Playlist

James TW — “Butterflies”

Holly Humberstone — “Livewire”

Holly Humberstone — “Please Don’t Leave Just Yet”

Natalie Taylor — “Wrecked”

Drew Holcomb & The Neighbors — “Live Forever”

Judah & The Lion — “Only To Be With You” (Unplugged)

Matt Maeson — “Put It on Me”

Matt Maeson — “Tribulation”

Matt Maeson — “Hallucinogenics”

John Legend — “Wild”

Josie Dunne — “Good Boys”

James Bay — “Wild Love”

ZAYN — “It’s You”

HRVY — “Me Because of You”

The Driver Era — “Natural”

Dedication

For Jenn, if only Fisher were Scottish … this would be perfection.

Chapter One

The day I met the naked fisherman, I was a wholesome eighteen-year-old girl, fresh out of high school with lots of opinions and zero big ideas. The perfect target. I had only heard about men like him through sermons and Bible studies on temptation.

However, as I spent the morning packing, I was unaware of his existence. I should have embraced the final few hours of my innocence instead of fretting over the thought of seeing my mom for the first time in over five years. It made me want to throw up my scrambled eggs and at least one piece of buttered toast. Six months earlier, she’d been released from a women’s correctional facility in Nebraska. Apparently, she had a few too many marijuana plants growing in the storage room of her hair salon. My dad said he knew nothing about it, and the judge believed him.

My grandma snatched everything I tossed into my suitcase and refolded it. “You’re an adult now, Therese. You don’t have to live with her … or us. You don’t have to live with anyone. Are you sure you don’t want to get an apartment with some friends? There are mission trips that can take you all around the world.”

Three years earlier, my dad’s heart had stopped working. A congenital defect he didn’t know he had. No high blood pressure. No high cholesterol. Not a single sign before he just … keeled over while sitting at his drawing board. We’d had pasta that night. I still couldn’t look at pasta without tearing up.

He was a brilliant architect. My grandparents (his parents) got custody of me since my mom was in prison and her parents lived in a dinky but expensive apartment in Boston. They were Catholic liberals with a special detest for my father’s parents—conservatives who took advantage of my mom’s incarceration and my dad’s death by enrolling me in a private Christian academy in Houston, Texas.

“She’s my mom. I haven’t seen her in five years. And it’s only temporary until I decide what I want to do with my life.” I gave my grandma a reassuring smile, but her frown told me she wasn’t feeling the least bit reassured.

“You didn’t invite her to your graduation. Why are you so curious now?”

Coughing before laughing, I shook my head. “Pa talked me out of inviting her, just like Dad would have done. And she’s my mom, not a zoo animal I’m ‘curious’ about. If she’s not what I remember, if she feels like a complete stranger and I feel no connection to her, then I’ll come home.”

“Therese, I worry that by not going to college right away, you’ll never go. And your father would have wanted you to get a degree.”

I tossed a pair of sandals and flip-flops on top of the clothes she’d just refolded. “Statistically, people who take a gap year do better when they do go to college.” A true statistic I played on repeat.

Lack of direction wasn’t fun. At my graduation party, everyone asked where I was going to school … what I planned on doing. I cringed and threw out my brilliant Gap Year Plan. It felt like code for “smart kid who happened to be an underachiever with little to no direction.” Nobody actually said that to me, but I saw it on their faces. Then they listed all of the things I could do, as if I simply needed a good idea.

Grandma pressed her hands to my cheeks for a second before stroking my hair down my shoulders. My straight, dark brown hair and blue eyes were all my mom, but my grandma always said I looked like my dad. He had blond hair and hazel eyes. The only things I got from him were my full lips and obsession with crossword puzzles.

“I also worry your mom won’t be the best influence.” Grandma frowned as she continued to stroke my hair. There it was—her real fear.

“If she’s on drugs or if she has taken up smoking three packs a day, I’ll come home. Besides, I’ve already found a church to attend, and I’m sure I’ll find good Christian friends who will keep me from falling under my mom’s spell.” I winked at Grandma. I was only half serious. There wasn’t a rule book for reuniting with your mother after years of separation due to incarceration. Would she expect me to call her “Mom?” Would it feel natural to call her that? It felt natural at thirteen, the day I last saw her and cried fat tears while they removed her from the courtroom in handcuffs. Her tears matched mine as she mouthed, “I love you.”

Dad hugged me and promised I’d see her soon.

Soon …

That didn’t happen.

“You can come back. Anytime. You know this, right?”

