“Don’t pull that textbook stuff out with me.” His smile tempered his words. “I would never sacrifice a teenager because of a camp need. The campers are why I’m here.”
“Then what would you have done if I’d said no?” Emma realized suddenly he hadn’t let go of her hand, yet she couldn’t force herself to pull it away. She wanted him to let go first.
This time.
“If you had said no, God would have sent someone else.” He squeezed her fingers, and she squeezed back as if on autopilot. “He’s sort of on the side of Camp Hope, you know.”
She really didn’t know whose side God was on, except that it probably wasn’t hers. But no need to get into theology while they had a potentially bulimic girl, a lame horse and a camp full of teenagers needing their supper to deal with. She risked a glance into his face, and her heart clenched at his eyes, so similar to Cody’s, gazing down at her with such sincerity. Such honesty. Such compassion.
Where had Max Ringgold gone? The man she knew from days ago was nothing like this. That man had been hard enough to walk away from—but this one...
How could she walk away a second time?
She tugged her hand free. “I’ll keep a closer watch on Tonya. I promise.”
“This wasn’t your fault.” Max’s arm hung limp at his side as if he didn’t know what to do with his suddenly empty hand. She could relate, so she hooked her thumbs into her back pockets. “You do know that, right?”
Not her fault. That’s what everyone told her about Cody, too, and what she often told parents of wayward children she saw in counseling. But wasn’t a piece of it her fault? She had to be responsible to a degree—even if it was the single mistake of going against God’s Word and sleeping with Cody’s father when she knew better. Knew he wasn’t legit. Knew he wouldn’t change for her.
But he had changed, and maybe the fact that it wasn’t for her was what hurt worst of all.
“These teens ultimately have to make their own choices. That goes for Tonya—and Cody.” Max’s fingers brushed her shoulder, and she leaned into the warmth before easing away from the touch that so easily got her in trouble. “Emma, you have to believe me.”
His words hit her heart but didn’t penetrate, like an arrow flung at a target without enough force to stick. “I know you think that.”
“It’s true.”
Maybe it was. Maybe it wasn’t her fault, so much as it was his. Max Ringgold, for however much he’d crossed over to the good side, had once very much occupied the darkness. Weren’t bad boy genes hereditary? The Bible even talked about the sins of the father being passed down. Maybe Cody didn’t have a chance at all because of his very DNA. Maybe his future was already determined in the negative. Didn’t all of it—the vandalism, the fighting, the rebellion—come so naturally to her son?
She’d seen the same thing in his father.
And if she looked really hard—in herself.
“I’m going to go check on Tonya.” She drew a ragged breath before pushing open the dormitory door behind him. “We’re done here.”
* * *
She was getting really good at walking away from him. Max stayed in the entryway after the door shut behind her, wondering if he should follow.