Bluegrass Courtship

by Allie Pleiter

  Hadn’t Janet wondered something close to that about Drew? How he could keep the insane schedule he kept? Exude the non-stop energy he did? Even though she knew where this would lead, she couldn’t help but ask, “What’d he tell you?”

  “He just looked at me, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world, and said ‘Jesus.’ Like that explained everything. But it didn’t—at least not for me—so I kept asking him. I knew lots of people who claimed to be religious, but none of them acted the way he did. Most of them were in your face and down your throat. But not Hal—he never even tried to talk to me about it until I came and asked him.”

  “A mistake you’ve never made,” she said, not entirely teasing.

  “Yeah, well we’ve all got our own styles. I happen to think your Vern’s a bit of an in-your-face kind of guy, too. He just took Mike’s side in an argument we were having, and I had to back down and give in.”

  “He’s like family, Vern. Annoying and wonderful and irreplaceable.” She veered the conversation away from Drew’s journey to faith. “You can’t win an argument with Vern. I half went off to college just to stop his nagging. I brought him back an Ohio State sweatshirt for every year I went.”

  “But you didn’t get to finish.” Drew laid the post back on the ground and looked at her. “I think I get it about the birdhouses now. Don’t sell them to us if you’re not ready. I thought they were just a hobby, but they’re more than that. They’re bits of a dream, and I wouldn’t want you to lose that.”

  Janet saw him so clearly at that moment. She understood how the high-voltage man and the quieter man co-existed. His motivation—the person-to-person connections that energized him—were just hidden by the show’s grand scale. He wasn’t a conman. He was just a guy who wanted to build things that made people happy. And he wanted her to join in. As he looked at her, the garden around him took on those simple, be-happy qualities. Emily and Gil’s kids might come here someday. Maybe, one day if she got the chance, her own children—Bebe’s grandchildren—would play in this garden.

  If this wasn’t worth clearing out her stock of birdhouses, what was? It wasn’t as if she couldn’t make more. She could always make more. Suddenly it seemed silly—selfish even—to have ever thought otherwise. After all, birdhouses don’t belong on shelves, they belong outside.

  “You’re right. I’m not ready to sell you my birdhouses,” she said.

  He looked away and sighed.

  “I’m going to give them to you. All of them. And whatever other ones you need, I’ll make.”

  Drew rubbed his head with a towel and put a belt through the loops of a fresh pair of jeans. He didn’t really need a shower—he mostly needed time alone. Needed time to figure out just what it was Janet Bishop was doing to him. Why she, above all the other women he’d ever met, was unnerving him in very dangerous ways.

  Granted, he was used to being the one in control. Throughout his life, a number of things—his visibility, his looks, his personality, whatever—had granted him success with women. He’d been a charmer in high school and college, and before he came to faith, he’d made the most of that charm. Not that he’d have called himself a womanizer, but he was less than careful with his affections. Prone to flirting, determined to keep the upper hand in relationships, never lingering too long with any one woman lest things get unduly serious.

  God had called a halt to lots of that behavior. God hadn’t, however, shown him anyone he wanted to get long-term serious with, either. Drew couldn’t complain; while he had loads of admirers now (and a high percentage of them were female), there wasn’t much time or energy for anything close to a real relationship.

  Is that what he wanted—a relationship with Janet Bishop? She certainly fascinated him, but he wasn’t sure that was the same thing. She had a unique beauty, but he’d been surrounded by all kinds of beauty in film school without the can’t-stop-thinking-about-her reaction he was having now.

  It wasn’t about how Janet looked or how she acted toward him. It was about who she was. Her character. Her resistance. The wounds he was pretty sure she hid under the surface. She was the human embodiment of what drew him to renovation construction in the first place—find the problem, find the damage and shore it up. Make it stronger. Once he’d ditched film school and decided to work in construction, Drew could have made far more money with his design skills by building new homes and offices. And there were many times in his career where it made monetary or logistical sense to tear down all of an old building and start over from the ground up. His true love, though, was tearing back to the beams, gutting something down to its bones and building the same structure back better. When you got right down to it, Drew’s love wasn’t so much creating as it was repairing.

