No Easy Solution (Crowley County Series Book 1)

by T. E. Killian

  Jo stood there watching her sister stomp up the stairs to their apartment. She turned back to Gil and said, “I think I need to explain one little thing for you.” She frowned and looked around the parking lot before turning her eyes back to him. “Carla has a bad case of puppy love for Mike.”

  Gil grinned and said, “That explains a few things all right. Does that surprise you though? Didn’t you have one or two of those when you were her age? I know I did. It was Miss Horton. She was my freshman English teacher.”

  Jo laughed which was what she realized he had wanted her to do. And it felt good too. Was it possible that she could actually feel comfortable around a man again? This man? She suddenly hoped so.

  “Good bye Gil and thanks again.”

  When she opened the door into the kitchen, Carla was sitting at the table drinking a soda. Jo wasn’t sure whether to talk to her or not. She just couldn’t be sure of Carla’s moods lately.

  Carla looked up at Jo as she approached and Jo was shocked to see tears in her eyes. Jo pulled out a chair and sat down. She laid her arm out on the tabletop with her palm up and Carla looked at it for a moment then slowly laid her hand in Jo’s hand.

  Neither spoke for several minutes, they just sat there holding hands. Jo pulled a paper napkin out of the holder in the middle of the table and gave it to Carla.

  Finally, Jo thought it was time for her to speak. “Carla, when I was a sophomore in high school, we had a new math teacher, and I had him for geometry. As the old saying goes, he was tall, dark, and handsome. Well, I fell in love with him immediately.”

  She paused as Carla looked over at her while she dried her eyes. Surprise was written all over her face.

  Jo snickered. “Yeah, I thought I was in love all right. That is until he married one of the English teachers. I thought I was going to die.” She tried to smile at her little sister. “But you can see that I didn’t.”

  Neither said anything for a few more minutes. Jo was shocked when Carla stood and reached down to hug her. “I love you Jo.”

  With that, Carla raced out of the kitchen and into her bedroom. But for the first time in weeks the door closed softly behind her.

  Jo leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes. Wow! Was that ever difficult. But she had another smile on her face. This could become habit forming if she wasn’t careful.

  She went into her room to change into jeans and a t-shirt. Even though she had the day off, she felt the need to go downstairs and just check to make sure everything was going smoothly.

  Chapter Nine

  By the time Gil made it back to the parsonage after dropping Jo and Carla off, he barely had time to change clothes and grab a bottle of water out of the fridge. Then, he begin mentally preparing himself for the deacon meeting.

  He knew that this meeting would be vastly different from the one last week. That first one had basically been a welcome meeting for him and the deacons to get to know each other. This one was a specially called meeting to deal with a specific problem. And if he were honest with himself, he was at least part of the problem.

  As his Pastoral Care professor at seminary had always said, “Problems will always come up in a church. Just make sure you’re never one of them.”

  Well, if it helped at all, he had had nothing to do with this problem getting started. If anything, he had inherited the problem.

  Richard had said that they needed to start doing something to protect Gil. How could they do that? None of them were police officers. There were two farmers, a banker, and a mechanic. He didn’t see how they could be much more help than he was himself.

  Well, he’d just have to wait and see what they came up with. Thinking of the different deacons again, Gil thought that he had Richard’s full support. J.C. and Leroy seemed to be fair minded and he thought they would back him as long as they thought he was right. But, Jake? Well, Jake was completely different from the others. Gil was fairly certain that Jake would oppose anything the others were for, especially if Gil was for it.

  When Gil opened the conference room door, Richard was already there. He was standing with his back to Gil at the other end of the room. He seemed to be looking out the window at the wooded hill behind the church. Gil had a feeling though that Richard wasn’t seeing anything out there.

  He turned when he heard Gil. “How are you holding up Gil?”

  Gil was surprised. This was the first time Richard had called him anything but pastor. Maybe Betty had told him that Gil preferred his first name.

  “I guess I’m doing okay . . . considering.” He shook his head. “I’ve never been shot at before. Even if they weren’t trying to hit me, it’s still a scary feeling.”

  “Yeah, I can imagine.” He came toward Gil and they shook hands. “I think the biggest thing we can accomplish today is to make the other deacons aware of how dangerous things have become for you. No one ever shot at Pastor Dawson even though I’m sure a few were mighty tempted to.”

  Gil didn’t get a chance to reply as the other three deacons started coming in one at a time over the next few minutes.

  Once they were all seated around the table, Richard opened the meeting with prayer. When he raised his head again, he looked each of the other deacons in the eye for a moment before beginning.

  “Fellows, we’ve got a dangerous situation on our hands here. Someone is doing some mighty bad things to Gil here and they keep getting worse every time.”

  When no one commented, Richard said, “The worst attack came just yesterday when someone took two shots at him with a rifle when he was standing by the back door of the parsonage.”

  Gil watched the expressions on the other three men’s faces. He was sure that J.C. and Leroy were hearing about this for the first time and were shocked, but Jake didn’t seem to be surprised at all.

  J.C. said, “Does Floyd know who did it yet?”

  Richard shook his head and grunted. “Sure, but knowing it and proving it are two different things. We all know who’s behind all these shenanigans but no one can prove it.”

