“Maybe.” He smiled and ran one finger over Carolyn’s cheek. While he felt romantic, it had nothing to do with the beautiful sky or being at the uniting of two people before God. It was because he was with the woman he loved.
Despite the romantic atmosphere of the wedding and now the pretty sunset, all day long he’d had the nagging impression that something was wrong, but he couldn’t put his finger on it. It had started long before the actual ceremony, when he arrived at Carolyn’s house to pick her up. She’d been almost too responsive when they’d kissed earlier, like she knew something he didn’t.
His stomach churned, despite his quickening heartbeat at the memory of a kiss that had rocked him to his soul. It was like the last kiss before the hero of the movie rode off into the sunset, never to be seen again.
Mitchell reached for her hand and twined their fingers together. This hero wasn’t riding off into this sunset. He was staying, hopefully forever. Today, tonight, he was going to ask Carolyn if perhaps one day in the not too distant future, she would consider marrying him.
He wasn’t going to rush her. After all, they hadn’t known each other long, but all day he’d tried to squelch the panic he felt rising up, the fear that if he didn’t do or say something right away, he was going to lose her.
“Listen! Do you hear the crickets chirping?”
He blinked, bringing his attention back to Carolyn beside him, which was what he had intended, not to go outside with her and be lost in his own little world. “There’s a big piece of undeveloped land next door.”
“Did you know that you can tell the temperature by a cricket’s chirp? You count the number of chirps a cricket makes in fifteen seconds, and then add forty.”
“That’s very interesting. I never knew that.” He almost started counting, but he stopped himself and squeezed his eyes shut. He wasn’t there to learn about insect trivia. For weeks, he had waited for just that right moment to give her the promise ring, and it never happened. Then when he’d made his own moment after class, the wrong moment had turned exactly right.
Right moments didn’t just happen, they were made, and he was going to make one right now.
He forced himself to relax, gave her hand a small squeeze, then turned and smiled at her. “Carolyn, I’ve been thinking. I know this is going to sound sudden to you, but will you—”
“Mitchell, wait.”
Mitchell frowned. “Wait? But—”
“I know why you’re doing this, and it’s not necessary. You don’t have to feel sorry for me.”
“Sorry for you?”
“Because of Hank.”
“But I—”
Suddenly, a voice called out. “Mitchell! Come on! Jake and Ellen are leaving.”
“You have to go.”
“No, we have to finish this.”
“We can talk when everything is over. I have something to say to you, too.”
Once the last guest had left, Carolyn pitched in, and the cleanup progressed quickly. The mundane chores provided her the opportunity to be alone and allowed her time to think.
She could tell Mitchell knew what she was going to say to him. He wasn’t his usual smiling self, and he was unusually quiet, while Gordie and Roland were unusually loud.
Also, his acquiescence meant that he had accepted what she was going to tell him.
To tell him she couldn’t see him again was the most painful decision of her life. Over the last few days, she’d done a lot of thinking and even more praying, and she had concluded that Mitchell was not the man she’d been asking God for. She thought about all the qualities and criteria she asked for in the man who would be her husband, and of them all, Mitchell only met one—he was a Christian. She’d asked for God to show her whether Mitchell was right for her or not. For all her prayers, she hadn’t seen anything that showed her Mitchell was the man God had chosen for her to share the rest of her life with.
Therefore, she had to quit fooling herself. A bad case of the warm fuzzies wasn’t enough of a foundation on which to base a marriage. Something firm had to come first, something to help the relationship withstand the test of time. She’d had more reminders of everything wrong than the only thing right in their relationship, so she had to accept that as her answer.
There was no middle ground, because for this question, the answer was for keeps.
When the decorations were packed away, the room restored to its original order and properly cleaned, the wedding party left the building and walked to the parking lot.
Carolyn followed Mitchell to his car.
“Let’s talk when you take me home. This isn’t something I want to do in a moving vehicle,” she said as he located his key ring and opened the door for her.
