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enough people to do that already.” She looked back as she reached the door, saw the look of pity on her father’s face, and cursed Clint Jessup all the more for being the one who put it there. She didn’t need her father’s pity. And she sure didn’t need Clint’s brand of love.

Chapter Three
    W es saw the shadows of fatigue under Sherry’s eyes when she came back to the office later that afternoon. He stopped what he was doing and pulled a chair up to her desk. “You okay, sis? I’ve been looking for you.”
    “Yeah,” she said. “I’m fine. I was at Dad’s.”
    He grew quiet for a moment, biting his tongue. Why she spent so much time with the man who hadn’t given them a thought for most of their lives, was beyond him. He said he had changed, that the love of Christ had transformed him, but Wes was doubtful. Why now? If God was going to change a person, wouldn’t it be while his children were young, when they desperately needed him? Would he really wait until they were older?
    Something about the whole story rang false to him, and even though his wife, Laney, accused him of being too hard on the man, Wes couldn’t seem to help himself.
    “He said I should forgive Clint.”
    Again, he was surprised. “He did? Why?”
    She shrugged. “I don’t know.”
    Wes thought it over for a moment. “Maybe he can relate to him. Since he skipped out on you, too.” The stung look on her face made him wish he hadn’t said it.
    “I really don’t want to talk about this.” She slid her chair back and struggled not to cry as she headed for the file cabinet.
    “I’m sorry, sis. I didn’t mean it.”
    “Yes, you did,” she said, turning back to him. “You don’t ever want me to forget that I was dumped by my father, and then by my fiancé, do you? Does it make you feel better to remind me, Wes?”
    He slumped over and covered his face, wishing for once he had listened to his wife’s advice and kept his mouth shut. “No, that’s not true. I do want you to forget. I just have trouble with Eric, that’s all.”
    “He’s your father.”
    “We have the same DNA. That’s about as far as it goes. Now, tell me about Clint. What has he said about why he was gone?”
    Raking her hands through her roots, she sat back down at her desk. “Oh, it doesn’t matter.”
    “Sure, it does.”
    She shook her head dolefully. “He wrote a book. Needed time. And space, I guess. Maybe I’m too much. Too overwhelming. Maybe I just smother the people I love.”
    “You’ve never smothered me, Sherry. You’ve been there when I’ve needed you, and I’ve needed you plenty. Don’t buy into that stupid lie that the men in your life are weak because you’ve done something wrong.”
    “I know you’re right,” she said. “But I wanted so badly to believe—”
    “That there was a good reason?”
    She met his eyes as tears welled in her own. “Yeah.”
    Wes stared at her for a moment, thinking. He had liked Clint, had trusted him. He couldn’t believe he had been so wrong. “Maybe there is a good reason, Sherry. Something more than that.”
    “Like what? Why won’t he tell me?”
    “I don’t know. But I can’t believe that Clint is capable of such a cruel thing as leaving his bride at the altar, if there wasn’t some life or death reason behind it.”
    “I didn’t want to think it. But I’m a crummy judge of character. You’ve said so yourself.”
    “Well, if you are, then I am, too. I thought the world of Clint. So did everybody who met him. Look what he did for his youth group. He took a handful of kids and grew them into a group of a hundred kids who came to church every time the doors opened. He never got tired of doing God’s work. It just doesn’t make sense that he’d skip town for eight months, then float back in with some explanation about writing a book. It’s so disappointing. He’s not the man we all thought he was.”
    Sherry’s eyes took on a distant glaze, and he could see the wheels