Abiding Love (2 page)

“I
still don’t see why I had to come,” sixteen-year-old Mark Boyer groused to his father.

Adam Boyer stopped, turned back and faced his son right where they stood, in the middle of the Tabernacle’s parking lot. He was nervous himself, so he knew how the kid felt. Mark had never met his father’s side of the family. Adam’s parents had cut all ties to him because he chose Annapolis and a Navy career over Princeton and what they saw as a socially acceptable and lucrative profession.

Adam sighed, striving for the right amount of reassurance and authority. He wished he was better at this full-time parenting stuff. As he looked at his confused son, the familiar anger at his ex-wife—late ex-wife—rose to choke him once again. “It’s your aunt’s wedding,” he told Mark, trying not to grit his teeth as he explained for what seemed like the hundredth time.

“I didn’t want to move here and I don’t need an other aunt. I have one,” Mark shot back as he slouched along, his hands stuffed in his jacket pockets, his broadening shoulders hunched against the unfamiliar cold of the Pennsylvania winter. “An aunt I wanted to live with. This aunt sounds so lame. Getting married on Valentine’s Day. Pul-eeze. And, unless I’m totally off, that church we’re headed for is a barn!”

Adam glanced at the building. It was indeed a barn that had been cleverly converted into a church. So his sister had turned out to be a little offbeat. At least this meant she wasn’t as snobbish as he’d always feared she would become under the tutelage of their class-conscious parent. Her letters showed that and more. Beth was what she called a committed Christian. Her letters were full of God and her love for Him.

“I don’t think God cares where people worship, son. So why should we? Jesus was born in a stable. I imagine He still listens to people praying from one. I think this means your aunt’s a lot of fun.”

“I don’t care. I wanted to live with Aunt Sky.”

Adam sighed. “And I’ve told you, I have nothing against your aunt Skyler. She’s your mother’s sister, but I’m your father. We’ll continue to see her, but I’m not handing you over to her, and I’m sure not marrying her to please you. Or her. I loved your mother. But our marriage ended a long time ago. I accepted that she fell in love with Jerry and I moved
on with my life.” A tiny fib, but that was his own private pain.

“But you married mom and you said you loved her and Aunt Sky is practically Mom’s carbon copy.”

Adam sighed. “No one is someone else’s carbon copy, Mark. And I don’t want a carbon copy of your mom in any case. That wouldn’t be fair to either Skyler or me to try recapturing a past long gone, with her as a stand-in. Got it?”

Mark shot him a belligerent look.

“Can’t you just relax and give this a shot? I want to get to know Beth again. I’ve missed most of her life. I didn’t think she’d ever want to see me again, until I got her letter just before I was deployed. Is it so much to ask that you try, or at least pretend, to have a nice time, just for today? I’m supposed to be inside the church before she arrives, or it’ll ruin the surprise. And we did go to a lot of trouble to make this a surprise. We have to get a move on.” Adam turned and started toward the front doors of the building.

“Yeah. Sure. If you ask me, this whole thing is more trouble than it’s worth. But who asks me about anything? You moved us into a house that looks like a mausoleum and her church is a barn. How lame is this?” Mark grumbled again as he fell into step.

It appeared Mark’s word of the day was
lame.
Adam closed his eyes for a second and sighed. Wasn’t life supposed to get easier?

Adam understood some of what Mark was feeling. No one had asked either of them if they wanted their
lives disrupted. The only difference was that Adam, as an adult, had more control. But with that control came the awesome responsibility for someone else’s happiness. So he bit his tongue and clapped Mark on the shoulder, saying, “Come on, pal. Lighten up. Think of the stories you can tell your friends about your weird Pennsylvania relatives when you talk to them.”

Adam glanced around as they approached the building, following Mark’s gaze. They were certainly in Pennsylvania. Snow covered the ground and roofs, but the walkways and parking lot had been scraped clean and had dried in the winter sunshine. The crisp air tickled his nose. Even after all these years it felt like home.

Having lived in Southern California for most of his adult life, he’d forgotten peaceful winter days like this even existed. He’d been deployed all over the world at different times, and often those hot spots were in pretty cold places, but life on an operation was a world apart from the everyday world he was living in now.

Inside the church, they found a bustle of activity. A man about his own age stood just inside the door.

“Please tell me you’re Elizabeth’s brother,” the guy said, sounding more than a little anxious.

The groom? He wasn’t dressed like one, but then this
had
been a barn.

Adam figured his Navy uniform was a dead giveaway. “Adam Boyer. This is my son, Mark,” he said, reaching out to shake the man’s hand.

“I’m Jim Dillon, pastor of the Tabernacle.”

