"Necessity is the mother of taking chances."
For some reason, this long-forgotten quote from Mark Twain popped into Sarah's head as she watched Hardcastle and his last rehabilitation project, Mark McCormick, play basketball. While she could not hear the two men's voices from her vantage point at the kitchen window, she could tell that they were arguing … as usual.
She also knew that – as usual – the argument was really in jest, and would blow over with the whim of the wind. Soon, the men would come charging into the kitchen, hungry for lunch and including her in their time-honored tradition of needling and joking.
For just over a year now, she had watched this partnership grow. At first, Sarah dreaded meeting Mark, afraid that he would fall the same way as the other projects Hardcastle brought to the estate. After only a few days of knowing the other man, the dread had only increased. Not because she didn't like him; in fact, she worried that she and the judge – the main reason for her worry – liked the young man too much. Mark proved from the very beginning that there was a charming, sweet, intelligent man lurking beneath the false bravado.
Sarah tried to steel her heart against him, for she had been burned too many times before. But, with just one look from those old-young eyes, she was lost. Before she knew what was happening, she found herself taking extra care to make his favorite meals and "helping" him clean the gate house when Hardcastle wasn't looking. If ever she had seen a young man who needed a mother's care, it was Mark McCormick. Never able to resist another's need, Sarah's heart immediately swelled with affection for the young man.
She often thought fondly of how Hardcastle's heart had also grown to include the ex-con. Being able to read the judge from years of familiarity, she easily saw through the gruff and cranky exterior. She had seen the judge's eyes soften when he saw Mark lovingly tend to Hardcastle's beloved Corvette, and heard how his laughter filled the house as it had when his family was alive. If Mark never did another thing at Gull's Way, she would always love him simply for giving the judge joy again.
Thinking back on Twain's quote, Sarah chuckled softly. Milton Hardcastle had succumbed to the 'necessity' of finding a younger man to assist in his crusade to save the world, and Sarah personally thought that this was one chance worth taking. In fact, knowing Mark as she now did, she suspected that it hadn't really been true chance at all. From where she was standing, Mark McCormick was less a chance and much more a sure thing.
Smiling and humming softly to herself as she heard the men opening the door, she hurried to finish the lunch preparation. The smile only widened as Hardcastle and McCormick burst into the room, arguing, griping and – most importantly – laughing all the way.