Joe felt someone touch his arm. “I thought I saw your truck parked out front. What are you doing here?”
He spun around at the sound of Lois’s voice, and the sight of her caused tears to flood Joe’s eyes. His stomach knotted as he fought to hold back the tide of emotions threatening to wash over him. He didn’t want to cry, but the tears came anyway. He was so relieved to see that Lois wasn’t inside the church and appeared to be okay. “Thank God you’re not hurt!” he exclaimed.
She smiled at him and reached up to wipe away the tears that had fallen onto his cheeks. “Joe, you’re crying.”
He nodded and grinned at her. “Yeah, I guess I am.” He grabbed Lois around the waist and lifted her up, whirling them both around. “Thank You, Lord!” he shouted. “Thank You a thousand times over!”
“Put me down, you silly man! I’m getting dizzy,” Lois said breathlessly.
Joe set her on the ground then placed both hands on her shoulders and stared into the depths of her indigo eyes. “Are you really all right, and did they get everyone out in time?”
She nodded, and her eyes pooled with tears. “Everyone is fine, but the building isn’t. I’m afraid what’s left of it may have to be torn down.”
“The church can be rebuilt,” Joe said, “but human life is not replaceable.”
“You’re so right,” Lois agreed. “When the fire broke out, Tabby and I were in my office. Our first thought was about the day care kids who were in the basement.”
Joe felt immediate concern. “Were they hurt?”
She shook her head. “Not a single child. Almost everyone was out of the building before the fire trucks even arrived.”
“When I got here and saw all the commotion, then looked around and didn’t see you, I was afraid you were trapped inside the church,” Joe said, feeling as if he might cry again.
Lois smiled up at him. “It’s nice to know you care so much.”
Joe clasped her hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. “Thanks to my pastor’s wise counsel and God’s Word, I’m learning to put the past behind and show my emotions. That’s why I drove over here, Lois. I wanted to tell you about it.” He pulled a bunch of balloons from his jacket pocket and held them up. “I also wanted to give you these.”
She tipped her head to one side. “Some deflated balloons?”
He chuckled and wiped his sweaty palms on the side of his blue jeans. “Well, I’d planned to show up at your office with a bouquet of balloon flowers—like the ones I made you the night we first met.” Joe cleared his throat. “I, well, I came here to ask you a question.”
“What question?”
Joe felt jittery all of a sudden. If he weren’t careful, he would slip into the old Joe—the clown who didn’t know how to show his real feelings.
He stuffed all but one balloon back in his pocket then blew up that one and twisted it into a wiener dog. He handed the pooch to Lois, bowed low at the waist, and said, “Lois Johnson, will you be my housewife—I mean, maid—I mean—”
Lois stepped away, a puzzled look on her face. “You’re such a big kidder, Joe.”
Joe watched Lois walk next door to the senior pastor’s house. She’d thought he was clowning around when he tried to propose, and now she was probably mad at him.
Tears welled up in his eyes at the thought of losing her. He had meant for the proposal to be sweet and tender, and he’d botched it up but good, giving her a balloon dog then asking her to be his housewife. “What a jerk she must think I am,” Joe mumbled, staring down at his feet. “What can I do now?”
“Go after her,” he heard a voice whisper behind him. He turned to find Tabby standing near him. “Tell her you weren’t kidding but just got nervous and messed up your presentation.”
“Yeah, I guess you’re right. I hope she’ll believe me.”
Tabby patted Joe on the back and started across the lawn toward the parsonage.
Joe sucked in a breath and offered up a quick prayer. Tabby was right; he did need to do something—quickly.
Lois couldn’t believe Joe was crying one minute, telling her he’d been in counseling and was learning to express his feelings, and the next minute he was joking about something as solemn as marriage. In light of the seriousness of the church fire, he was probably just trying to get her to chuckle. She shouldn’t have been so sensitive. She wished she hadn’t walked away so abruptly without letting him explain.
abby had entered the parsonage a few minutes earlier and gone inside with the others. Rather than talking about the fire with everyone, Lois was sitting on the front porch, trying to sort things out. She closed her eyes and was about to pray when she heard a familiar voice.
