Tying the Knot (22 page)

Being near her sent his heart into overdrive and turned his legs weak. It didn’t help that she’d let him kiss her. Surrendering, tender, offering him a piece of herself he knew, deep in his gut, he didn’t deserve. But he’d held her soft face in his work-weary hands and touched those beautiful lips, and he’d never be the same for it. He had begun to cultivate serious hopes that Anne would consider joining the Wilderness Challenge team for the long haul—as in a partnership of the permanent kind.

He winced at that thought. He wanted to deny it, but the anticipation churning in his chest told him he was halfway too far in love with Anne to pull back now. His heart-ripping fear as he’d watched her fall hadn’t escaped his notice. In ten seconds of utter agony he’d realized that Anne was embedded in the fabric of his heart, and the delirious feeling had him singing one second and poised to bolt the next.

Bolt was exactly what he’d done, struck nearly dumb by the fact that he’d met her a year ago. It had taken him ten-plus hours in the driver’s seat of this rattletrap bus to really shake his brain free of the shock. He’d spent most of the trip wincing as he thought of the way he’d scared the life out of her—more than once. No wonder she looked at him as if he’d sprouted horns the first time she saw him and nearly fainted when she’d caught him in her house acting like a stalker.

Or a drug-high killer.

That night came back to him in shuddering clarity. Her fear, her tears, her whispered voice when she told him she hadn’t seen God’s grace, couldn’t fathom His love for her. He cringed, remembering how he’d challenged her not to run from her fears. His words felt even more hollow as he grasped the depth of her wounds now. Her scars went faith deep.

She didn’t need a hoodlum reminding her of the split second of terror that had nearly ended her life and shattered her belief in a good and present God.

His chest tightened, that moment searing his brain. What did she remember? He recalled everything in unadulterated, agonizing detail, down to the odor of Anthony’s fear on his sweaty face and Anne’s calm, precise courage, to the way she’d clung to Noah’s hand while bleeding into the threadbare carpet. Sweat beaded the back of his neck as he drove. Perhaps she didn’t remember him at all—amnesia in trauma victims wasn’t rare. Or, and he guessed this from the permanent etching of fear in her eyes, she too relived every horrific second in surround sound and Technicolor.

If so,
did
she remember him? Noah licked his dry lips. Would she remember him as friend . . . or foe?

Suddenly the idea of her spending the summer with him, a man who represented the darkest moment of her life, made him hurt, bone deep. He scanned the campers in the rearview mirror—their pierced faces, the defiant slump of their bodies, the emotional baggage they wore like tattoos—and cringed.

Anne had run from her pain, her past.

And Noah had brought it right back to her front door.

He felt like a weasel.

No, worse.

He felt like he’d assaulted her himself.

Anne stood on the porch of the lodge, watching the bus bounce along the road. Noah manned the wheel, and she instantly ached at the exhaustion written on his face. It couldn’t be easy to travel ten hours in two days, hauling a bus full of rowdy kids. His nerves must be nearly in shreds.

She tugged at her T-shirt and smoothed her hands over her jeans. So she’d put on makeup and a touch of perfume. It didn’t mean he would notice.

Katie and Melinda lined up beside her. Katie had cornrowed Melinda’s hair into tight, functional braids, and both girls had moved out of the cook shack and into the army tents. Excitement lined their faces, complete with beaming smiles that had sprouted after their prayer time this morning. Noah had chosen his staff well—these girls were already praying for their campers by name.

The bus wheezed to a stop and Anne braced herself. She’d be spending the next six weeks looking after these kids, and they needed to see her as disciplinarian as well as housemother if she expected them to obey her. The door opened, and Bucko emerged with more energy than she thought she possessed in her entire body. Well, she supposed that might be apropos for a guy the size of Texas. He waved to the group on the porch, his white teeth gleaming. So the ladies weren’t the only ones oozing excitement.

Anne heard Noah on the bus, his words muffled but his voice strong as he no doubt laid down the camp rules. The tone of his voice shocked her. Not gentle. Not quiet. Mr. Grizzly possessed exactly the stern voice required to keep these kids in line. So why did he need the mercenary biker getup?

When the first kid thumped out of the bus, Anne’s heart stalled in her chest. Wearing a long, red Chicago Bulls T-shirt, he had his pants hitched below his backside, and one pant leg had been neatly rolled up higher than the other. Gang signals were hard to spot unless you’d grown up in the hood and knew what to look for. This kid couldn’t be any older than fifteen, but he was pushing six feet, and from the body piercing, his swagger, and his arranged attire, she knew in the pit of her stomach he was a gangbanger.

She watched in horrified silence as a string of gang wanna-bes, or, as in her nightmares, full-fledged homeboys and girls lined up outside the bus, doing their best to broadcast to the critters peering at them from the forest that they were taking this turf. Backs stiff, arms folded, twenty street-hardened kids—no, criminals—glared at the small assembly on the porch and dared them to change their lives.

Anne wanted to flee, but fear held her body rigid. Her throat tightened, nearly cutting off her air supply. God couldn’t be this cruel. Not after all she’d been through, not after the scars speared into her body. She crossed her arms and held in a scream.

Beside her, Melinda and Katie dashed off the porch to greet the newcomers.

Obviously, she was the only one without a clue as to the biographies of their campers. She had been left in the dark, deceived, betrayed. Anger spiraled through every vein, every muscle until she felt she could take out Mr. Standing Bear with a death-ray glare.

Then Noah emerged. Before he plastered that ever-present, melt-her-heart-in-an-instant smile on his face, he glanced at her. In his face she saw the guilt that told her he knew exactly how he’d trapped her.

