Love Inspired August 2014 – Bundle 1 of 2 (40 page)

“You have a lot of nerve telling us what we have to do after the way you’ve acted.”
Mr. Williams crossed his arms over his chest.

The old Max would have pounced on that. Today, Max knew Brian Williams was absolutely
correct. “You’re right. I’ve got no say in this. Except that the last months I’ve
spent out in the real world, away from the nice supportive cocoon of rehab, have taught
me how tough it is to get by. It’s hard. Some days it’s really hard.” Max shifted
his gaze to Mrs. Williams, hoping the soft spot he had for Simon would come through
in his words. “But I look at Simon and I see a kid who has what it’s going to take.
He’s got so much more confidence than he did even a month ago. He’s got parents who
would do anything for him. He’s got enough wit to defuse a situation when someone
is a jerk, and soon enough he’ll have the experience to know how and when to use that
wit instead of a right hook or a well-rammed footrest. Please don’t let my lack of
good sense keep Simon from staying out there in the world.”

“Your son stood up to a bully.” Heather’s voice came from the entryway. “That takes
strength. I know he didn’t do it the way we all would have liked—”

“You’ve all made
that
clear!” Simon shouted from the kitchen, proving the walls had ears.

“But he stood up for himself nonetheless. He’s also bearing the consequences with
a fair amount of maturity—”

“I’m grounded for life—did you know that?” Simon’s dramatic declaration bellowed from
the kitchen. Max tried not to grin. He’d been grounded any number of lifetimes.

“With as much maturity as you can expect at fifteen.” Heather finally finished her
thought. “I can’t say that about too many students these days.”

“We’ll think about what you’ve said,” Mrs. Williams offered.

“I think we’re finished here.” Mr. Williams declared the visit over.

Max headed toward the door, shooting Simon a wave as he went by the kitchen. “See
you around?”

Simon shrugged. “Um, ‘grounded for life,’ remember?”

Max mimed texting on a cell phone, raising one eyebrow. “They take away your phone?”

Simon shook his head. “Nobody’s that cruel.”

Max gave Simon a thumbs-up and rolled out the door, hoping that wasn’t the last time
he’d see Simon Williams.

Chapter Twenty-Two

M
ax sat at his desk Monday, completely unable to work, willing his cell phone to ring.
It had been two whole days since he’d laid his conscience bare in front of the Williams
family, and the lack of response was eating him alive. Simon’s future had become deeply,
personally important to him, and his passion for the boy’s opportunities lay foreign
and unsettling in his stomach.

“I’d always expected I’d catch your passion for the whole world—the ‘getting guys
with disabilities out into experiences’ thing—but not in terms of one scrawny, brilliant
kid.” Max was glad Alex was in the office today, because he needed to talk this out
with someone or he’d explode. “The need to make this right is driving me nuts.”

As soon as the words left his mouth, Max realized how close to home that urge must
feel to Alex. His boss and brother-in-law had talked many times about his old company’s
role in making the climbing line Max had been using when he fell. Max was here and
had the amazing job he did because of Alex’s persistent need to “put things right.”
Okay, falling for JJ may have amplified that a bit, but Max’s tumult was tangled up
with Heather, too.

“Who’d have guessed we’d end up with so much in common?” Alex said with a quiet smile,
then pointed up and added, “Well, except for you know who.” He walked over and perched
on the corner of Max’s desk, picking up the drawings of new “Maxed Out” lightning-bolt
wheel panels that would be in the company’s next catalog. “I boast I know how to think
outside the box, but the Good Lord blew me out of the water on this one.”

“Yeah.”

Alex raised an eyebrow. “Yeah?”

Usually Max dismissed any of Alex’s continual comments about how God had paved the
way for this whole venture, but he knew too much now to ignore how God had intervened
in his life. If anyone understood what he was going through, it was Alex. Alex, who
at one point was his enemy, the man he’d set out to crush. If that wasn’t evidence
of God and grace in his life, what was?

“Heather said something to me one night. It’s stuck with me, working on me until I
could actually, well, believe it.” He ran his hands through his hair, trying to put
that moment into words.

Alex set the drawings down. “What?”

“The night that whole thing blew up with Simon and his parents—the first time, I mean—I
got frustrated enough to spit out to Heather that I was furious at God for letting
me fall.” These words were hard to say to Alex, but they’d long had to learn to be
honest with each other. “For dropping me.”

He could see the impact of the words in Alex’s eyes. There were people who insisted
it was Alex’s company’s climbing line that had failed Max. Max no longer felt that
to be true. Lots of things were to blame for what had happened that night, but none
more than Max’s own arrogance. Alex’s silence spoke of the whole hard journey the
past year and a half had been for everyone.