Not Beth’s fiancé, Jack Alton, after all. But didn’t pastors wear robes? Adam wondered as he shook hands with Pastor Dillon. Dressed in a camel-colored jacket, neatly creased gray wool gabardine trousers and a matching gray turtleneck, the pastor looked as unconventional as his church.

“I was so relieved when Jack said you’d gotten stateside in time to come today,” Pastor Dillon said.

“Wild horses couldn’t have kept me away.”

Pastor Dillon grinned. “But the Navy could have. I’m glad you got free of obligations in time. Elizabeth should have
some
family here. The Taggerts have all but adopted her, but that just isn’t the same as real family.”

“Our parents aren’t coming?” Adam asked, wondering why he was so surprised. Jack had said they didn’t approve of the marriage. That was why Adam was there to give her away, but he thought they’d at least attend.

Pastor Dillon shook his head and pursed his lips as if holding back his opinion. “I tried to talk with them, but it was no use.”

Adam had run into that particular brick wall enough by the time he left at eighteen to know how uncomfortable the pastor’s visit with his parents must have been. “Sorry,” he said, still automatically apologizing for them even after years of absence.

Pastor Dillon shook his head and smiled. “It isn’t necessary to apologize. Seeing Elizabeth smiling with you at her side is going to be its own reward. And…”
He stopped and cocked his head. “That clip-clop of hooves and jangle of harness tells me she’s here.”

“Hooves? Harness?”

“She’s in a carriage,” Mark exclaimed looking out the glass door. “It’s being pulled by a horse!”

It was the first glimmer of enthusiasm he’d seen in his son since Adam arrived to retrieve Mark from his aunt Skyler’s a week ago. He chuckled at Mark’s childish excitement, but then cast a horrified glance at the pastor, realizing Mark’s exuberance might be misplaced in a church setting.

Pastor Jim Dillon laughed softly and sent him a commiserating look. “Don’t sweat it. My son’s almost Mark’s age. Besides, we’re pretty informal around here. There should always be joy and laughter in God’s house.”

He looked out toward the carriage and grew serious. “You may remember Ross Taggert. He owns the property next to Boyerton. He’s driving the carriage, and that’s Cole, his son, with Elizabeth. He’s her best friend, and she thinks he’s giving her away. Instead he’s one of Jack’s groomsmen.”

“I do remember the Taggerts. Ross used to let me ride his horse. It was the only time I got to ride for pleasure.”

Adam gazed out the window at the carriage as it pulled to a stop. He realized his hands were sweating. It had been nearly twenty years since he’d said goodbye to Beth. He didn’t think he could handle this reunion with an audience—even if the audience was the most important person in his life. “Mark, suppose
you go grab a seat while I go out to meet your aunt.” His son looked ready to protest when Pastor Jim Dillon put his hand on Mark’s shoulder.

“Come on, Mark. We should give them a few minutes alone after all these years. I’ll show you where your father’s supposed to sit during the service. You can wait for him there.” Miraculously, Mark nodded and went without protest.

Adam took a deep breath and opened the door. After a second deep, icy-cold inhale, he started down the walkway toward his blond sister, whom Cole Taggert was helping climb down from the high carriage seat. It was hard to believe his parents would have let her befriend a Taggert. Not that there was a thing wrong with the Taggert family, in his own estimation. But to his father, their poor taste in working hard off the land and not having inherited money was unforgivable.

Apparently Beth hadn’t been listening to them for a while. He should have tried to get in touch with her after the first couple of years’ worth of letters went unanswered, but he’d assumed his parents had turned her against him. She had been so angry when he left that it hadn’t been hard to imagine.

Adam was nearly to the carriage when Cole Taggert noticed him. The younger man winked and, putting his index finger over his lips, sneaked away while Beth’s back was still turned.

Beth was having quite a time trying to arrange her heavy silk dress and fur-trimmed cloak while holding her train off the ground. “Cole, you aren’t just here
to keep me upright on the way down the aisle. Would you give me some help? If I drop this train and get it dirty before Jack sees me, I’ll just die.”

She passed him the loop on the train without looking up. Adam took hold of it, smiling. He let all the affection he’d kept in his heart for his little sister pour forth in his voice when he said, “If you’re as pretty as I remember, he’ll barely notice the dress.”

Beth whirled and stared up at him. His pounding heart ached when he saw the blank expression in her eyes. She didn’t recognize him after so long.

“It’s Ad—” he began, but she blinked and an uncertain smile tipped her lips upward.

