A Side of Faith, Hope and Love: The Sandwich Romance Novella Collection

by Krista Phillips

  That, and it was a really good excuse for chocolate.

  Betty Luther, Reuben’s mom, entered the hall carrying a large basket, followed on her heels by Pearl Hanson. The sight of Garrett’s mother made a large lump form in her throat.

  Were they really going to go through with this? Hurt that sweet lady? She glanced around, seeing Tilly at the other side of the room, helping Maddie put the last of the cloths on the tables.

  She was lying to her best friend. It no longer seemed like a funny, serves-you-right prank.

  But if she were honest with herself, she had to admit this had nothing to do with her friend or Garrett’s mom. They would be shocked, maybe a little upset, but it was her heart that would never recover.

  Betty deposited the basket in the little kitchen and bustled over to them. “Beth, you look lovely today. You should wear your hair down more often, dear.”

  Feeling her cheeks heat, she smiled and shrugged as if it were no big deal. “Thanks. I do ditch the ponytail from time to time.” Garrett and their conversation last night had nothing to do with it either. Nothing—ahem—at all.

  They were breaking up today, though. She figured she might as well go out with a bang. That was all.

  Her heart protested, but she hushed it and pulled another floral centerpiece from the box.

  Kathy smiled and sent her a conspiratorial wink. “Well, I’m taking Beth’s ponytail for the day. I had a crazy morning and did good to make it here at all.”

  Betty gave the pastor’s wife a side hug. “I’m sorry your morning was tough.”

  “Rachel’s just been having nightmares lately. I think she’s just going through a little phase. But it reminds me of those newborn days of being up every few hours. I’m fine now, just overslept and didn’t have time to get everything done.”

  Beth smiled and turned away as the conversation turned to child rearing, something she knew little to nothing about. She usually stayed around and nodded politely, but today she just couldn’t stomach it, especially a moment later when Pastor Calvin showed up and slipped his arm around Kathy.

  She’d never been jealous before. At least not like she felt today. Sure, she’d felt the I-want-that-someday pangs, but not the deep yearning that overwhelmed her soul to the point of making her heart weary.

  It was all Garrett and this stupid prank’s fault.

  She made her way to stand with Tilly, but another knife sliced through her when Tilly turned, giving the perfect profile view of the tiny baby bump that had just popped out in the last week.

  Lord, you’re not making this any easier on me.

  The sight of a white van with The Sandwich Emporium emblazoned on the side just sent her spiraling further into the cave of self-pity.

  Her eyes burned with the need to have a good cry. While that would have to wait until she was alone with a pint of Ben and Jerry’s tonight, she abandoned the fellowship hall for the bathroom on the other side of the church. She just needed a few minutes to collect herself before she faced him or anyone else. To put her game face on and finish this once and for all.

  Because after tonight, she and Garrett, fake or otherwise, would officially be history.

  Seventeen

  Garrett picked up the last buffet set from the van and motioned his helper to shut the door behind him.

  Carrying the sliced ham into the church, he walked a little faster than was safe, considering he was holding the only meat for the entire brunch.

  Only for Beth would he have agreed to oversee this “women-only” shindig personally.

  Setting the silver tray down at the head of the food table, he glanced around the room for the hundredth time since he’d arrived twenty minutes ago.

  Where was Beth anyway?

  The middle of each table displayed her handiwork, so she had to be here somewhere.

  A smile tugged at his lips at the memory of last night. That kiss—

  Yes. They definitely needed to talk.

  He’d wanted to stay last night.

  But good sense and what he could only call divine strength had pulled him away. Alone with the woman he was in love with, who made him crazy, in the middle of the night—

  Dangerous. He’d never wanted her so badly in his life.

  Leaving had almost killed him but seeing her heady look, filled with the same want he felt—

  Oh yes. Leaving had been a very wise choice.

