Sheltering Hearts (4 page)

Clay stood, tossing the towel and reaching for the weights. “I thought maybe I’d lie low, go slow and lift some weights.”

D
ORY FOLLOWED THE
directions Clay had given her and went to a hole-in-the-wall garage on the outskirts of Fortuna. She parked Clay’s big SUV very carefully, away from the front of the garage, conscious that if she put one scratch on it, it would take forever to save enough to get it fixed.

Before she even got to the opened doors of the garage a man was coming toward her. He was dressed in a gray, grease-stained jumpsuit, wiping his hands on a red rag. He also had grease on his face—a streak here and there—and he wore a grin. “You must be Dory.”

She stopped dead in her tracks. “How’d you know?”

He nodded toward the SUV. “You’re driving Clay’s car.”

“Oh. Of course. Well, then…” She cleared her throat.

The man held out his hand and said, “I’m Stan, by the way.”

“Oh, nice to meet you,” Dory said as she shook his hand. “Did you figure out what was wrong with my truck?”

“Yup. Transmission, like Clay thought. I put in a rebuilt one. I usually recommend a new one, but that Pathfinder’s getting on in years and has almost two hundred thousand miles on it. She’s still in good shape—you take good care of her—but sooner or later those miles are gonna catch up with you. Might want to think forward a little.”

“Um, yeah. I’ll think forward. What am I gonna owe you?”

“I’ll have to write it up—we’re not quite done in there yet. It should be ready by morning. I’ll stay a little late if I have to. When you pick Clay up from work in the morning, you can swing by here and pick her up. Anyway, I’m just charging you for the part, so it’s probably gonna be around fourteen hundred dollars….”

She gasped and her hand went to her heart.

“That’s discounted, kiddo,” Stan said. “And no labor.” It took her
a minute to catch her breath. And while she was trying to get a grip, he said, “Three-year warranty. Which, by the way, is a hell of a deal.”

She let out a breath. “I… ah… I…”

“There’s no need to stress. You can pay me a little something every month if you need to,” he said.

She tilted her head. “Why would you do that?”

He shrugged. “Clay asked me to. Said you were a next-door neighbor, a good friend, a single mom who didn’t have a lot of money to throw around.”

“And that’s all he has to say to get a deal?”

“Well, Clay would do it for me. Plus he said something about you being a volunteer who helped out single moms who were down on their luck.”

“Oh. That makes a difference?”

“Lots of people, like me and Clay, have family members who fall in that category.”

“Is that so? Like…”

“Me and Clay both have sisters who are single moms.” Stan chuckled. “Clay has sisters coming out his ears, but one is divorced. I hear support payments are spotty at best and she worries about calling in sick to her job if the kids need her. He looks out for her, and does his share of babysitting on his days off.” The mechanic shrugged. “The whole family looks out for her, matter of fact. I have just the one sister, but she’d have a hard time getting by without me, my wife and our folks.”

For just a second Dory was reminded she had no family and there were too many like her, with either no family or a family that couldn’t or wouldn’t help. “You
both
have sisters who are single moms?”

He made a face. “Who
doesn’t
have a sister—or at least know someone—who’s a single mom? The point being, it’s relatively easy for our sisters, since they have us. And it’s still hard for them, raising the kids alone, with little, if any, support from the fathers. They’re weekend dads at best. When you get down to it, even the single moms in the greatest shape have it rough. I can’t even imagine how hard it is for women without parents, brothers and sisters willing to help out.”

She just nodded, but she was thinking that maybe she’d tell Clay her story someday, and perhaps enlist his support for their resource center. One day she’d explain to him about single moms without jobs, places to live, extended family, transportation, food and, most important, without self-esteem. “Do you mind if I ask—how long have you known him? Clay?”

The mechanic rolled his eyes back in his head as he thought. “Maybe six years or so. I’m a volunteer firefighter. I first met him that way. He’s a friend of the family now.”

“Yeah,” Dory said. “And mover, landscaper, babysitter?”

Stan grinned.

“Funny story?” she asked. “He said he kept your kids overnight and one of them was sick.”

