Heart of the Family (3 page)

“Yeah, I know, but that doesn’t mean it tastes good.”

“Yuck. I don’t like it, either.” Gabe puffed out his chest as though he was proud of the fact he and Dr. Jacob were alike in their food preferences.

“Me, neither.” Andy followed suit, straightening his thin frame.

Jacob peered down at both boys. “But Meg makes it taste great, and Hannah is right. It’s good for you. I’ll play a board game with you guys if you finish all your coleslaw. Okay?”

“Yes,” the two shouted, then rushed toward the door.

Oh, great. The evening was going to be a long drawn-out affair with games and reading. Maybe she could gracefully escape to her room after dinner while he entertained the children. Hannah waited until he had mounted the porch steps before saying, “Nice recovery.”

He gave her another heart-melting grin. “I keep forgetting how impressionable these children can be. They’re so hungry for attention and love. I wish I had more time to spend with them.”

No! Please don’t!
She pressed her lips together to keep from saying those words aloud. But she couldn’t keep from asking, “Just how involved are you with the refuge?”

He chuckled. “Worried you’ll have to be around me a lot?”

Heat scored her cheeks. Obviously she wasn’t a very good actress, a fact she already knew. She forced a semi-smile to her lips. “I was curious. I just thought you were the refuge’s doctor and that’s all.”

He planted himself in front of her. “I’m more than that. Peter, Noah and I were the ones who started this. Peter is the one in charge because he lives on the property, but I keep very involved. I’m on the foundation board. This project is important to me.”

His words and expression laid down a challenge to her. “It’s important to me, too.” She took one step back.
He’s on the foundation board. It’s worse than I thought.

“Why?”

Although the space between them was a few feet, Hannah suddenly had a hard time thinking clearly. A good half a minute passed before she replied, “I went into social work because I want to make a difference, especially with children who need someone to be their champion. Stone’s Refuge gives me a wonderful opportunity to do my heart’s desire.”
If I can manage my feelings concerning you.

“Then we have something in common, because that’s why I’m involved with the refuge.”

The idea they had anything in common stunned Hannah into silence.

The front door opened, and Gabe stuck his head out. “Dr. Jacob, are you coming?”

“Sure. I’ll be there in a sec.” When the door closed, he turned back to her, intensity in his brown gaze. “I sense we’ve gotten off on the wrong foot. Somehow we’ll have to manage to work together. I won’t have the children put in the middle.”

She tilted up her chin. “They won’t be.”

“Good. Then we understand each other.”

He left her alone on the porch to gather her frazzled composure. He was absolutely right about never letting the children know how she really felt about their “Dr. Jacob.” She had two choices. She could quit the perfect job or she could stay and deal with her feelings about him, come to some kind of resolution concerning Jacob Hartman. Maybe even manage to forgive him.

There really is only one choice.

Trembling with the magnitude of her decision, Hannah sank back against the railing and folded her arms across her chest. She’d never run from a problem in the past, and she wasn’t going to now. She didn’t quit, either. But most of all, these children needed her. She had so much love to give them. A lifetime of emotions that she’d kept bottled up inside of her while she had been observing life go by her—always an outsider yearning to be included.

So there’s no choice. Lord, I need Your help more now than ever before. I want this to work and I can’t do it without You. How do I forgive the man who killed my brother because I can’t expose his past to the others? The children adore him, and I won’t hurt them.

Jacob finished the last bite of his hamburger and wiped his mouth with his napkin. “So next week is fall break. What kind of plans do you all have for the extra two days off from school?”

Several of the children launched into a description of their plans at the same time.

He held up his hand. “One at a time. I think you were first, Gabe.”

“Peter wants us to help him when he takes some of the animals to several nursing homes on Thursday.”

“And there’s a lot of work to be done on the barn expansion.” Susie, the oldest child in this cottage, which housed the younger kids, piped up the second Gabe stopped talking.

“He’s getting new animals all the time.” Terry, a boy with bright red-orange hair, stuffed the last of his burger into his mouth.

Jacob laughed. “True. Word has gotten around about this place.”

Nancy nodded. “Yep. I found a kitten the other day in the trash can outside.”

Jacob caught Hannah’s attention at the other end of the long table. “Do you have any activities planned that you need a chaperone for next week? Maybe I—”

“I think I’ve got it covered.” She looked down at her plate, using her fork to stir the baked beans around in a circle as if it were the most important thing to do.