  But it was daytime now, and they were safely at church with witnesses. He couldn’t handle it anymore. Giving instructions to his helper, he stuffed his hands into his pocket and tried to act casual as he walked over to Tilly, who was setting out silverware on tables. “Hey, you seen Beth around?”

  She scrunched up her nose. “You know, that’s a good question. I saw her come in with the flowers about a half hour ago, but I don’t remember seeing her after that.”

  His mother bustled toward him. “Garrett. There you are. Can you do me a favor?”

  “Of course, Mom. You should be sitting down and resting, you know.”

  She rolled her eyes at him. “Oh shush. The doctor said my arm was as good as new, so you can stop all that. Now, I sent Pastor Calvin to the supply closet a while ago to get more chairs, but he probably got side-tracked. Can you lend him a hand? People will be showing up any minute. The closet is right down that back hallway.”

  Frowning, Garrett took one more glance around the room at the handful of women putting the final touches on the red and pink decorations, Beth not among them. “Uh, sure. Hey, if you see Beth, tell her I’m looking for her, okay?”

  His mother’s eyes twinkled. “Of course, dear.”

  For once, that twinkle didn’t clobber him with guilt.

  A smile tugging at his lips, he turned around and headed down the hallway. The first closet was small and only held a broom and mop, so he headed toward the second door.

  Opening it, he halted at the sight of two figures embracing.

  Anger roared in his ear at the sight of the familiar ponytail on the woman whose back was turned away from him—at the hands that were wound around her, grasping her body in places--

  Suddenly the pair broke apart, and the man shoved the cowering woman behind him. “Garrett, I’m—”

  Recognition sent a sick spiral of hatred down his spine. He muttered a few words he’d never said in church before, spun around, and stalked out the door.

  ***

  Beth took a breath as she dabbed on her lip-gloss.

  They would probably send a search party out if she didn’t get to the brunch soon.

  Darn tears. Once she’d let one fall, they had avalanched. There was no way she was going to show up with a tear-streaked face.

  A few splashes of water, a good self-pep talk and time to cool off, and some light makeup finally made her appear semi-normal again.

  Exiting the bathroom, she made her way past the Sunday School classrooms and entered the back of the fellowship hall just in time to see Garrett stomping across the room, his face redder than hers had been.

  Behind him, Pastor Calvin walked faster than normal, trying to catch up with him. “Garrett, wait!”

  Confusion swirled. Was Garrett mad at the pastor?

  Rushing toward the two, she called out to him. “Garrett, what’s going on?”

  At her voice, he halted and twisted around.

  The glare he shot her looked nothing like the pretend argument they were supposed to have. From his eyes shot real hurt and—and loathing? Surely he didn’t want to stage the breakup before the banquet—

  “You have the nerve to ask me what’s going on?”

  She glanced around and took in the red-faced pastor and the open-mouthed women, all staring at them. “Uh, yes?” He was going off script. She had no clue what to say now.

  “You were making out with the pastor, Beth. Your married pastor. You people make me sick.”

  Shock rendered her speechless. That was definitely not in the script.

  Pastor Calvin’s fa
ce went from a light pink to a dark red. “Now wait just one minute. I was not—”

  “Save it for someone who wants to hear your lies. Not me. I know what I saw. Sorry to out your little secret in front of your precious congregation but heck, who knows how many of them you’re sleeping with too.”

  Pearl stood behind him, her mouth aghast and her hand fluttering against her chest. “Garrett, what in the world do you think you’re doing?”

  Turning on his foot, he ignored his mother and stormed out of the church.

  All eyes turned to Beth and the Pastor—and behind him to Kathy, who had a hand covering her mouth.

  Pastor Calvin rubbed a shaky hand over his chin. “I’m sorry everyone. It isn’t what it looks like. I—”

  Kathy stepped up, lifted her chin and took his arm. “I’m afraid I was talking to my husband in the back closet and—well, there isn’t any easy way to say this. We don’t get a lot of kid-free time, and so I asked him for a little kiss while we were alone, and well, it turned into a, um, let’s just say, a not-so-little kiss. Garrett walked in and must have thought, with my ponytail, that I was—Beth.” She shrugged her shoulders, pink dotting her cheeks.

