Love Finds a Home

“We have a picnic planned for this Saturday,” the pastor said.

“Not only to give potential parents information, but as a meet and greet so the mentors can get to know the boys and vice versa,” he continued. “We’ll match up the pairs after.”

“I don’t know,” Jake hedged. “I’d have to know more about what’s involved.”

“It’s easy. You just take a kid who needs a little time and attention under your wing.”

Under his wing.

That, Jake thought, wasn’t as easy as it sounded. Not for someone like him.

Maybe he should have thought it through a little more when he’d told God he’d say yes to whatever He asked.

Especially considering he had been about to die when he made the promise.

KATHRYN SPRINGER

is a lifelong Wisconsin resident. Growing up in a “newspaper” family, she spent long hours as a child plunking out stories on her mother’s typewriter and hasn’t stopped writing since! She loves to write inspirational romance because it allows her to combine her faith in God with her love of a happy ending.

Love Finds a Home

Kathryn Springer

www.millsandboon.co.uk

And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ.

—Ephesians 3:17–18

To Colleen, my “third” daughter, who has a special place in my life and in my heart. Love ya!

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Epilogue

Letter to Reader

Questions for Discussion

Chapter One

“Flowers?” Police Chief Jake Sutton spotted the enormous bouquet of roses the moment he stepped into the break room, where the officers roosted near the coffee pot before heading out on patrol every morning. “I’m touched, guys, but you shouldn’t have.”

The three men staring morosely at the fragrant centerpiece snapped to attention at the sound of his voice.

“We didn’t,” Phil Koenigs muttered, the droop of his narrow shoulders more pronounced than usual.

“No offense, though, Chief,” Tony Tripenski added quickly. “We would have brought you flowers if we knew you liked them.” His eyes widened when he saw Jake’s eyebrow lift. “I mean, not that you look like the type of guy who likes flowers…”

Phil rolled up the fingers on one hand and cuffed Tony on the shoulder. “Put the shovel away, Trip. All you’re doing is digging yourself a deeper hole.”

Glowering, the younger officer folded his arms across his chest and slumped lower in the chair.

Jake paused long enough to pour himself a cup of coffee before making his way to the table. Something warned him that he was going to need the extra caffeine. The last time he’d seen the men in such a dismal mood was the day he’d officially been sworn in as Mirror Lake’s new police chief.

He flipped an empty chair away from the table and straddled it. “If one of you has a secret admirer, you’d look a little happier. That means someone must be in the doghouse with the wife.”

“The doghouse would be easier,” Steve Patterson, one of the part-time officers, grumbled.

“Yeah.” Trip nodded. “Much easier. I’d rather face Sherry when she’s in a mood than…” His voice dropped to a whisper. “You know who.”

No, Jake didn’t know. He hadn’t been born and raised in the area, something more than a few people had been quick to point out since his arrival.

His gaze cut back to Phil. If he wanted a straight answer, it would most likely come from the senior officer. As second in command, Phil had been the most likely candidate to step into the shoes of the former police chief, who’d opted for an early retirement. Instead, he’d astonished everyone by turning down the position.

Any concern that Phil’s decision would make the transfer of power a rocky one had been put to rest when Jake found out Phil was the one who’d pulled his resume from the stack of applications and given it his personal stamp of approval.

He still wasn’t quite sure why. But he did know that if it weren’t for the dour officer’s willingness to fill him in on the local—and sometimes colorful—history of the town and the people who lived there, Jake might still be suffering from an acute case of culture shock. Within the first twenty-four hours, he’d discovered that what Mirror Lake lacked in population, it made up for in quirks.

He had a feeling he was about to add another one to the list.

He glanced at the officer, surprised when Phil averted his gaze. “Phil? Flowers?”

The officer scratched at a coffee stain on the table with his thumbnail. Sighed. “They’re for Emma Barlow.”

“Okay.” Jake drew a blank on the name. “I’ll bite. Who is Emma Barlow?”

