I’m sure that was terribly hard for you.”
The warmth and compassion in Erin’s eyes and voice stirred his heart. He nodded. “Thanks. But it was a long time ago. It’ll be twenty-four years next month.”
“Do you have a stepmom?”
David straightened and jammed his hands in his jeans pockets, uncomfortable with talking about his personal life. “Yes. My father…does a lot of traveling.” For God. Old anger snaked its way through him. “He met a woman overseas and remarried a few years later.”
“So you moved a lot as a child?”
She sounded less nervous. David shook his head and skirted around the fact that his father and the new wife hadn’t wanted him, because he would take time from their work for the Lord. “No. I lived with my grandmother and grandfather.” He pulled up a smile. “Grandpa was a terrific gardener, and Grandma baked the best cookies in ten counties. As a matter of fact, you can blame Grandpa for those words I used in the game. I wanted to be like him, so I took up botany in college.”
“Botany?” Those gorgeous eyes of hers widened in surprise. “How did you get from there to journalism?”
He shrugged. “One of my professors took me aside one day and told me I had an innate writing talent. He suggested I develop it and pursue fame and fortune as a journalist or writer. That sounded good to me, so I switched my major, and the rest, as they say, is history.” He smiled. “Except in my case, history is still in the making.”
“Now that’s the sort of a teacher every child should have. Not the kind who only put in their time and totally ignore the needs of their students! Not the kind who—” Erin clamped her lips together and walked to the railing.
She was shivering again. David stayed rooted in place. He wasn’t about to make the mistake of touching her again—no matter how innocent and altruistic his motives. “Sounds like you’ve had a bad experience with a teacher, Erin. Is that why you’re so passionate about the literacy center?”
“Yes. It is.”
He waited but she didn’t expand on her answer. She just stood there with her back toward him, staring out at the rain. Some emotion he felt but couldn’t identify emanated from her. Pain? Anger? Whatever it was, he wanted to take her in his arms and comfort her, but that avenue was closed to him. He cleared his throat. “I’m sorry for whatever happened to you, Erin. But if that experience is what motivated your passion for helping your students at the center, at least some good has come out of it.”
Her head lifted. She turned to look at him, then smiled. It felt as if someone had suddenly turned on the sun.
“Thank you, David.” Her smile widened. “You’re a very kind person—” she wrinkled her nose at him “—except when it comes to word games.”
That little wrinkle of her nose stirred more than his heart. David dragged in a breath of air and returned her smile. “Kindness isn’t in the rules.”
Erin laughed, then shifted her gaze to the roof. “Listen. The rain has stopped. We can go home and dry out.”
“I guess we can.” David picked up the game and followed Erin down the steps, wishing—for the first time in his life—the deluge had continued.
The rain had started again. Erin picked up her mug of hot cocoa, pushed open the back door and stepped out onto the porch. She was greeted by the steady drumming of raindrops on the roof overhead.
She took a deep breath, savoring the clean smell of the rain, then walked over to curl up in her favorite corner of the wicker couch. The cushion felt good against her bare feet. She snuggled them deeper into the softness and took a swallow of the cocoa, capturing one of the small marshmallows floating on top and letting its warm sweetness melt on her tongue.
If that experience is what motivated your passion for helping your students at the center, at least some good has come out of it.
Had her face revealed how startled she’d been by David’s statement? Not only by his sensitivity, but by the truth he’d expressed. Erin wrapped both hands around the warm mug and stared out into the night. She’d lived so long with the legacy of distrust, fear and anger that Mr. Gorseman’s attempted rape of her had caused, she’d never thought of the possibility of good coming from it. But it had. She’d become a teacher and a fierce advocate for the students at the literacy center because of it. And her mom and dad volunteered at the women’s rape and abuse shelter as a result of her experience. But that was all for the good of others.
Erin set her cup on the table, rose and walked to the top of the steps, wrapping her arms about herself and leaning back against the support post to watch the raindrops dancing on the wet bricks of the walk. What about her? What about her family? Where was the good for them? All she’d received was an inability to trust a man. Alayne had turned her back on God and was living in sin with a lying, cheating lothario. And her parents suffered because their oldest daughter was too ashamed of the life she lived to even speak to them, and their youngest daughter was too wary of men to ever fall in love.
No, nothing good had come to them from that experience.
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