“Lois, I need to talk to you.”
She opened her eyes as Joe took a seat beside her. He was smiling, but she saw the tension in his jaw. His smile seemed fake, like the one he painted on when he dressed as a clown.
He leaned closer, his face inches from hers, and Lois let out a sigh.
“I’m sorry about the dumb proposal and balloon dog,” he murmured. “Would you take a walk with me so we can talk?”
She hesitated for a moment, uncertain what to say.
Joe grabbed Lois’s hand and pulled her gently to a standing position.
She looked up at him. “What’s going on?”
“I’m taking you someplace special.”
Lois was tempted to resist. She couldn’t explain the funny feeling she got every time she saw Joe. At some moments, like now, she had to fight the urge to throw herself into his arms.
They left the pastor’s yard and walked in silence, until the small chapel behind the church came into view. It was used for intimate weddings, baptisms, and foot washing. “At least this building didn’t catch on fire,” Lois said as Joe opened the door and led her inside.
Joe nodded and motioned her to take a seat on the front pew. Then he knelt on one knee in front of her.
She squirmed uneasily and held her breath. What was he up to now?
“I love you, Lois,” he whispered. “I know I’m not the ideal catch, and I’ll probably never make a lot of money, but if you’ll have me as your husband, I promise to love you for the rest of my life. Will you please marry me?”
Lois’s vision clouded with tears as she smiled at Joe. “Yes. A thousand times, yes!”
His face broke into a huge grin. “Can I take that as a yes?”
She chuckled and winked at him. “It’s a definite yes.”
Joe stood and helped Lois to her feet then pulled her into his arms. “From now on we can clown around together, but I promise to get serious sometimes, too.”
She laid her head against his chest and sighed contentedly. “I’d like that, Joe. I want to spend the rest of my life telling others about God’s love, and I want to be the kind of wife who loves you no matter how much you clown around.”
Secret Admirer
by Gail Sattler
Chapter 1
Shannon, I’d like you to meet the new dispatcher, Todd Sanders. Todd, this is Shannon Andrews, our payroll clerk.”
Shannon squeezed her eyes shut at the sound of the name. It couldn’t be. It just couldn’t.
“Hey, Shan-nooze. Long time no see.”
That voice. The hated nickname. It could be, and it was.
“Todd,” she muttered. “Long time no see.” Shannon forced her eyes open and gave him a welcoming smile, even though it was almost painful. She wanted to pinch herself to wake up but knew it wouldn’t help her present nightmare. Gary, the operations manager, smiled first at her then at Todd. “You two know each other? It’s a small world, isn’t it? Come on, Todd. I’ll introduce you to the rest of the staff, then we’ll get you set up at your station.”
All thoughts of the coming payroll deadline deserted Shannon as she watched Gary introduce Todd around the office. She hadn’t seen Todd for a long time, and it was no loss. Briefly she considered turning in her resignation then banished the thought. She would be strong and show
him he no longer affected her.
Unpleasant memories flashed through her mind. From the time she was eight, Todd and her eleven-year-old brother Craig had been best friends. The day she moved out was the day she finally stopped having to bear the brunt of Todd’s teasing.
During the time leading up to her high school graduation, she’d foolishly thought she was in love with Todd. However, the painful, constant jabs about being nothing more than his friend’s bratty kid sister cured her. Thankfully, she got over her high school crush before he discovered how she felt. If he had, she never would have lived it down.
Over the past two years, Shannon had avoided Todd, seeing him only when Craig dragged him to one of their church functions. Despite the safe atmosphere of the church she’d grown up in, those occasions always affected her, bringing back the memories of past hurts, even after all that time. Fortunately, it didn’t happen often. In the past year she hadn’t seen him at all. Maybe that was why seeing him now at work, it hit her with a double whammy.