  The room was quiet for a moment until Betty Luther stood up. “Well, I for one find it delightful to know that the romance is still alive and well for our pastor and his wife. I dare say, if more church-going married couples would make-out in the closet a little more often, the divorce rate in the church would go right down, hm? Now, let’s finish getting ready, shall we?”

  A scattering of laughter tittered throughout the room as everyone returned to their duties.

  Pastor Calvin turned to Beth. “I’m so sorry, Beth. I had no idea—”

  She held up a hand. “Don’t worry about it. I’m going to see if I can catch up with him.” She sent Kathy a wink as she left, not knowing whether to laugh or cry.

  The guy she was in love with, the same one she was fake dating and planning to fake breakup with, thought she was having an affair with her married pastor.

  A smile tugged at her mouth. Really, laughing was the only option here. It was either that or cry and she’d already had enough tears today to last her a century.

  Grabbing her coat, she ran outside, but there was no sign of Garrett.

  Then she spotted a figure walking down the sidewalk away from the church.

  Pulling her coat around her, she jogged to catch up with him.

  He didn’t even bother to look her direction once she reached him. “I don’t want to talk to you.”

  She matched her stride to his, even though it was longer than hers and hurt her legs more than a little. She ignored the ache in her lungs from running in the cold. “Too bad.”

  A few minutes later, they had just reached the Sandwich Memorial Park when Garrett stopped and glared at her, his dark eyes sharp and hard. “You were kissing—”

  “It wasn’t me.” She interrupted again before he could utter the horribly offensive accusation again.

  “I saw you with my own eyes, Beth.”

  “It was Kathy, Pastor Calvin’s wife.” She couldn’t help but smile.

  His eyes betrayed his disbelief, but then his hand reached out and caught a lock of her hair. His gaze went from it to her eyes, then back to her hair. Carefully, he tucked it behind her ear, his hand lingering. “You—you aren’t wearing a ponytail today.”

  His proximity made the 35-degree weather feel more like eighty-five. “I thought I’d try something different.”

  “You were doing that for me?”

  Yes. Without a doubt. “I just wanted to look nice when we broke up. Never thought it would be—yeah. I didn’t see the whole pastor angle coming.”

  He stuffed his hands in his pockets and turned toward the park.

  She followed him to the empty playground and took the swing next to him. “You do realize it’s freezing out here, right?”

  He kicked the stones beneath his feet. “Her name was Dayna.”

  Okay. “And she was…?”

  “My fiancée. In Chicago.”

  Pushing against the ground, she let the swing rock back and forth gently while she listened.

  “She—we looked good together. She was a junior lawyer at a law firm and was—breathtakingly beautiful. Our schedules were crazy, but we made it work. We went to a church downtown, not one of those mega churches but humongous compared to the ones here. I thought life was complete. A woman I loved on my arm. My dream job. A bright future.”

  Stones piled in Beth’s gut. She could never be that. Beautiful—ha! She had drab hair, wide hips, a weird nose, and was more sloppy-joe than caviar. But this wasn’t about her shortcomings. She needed to support her friend. “That sounds—lovely.”

  “It was all a fraud.”

  “What happened?”

  He snorted. “Oddly enough, I found out she was sleeping with the associate pastor of our church.”

  Beth slid her foot on the ground to stop the swing. “No way.”

  “If that wasn’t bad enough, the pastor and one of the board members showed up the day after I found out to bribe me into silence. Said the scandal would tear the church apart.”

  Puzzle pieces clicked into place. “So that’s why you don’t go to church anymore.”

  He rubbed his hands together and blew into them, a fog of warm air billowing in the wind. “It’s cold out here. Let’s go back inside.”

  Standing, she walked down the sidewalk with him. “You never answered my question.”

