Felicia Mason - Gabriel's Discovery

But now they walked in silence.

“All right,” she said. “What’s up? Didn’t you guys have a good time? You were singing along during the concert.”

“We had a good time,” Hannah said, her voice slow and quiet.

“Yeah,” Sarah agreed, equally as unenthusiastic.

“Then why the long faces and the silent treatment? I’m not used to that.”

The girls looked at each other, then paused.

Concerned now, Susan stopped and stooped so she was eye level with her girls. “Hannah? Sarah?”

“Mommy,” Sarah began. “You know how you’re always telling us—”

“—to look for the signs that somebody’s getting hurt?” Hannah finished.

Susan nodded. She’d be remiss as a mom and as the director of a women’s shelter if her own children didn’t know what to look out for. She didn’t want them growing up the way she did, then as an adult making the same kinds of bad choices or living in an abusive relationship.

The girls both bit their bottom lips, mirror images of each other. Susan tried to tamp down the panic she suddenly felt. If anyone had hurt her girls…

“Mommy?” Hannah’s voice trembled.

Susan gathered both girls in her arms. “Whatever it is, it’s going to be okay,” she told them. “I promise.”

Sarah was crying now. Seeing her sister cry made Hannah cry, too. Susan’s heart was beating a thousand miles a minute. She held them too tight, but their distress freaked her out.

“Tell me what happened, girls. Please.”

“It’s Jasmine,” Hannah said, choking back tears. Both girls clung to Susan as tightly as she held them.

Caught up in scenarios that ranged from someone inappropriately touching the girls to an all-out assault on one or both of them, Susan didn’t hear the name.

What if someone at the picnic had tried to kidnap them? “Shh,” she said, trying to calm herself as much as she did them. Few things rattled her twin dynamos, so this rated all the more frightening. “Tell Mommy what happened, okay?”

“It’s Jasmine,” Sarah repeated, pulling a long braid over her shoulder and sticking a purple bead in her mouth. “She’s over there.”

Susan turned in the direction that both girls pointed. “Jasmine? A classmate from school?”

The girls nodded.

Though still concerned, Susan wanted to weep in relief. She instead swallowed and took a deep, balancing breath. “What’s wrong with Jasmine?”

“She has bruises on her arm,” Hannah said.

“And she always says she just fell down,” Sarah added.

Susan studied the little girl who quietly stood next to a tall, thin woman. “Is that her mother?” She hadn’t recalled seeing the woman at any of the school’s PTA meetings or parent-teacher nights.

“Uh-huh.” The twins spoke and nodded in unison.

The woman was in her mid-thirties or maybe forties, tall, thin and tired-looking. Susan knew the look. She couldn’t very well go up and confront the woman or the girl. But she did take a long look at the mother. Sadness or maybe weariness—possibly wariness?—ringed her eyes. Susan’s gaze swept the area, looking for a possible threat to either the woman or the child.

“Do you ever talk to Jasmine’s mom?” she asked Hannah and Sarah.

“Sometimes. But she falls down a lot, too.”

Susan’s eyes narrowed. She searched for a companion, but both the woman and the girl seemed rooted where they stood. Possibly waiting for someone?

“Mommy, can you help her?”

“Yes,” Susan told her girls. “I’ll see if anything’s wrong and if it is, I’ll try to help them both. I promise.”

From where he stood saying farewell to picnic-goers, Gabriel watched Susan Carter embrace her daughters. The scene filled him with a longing he’d, until now, managed to mostly ignore. For all his talk about being willing to wait for a wife and the family that would eventually come, the fact of the matter was simple: Gabriel Dawson was lonely.

Not the sort of loneliness that made people do irrational and potentially dangerous things, like meet an Internet chat buddy for the first time in a secluded location. He instead suffered from the same affliction that plagued a lot of single people his age: the “no one to talk to at the end of the day” blues.

That wasn’t the sort of thing a single minister liked to broadcast, particularly given the matchmaking penchant of some of his parishioners. He led an active life, always had, but sometimes—like now, watching Susan and her daughters—he had to wonder if he filled his time with projects and people in an effort to escape what would otherwise be unbearable.

His sort of loneliness couldn’t be cured with a pet, though he’d seriously considered adopting a dog from one of the city’s animal rescue groups. Growing up, his family always had dogs in the house and yard, at least three. Gabriel came from a large, loud family. People were always underfoot and in his business. That’s the sort of thing he missed. Though his brothers and sister lived all across the country now, they still remained as close as e-mail and phone calls, and two trips back to Carolina each year.

“This was a lot of fun, Pastor Gabriel. Thanks for keeping up the tradition.”

Not given to long moments of introspection, Gabriel deliberately shifted so he didn’t have to look straight at Susan and her daughters as he spoke to people.

“I’m glad you came,” he told a man who was there with his wife and family. The wife looked disgruntled and the children tired.

It had been a long day.

“Are you going to the fireworks later?” Gabriel asked.

“We’ve had about all we can take for one day, Pastor,” the woman said. “These guys have school tomorrow.”

A chorus of “aw, Mom” followed that pronouncement as the family moved toward the parking lot.

Gabriel smiled. He’d expected to have trouble landing a pastorate the size of Good Shepherd because, at thirty-eight, he remained a single man—unusual, but not unheard of. Most congregations preferred that their leader come as a package: a lovely and devoted wife who would be expected to either sing in the choir or teach Sunday school, along with one, two or three perfect or near-perfect children rounding out the Christmas card picture. Though he didn’t have that—yet—he’d been remarkably blessed. And he loved the people of Good Shepherd—even if he couldn’t come right out and say that the thing congregations wanted for their pastors he also wanted for himself.

His gaze drifted back to Susan. She hugged the girls close to her and then appeared to wipe their eyes as she stood up.

“Pastor Gabriel!” A husky eleven-year-old tackled him in a bear hug.

“Tommy! You’re going to knock the man down.”

“He’s fine, Mrs. Anderson,” Gabriel said, giving the child a hug in return, the Down syndrome boy one of the most loving and gregarious members of the church.

“Did you have a good time today?”

“The best!”

“Gimme five, my man,” Gabriel said, holding up his hand.

The two slapped palms and laughed at the ritual they shared.

“Thanks for everything, Pastor,” Mrs. Anderson said. “Come on, Tommy. It’s time to head home.”

“Okay,” the boy said, giving Gabriel yet another hug. “Had fun, Pastor Gabriel.”

“Me, too.”

The encounter left Gabriel smiling. Not two minutes ago he’d been standing here having a private pity party, only to have the reason for his being at Good Shepherd show itself moments later. It wasn’t about him. It was about spreading the Gospel and being a good shepherd.

“Okay, Lord,” he said with a chuckle after the two moved on. “I hear You.”

Later that night, before turning in, Susan looked in on Hannah and Sarah. Their distress still weighed heavily on her.