Love's Late Arrival (Sweet Grove Romance Book 1; First Street Church #8) Read online

  Love’s Late Arrival: Sweet Grove Romance, Book 1

  First Street Church, Book 8

  Sharon Hughson

  © 2018, Sharon Hughson.

  All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  Cover Design by RockSolidBookDesign.com

  Proofread by Alice Shepherd

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  No part of this work may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission of the publisher.

  Sweet Promise Press

  PO Box 72

  Brighton, MI 48116

  To educators and single parents

  who keep on when it never gets easier

  Contents

  Publisher’s Note

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  What’s Next?

  You May Also Like

  More from Sweet Promise Press

  More from Sharon Hughson

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

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  1

  Kyanna Patchett blinked at the school counselor as lava pooled in her stomach, hotter than the Texas afternoon. The mention of “bullying” engaged her heart before she could respond in a principal-appropriate manner.

  Ella Mae Willis tucked straight black hair behind an ear burdened with multiple piercings and cleared her throat. The younger woman looked enough like a student that, even after two months working together, Kyanna still had to take a second look.

  “The bullying incidents? I have the reports here.” The counselor held out folders, inching forward into the office. “Another happened before the doors opened this morning.”

  Kyanna shook her head and retrieved the files. Bullying was an ugly blight on public schools everywhere. Memories tickled the sides of her consciousness, but recollections of the brutal attack she suffered as a teenager had no place in this meeting.

  Her jaw tightened as she read the report. In the latest incident, a student aimed sexually demeaning words at the cheerleaders.

  “The offender is new to Sweet Grove, relocated from Rosewood over the summer.” The sudden pause in the stream of words from the counselor caught Kyanna’s attention.

  Her gaze locked on Ella Mae, whose dark eyes widened.

  She cleared her throat. “It’s a sad case, really. Ariel Stryker’s mother died five years ago. Records from Rosewood indicate she was truant for much of last year.”

  Kyanna’s heart twisted. The girl’s plight inspired compassion, but she’d learned the hard way that mercy didn’t always net the best results.

  “Recommended discipline?” Kyanna had overseen meting out discipline in her former position, but now it fell to Sweet Grove High’s vice principal.

  “One hour of community service after school every day for a week. A letter of apology to the cheerleaders.”

  The punishment suited the offense, but incidents of bullying seemed to be escalating. Last week, a small freshman boy had been shoved around the locker room like the bearing in a pinball machine. This morning’s act of bullying cinched things. Time to address the issue head on. She could recruit Ella Mae, who specialized in creating behavior plans for troubled teens, to help her initiate a preventative program.

  “I’d like to schedule a school-wide assembly before the end of the week.” Kyanna paced toward the window behind her desk. “I’ll address my zero-tolerance policy for bullies, and introduce the same positive behavior program that practically eliminated bullying in my former school district.” She sighed, turning back toward the counselor. “It works better when introduced in kindergarten and used consistently throughout schools, but we’ll adapt it to our needs.”

  The counselor nodded, eager. “I’ll check the schedule and compose a staff email.”

  Ella Mae rushed out, leaving the door ajar. With a swipe over the mouse, Kyanna woke her computer screen.

  While the machine cycled into her online storage, she flipped through Ariel Stryker’s file. Notes and memorandums painted a clearer picture of the troubled girl. As much as Kyanna hoped her bullying prevention plan would impact the school culture, she worried it might not be enough to reach this motherless girl.

  Lord, show me how to help Ariel and all the students under my direction. Kyanna believed prayer belonged in school and doubted she would have survived her first year as an administrator without it.

  She snapped the folder shut and stepped away from the desk. Even with her office door open, the walls closed in, stifling her. She stretched and headed for a walk-through of the buildings.

  In the hallway, stuffy air ripe with Axe cologne and the peculiar scent of public school greeted her like an old friend. For nearly twenty years, she’d been walking the halls of education, first as a teacher, then a dean of students and vice principal, and now she’d arrived at the peak of her career aspirations. Since she’d sacrificed her marriage to reach the top, it hadn’t taken much to push her into relocating halfway across the country from her native Washington State.

  An unwelcome shiver convulsed down her spine. The career pinnacle offered a great view but none of the companionship and camaraderie of her former jobs. This loneliness had to be a side effect of arriving in a new community in July. She’d barely had time to orient herself to Sweet Grove before school began.