  He’d created something amazing with Charlie, though. Charlie and he had been in film school together—back in the wild days. They’d parted ways when Drew went off to mission construction work. Charlie had called him a lunatic then, but Charlie had eaten his words when they met up four years later at a fund-raiser. God had orchestrated it with a dramatic sense of style—taken each man and pulled him toward faith in different worlds, only to bring the two of them back together when the time was right. They sat up one night in an all-night diner, talking about how faith and the media seemed at odds, and hit on the basic concept that became Missionnovation. They felt like they’d set fire to the world that night—the concept was so strong and so perfectly suited to each of their talents. Drew began doing what he did so well—bringing one person at a time into the idea and letting it expand from the enthusiasm. Charlie began doing what he did best—gathering resources, managing logistics, backing Drew up behind the scenes. The two of them rode God’s calling as far as it would take them and hadn’t stopped since.

  While many people had offered “spin-offs” or related projects, Drew was happy just continuing to work on Missionnovation. Tweaking it, improving it, repairing it when it went wrong. He still loved to fix things. Is that why she fascinates me, Lord? Because I can’t figure out how to fix her? That struck Drew as an arrogant thought. It wasn’t his job to repair people. That’s Your territory, Lord. I’ve no business even thinking I can fix whatever it is that’s made her so suspicious.

  But I want to. Badly. And that can’t be good.

  Every time he thought he’d gotten his attraction to her under control, she’d go and do something to unravel him. Show him some beautiful aspect of her personality that she kept so closely hidden. He suspected he’d eventually get her to sell her birdhouses to the project. Maybe give one away. But to give them all, after what he learned about them? That did something to him that reduced his reason to sawdust. When she’d offered the birdhouses, he’d been blindsided by the urge to kiss her.

  Kiss her. Really, did a more dangerous impulse even exist? The problems that would have caused. The tension, the offense. That’d win first prize for stupid and ungentlemanly conduct. Thank you, Lord, that I didn’t do it.

  Still, that didn’t erase the fact that he wanted to.

  Maybe You are saving me from something by hauling me off to L.A. for a day, Lord. I need to get my head on straight before I mess everything up.

  Chapter Fifteen

  There was a long list of things to be done before Drew left for L.A. and one of the top priorities was convincing Annie and Kevin to lead the prayer meeting while he was gone. Kevin would do it in a heartbeat—there wasn’t a shy bone in the man’s body. Annie would take some convincing, but he had a hunch there was a gifted speaker hiding behind that clipboard, and now was a prime time to coax her out.

  He located her just in time. She and Kevin were launching into an argument at the southwest corner of the church.

  “Those species aren’t native,” Kevin said sharply. “I don’t care if it’s the hottest new thing in their seed catalogue. You want to be responsible for an invasive species taking over Kentucky?”

  Annie planted a hand on her hip. “They’re annuals, Kevin. As in plants th
at die every winter. We’re hardly staging an alien invasion by using Alphco’s featured flower.” She pulled a thin booklet off her clipboard and held it out toward Kevin. “They’ll give us the rest of the plants at half the cost if we do. They’ll be dead next year, and if the folks from Middleburg hate them they can plant whatever else they want.”

  Kevin snatched the catalogue from her. “I used to think I could plant whatever I want.” Rolling up the catalogue, he shoved it in his back pocket as if he were holstering a gun for a cowboy shoot-out.

  Drew shook his head. Those two ended up in at least three arguments per project. He stepped into their line of vision and put on a cheery voice. “Hi, kids, having fun yet?”

  Kevin gestured wildly at Drew. “Tell me I don’t have to fill this churchyard with hideous purple flowers because Alphco Garden Supply thinks they’re this year’s cool bloom.”