“Adam? Adam!” And then she nearly knocked him flat when she launched herself and twenty pounds of silk and pearls into his arms. “You’re here! It’s really you!” She stepped back and blinked. “Wait. How did you—?”

“Jack got in touch with me. He says to say, ‘Surprise!’ I’m here to give my little sister away to one very lucky man. As long as you don’t think a Navy dress uniform would wreck your wedding pictures.”

Blinking back tears, she shook her head. “This is… Oh, thank you so much for coming. You’ll never know how much this means to me.”

Adam hugged her. “No, Beth. You’ll never know what an honor it is to be here for you. I’ve missed you. So much.”

“Oh, Adam, I’ve missed you, too. You’re the only family I have left.”

“Then it’s their loss. And I’m not the only one
here. I have Mark with me. What do you say we get inside, get you hitched, and then you can meet him?”

“I’d say you still come up with the best plans!”

Adam took her arm and hid a grimace. He hoped this plan for a fresh start for him and Mark was a good one, because his son was furious that the move had yanked him away from his mother’s family. So far Adam was the only one who saw its merits. His in-laws were upset that Mark would be so far away and Mark’s aunt Sky was hurt and disappointed that he hadn’t signed guardianship over to her. Everyone acted as if he’d never wanted to be a father and thought he should have stayed in the Navy. It had been a temptation. The SEALs had been his life, his family for years, but not by choice, and it was time for a change.

For all of them.

A
lexandra slung her coat over her shoulders, hurrying to her car across Indian Creek High School’s parking lot. Though she was one of the high school guidance counselors, with Elizabeth away on her honeymoon, Xandra was the contact for New Life Inn. She was on her way to the hospital emergency room to offer shelter and solace to a fearful, hurting woman. She’d gotten the call less than five minutes ago, and luckily she had no meetings scheduled for the rest of the afternoon, so she was free to leave the school.

It hit her then, as she tucked her hair under her hat, how far she’d come from the woman she’d been on that first day of November over a year ago when Elizabeth welcomed her to New Life.

With just a little spring in her step, she continued to her car. Xandra was almost at the edge of the campus where she’d parked when she noticed a puff of smoke drift upward from under the bleachers. She
could smell the tobacco from where she stood. Casting a quick look at her watch, she weighed her options. Should she take the time to try putting some class-cutting smoker of an adolescent back on track? Or should she put an adult back on track by rushing off to the hospital emergency room?

Xandra sighed, knowing she couldn’t ignore either plea, no matter how unconsciously this immediate one had been made. With a quick prayer for wisdom winging its way to her Lord and Savior, she changed direction and was soon ducking under the bleachers. It wasn’t long before she saw him in the shadows—a tall boy leaning nonchalantly against a support pole.

Apprehension speared her. She should have gone to get another teacher. He was so tall. But he’s still a child, she told herself sternly and spoke with as much calm as she could muster.

“I’m asking myself why someone would stand in the freezing cold rather than stay in a nice cozy classroom where he just might improve his mind.”

“And here I thought I’d avoided this lecture by skippin’ health class,” the youth grumbled. “Looks like I wasted my time.” He crushed the butt under his foot, coughed, then turned to face her.

It was Mark Boyer. He was the nephew Elizabeth had called her about before she left for her honeymoon in Ireland. She’d seen him at the wedding and earlier that morning with his father in the studies office arranging a class schedule. The teen’s long, sun-kissed, golden-brown hair stirred in the breeze and framed a face that was going to take the female pop
ulation of the school by storm, if it hadn’t already. He’d gotten his looks from his father, and she couldn’t help but wonder if the older version wasn’t already making the same impact on the women of the area.

Mark’s eyes, she noticed, were the same startling green as Elizabeth’s, but what surprised her was the pain and anger she read in them. There was something else too in those oh-so-green eyes and that was gentleness. Oh, it was all gone in the split second it took him to paste on a devil-may-care mask, but it had been there.

Great. Just what she needed. Another troubled teen, and this one from the Boyer family. Xandra and Elizabeth had made their peace and were friends now. Not so the rest of the Lexington and Boyer houses. Adam Boyer had been gone a long time, but when he learned that Xandra’s brother, Jason, had raped Elizabeth, his anger would be just as fresh as if it had happened yesterday instead of fifteen years ago. Xandra sighed at the thought of all the anguish and hate her late brother had caused and prayed for an end to it.

“And you shouldn’t litter,” she collected her thoughts enough to tell young Mr. Boyer.

He shrugged and turned away to walk toward the school.

