it seemed perfunctory.

            “Yes,
ma’am.” He set down his pen and shuffled a few papers as if his stomach weren’t
rolling. Maybe his past had finally caught up with him. Standing up, he felt
weak at the knees.

            “I’ll
meet you in there,” she said and turned back down the hallway.

            Austin
looked around the office, surprised by the sudden wave of yearning. He hadn’t
been working at the justice center for very long, but he loved his job. He
wanted to make a difference and convince these kids that there was a better way
than the path they were on at the moment. As screwed up as he was, he really
believed in the mentor program.

            He
stepped into the hallway, trying not to think of what his parents would say and
how disappointed his brothers would be. Gideon had made his own bad decisions,
but he’d always been honest about them. Austin saw Gideon every few days at the
justice center and everyone respected him as a mentor and as a man. Gideon had
never been anything but straightforward about his past. In so many ways, he and
Austin were opposites.

            It
seemed to take forever to reach Cora’s office. He tapped on the door and
entered. The space was small, but cheerful, with a bookshelf crammed
haphazardly with fat, hardback volumes. He stood awkwardly in the doorway.

            “Have
a seat. I’m just pulling up an e-mail.” Her face betrayed nothing.

            Austin
sat and wished he could fast forward fifteen minutes, all the way to the moment
he could stand up and shrug off the secret he’d carried for the past three years.
He knew what she was going to say and he had no defense. Maybe some would say
that he’d done it for love, for the girl who held his heart in her hands, but
he knew it was simpler than that. He’d plagiarized term papers and didn’t
deserve the degree that hung on his wall. He was a cheater.

            Cora
looked up and smiled. “I wanted to read you a thank you note I got this morning
from the parents of one of the kids in the mentor program.”

            He
worked to switch gears, realizing he was yet again receiving blessings instead
of curses. Cora started to read and he let the words pass by him without
bothering to understand them too deeply.
Changed his life…
 
A whole
new kid… All due to Austin Becket, his counselor.

           
When
she finished, he slapped his hands on his knees. “Well, that’s great. Thanks so
much for sharing with me.” He stood up. “I better get back to work.”

            Cora
beamed. “As always, so dedicated. Just make sure you take time to pat yourself
on the back for a job well done.”

            Already
half out the door, he said, “Yes, ma’am Thank you again.” This time, the
hallway seemed only seconds long. He arrived at his office and couldn’t seem to
step over the threshold. Through the doorway, he could see his diploma hanging
in a frame right behind his desk. Next to it was his master’s in counseling. He
wanted to tear them from the wall and stomp on the glass, take a match to the
paper, and watch the words shrivel to nothing in the flames. His heart was
pounding and blood rushed in his ears. As much as he dreaded being exposed as a
fraud, living with the lie was even worse.

            “Excuse
me,” a soft voice said behind him and Austin whirled around. Charlie stood
there, a box in her arms.

            “Hi,
come on in.” He realized he wasn’t sure whether she was there to see him or
someone else but Charlie walked forward. The hood of her deep green sweatshirt
was wet and a strand of hair was plastered against her cheek.

            “Alice
sent me down here with some books.” She looked him straight in the eyes, not
glancing into his office or around at the posters on the hallway walls.

            He
stared at the box in her arms, trying to remember why Alice was sending him
books. He reached out and took it from her, nearly letting out a grunt at the
weight. Charlie surrendered them without comment. “Would you like to sit down?”

            She
nodded and walked into his office. There were two cushioned office chairs
across from his desk, but she chose the straight backed, wooden chair in the
corner, perching on the edge of the seat as if ready to bolt at any moment.

            Setting
the box on the desk, Austin lifted the plastic tucked over the top and gazed at
the glossy covers. Maybe Alice had been serious about her offer to let him
borrow every fantasy book he wanted. He pulled out a far hardback. “Oh, I loved
this series when I was a kid. Whenever they had a feast at Redwall Abbey, I got
hungry. All that Shrew Bread and Mossflower Hot Pot and Strawberry Cordial and
Mint Tea… See, now I’m hungry.” He set it on the desk.

            Charlie
considered telling him that all those recipes were online. Some fan had taken
the time to list every beverage, dessert, and main course in the series. She’d
never tried to make Great Hall Cake or Seaweed Grog, but she’d been tempted.  

            He
lifted another one out and turned it over in his hand. “
Mister
Sharp,”
he said under his breath.

            Charlie
let out a little noise of surprise. “You’ve read that series?”

            “Yes,
ma’am. Brilliant. Bovril is one of my favorite characters. I want one.”

            “A
perspicacious loris? But it would know all your secrets. Everyone’s secrets,
actually.” She narrowed her eyes. “Probably sounds like fun to you.”

            He
regarded her without comment. From the first moment they’d met, Charlie had
treated him as if he were barely worthy of her attention. She didn’t think much
of him, that was clear. At first he’d been offended. Now that disappointment
felt something like relief. His parents thought he was nearly perfect. Gideon
seemed to think he could do no wrong. Tom assumed that he would never make a
mistake with all the good advice floating around. As if Austin wouldn’t make
the same bone-headed decisions every young guy has made throughout history. He
smiled. With Charlie, he could finally be himself. Flawed, imperfect, and having
not a clue how to help anybody. “Not fun at all. I have as many skeletons in
the closet as the next guy.”

            She
wrinkled her nose as if he’d just confirmed something. “Your own or someone
else’s?”