I nodded while zipping my suitcase. “Yep. That’s why I’ve told you a million times that I’ll come home if it doesn’t work out. Besides, half of my stuff is still here. Of course I’m coming back. I just want to see what she’s like now and see if I like Colorado.”

Grandma’s eyes glossed over with emotion. “Therese, I’m going to miss you so much. It’s like I’m losing your dad all over again.”

“God will watch over me.”

“I know, honey.” She kissed my forehead. “Let’s have Pa load up your suitcase and drive you to the airport so you don’t feel rushed getting to the gate. I still can’t believe we’re letting you fly by yourself.”

I laughed a little. “I’m an adult now. I’ve got this.” I wasn’t sure eighteen felt like adulthood, but I put on a brave face because my friends were going on summer trips and preparing to head off to college. They were leaving the nest. I was moving to a different nest. The least I could do was fly by myself and pretend that I was a real adult for a few hours.

Chapter Two

I would have been lying had I said I wasn’t scared to death. My hands and my voice shook, fumbling my bags and ID while going through airport security. Everything freaked me out. Strange men looking at me. Women corralling their young kids while eyeing me like they wondered if they should report me to airport security—a young woman possibly being smuggled to some faraway place (like Colorado) to be sold as a sex slave. For five hours, I feigned confidence. When I exited the secured area of the Denver airport, it took me only a few seconds to spot my mom: brown almost black short hair, not quite touching her chin with bangs cut a little too short (just my opinion), and skinny as a rail. She sent me pictures after we made contact shortly after my eighteenth birthday, but she looked even thinner in person.

The mom I remembered from the courtroom had curves. She wasn’t overweight, but she looked healthy and well nourished. Post-prison Mom looked like she ate to live and not one bite more. Her bones protruded from her cheeks, shoulders, and hips. Sunken blue eyes the color of a stormy sky at sunset eyed me with anticipation. And not as much as a single speck of makeup could be found on her face. The owner of a salon, she used to have long hair, nearly to her butt, always curled in princess-like ringlets.

Where did the hairdresser go? Makeup? Nail polish? Perfectly styled hair? I wondered if she remembered that person or if that person died over the five years I hadn’t seen her. Over the five years she didn’t get to see me.

“Reese!” She hooked her crossbody handbag over her shoulder and ran toward me.

Reese … I hadn’t been called that in years. I was Therese to my dad and my grandparents. I was Therese at the Christian academy and to my new Christian friends.

My body stiffened, panicked by the stranger ready to get up close and personal with me. Would she smell the same? Would her embrace feel the same?

“Hi,” I croaked as she knocked the wind out of me and nearly tackled me to the ground.

“Oh my baby …” She cried. Literally cried.

I had thought I would cry too, but there were no tears in sight. Nerves and sheer awkwardness gobbled them up before my eyes had a prayer of shedding even a single one.

Everything felt different.

Her embrace was not as comforting, probably too many bones and not enough fat.

She smelled woodsy, not the floral scent of her perfume I remembered.

I thanked God for reuniting us. My mind should have stopped there. That was all that mattered, but I couldn’t stop thinking about all the ways she was a little less than I remembered. Did my thirteen-year-old self have her on a pedestal? Or was the eighteen-year-old version of me being unfairly judgmental?

Thou shalt not judge …

That was always a hard one to obey.

“You’ve grown into the most beautiful young lady.” She grabbed my shoulders and held me at arm’s length, getting a good look at me.

“Thanks.” I smiled.

“Well, let’s get your luggage and head home. We have so much catching up to do before I leave town.” She looped her arm around mine and led me toward the baggage claim.

“What? You’re leaving?”

“It’s just for a month. Six weeks tops. My new employer is sending me to L.A. to work at his salon there and get refreshed on my skills. I’ll be working with people who do hair and makeup for celebrities. How awesome is that?”

“Um … really awesome, I guess. So, I’ll be living alone, in your house?”

“Yes and no.” We stopped and waited for my luggage at the carousel. “And it’s my landlord’s house. Not mine. I just rent the basement. It has its own entrance at the back. He’s the nicest guy. And adorable. We’ve become good friends. I’ve told him all about you. And he’s also willing to give you a temporary job this summer while you figure out what you want to do.”

“What kind of job?” I watched for my suitcase, sparing a quick side-glance for my mom.

“He owns a construction company. I’m not sure what you’d be doing, but I’m sure you couldn’t ask for a better boss.”

“Construction? Building houses? I’m not that great with a hammer.” With a nervous laugh, I considered the bigger picture. My hammer abilities were the least of my concerns. My mom was leaving me with an adorable man. Adorable as in old and quirky?