He actually laughed. “That wasn’t the worst of it—the little fella infected Clay. The guy was sick as a dog for three days. He’s still whining about it, to this day. That’s the way it goes. If you have kids, you know about that. One gets it, it goes through the whole family.” And then being brought back to the business at hand, he said, “I checked the brakes. Brakes look fine.”

Dory smiled at him. “This is very nice of you, Stan.” She was reminded that too often, because of her experience, she forgot
there were wonderful men in the world. In fact, she’d met so many at the Zoë Institute and in her own mission here in California. Good men who were kind and strong and trustworthy. “I want you to know how much I appreciate it. I don’t know what I would’ve done without this generosity.”

“You’d have paid through the nose,” he said easily, not really taking himself too seriously. “But it’s not that big a deal to help out now and then. I’ll just catch up on Saturday.”

She heard the rare sound of her own laughter. “How many kids do you have, Stan?”

“Three. All boys. The oldest is eight.”

“And you’re going to stay late tonight? And catch up on Saturday? I bet your wife complains!”

He shook his head almost shyly, looking down. “Yeah, sometimes she gives me the business. But when you get down to it, she wouldn’t have it any other way.”

Dory dug around in her purse and pulled out a business card for The Single Mother’s Resource Agency. It had four names and home phone numbers on it—it would be that way until they could open a center. “Tell your wife and sister we need volunteers to help single moms really down on their luck. And tell them we have a great time together.”

He took the card and smiled. “Sure. Will do.”

“Hey!” she said. “I just thought of something! How about if we set you up to teach a course to single mothers on car maintenance and repair? I mean, I know you can’t show them how to replace a transmission or service brakes, but if they just learned enough to know when something’s really wrong. Or to keep their cars running without being taken advantage of by less than honest mechanics.”

He cocked his head and lifted a brow. “Worth thinking about,” he said.

“I’ll get to work on that idea,” she said with a grin. “And I’ll give you a call later to see if the truck’s ready.”

T
HE NEXT MORNING
Dory dropped her kids off at their school and went to pick up Clay at the firehouse. She vacated the driver’s side so he could take over. When he opened the door, she said, “Stan said my car would be ready this morning, if you want to swing by there.”

Clay grunted and got behind the wheel.

“Are you upset about something?” she asked.

“Sorry,” he grumbled. “I was up all night. That’s pretty rare around here, unless it’s wildfire season. I’m just tired.”

“Want me to drive?” she asked. “I’ve just about figured out how to pull into a parking space without wiping out the other cars.” She grinned at him.

He didn’t seem to appreciate her humor at the moment. Nor did he seem to notice that for once she wasn’t biting his head off. “I got it,” he said, taking the captain’s seat.

“Whew, you’re a little grumpy.”

“Sorry,” he said again. “I held off on coffee so I can sleep when I get home. The next time you see me, I’ll be a peach.”

“Your friend Stan is fantastic. He fixed my Pathfinder for the cost of the part. I spent a little time online last night and found out that anyone else would’ve charged me three times as much. Thank you for arranging that.”

“My pleasure. No problem.”

“I’m a little embarrassed at how I acted around you,” she said.
“You’ll never know how much I appreciate the grass cutting, trash hauling, playing with the kids. I’m not a man hater. When men volunteered at the Zoë Institute back in Oklahoma, where I used to live, I had no trouble accepting their offerings gratefully. The Zoë Institute is a place dedicated to helping single moms—and very close to my heart. But anyway, this favor you got me from Stan—wow, you have no idea how much that means. I’m usually much more grateful. And gracious. Really.”

“And I’m usually much more considerate about asking permission,” he said, making a face. “I guess when I do that stuff for my sisters, they’re family, and we already know each other’s limits.”

“Well, you’re right about one thing—if we’d known each other better, I might not have gotten all freaked out about Austin going fishing with you. He loves to go fishing, actually. And I can’t take him nearly often enough. Plus, both kids want to play on ball teams this summer, so playing catch is good for them.”

His mouth tilted in a half grin. “This is the friendliest you’ve ever been to me,” he said. “Is it because I promised never to ask you out again?”

