The Best Is Yet to Come (73)

Silas greeted Cade with a slap across his back. “About time you got here.”

“Glad to hear I was missed.” Silas had brought Jada, who was chatting with Dean’s wife on the sofa.

Shelley and Ricardo were on the other side of the room, sitting next to each other, holding hands. Romance was brewing between those two. Cade hadn’t noticed what was right under his nose until the day the group had gone to the high school to speak to Hope’s U.S. History class and they arrived together. It was the first time he’d seen them outside of their sessions. The way they looked at each other that day spoke volumes.

As they gathered at the table, Cade noticed it was a crisscross of cultural delights, each person sharing their family favorites. Silas brought sweet potato pie, but he was quick to credit Jada for baking it. Ricardo contributed homemade tamales and Dean and his wife added potato casserole. Harry and Penny provided a ham.

Before they dished up, Harry paused and offered a simple prayer.

As he looked around at those seated at the table, Cade felt good. Bowing his head, he silently thanked God for His many blessings.

When Harry finished the prayer, Cade looked up and knew this was only the beginning. The very best was yet to come.





Epilogue




After politely knocking, Cade waited for permission to enter Judge Walters’s chamber.

“Come in.” Her voice came from the other side of the door.

The judge sat at her desk, her glasses perched on the tip of her nose as she reviewed the papers in front of her.

“Thank you for agreeing to see me,” Cade said, as he came into the room.

When she looked up, Cade could tell by her expression that she didn’t remember him. With literally hundreds of defendants parading through her courtroom week after week, it was little wonder.

“I’m John Cade Lincoln Junior. I stood before you a little over a year ago with a list of charges as long as your arm.” He reminded her of the circumstances and the orders he’d been given.

Recognition lit up her face when he mentioned the physical therapy. “Soldier boy.”

“Yes, Your Honor.”

“What can I do for you, young man?”

“I wanted to thank you. By all that was right and fair, I should have spent the last year behind bars. But you gave me a second chance, and I wanted to tell you how much I appreciate your faith in me.”

Leaning back, the judge removed her glasses and set them on her desktop. “As I recall, you needed to make restitution.”

It’d taken longer than Cade had hoped to pay off the cost of those damages. As it happened, Silas was working in an upholstery shop. Together they had reupholstered all the booths. Cade had paid for the fabric. The bar owner had deducted the cost of the booth against what he owed in damages, and that had helped considerably. Silas had refused to accept any compensation for his time.

“You aren’t paying me, man. This is what friends do,” Silas had grumbled, as if Cade’s offer had insulted him.

“Need another favor,” Cade told him. He had no intention of abusing the other man’s friendship.

“You name it.”

That was the kind of friend Silas was. “I’m going to need a best man, and I can’t think of anyone who has been a better friend than you.”

Silas had laughed. “You want this ugly face standing next to you while you wait for your bride?”

“No one I’d rather have.”

“You got it, with the stipulation that if Jada decides she’ll be my wife, you’ll stand up for me.”

“Soldier,” the judge said, bringing Cade back to the present.

“Paid in full, Your Honor.”

She nodded approvingly.

“All my community service hours are completed, as are the counseling sessions,” he told her, and then, because he thought he should tell her, he added, “I didn’t go into it with a good attitude. I’m here to tell you it was the best thing I could have done. It would never have happened if it hadn’t been ordered by you.”

Her smile told him she appreciated his truth.

“I can see by the way you waltzed in here that the physical therapy helped, too.”

The pain in his leg came and went. It would always be part of him, just as the loss of his two friends would. The pain was a constant reminder that he had been left alive for a reason.

“Your limp is barely noticeable,” she commented.

“I’ll admit there were days when I was cursing your name while doing those exercises. In the end they helped. I still limp, especially at the end of a long day, but not nearly as much as before.”

The judge reached for her glasses. “So, what’s next for you, Soldier?”

“I’m returning to college for an engineering degree. I was prepared to become a starving student, take on the loans, and do whatever was necessary to get my degree.”

“You can manage working and school?”

“I can now, thanks to my parents. They had money set aside for me to attend law school and offered to pay my school expenses for this next degree. I wasn’t going to let them, thinking they’d already paid for one, but I changed my mind.”

Hope had helped him to see he was being stubborn. This offer was his father’s way of apologizing for pressuring Cade to enter law school. It didn’t take much of an argument to convince Cade to accept, especially since it meant he’d be able to marry Hope much sooner than he would if he had to pay all his expenses himself.