The three men exchanged looks but none of them seemed in a hurry to enlighten him. Jake waited, drawing on the patience that had become second nature while working as an undercover narcotics officer.

“Brian Barlow’s widow,” Phil finally said. “Brian was a good man. A good…cop.”

Was.

Jake didn’t miss the significance of the word. Or the flash of grief in the older officer’s eyes. It was the first time he’d heard about the department losing an officer. Apparently that was one bit of local history Phil hadn’t been eager to share. “What happened?”

“He was killed in the line of duty six years ago. High-speed chase.” Steve picked up the story with a sideways glance at Phil, who’d lapsed into silence again. “On the anniversary of his death, one of us takes flowers to his wife…” He caught himself. “I mean his widow.”

“That’s thoughtful of you.” Jake wasn’t surprised. From what he’d learned about the town over the past few weeks, an annual tribute to a fallen officer was the kind of thing he’d expect from the tightly knit group of people who lived in Mirror Lake.

No one agreed or disagreed with the statement. But if anything, they looked more miserable than they had when he’d walked in. For the first time, Jake noticed three plastic straws lined up next to the vase.

Absently, he picked one up and rolled it between his fingers.

The short one.

His eyes narrowed but no one noticed. Probably because they’d all found a different focal point in the room to latch on to.

The evidence in front of him and the officers’ expressions could only lead Jake to one conclusion.

“Don’t tell me that you’re drawing straws to see who gets to deliver the flowers?”

“No.” Trip almost choked on the word.

Jake might have believed the swift denial if the tips of Trip’s ears hadn’t turned the same shade of red as his hair.

He turned to Steve and raised an eyebrow.

Steve’s Adam’s apple convulsed in response. “We draw straws to decide who has to deliver them,” he muttered.

“Let me get this straight. You buy Emma Barlow flowers every year but no one wants to give them to her?”

Absolute silence followed the question. Which, Jake decided, was an answer in itself. Under any circumstances, it was difficult to lose a fellow officer, but in a small community like Mirror Lake, he guessed it had shaken the town to its very foundation.

He buried a sigh. “I’ll drop them off. Where does she live?”

The officers stared at Jake as if he’d just volunteered to walk into a drug deal wearing a wire on the outside of his clothes.

“You?” Steve’s voice cracked on the word.

Not quite the reaction Jake had expected.

“Is there something I’m missing here?” he asked. “Don’t I just knock on the door, express my condolences and give Emma Barlow the flowers?”

Phil opened his mouth to speak but Trip and Steve beat him to it.

“That’s pretty much it, Chief.” A hopeful look dawned in Trip’s eyes.

“Yup.” Steve’s head bobbed in agreement. “That’s all there is to it.”

“Phil?”

The officer’s fingers drummed an uneven beat against the table. “That’s usually the way it goes,” he said cautiously. Usually?

“So you think she would be more comfortable if someone she knew brought them over—” Jake didn’t have a chance to finish the sentence. Phil’s radio crackled to life as a call came in from dispatch.

The three officers surged to their feet.

“Better go.” Phil moved toward the door at an impressive speed, Steve and Trip practically stumbling over his heels in their haste to follow.

“Wait a second.” Jake couldn’t believe what he was seeing. “It takes all three of you to respond to a dog complaint?”

Phil had already disappeared, leaving Steve and Trip glued to the floor as if Jake had aimed a spotlight on them.

“It might be a big dog,” Trip mumbled.

“Huge.” Steve nodded.

“And vicious,” Trip added. “You never know.”

“That’s true.” Jake suppressed a smile. “So, in the interest of maintaining public safety, I’ll expect a full, written report on this large, vicious dog and details of the encounter before you leave today.”

The officers’ unhappy looks collided in midair.

“Sure, Chief.” Trip plucked at his collar. “Not a problem.”

He vanished through the doorway but Steve paused for a moment. “Emma Barlow lives in the last house on Stony Ridge Road. It’s a dead end off the west side of the lake—”

A hand closed around Steve’s arm and yanked him out of sight.

Jake shook his head.