“It’s because I was out of line. I didn’t really know I was out of line, Clay. I’m a woman on my own with children to protect—I have to be careful. I’m sorry I—”

He suddenly reached across the front seat of the SUV and grabbed her hand. “Don’t apologize, Dory. I should apologize. I was only thinking of myself. I want you to be cautious. You shouldn’t take chances on men you don’t know. And I should’ve realized cutting the grass a couple of times isn’t all it takes to build trust. And yes—I’d be happy to toss around the ball sometimes. But I’ll let the kids ask.”

She laughed. “You have no idea! Brace yourself! They’ll ask and ask and ask!”

From then on they laughed like a couple of giggly little kids, laughed till they had tears in their eyes—he from being overtired and she from the eased tension surrounding their relationship.

S
undays were typically catch-up days for Dory if she didn’t have to work at the grocery store. She tried to take weekends off whenever possible, because the kids weren’t in school and if she couldn’t trade off babysitting with a friend from her single moms group, it got very expensive. She could usually keep her time at the store down to weekdays, and the occasional Saturday.

That gave her Sundays to clean house, get the laundry done and basically get the family set up for another week of work and school. It was also a good day to phone volunteers, if she had some on her list to call. And she had a little more time to look at work in progress, such as writing grants. Right now, because it was spring, she was working on the summer conference, lining up the workshops and speakers, planning the promotion and squaring away the facility they would rent. Corsica had gotten them a good deal with a local church and the adjacent buildings for the conference, but it wasn’t free.

Sometimes, when dealing with people whose needs were the most basic kind—food, shelter—and survival was an issue, it was easy to forget the fundamental importance of workshops on building self-esteem, maintaining personal boundaries, parenting, budgeting, developing interview and job skills, and learning what is and is not healthy in relationships. But in order for these women to not only survive but thrive, the very core of their beings had to be rebuilt and reinforced. This Dory had learned from attending her own workshops within the Zoë Institute.

And now she was leading workshops. It filled her up inside to have come so far.

Another sign of her growth was her improving relationship with her neighbor. The past couple of weeks since her car had been repaired had been very nice between her and Clay. On those late afternoons Dory and the kids came home to find him enjoying a day off, he’d either play a little catch with Sophie and Austin, walk down to the river with them so they could fish for a half hour or so while Dory fixed their dinner, or maybe even give each of them rides around the yards on the riding lawn mower. She got used to finding her grass cut and her trash hauled down to the road while she was at work. It was a cordial relationship—no pressure, no more dating talk. She was even starting to consider inviting him over for Sunday dinner with the kids.

But just as that thought surfaced yet again, she looked out the window toward his house, and what did she see? Clay was perched against his porch rail, holding a beer, talking to a leggy blonde who reclined on the chaise on his porch. Dory couldn’t really see them clearly, but she had a good enough view to make out the brown bottle Clay held and the long, tanned legs in a pair of very short shorts.

Well, she chided herself, you won’t go out with him. Did you expect he’d never find himself a girlfriend?

She fought down the disappointment with the rationalization that they were really better off just as hospitable neighbors. Healthier for her, less complicated for him. After all, she came with a lot of baggage. She could still invite him for dinner—just a friendly little no-fuss dinner to thank him for being such a good sport with the kids.

Concentrating on her conference details was a little harder at the moment, however. Dory found herself looking out the window toward his house a number of times. He and the blonde were gone, but both cars were still there—his and hers. They would be inside, she thought. Having grown-up time.

So she finished her laundry and cleaning. She could at least manage that without focus.

Then there was a knock at her door. She opened it to a smiling Elizabeth—blonde Elizabeth, her newest volunteer, wearing short shorts and a tank top. Elizabeth, dating Clay?

“I had no idea you lived here!” she said, grinning. “When I told Clay that I was starting to do a little community service with a single moms group, he said his neighbor was into that and wondered if it could be the same group. I mean, how many people named Dory are there, anyway?”

“Hi,” she said, but couldn’t help frowning a little. “How do you know Clay?” Dory asked, because she couldn’t bring herself to ask if they were dating.

“He’s my brother,” Elizabeth said. “We came over so the boys could fish. They love walking down to Clay’s river. We’re going to put some hot dogs on the grill in a half hour—why don’t you and your kids come over and join us?”

