Rescue Team by Candace Calvert

Author:Candace Calvert
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: FICTION / Christian / Romance
Publisher: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.
Published: 2013-05-01T04:00:00+00:00

“THANK YOU.” Matt took the mug from Kate’s hands, reminding himself of what the hospital volunteer had told him. “Encouragement from a father can make all the difference.” He prayed it was true—but his daughter’s expression said otherwise. Still, he had to take this chance. It could be his last one. “Good coffee,” he said after taking a sip.

“Instant.” She wiped a dishrag at a nonexistent spot on the blue-tiled breakfast bar that separated them. It might as well have been the Grand Canyon. “We could have met at Austin Java.”

If you’d answered my text.

She hadn’t asked how Matt found her house. He didn’t offer the information. They both knew it would point out the obvious: she didn’t want to see him.

Matt rubbed a finger over the enameled daisy on the chipped mug—from the set Juliana had found in Carmel long before Kate was born. Her favorites—she’d sipped herbal tea from one when she was in early labor with Kate. And much later, when she was sick and achy from chemotherapy. Kate had taken two of the three remaining daisy cups with her when she’d completed her GED and left for college. Eleven silent months after she returned home from . . . where? He still didn’t know how she’d spent that year of her life.

“You had a good visit in Fort Worth?” she asked, walking in stocking feet toward the small living room. He followed, choosing an ottoman across from where she settled on the couch. “With your college friend, Phil?”

“Yes. I got to see his granddaughter baptized.” Matt watched as an orange cat appeared from nowhere and jumped up onto the couch beside Kate. It had at best half of a tail.

“Cat versus ambulance,” she explained, stroking his whitewashed chin.

Matt hid his wince, hoping Kate wasn’t remembering how he’d run over her cat all those years ago. Angry, drunk. It was a reminder of why he was here. Thank you, Lord. I hear you.

“I wanted you to know,” he began with his heart in his throat, “that I’ve been attending services at the church where the AA meetings are held. Good Shepherd. It’s been a help for me in a lot of ways. I’ve been sober for nearly eight months now—237 days as of this morning, to be exact.” He held his breath, watched his daughter’s eyes.

“I’m glad for you,” she said, clearly uncomfortable. “But you don’t need to tell me any of that.”

“I do.” Matt tightened his fingers around the solid warmth of the daisy mug. Reminded himself that by unexpected grace he now had a father’s encouragement. All things were possible. “I do need to tell you, Katy. That’s why I came to Texas.”

“If this is part of that twelve-step make-things-right pledge, skip me. I don’t need to hear it. We’re good.”

Matt sighed, said the words that pierced his heart. “We’re not good, Katy. We’re strangers. It’s killing me that I caused it to happen.”

She closed her eyes, but he kept talking. Had to.

“When your mother got sick, I couldn’t handle it.

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