Eleven

Shane drank the last of his chocolate milk, then glanced up and saw her. “I was about to send out a search party for you.”

Haley put her food tray on the table and sat down. “Where’s Veronique?” She didn’t want to talk about herself or why she hadn’t been there earlier.

“She had to eat early and get back to the shop. I barely got here before she left. I thought Jason would have been here, but I haven’t seen him.”

A small blessing on a lousy day. One less thing to deal with at the moment.

Shane went on. “We talked last night. He seemed to understand.”

After her encounter with him this morning, he was probably more confused than ever. But she couldn’t tell Shane about that without telling him about Brent and why he was on the island—and that she knew Shane’s secret. He was the last person she would have guessed to get a girl pregnant out of wedlock—and then leave her.

“Veronique asked me to tell you to come by the shop at closing time so the two of you could talk. What happened with lunch? Veronique said it was canceled. She also said you seemed upset.”

“It didn’t work out. You didn’t go there, did you?”

“I thought about it.” He shook his head.

“But you didn’t go?”

Shane pinched his eyebrows together. “No. Why?”

She focused on her tray and picked up her fork. “I wouldn’t have wanted you to waste your time.” Brent would have recognized Shane as being Justin, and then Shane would have been trapped. This way she could talk to Shane without involving Brent. And if Shane wanted to leave the island without talking to Brent, she wouldn’t stop him. She pushed around her spaghetti and meatballs on her plate.

“It’s best while it’s still hot.”

If she ate it, her stomach might reject it at this point. “You want to go?” She couldn’t talk to Shane here.

“You hardly ate anything.”

She took a swallow of milk. “I’m not hungry.”

“You’re not?” Shane eyed her plate like a starving orphan in a third world country.

She traded plates with him. “Dig in.” Someone might as well enjoy it.

It took him all of five minutes to scrape it clean.

She drank the last of her milk. “You were a hungry boy this evening.”

“I hate to see food wasted.” He stacked her tray and dishes with his.

“You ready to leave now?” She pushed away from the table.

“Let’s go.” He carried their trays over to the dish depository, and they left the dining hall.

Shane shoved his hands into his pockets. “You want to talk about it?”

Did she? She would rather pretend today never happened, but she couldn’t do that. Pretending wouldn’t change anything. Brent still would have used her, and Shane still would be Justin. Then she said the first thing that popped into her head. “I was going to be married the first weekend in June.”

“Whoa. A little change in subject there? I thought this was about Brent.”

Brent. Kennith. It was all the same. Betrayal was betrayal. Brent had unknowingly reopened the wound Kennith had inflicted. “I don’t want to talk about Brent right now.”

Shane shook his head. “But you do want to talk about not getting married?”

“It’s what brought me to this place in my life.”

Shane shrugged. “Okay. So what happened with your wedding?”

“Kennith had a girlfriend he wasn’t planning to get rid of.”

“Ouch.”

“I went to his office to surprise him, but I was the one surprised instead.”

Shane turned toward her. “He was there with her?”

“No. His office was empty. I sat in his high-backed leather desk chair—that I bought him to help support his bad lower back—and turned it away from the door. He was supposed to come in and turn his chair around to sit in it and have a wonderful surprise of me there to take him out to lunch.” They arrived at her dorm, and she sat on the curb outside.

Shane joined her, draping his hands over his bent knees. “He never came?”

The night was cooling off, so she pulled her sweater closer around her. “Oh, he came, but he wasn’t alone. I could hear a professional-sounding female voice. Then once the door shut, it was less than professional. She was complaining about how much time he spent with me and how after we were married she would never see him. He told her he would rent them a special apartment and that he was only marrying me to get the promotion. That he loved only her and marrying me was something he had to do. The worst part is that he had the gall to hire her as his assistant. How cliché is that?”

“I can see why you left him.” Shane picked up a twig from the ground and twisted it in his fingers. “Did you ever reveal yourself?”

“You bet. I couldn’t resist. I wasn’t about to let him lie his way out of it or try to explain it away.”

“What did he say?”

“Not much. I spun around in the chair, not that either of them noticed. They were a bit occupied with each other. I cleared my throat, and they jumped apart. Then I asked, as if it were no more important than a shopping list, ‘Is this the other woman?’ ”

“Busted.” Shane chuckled. “I would have loved to have seen that.”

“I introduced myself as the ex-fiancée, gave her my ring, and walked out.”