She laughed. “I’m sure there’s office stuff you can do.”

I nodded several times, trying hard to formulate an image of adorable in my head. Kittens were adorable. “Okay. Yes, I can do office work. Thanks for asking him.” Mr. Adorable.

She glanced over at me and smiled. “Of course. I want to do everything I can for you. Lots of lost time to make up for.”

Chapter Three

It took us forty-five minutes to get to her place. I’d never been to Colorado. Never seen the Rockies. I couldn’t stop gawking at them in the distance. How had we lived in Nebraska for nearly fifteen years and never headed west? We’d made a million trips straight south to Texas and a few trips out east to visit my mom’s parents. But never west.

“Home sweet home. I know it’s not as nice as your grandparents’ home in Houston, but I want you to feel like it’s yours. We can decorate your room. Paint. Whatever you want. Fisher said as long as we don’t tear down walls, the sky’s the limit.”

“Fisher?” I asked while climbing out of her Subaru Outback.

“Fisher Mann. My landlord.”

“Interesting name.” I chuckled while my mom retrieved my suitcase from the back of her car.

“It is.” She grinned, nodding toward a cobblestone path that wound around to the side of the sprawling ranch home with an unobstructed view of the mountains.

“There’s a door to the house through the screened-in porch, but I usually go in through here because there’s a locker area to put coats, shoes, purses, etcetera.”

She unlocked the door, and I followed her into the basement. It was nice—way nicer than I expected, not basement feeling at all. A wall of west-facing windows gave it depth, not that it needed any illusion. The vast family room held a mammoth sectional, big screen TV, and a pool table.

“You’ve bought a lot of stuff.”

“Pfft …” She shook her head. “No. The family room came furnished. I purchased beds for the two bedrooms and bedding. Towels. Kitchen stuff. And by me, I mean my parents loaned me the money.”

“I see.” My other grandparents. I saw them three times while my mom was incarcerated. My father wasn’t exactly accommodating.

“Let’s see if Fisher is upstairs. I want you to meet him; then we can grab food and spend the rest of the evening catching up.”

Catching up … I found that odd. The catching up would be very one-sided. There was no way she had that much to catch me up on in regard to her life.

I followed her up the split staircase. She knocked on the door and waited a full two seconds before unlocking it and opening it. It was odd that there weren’t locks on both sides like connected hotel rooms. As I followed her into a spacious kitchen with high ceilings, I glanced back and noticed there was a lock on his side. He just hadn’t locked it.

“Fisher?” she called and waited a few seconds. “I’ll check the garage. Sometimes he’s working on a project or spit-shining his motorcycle.”

I nodded, feeling nerves tighten in my stomach. Why? I wasn’t sure, but two seconds later I quickly figured it out.

“Hey.”

I turned toward the deep, male voice.

“Oh my gosh!” I made another quick turn, completing a full three-sixty in total. “I’m sorry.”

“Why? Did you break in? Or are you Rory’s daughter?”

I cleared my throat. “That … um … yeah … Rory’s daughter.”

“Ah, Reese Capshaw. It’s nice to finally meet you. Rory talks about you nonstop.”

I nodded a half dozen times, refusing to turn back toward him and his nearly naked body. My initial glance caught lots of chest and water dripping down said chest and a loosely tied navy-blue towel hanging low on his waist. Oh … yeah … his hair was messy, wet, and light brown or maybe dark blond.

“Where’s your mom?” He brushed past me. Like … physically brushed past me. His wet arm bumped mine. And he didn’t say “excuse me.” Instead, he turned a few degrees just before reaching for the garage door handle. He eyed me from head to toe, a smirk reshaping his mouth into something I didn’t trust. “You look just like your mom. Lucky girl.”

In that moment, I knew Fisher Mann was bad news.

“There you are!” Mom started to open the door at the same moment Fisher turned the handle and pulled inward.

Was it the right time to tell my mom she couldn’t go to Los Angeles because her landlord looked at me like his next meal? But more than that … I couldn’t believe she had no response to his nearly naked body on full display in front of her daughter.

“Sorry. I was in the shower,” Fisher said while he gave his towel a slight adjustment in the wrong direction! He lowered it an inch.

Heat gathered in my cheeks. I had only seen men like him on television or with my friends when no one’s parents were home. It felt forbidden then, and it didn’t feel any less forbidden with my mom standing between us.

“So you met Reese. Isn’t she beautiful? Even more stunning than her pictures. Don’t you think?”

