Lakeside Sweetheart by Lenora Worth Page A

you think?”
    She stopped at the steps to her house. “Oh, you mean, you got me across the street? So now, you’ll keep stringing me along with little tidbits of your story so I’ll keep coming back?”
    â€œI’m not stringing you along,” he said, wondering if she had him pegged. “I have a past, too, Vanessa. And I don’t always like to talk about it.”
    â€œYou?” Her eyes glistened in the moonlight. “You have a past?”
    â€œIt happens,” he said on a defensive note. “It happens to most people, you know. We all make mistakes or have bad times.”
    â€œBut you, not you.” She sat down on the porch steps. “You’re so...well...nice.” She groaned. “I’ve used that word way too much tonight, but it fits with you.”
    â€œSometimes nice guys make bad mistakes,” he said. “Nice can cover a multitude of sins.”
    She looked surprised. “Can you tell me a little about what happened and why?”
    Rory took that as an invitation and sat down next to her. “Why me?” He gazed out at the moonlight hitting the lake in a gray-white shimmer. “I can tell you this much. I...was an orphan.”
    â€œWhat?” She twisted to stare over at him. “You were a foster kid?”
    â€œYes.” He gave her one quick glance and then turned back toward the night. “I bounced around a lot but when I was twelve years old I came here to live with a wonderful couple who decided to adopt me. We moved to Crestview when I was a teenager. But I didn’t stay there, obviously. I left right after I graduated high school.”
    â€œWhere did you go after that?”
    â€œI got a job and paid my way through college.” He stopped and took a breath. “I went to seminary and set out to be a minister but... I had a few setbacks. I was angry and confused, so I wound up joining the army.”
    He hadn’t talked about that part of his life in a long time. His buddies knew he was adopted and that he’d served as a chaplain, but they didn’t even know all of the details about his adult life and they didn’t ask. They knew Rory would talk about it when he was ready.
    But could he ever be ready?
    Vanessa sat staring at him. “You decided to join the army because you were angry? Were you angry because you were a foster kid?”
    â€œYes,” he said. It had started there. He still didn’t know who his real parents were. “I guess I was angry for most of my life, even after I was placed with good parents. I was abandoned as a baby. And my adopted father died when I was a teenager. My mother is still alive, thankfully. She still lives in Crestview.”
    Vanessa didn’t speak for a couple of moments. “Wow.”
    â€œYep, wow.”
    â€œI’m sorry. I mean, that’s tough.”
    â€œTough comes in all kinds of ways, to all kinds of people.”
    â€œBut that really is tough.”
    â€œI got over it.”
    â€œYou are full of revelations, Preacher.”
    â€œYep. We all are.” He wanted to hear her revelations.
    â€œSo is that why you started this youth program?”
    â€œOne of the reasons. I want to help them, give them hope before they do something stupid. I understand how they feel.”
    â€œI do, too,” she said, her tone quiet. “I’d like to get to know Kandi a little more. What should I do besides visit with her and Wanda?”
    Happy that she’d decided that, Rory turned to Vanessa. “I’m sure Wanda told you there are rules, of course, to protect the children. You’d be vetted and you can’t be alone with her, so that’s why you have to meet her with Wanda nearby, probably at their house and at the church, of course. We get together each week, and each mentor sits with their teen. Let her talk without judging her and respond as a friend, as someone who cares.”
    â€œOkay. I...