“Hold on a minute. I don’t know how they handle cutting class in New Mexico or California, but here there are consequences, Mark. You may have escaped a health-class lecture this afternoon, but now I own
some of your time for the next few days.” She took out a pad of paper that produced copies in triplicate and filled in the blanks of the form as she spoke. “Smoking on school grounds earns you a detention. Cutting class the first time means a meeting between me and your father plus the added bonus of a one-day in-school suspension for you. A second skip would earn another meeting for your dad and a whole Saturday working on the grounds, planned for you by our custodial staff. Hopefully you’ll have learned your lesson with this first offense. Have your father in my office at nine tomorrow morning.”

She reached forward, took his hand, and slapped two of the three slips in the middle of his square palm. “Take this to the principal’s office, then head back to class. And if you know what’s good for you, when I check with the office, I’ll find you got there.” She paused to look at her watch. “Within, say, three minutes.”

Xandra could see it coming when he opened his mouth to protest. She held up her hand. “Save the my-father-is-too-busy-for-a-meeting speech. I’ve heard it at least a thousand times in the last year. Both of you, Mark. Nine a.m. sharp.”

She didn’t wait for more protest, but pivoted and walked away. She found herself fighting a smile seconds later as she strode toward her car to the tune of his footsteps pelting toward the building. Three minutes was cutting it pretty tight from that part of the campus. Mark wasn’t as rebellious as he’d been trying to look.

Xandra sobered quickly as she slid into her car. The visit with an abused woman named Annie Kline was still ahead, and she prayed even more fervently that she’d find the right words. The woman was in the same sort of trouble she’d been in when she’d struck out a year and a half earlier on the long road that had led to New Life Inn.

Xandra checked her watch again as she hung up the phone. Leaning her head against the wall behind her desk, she closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose, trying to fight off a blossoming headache. She couldn’t believe her mother had done this to her. Just one more day and her scheduled meeting with Adam Boyer about his son, Mark, would have been about the smoking and class-cutting incident, and only that. Now, thanks to Mitzy Lexington’s activities, it would probably be a confrontation shadowed by the past.

Her mother’s call was the first in the three-and-a-half months since she’d learned that Xandra had decided to remain at New Life Inn and work part time for Elizabeth there. Her mother’s outrage had been nearly as overblown as her last bout of hysteria. That one had come when she’d learned that Xandra’s divorce was final.

For Xandra the divorce had been like a miracle. Her first stop after fleeing her home had been San Diego, California, at a city-run abuse center. There she’d met Virginia Talmadge, a tough old broad of an attorney. Talmadge had devised an ingenious strat
egy to force Michael Balfour into agreeing to a quick no-fault divorce.

First, the savvy female attorney had filed for a restraining order and had gotten it with the use of pictures of Xandra’s bruised and battered face. All it had taken from there was the threat that Xandra would go public with the pictures, ruining Michael’s social standing unless he cooperated. He’d agreed to a quick divorce on grounds of his infidelity—which Xandra couldn’t prove—instead of being sued on the grounds she could prove.

After the papers were filed, Xandra began to suspect she was being followed. So she’d taken off, heading for home where she’d thought she would be safe with her parents. Once there, of course, she’d confirmed they believed she was the one in the wrong. She’d also learned that Michael’s detectives were looking for her.

Knowing Michael had hired detectives had frightened her, but she’d consoled herself that she’d made it to Pennsylvania with complete freedom only six months away.

Even now, though the divorce had been final for several months, her parents’ outrage was a huge barrier between them. Still, getting the chance to rant and rave about two more Boyers “invading” town had been enough to break down her mother’s most recent wall of silence.

Mitzy Lexington had run into Adam and Mark Boyer at a local restaurant the night before. And in true Mitzy style she’d dealt them the same kind of
vitriolic treatment she’d been handing Elizabeth for years. She’d told Adam in plain terms what she thought of his beloved sister—of Elizabeth’s supposed “false cries of rape,” which hadn’t been false at all. Her mother just refused to believe it.

Xandra didn’t need to be a witness to know just how it had gone down. The words describing Elizabeth as some sort of modern-day Jezebel would have been loud enough for others to overhear, with any mention of the rape said in a quiet undertone to protect Jason’s sainted reputation.

With Elizabeth on her honeymoon, Adam wouldn’t find out that his sister and his son’s guidance counselor were actually friends now and she doubted he’d believe her. The friendship had been formed and forged for reasons Xandra just wasn’t yet able to go into with a stranger, especially the parent of a student. It was her private pain and Elizabeth’s. So it looked as if her mother and circumstances had conspired against her again, and Xandra had little doubt that the meeting would be strained at best and pretty ugly at worst.