“Okay,” Mitchell said quietly. He walked around to the driver’s side and slid into the seat in silence.
She could tell that he had prepared himself for the worst, accepted it, and taken it like a man. A mature man.
She thought of what Hank had done when she turned him down. The older man, the one who seemed to be everything she’d ever wanted in the man who would be her mate. Mitchell rested one hand on the steering wheel and inserted the key in the ignition, but he didn’t turn it. He sighed deeply then dropped his hands and turned his body toward her. “We don’t have to have that little talk, Carolyn. It’s okay. I know what you’re going to say, and I won’t insult you and keep hammering at you. Your decision is your decision, whether it’s the one I want or not.”
A burn started in the back of her eyes, but she blinked it back.
“I don’t know if I’ll have the strength to do this later, so I had better do it now.” He reached behind the seat, pulled out a plastic bag, and handed it to her. “I got this for you. I forgot to give it to you before the wedding. You can ignore the note.”
She opened the bag, reached inside, and pulled out a little plush ram that matched the sheep Mitchell had bought for her at the zoo. Stuck to it was a small note with Mitchell’s scrawling handwriting.
To Carolyn.
Husband attached.
Love, Mitchell
She stared at the little ram, then at Mitchell.
He smiled weakly, like he was trying to lighten the heavy moment. “I hope this time you’re not going to hit me over the head with it.”
She petted the little ram, which was obviously the husband for the sheep now sitting on her bed, reread the note, and contemplated its message.
She swallowed hard. “Were you going to ask me if I wanted a husband, too?”
He smiled, but his face held no humor.
“Yes, I guess I was.”
She stared blankly at the plush ram in her hands then raised her head to look across the space between them and studied Mitchell.
He was no longer the neat and tidy package he had been in the afternoon. The jacket of the tuxedo was crinkled. His carnation was squashed and missing half its petals. He’d spilled something on his shirt, the bow tie was crooked, and his hair gel had given up its hold long ago. And contrary to the claims of Mitchell’s hairstylist, she could still see some orange and blue at the roots.
Mitchell never put on airs, nor did he pretend to be something he was not. Mitchell was, just as his father said, simply the person he was. Regardless of his age, his job, his visions for the future, or anything else—or maybe it was the combination of them all—Mitchell was the man she was madly in love with and always would be.
When it came down to the bottom line, Mitchell was a man of faith and character.
Suddenly, Carolyn had to force herself to breathe. Of all the Bible reading she’d done since she’d met Mitchell, one verse, Isaiah 32:8, sprang to mind. “But the noble man makes noble plans, and by noble deeds he stands.”
For all his plans and reasoning behind them, whether it had been his strategy to prepare the food for the wedding, to his ideas for fun places to take her—in spite of her best efforts to avoid him—to his intentions to court her or the times they had simply p
rayed together, he’d always done the right and noble thing.
She’d never met a man nobler than the fine Christian man in the disorderly tuxedo in front of her.
She had been praying for the wrong things, but God had sent her the right man anyway.
Knowing that he had planned tonight to ask her to marry him, her eyes clouded, but she blinked back the tears. Before she spoke, she plucked the little yellow note off the ram, reached past the space between the seats, and pressed it onto the center of his chest. “Then the answer is yes.”
Mitchell reached up to brush his fingers across the “husband attached” sticker in the middle of his chest, stared down at it, then raised his head, meeting her gaze. His voice came out gravelly and low, like he was having trouble comprehending what she’d just agreed to. “That’s great. I feel all choked up. I don’t know what to say.”
Carolyn had no intention of becoming tangled in a big kiss in the bucket seats of a car in the middle of his church’s parking lot. Instead, she leaned over the stick shift and rested her palm on the note stuck to the center of his chest. Beneath her touch, his heart pounded.
“Just say, Baa–aa–aa.”