“I’m sorry, Hannah, I didn’t get a chance to tell you I won’t be able to go to the zoo with you on Friday.” Meg, the cook and helper, stood and removed some of the dishes from the center of the table. “That was the only time I could get in to see the doctor about the arthritis in my knees.”

Nancy’s blond pigtails bounced as she clapped her hands. “Then Dr. Jacob can go with us!”

Hannah lifted her head and glanced from Meg to Nancy before her regard lit upon him. For a few seconds anxiety clouded her gaze. He started to tell her he didn’t have to go when a smile slowly curved her lips, although it never quite touched her eyes.

“You’re welcome to come with us to the zoo. It’ll be an all-day trip. We leave at ten and probably won’t get home until four.” Her stare stayed fixed upon him.

The intensity in her look almost made Jacob squirm like Andy, who had a hard time keeping still. She might not have meant it, but deep in her eyes he saw a challenge. Determined to break down the barrier she’d erected between them, he nodded. “I’ll be here bright and early next Friday, and I even know how to drive the minibus.”

“That’s great, since I don’t think Hannah’s had a chance to learn yet. If you aren’t used to it, it can be a bit awkward.” Meg stacked several more plates, then headed for the kitchen.

“You can take that kind of time off just like that?” Hannah snapped her fingers.

“I always leave some time during a break or the holidays for the kids.”

“Yep.” Terry, the child who had been at the cottage the longest, stood to help Meg take the dishes into the kitchen.

“Well, then it’s settled. I appreciate the help, especially with the minibus.” Hannah rose. “Who has homework still to do tonight?” She scanned the faces of the eight children at the dining-room table.

Several of them confessed to having to do more homework and left to get their books.

Gabe, short for his nine years, held up his empty plate. “I ate all my coleslaw.”

“Me, too.” Andy gestured toward his as Susie took it.

“You two aren’t part of the cleanup crew?” Jacob gave the girl his dishes.

Both boys shook their heads.

“Then get a game out, and I’ll be in there in a minute.”

“Can I play, too?” Nancy leaped to her feet. “I don’t have to clean up.”

Gabe frowned and started to say something, but Jacob cut him off with, “Sure you can.”

Nancy, being in kindergarten, was the youngest in the house. Jacob suspected that and the fact she was a girl didn’t set well with Gabe, and judging by Andy’s pout, him, either. But Jacob knew the importance of bonding as a family and that meant every child, regardless of sex or age, should have an opportunity to play.

Gabe and Andy stomped off with Nancy right behind them, her pigtails swinging as she hurried to keep up. Jacob turned toward Hannah and noticed the dining-room table had been cleared and they were totally alone now. That fact registered on her face at the same time. Her eyes flared for a second, then an indecipherable expression descended as though a door had been shut on him.

“I’m glad we have a few minutes alone.” The look of surprise that flashed into her eyes made him smile. “I forgot to tell you earlier that Andy’s mother is fighting to get him back. Peter just found out today.”

“She is?”

“And I’m not going to let that happen. I’ve seen his injuries.”
I’ve been there. I know the horror.
“He’s better off without her.”

“If she cleans up her act and stops taking drugs, he might be all right going back home. In the short time I’ve been around him, I’ve seen how determined he is to get back there.”

“He isn’t better off if he returns to her. Believe me.”

A puzzled look creased her forehead. “Then why does he want to go home?”

He shook his head slowly. “You’re new at this. Take my word in this situation—he shouldn’t go back to his mother. He’s the caretaker in that family of two and he feels responsibility as a parent would. Certainly his mother doesn’t.”

Hannah’s face reddened. She came around the side of the table within a few feet of him. “How do you know this for a fact? Has Andy said anything to you?”

“No, I just know. I was in foster care for many years. I’ve seen and heard many things you’ve never dreamed of. Give yourself a year. Your attitude that the birth parent is best will change.”

“I believe if it’s possible a family should be together. Tearing one apart can be devastating to a child.”

The ardent tone in her voice prodded his anger. His past dangled before him in all its pain and anguish. His heartbeat thundered in his ears, momentarily drowning out the sounds of the children in the other room. “Keeping a family together sometimes can be just as devastating.” He balled his hands at his sides. “Why did you really go into social work?” he asked as though her earlier reason wasn’t enough.

Her own temper blazed, if the narrowing of her eyes was any indication. “As I told you earlier, to help repair damaged families. But if that isn’t possible, to make sure the children involved are put in the best situation possible.”

