Grant followed the direction of her gaze. “I think I’ll do that. Enjoy the food and remember you’re on a short leash.”
***
Lauren was still sitting by herself when Grant reached her. Mr. and Mrs. McCaffrey were visiting with Archer’s parents three tables away and the rest of the clan waited in line for cake.
“Are these seats saved?” he asked.
Lauren pulled the chair out beside her at the round table, which could easily seat six and would stretch to fit eight when needed. There were seven chairs around it. “Just brace yourself for the family,” she warned.
“I like your family.” He took the chair and gestured toward the bride and groom, who were attempting to grab a few more bites of cake while surrounded by a crowd of well-wishers. “I can’t stop watching Archer and Jessica.” If he wasn’t careful he could step over the line and commit the sin of envy.
“Archer’s had that silly smile on his face ever since the kiss,” Lauren said.
Grant watched Lauren in silence for a moment. “You’ve been quiet for the past hour. Are you doing okay?”
She nodded. If the joy was contagious it hadn’t reached her eyes yet.
“Want to go fishing?” he asked. If anything would perk her up, it would be a trip to her favorite fishing hole.
She looked at him. “It’s cold outside. The thermometer read below freezing when I got up this morning.”
That meant nothing would perk her up. He’d never seen her this quiet. It disturbed him. “Why don’t you come over for a movie this afternoon? Brooke said she found a good comedy and the kids are grounded.”
No reaction to that announcement. “Not today. I volunteered to stay and clean up after the reception.”
“I’ll stay with you. We’ll draft Brooke and Beau and ask Evan to take pictures of Brooke picking up trash.”
That got a grudging grin out of her. “I can imagine what Brooke will have to say about that.”
He’d grown very accustomed to that smile and he missed it when he didn’t see it. He liked to think that she seemed to smile more often when he was nearby.
“I have a question for you.”
She turned to him with polite interest. He did not feel encouraged. He did, however, intend to ask the question anyway, since it had been on his mind quite a bit this past week.
“Would you laugh at me if I asked you out on a real date?”
She raised a delicate blond eyebrow at him. “Has Brooke been nagging you again?”
“No more than usual. What do you think?”
“What do you call a real date?”
Well, she hadn’t turned him down yet. And she wasn’t laughing. “A real date is when I ask you to dinner at Lambert’s Cafe and a show in Branson, just the two of us, and I pay for all of it like the stick-in-the-mud male that I am, and I do the driving.”
“So you’re talking about one of those old-fashioned kinds of dates.” A flicker of life had rekindled in those green eyes. It was a good sign.
“I’m not finished. When I take you back to your house I walk you to the door and give you a good-night... uh, kiss... and wait until you lock your door before I drive away.”
“I haven’t been out on a date like that—”
“I’m still not finished. The next day I send you a bouquet of flowers. Better yet, something that is green and hasn’t been disconnected from its root system. That way it will match the living green of your eyes. And I would include a card to remind you about what a good time I—and hopefully you—had.”
She sat watching him in silence for a few seconds. “Can I talk now?”
He nodded.
She gave him a real Lauren-like smile this time. “It’s no wonder Annette adored you. Do you know how many men would insist on seeing me safely inside and then resist leaving? Most men don’t leave.”
Grant suppressed a grin. “They don’t?”
A flush spread up from her neck. She was charming when she embarrassed herself like this. “I’ll just say that it’s been my experience that a large percentage of men who would go to all that trouble would definitely expect return favors.”
“I know what you mean.” He leaned forward. “You know me better than that. I have a great deal of respect for you, Lauren.”
“Thank you.” The flush receded and she folded her hands carefully on the table in front of her. “It sounds like a dream date.”
“Really?”
She stared down at her hands. “It does.”
“I heard you say not long ago that you didn’t believe it was God’s will for you to marry.”
She nodded.
“Not that one date would constitute marriage,” he said quickly.
“Of course not. But my mother always told me never to date a man I wouldn’t consider marrying someday.” She paused, cleared her throat, and leaned closer. “You see, all my life I’d wanted to get married and have a family—so much that I made a fool of myself a couple of times.”
“So you say.”
She grimaced. “So I know. Remember the rumors that spread through the hospital about Archer and me?”
“I seem to remember some silly—”
“—rampaging locomotive of gossip—”
“—which everyone knows wasn’t true.”
Lauren blushed again. “I suffered a lot for that one little slip of the tongue and I wasn’t the only one who paid for that rumor.”
“I know.”
“All I did was tell Gina one time that I thought Archer would be a great father and... and that I was—”
“Attracted to him. I know about all that.”
“But I’m not now.”
Grant chuckled. “Would you stop trying to redeem yourself? You didn’t do anything wrong or foolish. It isn’t a sin for a single woman to be attracted to a single man. People do that all the time.”
“Yeah? Well, for too long I went around developing crushes on the wrong men.”
He raised his eyebrows at her. “Were they married? Drug dealers?”
“They were good kind Christian men but it always became apparent to me a little too late that they weren’t interested.”
He touched her hand. “Their loss.”