  He grabbed her hand and squeezed it, offering a smidgen of warmth. “If I remember correctly, it was a statement, not a question.”

  She rolled her eyes at his avoidance tactic. “Fine. Is that why you don’t go to church anymore? Better?”

  “Yes, that’s much better.”

  She punched him in the arm with her free hand when he still didn’t answer.

  He sighed. “Yes, that’s why. I just started questioning the whole institution of church. Are those the kind of people we’re allowing to lead us? I serve a personal God, and I firmly believe he can speak to me just as well as he can through some fallible guy pounding the pulpit and doing who-knows-what behind doors. I just can’t trust it anymore. The church is full of a bunch of hypocrites.”

  They walked the next block in silence. Rebuttals ping ponged in Beth’s head, but none of the ready-made responses that came to mind seemed right or, sadly, even accurate anymore.

  Her experience in church had been fabulous. Sure, there was the occasional disagreement between members or a family leaving because they weren’t fans of a sermon or whatnot. But at the end of the day, they were a church family, and she always felt loved and accepted there.

  As they neared the church, she took a breath and sent up a quick prayer asking God to give her words that wouldn’t push him farther away. “So I guess congratulations are in order.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “For achieving perfection status.”

  He elbowed her in the side playfully. “Stop it. I’m not perfect, and we both know it.”

  “Well, if you don’t feel like you can be in a church full of imperfect people worshiping our perfect God because you are so much better than them, you must be perfect yourself, hm?”

  His brow furrowed as he tried to pull his hand away, but she held tight and squeezed. “I get it, Garrett. That pastor was horrible and needs to be fired. But tell me this. Have you forgiven him? Forgiven Dayna?”

  His gaze of steel told her the answer.

  “Then you’re just as much of a hypocrite as them.”

  This time, he pulled his hand away harder than she could hold. “I’m not going to stand here and listen to this. I’m going—”

  Bolstered by his anger, she crossed her arms. “Paul’s letter said not to forsake communing with other believers, not to ‘only commune with fellow perfect people.’ If you’re looking for those, you’ll be looking for a long time. So you can go back to worshiping God al
l by your lonesome, hypocritical self, or you can worship with the rest of us human beings who are saved by the same grace you are. Because, hear me now, Garrett Hanson, you’re as much of a sinner for not forgiving them as they are for cheating.”

  “So what, you think we should just have a free for all in churches? Do whatever you want, because it doesn’t matter in the end?”

  “No. I’m not excusing what they did, but you can’t go around judging every church, every Christian, based on the acts of a few. Tell me the truth, Garrett. Is your beef with the church as a whole, or is it the bitterness inside you that keeps you away?”

  Turning on her heel, she jogged to the front door of the church and took a deep breath of warm air once inside the empty foyer.

  Her lungs still stung from the cold, but she needed to get away from him.

  Because she was pretty sure she’d just pushed away the man she loved for the final time, and it had been anything but fake.

  Eighteen

  Garrett stood in the cold, staring at the door that had just closed behind the woman he loved, the same one who had just pointed out a very large, painful log in his eye.

  With everything in him, he wanted to march in there and argue his case. Make her understand.

  But a sinking pit in his stomach said she’d banged the nail on the head. Really, really hard.

  Closing his eyes, he remembered that moment.

  It had been a Monday night, his day off. Dinner at his place. Dayna’s phone she’d been holding had slipped from her hand. She’d laughed and bent to pick it up, but he’d been faster. He picked it up for her and winked, teasing that a gentleman does chivalrous things like that for his date.

  But the text had come through at that moment.

  Thanks for last night, sexy.

  She’d grabbed for her phone, but in that split second, he knew the truth.

  But nothing had prepared him for the moment the name of the sender registered.

  She’d apologized. Told him it was a one-night thing. But a sickening glance through her text messages added fuel to his flaming anger.

  How could he forgive that? The lying? Cheating?