Winter Reunion by Roxanne Rustand

to wherever it is you go these days. I have to trust that you’re a better man than that.”
    But the expression in her eyes showed that she didn’t trust him at all.
    Â 
    Beth’s phone messages on Tuesday had all been about the same topic—setting up a youth project for cleaning up the Walker Building.
    Olivia and Pastor Jamison had been brimming with enthusiasm, while Dev apparently wanted to fend them off so he could continue down his solitary path—preferring silence and slow progress to a legion of teenagers eager to do a good deed.
    When Beth finally convinced him this morning that gracious acceptance was the fastest way to satisfy everyone and then be left alone, he’d grudgingly agreed.
    Now, Beth stood with him in the center of the building on Wednesday evening and watched two dozen teens hauling the final garbage bags of refuse down the open stairway leading to the second floor. As industrious as a legion of ants, they’d already cleared the first level, leaving a squadron to scrub the filthy hardwood floor with scrub brushes and buckets.
    â€œI told you this was a great idea,” Beth said, slapping her dusty gloves against her jeans. “They’re just about done. What they’ve finished in four hours would have taken you weeks. And you’re helping them raise funds, to boot.”
    Dev snorted. “Not if they have anything to say about it. So far, Pastor Jamison and the kids have refused payment, other than the delivery of pizza and pop that’s on its way right now.”
    She looked up at him and fought the urge to brush away a fragile cobweb drifting across the deep waves of his hair. A tender move that would be entirely toointimate and wifely, past boundaries she had no intention of crossing. Ever.
    â€œDid they say why?”
    â€œApparently my mother grew generous in her old age. She funded one of their youth trips to the Twin Cities last year and donated money for their choir robes the year before.” If he’d said that Vivian had flown to the moon, he couldn’t have sounded more mystified by her generosity. “So now they want to return the favor.”
    â€œThat’s sweet.” She hesitated. “I know you and your parents didn’t get along so well when you were in high school. And…I know they weren’t fair. But maybe they changed, later. Or maybe they had a good and giving side that you didn’t see.”
    â€œPossibly.” He hitched his good shoulder. “But I’d still rather pay the youth group and keep things square.”
    She lifted her hands in frustration. “Then send them an anonymous donation, in care of the church. I’m sure they can put it to good use.”
    He nodded. “I’ll do that.”
    At the weariness in his voice, she looked up at the pallor of his skin and the fine lines of tension bracketing his mouth. If he was in pain she knew he’d never admit it, even if it robbed him of sleep and made each day a struggle.
    Whatever military code of honor he subscribed to, it allowed no admission of weakness of any kind.
    â€œHow is your shoulder?”
    â€œGood.”
    No surprise there. “And how are things at the motel?”
    â€œFine.”
    â€œClean? Comfortable? Quiet?”
    â€œIf I’m not in a tent in some desert, it’s all good.”
    â€œThat’s not exactly a ringing endorsement. How are the midnight trains?”
    That earned a wry laugh. “Right on time. Every night.”
    â€œAnd the four a.m.?”
    His half smile faded. “Ditto.”
    After being there over a week, she could only imagine how it felt to be shaken awake at all hours by fifty-car trains rumbling past, a few dozen yards from the motel. Especially when he needed the healing balm of deep, restful sleep.
    â€œSo when are you moving into the cottage?”
    â€œAs soon as I get time. It works just fine as a storage shed, now.”
    â€œIn