  Drew slipped his hands in his pockets. “Kevin, no one’s going to force purple flowers on you.” Kevin crossed his arms smugly over his chest while Annie fumed. “But,” Drew continued, “you should at least listen to Annie if she thinks it’s worth doing. Annie knows a lot about these kinds of deals. You just might find she’s right.” Now it was Annie’s turn to look smug. Drew gestured toward her. “Annie, why do we want to love purple flowers this year?”

  “Because Alphco will give us a killer discount on the rest of our stuff if we do. Because they’re annuals.” She shot Kevin a dark look. “Because they’re not an invasive species. For all I care, we can dig them up out of the flower beds after we film. But even Howard Epson thinks they’re lovely and they’ll save us so much money we can pay for your giant watering can.”

  “I like my giant watering can a lot,” Drew said to Kevin. “And it would be smart to show the folks in L.A. we know how to treat our sponsors. Can we live with purple flowers to make those things happen?”

  “We use native species, Drew. You know how important that is to me. Those purple atrocities are not native.”

  Annie held her hand out and wiggled her fingers, evidently asking Kevin to return the catalogue. When he did, she turned the catalogue over to show Drew the cover. It hosted a photograph of a purple flower that looked about as ordinary as flowers get. Hardly the atrocity Kevin was lambasting. “It is an engineered variety. It’s not native to anywhere except some lab in New Jersey.”

  “All the more reason to steer clear,” Kevin howled. “Who knows what we’ll get?”

  “We’ll get thousands of dollars off our bill,” Annie shot back. Those two could quibble like siblings when they got into it—and boy, they were into it. Drew was suddenly cast as referee, dad, judge and war crimes tribunal all wrapped up into one flannel shirt.

  “Okay, you two, we need to solve this. We need to learn how to handle pressure from sponsors and still do the right thing. Next year, this kind of stuff may only get harder, so let’s not shoot ourselves in the foot now.” Drew pointed at Kevin. “You get twenty-four hours to see if you can dig up any problems with Alphco engineered varieties.” He pointed to Annie. “You get Alphco to agree that if the Middleburg folks have any problems with these blooms we can dig ’em up. They may knock a percentage off their discount, but you can handle it.”

  Kevin and Annie applied dual scowls for half a minute, then relented. “‘So far as it concerns you, be at peace with one another’,” Drew quoted, pulling their hands together to shake. “Now that we’ve got that settled, I’ve got something else to pose to the two of you. I want you two to lead the prayer meeting for the evening while I’m gone.”

  “What?” The request had the effect Drew intended; they both instantly forgot their previous argument.

  “Someone has to take the lead while I’m gone. I think you’re both up for it. You’re ready.”

  Annie gulped and pushed up her glasses. “Ready? I don’t think so.”

  “Annie, if you can pray at the microphone the way you pray at staff meetings—which you can, by the way, you just haven’t realized it—we’re set. I’ll ask someone from the church here to back you up and it’ll be wonderful.”

  Annie shook her head.

  “No, I think Drew’s right. You’re ready to lead the prayer. You’re just not ready to lead the singing,” Kevin teased, his mood suddenly changing. “You can’t sing. But pray—you’re a champ. You’re great at it.”

  Annie turned pink. “Praying around a table with people you know, that’s one thing. But up there, in front of everyone?”

  “We don’t film those, you know that.” Drew put a hand on her shoulder. “It’s just you and some people who believe in prayer as much as you do. It’s the friendliest crowd there is. And you are ready for it. You’ve been ready for it for a while, and God just handed you the perfect opportunity. Can you see that?”

  Annie backed away a bit. “Look, Kevin’s totally up for leading the singing, so why not let him do the whole thing? Or Jeremy. Let Jeremy be host for a night. I’m a sidelines kind of gal, you know that.”

  Kevin smiled. “You shouldn’t be. Drew’s right. You’ll be great at it. You should do it, Annie. Really.”

  “Well…” she hesitated.

