want to let her down.
Pushing past sarcasm, he realized that he honestly didn’t want to let her down. But not just her—he didn’t want to let anyone down. Not even himself. And since he’d walked out of prison—his home for the last four years—one thought had been taunting him. He could slip so easily.
Concentrate on something else. Don’t get sucked into doubt. He glanced around the sparsely furnished trailer. It smelled of cleaners and bug spray. The broom leaning against the counter was further proof that someone had been cleaning.
Maggie Simmons had done the cleaning. She wore the evidence on her white T-shirt, smudged with dust. Eyes full of doubt, she watched him as though she didn’t know what he was doing in her life, and yet she’d done this.
“Thank you for cleaning the place up.” He shot her a smile, hoping for something similar from her. “I hadn’t expected that.”
“It always helps to come home to something clean,” Maggie returned, and she even smiled. Her smile was definitely sunshine and hope. Or maybe four years of prison, four years with few feminine contacts, had left him a little fanciful.
He didn’t know what to say. He dropped his duffel bag on the floor and stepped farther into the living room.
“It isn’t much, but it’s a start.” She continued to talk, her tone apologetic.
A start. Exactly what he’d thought when Pastor Banks offered to rent him this place. He needed somewhere to get his life in order. This would be easier than in his parents’ home in Springfield, and in their world of constant social activity and polite gossip that would keep him in the gutter.
His mom and dad believed in him. But they were two people, three including his brother, and he needed more than that. He knew he would need the support of the church in Galloway, and the pastor who had been visiting him for almost three years.
Pastor Banks, tall and burly, with a tender heart and a smile that exploded across his face. He believed in everyone, and in the ability of God to redeem and give second chances. He preached mercy, and he meant it.
His ministry had changed Michael’s life.
It had truly changed him. Maggie Simmons looked like she might doubt that. She moved away from him, to a brown bag of groceries on the counter. He watched, wondering what her story was, and knowing instinctively that she had one.
“I bought a few things to get you started.” She flashed a look over her shoulder that didn’t quite become a smile as she took canned items from the bag. “I wasn’t sure what you’d want.”
“You didn’t have to do that.” He started to move toward her but stopped. She wasn’t wearing a sign that said, Let’s Be Friends. More like a sign that said, Keep Out. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” She opened the refrigerator door and stuck something on the shelf.
Pastor Banks jumped back a step, drawing Michael’s attention from the nervous youth worker. “What’s the matter with you?”
“I think I just saw a mouse.”
Maggie Simmons actually laughed.
Chapter Two
A sliver of light broke through the curtains of the bedroom, waking Michael from what had only recently become a sound sleep. The night had been long and too quiet. No fights had broken out, not one door had slammed and nobody had snored. It had been only him, the occasional bark of a dog and something scurrying inside the wall.
He glanced across the room, squinting to read the clock on the dresser. Barely six. His normal waking time. Disappointed by that, he considered rolling over, covering his head with the pillow and going back to sleep. He had really planned to sleep in, at least until eight. His internal alarm clock hadn’t gotten that memo.
Instead of giving in and going back to sleep, he laid there, relishing freedom. No prison guard would show up and tell him to get busy. He could stay in bed as long as he wanted, in a room with no lock on the door and no bars on the windows.
His own bed. His own home. Nobody here would tell him to get to work. Nobody would tell him to head for chow. And nobody would keep him from messing up.
What if he couldn’t handle freedom?
Get out of bed, do something. He pushed himself to leave the comfort of the mattress that had swallowed him in its softness the night before. Down the narrow paneled hall, to the sunlit kitchen. He paused at the window over the sink and looked out at hay fields across the road.
This place was perfect. He was glad he’d taken Pastor Banks up on the offer to rent from the church. Here he could get his bearings. He wouldn’t have to worry about his parents and how to protect them. He needed this time alone.
For four years he’d had very little time on his own, without someone watching, listening. He had once heard that the Chinese people didn’t have a word for “alone.” There was no concept of the word in their overcrowded country.
In prison there was no concept of the word, either. A person didn’t have use of a word that they couldn’t put into practice. Alone.
But then sometimes, even with hundreds of people around, he had felt alone.
He rummaged through the cabinet, smiling when he pulled out the bag of Starbucks coffee. Miss Maggie Simmons had thought of everything. Bless her sweet soul. He filled the coffeepot with water, added a few scoops of coffee to the filter basket and set the power button.
While he waited for the coffee to brew he walked out the back door to the small deck that faced the woods. Springtime in the Ozarks. The air was cool, but hinted at a warm day, and the emerald-green grass was drenched with dew. Something moved. He watched, holding his breath to see what had darted through the trees. It appeared again, a small doe, ears twitching when she sensed his presence. A few minutes later she darted back into the woods.
The aroma of fresh-brewed coffee greeted him when he walked into the trailer. Real coffee, the kind a person wanted to enjoy, not gulp down with a few spoons of sugar added to kill the flavor. He poured a cup and walked back outside. An old lawn chair had been left behind. He sat and propped his feet up on the wood railing of the deck.
Now what? Think of the future, of life working for his dad as a paralegal? Or the past, and how it had changed everything, including where he should be now?
One stupid mistake, trying meth, had led to another mistake—dealing methamphetamines when his dad had cut off his money. He leaned back, closing his eyes when he remembered back to those days. He’d been angry then, mad at his dad for taking away his money, and mad at his brother Noah for telling his parents why he had lost weight and why his grades were failing.
Now he needed to thank them. His dad for taking away his money. His brother for noticing the signs of addiction. He also needed to make amends with the people he had hurt.
Michael’s addiction had changed the course of his brother’s life, as well. Noah had been set to take the bar and would have been a lawyer for their father’s firm. Now he was an agent for the DEA.
Everything had changed.
A car rumbled down the road, coming closer. Michael walked back into the house. He reached the front door as his parents pulled up the drive. They had given him the night he needed to be on his own. He smiled as he glanced down at his watch. His mom was out of the car, carefully walking toward the trailer in high heels that weren’t suited for the rutted, overgrown lawn.
He stepped onto the porch to wait.
“Michael, oh, honey, your hair is too long.” She hurried up the stairs of the porch, her heels beating a rhythm on the wooden steps. She hugged him to her, holding him close. He held her tight.
“I love you, Mom.”
She held him back, gave him a long look and then hugged him again. “Look at him, George. He doesn’t look any worse