The men left, agreeing Max would stay at Camp Hope to be there for the campers when the trail ride ended. He had to keep things running, whether he felt like it or not. Suddenly alone, he stared down at the path he’d created in the dirt while pacing and slowly began to rub the evidence away with his boot. Too bad he couldn’t erase the past twenty-four hours as easily.
But what would he change? He couldn’t go back to pretending he didn’t have a kid. The thought now brought a hollow ache to his gut. There were some things the heart couldn’t un-know. He would be there for Cody from here on out, no matter what. But what would that look like? They lived in different worlds. His work was at Camp Hope, in the nowhere town of Broken Bend, Louisiana, while Emma and Cody had their own life in a big thriving Texas city.
So many questions. So few answers.
And none of them would matter if Cody didn’t make it back in one piece.
Panic, the kind Max realized only a father could feel, seized his heart. He began to pray. God, I can’t fix this. I don’t know where my son is, but You do. Could You show us, please? He began to pace again, this time praying with every footstep. There was nothing he could do about the past—he couldn’t get back the time he’d lost, the time Emma had robbed him of. But he could pray for the future.
And despite his lingering anger and betrayal over Emma’s choices, he wanted a future with them. As a family.
It seemed too impossible to even pray for.
Was that what a father’s love did? Sought the impossible? Hoped when there was little or no proof to do so?
His father hadn’t shown him that kind of love.
But his Heavenly Father had.
And he’d ignored it. Shoved it away. Sought to prove himself against the grace freely offered to him.
He stopped pacing. Just like he loved Cody regardless of this bad choice he’d made, regardless of Cody’s sin and rebellion, God loved him the same way, plus some. He didn’t have to strive to make up for the past, to make up for his own years of rebellion and sin—he’d already been forgiven. Just like he’d already forgiven Cody for running away.
And just like he needed to forgive Emma.
Her feeble protests racked his brain. I did what I had to do. She really did. He tried to put himself in her shoes. Pregnant, scared, uncertain. Coming back to Broken Bend to announce the biggest news of her life, when her parents didn’t even know they’d been dating, and discovering her baby’s father buying drugs.
Wouldn’t he have been tempted to run, too?
Empathy began to replace the judgment he’d been holding, and it bled through his heart. They’d all made bad choices.
But that didn’t mean there wasn’t room for a second chance.
* * *
There were some regrets even raw cookie dough couldn’t touch.
From her spot on the bar stool in the kitchen, Emma breathed in the aroma of chocolate chip cookies wafting from Mama Jeanie’s oven, yet the smell just made her sick. Her son was out there, somewhere, with another teen who was nothing but trouble, and all she knew for sure was that Cody hated her. She buried her face in her hands. She’d tried to join the search party, but Max interfered, stating Cody would be more likely to hide if he saw her coming. True—painfully true.