  “If you don’t, Drew might really ask Jeremy, and we all know how that would turn out. C’mon, Annie, prayer is definitely your gift. Share it with the world, not just the bus.”

  Drew leaned up against the church wall. He knew Kevin would like the idea, but Kevin’s enthusiasm for Annie surprised him. Maybe his team was even stronger than he thought. He’d always had to be the one to push them into new territory. Now they were growing into a team who could draw at each other’s strengths.

  Annie shifted her weight and looked at Drew. He smiled back at her, even though she looked as though she might begin chewing on the end of her pen at any moment. She looked at Kevin, and he smiled broadly, even nodded. “You’re sure?” she said after a moment.

  “Absolutely,” Drew said, at the same moment Kevin said “Totally.”

  “One prayer? And I can write it out beforehand?”

  “Only one, and I don’t think you need to write it out beforehand. You pray what’s in your heart at the staff meetings, and it’s always just perfect. Just think of Middleburg as a really big bus.”

  Janet stood in her workroom and looked at the eight birdhouses that sat on the shelves. They did seem hoarded back here, sequestered away like a hidden neighborhood. Only they weren’t a little neighborhood. Birdhouses aren’t birdhouses unless birds are living in them, are they? That was the thought that enabled her to change her mind back there in the garden. When she saw Drew so clearly in the role he was born to, it struck her that her birdhouses weren’t living the life they were made for: outside, housing birds.

  She picked one of her earliest birdhouses, one that was styled after a Baltimore row house. That was the life she thought she’d been born to—finishing her architectural degree while helping Tony run his social service mission on the East Coast. Only that mission—and, when she thought about it, that Tony—never existed. The birdhouse left a footprint on the dusty Bible underneath it. She didn’t remember she’d hidden her Bible up here—and hadn’t picked up a Bible since that whole fiasco. She stared at the worn leather volume a long time before she touched it.

  It felt like it had been waiting for her. Which was foolish—books didn’t have emotions. And yet, as she looked at the birdhouses surrounding her, they seemed to be waiting as well. Waiting for the chance to be birdhouses instead of, well, coping mechanisms. Somehow, constructing these tiny houses, the exact science of it, the carefully controlled art of it had been her survival. That’s why they felt so precious to her. Taking them out in the world would be like putting her crawl back from the pain on some kind of display.

  Or setting herself free from it.

  She’d have to think about that. A lot. But as she remembered the look on Drew’s face when she’d given him the birdhouses, part of her knew she’d already decided. As she stared around the shelves, she could
picture them on the posts around the garden. And they belonged there, in the garden. Maybe it was time to move a few things around in her life.

  Janet brushed the dust off the Bible, and while she didn’t open it, she moved it to a corner of her worktable to sit beside her as she opened some revised orders Mike had dropped off this afternoon.

  What she saw made her heart sink.

  They’d done it. There, in black and white under the very ordinary guise of a revised materials order, Missionnovationhad cut corners. On the roof. Probably the most important, lasting renovation Drew was doing, and the thing they hadn’t even requested.

  Janet sucked in a breath, reeling from the information as physically as if someone had slapped her. They weren’t ordering the roof supplies from Bishop Hardware anymore. A hand-scrawled note from Drew said they were going with an exciting new product supplied by HomeBase. One she’d never heard of—and certainly not something from the list of suggested materials from the rainwater system manufacturer. This was wrong. This was everything she didn’t trust about Missionnovation wrapped up into one convenient substitution. Sponsorship was winning over quality, and Middleburg was going to pay the price.

  Not if she could help it. She dashed to her computer and spent an hour looking over every scrap of information she could find on both HomeBase’s product and the ones Drew had planned to use in the first place. HomeBase’s product was untested. There were no reviews, no data showing how well it aged or what problems had arisen for users after installation. As far as Janet was concerned, Middleburg Community Church didn’t have the spare funds to gamble with some jazzy new roof product. They needed a dependable roof they could count on for a long time. And this wasn’t it.