She thought she had put Todd and his idiocy behind her. Obviously, she was wrong.
Shannon forced herself to return her attention to her work. She’d almost completed the warehouse payroll when she felt someone poking her arm.
“Shan! I’m talking to you! Have you met that new dispatcher? He sure is a sweetheart, isn’t he? Wouldn’t you love to meet him in a dark corner one night?”
In the light or dark, despite his good looks and charming ways, which he used when it suited him, she’d already seen enough of Todd Sanders to last a lifetime. “No,” she muttered through gritted teeth. The last time she met Todd in a dark corner she hadn’t known he was there until too late. That time, he had scared her half to death with some furry monster toy. She didn’t hear the end of it for months.
Without fail, every time she went to her parents’ home for a family occasion, her brother regaled her with never-ending tales of Todd that she didn’t want to hear. According to Craig, Todd had turned his life over to Christ about a year ago. He claimed Todd had changed and grown up a lot since then. Regardless, even though his faith would make a lot of changes in him, deep down, Shannon knew he was still the same old Todd. She was sick to death of his immature pranks. Out of self-preservation, she intended to avoid him as much as possible.
“Hey, Shan. Aren’t you coming for lunch?”
Shannon shook her head. “No. I’m going to work through my break and catch up on a few things. I have a three o’clock cutoff deadline on this, and it’s going to be close.”
Todd walked into the lunchroom, but Shannon wasn’t there, leaving him strangely disappointed. He’d always enjoyed their verbal banter over the years. Even though the sharp repartee didn’t belong in the work environment, that didn’t mean they couldn’t talk civilly to each other during break time.
He hadn’t seen much of Shannon since she’d moved into her own apartment. In fact, the last time was probably at least a year ago. He thought of her often, and seeing her now only emphasized how much he’d missed her. Todd found it amusing that she hadn’t noticed him when he came in to apply for the job, but he’d seen her. At the time, she’d been concentrating on the computer screen at her desk, oblivious to all else around her. Either she had grown prettier in the last year, or the old saying about absence making the heart grow fonder was true after all.
He’d liked Shannon for years. Since she was his best friend’s kid sister, though, he didn’t want to damage his friendship with Craig. Most of all, he didn’t want to get beaten to a pulp if any relationship between them went sour. He’d done whatever he had to in order to keep everything the same as it had always been, maintaining a safe emotional distance. Sometimes, he’d even deliberately done things to push her away, rather than risk getting too close.
Gary and one of the other dispatchers joined him at the table, spread their lunches out in front of them, and began to talk about the events of the day. Todd responded to a few comments, but his thoughts kept drifting back to Shannon.
He remembered the crush she’d had on him when she was in high school. He’d never been so flattered in his life. But, while Shannon had graduated with honors, he’d been working two jobs to pay off a major debt not of his own making. Plus, he’d been going through a rough time at home with his mother, which had become increasingly worse since his father left. Instead of dealing with his problems, he’d taken out most of his frustrations on Shannon, over and above the usual jokes he played on her as Craig’s kid sister. She hadn’t deserved it. Memories of his behavior still filled him with guilt, even after all this time.
In hindsight he realized life would have been easier if he’d shared his troubles with Craig sooner, but he’d been too proud and too overwhelmed to ask for help.
But that was years ago. Todd pushed a past he couldn’t change to the back of his mind and concentrated on things as they were today. Over the years, Shannon had grown from an awkward, mouthy kid into a witty, attractive woman. Todd tried not to smile as he thought of his last view of Shannon, typing away at her computer. He’d always teased her about being nerdy with her aptitude for figures; he hadn’t wanted to admit how proud of her he’d been since mathematics was never his strong suit.
Now, after much hard work, at the young age of twenty-five, Shannon had become the chief payroll administrator for a multinational courier corporation. Through Craig, Todd knew the extent and responsibilities of her job, and it bothered him that Gary had referred to her as only a clerk. She deserved more respect than that.