His anger, fed by his memories, sizzled. Before he said anything else to make their relationship even rockier, he spun around and left her standing in the dining room.

The children’s laughter, coming from the common living area, drew him. He needed that. For years he’d dealt successfully with the wounds of his childhood by suppressing them. Why were they coming to the surface now?

Lord, what are You trying to tell me? Aren’t I doing enough to make up for what I did? What do You want of me?

Jacob stepped into the room and immediately Gabe and Andy surrounded him and pulled him toward the table in front of the bay window where the game was set up. Nancy sat primly, toying with a yellow game piece. Her huge grin wiped the past few minutes from his mind as he took his chair between the boys.

He lost himself in the fun and laughter as the three kids came gunning for him. He kept being sent back to the start and loving every second of it. Until he felt someone watching him. Jacob glanced up and found Hannah in the doorway, a question in her eyes—as though she couldn’t believe a grown man was having so much fun playing a kid’s game. He certainly hadn’t done much of this as a child.

Across the expanse of the living room that challenge he had sensed earlier reared up. If she was staying at the refuge as its manager, then he would have to find a way for this situation to work. He didn’t want the kids to feel any animosity between him and Hannah. They’d had enough of that in their short lives. Before he left tonight, he would find out exactly why she was wary of him.

H
annah stood in the entrance into the living room and observed the children interacting with Jacob. She hadn’t intended to stay and watch them play, but for some reason she couldn’t walk away. Jacob had a way with the kids, as if he knew exactly where they were coming from and could relate to them on a level she didn’t know she would ever reach.

The bottom line: he was good with them. Very good.

When the trip to the zoo had come up at dinner, she hadn’t wanted Jacob to come. Now though, she saw the value in him being a part of the outing.

A fact: if she stayed, Jacob would be in her life whether she wanted him to or not. She was a realist, if nothing else, and she would come to terms with her feelings concerning him for the children’s sake.

Andy yawned and tried to cover it up with his palm over his mouth. When he dropped his hand away, however, his face radiated with a smile as Jacob directed a comment to him.

“Gotcha! Sorry but you’ve got to go back to the start, buddy.” Jacob triumphantly removed Andy’s peg from its slot and put it at the beginning.

Gabe took his turn and brought one of his pieces home. He pumped the air and shouted his glee. “I’ve only got one more out. I’m gonna win!”

Hannah needed to check to see if the others were doing their homework. But she found she couldn’t leave. There was something about Jacob that kept her watching—after years of hating the man for what he’d done to her family.

At Gabe’s next turn he jumped up and pranced about in a victory dance as if he’d crossed the goal line. “I finally won!”

Andy tried to grin but couldn’t manage it. Instead he blinked his eyes open wide and yawned again—and again.

Hannah entered the room. “Gabe, please put the game up. It’s time for bed.”

“But we haven’t played enough.” Gabe stopped, a pout pushing his lips out.

Jacob began removing the pegs from the board. “You’d better do as she says or I might not get to read you a story. If there’s not enough—”

Gabe leaped toward the table and scrambled to put up the game. Andy’s head nodded forward. Nancy stifled her own yawn.

Hannah made her way to Andy’s side and knelt next to him. “Time for bed.”

His head snapped up, his eyes round as saucers. “No. No, another game. I haven’t won yet.”

“Sorry. You’ll have to wait for another day.” Hannah straightened.

“Andy, I’ll make you a promise, and you know I don’t go back on them. The next time I’m here, we’ll play any game you want.” Jacob stood and moved to the boy, saying to Hannah, “Here, I’ll take him to his room,” then to Andy, “I think everything has finally caught up with you, buddy. You’ve been great! I can’t believe you went this long. Most kids would have been asleep hours ago after the day you had.”

As Jacob scooped up the eight-year-old into his arms and headed to the boys’ side of the house, Andy beamed up at him, then rested his head on Jacob’s shoulder.

After hurriedly putting the game away, Gabe raced to catch up with them. “We share a room.”

Nancy looked sleepily up at Hannah. “I want a story, too.”

“How about if I read one to you? You get ready for bed while I check on the others finishing their homework.”

Nancy plodded toward the girls’ side while Hannah went back into the dining room where Terry and Susie were the only ones still doing their work. “How’s it coming?”

Susie looked up, a seriousness in her green eyes. “We’re almost done.”

“Need any help?”