  Down the math and science wing, a voice droned from a classroom. Peeking in the room, she saw pairs of students seated at tables, most scribbling in notebooks while the teacher pointed to a diagram on a media screen. Kyanna’s gaze flicked to a familiar student face. Arthur Marones, tattooed arms crossed over his chest, studied something to the left.

  In a school with fewer than five hundred students, she expected her af
finity for pairing names and faces would acquaint her with half the students before Thanksgiving. Unfortunately, before school even started, she’d learned the name of this junior and the mixed-gender gang he ran with. They’d been vandalizing the gymnasium wall, although they contended their graffiti was part of a beautification effort.

  As she continued around the corner into the publications hallway, she frowned. The artistically rendered drawing of the gang’s name, Fraternidad, added color to the cement walls, but it drew attention to the wrong thing: gang activity.

  Bleak memories swirled again. Although the scorching sun was nothing like the dark night she’d lost her boyfriend, the biting voices spouting Spanish too rapid for her high-school-taught mind to grasp whispered to be heard. Her heartbeat pounded against her throat.

  Lord, I’ve given you the pain from that night. Help me use its lessons to show these students how to accept differences.

  Kyanna turned down the covered walk and strode back to the main office. She greeted the secretaries and returned to her narrow work area.

  The anti-bullying program called for her attention.

  Mental focus swept away the uneasy feeling of emptiness, and for a while, Kyanna forgot the expanding abyss that reeked of discontent.

  2

  Roth Stryker stared into the darkness of his coffee cup, wishing once again that he wasn’t a single parent. He fortified himself with a swallow and grimaced at the burn in the back of his throat.

  “What’s the face about, Dad?” His daughter crossed her arms, bunching the oversized hooded sweatshirt against her slight frame.

  “Coffee’s hot.”

  The toaster ejected his multi-grain slices, and he buttered them with precision to gain a few minutes’ reprieve from Ariel’s demands.

  “So can I go to the game tonight?” She poured a little girl pout into her tone.

  He stiffened his spine. Her performance at the school in Rosewood forced him to uproot them to a rental house on the outskirts of Sweet Grove. The thirty-minute commute to work allowed solitude in which to unwind after a long day dealing with employees at St. Joseph’s Hospital but distanced him from conveniences they were accustomed to enjoying.

  But he couldn’t give in to her anymore. He hated to see her unhappy, but her future depended on a high school diploma.

  After he covered the butter and tucked the toaster on its shelf, Roth faced his daughter. Wide gray eyes, so like her mother’s, pleaded, and her lips twisted in the sad pucker that generally bought her a blank check of permission. He blinked and shook his head.

  “No?” She threw her hands in the air. “How am I supposed to make any friends in this backwoods town if I don’t go to their so-called social events?”

  While she gestured like a drama star, Roth pulled out a chair at the end of their small table and settled into it. He reached for the jam sitting in the middle of the table.

  “You’re at school with kids all day. Why can’t you make friends then?”

  She huffed, but with a black stocking cap covering her long bangs, the action lost its punch. Was that the style here? She’d taken to wearing black, which struck him as depressing and gang-related. Not that there would be gangs in a berg like this.

  “Not the same. You need social outings to bond.”

  He took several bites, savoring the sweet strawberries and crunch of perfectly toasted bread. He hated to agree with her, but she was right. One reason he had no friends was because all he did was work and chase after Ariel. He hadn’t even bothered going to church since they moved to Sweet Grove in July. Guilt niggled at his brain. Muriel would have been disappointed in him for that. She’d considered a child’s spiritual upbringing the most important developmental aspect.

  “Grade reports come out next week. Am I right?”

  Ariel glanced to the side before nodding. “They’re fine. Can’t you let me do this one thing?”

  She could teach a puppy a thing or two about begging with nothing more than big eyes.

  Roth washed another bite of breakfast down with a gulp of coffee. Why couldn’t there be a parenting manual? He had no trouble turning down vacation and leave requests, and reimbursement approvals for staff work. Apparently, being a staffing manager at a large hospital was simpler than being a father.

  “Only if I take you.” He gritted his teeth. Football had never been one of his interests. “What time is the game?”

