“Don’t know. Didn’t hear sirens going off or the bus exploding or angry mobs running through town, so I suppose it went okay. Annie was going to ditch the microphone and lights last time I talked to her, and just have everybody pray. She was too worried about Kevin to do much else.”
“I can’t believe he got hurt. But he sounds like he’ll be okay. I talked to him for a few minutes earlier. He sounds like a guy on large doses of painkillers, but he still sounds like Kevin. He was actually more worried about Annie and the prayer meeting.” They had reached the Jeep and he stopped to open the door for Janet. “Those two don’t trust each other for nothing.”
Janet slid behind the wheel. “You don’t see it, do you?”
He climbed into the passenger seat. “See what? My two top teammates scratching each other’s eyes out at every opportunity?”
Janet stared at him, narrowing her eyes in disbelief. If even she, who didn’t pretend to be any expert at interpersonal relations, caught on to what was going on between Kevin and Annie, how could Mr. Insightful over there miss it by a mile? “Drew,” she began, “they’re nuts about each other.”
Drew chuckled like she’d made a clever joke. “No way.”
“How can you not see it? She’s completely fallen for him, and I’m pretty sure he’s fallen for her. You should have seen them at the hospital. I think even Doc Walsh could see it, and he’s pretty clueless in that regard.”
Drew’s eyes popped wide open. “No! Annie? And Kevin!”
Janet nodded. “You’ve got an office-bus-whatever romance on your hands the moment they figure it out for themselves. Which, the way they were looking at each other, should be any second now.” She checked her watch. “Maybe even already. He is under heavy medication and now they’re under the same roof.”
“Nah.”
She pointed a finger at him as she turned onto the highway toward Middleburg. “I’m telling you. Plain as day.”
Drew sat back and ran his hand through his hair. “He did say something odd to me about how she held his hand in the E.R.” He fell silent for a moment, and she guessed he was taking a mental inventory of all the times he’d seen the two of them together. “He said something to me about her on the bus the other day. I called her ‘my kid sister’ and he said ‘she’s not’ in the weirdest way.” She caught Drew staring at her out of the corner of her eye as she drove. “I can’t believe it, but I think you’re right. Good grief, I think you might be right. Never in a million years would I have put those two together.”
Why had she brought up the subject of Kevin and Annie’s budding romance? Could there be a less appropriate topic of conversation for her and Drew Downing? “Maybe I should just take you back to the bus.”
“Oh, no,” he moaned, “please get me to some real food. If I don’t find some actual meat in the next hour I’ll dissolve into a pile of tofu.”
She laughed as they were stopped at a red light. “I know just where to take you. There’s a great place just outside of Lexington. You haven’t lived until you’ve had a burger from the Parkette Drive-In.”
“A drive-in. That sounds like heaven right now. We could pick up something for Kevin, too. He’ll be starving when he wakes up off his painkillers and that man does love his cheeseburgers.”
She eyed him. “I doubt it will stay warm ’til he gets it.”
He grinned. “I doubt he’ll care. I’m too desperate to care.” He made a face like a dying soldier crawling across a battlefield. “Must…have…real…food.” He twitched and fell theatrically against the console between the seats. “Fried things…red meat…soda…”
“We don’t call it ‘soda’ out here, Mister.” She reached out to swat him away, but he caught her hand for just a second before releasing it.
“Look, I’m sorry for how we left things. Really,” he said, looking like he left much more unsaid. She felt his touch tingle all the way up her arm even when she planted both hands on the steering wheel and glued her eyes to the road. Still, she could feel him looking at her.
Drew polished off the last of his french fries and leaned back, exhausted but supremely satisfied by the down-home meal. The Parkette was just what he needed, one of those good old-fashioned tray-on-the-window drive-through burger joints that were a throwback to the fifties. The last twenty minutes felt like one giant exhale, letting out all the tension of the flight and Kevin’s injury and those endless L.A. meetings. “Thank you so much. I needed this.”
