After she’d told her dad she’d be willing to hire Luke, Finley had educated herself on prisoner reentry and acclimation. With every page she’d read, her enthusiasm had grown. Following incarceration, men and women often had a hard time finding employment. She’d wanted to fill that need and, in doing so, benefit a man likeher father. Plus, animals were therapy. What could be more ideal than parolees helping animals and animals helping parolees? She’d viewed Luke’s new job here as his lifeline.
Now she saw it might be his albatross.
“Please know that I won’t hold you to your promise,” she said. “You don’t have to work here. You don’t have to help me with the treasure hunt. You can go.”
“No, I can’t.”
“You said you have things you want to do. Feel free to go and do them, with my blessing.”
He was not a man who wore his emotions on his sleeve, but she saw a subtle flash of longing on his hard features.
“You’re free,” she told him. “I’ll hire someone else to redesign the website.”
“The promise wasn’t between you and me, so you can’t free me from it. It was between me and your dad.” His body language communicated stubborn resolve. “I’m going to keep my promise.”
She considered him, lining up what she saw before her with what she knew of his past.
Once upon a time, a group of middle school kids had survived more than a week buried in the rubble of an earthquake that had struck while they were on a mission trip in Central America. They’d become known as the Miracle Five, and they were Misty River’s best-known and best-loved sons and daughters.
Luke was one of the five.
Almost twenty years had come and gone since that fateful earthquake. The former middle school kids were all adults now, and Luke remained the most reclusive of the five. After their rescue, he’d immediately retreated from the spotlight and never consented to interviews or public appearances.
The other four had gone on to become successful. Natasha MacKenzie, an attorney and mother. Genevieve Woodward, Natasha’s sister, a Bible study author. Ben Coleman, high school teacher. Sebastian Grant, pediatric heart surgeon.
The day Luke had turned eighteen, he’d dropped out of high school and left home. He’d worked for a chop shop in Atlanta until he’d been arrested for stealing a car and sent to prison.
It didn’t take much intuition to discern why Luke had gone off the rails while the other four were living constructive lives. The earthquake had resulted in two thousand fatalities, but only one Misty River resident had died.
His name had been Ethan. He’d been twelve years old. And he was Luke’s younger brother.
Finley had moved to this town after college, so she’d had no interaction with Luke when he was young. But everyone who’d known him then agreed that he’d been a golden boy before his brother’s death. The natural disaster had ripped from Luke both his brother and his promising future.
And now she was struggling to absorb the realization that this injured, complicated, infamous man knew about her birthday treasure hunt. Even though Luke was hard as slate, he was also, apparently, compassionate enough to grant her father’s dying wish. Which was that Luke ... protect her?
From what?
She’d been envisioning the hunt as a very personal journey between herself and her father. Perfectly safe, just like all the prior hunts. Resistance was pushing upward inside her at the idea of embarking on this hunt with a stranger.
Gradually, though, an opposing force matched and then surpassed her resistance.
The tug to rehabilitate.
Luke Dempsey was a tragic and thorny case. Many would say he was a lost cause.
Thing was, she had a soft spot for lost causes. It ran contrary to her nature to abandon any creature to its lostness. Over the years, she’d come face-to-face with numerous ferocious animals. Dogs who’d been beaten. Feral cats. Unbroken horses. There’d even been the memorable case of one very angry raccoon.
So many times she’d sensed, at the deepest level, that God had entrusted a certain wounded creature to her care.
That’s exactly how she felt now. About Luke.
Not a single one of her past “lost causes” had remained a lost cause. No one—no animal or person on earth—was beyond redemption. If she and Luke worked together here at Furry Tails and on her treasure hunt, she’d have double the opportunity to assist in the Restoration of Luke.
“Can you explain the treasure hunt?” he asked.
She told him about their annual birthday tradition during her childhood and how her father had left the first clue in his will.
“How did he plant the rest of the clues? He was in prison for eight years.”