  Her arms were over her chest again, and he could almost hear the wheels in her brain whirring, weighing whether showing up with him would destroy her image.

  She paced into the kitchen and poured a glass of juice. He’d nearly finished his breakfast before she slumped into the chair beside him.

  “Really, Dad? Everyone’s going to think I’m a baby.”

  Roth raised his eyebrows. “You are my baby.”

  She groaned and rolled her eyes.

  “I won’t make you sit with me.”

  “You get home late on Friday.”

  If her persistence had been over something worthwhile, he might have admired it. Instead, his patience twisted like a guitar string on screws.

  “What time is the game?” Roth scooted away from the table and swallowed the dregs of his coffee.

  In the kitchen, he rinsed the cup and loaded it into the dishwasher. Then he scraped crumbs from the counter into the sink.

  By the time he returned to wipe the table down, Ariel was digging in her messenger bag.

  “Seven.” Gone was the childish pleading.

  “How about I pick up some takeout from Zhang’s?” It had been a regular stop when they’d lived in Rosewood. The Chinese restaurant was only a few blocks away from the hospital, hardly out of his way.

  “It’ll be cold.”

  Like her tone of voice?

  “It’s good reheated,” he countered. “I’ll get vegetable lo mein.”

  Ariel never consumed red meat, and only ate chicken and turkey on occasion. Probably why she didn’t weigh more than 100 pounds.

  “Whatever.” She shrugged the strap over her head.

  He pointed at her nearly empty glass. “Dishes.”

  Her sigh measured on the high wind scale, but she snatched up the glass. Once, he might have enjoyed their bi-play, because at least they were talking, but these days every interaction was a tug of war. And he was tired.

  Tired of being a single parent. Tired of dealing with her sass. A sinking sensation tugged his heart and stomach into quicksand beneath his shoes.

  She stomped past. Even a year ago, she wouldn’t have left without giving him a hug. Now, a wall stood between them, and he didn’t know who built it or how to scale it.

  “See you tonight.”

  The slamming door answered him.

  Roth finished wiping up and headed to brush his teeth. He snapped his fingers, remembering he hadn’t directed Ariel to do it before she left.

  Another failure. Was Ariel keeping a list? It had to be longer than his arm by now.

  And he had no clue how to turn things around.

  3

  Later that morning, Kyanna faced an unlikely bully. She leaned against her desk as the girl entered her office.

  Ariel Stryker slouched inside an oversized black hoodie, the dark beanie covering her light brown hair a stark contrast to her pale skin. Black lipstick painted her mouth, and gray kohl outlined her eyes. She nudged a chair away from the table with the toe of black Converse high-tops and plopped her rear down, exaggerated movements screaming her irritation.

  Kyanna studied the girl over the folder containing the evidence of her latest act of bullying.

  Lord, how can I reach this girl?

  As the silence lengthened, Ariel shifted in the chair, casting a furtive look from beneath heavily mascaraed lashes. In her experience, Kyanna had realized most teenagers preferred a lecture to the whispers of their personal guilt, which screamed during moments like this.

  "You have a penchant for art." Kyanna stilled her hands and l
et her reading glasses drop onto her chest, swinging at the end of the beaded chain Derek gave her on Mother's Day.

  Ariel's head snapped up, but before she could meet the principal's eyes, she dropped her gaze into her lap.

  "You've got an eye for color and a dramatic flair with lettering." Too bad the medium of presentation is off.

  She slid the photograph of colorful words on the restroom wall to the girl. If it weren't for the profanity and the degradation of the kindly class president, it would be something any parent would be proud to see. She doubted the girl's father would be impressed, though.

  Ariel shrugged her thin shoulders, scowling at the picture.

  "Not claiming this amazing artwork?"

  In the pregnant pause after her question, a guffaw of laughter drifted to their ears. At least someone was having a good time somewhere outside her office.

  Kyanna sat in a chair across from the girl, leaving the photographic evidence where it was. "Miss Stryker, you have a long day in detention until I meet with your father this afternoon."

  Ariel raised her head and glared death with her steely eyes. "I didn't draw that."

  Kyanna sighed and leaned back. She removed the incriminating evidence from the closed manila folder. As it slid across the table, the girl glanced at the art assignment featuring similar bubble lettering that spelled out the girl’s unique first name.