She chuckled, waving a fry at him. “Need this? No one needs this. I’m not even sure you can call it nutrition—” she popped the fry into her mouth and closed her eyes “—but it sure hits the spot sometimes.”
Drew sighed behind a mouthful of burger. “You can’t find a burger like this in L.A.”
“They do great burgers, but the fish box is their real specialty. Might be more grease, but more pleasure for sure.” She watched him close his eyes and sink down in the passenger seat.
“I spent half the flight thanking God for protecting Kevin. It could have been so much worse. Thank God.”
That was the thing about Drew. Other people threw phrases like “thank God” into their language so casually. When Drew said “thank God,” that’s exactly what he meant. It wasn’t artifice. Drew could see God in everything. There was a time when she was like that.
Tony could take a giant obstacle and make it look like the perfect opportunity for God to show off His mighty power.
It was humiliating to have been so fooled. She’d managed, up until Drew Downing, to keep her skepticism of such leaders firmly in place, her guard firmly up. She didn’t know what to do about the fact that she was beginning to believe Drew Downing when he spoke of passionate ideals. She found it very scary territory.
“I spent the other half of the flight realizing I owed you an apology,” Drew went on. “I should have told you about the change to the roof differently.”
“I don’t think you should have changed it at all,” she replied, and she watched him pull in a breath to start in on a defense. “But can we not get into that right now? Let’s just leave it at ‘apology accepted’ for tonight.”
“Vern told me you used to go to the church. He told me I had to ask you why you didn’t anymore. What happened, Janet?”
She took a deep breath. It probably was time to let Drew know her history—but she’d leave out her personal relationship with Tony. It was enough that Drew would know why she no longer felt an allegiance to the church. “Tony Donalds happened. Actually, Tony’s ministry happened—or never happened, but I’m getting ahead of myself.”
She stole a look at Drew, to gauge his response, but he simply settled in against the seat to listen. “He was a dynamic guy, and the son of our pastor at the time. Girls joined the youth group just to be around him. Captain of the football team, big college career. People loved him. One of those natural-born leaders you just know is going to go places. So after college, it seemed natural that he’d launch into mission leadership somewhere. Off he went to raise mission support for this dynamic youth program he was going to open out East. Everyone at our church knew he’d succeed. We were praying for him, getting ready for him to come home long enough for us send him off on a great ministry.” She stopped, taking a breath under the excuse of a sip of her milkshake. Middleburg was getting ready to send them off—she and Tony as a couple—but she wasn’t going to go into that. Drew didn’t need to know that her fall from faith included a first-class heartbreak.
“Go on,” Drew said quietly.
“He said he didn’t want to raise support from around here because he knew God would send him other donors, and we believed him. Tony was that kind of guy. You believed whatever he said.” She slipped her shake back into the Jeep’s cupholder. “I suppose it should have been the first red flag, but no one was looking for red flags. We were too busy being amazed and impressed.” She looked up, and Drew had gone completely still, his gaze locked on her. “Tony’s ministry was all bright
lights and big plans,” she continued, “but that was all he was.” She looked down for a moment, unable to say this part with Drew’s eyes on her. “Tony wouldn’t raise money in Middleburg because some part of him couldn’t stomach stealing from his own. So he stole from other people. Took every cent he’d raised for his ministry and disappeared. We didn’t make it public—what was the point in destroying everyone’s faith? Why spread the pain around? It was bad enough for those of us who knew. Nothing shoots a hole in someone’s faith like a big fat case of criminal fraud to your own church by your own pastor’s son.”
“Wow. I had no idea. I’m sorry.”
That’s what the few people who knew always said. They’d kept it quiet for just that reason—no one could change what happened anyway. To her or to Middleburg Community Church.