“You should have kept the ring.” He tossed the stick across the street.

“I didn’t want anything from him.”

“Did your dad fire him?”

“I don’t know, and I don’t care.”

“You just left?”

She nodded. “I packed a suitcase, told my sister to tell the rest of the family the wedding was off, and walked out the front door.”

“You were still living with your parents?”

She waited for a horse-drawn taxi to pass so she wouldn’t have to compete with the traces jingling and the clomping of the hooves before continuing. “Off and on. Mom and Grandma talked me into moving back into the house before the wedding. It would make planning easier. If I’d still had my apartment, I probably wouldn’t have come here.”

“So he was left to explain everything to your family.”

She shook her head. “If I know Kennith, he probably played the innocent victim. I can hear him telling my parents, ‘I had no idea she was unhappy. She never told me the wedding was off. Probably cold feet. I’ll give her all the time she needs.’ He would always put a spin on things to make himself look good.”

She knew someone else who could make things spin his way. She didn’t want to think about Brent. The pain went too deep.

She shouldn’t put it off any longer. She wanted to know about this girl Brent was accusing Shane of getting pregnant. But how could she bring it up without revealing she already knew about the girl? And then that would lead to Brent, and she didn’t want to discuss him now. But then again, she could tell Shane that Brent was looking for him and see what he wanted to do.

Shane was so grounded. How could he have ended up in this kind of mess? The girl, changing his name, running away. She wasn’t so naive to think a Christian never got into that kind of situation, but Shane would have owned up to his responsibility. He wouldn’t have run away. He wasn’t like her. She looked at Shane, then back at the ground.

Shane raised his eyebrows. “Was there something else?”

“No.” She couldn’t ask. It was none of her business. She sat in silence wondering what Shane was thinking. Did he think about the girl? Did he even know?

“I left someone behind, too.” Shane picked up a small rock and hurled it sideways across the street. “I guess you could say I was running away.”

Did he want to talk about his situation, too? So it was all true. He’d run away from his responsibility.

“There was a girl—her name’s Kristeen.” He smiled when he said her name. “I was in love with her. Still am.”

She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment. She hadn’t wanted to believe he got a girl pregnant, then left her, but here he was telling her about it.

“She became involved with a twenty-five-year-old man. She was only sixteen. The creep was married, too. He got her pregnant.” He picked up another twig and tossed it into the street.

Shane wasn’t the father. She gave a mental sigh of relief. So why did Brent think he was? “What happened?”

“She was afraid he would get in trouble and told her dad I was the father of her baby.”

“Why would you go along with that?”

“It’s what Kristeen wanted.” He found another rock and rolled it around in his hand. “He could have gone to jail because she was a minor. Kristeen begged me to go along with it. Her dad told me never to see her again. So I left town and came here. I would have done anything for her. I still would.”

“What about you and Kristeen?”

“She never saw me as anything but her best friend.” He hurled the rock harder than the last one.

“Doesn’t it bother you that she’s using you?”

“It’s what I wanted to do. Besides, if I hadn’t helped her, I wouldn’t have come here. If I stay until the end of the season in mid-October and get the bonus, I might be able to start college after Christmas instead of next fall.”

“Finding the good in a bad situation?”

“I guess. God uses both the good and the bad in His plans.”

Was there any good in the situation with Brent? She couldn’t think of any. She took a deep breath and asked again, “So it really doesn’t bother you that she’s using you?”

He shrugged. “If you want to use the term used. I prefer to think of it as helping a friend.”

She shook her head. “I hate being used—by anyone.”

“It depends on how you look at it.”

“Used is used. Anyway you look at it, it’s wrong.”

“But God uses us all the time.”

“Now see—that is the one area I have a hard time with. I know God knows what He is doing, but I hate being a puppet.”

“I consider it an honor to be used by God. You were using me. You needed to talk, and I was here to listen. We use each other as friends so we’re not alone. Using people doesn’t have to be a bad thing. The Lord says to fellowship together with believers, so we use each other to fulfill that command.”

“That’s not the same. It’s not using if it’s mutually beneficial. When someone uses you, even God, you have no control.”

“Of course you have control. You can choose to let God use you for His good.”

“What about people using you?”

“Try not to look at them as a burden but as an opportunity for God to use you to touch their lives.”

“That’s a nice way to look at it, but I don’t think I can do that.” She was tired of people using and manipulating her. Maybe if more time had passed since Kennith’s betrayal, she wouldn’t still feel so wounded. Brent had come along at the wrong time. Was that God’s plan, so she wouldn’t fall for another Mr. Wrong?

