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“But—“
“I don’t know what I’m going to do with her. She’s not the girl she used to be. She talks back, skipped class once, cheated on a test at school, and she doesn’t ever want to go to church anymore.” Maggie wrung her hands.
He couldn’t blame the kid about church. Who wanted to be dragged into a building every Sunday with all the other hypocrites? And as for the few sincere people, religion was just another crutch.
Of course, he would put Maggie in that latter group, which only made him worry about her. Did she go around asking complete strangers for help? What if she ran into the wrong person?
“I don’t know why you’re asking me. You don’t even know me.” There. He’d said it out loud, even if it felt like he’d just kicked a puppy.
It didn’t seem to faze her. “My brother is a police officer in Colorado, and I have a good sense about people. There’s a little bit of good in everyone, and my instincts are dead on.”
Jack cleared his throat. “What does your brother say about this instinct of yours?”
Maggie shrugged. “Well, he doesn’t count. He’s a bit overprotective. Actually, he might yell at me if I asked anyone else, but I know he’d trust another police officer.”
She’d picked the one person who couldn’t help her. Wearing a law enforcement uniform didn’t make him a good person. Yeah, sure, he tried and failed miserably every day, but he certainly didn’t want to tell her that.
He stared at those green eyes, the trembling rosebud lips.Look away, Butler.
But his lips moved as though independent of the brain that knew better. “Sure. I’ll have a talk with her sometime.”
The sweat dripped down his back. A real excuse would mean explaining what had happened in Virginia, and that’s the last thing he wanted to do.
Chapter 3
Jack pulled into the Harte’s Peak YMCA parking lot in his long-bed pickup and hoped for once Ryan wouldn’t be late. They met on the basketball courts every other Saturday for pick-up games with a group that had assembled a couple of years ago and included a handful of cops and firefighters from all over the county. Basketball was one of the few things that calmed him these days.
Ryan would brag about his latest female conquest, when the only thing on Jack’s mind was how he could get out of the arrangement he had agreed to with Maggie. Maggie with the emerald eyes. She’d just asked him to do the unthinkable.Mentor a teenager.
From what he had witnessed so far, Ryan managed to weasel out of most commitments. Maybe he had some advice Jack could use.
Maggie deserved a better man to mentor her daughter, certainly someone who could sleep through the night without waking up in a cold sweat. Someone who hadn’t messed up as badly as he had.
Ryan pulled in right beside him, uncharacteristically on time. They greeted each other and walked in to the gym together.
“How do you like the new place?” Ryan asked.
“Funny you should mention that.”
“Why?” Ryan set his gym bag down and pulled out a water bottle.
“I have a problem with my neighbor.” Jack threw Ryan his basketball, and they began to play a little one- on-one before the others trickled in.
“Already?” Ryan whistled. “Hoo boy, Butler, you do have a way with people, don’t you?”
“Not that kind of problem.”
Jack scored a shot that would have easily been a three pointer if they were keeping score. Too bad they weren’t, because Ryan needed to be schooled.
“Are you going to tell me or what?” Ryan asked, taking the rebound.
“It’s my neighbor. She asked me to mentor her teenaged daughter.”
“So what’s the big deal?”
“You know the big deal.”
Ryan and their boss, Sheriff Calhoun, were the only two who knew what had happened in Virginia. And he planned to keep it that way.