“Heather said the most amazing thing when I blurted that out.” Max made a point to
look straight at Alex, wanting him to see that it had gone beyond hurt and blame,
wanting him to believe the healing Max knew was taking place. “She said...” Max remembered
the unbelievable tenderness in Heather’s tone and the words suddenly caught in his
throat. “She said she believed God caught me just in time.”

Alex’s eyes closed for a moment, and Max knew the words were just as powerful for
him. “You hang on to that woman, Max Jones. She’s a keeper.”

Max was planning to tell Heather just what she’d done that night when he got the chance
to give her the prayer shawl Violet Sharpton had made. “I’m trying, Alex. There’s
a mile of hurt between us right now—and I put most of it there—but I’m fighting it
with everything I’ve got. She came with me to talk to Simon and his parents, so that’s
something.” He sunk his head onto his hands. “This is so hard.”

Alex rested a hand on his shoulder. “You’ve done a million near-impossible things
since I’ve met you, Max. I’m pretty sure you can pull this off.” He spun his wedding
ring with his thumb. “Some things are worth fighting for with all you’ve got. I’m
pretty sure Heather’s one of them.” He gave Max’s shoulder a squeeze before letting
go. “Although I wouldn’t mind if you at least
tried
to do battle with next year’s sponsorship schedule.”

Max despised paperwork. Alex could whip up plans and spreadsheets and timetables with
his eyes closed, but that kind of forethought was like a foreign language to Max.
“It’s late—I know.” He groaned. “If just one of them—Simon or Heather or even Brian
Williams—would call me I’d be able to think straight, you know?”

“Yeah,” Alex commiserated. “I do know. But try anyway.”

Max wrestled with the spreadsheet for over an hour, and even the addition of an extra-strong
coffee from down the street hadn’t bolstered his success. He was just about to slam
something hard into his computer monitor when his cell phone rang. With a wide smile
he saw Heather’s name on the screen.

“Are you sitting down?”

Some part of him was overjoyed that she could make such a joke. The caution and careful
nature of their conversations lately jangled his nerves. “As a matter of fact, I am.
Good guess.”

“I had two visitors this morning.”

Please, Lord, let one of them be Simon. Please.
The prayer slipped out of Max with unexpected ease. “You did?”

“Linda Williams came in this morning. She wanted to know if we could hold a place
for Simon for the second semester.”

Max felt the illogical sensation of his heart both leaping and falling at the same
time. “You mean in January? Not now?” It didn’t feel like enough of a victory.

His words must have echoed his frustration. “I think it’s a good compromise, Max.
It gives everyone a chance to catch their breath and keeps the door open for Simon
to come back. And it wouldn’t be happening at all if it weren’t for you.” The tone
of her voice changed completely, now soft and low. “Thank you. You did an amazing
thing back there at Simon’s. I wish you could have seen Simon’s face as he heard you
talking about him. He looks up to you so much, even after all that’s happened. Maybe
especially because of all that’s happened.”

“Then why on earth hasn’t the guy called me? Texted? Anything.”

Heather’s laugh was sweet to hear. “They grounded him from his cell phone and computer
outside of classwork until the end of the month.”

“Ouch. He said they wouldn’t be that cruel.”

“I had another visitor this morning, too. What exactly did you say to Candace Norden?”

Max had hoped his role in that one wouldn’t ever get back to Heather. She might consider
it meddling if not outright manipulation. “Um...about what?”

“She came in asking for the form needed to take a non-student to the homecoming dance.
Something about a bargain of a date for an A in algebra? And the chance to put something
right?”

Max laughed and slapped his hands over his eyes. “I didn’t really think she’d do it.”
That wasn’t exactly true—he’d carefully couched it as an offhand comment, then prayed
like crazy that that the notion would stick.

“So you
did
give her the idea to take Simon to homecoming?”

Max winced. He still couldn’t read from her tone whether Heather approved or disapproved
of his plan, and things were precarious enough between them as it was. “Maybe.”

“You convinced a junior on the cheerleading squad to take a freshman in a wheelchair
to the homecoming dance?” Was that awe or annoyance?

“Well, okay, there may have been a little incentive thrown in about my paying for
dinner at The Black Swan. They need another chance to get the ramp right, you know.”

There was an exasperating silence on the other end of the phone before she replied,
“You’re amazing.”

“Is that amazing great or amazing bad?”

He wouldn’t have thought he could hear a smile over the phone, but she sighed in a
way that made his heart gallop in his chest. “That’s amazing amazing.” Her tone required
no other qualifier. Max felt his eyes shut and his shoulders unwind. He hadn’t lost
her. At least not completely. And she didn’t know what was coming.

I’ve gotta win her back, Lord. You know that. I can’t lose her. Not yet.
Max thought about the package in the back of his van, newly fetched from Violet Sharpton,
who was “amazing amazing” in her own right. He checked his watch. Ten after three
meant school was done for the day. “Can you meet me at the wheel bridge in half an
hour?”

