The Cowboy Next Door & Jenna's Cowboy Hero: The Cowboy Next Door / Jenna's Cowboy Hero. Brenda Minton

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      “Ditto, chick.”

      Bailey walked down the steps, punching Jay a little on the arm. “Take care of her. She’s my best friend.”

      “Will do.” He shifted a little and looked down, his cheeks red.

      Lacey pulled her door closed and twisted the knob to make sure it was locked. And then she walked across the lawn with Jay.

      It felt worse than a first date.

      It was anything but.

      “Climb in.” Jay opened the passenger-side door and she obeyed, really not seeing the running board, and then falling over it. A strong hand caught her arm from behind and held her steady.

      “Very graceful.” He said it with a smile that she could hear. “You’re two for nothing on the accident scale.”

      Lacey turned, frowning, and he was still smiling, a smile that showed dazzling teeth and the tiniest dimple in his chin.

      “Thanks.” She smiled back.

      “You’re welcome. Do you need help?”

      He was teasing and that helped, for a second she forgot the case of nerves that was twisting her insides.

      “I’m fine, and you can let go now.” She slid into the seat, aware of the place his hand had rested on her arm.

      The truck was still running and Casting Crowns played on the CD player, songs of worship, loud and vibrant. She fastened her seatbelt and leaned back, waiting for him to get in. He did, bringing with him that freshly showered and spicy-cologne scent of his.

      “Lacey, you have to stop thinking I’m the enemy.” He reached to turn the music down. “I’m sorry for knowing about you, about…”

      “My record.” She looked out the window, watching farm-land slip past them. Gentle hills, green fields, a few houses and barns. Not St. Louis, city streets and crowded neighborhoods of people getting by the best way they knew how. Some did better than others.

      Lacey’s family had been one of the families not making it at all. Never any security or hope, just scraping and trying to survive.

      “We’ve all done things.” Jay tried, she knew he really tried. He didn’t get it. He couldn’t.

      “What have you done?” She turned away from the window to look at him. “Well?”

      He didn’t answer, but he smiled a little smile, keeping his eyes on the road ahead of them. Both hands on the wheel in driver’s-ed position. He did everything by the book.

      “Did you maybe sneak behind the barn and smoke once, years ago? It made you choke, might have made you sick, and you never tried it again?”

      He laughed. “Were you watching?”

      “No, but I can picture your skinny little self out there with a friend, sneaking around with your contraband, your little hearts racing, hoping you didn’t get caught.”

      He laughed, and Lacey laughed, too. And it felt good. It felt like a moment of normal in a crazy, mixed-up world. A world that for a time had been on its axis, turning smoothly.

      “You picture me as a skinny little kid, huh?”

      “You weren’t?”

      “I was.”

      “I know. Your mom showed me pictures.”

      He groaned at that and shook his head. “Of course she did. So you see, we’ve all done things.”

      He didn’t understand feeling dirty. He didn’t know what it meant to walk down the aisle of the Gibson Community Church, wondering if it would be like the other times she had gone to church, wanting to be loved and walking out lonelier than ever.

      She closed her eyes, remembering that first week in Gibson, when she’d gone to church and she had gone forward, looking for love. And for the first time, finding it. She found perfect love, and redemption. She found forgiveness.

      “Do you know what I learned when I moved to Gibson?” She looked at him and he shook his head, glancing her way only for a second.

      “No, what?”

      “That the love I had been looking for wasn’t real love. I had tried church quite a few times over the years, but I’d had the wrong idea and each time I went, I left unhappy.”

      “Okay.” He waited. She liked that he really listened. He got that from his mom.

      “I wanted love from the people in those churches. And when I didn’t get the love I needed from them, I left. Not that some of them didn’t reach out to me, but they couldn’t give me what I needed.”

      “Forgiveness?”

      “Exactly. I needed God’s love, and I craved His love, I just didn’t know it.”

      “I know.”

      “Really?”

      He nodded. “I’ve had my angry moments with God and a few years of wild rebellion because I thought he’d let me down.”

      “You really were a bad boy?”

      “I was.”

      Lacey looked away, because she didn’t know how to go farther with the conversation. She didn’t know how to accept that Jay could actually understand her.

      * * *

      They were fifteen miles from Springfield. Jay turned the radio up a few notches and let the conversation go. Lacey was staring out the window. A quick glance and he could see her reflection in the glass, big dark eyes and a mouth that smiled often. But she wasn’t smiling. She wasn’t crying, either.

      She reminded him of a song, a song about a young woman seeking love. And she found it at the cross. Lacey was that song.

      “I guess I can’t bail her out.” She spoke as they drove through the city.

      “If you have the money. I don’t know how much her bail will be.”

      “Since she stole my savings, I guess she’ll have to spend her time in jail.”

      “It might do her some good.” He didn’t want to be harsh. He also didn’t want to see Lacey go through this exact same scenario again. And he thought she would if her sister was released.

      “I know.” Still no tears. “But the baby. I really don’t like to think about Rachel being taken from her mother.”

      “It isn’t always the worst thing for a kid.” He didn’t know what else to say. They’d said pretty much everything on the drive to town. “Lacey, is being with Corry the best thing for Rachel?”

      She didn’t answer for a long time. Finally she shook her head, but she was still looking СКАЧАТЬ