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Chapter 14
“I won’t accept it,” Calhoun said, sliding Jack’s resignation across the desk.
“What do you mean you won’t accept it?”
Jack’s jaw felt tight enough to lock into place. It had been seven days and three hours since he’d talked to Maggie, and Jack was in no mood.
Sure, he’d been watching her from a distance. Watching as she drove Lexi to school, and he’d even been keeping one eye on Lexi if he happened to be home in the afternoons. Every now and then, he’d drive by The Bean just to see her car there, but he hadn’t been inside, letting Ryan pick up their coffees. Jack stayed away, even though all he wanted to do was hold her again.
He slid the resignation back to Calhoun.
“I’ll call it a leave of absence, but your job will be here for you when you get back,” Calhoun said after a long pause.
Jack closed his eyes. He hadn’t expected the old man to make things harder for him than they already were.
“If that’s how it has to be, but I can’t guarantee that I’ll be back.”
“You don’t have to. I can practically guarantee it myself.”
“This was a temporary pit stop, until I could get my bearings. Now that I’m ready, don’t make it harder than it has to be.”
“Son, I don’t mean to do that. I know you have to go back, because you left there too hastily. You’re right that you have unfinished business back home, but something tells me that you’re not done with Harte’s Peak, either.”
Something told him he wasn’t, but a much stronger thought convinced him he wasn’t anywhere near the kind of man that Maggie Bradshaw deserved. And probably never would be.
“Do me a favor? Look out for Maggie and Lexi, would you?”
“You know I will.”
“Maggie’s too trusting. She doesn’t see the worst in people, only the best. That worked out to be a good thing for me, but she needs someone to protect her.”
The fact that he’d be worried about her long distance nagged at his resolve, but he had to go back. No doubt about it.
“Funny, I thought that someone would be you.” The thought had occurred to Jack more than once.
And if he’d been a better man, maybe. Well, no maybe about it. He’d be making plans to be a stepfather to Lexi, a husband to Maggie, if she’d have him. But it was all a stupid idea, and he didn’t know why Calhoun couldn’t see it.
“Maggie needs a good man,” Jack said.
“That’s right, and I’m looking at one.”
“A better man.”
“When will you realize that forgiveness is waiting for you if you’ll only forgive yourself?”
“Are you going to start spouting Bible verses again?”
“Do you want me to?” Calhoun cocked his head.
For once, Jack wished he would. He’d misplaced, or possibly left at the motel he’d stayed in his first few days in town, the Bible Calhoun had given him. Now Jack needed a little direction. Maggie, more than anyone, had made him curious about thefaith that guided her out of what had to have been one of the worst times of her life.
Jack had to start investigating, start reading. But where to begin? Should he just jump in at the beginning and read the Bible like a novel? Walking into the muddy waters of religion didn’t sound like him, but for the first time in his life, he wouldn’t walk away without knowing what he was rejecting.
Jack lifted a shoulder. “I’m getting used to it.”
“You got it. Every time I think of you, there’s one verse that comes to mind: Jeremiah 29:11. ‘For I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord. Plans to prosper you and not to harm you. Plans to give you hope and a future.’”
A future.He’d almost given up on one, but when he’d gazed in Maggie’s eyes for the first time the future had become hopeful.