Shane tapped the knee of her jeans. “It’s about closing time. I’ll walk you to the tea shop. If I don’t, Veronique will scold me in French.”

She looked at her watch. “Have we been out here that long?” She stood and stretched the stiffness out of her legs.

Shane nodded and walked her to the shop where Veronique worked. “You want me to hang around?”

“No, go back to your room. I might be late.”

“Give me a call when you’re ready to go. I’ll come over and walk you to your dorm.” He started to leave, then turned back. “Haley, I hope things work out with Brent. If you want me to talk to him for you, I will.”

“No,” she said too quickly, then tried to recover. “I have to work things out on my own, but thanks for offering.”

He nodded and walked away.

Veronique locked up, and Haley followed her upstairs to her room above the shop. Haley sat at the foot of the bed and pulled her feet up under her.

Veronique sat at the head of the bed and stretched out her legs. “Tell me what happened today.”

“It’s been a horrible day.” She told Veronique about encountering Brent at the police station, what happened with Jason, and learning of Shane’s innocence.

“So zat is why you didn’t have lunch. What did Shane say about zis?”

“I haven’t told him, and you can’t tell him either, not about Brent or what happened with Jason.” Shane was innocent and didn’t need to be bothered by any of this.

Veronique frowned in disapproval. “Shane is your friend. He would want to know. Should he not know zat a private investigator is looking for him? He could tell him he is not zee father, and zat would be zat.”

“If Shane’s not the father, why bother telling him at all? He doesn’t need to be upset by this.”

“Why bother telling him? It is his problem. No? He should have zee opportunity to deal with it or not. Shane is an adult, is he not?”

“I wish I wasn’t involved.”

“Maybe zee Lord put you between Shane and Brent so you could help Shane.”

That sounded a lot like God using her again. “What if I don’t want to be in the middle?”

“I think you are too late for zat.” Veronique folded her hands in her lap.

“What if I refuse to let God use me?”

“Zen Shane will be all by himself. And won’t Brent eventually find him?”

She let out a heavy sigh. “Probably. You are making this hard for me. It was easy when I was angry at Brent and protecting Shane. I don’t want to do this.”

“Why do you not want God to use you?”

“I don’t want to feel like someone else’s puppet.”

“Zen don’t be.”

Finally someone was on her side.

“Choose to do what zee Lord wishes you to do. Zen you have no strings.”

Would she be happy as a puppet without strings? And would she be happy obeying the Lord’s prompting?

“Zee sooner Brent and Shane meet, zee sooner Brent will leave and you can get over him.”

Was that possible? The ache for Brent was stronger than she had felt for Kennith. “I wish I could make the hurting stop.”

“He was in your heart. You cannot make him leave. Zee hurting will stop when he leaves your heart on his own or someone else comes and pushes him out.” She moved her hands forward as if she were pushing an invisible person.

“I’m not looking for someone else for a very long time.”

Veronique pulled her knees up to her chest. “You were looking for Brent?”

“No.”

“Zen it could happen when you are not looking, like with Brent. Or maybe you will make up with him.”

“I don’t know that I could trust him again. What kind of relationship would that be?”

“Not good. But maybe you could trust him again.”

Trust was hard to rebuild once broken. The pieces never fit back the same. There were always gaps and ridges.

It was one in the morning when Haley left Veronique’s. She felt a damp chill in the air. She didn’t live that far away and didn’t want to bother Shane. More than that, she didn’t know what to say to him yet. She should tell him about Brent but didn’t know how. Once she reached her room, she picked up the phone and dialed Shane.

“Haley?” His voice sounded as if she had awakened him.

“Yes. Sorry to wake you.”

“I was waiting for your call. I’ll be right over.”

“Don’t worry about it. I’m already back in my room.”

“You didn’t wait for me?”

“I got home safe. That’s all that counts.”

“I guess so. Thanks for calling.” He yawned. “See ya.”

“Bye.”

If Veronique was right about her heart, she hoped she could control it. First Kennith and now Brent. She couldn’t trust herself to make a good decision where men were concerned. Shane was a good kid, but had she misjudged him, as well? Was he guilty of what Brent said he was and simply didn’t want to admit it? Maybe if she told Brent that Shane was not the father, he would be satisfied with that and she wouldn’t have to bring Shane into this.