Neither of which would serve Mark Boyer’s interests. Her only chance to salvage the whole mess was to try having Mark assigned to the other guidance counselor. So, with no time to spare, Xandra rushed to Principal Harper’s office. The bespectacled, balding principal looked up, then stood as she skidded to a halt in his doorway.

“What can I do for you, Alexandra?”

She handed him Mark’s file. “I wondered if you
could assign Mark Boyer to A. J. Charles instead of me.”

Principal Harper set the file in the middle of his desk and gestured to the chair across from him. After she sat, he settled his thin form back into his desk chair. “I don’t understand,” he said, a frown carving a deep furrow between his heavy eyebrows. “Are you afraid of the boy? Did he threaten you?”

“No,” Xandra said truthfully, surprised at the deep concern in the principal’s voice. She’d had a moment of fear there under the bleachers, but the feeling had faded. He was a troubled child, no matter how tall and broad he was.

“If the boy doesn’t make you leery, then I don’t understand your request,” her boss said.

“It’s just that I think it might be better for A.J. to handle Mark, since he has no ties to Mark’s family.”

“I’d think your friendship with Mark’s aunt Elizabeth would cut through any resentment his father might feel toward an outsider advising him. In my experience, any foot in the door is better than none at all.”

“But—”

He held up his hand. “If it’s your job security you’re worried about, don’t. Elizabeth may have recommended you for this job, and her father may have been my son’s riding coach, but I wouldn’t have hired you if I didn’t think you could do the job. You’ve more than proved yourself this past year. You’re the person who’ll get this boy back on track. Go ahead and make Mark’s father as angry as you have to. I
don’t care. Now, have you looked at the boy’s records?” he asked.

She nodded.

“Then you know this is one bright kid.”

Xandra had to agree, which created a puzzle of sorts. “His scores are through the roof. And there’s not one hint of any trouble before this, but something’s wrong. I can see it in his eyes.”

Xandra knew when Principal Harper looked up from the records on his desk that she’d sunk her own ship with that little hint of insight. Unless she wanted to tell him her reason for believing Adam Boyer would especially resent her—a story that wasn’t hers to tell—she’d have to make the best of the situation. She stood with a deep sigh.

“I’ll do my best to reach him.”

The principal smiled and got to his feet. “I know you will. Let me know what you think of the father. If we aren’t going to get parental support, I want to be informed.”

Xandra nodded and left, defeated, deflated.

As her office came into view, she saw Mark and his father sitting on the bench outside her door. Adam was dressed in a military uniform and looked formidable in his anger. Xandra sent a prayer heavenward for help as she cleared her throat and tried to swallow her trepidation.

“Good morning, Mark.” She walked toward Adam Boyer. “I’m Alexandra Lexington, Mr. Boyer.” She stuck out her hand, hoping it wouldn’t get bitten off.
And the Good Lord and anyone seeing Adam Boyer’s expression would agree she had reason to worry.

Adam Boyer stiffened and stood. “That’s Lieutenant Commander, Ms. Lexington,” he said, shaking her hand but in a very stiff, perfunctory way.

She stepped back, shaken by nerves that suddenly tightened every muscle in her body. There was something about him. Not just his height, or the breadth of his shoulders, or the expected anger in his gaze. It was as if he was a larger-than-life figure who diminished her strength by the very power of his presence. She didn’t see how she could handle this situation with any degree of finesse.

Xandra looked away, toward his less-threatening son, and sought to take command of the encounter. “Mark, you can go on to the day detention room now,” she told the boy.

He glanced at his father as if for permission.

“Hold up there, Mark. My son tells me the punishment for a second offense of this sort is cleaning the grounds on Saturday. Frankly, I don’t see the sense in him sitting in some room doing assignments and not attending class. I’d rather have Mark forgo the suspension and give up a Saturday. Since he was outside polluting his body with smoke, I figure cleaning up a little pollution of the human kind on school grounds will do him some good.”

Oh, there was no way he was getting her to agree to that! She was sure Mark could find enough ways to test all their patience without the influence of the Saturday bunch.

Xandra dug deep and found a little extra courage.

“Rules are rules, Lieutenant Commander. Mark is expected in Mr. Harper’s office ASAP.”

It was Adam’s chance to look surprised. He blinked as if not used to having his ideas questioned. “Surely you can see my point.”

Right on top of your head,
she longed to say. Instead she nodded. “Nonetheless, rules are rules.” She focused all her attention on Mark again. “Now that you’ve produced your father, you may report to Mr. Harper. He oversees daytime detentions. Please learn your lesson on this one, Mark. I’m sure you don’t want us all to get off to a bad start. I’ll see you toward the end of the day for a chat. Mr. Harper’s secretary will tell you when to come up to see me.”