“You know the night you found me at Honey Creek?”
“I’m not likely to forget that. For a while there I was afraid we’d lost you.” She’d been one of the hardest hit by the mercury poisoning because she regularly ate the fish and drank the water from the source of the creek.
“I had a kind of epiphany that night,” she said. “I was devastated by the rumor when Gina told me about it. I felt totally rejected. I asked God why He had never allowed me to have the husband and family I’d always longed for.”
“Did He answer you?”
“I didn’t hear a voice, if that’s what you mean, but I learned I needed to give my heart totally to Him. I hadn’t done that because I’d been placing the god of husband and family before Him. God wants our whole hearts, Grant.”
“That doesn’t mean you have to live the rest of your life without another human being for company.”
“He’s put me in a family, in a way. I was here for Brooke and Beau when you needed me to be.”
“And when will that need end? Did you ever consider the possibility that God might have intended to place you in a more permanent arrangement? Where you’re very much needed?”
Lauren’s eyes widened and she didn’t reply. Grant knew he could sometimes be as bold and outspoken as his daughter. He wasn’t sorry.
“You know I care a lot for Beau and Brooke,” she said. “Friends can be family but no one takes the place of God in my life.”
“Godly people marry and serve God together. Is that so hard to accept? Look at Archer and Jessica. Isn’t this conversation a little ironic considering where we are and what we’re celebrating today?”
“Are you proposing marriage, Grant?”
It was his turn to be speechless. So the lady could be a
s bold as he could, though she couldn’t cover her blush quite as well. “I’m suggesting that it might be a mistake to set your mind to living out your life as a single woman.”
“There’s nothing wrong with being single.”
“But if you will remember a recent conversation we had, you reminded me that even though I once thought my mission was to work in the ER in St. Louis, God might have had other ideas. He brought me here for a reason. Couldn’t He be doing the same for you? Now that you’ve reached that place in your life where you have embraced your singleness and have learned to be content where you are, maybe He’s ready to move you on to another kind of contentment.”
She returned her attention to her folded hands. “He’d have to tell me that first.”
“Be ready to expect the unexpected. His mind doesn’t work the way ours do.”
She looked up at him. “I always tell Brooke and Beau that if they truly seek God’s will in a matter, He will answer them in several ways over a period of time. They have to be willing to take that time and be patient as they wait.”
A chair moved at the other side of the table and Grant looked around to find Lauren’s mother smiling at the two of them with an expectant gleam in her eyes.
“I saw you two huddled over here together in the corner.” Liz McCaffrey pulled out the chair, sat down beside Lauren, patted her daughter on the shoulder, and gave Grant a conspiratorial wink. “Aren’t weddings a wonderful way to bring out the romantic in us all?”
A gleam of stubborn rebellion suddenly shot through Lauren’s eyes. Grant knew that look well. He wanted to kindly nudge Liz away from the table. Didn’t she realize that her loving manipulation drove her daughter crazy?
After a few moments of light conversation with mother, Lauren pushed away from the table. “Looks like I need to get busy. Some people are already leaving.”
She left Grant and Liz looking at one another with dismay.
Chapter 27
“Almost home.” Archer reached for Jessica’s hand as he crossed the bridge over King’s River late Friday afternoon, a week after the wedding. He felt the return pressure of her fingers and for perhaps the millionth time in the past week he thanked God with great fervor for her presence in his life.
“So that’s what honeymoons are all about,” he murmured.
Her fingers tightened around his and then withdrew so he could replace his hand on the steering wheel. “I’m glad we didn’t go to Hawaii,” she whispered.
“We didn’t need Hawaii.” What they’d needed was that wonderful cabin in the woods—with no telephone, no cable television, and no visitors for a whole week. “We had each other.”
“True.”
He heard the hesitance in her voice. Their hearts had become so tuned to each other this past week that he felt as if he could actually hear her thoughts. “Jess, I truly don’t think my macho pride is so muscle-bound that the difference in our incomes is going to cause me a lot of grief.” Particularly since she had begun sending half her yearly income to support children’s homes and nursing homes across the state. In spite of what she gave, however, they could have easily met the financial challenge of a trip to Hawaii.
“I think I can learn to enjoy a working wife.”
She didn’t reply.
After the road widened he once again reached across the distance between them and touched her arm. “I mean that.”
“I know you do. It isn’t you I’m worried about, Archer. It’s me. Helen said something a few minutes before the wedding when we were waiting for Grant and Tony to arrive from the hospital.”
“Helen Netz?” That meddling woman again?
“Now, don’t get all excited. That’s why I didn’t say anything to you sooner. I knew you were already worried about the effect the stress of being a pastor’s wife would have on me.”
“You’re right, I was.” Was the church already causing trouble in their marriage? Their one-week anniversary wasn’t until tomorrow.
“Maybe I shouldn’t have said anything,” Jessica muttered.
“Too late. What did Helen tell you?”
“She said that she was sure I would receive my call from God sooner or later.”
Archer bit his tongue until the irritated retort slid back down his throat. “And of course you were gentle when you set her straight.”