He couldn’t erase the past, but Todd figured that since they would now be working together, it would be a good time to make a new future. Her graciousness in the face of defeat had always impressed him. Even though she didn’t know it, she’d always held a piece of his heart in the palm of her hand.
The timing may not have been right to start a relationship with Shannon Andrews before this, but things were about to change. He hadn’t been a Christian long in the overall scheme of life, but he didn’t think it a coincidence that God had placed him at Kwiki Kouriers for a good reason; he felt sure that reason was Shannon.
First he’d catch up on old times and tell her all that had changed in the last year or so. He imagined the two of them, walking down the beach, barefoot, hand in hand, the water lapping around their ankles as they talked. Of course, it would be different without Craig present. Todd couldn’t remember ever being alone with Shannon for more than a few minutes at a time. That, too, was about to change.
Since the beach wasn’t very realistic, Todd thought of other places to be alone with Shannon and where the best spot for that kind of conversation would be. He imagined them sitting side by side in a dimly lit restaurant, romantic music playing in the background, where they could have a special quiet time, just the two of them.
Todd shook his head. They were nowhere near that stage in their relationship. The most likely place for them to spend time together without the encumbrance of work would be after church on Sunday morning, although he didn’t want to wait a week just to talk. He’d been attending Craig’s church recently, and he missed not seeing Shannon there. Craig had told him Shannon now attended a small church close to her apartment, along with some of her friends who lived nearby. She attended church with her family only when something special was going on. However, those occasions seemed to be when Todd was unable to attend. It was almost as if she planned it that way.
Todd frowned as he checked his watch. The lunch break was nearly up, and Shannon still had not appeared. He wanted to detour past her desk to talk but decided against it since it was his first day at the new job. Instead, he would leave it up to her to approach him.
She didn’t approach him all week. She worked through her lunch every day, and he heard talk that the rest of the staff was starting to wonder why she suddenly had so much extra work to do. He had a nagging suspicion her work wasn’t the reason for her absence at lunchtime—he was.
By Friday, Todd couldn’t stand i
t any longer. He didn’t want to risk a confrontation in the middle of the office, so at the end of the day when he left the building, he didn’t leave the parking lot. He leaned against the fender of her car, crossed his arms, and waited.
He didn’t wait long. Soon Shannon rushed out the back door at a near run, straight for her car, and straight for him.
Her feet froze on the spot as soon as she saw him. “What are you doing here?”
“I’ve wanted to talk to you all week, but you seem to be avoiding me.”
“Me?” She laughed a very humorless laugh. “Why would I avoid you?”
Todd covered his heart with his hands. “I detect a hint of sarcasm in your voice, Shannon. If I were the sensitive type, which I am, by the way, you could hurt my feelings.”
She snorted. “Move over, Todd. I have places to go. I don’t want to run you over, but I will if I have to.”
“The only thing you’ve run over is my poor heart.”
She snorted again. “Give me a break.”
“Come on, Shannon. Seriously. I think we should go somewhere and talk. We can go out for supper. I’ll even pay.”
Rather than the enthusiastic response Todd would have preferred to see, she stared at him in open astonishment. He couldn’t help but feel stung.
“Is this some kind of joke? You wouldn’t take me to some place that serves frog legs, would you?”
“Frog legs?” He watched her cross her arms and tap her foot while his mind raced, trying to figure out the significance of her remark. “Oh! Frog legs! That was just a joke!”
She wagged her finger in the air at him then stabbed him in the chest with it. “I have never been so embarrassed in my life. Imagine when I got to work, opened my lunch bag, reached in for my sandwich and touched a cold, slimy frog instead! When I screamed and nearly fainted, they were ready to call either the funny farm or an ambulance.”
“You mean you didn’t look in the bag before you left the house? You took the frog to work? It was my idea, but it was Craig who took out your sandwich and put in the frog before you left.”
Time to Laugh Romance Collection Page 30