Dear God, please make this stop. Make HIM stop.

Stop being so … everything.

My mom, too busy giving me her most adoring expression, looked on the verge of crying again, while Sin—with his disheveled hair, overexposed flesh, and hard muscles—wet his lips and nodded. “She’s perfect, Rory. Almost angelic.”

What was that supposed to mean? I contemplated his wording. Did he know I went to a Christian academy? Was he making a jab at my religion? My faith? My youth? My level of experience? Maybe it wasn’t a biblical reference to an actual angel. What if he thought I was truly beautiful?

I quickly shook my head to derail that train of thought. Of course, I didn’t want Fisher to find me attractive to any degree. He was older than me by more than a few years. He didn’t look like a man of faith. Yes, I realized that was another judgment, but my mind did its own thing. Was he with my mom … as in with her in the biblical sense?

“I told Reese you might have a job for her.” She glanced back at the naked fisherman.

Ugh! Why did that have to go through my head? I would forever imagine him naked with a fishing pole in his hand … maybe naked except for a pair of those fly-fishing boots reaching his mid-thigh region.

Stop!

“Sure. I can keep her busy with lots of odds and ends. Some days you could work in the office with my secretary, Hailey. Other days you might come with me to job sites. Drop off lunches. Grab supplies.”

There was a long silence.

“Reese?” my mom said.

“Huh?” I hummed, slightly incoherently.

Fisher bent to the side like he was lowering his body to fit into the view of a camera lens. But there was no camera, just my gaze affixed to his abs and the teasing of dark hair peeking out from the top of his towel. The coveted happy trail. No not coveted. At least, not by me. Nope.

“Hello?” Fisher said, and that was when I realized he’d caught me gawking at him, just inches from his … uh … lower pelvic area.

I needed the fire department to extinguish the embarrassment from my face. “S-sorry …” I jerked my gaze away from him and folded my arms over my chest, staring down at my feet as I rocked back and forth on the balls of them several times. “A job. Yes. That would be great. Thanks.”

“Everything okay?” my mom asked.

“Yeah. It’s just been a long day of traveling. That’s all.” I shifted my focus to things around the kitchen. He kept it rather clean, unsure of what I expected from a guy who worked in construction. And he liked bananas and apples. He must have had two dozen bananas and an equal number of apples in a glass bowl by his toaster. Apples … the fruit of temptation. How appropriate.

“We’ll let you get dressed before your towel falls off, and you show Reese more than she wants to see. I haven’t had the sex talk with her yet.”

Let. Me. Die!

She really said that. To him! Prison had done things to my mom. I couldn’t remember her being so forward, so blunt, so embarrassing.

“Oh my gosh …” I covered my face with my hands. “Thanks for embarrassing me. I’m an adult now, ya know?”

I was an adult covering her flushed face. I was an adult who hadn’t had sex because I wasn’t married. I was an adult who fit in with my grandparents, my church family, and my friends from the Christian academy. Apparently, I wasn’t an adult in my mom’s eyes, and something told me I wasn’t an adult in Fisher’s eyes. Or maybe I was. That was the most terrifying thought at that moment.

Chapter Four

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to embarrass you.” My mom laughed as we headed back downstairs. “I’ve been stressing out over how to treat you.” She opened the fridge and plucked two sodas from the bottom shelf, handing one to me.

Orange soda. She used to give me that as a special treat. I wondered if she had those graham crackers shaped like bears as well since that used to be my favorite snack—when I was five years younger.

“I mean … the last time I saw you, you weren’t even old enough to drive a car. You hadn’t gotten your period yet. And now you’re a grown woman. I know it in my head, but my heart still remembers the little girl. I guess I want to get back time, but I can’t.”

“Thanks.” I took the soda and sat on the U-shaped leather sectional. “I know. It’s weird for me too. I guess we’ll just have to pray about it, and God will help us through this.”

Pausing the bottle at her lips, she shook her head. “Boy … they did a fine job of indoctrinating you. Didn’t they?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean the ‘we’ll just have to pray about it.’ That’s not what the average eighteen-year-old girl says. I’ve been a little isolated for a few years, but I know that much hasn’t changed. You talk like a girl who’s been reading the Bible more than romance novels. A girl who spends more time praying than watching Netflix.”

“I have a love for Christ. Is that so wrong? We went to church before you went to prison.”

She chuckled and took a sip of her orange soda. “We were Catholic.”

“So? What’s that matter?”

The Story Continues on BooksBarbecue!

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