Definitely one for the list.

Emma Barlow sat at the kitchen table, palms curled around a cup of tea that had cooled off more than an hour ago.

Ordinarily, she could set her clock by the arrival of an officer from the Mirror Lake Police Department. Nine o’clock sharp, as if the stop at her house was the first order of business for the day.

Or something to get over with as quickly as possible.

Sometimes Emma wondered if the officers dreaded August fifteenth as much as she did.

After six years, she knew exactly what to do. As if every moment, every movement, were choreographed.

Emma would open the door and find one of the officers, most likely Phil Koenigs, standing on the porch with a bouquet of red roses. Always roses.

They didn’t speak. Emma preferred it that way. She accepted the flowers more easily than she would have awkward condolences. Or even worse, a pious reminder that God loved her and she should accept Brian’s death as His will.

Emma had often wondered why no one else saw the contradiction there. If God really loved her, would He have left her a widow at the age of twenty-four? Wouldn’t He have somehow intervened to save Brian?

Those were the kinds of questions that ran through Emma’s mind during the sleepless nights following the funeral, but she’d learned not to voice them out loud. It hadn’t taken her long to discover that most people, no matter how sympathetic or well-meaning, seemed to give grief a wide berth. As if they were afraid if they got too close, it would touch—or stain—their own lives somehow.

No one liked to be reminded how fragile life could be. Especially another police officer, who looked at her and saw Brian instead. A life cut short.

Maybe that explained why the officers remained poised on the top step, waiting for her to take the flowers. She would then nod politely. Step back into the house. Close the door. Listen for the car to drive away. The roses would be transported to the cemetery and carefully arranged, one by one, in the bronze vase on Brian’s grave.

What she really wanted to do was throw them away.

If it weren’t for Jeremy, she probably would. Although her ten-year-old son had very few memories of his father, he took both pride and comfort in knowing that an entire community did.

Jeremy had lost enough; Emma wasn’t about to take that away from him.

Unlike her, Brian had been born and raised in Mirror Lake. He’d left after graduation, only to return two years later with a degree in Police Science and a gold wedding band on his left hand, a perfect match with the one now tucked away in her jewelry box.

The snap of a car door closing sucked the air from Emma’s lungs. Lost in thought, she hadn’t heard a car pull up the driveway. Through the panel of lace curtains on the window, Emma caught a glimpse of a light bar on top of the vehicle.

Rising to her feet, she tried to subdue the memories that pushed their way to the surface. Memories of the night she’d fallen asleep on the sofa, waiting for Brian to come home. But instead of her husband, a visibly shaken Phil Koenigs had shown up at the door…

You can do this, Em. Open the door. Take the roses. Nod politely. Close the door.

Her fingers closed around the knob. And her heart stumbled.

It wasn’t Phil who stood there, a bouquet of long-stemmed roses pinched in the bend of his arm.

It was a stranger, empty-handed.

“Emma Barlow?”

A stranger who knew her name.

Emma managed a jerky nod. “Y-yes.” Her voice sounded as rusty as the screen door she hadn’t found time to replace.

“I’m Jake Sutton.” He extended his hand. “The new police chief.”

Before she knew what was happening, Emma felt the warm press of his fingers as they folded around hers.

She’d heard a rumor about Chief Jansen’s upcoming retirement but hadn’t realized he’d been replaced yet. Replaced by a man in his midthirties, whose chiseled features and tousled dark hair gave him an edgy look. A faint web of scars etched the blade of his jaw, as pale and delicate as frost on a window. If it weren’t for the white dress shirt and badge, he would have looked more like someone who walked the edge of the law, not a man who dedicated his life enforcing it.

Emma pulled her hand away, no longer sure what she should say. Or do.

Jake Sutton had just changed the rules.

Chapter Two

Jake felt Emma Barlow’s hand flutter inside his like a butterfly trapped in a jar. Before she yanked it away.

His first thought when the door opened was that he’d gone to the wrong address. The woman standing on the other side was young. Younger than he expected.