Drew stared at Janet. What she’d told him explained so much. And she’d finally told him, which meant she was turning back toward God in tiny degrees she probably didn’t even recognize herself. That ignited his enthusiasm to nudge her further—but knowing her disillusionment, he was going to have to be incredibly careful about that. As much as he wanted to prove to Janet that one man’s faults didn’t condemn an entire faith, he knew it’d be best if he left her alone. Trouble was, Drew wasn’t sure he could. She pulled a determination out of him that was different than other hostiles. He felt a sort of burden for her that went beyond the theological. Beyond the professional. His high-stress time in L.A. had only heightened his awareness of it. When he’d walked off the plane and seen her there, his whole being registered the most surprising sense of relief that she’d still talk to him.
At first he put it down to needing to get back to the work site, needing to make sure Kevin was okay. But as they sat in her car, Drew realized a huge part of his tension was the need to put things right between them. Between her and the church. To heal her. To just plain be near her. And that was dangerous indeed. He needed to be very, very careful about the two of them. And late at night, in a dark car with a pretty girl, was a mighty difficult place to be careful.
I’m a mess, Lord. Do something.
As if she’d heard his silent prayer, Janet said, “It’s late,” and started the engine to head toward town.
Chapter Twenty
Drew was still shaking his head over the awkwardness of his good-night to Janet when the church volunteer on “Kevin duty” led him into the parlor of the bed and breakfast. It was a scene that left him shaking his head even more.
Kevin was set up in a sleeper sofa in the first floor parlor, a bag of quickly gathered clothing and such tossed into a nearby corner. A folding tray by the bed held a glass of water, some bandages, a tube of ointment and a prescription bottle. One of Annie’s trademark sticky notes clung to the bottle, with “2:00 p.m., 6:00 p.m., 10:00 p.m.” written on it. Even if he didn’t recognize Annie’s precise handwriting, it wouldn’t have been hard to figure out who’d been tending to Kevin; the volunteer silently smiled and pointed to Annie asleep on a chair in the corner. She was out as cold as Kevin. Neither of them stirred as the volunteer gathered up her knitting and went to sit in the next room. Tonight, they’d all stay at the B and B—not only did Drew want to be close to Kevin, but he felt like he needed an hour-long shower in a real bathroom, not that plastic two-by-two closet that passed for a shower on the bus.
“Hey,” Kevin’s whisper spun Drew around. “You made it in okay.” He sounded rather chipper for someone in his condition.
Drew smirked. “More than I can say for you. Does it hurt?”
“Not much right now.” Kevin nodded toward the table of medicine. “But I’ve got a lot of chemistry going on. Tomorrow’ll be another story.” He held up the splinted finger. “I’m already turning cool colors.”
Annie shifted in her sleep, and Kevin made a tender sound. “I told her to go sleep upstairs. It’s not like I’m mortally wounded here.” He got a slightly smitten look on his face, the sort of sleepy-eyed smirk produced by a good memory. “She was amazing.”
It hit him as if he’d just put on a pair of glasses—Janet was right. Those two were nuts about each other. How on earth could he have missed it? It was like a neon sign between them now that he knew. Had they figured it out themselves? Or was this one of those proverbial love-hate matches where Kevin and Annie would be the last to know? “Why don’t I go upstairs, grab a quick shower, then I’ll come back down and take the night shift so Annie can get some decent sleep.”
“She was amazing,” Kevin repeated, a little fuzzier this time. “Hey, what’s in the bag?”
Drew had forgotten the bag still in his hands. “Medicinal cheeseburgers. Can’t have my buddy taking painkillers on an empty stomach.”
“Gimme that.” Kevin reached for the bag until a wince stopped him. “You ever broken a rib before? It really hurts.”
Drew brought the bag closer and moved the tray table so that it was easily within Kevin’s hampered reach. “I can only imagine. I think you’re benched for the duration. You want us to fly you back home?”
“No unnecessary air travel for forty-eight hours,” came Annie’s yawning voice behind Drew. “We’ve got to put up with his moaning until he goes home with the rest of us.”
“I’ll have you know I’m seriously injured.” Kevin called out as he dug into the bag for his burger.
Annie sat up and put her glasses back on. “Yes, you are. So take it seriously and stop moving around so much.”