Sweet Harmony
by Janice Thompson
Dedication
In loving memory of one of my dearest drama buddies of all time, Robin Tompkins, currently performing on the greatest stage of all.
Chapter 1
Life is better in Harmony. If you don’t believe me, come on up here and see for yourself.”
Tangie laughed as she heard her grandmother’s cheerful words. Leaning back against the pillows, she shifted the cell phone to her other ear and tried to imagine what her life would be like if she actually lived in her grandparents’ tiny hometown of Harmony, New Jersey. “Thanks, Gran-Gran, but I’m no small-town girl,” she said, finally. “I’ve spent the last four years in New York, remember?”
“How could I forget?” Her grandmother’s girlish laugh rippled across the telephone line. “I’ve told every person I know that my granddaughter is a Broadway star … that she knows all of the big names in the Big Apple.”
Tangie groaned. “I might know a few people, but I’m no star, trust me.” In fact, these days she couldn’t even seem to find a long-term acting gig, no matter how far off-Broadway she auditioned. So, on Christmas Eve she’d packed her bags and headed home to Atlantic City. Tangie had spent much of the drive praying, asking God what she should do. His silence had been deafening.
Now Christmas had passed and a new year approached. Still, Tangie felt no desire to return to the Big Apple. Safely tucked into the same bed she’d slept in every night as a little girl, she just wanted to stay put. Possibly forever. And maybe that was for the best. She’d felt for some time that things were winding down, career-wise. Besides, she’d seen more than enough drama over the past four years … and not just on the stage. So what if her days on the stage were behind her? Maybe—in spite of her best efforts—she wasn’t destined to perform on Broadway.
“I’m telling you, Harmony is the perfect place for you.” Gran-Gran’s words interrupted her thoughts. “You need a break from big-city life. It’s peaceful here, and the scenery is breathtaking, especially during the holidays. It’ll do you good. And it’ll do my heart good to have you. I’m sure Gramps would agree.”
“Oh, you don’t have to win me over on the beauty of upstate New Jersey,” Tangie assured her. She’d visited her mom’s parents enough to know that Harmony was one of the prettiest places on planet Earth, especially in the wintertime when the snows left everything a shimmering white. Pausing a moment, she thought about her options. “Might sound silly, but my first reaction is to just stay here.”
“In Atlantic City?” her grandmother asked, the surprise in her voice evident. “Would you work at the candy shop? I thought you’d given up on that idea years ago when you headed to New York.”
“Yeah.” Tangie sighed as she shifted her position in the bed to get more comfortable. “But Mom and Dad are about to head out in their RV again, so Taffie’s bound to need my help, especially with the new baby.”
Tangie couldn’t help but smile as she reflected on her older sister’s mothering skills. Baby Callie had lovely brown tufts of hair and kissable apple dumpling cheeks. And her big brown eyes melted Tangie’s heart every time.
Yes, it might be nice to stay home for a change. Settle in. Hang out at the candy shop with people who loved her. People who would offer encouragement and help her forget about the thousand ways she’d failed over the past few years, not just professionally, but personally, as well. All of the parts she’d auditioned for but hadn’t received. All of the plays she’d been in that had closed unexpectedly. All of the would-be relationships that had ended badly.
Tangie sighed.
“Let me tell you the real reason for my call.” The determination in her grandmother’s voice grew by the minute. “No point in beating around the bush. Our church is looking for a drama director for the kids’ ministry. I suggested you, and the pastor jumped on the idea.”
“W–what?”
“There’s nothing wrong with your hearing, honey. Harmony might be small, but the church certainly isn’t. It’s grown by leaps and bounds since you were here last, and the children’s ministry is splitting at the seams. Our music pastor has been trying to involve the kids in his productions, but he doesn’t know the first thing about putting on a show. Not the acting part, anyway. We need a real drama director. Someone skilled at her craft … who knows what she’s doing.”
“Why hire one?” Tangie asked. “Why not just find someone inside the church with those talents and abilities?”