            “I
don’t follow you.” Did she think he worked as a counselor so he could delve
into the darkest parts of the human condition? Did she think he collected
secrets and used them against people?

            “Nothing.”
She brushed back her hood and straightened up, her cheeks flushed from the warm
air in the office. “Alice sent me here because she hatched this goofcake plan.
She seemed to think you’d be more likely to jump on board if I brought fantasy
and science fiction books down here and we, I don’t know,
bonded
over
all our favorite characters.” She said it without sarcasm but it was clear she
considered that as likely as pigs flying.

             His
mama had raised him to be polite, but he decided he could be as honest as she
was. “You’re harshing my buzz,” he said. “I was hoping we’d be best friends.”

            She
wasn’t offended. The corner of her mouth twitched. “You better wake up and smell
the chickens, then. Not gonna happen.”

            He
took another book from the box. “You’re throwing a lot of shade for someone who
hardly knows me.”

            “Oh,
I know your type.” She wasn’t smiling now.

            “Really.
And what type is that?” He examined the back of a new copy of Ender’s Game.
He’d loved that book when he was a teen. He’d imagined himself leading an army
and saving the planet from invading aliens. But he wasn’t Ender. He wasn’t even
Ender’s shadow, Bean. Sacrifice, courage, leadership, integrity. He had none of
those things.

            He
looked up when she didn’t answer. “Don’t worry. You won’t hurt my feelings,” he
said.

            “You
can’t unsay a hurtful word.” She shrugged. It seemed their brief moment of
honesty was over. “Anyway, Alice wanted me to ask if you thought we could have
a small lending library here.”

            “Library?
How would we keep track of who had which books?” He dreaded paperwork and a
library sure sounded like paperwork to him.

            “I
don’t think she really cares if you keep track, but she mentioned some sort of
simple sign out sheet.”

            Austin
frowned down at the hardback sets. “Does she realize―”

            “That
they probably won’t come back? I think she’s aware of that.” Charlie smiled a
little. “But once Alice gets an idea into her head, it’s best just to go along
with it. Saves everyone a lot of time.”

            Alice
hadn’t seemed like the type to force everyone to do her will. He thought of her
concern over Charlie’s change in behavior, her silence, her decision to leave
college. Maybe the lending library wasn’t about books after all. Maybe it was
about getting Charlie into his office where he could gently help her solve all
her problems. Austin wanted to drop the book into the box and hand the mess
back. He had developed a reputation for being able to help people but all he
really did was nod his head until they figured out what they needed to do on
their own. Alice was probably expecting Charlie to come back changed, ready to
open up about whatever was bothering her.

            “I
told her it probably wouldn’t work,” Charlie said. She stood up and walked
toward the desk. “These kids wouldn’t know a good book if it hit them in the
head.”

            Her
dismissive words rubbed him wrong. “You met any of these kids?”

            “Nope.
And I don’t want to. I have enough trouble of my own.” Her mouth was a thin
line. She looked fierce in the way beautiful girls did when they were scared
but trying hard not to show it.

            This
was the moment he should ask what trouble she meant, or ask her to sit down and
let him see if he could help. Instead he started taking all the books from the
box and stacking them on his desk. So Charlie had trouble. So did everybody
else. And her attitude was the reason most of these kids wouldn’t be able to
find a job when they were done with their employment and counseling programs.
Nobody wanted to give them a second chance. One wrong turn and they were marked
forever as a lost cause. “Tell Alice that I’ll need a few more boxes if she’s
serious about this project.”

            “Huh.”
She crossed her arms. “You remind me of Father Tom. He’s your brother, right?”

            “Shouldn’t
judge folks by their relatives,” he said and handed her the empty box.

            “Father
Tom thinks everybody is just one step away from sainthood. You probably think
these delinquents just got a bad break and they’re really good people deep
down.”

            “No,
ma’am. I don’t sit around worrying about who’s good and who’s not. That’s not
my job. I just try to listen and see if I can help.”

            “You
think you can fix everything? They tell you their problems and you give them,
what, five steps to success? Ten ways to build a better life?” Her tone was
flat but her eyes were sparking with anger.

            She
thought he was a fraud and for the first time, he didn’t have to pretend. “Know
what?” he asked.

            “What?”
She crossed her arms and stared back at him, clearly aware something unpleasant
was about to go down between them. As much as he liked Alice, he couldn’t let
Charlie’s words pass without comment.

             “They
tell me their story. They go back months, years, to things that mean everything
to them and nothing to me. It can take hours and hours to get up to the moment
they decided to break the law and ended up in jail. Most of the time, they’re
trying convince me and themselves that they were right all along, that the
police are jerks, and they never should have been put in prison. All I do is
sit in my chair and listen while they spin the past into something they like
better.”

            Her
eyes had widened. “And you’re okay with that.”

            “I
don’t have a choice. I can’t force someone to take responsibility.” He caught
himself waving his hands. “Everybody does it. You do it. I do it. None of us
want to look at why things went bad and how we created the mess we’re in. We
want everyone to feel sorry for us and tell us that we’re completely innocent.”

            “So,
when something happens, it’s usually our own fault?”

            “Yes.
Somewhere, way back when, we started the whole shebang rolling.”

            She
was shaking her head. “I can’t imagine how you help anybody if you think every
victim should be blamed for what happened to them.” Her voice was tight and
hard. “I was right about you. Born on third base.”