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“What do you want? Tell me about your goals and plans,” he asked, his deep voice a quiet rumble in the settling dusk.
“I don’t have any.”
“Come on. Everyone has a dream. I told you one of mine. Now you tell me yours.”
Her dream was impossible. A baby to love, kids in her life. “I’d once thought about teaching, maybe coaching. But that’s out.”
“Why?”
“Wrong degree.” She didn’t tell him she’d intentionally taken the wrong classes. Even if she taught someone else’s children, she’d be taking a chance. One of the reasons she’d dated Marty was the ridiculous hope that she could ride shotgun with him in the orphanages and day camps without risking anything.
Maybe that was her problem. She was afraid to risk just as she was afraid to get too involved with a child.
“You’re young. If you want to teach, you could go back to college.”
She pretended to shudder. “Please. I barely squeaked by as it was. I’m not going back.” Brooke, the C student. Brooke, the queen of blowing off classes. “I’d thought about working in one of those Y kind of places where kids do camps and learn to swim or play ball.”
“I can see that. You’re athletic. Energetic. Great with kids.”
A lot he knew. “That’s the problem.” When he raised his eyebrows, she tried to explain, though sometimes her reasoning didn’t make sense to herself. So how could she make someone else understand? “The whole kid thing. That’s why my boyfriend and I broke up. He wanted kids. I didn’t.”
A.J. gave a quivering sigh and snuggled deeper as if challenging the lie. Brooke’s throat tightened with emotion. She’d made the claim for such a long time she’d begun to believe it. Avoidance was her standard line of self-defense. By denying she wanted children, she could avoid the risk of hurt. Now, with A.J. in her arms and Gabe staring at her with dark, curious eyes, her standard line didn’t seem as convincing.
The tiki torches lit to discourage mosquitoes cast Gabe in alluring shadows. He looked dark and attractive, strong and secure and all man. He also looked bewildered. And why shouldn’t he? She’d chosen to rock his son, chosen to stroke the baby-soft skin over and over with her fingers as though touching him was life itself.
“Do you realize how contradictory that is? You wanted to be a teacher, you want to work with kids in a rec center, but you don’t want children personally. I’m lost here.”
Oh, so was she. Unbelievably lost.
“It’s not that I don’t like children…” she floundered.
“What are you afraid of, Brooke?” Gabe’s quiet baritone spoke right to the issue, honest and piercing.
Brooke looked away toward the hulking shape of the mountains, deep purple now in the growing darkness. She swallowed, aching, needing release from the pain that knotted beneath her breastbone and refused to let go. The knot had started years ago as she stood on the banks of Silver Creek, screaming for Lucy, and year after year, the knot had tightened until at times, like now, the noose threatened to squeeze her in two.
She was afraid. Terrified. She’d planned her life around keeping her heart safe, never, ever planning to have children. A husband was okay as long as he agreed to the child ban. She’d intended to stay on the periphery, a safe extension of Marty’s ministry to the orphans and needy of the world, close but not too close. Wouldn’t that be enough to please God? To repay the harm an eight year old had done to the people she’d loved most?
“It’s complicated.” Her voice was quiet, too, an aching whisper.
“I’m listening.”
She rarely spoke of Lucy’s death and the horrible aftermath of watching her family disintegrate. She’d told Marty, only to have her sorrow flung back in her face in anger and impatience. “Grow up. Get over it. Stop whining about something that happened fifteen years ago.” The hurt of Marty’s words still stung. She liked Gabe and A.J. too much to take the risk of having the same thing happen again.
“Something happened a long time ago.” The knot in her rib cage tightened. Rising, she shifted A.J. to one shoulder, careful not to wake him. The heat of his body contrasted with the rapidly cooling air. “Shouldn’t we take him to his bed? The night’s getting cool.”