Too young to be a widow.

Fast on the heels of that thought came a second. In an instant, Jake knew why the officers let the short straw decide who delivered the flowers. It wasn’t the painful reminder of losing a friend and colleague they didn’t want to face.

It was Emma Barlow.

He recognized the anger embedded in her grief; flash-frozen like shards of glass in the smoke-blue eyes staring up at him.

She didn’t want flowers. Or sympathy.

She wanted him to leave.

It was a shame that Jake rarely did what people wanted—or expected—him to do.

“Do you mind if I come in?”

Instead of answering, Emma Barlow made a strangled sound.

Was that a yes or a no?

Jake took a step forward. She took a step back…and bumped into the person who’d materialized behind her. A boy about ten or eleven years old, with sandy blond hair a shade or two lighter than hers. Eyes an identical shade of blue.

Jake released a slow breath.

No one at the department had mentioned a child.

Steve had said that Brian Barlow had died six years ago. If this was his son, and the boy had to be, given the striking physical resemblance to Emma, he must have lost his father before he started school.

Something twisted in Jake’s gut when Emma put a protective hand on the boy’s shoulder. He’d gotten used to the suspicious looks cast his way while he worked undercover, hair scraped back in an unkempt ponytail and a gold stud in one earlobe. He’d gotten rid of both after leaving the force, but Emma Barlow’s wary expression still unsettled him. Made him feel like the bad guy.

“Jeremy, this is…Chief Sutton.” Emma’s husky voice stumbled over the words. “Chief Sutton—my son. Jeremy.”

Jake extended his hand. “It’s nice to meet you.”

The boy hung back, his gaze uncertain. “Where are the flowers?”

The question broadsided Jake. If Emma’s son had expected him to show up with a dozen roses, he obviously hadn’t followed standard protocol.

Okay, God, I thought I was following your orders.

Jake’s silent prayer went up with a huff of frustration. Not at God, but at himself. The trouble was, he’d been a cop longer than he’d been a follower of Jesus, so he wasn’t always sure he was getting the faith stuff right.

Over the past six months, he’d tried to tune in to what some referred to as “a still, small voice” or a “gentle inner nudge.”

His younger brother, Andy, without mentioning names, of course, claimed that if “someone” had a thick skull, God sometimes had to shout to get their attention. And if that “someone” also possessed a thick skin, the “gentle nudge” might feel more like an elbow to the ribs.

Jake had felt that elbow when he’d reached out to steady the vase on the seat beside him at a stop sign on his way to Emma’s. He studied the flowers, as if he’d just been given a piece of evidence, but found nothing unusual about a dozen roses mixed with lacy ferns and a few tufts of those little white flowers he couldn’t remember the name of. The standard arrangement a woman received for Valentine’s Day or an anniversary. To remind her she was loved…

Another jab.

Jake had closed his eyes.

Did a bouquet of red roses honor her husband’s memory? Or was the sight of them one more reminder of everything Emma Barlow had lost?

Jake had turned the squad car around and headed for the florist shop.

Once inside, he’d bypassed the cooler filled with pink and blue carnations, ready and waiting to celebrate the next newborn baby, and dodged a display of vases filled with single-stemmed roses, the grab-and-go kind, best offered with an apology.

His foot had snagged the corner of a wooden pallet, almost pitching him headfirst into the sturdy little tree in the corner.

The clerk explained it had been part of a late-summer shipment that hadn’t sold because most people planted trees in the spring. A mistake.

Jake had seen it as divine intervention.

Now he wasn’t so sure.

“I brought something else this time.”

Jeremy ducked his head and Jake waited, hoping the boy’s natural curiosity would trump his fear.

Jeremy scraped the toe of his tennis shoe against the porch, sloughing off a blister of loose paint. His voice barely broke above a whisper but Jake heard him.

“What is it?”

Emma resisted the urge to echo the question.

“Come on. I’ll show you.” Jake Sutton stepped off the porch and strode toward the squad car. Without asking for her permission, Jeremy bounded after him.