Oh, those two had it bad for each other, all right. If only Drew stood a chance of surviving the crossfire.
“I’m going to go take a shower and then I’ll take the night shift, Annie.”
“I think I know how much I can…” Kevin reached for something on the table and then hissed in pain. “Okay, maybe I ought to take it a bit slower. You don’t give your ribs a second thought until you bust one.”
“See, you can’t just go twisting around like that in your condition. You’re supposed to be lying still, remember? And when’s the last time you drank some water?”
She was still at it when Drew hit the top of the stairs. Oh, Lord, I want them happy, but I liked it a lot better when they hated each other.
Drew sat in the bus the next morning, flowcharts spread around the table in front of him. Things were always tight the last week on the job, but now with Kevin on the disabled list, things were beyond tight. Not to mention that as landscaping guru, the last week was usually where Kevin had the most input. Now, the most he could manage was to have Kevin supervise a team of volunteers from a patio chaise longue with his foot propped up. Not exactly the optimum scenario. Time to be the Big God, Drew prayed as he sank his head into his hands. We got a heap of problems and not a heap of solutions to throw at them. As Drew stared at the demanding timetables, a string of all-nighters seemed to stare back at him. This would be full tilt 24-7 to pull off.
Those kinds of time frames didn’t faze him, however. Pulling it off at the last minute was part-and-parcel of Missionnovation’s excitement. The pressure always pulled new and better things out of Drew. The last-minute all-night papers were always his best in college, he often started his Christmas shopping on December 23. Drama aside, it was Drew’s calm under fire that enabled Missionnovation to keep its nail-biter schedule. As far as Drew was concerned, there was always enough time to find a solution, even if you only had two hours. There had been episodes in some seasons where the clean-up crew had been pulling trash bags out the back door at the same moment Drew had been handing over the keys at the front door. The first time it happened, Annie stayed behind in the bus, breathing into a paper bag. By the third season, Annie was calmly distributing trash bags with one hand while handing Drew the keychain with the other. Everyone had somehow grown used to chaos as standard operating procedure. We’ve done it before, Lord. Remind me we can do it again. Send me some encouragement to fuel my weary soul.
As if by divine command, Drew’s cell phone buzzed in his pocket. It was still on vibrate from his all-ni
ght vigil over Kevin. Kevin’s prediction that his injuries would be worse in the morning was dead on; the man woke up as a human crash site, grumpy and claiming even his teeth were hurting him. Looking at the collection of bumps, bruises and stitches that was his teammate, Drew was drawn once again to a gush of thankfulness that Kevin hadn’t been more seriously hurt.
“God caught him when he fell,” Annie said when Drew told her at breakfast how thankful he was that Kevin hadn’t been more seriously injured. Now that he realized it, Drew felt like those two were wearing their hearts on their sleeves—it was surely only a matter of days if not hours before they figured it out for themselves, in which case the bus was going to feel like a rolling valentine.
Not exactly the best place for a particular guy trying to forget what he was feeling for a particular lady.
Drew flipped open the phone to see Charlie Buchanan’s office line on the screen. A little good news from the west coast might be just the ticket to an energizing day. “What’s up, Charlie.”
“I’ve got great news, but first, how’s Kevin?”
“Much better when the pain medicine kicks in. He’s banged up, but it could have been tons worse given how far he fell. So let’s hear the good news.”
“We got ’em. HomeBase is formalizing a sponsorship offer for the next three seasons of Missionnovation. An outstanding offer. If we can get you out here soon, they’re ready to ink a very sweet deal. Are you ready to become a household name, Drew? Because if they take it as far as they’re talking, you will be. You know that line of eco-friendly products you’ve been thinking of? I happened to mention it to them after you left the other time, and they’re showing lots of interest. They’re talking about a whole promo on native wildflowers like Kevin always insists on using. And they’re one hundred percent behind keeping the emphasis on faith. The whole Missionnovation vision—they’ve caught it.”
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