“The wheel bridge?”

“Well, for you it’s the footbridge, but you know what I mean.” It felt delightful
to be able to tease her again. Her laugh untied the knots that had been twisting in
his gut for days.

“Do you ever stop, Max?”

Max looked up to see Alex holding up a note in the palm of his hand that read, “Leave
now and go get her!”

“Only when there’s a staircase, and maybe not even then,” he told Heather.

* * *

Heather couldn’t wipe the smile off her face as she drove past The Black Swan. She’d
avoided the place since that night, unable to bear the reminder of how things had
unraveled since then. Inside that restaurant, even despite the challenges of making
that evening work, Heather had begun to believe she could build a life with Max Jones.
It had been an unsteady, fragile belief, but Max’s eyes, his passion for life right
down to the spontaneous pirouette under the balcony, and his heart-stopping kiss had
all bloomed a strength within her.

His actions afterward had put that strength to the test. She knew Max could be bitter
and resentful; she’d seen his impulsive side run off with his good sense. Heather
didn’t want to be caught in the crosshairs of that kind of life, battling someone
always on the defensive, always with something to prove. That kind of man had soured
her parents’ marriage, had tainted her engagement with a man who insisted that God
had wronged him.

What she’d heard from Simon’s kitchen was a different man. A man who could endure
what life—what God—had asked of him. She had always suspected the Max on wheels had
become a better man than the Max who walked. The words she’d heard at Simon’s house
had proven that to be true. As Heather pulled up to the parking lot that sat next
to the Gordon River, she knew she was almost ready to give her heart to Max Jones.
Almost. She prayed that when she looked into his eyes today, God would grant her whatever
last piece she needed to get past “almost.”

He sat at the near end of the charming footbridge that was the unofficial symbol of
Gordon Falls, a spectacular smile lighting up his face. That grin was accompanied
by a twinkle in his eye that couldn’t be classified as anything short of mischievous.
Max was up to something.

Max was
always
up to something. It was one of the best and scariest things about that man.

“Hi there.” The way he looked at her made her feel, well, beautiful. Not glamorous
beautiful, but the inner, lasting kind of beautiful. A woman no longer afraid to be
noticed. A woman capable of making a difference in someone’s life—and not just Simon’s
and Max’s.

“Hello.”

She noticed a package in his lap. He caught her gaze and winked. “I’m hoping we have
a lot to celebrate today.”

Me, too,
Heather thought as they moved toward the set of benches that sat at the very center
of the bridge, one of the prettiest spots in town. “I’m so glad about Simon.”

“That kid’s gotten to me. I want him to succeed so bad I can taste it.” He gestured
for her to sit down. He was uncharacteristically fidgety, a departure from the ever-cool
guy who had rolled up to school back in August. He seemed to know, as she did, that
today would be a turning point for them.

“I know you do. I think it’s wonderful. And he’ll make it. I just know he will.”

Max reached out his hand, palm up, asking for Heather’s to slip inside his grasp.
“I want us to make it, too. I hope you know that. I’m scared to death we don’t know
how, but if God caught me when I was falling then, I figure he’ll catch me when I’m
falling now.” He wrapped his hand around hers. “I’ve fallen for you.” He suddenly
slumped forward, a wincing sort of laugh echoing from up under his shaggy hair. “Oh,
man,” he moaned, still gripping her hand. “That sounded
so much less stupid
in my head.” He looked up at her, cringing and smiling at the same time.

Heather could feel a smile bursting across her face. Max’s awkward, imperfect declaration
charmed her more than any sonnet or grand gesture. Laugher bubbled up from a joyful
place inside her, a place she hadn’t felt for a long, long time. “It was...was...”
She groped for the right words, settling on, “Wonderfully cheesy.”

She pulled his hand to her lips and kissed it. “I fell, too. And I want us to make
it, too.” She held his callused fingers to her cheek, reveling in the strength of
them. “I’m ready, I think. I’m not going to walk away, Max. You need to know that.
I don’t think I can anymore. I need you too much. I think we need each other.” She
took a deep breath, daring herself to say what she’d already realized she came there
to say. “I’m in love with you. Warts and all, wheels and all, wild and all.” Some
part of her was so proud to say it first. It was such an enormous leap toward the
woman she wanted to be. The woman Max could help her become.

Max reached out to cradle her face in both of his hands. “I am head over wheels in
love with you, Heather Browning.” With that he kissed her so grandly she nearly fell
off the bench, sending them into peals of splendid, happy laughter. “Oh!” he cried,
smiling wider than she’d ever seen him. “I can’t believe I forgot this. I was going
to give this to you before my little speech....” He put his hand to his forehead and
moaned, “That horrible little speech. I should have had Alex write me something.”

“No,” she refuted. “It was perfect. I wouldn’t change a word.”