“No one has your qualifications,” Gran-Gran stated. “You know everything about set design, staging, costumes, and acting. You’re a wealth of knowledge. And you’ve worked on Broadway, for heaven’s sake. Gregg doesn’t mind admitting he knows very little about putting on shows. He attempted one with the kids last week. A Christmas production. But it was, well—”
“Wait. Who’s Gregg?” Tangie interrupted.
“Gregg. Our music pastor. The one I was just talking about. You remember him, right?”
“Hmm.” Tangie paused to think about it. “Yeah, I think I remember him. Sort of a geeky-looking guy? Short hair. Looks like his mother dressed him?”
Gran-Gran clucked her tongue. “Tangie, shame on you. He’s a wonderful, godly man. Very well groomed. And tidy.”
Tangie looked at the mess in her bedroom and chuckled. “Sounds like my dream guy.”
“Well, don’t laugh. There are reams of young women trying to catch his eye. Good thing they don’t all see things the way you do. Besides, half the women in our Prime Timers class are praying for a wife for Gregg, so it’s just a matter of time before God parts the Red Sea and brings the perfect woman his way.”
“Mm-hmm. But let’s go back to talking about that show he put on. What happened?”
“It was terrible.” Gran-Gran sighed. “And I don’t just mean terrible. It was awful. Embarrassing, actually. The kids didn’t memorize any of their lines, and their costumes—if you could call them that—looked more like bathrobes. And don’t even get me started on the set. He built it out of cardboard boxes he found behind our local hardware store. You could still see the Home Depot logo through the paint.”
“Ugh. Give me a break.” Sounded pretty amateurish. Then again, she’d been in some productions over the years that weren’t exactly stellar … in any sense of the word, so who was she to pass judgment?
“The music part was great,” Gran-Gran said. “That’s Gregg’s real gift. He knows music. But the acting part was painful to watch. If my best friend’s grandkids hadn’t been in it, Gramps and I probably would’ve left during the intermission.”
“I’ve seen a few shows like that,” Tangie said. She chuckled and then added, “I’ve been in a few shows like that.”
Her grandmother laughed. “Honey, with you everything’s a show. A
nd that’s exactly why I think you’d be perfect for this. Ever since you graduated from acting school last spring, you’ve been trying to find out where you belong. Right?”
“Right.” Tangie sighed.
“And didn’t you tell me you worked with a children’s group at the theater school?”
“Yes. I directed a couple of shows with them. They were great.” In fact, if she admitted the truth to herself, working with the kids had been one of the few things she’d really felt good about.
“Think of all the fun you’ll have working with the children at church, then,” Gran-Gran said. “You’ll be able to share both your love of acting and the love of the Lord.”
“True. I was really limited at the school.” The idea of working in a Christian environment sounded good. Really good, in fact.
“They need someone with your experience and your zeal. I’ve never known anyone with as much God-given talent and ability, and so creative, too. Gregg is pretty much ‘in the box.’ And you, well …” Her grandmother’s voice trailed off.
“Say no more.” Tangie laughed. She’d busted out of the box years ago when she dyed her spiky hair bright orange and got that first tattoo. Glancing down at her Tweety Bird pajamas and fuzzy slippers, she had to wonder what the fine folks of Harmony, New Jersey, would think of such an “out of the box” kind of girl.
Only one way to know for sure. Maybe it would be best to start the new year in a new place, after all.
Tangie drew in a deep breath then spurted her impromptu answer. “Gran-Gran, tell them I accept. Look for me tomorrow afternoon. Tangie Carini is coming to Harmony!”
Gregg Burke left the staff meeting at Harmony Community Church, his thoughts tumbling around in his head. He climbed into his car and pointed it toward home—the tiny wood-framed house on the outskirts of town. With the flip of a switch, the CD player kicked on. Gregg continued to press the FORWARD button until he located the perfect song—a worship tune he’d grown to love.
Time to Laugh Romance Collection Page 62