A Man Worth Keeping

She wanted to comfort her daughter, kiss away the pain that had settled on her small fragile shoulders. But Delia didn’t know how.

She didn’t know how they were going to get through the day, much less tomorrow or the day after. She’d bought herself a few more days with the lie about Jared being at a conference.

But what then?

Those books she’d read had no answers about this sort of situation and all she had to go on were her faulty instincts.

“Oh, sweetie—” Delia hesitated, reluctant to add another lie to the heaping pile, but knowing she had no choice.

“What?”

“If anyone asks, our last name is Johnson.”

MAX SPENT AN HOUR after the females had left his clearing trying to stop smiling. Delia had her hands full with Josie, he thought, cinching on his tool belt then carrying the two-by-fours over to the house.

He slid the wood to the ground and hoped Josie was occupied by something. School. Dance or whatever. Because kids that smart, when left to their own devices, found other ways to occupy their time. And those other ways were never good.

Framing out the roof was a two-person job, but his dad, who had been his primary second throughout the building of all the cabins for the inn, was downstate dealing with his lawyer.

Gabe was useless with carpentry, besides being far too preoccupied acting the nervous husband over his pregnant wife and—

Again, the skin on his neck shimmied in sudden warning that he wasn’t alone and he whirled, crouched low, his hand at his hip.

But instead of his standard issue, he had a palm full of hammer.

“Old habits, huh, Max?” Sheriff Joe McGinty stepped into the clearing.

“Careful, grandpa.” Max dropped the wood and stepped out of the building, his hand outstretched. “It’s getting icy.”

“Grandpa? Don’t make me hurt you.” Joe grabbed his hand and shook it mightily. They might have hugged if they were different kind of men. Instead they clapped each other’s shoulders and grinned.

“How you doing?” Joe asked, his thin, wrinkled face chapped by the elements. “Working on your dollhouse.” “It’s a shed,” Max said, compelled to defend his building. “Want to help me frame out that roof?”

“It’s too cold to be working out here.” Joe shuddered and rolled up the floppy fur collar on his shearling coat. “Too cold for anything but going inside.”

“You come out here to give me a weather report?” Max asked.

Joe ran his tongue over his teeth and appeared to be slightly torn about something, which was more than odd for the old law enforcer. He was like a winter wolf. Scrawny and tough and too stubborn to give up and head for greener pastures. And Max liked him for all those reasons.

“Problems with more kids?” Max asked, pulling his gloves on since it seemed this conversation might take a while.

“Nah.” Joe swiped at his dripping nose. “The afterschool program you ran out here in the summer set a lot of ’em straight.”

Max had had ten kids working here over the summer and fall. Kids who’d gotten in trouble, were failing out of school—some of the worst of them had been headed for the halfway house for teens out by Coxsackie. Two of them still worked here as full employees, no longer the atrisk kids they’d been.

“Sue’s still going to school?” he asked about the most stubborn of the kids.

Joe nodded. “She’s getting straight D’s, but she’s there.”

“Good,” Max said and waited a little longer for Joe to get to the topic he’d traveled out here to discuss.

“You know I’ve never pried, right?” Joe asked, and Max felt his gut tighten. “I know you were on the force in some capacity. I mean the way you move, the way you keep grabbing for your gun, the way you handle those kids—it tells me you’re law enforcement all the way.” He paused and Max could feel the old man’s eyes on his face.

“You investigating me?” Max asked, kicking snow off his boots, where it had gathered.

“No. That’s what I’m saying. I could look you up. Ask around. It wouldn’t take much to figure out where you’ve been.”

“So? Why don’t you?” Max squinted up into the sky. Here he was outside, no ceiling, no walls. Nothing but trees and clean air and snow. Still, he felt his failure like a weight on his chest. He hauled in a deep breath. Another.

“I keep hoping someday you’ll tell me.” Joe’s voice dropped an octave and was coated in uncomfortable pity.

Max didn’t say anything.

“Were you FBI? Undercover? Vice?” Joe asked.

“I was just a cop. That’s all.”

“I get that it was bad, but—”

“Nothing worse than usual.” Max faced Joe and got to the heart of the matter. “Why are you asking?”

“Ted Harris is retiring.”

Max smiled. “You’re here to celebrate? That idiot’s been a thorn in your side for—” Something in Joe’s face, a stubborn mix of hope and concern, made Max stop and shake his head. “I don’t want the job, Joe.”

“Juvenile Parole Officer. You’d be perfect.” Joe put his hand on Max’s shoulder and Max struggled not to shake it off. Joe continued, “We’ve got a juvenile crime problem in this county and Ted didn’t do jack—”

“I don’t want the job, Joe.”

“But between the program you ran here and the help you gave me with the break-ins over at the community center, you’re perfect. And from what I can gather, you’re qualified.”

Max nearly laughed. He was qualified. More than qualified. But he was utterly unwilling.

“I don’t want the job.”

“You like this?” Joe asked, flinging an arm out at the half-built building and the barely visible lodge through the trees. “This is satisfying?”

Max blinked. Satisfying. He didn’t think in those terms anymore. This, what he did here with his dad and brother, it was easy. If something went wrong, everyone still woke up in the morning.

Those were the terms he lived by these days.

“Sorry, Joe.”

Joe stared at him for a long time and Max avoided his gaze. The guy was too wily and he didn’t want or need the man as a surrogate father—he had a great one kicking around. And he didn’t need a counselor, or a friend from the force. He needed to be forgotten, left alone.

“I just thought you might be interested. It’s a chance to do some real good,” Joe said, the disappointment like a neon sign in his voice.

Max couldn’t stop the harrumph of exasperated, black humor. He’d been told that once before, three years ago. And maybe he’d done some good—he just didn’t care anymore.