No wonder he’d slunk away from her like a rat.

16

Anne! Please talk to me!” For a woman with short legs, she could hustle. Of course, he’d seen the glares she’d been sending him the past hour, and he had no doubt that fury coursed through her veins that could fuel the space shuttle for a few thousand millennia. As if to prove it, she’d taken off like a rocket the second he’d dismissed the campers to their tents.

There might not be steam spiraling from her ears, but the wake she stirred up made him want to duck.

He’d seen the way she’d turned ashen and he felt heartsick. Why hadn’t he talked to her about the kids before they arrived? or at least warned her?

Because, until last night, he hadn’t realized it mattered. Kids were kids, regardless of their economics or race, and each one needed God as much as the next. God didn’t choose demographics. Just sinners. And the platoon of street soldiers unpacking their gear in the army tents certainly qualified. Noah lengthened his stride. “Anne! C’mon, talk to me!”

She whirled, and he shuddered at the red outlining her eyes. Her mouth opened. Closed. She trembled as if fighting emotions so deep she couldn’t churn them out of her chest to be vocalized. Then she buried her face in her hands and shook her head again and again, her body starting to rack.

Noah felt a groan deep inside his body. He stepped toward her—how could he not take her into his arms? Her hair flung over her face; her shoulders trembled. Every fiber of his body longed to hold her. He reached out, touched her shoulder—

She flinched. “Stay away from me.”

Noah froze.
No,
Anne, please. Don’t do this.
He swallowed his hurt and strengthened his voice. “Anne, what’s wrong?” He couldn’t tell her what he knew. The last thing she needed right now was a phantom from the past. “Is it the kids?”

She raised her head, and a wild look entered her beautiful face. She shivered so hard he thought she might shatter right there before his eyes. But her voice emerged steady. “I know this sounds so incredibly prejudiced, Noah. But, yes. Yes! Excuse me, but don’t you think you might have informed me that you were dragging up a bunch of street punks for the summer? that you planned on infecting the wilderness—and my life—with kids who don’t care a whit about what you might say to them as long as they can trash this camp? These kids have hearts of stone, and they’d just as soon throw them at you than let you soften them.” Her eyes sizzled with achingly raw pain.

“I’m sorry they upset you—”

“Upset me?” She narrowed her eyes at him. “Noah, do you have any idea what you are walking into? These kids will steal you blind while they smile at you and raise their hands to be baptized.” She had more color now, and the heat in her voice tamed his ferocious desire to fall to his knees and beg her forgiveness.

“You’re a real thundercloud, aren’t you?” Noah answered. “Can’t you see beyond the fog to the potential? to all that could happen here this summer? These kids need to escape their turfs and find God’s world. They need to be pushed beyond themselves until they fall—”

“And kill us all. Noah, I’m not a thundercloud. I’m your voice of sanity.” Her voice shrilled. “I won’t be spending the summer doctoring cuts—I’ll be trying to keep these kids from murdering each other!” She shook her head again, hands up in surrender. “Sorry, pal. I didn’t sign up for a war.” She took a step back. “I’m sorry.”

Noah felt as if he’d been belly punched. “What?”

She had already turned. “I can’t do this. I can’t do this.” Her words became a mutter as she trod down the path, stumbling. “I can’t do this.”

Noah couldn’t watch the future of twenty children disintegrate. “Anne, please!” He ran after her and grabbed her by the arm. It felt as limp as rubber, and even as she turned, her eyes didn’t focus on him. He resisted the urge to shake her and turned his voice soft. “Listen to me, honey. I know you’re afraid. But I believe God sent you here. These kids need you.” Her expression looked so fearful it nearly ripped out his heart.
“I
need you.”

Fresh tears welled in her eyes, and this time, when she began to tremble, he pulled her against his chest, wrapped his arms around her. The impulse rose to tell her that he knew, understood with gut-wrenching clarity the sacrifice she’d made and the pain that drummed in the background when she looked at these kids.

She stiffened and pulled away. “Yes, I know how much you need me, Mr. Standing Bear.” The ice in her eyes hurt. “Don’t worry. I won’t destroy your little program.” She lifted her chin. “But you mark my words. I give you one week before you have an all-out war here.” She lifted one elegant finger. “One week.”

She stepped away from him, and her expression told him not to follow. “I’ll stay, but you keep away from me.”

Then she lowered her gaze and rubbed her hands on her arms. “And don’t ever call me honey again.”

Anne sat against a giant basswood tree and stared through its gnarled arms toward the heavens. At her feet, Bertha sniffed, as if disgusted at the recent play of events, and Anne found solace in the innocent empathy.

She felt like the heavens were laughing—all the stars, the moon, and the Milky Way—the entire cosmos awash in hilarity. Her eyes stung. How could God be so cruel? Hadn’t she learned her lessons? Hadn’t she done her time ministering to kids who would rather laugh at her than listen?

Anne bowed her head until her forehead touched her drawn-up knees. Tears that burned her eyes trailed down her cheeks. The thought of her duffel bag, already packed and shoved into her SUV, pushed a bitter taste into her mouth. She should leave right now. Forever. Forget Deep Haven and its tricks and floor it south, past Minneapolis, maybe to Iowa. That was a nice state, wasn’t it? Corn and cows?

She wanted to sink her fist into Noah Standing Bear’s handsome face for what he’d done, the lying, manipulative jerk. She balled her hands, desperate to cry out, strangled by the betrayal that knotted her throat. She couldn’t even pray.