Unlikely Hero. Marta Perry
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could hardly say so. “How did you find me?” Actually, that was silly. He could have asked Nolie, if he wanted to know anything about her.
He let the door swing shut and crossed to the desk. “I knew you worked for Harvey Gray. Harvey is one of my parishioners.”
So maybe he wasn’t as out of place here as she’d assumed.
“I didn’t realize.” She gestured to the visitor’s chair, which was placed at a distance from her desk—a careful calculation to preserve her air of authority. “Sit down.”
Instead of taking the seat she’d indicated, Brendan propped himself against her desk, intruding into her space. She edged her chair back an inch.
“What brings you here?”
And why was she letting his presence make her feel uncomfortable in her own office? She glanced around the room, mentally contrasting its elegance with the Spartan surroundings of Brendan’s office. This room never failed to assure her that she had it made.
He pulled something out of his suit pocket and put it on her pristine blotter. A fifty-dollar bill.
She stared at it, uncomprehending. “What’s that?”
“It’s from Stacy.”
“Stacy.” That brought her gaze to search his face. “She’s turned up?” She hadn’t realized until that moment that she’d actually been worrying about that ungrateful kid.
Brendan leaned toward her across the desk, his smile inviting her to join him in celebrating. “An hour ago she walked into the church, apologizing. I told her she owed my aunt and uncle the apology, not me.”
“All of you, I think.” She was more relieved than she’d have thought possible. After all, she barely knew the girl, and that was the way she planned to keep it. “I guess that means she’s going to let you help her.”
He lifted an eyebrow, as if she should know the answer to that. “Not exactly.”
“What do you mean, not exactly?” A sense of foreboding gripped her.
“Stacy wants to talk. I figure she can be your first project.”
She could only stare at him, appalled at the very idea. “Project? What on earth are you talking about?”
He waved the bill again. “Our deal. Remember? You agreed that if I was right to trust Stacy, you’d help out with my teens.”
She couldn’t have agreed to any such thing, could she? “I didn’t.”
“You did.” His lips twitched. “You’re not by any chance trying to get out of our deal, are you, Ms. Delany?”
Of course she was. Her mind scrambled frantically for an excuse he’d accept. “You asked me to help them prepare for jobs, that’s all.”
Not deal with abuse. Her stomach clenched.
“If Stacy thought she could get along all right on her own, she’d be less likely to stay in a bad relationship.”
He was more right about that than he probably knew, but that didn’t mean she could do this.
“Stacy wouldn’t want to talk to me. I wasn’t even nice to her.”
“Oddly enough, that seems to have made an impression on her. She said you were real.” He shrugged. “As opposed to me, apparently.”
“Does that bother you?” She jumped at the chance to turn the subject toward him, but he just shook his head.
“This isn’t about me. It’s about Stacy. And the agreement you made.” He leaned toward her across the desk again, his eyes so intent they seemed to probe her soul.
She drew back, putting a few more inches between herself and that magnetic gaze. “I’m not a social worker. I can’t help her.”
“You don’t know that. For some reason, Stacy seems to relate to you.”
Because the girl sensed that Claire had once been where she was? Nonsense. She couldn’t possibly.
“That’s very flattering, but I’ve got my hands full already with my work and the wedding. I can’t take on anything else.”
“You said you would.”
She opened her mouth to protest, but he had her, and they both knew it.
There was still a way out of this. If she told Brendan about her past, he’d trip all over himself apologizing for trying to involve her in something so painful to a person with her history.
She wouldn’t. She wouldn’t give him a reason to look at her with pity. Nobody got to pity her.
She came to a reluctant conclusion. “I just have to talk to her, right?”
He shrugged. “I think your conscience will tell you what to do from there.”
If he only knew. “I wouldn’t be so sure of that, Pastor. My conscience is pretty elastic after a number of years in the business world.”
“I trust you.”
Really, that smile of his ought to be outlawed.
“If I do this, you’re going to owe me big-time.”
“What do you want?”
“We both know that. You cooperate with my plans for the wedding.”
“Only if Nolie and Gabe agree. That’s the other part of our deal, remember?”
“Fine. They’ll agree.” She was confident she knew what Nolie wanted, and Gabe was so in love that he’d do anything that made Nolie happy.
“Then I guess you have a deal, Ms. Delany.” Brendan held out his hand, his face serious but with a smile lurking in those changeable eyes.
She put her hand in his, her apprehension stirring. That wave of warmth hit again. Being prepared didn’t seem to prevent it.
She had to catch her breath before she could speak evenly. “All right, a deal. When do you want me to get together with Stacy?”
“I told her you’d be at the church tonight around nine. Usually some of the kids stop by then, and that’ll make her feel safer.” He got off her desk. “And we’re having dinner with Gabe and Nolie at the Flanagan house at six. We can find out then what kind of wedding they want.”
She glared at him. “You were taking an awful lot for granted, weren’t you?”
“We both get what we want. What’s wrong with that?” He gave her an innocent look she didn’t buy.
“For a minister you’re something of an opportunist, you know that?”
He grinned. “For a businesswoman, you’re something of a do-gooder, Ms. Delany. Maybe we bring out the best in each other.”
“Or the worst.”
He headed for the door. “I guess we’ll find out, won’t we?”
Brendan had been trying to figure out Claire’s opinion of the Flanagan family throughout the whole meal, and he didn’t quite have it pegged yet. He forked a bite of his Aunt Siobhan’s excellent apple crumb pie into his mouth and watched while Claire parried Uncle Joe’s questions about the inner workings of Gray Enterprises.
Claire’s polish and sophistication would probably make her at home anywhere, but she definitely hadn’t wanted to attend this family dinner. She’d come, because he hadn’t given her much choice if she wanted his cooperation with the wedding, but she seemed to be doing a great job of resisting the famous Flanagan charm.
He glanced around the long oval table that had been the scene of countless family dinners over three generations of Flanagans. The crowd was smaller than usual tonight, out of deference to the fact that Gabe and Nolie were