  Leroy spoke up for the first time. “What can we do about it? We’re not cops.”

  Richard leaned forward in his chair, which was across from Jake. “One thing I think we need to do is put up some security lights around the parsonage.”

  It took Richard almost ten minutes to convince J.C. that it wouldn’t cost very much and that the money would be well spent. Leroy had been for it from the beginning and of course, Jake was against it all along and was the only dissenting vote.

  “Okay, then that’s settled. If we announce it tonight, we can have a special business meeting Wednesday night and bring this to a vote.”

  Gil had been watching Jake for a while and he seemed to be getting more and more agitated, as if he had something to say and couldn’t wait to say it.

  Richard looked around the room and said, “Anybody got anything else to say?”

  Gil was now sure that Jake had been waiting for this opportunity. He leaned his left elbow on the table and extended his right arm to point at Gil. “I saw the preacher there coming out of The Early Bird this afternoon.”

  He leaned back in his chair, crossed his arms over his chest, and waited to see what the reaction would be. He wasn’t disappointed either.

  J.C. and Leroy both began talking at once and Richard had to raise his voice to be heard above them.

  “Hold on a minute fellows. I’m sure there’s a reasonable explanation.” He turned to Gil and said, “Isn’t there Pastor?”

  Gil was stunned at first and fought to recover quickly. He’d never even stopped to think that someone might see him when he had taken Jo and Carla home this afternoon and jump to the wrong conclusion.

  He cleared his throat and it sounded strange, a little too high for his normal voice. Then he attempted to explain.

  “I did not go into the bar itself. I merely took Jo and Carla Early home from Thelma’s when their ride deserted them there.”

  Richard nodded and smil
ed at Gil while all three of the others tried to talk at once again.

  Richard raised his voice again. “Fellows, let’s go about this in an orderly way, okay?”

  When the others stopped talking, Richard said, “Now I think that there was nothing wrong with what Gil did. After all, we want our pastor to get known and liked out there in the town, don’t we?”

  J.C. and Leroy both said, “Yes.”

  Jake continued to glare at Gil and he seemed to be thinking. It didn’t take him long to attack from a different angle.

  “So, Preacher, what were you doing associating with bad company like that?”

  Gil was blindsided by that one. For the second time lately, he was so angry that he couldn’t speak for a moment. Finally, he was able to say, “I don’t think Jo Early would qualify as bad company. Do you know her very well, Jake?”

  Jake snorted. “Don’t have to. She owns a bar doesn’t she?”

  Richard spoke then and Gil was relieved since he wasn’t sure what he might have said next.

  “Now, Jake, I’ve known Mary Jo Early since she was just a little thing and I would say she’s got to be one of the sweetest little gals in this town. She can’t help it that her parents were killed and she had to take over raising her little sister and running that bar. She never wanted to, but she can’t afford to sell it and sure can’t afford to close it down.”

  Jake didn’t look too pleased by Richard’s defense of Jo. He sat there for a long moment before he pointed at Gil and said, “Just the same, Preacher, I’ve got my eye on you.”

  With that, Jake left and the others soon followed. Gil looked at Richard wanting some direction.

  Richard must have realized that for he said, “He may be watching you, Gil, but if I were you, I’d keep an eye out for him too. He can cause more trouble than a busted hornet’s nest. So you’d better be careful.”

  Gil left the meeting wondering again if he was really in the place where God wanted him to be. It surprised him to realize he hadn’t had that thought for a few days though.

  * * *

  Jo had been looking forward to an evening at home with Carla, especially after what she thought might have been a breakthrough in their relationship that afternoon. But it wasn’t to be. Her evening bartender had gone home sick, so here she was tending bar on a Sunday evening and wishing she was anywhere but there.

  That was another thought altogether. She did not want to be a bartender. She did not want to be a bar owner. She wanted out. She wanted a normal life for her and Carla. But how? How could she do that when she knew she couldn’t afford to sell the place or close it down? Sure, it was making enough profit for her and Carla to live on, but that wasn’t the point.

  She looked around the large room. Most of her customers were sitting in booths or at tables, only two at the bar. So she was able to sit on her stool behind the bar and do some thinking. She really needed to do some of that, in fact she needed to do a lot of thinking. So many things were happening and so many things were changing . . . almost every day it seemed.

  Was she changing too? All of a sudden, it was like in the cartoons when a light bulb turned on above a character’s head. Without her even thinking about them, some things became crystal clear to her. And the biggest one was that she was changing! Mary Jo Early, who hadn’t changed in the last seven years, was changing.

  But how? What were the changes? Were they good changes or were they bad changes? That, she’d have to think some more on and probably even wait and see.

  Okay, what was the biggest change? Maybe she should ask who was the biggest change in her life. She knew that her life had changed drastically since Gil Turner came to town. Was that good? Yes. She did think it was good. She was gradually letting a man into her life, for the first time in seven years, even if it was just on the fringes. That was frightening if nothing else. Did she dare let him get any closer? She knew he could hurt her just like other men had.