Leaving Emma no choice but to follow.

The police chief opened the back door of the vehicle and pulled out a bucket. Emma blinked.

He had brought something else.

A spindly coat rack of a tree with leaves that looked more like pieces of damp crepe paper glued to the drooping branches.

“What’s that?” Jeremy’s nose wrinkled as he sidled closer.

“This…” Jake anchored the container against one narrow hip and bumped the door shut. “Is an apple tree.”

Jeremy gave it a doubtful look. “I think it’s dead.”

“It’ll be good as new once it’s planted. All it needs is some water and sunlight.” Jake tilted his head. “I was going to offer to dig the hole, but you look strong enough to do it.”

He sounded so certain that Jeremy’s chin rose. “S-sure.”

Before Emma could protest, Jake transferred the bucket to her son’s arms. Jeremy’s shoulders sagged under the weight, but to her astonishment his eyes glowed with pride when he turned to look at her.

“Should I find a place to plant it, Mom?”

Emma nodded, not trusting her voice. Although they lived in the country, her son shunned the rough-and-tumble antics that most boys his age enthusiastically embraced. Emma knew she was partially responsible for that. After Brian’s death, she’d had no choice but to take Jeremy to work with her at the library, where he’d been forced to find quiet things to occupy his time.

By the time he was old enough to pursue some of his own interests, Jeremy had seemed more content to observe things rather than experience them. Emma had been secretly relieved when it looked as if he hadn’t inherited his father’s love of a challenge. Brian’s desire to push the limits had burned like a flame inside him. One that marriage and becoming a father had only tempered, never fully quenched.

Jeremy flashed a shy smile in the man’s direction before trudging away, arms wrapped as tight as insulation around the bucket.

Emma couldn’t get her feet to move. Or her vocal cords.

She didn’t know what to do with an apple tree. Jake Sutton should have brought roses. Never mind that she didn’t like roses… It was what he was supposed to do. And he should be driving away now…not watching her with golden-brown eyes, as calm and measuring as a timber wolf’s.

Those eyes locked with hers and Emma had the uneasy feeling he could read her thoughts. “Do you have a shovel handy?”

Afraid of where the question might lead—possibly to Jake Sutton staying longer?—Emma didn’t respond.

Unfortunately, Jeremy did. “There’s one in the shed,” he called over his shoulder, his mood a whole lot more cheerful than hers.

“Good. You find a spot for the tree while your mother and I round one up.”

Didn’t she have a say in this?

Emma’s hands clenched at her side. “That’s not necessary, Chief…Sutton.” Her mind was still having a difficult time adjusting to the change. Not only in the name but the man himself. “You must be busy. Jeremy and I don’t want to keep you from your work.”

“It’s Jake. And don’t worry about me getting into trouble.” A glint of humor appeared in his eyes. “I’m the boss.”

Said, Emma thought a bit resentfully, with the confidence that police officers seemed to wear as comfortably as their uniform. And if that weren’t enough, the amusement bloomed into laughter, causing a chain reaction. It spilled into the creases fanning out from those amber eyes and tugged at the corners of his lips. The result was a charming, if slightly lopsided smile.

He wasn’t supposed to smile, either.

Emma tried to ignore her uninvited guest as they made their way around the corner of the house, past the rusted swing set Jeremy had already outgrown. Weeds sprouted at the base of the poles, a reminder that she’d been neglecting the yard work.

She caught a sigh before it escaped.

Not for the first time, she wished there were more hours in the day.

Between working at the library and her responsibilities at home, Emma didn’t have a lot of time to devote to general maintenance around the property. There had been times when she’d thought about selling the place and leaving Mirror Lake for good…if memories of Brian hadn’t become fragile threads that held her there.

And if she’d had somewhere else to go.

She tried to see the property from Jake Sutton’s eyes. Did he notice some of the shingles had begun to peel away from the roof like the soles of a worn-out shoe? That dandelions dotted a shaggy backyard in desperate need of a lawn mower?