“Oh—I don’t want to impose on family time,” she said, almost backing away from the front door. In fact, she was a little embarrassed, not only by the conclusions she’d jumped to, but her reaction to those conclusions.

“Come on,” Elizabeth said. “Believe me, it’s not much. I brought over deviled eggs and a bag of chips. Clay’s opening a can of baked beans and has plenty of hot dogs and buns. It’s casual.”

“I’m so surprised I haven’t seen you in the neighborhood before.”

“I’m not out here that often. I usually see Clay at my folks’ place or with one of my sisters, and he sometimes takes the boys off my hands for a few hours after school—either brings them out here to fish or meets them at my house.”

“He seems to like kids,” Dory said.

“Firemen,” she said, shaking her head with a laugh. “They have a real reputation for having soft spots for kids. Most of ’em, anyway. Come on, gather up your crew and come on over. You can use a night off from cooking, can’t you?”

She couldn’t help but smile. “I sure can. Give me twenty minutes and I’ll be over.”

Dory just wanted to make sure the kids had washed faces and clean clothes, and she was going to comb her hair and put on some lip gloss. The kids were ecstatic and raced ahead of her. They were a little shy when first meeting Elizabeth’s boys, Jed and Mack, but they all warmed up to each other quickly. As for Dory, she had a fantastic time. Visiting with Elizabeth and Clay while putting out dinner, eating and cleaning up was just the grown-up time she’d needed. She was reminded about how important it was to have balance in her life—not just important for herself, but for the kids to see in her, too. She worked too hard—she knew that. It wasn’t
always just because money was tight, but often to keep her mind off how alone she could sometimes feel.

It turned out Clay was full of questions about their organization and their goals. He seemed genuinely interested and pleased that Elizabeth was getting involved.

The sun was sinking when Elizabeth and her boys took off—they, too, had to get organized to start a new week. Right after saying goodbye, Dory told her kids to get home and get started on baths. Before following them, she thanked Clay.

“Not very fancy, but if I went to too much trouble, the boys wouldn’t be interested.”

“It was great, and I specialize in unfancy. I’ve been meaning to ask—how would you like to join the kids and me for dinner? Maybe next Sunday?”

“I work next Sunday,” he said.

“Oh, that’s too bad…”

“But I’m off the Sunday after that,” he said, smiling.

“You don’t have family commitments, do you?”

“I’ll manage not to. I’m entitled to a little of my own time. I’d love to have dinner.”

“Good, then,” she said. “It’s a date.”

He lifted a brow. “Date?”

“You know…”

He laughed at her. “I look forward to it.”

D
ORY FOUND HERSELF LOOKING
forward to her dinner with Clay so much that she bought the ingredients for her famous red beans and rice well in advance. She didn’t say anything until the next weekend had passed, then mentioned to the kids that on Sunday
evening Clay was coming over for dinner. They were nothing short of thrilled—they adored him.

She thought about that a minute and realized that he hadn’t really done anything spectacular with her kids to completely win them over. He was just himself—cheerful, present, and he communicated with them on their level. They’d helped him wash that big SUV of his and then, just for fun, they all washed her Pathfinder together, spraying each other and laughing the whole time. He’d given them ice cream sandwiches in the warm afternoon sun; they’d built a little fire in the yard one early evening and roasted marshmallows; they’d dug up a little garden patch in his backyard together so he could plant some pumpkin seeds for Halloween. He just included them in what he was doing, and not only did the kids have a good time, so did Clay.

And Dory realized that she was also participating a little more all the time. She was no longer so afraid of getting close. She’d be the fourth for a game of catch, or sit on the ground with them while they roasted marshmallows. Of course, they never had a second alone, but that was good. Moving slowly was best. But she was admitting to herself that having a guy like Clay in her life, at least for a good friend, appealed to her. And maybe, just maybe, he’d become more.

While she was at work, she found herself thinking about the kids and figuring out a way to afford the money to sign Austin and Sophie up for T-ball and Little League. She also needed to buy uniforms and bring drinks and snacks like the other parents. And Dory wondered how she would manage the schedule—driving to practices, being at games, pitching in with the other team parents. Money and time were always short. And she couldn’t give up her
job or her commitment to single moms—one fed their bellies, the other Dory’s heart. Unfortunately, the manager of the grocery store where she worked was not really supportive of her cause; he didn’t like letting her have time off to serve any cause other than his bottom line.