“Nope.” After scratching his fingers through his red hair, Terry erased an answer to a math problem on his paper. “Susie had this last year in school. She’s been helping me.”

Leaving the two oldest children, Hannah walked to Nancy’s room and found the little girl in her pajamas, stretched out asleep on her twin bed’s pink coverlet. Her clothes were in a pile on the floor beside her. Her roommate was tucked under her sheets, sleeping, too. Hannah gently pulled the comforter from under Nancy and covered her, then picked up the child’s clothes and placed them on a chair nearby.

With the youngest girls in bed, Hannah made her way to the boys’ side to see how Gabe and Andy were doing. The evening before, her first night in the cottage, both of them had been a handful to get to bed. Even with Andy half asleep, Jacob could be having trouble.

Sure, Hannah,
she asked herself,
is that the real reason you’re checking on them?

At the doorway she came to a halt, her mouth nearly dropping open at the scene before her. Andy was in bed, lying on his side, desperately trying to keep his eyes open as he listened to the story Jacob was reading. The doctor lounged back against Gabe’s headboard with the boy beside him, holding the book on his lap and flipping the pages when Jacob was ready to go on to the next one. Neither child was bouncing off the walls. Neither child was whining about going to bed. Jacob’s voice was calm and soothing, capable of lulling them to sleep with just the sound of it.

Cathy is right. Jacob would make a good father.

That thought sent a shock wave through her. She took a step back at the same time Jacob peered up at her, the warmth in his gaze holding her frozen in place. For several seconds she stared at him, then whirled and fled the room. She didn’t stop until she was out on the porch. The night air cooled her face, but it did nothing for the raging emotions churning her stomach.

How could she think something like that? For years she had hated Jacob Hartman. In her mind he wasn’t capable of anything good. Now in one day her feelings were shifting, changing into something she didn’t want. She felt as though she had betrayed her family, the memory of her brother.

Her legs trembling, she plopped down on the front steps and rubbed her hands over her face.
Lord, I’m a fish out of water. I need the water. I need the familiar. Too much is changing. Too fast.

She leaned back, her elbows on the wooden planks of the porch, and stared up at the half-moon. Stars studded the blackness. No clouds hid the beauty of a clear night sky. The scent of rich earth laced the breeze. Everything exuded tranquility—except for her tightly coiled muscles and nerves shredded into hundreds of pieces.

She’d lived a good part of her life dealing with one change after another—one move after another, the accidental death of her husband after only one year of marriage. She had come to Cimarron City finally to put down roots and hopefully to have some permanence in her life.
Instead I’m discovering more change, more disruption.

“Hannah, are you all right?”

She gasped and rotated toward Jacob who stood behind her. So lost in thought, she hadn’t even heard him come out onto the porch. She didn’t like what the man was doing to her. She wanted stability—finally.

“I’m fine,” she answered in a voice full of tension.

He folded his long length onto the step next to her. She scooted to the far side to give him room and her some space. His nearness threatened her composure. Leaning forward, he placed his elbows on his thighs and loosely clasped his hands together while he studied the same night sky as she had only a moment before. His nonchalant poise grated along her nerves, while inside she was wound so tightly she felt she’d break any second.

She didn’t realize she was holding her breath until her lungs burned. She drew in deep gulps of air, suffused with the smells of fall, while grasping the post next to her, all the strain she was experiencing directed toward her fingers clutching the poor piece of wood.

He was no fool. He would want to know what was behind her cool reception of him. And she intended to keep her past private. After today she knew now more than ever the secret could harm innocent people—children. She couldn’t do that for a moment of revenge. Their shared past would remain a secret.

“Have we met before this morning?” he asked, finally breaking the uncomfortable silence.

She sighed. This was a question she could answer without lying. “No.” She was relieved that her last name was no longer the same as her brother’s.

“I thought maybe we had, and I’d done something you didn’t like.”

“I’ve never met you before this morning.” Which was true. Kevin and Jacob hadn’t been friends long when the car wreck occurred. She felt as though she were running across a field strewn with land mines and any second she would step in the wrong spot.

“I get the feeling you don’t care for…my involvement in the refuge.”

Thank You, Lord.
His choice of words made it possible for her not to reveal anything she didn’t want to. “I’ve seen how you interact with the kids this evening. They care very much for you. How could I not want that for them? They don’t have enough people in their lives who do.”