  Her thoughts were interrupted when Floyd stomped into the place and almost crushed his hat when he slammed it down on the bar. Without saying a word to Jo, he sat on the stool in front of her.

  Whenever he was this agitated, she knew she was either in for a lecture or a huge gripe session. And considering the scene at Thelma’s this afternoon, she was sure it would be the gripe session.

  Sure enough, he started right in complaining about how stubborn and pig-headed Sue Ann was and that she was trying to drive him crazy.

  Jo just sat there and let him blow for almost ten minutes before he finally seemed to wind down then grabbed the beer that was sitting in front of him and turned it up to chug it.

  Jo waited until he sat the empty bottle down on the bar. “Floyd, when are you going to let Sue Ann know about your feelings for her?”

  He looked at her like she was crazy. “No way! I can’t give that woman any kind of advantage over me. If I do, she’ll walk all over me.”

  He slammed his fist down on the bar. “I guess that’s what she’s already doing isn’t it.”

  He looked at Jo as if for confirmation and she nodded. “Yes, Floyd, I love Sue Ann like a sister, but I don’t like the way she’s treating you either.”

  They were both silent for several minutes as they listened to a Carrie Underwood song on the jukebox. When Tim McGraw started belting one out, Jo looked across the bar at her big cousin and said, “Floyd, what do you want from Sue Ann.” Before he could answer, she added, “I mean, what do you really want her to do? Do you want the two of you to be a couple or what?”

  He looked at her so intently that it was as if he was looking straight through her. And she had the fleeting thought that he wasn’t even aware of her right then.

  When he finally focused on her, he simply shook his head and his shoulders drooped. “I honestly don’t know, Little Bit.” He looked around the room and then back at her. “All I know is that when I saw that teacher fellow sitting next to her today and she seemed to be fawning all over him, I just lost it.”

  He leaned forward with his forearms on the bar. “I guess I made a fool of myself, didn’t I?”

  Jo tried hard not to smile but couldn’t keep from it. She reached across the bar and laid the back of her hand along his rough cheek.

  “Floyd, until you can be honest with yourself about your feelings for Sue Ann, there’s not a thing anyone can do to help you.”

  He looked straight into her eyes for so long that she wanted to fidget. “You’re right, Little Bit. You’re absolutely right. I don’t have any feelings for her. She’s just a friend and that’s all. And if she wants to date that joker from Springfield, then she can.”

  Jo had several questions pop into her mind after that unexpected declaration of Floyd’s. First, she hadn’t said anything about him not having feelings for Sue Ann. Where did he get that? Then, how did he know Mike Bates was from Springfield? She hadn’t known that and she’d had dinner with him twice now. The only way was that Floyd had checked him out through police channels. That was very interesting, to say the least.

  As Jo watched the changes of emotion go across Floyd’s face, she was surprised when he smiled and said, “Okay, Little Bit, enough about me. How about you telling me what’s going on between you and that wimpy little preacher?”

  Jo’s temper almost exploded by the time he finished that belittling question. “Number one, Floyd, my private life is none of your business . . .”

  He held up both hands to stop her tirade. “Hey now, is it fair for you to wade into my private life but you won’t even let me ask a simple question about yours . . . now is it?”

  She started cooling down immediately and already felt embarrassed by her sudden outburst. “I’m sorry Floyd. I guess I forgot who was asking there for a minute.”

  He smiled at her and squeezed her shoulder. “That’s okay Little Bit, I know the feeling.”

  After a short time when she didn’t answer, he said, “Well, are you going to tell me about you and that city fellow or not?”

/>   She blew out a breath, looked up at the ceiling then back at Floyd.

  “Well, I don’t think there’s really anything to talk about. We’re both being attacked by those two idiots and we’ve started kind of working together to see if we can put a stop to it all.”

  At first, Jo was glad when Floyd laughed one of his normal booming laughs, but then she wasn’t too happy when she realized that it was at her expense. But the tension seemed to have left him for the moment though.

  “Jo, if you think that’s all that’s going on between you two, you’re fooling yourself.” He ran a big hand through his short hair. “Did you know that he came into my office yesterday and said that he wants to work with me to protect you and Carla.”

  He let that settle for a moment but she didn’t see the significance of it. After all, she had gone to Gil to do the same thing. Then Floyd said, “And you know what he said when I asked him why he wanted to do that?”

  She just continued staring at him until he finished.

  “He said he’d become quite fond of you and he didn’t want to see you get hurt.”

  Jo was shocked. Was Floyd playing around with her or did Gil actually say that? She knew he wasn’t above pulling a little practical joke now and then but if so then this one wasn’t a bit funny.

  Floyd laughed loudly again. “I can see those wheels turning in your mind, Little Bit. But I’m telling you the honest truth. That’s what he said, word for word.”

  She was afraid to respond to any of that, so she was happy when her waitress came up with a drink order which pulled Jo to the other end of the bar.

  When she came back, the mood seemed to have been broken and she sure was glad of that. Floyd finished his second beer and left her to do a lot of thinking . . . a lot.

  * * *

  Gil was getting irritated with his new congregation. He was well into the first point of his sermon during their first Sunday Evening Service in over a year and people just kept coming in. The service had started thirty minutes ago.