Anna DeStefano - The Prodigal's Return

“What about the pill?”

“The pill doesn’t protect you from disease, Traci.”

“But, what if he’s sure he’s clean?”

“What if he’s lying?” Jenn managed not to snort. Barely.

“He’s not.”

“How can you be sure?”

“He says he’s never been with anyone but her, okay!” Traci pulled her legs up, drew her knees to her chest and locked her arms around them. “He says she’s his first.”

“And you believe him?” Jenn blurted out before her brain overcame her shock at the girl’s naiveté.

Her social-worker mojo couldn’t have picked a worse time to bail.

“Fine. Forget I asked.” Traci scooted to the edge of the booth.

“Wait.” Jenn caught hold of her arm. “I’m sorry, all right? But you’ve got to admit, you’ve laid an awful lot on me for a Saturday lunch at Freddy’s. Give me a chance here.”

Tension trembled down Traci’s arm.

“I don’t want to see you or your friend get hurt,” Jenn pressed. “And if you weren’t a little worried about that happening, why did you come to me for advice?”

“Are you saying you’ll help me?” The teenager looked every bit the scared seventeen-year-old she didn’t want to be. “You’ll help me, and you won’t tell my folks?”

“So, we are talking about you. Not a friend?”

“Yeah.” Traci’s head dropped. She slid back into the booth.

“But we’re not talking about Brett?” Jenn’s stomach churned.

“No.” Traci shook her head and stared at her lap. “He still thinks…I mean, everyone still thinks we’re together. But it’s over.”

“Then why are you still dating him?”

“This other guy, he lives in another town. It’s not like we can get together here. If I broke up with Brett, how would I explain where I’ve been when I…you know…”

“When you’re with your other guy?” This upstanding, almost virginal college dropout who was letting Traci lie and sneak around, but who only had her best interest at heart.

“I…I’m afraid to keep sleeping with him without protection, but my mom knows every doctor in town, and he doesn’t like condoms.” Traci’s expression begged Jenn to see the sense in her desperate, messed-up logic.

“So you’re already having unprotected sex.” Jenn held her breath and hoped for a miracle. “For how long?”

“A month—” Traci picked lint from the paper napkin she’d wadded into a ball “—maybe two.”

It was all too obvious, suddenly, what they were really talking about.

“When was your last period, Traci?”

Tears welled in the teenager’s eyes.

Well, damn.

“Have you taken a home pregnancy test?”

“N-no.” Traci wiped at her eyes. Chewed on the corner of her mouth. “I…I didn’t want to…”

“You didn’t want to know?”

If only blissful ignorance were as effective as prophylactics.

“Are you going to help me?” the teenager asked, her voice full of a little girl’s fear. “I don’t know what to do. And I thought you of all people would…you know, understand. Will you help me?”

Contradicting impulses left Jenn speechless while she did some of the fastest thinking of her life. If she tried to talk Traci into going to her parents, she’d lose this battle before it began. That was a discussion for another time, when the girl didn’t already look ready to bolt for the door. She could tell the Carpenters herself, but to the teen that would be the worst kind of betrayal. And that would blow Jenn’s shot at damage control.

And let’s not forget my father and my sparkling new fresh start. And what he and his congregation would expect her to do as the sensible, conservative, levelheaded leader she’d agreed to be when she’d taken the volunteer position with the church’s teens.

Helping Traci on her own meant breaking the trust of everyone around her. Keeping the girl’s secret, even for a few days, might cost Jenn a whole lot more than her job working with Teens in Action.

But none of that could compete with keeping the girl and her baby safe. And if Jenn were the only adult Traci was asking for guidance, that meant the next words out of her mouth could only be—

“Of course I’ll help.” She covered Traci’s hand with her own. “I’ll do whatever I can, on one condition. You leave the door open to talking with your parents.”

“If you tell them, I’ll run away. I can move in with my guy anytime I want—”

“I’m not going to tell anyone anything. But you might need to, if—”

“Jenn, Traci.” Brett Hamilton headed toward them from the other side of the restaurant. “We’ve got to get ready for the game.”

Giving her watch an annoyed glance, Jenn squeezed Traci’s hand. “I’m going to set up an appointment for you with a friend of mine who works in the free clinic in Colter. I’ll get you in first thing Monday. They open at ten.”

Traci pulled her hand away as the all-state center she’d gone steady with since freshmen year drew closer.

“Promise me you’ll keep the appointment.” Jenn scribbled her cell number on a napkin and shoved it into the teenager’s hand, in case the girl had lost the card she’d given all the kids their first Saturday together. “You can call me anytime you need to. I’ll even take you to the clinic if you want.”

Traci glanced nervously at Brett.

“Promise me you’ll see the doctor,” Jenn pressed. “We have to be sure—”

“Okay, I promise.” Traci shoved the napkin into her jacket pocket a second before Brett reached their table. “But I’ll go myself.”

“You ready?” Brett gave Traci’s cheek a noisy kiss.

“Yeah.” Traci edged around him and headed for the door without looking back.

With a wink and a shrug for Jenn, Brett trailed after her.

Jenn lagged behind as the kids paired up and piled back into their cars. She paid her bill and tried to swallow the bitter taste of French fries and foreboding. Just once, couldn’t she catch a break in this town?

Some in the church had been concerned, her father had said, when she’d taken on the floundering teen group.

Concerned.

After all, given her history, was she really the kind of person they wanted influencing their impressionable children? The facts were what they were. She’d been a runaway. An unwed teen mother. She was only a slightly older version of the girl who’d turned to the parties and addictions to obliterate the self-hatred and emptiness she’d only made worse. She’d destroyed her relationship with her parents and had almost cost her father his church.

She’d come back home determined to live down her past and make a fresh start for her daughter’s sake. Now with one simple offer to help a reckless teenager who reminded her too much of herself at seventeen, she was angling for trouble all over again. The kind of trouble that made being seen taking a few bags of food to Nathan Cain a nonissue.

Wrestling open the rusted door of her car, she slid inside and stared at the picturesque world on the other side of the windshield. Fought the childish urge to pick up Mandy at Ashley’s and drive away from Rivermist and the past that seemed incapable of letting her go.

She’d felt a shining moment of strength when she’d stood up to her father that morning. With a snort, she pulled out onto North Street and headed for the Cain place. Had she really grown up and grown stronger over the last seven years, or had she simply gotten better at faking it?

NOW ENTERING RIVERMISt, GEORGIA, the faded sign read in the midday sun. The same faded, beaten-up sign that had been there for as long as Neal could remember.

He was hands down the most unwelcome person to ever enter Rivermist. But somewhere between his apartment and the office that morning, he’d accepted the inevitable. He had to make sure his father was all right. It was time to settle things with the man and this place. So Stephen had taken the Martinez meeting solo after all, and Neal had settled for a soul-searching, two-hour detour down I-75 South.