Jacob faced her. “Good. Because I intend to continue being involved with them, and I didn’t want there to be bad feelings between us. The children can sense that. Gabe already said something right before he went to sleep.”

“He did? What?”

Although light shone from the two front windows, shadows concealed his expression. “He wanted to know what we had fought about. He thought I might have gotten mad at you because Andy got hurt. I assured him that accidents happen, and I wasn’t upset with you.”

Hannah shoved to her feet. “I should go say something to him.”

“What?”

“Well…” She let her voice trail off into the silence while she frantically searched for something ambiguous. “I need to assure him, too, that we haven’t fought.”

“By the time I left him he was sound asleep. I’ve never seen a kid go to sleep so fast. I wish I had that ability.”

Had he ever lost sleep over what he did, as she had? “You have a lot of restless nights?” slipped out before she could censor her words.

He surged to his feet, and his face came into view. “I have my share.”

The expression in his eyes—intense, assessing—bored into her. She looked away. “It’s been a long second day. I need to make sure the rest of the children go to bed since they have school tomorrow. Good night.”

She’d reached the front door when she heard him say in a husky voice, “I look forward to getting to know you. Good night, Hannah.”

Inside she collapsed back against the wooden door, her body shaking from the promise in his words. Against everything she had felt over twenty-one years, there was a small part of her that wanted to get to know him. His natural ability to connect with these children was a gift. She could learn from him.

On the grounds at the Cimarron City Zoo Hannah spread the blanket out under the cool shade of an oak tree, its leaves still clinging to its branches. Not a cloud in the sky and the unusually hot autumn day made it necessary to seek shelter from the sun’s rays. She’d already noticed some red-tinged cheeks, in spite of using sunscreen on the children. Susie, the last one in Hannah’s group to get her food from the concession stand, plopped down on the girls’ blanket a few feet from Hannah’s.

Where were the boys and Jacob? She craned her neck to see over the ridge and glimpsed them trudging toward her. Jacob waved and smiled.

Terry hurried forward. “I got to see a baby giraffe! Giraffes are my favorite animal.”

“I’m not sure I can pick just one favorite.” Out of the corner of her eye she followed Jacob’s progress toward her. He spoke to the guys around him, and they all headed toward the concession stand. “You’d better go get what you want for lunch.” Hannah nodded toward the departing boys and Jacob.

Terry whirled around and raced after them. Ten minutes later everyone was settled on the blankets and stuffing hamburgers or hot dogs into their mouths.

Nibbling on a French fry, Hannah thought of the trip this morning to the zoo on the other side of Cimarron City with Jacob driving. Not too bad. She’d managed to get a lively discussion going about what animals they were looking forward to seeing.

Quite a few of the children had never been to a zoo and were so excited they had hardly been able to sit still in the minibus. Andy literally bounced around as though trying to break the restraints of the seat belt about him. Since his accident he had gone to school every day and the minute he returned to the cottage he would head to the barn to help with the animals. Last night he had declared to her at dinner that he wanted to be a vet and that he was going to help Peter and Roman with “his pets.”

“May I join you?”

Jacob’s question again took her by surprise. She swung her attention to him standing at her side. She glanced toward the other two blankets and saw they were filled with the children. “Sure.” She scooted to the far edge, giving the man as much room as possible on the suddenly small piece of material.

“How are things going so far?” Jacob sat, stretching one long leg out in front of him and tearing open his bag of food, then using his sack as a large platter.

“Good. The girls especially liked the penguins and the flamingos.”

“Want to guess where we stayed the longest?” Jacob unwrapped his burger and took a bite.

“The elephants?”

“Haven’t gone there yet.”

“We haven’t, either.”

“Why don’t we go together after lunch? They have a show at one.”

“Fine.” Her acceptance came easier to her lips than she expected. He’d been great on the ride to the zoo. He’d gotten the kids singing songs and playing games when the discussion about animals had died down. Before she had realized it, they had arrived, and she had been amazed that the thirty-minute trip she had dreaded had actually been quite fun. “So where did y’all stay the longest?”

“At the polar bear and alligator exhibits. Do you think that means something? The girls like birds and the boys like ferocious beasts?”

Her stomach flip-flopped at the wink he gave her. Shock jarred her. Where had that reaction come from? “I had a girl or two who liked the polar bears. One wanted a polar bear stuffed animal.”

“Let me guess. Susie?”

She shook her head. “Nancy.”

He chuckled. “I’m surprised. She’s always so meek and shy.”