The Reluctant Hero

“Successful enough to leave me quite comfortable in my old age,” she stated with all the dignity and discretion that befitted her stature in life. “That is, if my yardman doesn’t rob me blind buying fertilizer and landscaping timbers.”

Derek saw the smile curving her feathery lips, then grinned over at her. “Can’t take it with us, can we now, Miss Nadine?”

“I reckon we can’t,” she replied, chuckling. Reaching over to pat him on the arm, she added, “You sure do fine work, Mr. Kane. I can’t fault you there.”

“Thank you.” Derek couldn’t help but feel a bit of pride. Miss Nadine rarely gave out compliments. “It’s coming along just fine. We’ll have it in tip-top shape for the reception to kick off the Azalea Pilgrimage, I promise.”

Miss Nadine turned to head back to the house. “I know I can count on you. About a week—the azaleas will peak in early April, according to my calculations.” She waved over her shoulder. “I’ve got committee work to attend to. Come by the kitchen before you leave. Cook will have you a bite to eat prepared, and a treat for that mutt.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Derek watched as the old lady walked with straight-backed precision across the wide veranda. She really was a sweetheart, always feeding him and fussing at him and telling him he needed “to settle down with a good Christian woman and have a passel of babies.”

Derek appreciated Miss Nadine’s well-meaning intentions, but he’d long ago given up on being a family man. What woman would want to get involved with the likes of him, anyway?

That thought brought him back to Stephanie Maguire. Of all the women in the world, why did she have to be the one he’d run into last night? And why had he stopped to get involved in the first place?

“I should have kept on walking,” he mumbled to himself as he picked up his shovel and started slinging dirt with a fast, furious pace. “I knew better. I knew.”

But Derek also knew that he couldn’t have just walked away from the scene spread out before him on the shadowed street last night.

He’d left his lawyer’s office, discouraged but still determined to get his life back in order, only to discover two kids—teenagers at that—attacking a helpless old man. And…a beautiful, slender woman, with nothing to protect her but a cell phone and a purse, screaming at them to let the man alone.

Anyone else would have done the same thing, Derek reminded himself.

Or would they?

He’d seen the darker side of life; he’d seen the worst the world had to offer. For the most part, there was good in the world. But when the evil crept in, it devoured everything in its path.

Derek had seen that kind of evil, that kind of despair. He’d witnessed it down to his very soul, and, soul weary, he’d walked away and found a safe haven amid trees, flowers and earth. He’d needed to find his soul again, to find his faith again, to find God again, and becoming a landscaper had helped him with that.

It had been a natural transition. He’d grown up on a farm in south Georgia, had worked the land before he’d headed off to greener pastures, before he’d taken on a job that had almost brought him to the brink of madness.

Derek stopped shoveling and looked out over the vista of Miss Nadine’s tranquil garden. The azaleas stood in thick clusters underneath the tall pines, some of the bushes reaching six or seven feet in the air, their satiny green leaves bowing gently in the morning breeze, their colorful fuchsia-and salmon-tipped buds just beginning to crest open.

The grass, polished and clipped, spread like a velvet blanket out over the rolling terrain. The sun played across an ancient rose garden where bees hummed greedily over the feathery red and yellow blossoms. Way down a sloping hillside, a stark white gazebo filled with wicker furniture fat with floral cushions stood covered by dainty trailing purple wisteria vines and delicate white-tipped Cherokee roses.

The air was filled with the sweetness of hundreds of blossoming flowers, mixed with the rich smell of fresh earth and the softer, more subtle scent of still-moist dew.

Such a peaceful, gentle spot. Such a beautiful retreat. And Derek was its caretaker.

He couldn’t, wouldn’t lose any of this. Not the fragile peace he’d found, not the respect of his clients, not the contentment of a good day’s work—he wouldn’t allow anything or anyone to take that from him.

And that included Stephanie Maguire.

Derek looked up at the billowing white clouds floating by like puffs of cotton. “Lord, I’ve tried so hard to make a new life for myself. I’ve prayed and I’ve asked for forgiveness and I believe You have heard my prayers. Don’t let it end now, Lord. Don’t let them find me.” Thinking of Stephanie Maguire again, he added, “Don’t let her find me.”

He didn’t need a reporter snooping around, nosing into his life. Even if that reporter was lovely to look at, intriguing and definitely a woman who could make him come out of his self-imposed exile.

He was safe here, in this world of earth and sky.

He didn’t want to be found, because Derek Kane knew in his heart he was nobody’s hero.

And he surely didn’t want the whole world to come to that same conclusion. But if Stephanie Maguire pursued her story, if she tracked him down and insisted on putting him on the evening news, that’s exactly what would happen.

And his life would be destroyed all over again.

“We’ll just have to start all over again, from the bottom up.”

A long, low moan followed Stephanie Maguire’s statement.

“Alonzo, are you complaining?” Stephanie asked, her hand pulling through her mushed hair as she leaned forward on her cluttered desk. “You know how I feel about whining, now, don’t you, Alonzo? And especially from a Georgia Tech journalism student.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Alonzo Sullivan scratched his nose, then tossed back his short dreadlocks, his brown eyes opening wide at the woman who sat staring over at him. “I’m not complaining, Stef. Not one bit.”

Stephanie sent the intern a bleary-eyed stare. “Funny, I sure thought I heard a loud moan coming from your direction.”

“Just stretching my throat muscles,” Alonzo replied, a huge grin cresting on his face. “But…do we really have to do all this research again? We’ve checked on every Derek Kane in Atlanta, haven’t we? And…it is almost midnight.”

Stephanie nodded her head slowly, exercising tired shoulder muscles in the process. “Do you have early classes tomorrow?”

Alonzo lifted a brow, as if debating whether to tell her the truth or not. “No, I don’t have any classes in the morning, but—”

“So, you can stay and help me go back over all these printouts from the DMV and compare them to the names we’ve gathered, right?”

Alonzo slowly nodded. “Yeah, sure. Who needs sleep.”

“I’ve told you a hundred times,” Stephanie replied, playfully slapping the twenty-year-old on the shoulder, “reporters never sleep.”

“Why did I have to major in journalism, anyway?” Alonzo mumbled. Reaching for the phone book, he shot her a steady brown gaze. “And why is it so important that you find this man? You already did the main story—without him.”

“I want to interview him,” Stephanie told her confused helper. “I was involved in this…mugging and Derek Kane…well, he saved a man’s life. He’s a hero, and I think he should be recognized as such. I think people need to know that there are still some heroes left in the world.”

Stephanie watched as Alonzo started organizing all the Derek Kanes, Derek Canes and Derek Cains they’d found on the Internet and in the phone book. After comparing those to the records they’d found through the Department of Motor Vehicles, they’d called most of them, but so far, no one fit the bill of the Derek Stephanie remembered from two nights ago. But she wasn’t ready to give up yet.

“This isn’t your usual type of story,” Alonzo pointed out as he once again went down the list. “You usually go for the more hard-hitting news.”

Stephanie scanned her own list. “Yeah, well, I guess I want to interview Mr. Kane because he…he seemed so reluctant. Here’s a man who risked his own life to come to the aid of someone else, yet he doesn’t want anyone to know about his good deed.”

“That is strange.”

“Yes, and it got me curious. Plus, I just think it would make a good human interest piece.”

Alonzo rolled his eyes, then pointed a finger at her. “You think there’s more to this, right?”

Stephanie had to laugh. “Alonzo, you’re getting too good at this job. Yes, I certainly think there’s more to this. I can’t get this man out of my mind.”

“How about the police?” Alonzo suggested. “The officer who arrested the youths? Have you talked to him?”