Twilight by Sherryl Woods Read Free Book Online Page B

that no one connected to the program had anything to do with Ken’s death. Where would you start to look for answers?”
    “Closer to home,” he said at once.
    He said it with such quick certainty that she was startled. “What on earth does that mean? Surely you don’t think that I...?”
    “Of course not. I was talking about the people Ken dealt with right here, in his own congregation, in his own community. He told me there was a faction who wanted him removed.”
    Dana stared. “If there was, this is the first I’ve heard of it.”
    “It had just come up. He didn’t want to worry you. He told me it was the sort of nuisance thing that arises every now and then. A few people don’t like the way their minister thinks, or they respond to some imagined slight. In Ken’s case, he suspected there were some who disapproved of his work with Yo, Amigo. They feared he was already dragging the gang problem into their backyard.”
    It was easy enough to make the connection, then. “This came up after he brought Juan Jesus here to live with the Wilsons, didn’t it?” she asked.
    Rick nodded. “That would be my guess.”
    “But he is such a sweet young man. How could anybody fear him?” Kate demanded.
    It was the first time she had said a word in so long that both Dana and Rick turned to stare at her. Rick smiled at the fiercely protective tone of voice. Obviously, all of her motherly instincts had been aroused. And unlike Dana, she hadn’t been a holdout, fighting Ken’s commitment to the kids in the barrio. She had gotten to know Juan Jesus and any of the others he had brought around from time to time. Kate’s soft heart hadn’t been touched by the kind of tragedy that had made Dana so terribly wary.
    “Taken individually, most of our boys are just like Juan Jesus,” Rick responded. “They’re tough on the outside, but if you look beyond that, you find a scared, vulnerable kid. Put him in the right environment and he will flourish.”
    “Put him in a gang, he becomes dangerous,” Dana pointed out.
    “Yes,” he said. “Some do.”
    “Most,” she countered.
    He studied her intently, assessing her. “Would you have joined with the faction who felt threatened by Juan Jesus’s presence in the community?” Rick asked.
    Dana didn’t like the immediate response that formed. She bit back the instinctive yes that formed in her gut. She and Ken had argued over that very subject more than once. They had argued about it again on the day he had died. She had wanted their boys to live in a safe environment. She hadn’t wanted outside influences to change their protected world. It was petty and selfish of her, but there it was. She was a mother first and she’d seen firsthand the very real danger that came with trusting a kid with a record.
    Intellectually, she had understood that boys like Juan Jesus deserved a chance. Give them their chance, she had argued—just not here. Not here, where a failed experiment could be so terribly costly to their own children. She hadn’t realized there were others in the church who’d said the same thing.
    Nor had she considered that such feelings might run hot enough to do harm. For a brief moment, with Rick’s knowing gaze studying her, she allowed herself to feel ashamed at her unwitting complicity with narrow-minded, hurtful people, who would have ruined her husband’s career out of fear.
    “Would you?” Rick asked again.
    “I would like to think I’m better than they are, more open-minded, fairer, but the truth is I had said many of the same things to Ken myself,” she confessed reluctantly.
    “Dana, you hadn’t!” Kate protested.
    Dana nodded. “Yes, I had. I didn’t want that kind of influence around my kids. I’m sorry, but that’s the truth, and you know why I feel that way. I’ve seen firsthand just how destructive an influence kids like that can be.”
    Rick regarded her with disturbing intensity. He seemed to be weighing something.
    “You know, Dana,