Page 60 of There I Find Hope

Her thoughts went to Ryan, and her mother’s heart tried to think of something she could do that would ground him a little better.

She suspected that he was running from something, but she had no idea what. She wouldn’t pry into his affairs, although she would certainly never turn away if he wanted to talk to her. She could only pray that he would or go to someone for godly counsel.

Before she knew it, the lighthouse had come into view, with Joe Pianse sitting out the way he usually did in a chair, his fishing pole stuck in the sand, his hat pulled down low over his head.

She smiled when she saw he had two chairs set up.

He’d taken to doing that last summer, grudgingly telling her that she might as well sit down while she stood around and bugged him.

She knew he didn’t really think that she was a bother, and he enjoyed the company.

She walked over and sat down.

“Business is slow, isn’t it?” he said in his gruff voice.

“Actually, it’s busier than ever. How’s the fishing?”

“Terrible. Terrible.” That’s what he always said. “But I do have a few you can take home and fry up for the kids tonight if you want to.”

“Maybe we’ll make them over a campfire. Are you sure you don’t want to come down and join us?” She always invited him, and he always declined. It was a ritual they went through.

“Nah. I’m too busy up here. But the kid was here over the weekend, and he left more espresso beans for you.”

She smiled.

“I know that’s the only reason you come up here anymore.”

It was no such thing, but she had to admit that she was definitely addicted to espresso beans. And it was all Joe’s son’s fault. She’d never met the man, and from what Joe said, he didn’t spend nearly enough time with his father, but Joe complained about everything, and Lena suspected that his son was better to him than what he let on. Especially considering the amount of espresso beans the man brought.

“Do you tell him you give them to me? Or do you let him think you eat them?”

Joe turned his head toward her and looked at her with his bushy brows shielding his face, his blue eyes squinting so much she could barely tell their color. “What do you think?”

“I think that’s a smile peeking around your mouth. Be careful, because I’m going to start to think that you’re just a big old softy and not the crusty old man you want everybody to believe you are.”

“Nobody cares.” He huffed, looking back out toward the lake.

“That’s why I’m here. Because I don’t care.”

“You’re here for the espresso beans.”

“You know, sometimes I feel like no one cares about me either.”

She didn’t usually talk about serious subjects with him. Typically, she tried to tease him out of his bad mood. More and more, he had to hide his face to keep a smile from showing.

It always made her feel good when she felt like she left him in a better mood than what he was when she found him. Personally, she thought he just enjoyed the company. Everyone liked to have someone to talk to occasionally.

As far as she knew, Joe’s son and she were the only visitors he had.

“A young chick like you. You got your whole life ahead of you.”

She snorted. “You’re just as much of a young chick as I am.”

“I doubt it,” Joe said.

She figured he was probably ten years older than she was. He looked older than what he was because of being out in the elements all his life. From the little they talked, particularly on the Michigan winter afternoons when she managed to walk up the beach, she learned he’d been a commercial fisherman working for one of the big fisheries between Chicago and Milwaukee. It had been a hard life. And he had to be away from his family, at the lighthouse, for weeks at a time.

Then he had a tragedy, losing his wife and two sons, and she suspected that he’d never really gotten over it.

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