“You don’t think I’m going to receive a call from God?” Jessica’s voice held that hushed quality that it always did when she was preparing to disagree with anything he said. It was a side of her that had attracted him to her in the first place. Sometimes he was attracted by the most bizarre things.
“I have no doubt about your calling and neither do you. People travel from all over the world to hear you sing.”
“Maybe there’s something I haven’t—”
“And all that without showing a hint of cleavage.”
“Archer, what I’m trying to say is—”
“That’s pretty impressive, if you ask—”
“Archer!”
“Sorry. I’m just trying to say that you already have your hands full with that one very special calling and we’ve already discussed this in detail. I never asked you to give up your gift in order to follow some silly church tradition that has nothing to do with Bible principles. Church families are like natural families. At times they’re overwhelming and need to butt out.”
“But I’m your wife now—”
“Yes, that’s become quite apparent to me these past few days. Yee-haww!”
“Archer Pierce, would you shut up and listen to me!” But even as she snapped the words he could hear the humor in her voice. He wasn’t in trouble.
“Yes dear.”
She giggled. Until this past week, he hadn’t realized she was a giggler. She never giggled in front of anyone else and never on stage. Only for him in the privacy of their own home. Or car. Life didn’t get any better.
“I can see I’m going to be forced to table this conversation until you can get serious,” she said with mock sternness.
He felt guilty for about half a second. Then they crested the final hill into Dogwood Springs. Dusk had begun to slide across the sky and now it hovered over the hillside city in a golden haze, enhanced by the iridescent Christmas decorations along the streets and quaint village shops.
“Welcome home, Jessica Pierce. Your presence here is going to show our citizens what true beauty and calling are all about.” In a few days they would celebrate their first Christmas together as husband and wife.
He would allow nothing to spoil that for them.
***
Darkness seeped over the sleepy town and Simon Royce braved the blacktop road without turning on his headlights. His hands shook on the steering wheel and he could hear the quiver in his breathing. He’d been hiding out like an animal for a week, only daring to sneak out at night for food. Every time he had gone near Dogwood Springs he’d seen a police cruiser. After nearly barging in on a raid last Saturday he’d headed for the densest part of the national forest and laid low.
If he hadn’t recognized the outline of a police car in the darkness he would be in jail right now. So who had slipped up? Who’d told the cops?
Every time he blinked he saw police! They were everywhere. He’d barely slept in two weeks. He needed to crash but he didn’t want to freeze to death and he didn’t want to get caught while he slept.
He hadn’t eaten in three days. His familiar haunts in the forest seemed to mock him. Everyone he tried to call refused to answer. Backstabbers!
He gripped the steering wheel in his hands, feeling he could almost bend it with the force of his anger. Someday, he would break the thing.
He’d like to break some heads. After all he’d done for them, after all the money he’d brought in for them, they’d turned their backs on him. Gil Proctor, the moron, had probably let someone follow him home from the hospital the day he blew the new recipe and nearly killed himself. And worse, he’d used his own name when he che
cked into the hospital!
The rumble of the truck echoed back from the buildings when he turned into an alley at the edge of town. A car was parked in the way. He slammed the brakes. The truck’s motor died. He screamed a curse and kicked at the dash once, twice, three times until his anger receded.
He’d like to ram that car the way he’d rammed those teenagers in town that day—Webster and his stupid friends.
Webster. That little pimply-faced kid with the big mouth and the wimpy body and the big words was the one he wanted to hurt. Those bleating articles about meth production had gotten everybody all stirred up.
Simon cranked the key, shoved the truck in reverse, and backed out onto the street, stomped the brakes again, jerked the gear into drive. “I’d like to stomp Webster’s face.”
Headlights flashed through the cab of the truck and Simon froze. No, not Simon. He was Peregrine. Couldn’t forget his true name.
Come on, maintain. Don’t lose control. They’ll catch you if you do. Don’t call attention to yourself...
Now, where could a bone-tired man go to get warm and crash for a while? Who hadn’t been arrested?
He drove a few blocks, studying the parked cars along the silent street until he saw a familiar house with a crumbling front porch and torn screens on the windows. That was where Jamey’s mom lived.
Jamey...what was the last name? Younts. She didn’t like his drugs but she couldn’t turn him in. She wouldn’t. She thought he loved her because she was going to have his baby.
He would check to see if she’d moved back in with her mother. If she was still at that ratty motel he could stay with her tonight. He had to get off the street—had to hide the truck.
***
Lauren paused at the central ER desk at shift change and gave report to Muriel, who was back on the job. Dr. Jonas would be in soon to relieve Grant. Thanks to Grant’s timely intervention when he returned home from St. Louis last week, hurt feelings had been soothed.
Meanwhile there was a celebration of sorts taking place in Grant’s office. William Butler, hospital administrator and veteran Lyme disease victim, had walked into the department fifteen minutes ago with Jade Myers. He looked well rested and happy. After appropriate treatment and a vacation to visit family in Ohio—without the hunting foray into the woods he typically took—he had returned to work this afternoon with renewed vigor.
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