Her thoughts were interrupted by the big fire rig pulling into the grocery-store parking lot—she couldn’t help but smile. This wasn’t an unusual event, but it had become one of her favorites. The firemen shopped en masse. They didn’t always come to Dory’s grocery store, and if they did it wasn’t always on Dory’s work days, but they always shopped in a full crew, just in case there was a call while they were away from the station. And if it was both Dory’s day and Clay’s day to work, she knew he would at least check through her line with a candy bar or something. He would flirt with her a little, tell the guys she was Dory, his next-door neighbor, and they’d all be really friendly. Dory
never
flirted, but she thoroughly enjoyed the way Clay did.

When she saw the rig she thought that today, if he flirted a little as he bought a pack of gum or something, she might just return the favor. She was feeling so much more agreeable lately about Clay’s low-key advances.

But it didn’t get that far.

Dory was busily and happily running the bar codes of grocery items across the scanner, laughing with her customer, when she heard a comment from another checkout lane. “Holy crap, look at that!”

She glanced through the front windows and saw that a couple in the parking lot stood arguing heatedly, nose to nose, yelling at each other. They appeared to be in their twenties, possibly early twenties. Her stomach took a flip. Not only had she seen this before, she’d
been
this before.

The man shoved the woman hard, and she landed up against the hood of an old car. The man stumbled slightly as if he might be inebriated. And then the woman straightened, lifted her chin and simply went to the car’s back door, as if just carrying on with her business, and brought a
baby
out of the car! The child was maybe nine months, or a year at the most. She balanced the child on her hip and said something to the man. Even at a distance, Dory could tell the woman was brave. Not cowering but confronting. Then the man grabbed her free arm and gave her a violent shake, almost shaking the baby from her arms.

Dory muttered,
“Oh, God.”

Some of the customers moved to the windows and someone else said, “Oh, God!”

Dory committed the cashier’s cardinal sin—she left her register and went to the window. She quietly said, almost to herself, “Oh, God, help.” She watched as the woman hung on to her baby. The man, who was not at all steady on his feet, drew back his arm, hand in a hard fist, and slammed her in the face, knocking her to the ground. Dory screamed, “He-l-l-l-l-p! Please,
help!
” She bolted from the store, leaving her full cash register, drawer closed, and ran into the parking lot.

The woman had managed to hang on to her infant during the horrible commotion, but she now sat on the ground in the parking lot. The baby was screaming, the woman had a large cut under her eye that was bleeding profusely, getting blood down the front of her and on her baby. Without hesitation, Dory flung herself on the drunk, unstable and dangerous man. He had been teetering to begin with so it took nothing for little Dory to tackle him. He hit the ground hard. She heard his head crack onto the ground and
then she was on top of him. He was completely stunned and smelled like a brewery. In the background she heard the screaming of a small child.

Dory never lost touch with reality, but she had a flashback. It was suddenly Austin’s crying and little Sophie was screaming,
Mommy Mommy Mommy!
The man beneath her hardly struggled—he seemed stunned. Then he closed his eyes and his mouth opened as if he was drunk and had passed out. She wanted to pummel him.

Then his eyes popped open and he growled, baring his teeth. For just one terrible moment she shook in paralyzed terror, and braced herself to be hit.

But just then a strong arm went around her waist and lifted her effortlessly off the man. “Easy does it, Dory. We got it.” Clay held her like a sack of potatoes against his hip and she watched as a couple of big, good-looking firefighters lifted the snarling man to his feet and held him. “The police have been called and one of the boys is going to tend to this lady’s cut face and make sure the baby’s okay.” And then, almost as if it was an afterthought, he put her on her feet.

She looked at Clay, at the two men holding the aggressor, and then at a firefighter crouched in front of the injured woman, his first aid kit already opened. She could hear the sound of sirens in the distance and feel the press of people from the grocery store forming a circle of spectators around them. But oddly, her first thought was,
Is it
required
that firefighters be handsome?