Grounds to Believe

by Shelley Bates

  “Rebecca?”

  Julia leaned over. “‘Hold your tongue, and let me love,’” she whispered.

  Hey, this wasn’t fair. “Actually, I was talking about Julia, not the lady who owns the shop.”

  Gracefully, Madeleine rose and began clearing dessert plates. “Julia has every right to be happy, Mr. Malcolm. She’s a very lucky girl.”

  “That’s right,” Melchizedek said with a jocular smile. “I have it on the best authority that Derrick will be named Deacon by the time fall Mission begins. Then we’ll have two big announcements, right, Julia?”

  “And by that time, Ryan will be well enough to be ring bearer, won’t he?” Madeleine’s smile was luminous with hope and beauty.

  Ring bearer? Was Julia engaged? This couldn’t be happening. Time was too short to dig up another unattached female.

  “Well, this has been very interesting,” he said abruptly, and pushed his chair back. “Congratulations, Julia. I’ll look forward to your service on Sunday night…and to meeting the lucky man.”

  Melchizedek smiled brilliantly at Ross. “We’ll be very happy to see you. And perhaps I might come and visit you sometime? I’m sure you have more questions, and I’d like to get to know you better.”

  Ross nodded and strolled down the hall to find his jacket, locating it draped over what was obviously Hannah’s bed.

  His job in Hamilton Falls was to forge bonds with the targets, to insinuate himself into their lives so seamlessly he could operate from within until he found evidence someone was hurting the kids. He was already emotional about having to stay when he wanted to be back in Seattle. Now he was seriously annoyed with Julia for telling him she was single. This was going to blow his mode of operation to bits.

  But while he was in the house, he could still work. He listened carefully. Madeleine was in the bathroom with Hannah. He heard Owen say something out in the kitchen, and Julia’s reply as she ran water into the sink to do the dishes. With one finger, Ross quietly swung the bedroom door shut and did a silent, thorough search of the room. He didn’t know what he was looking for yet. Ruffled ankle socks with bloodstains? Manacles in the toy box? A nice, springy switch standing by the door?

  He found nothing but an ordinary three-year-old’s clothes and toys. Not quite ordinary, he amended, pulling on his jacket and taking a last look around. There wasn’t a single Disney character in the room, for one thing. No Little Mermaid sheets or Belle dress-up kits. No Barbie vanity strewn with mom’s twenty-year-old jewelry. Just a hand-carved Ark on an antique school desk, with a wooden Noah and his animals scattered all around it.

  Thoughtfully, he stood a giraffe on its feet. No doubt about it, the Blanchards were behind the pop culture curve. He could only imagine what Kailey had spent her childhood playing with. Live rounds, possibly. Certainly not something as harmless as this.

  He dragged his thoughts back to Julia, and unwilling sympathy stirred. She had endured her sister’s sabotage with no more than that first telling glance into his eyes. No wonder she faded from sight whenever Madeleine stepped into a room. She’d probably learned it was safer that way.

  Jacket over his arm, he stepped into the hall and pushed open another bedroom door. A little boy’s this time. He went through the room quickly. The only unusual thing was some kind of medical setup by the bed, bristling with plastic tubing. Out in the hall, the bathroom door opened and he pulled the boy’s bedroom door shut, shifting his jacket over the other arm to cover the motion. Madeleine smiled and led him down the stairs.

  Julia had her car keys in hand and was unlocking her door as he finished his goodbyes to Madeleine and Owen and loped down the steps to the driveway.

  “Don’t I rate a goodbye?” he asked.

  She leaned an arm on the open driver’s window. “Good night. Thanks for coming.”

  He leaned one hand on the window, his thumb brushing her elbow. “Julia.” He still had a job to do.

  “What?”

  “This wasn’t a religious service. This was a date, if you can call it that. We’re supposed to leave together and go enjoy the rest of the evening, remember?”

  “We are?”

  “Sure. The night is young. What’s wrong?”

  She glanced anxiously toward the front door. Madeleine turned to go in. Owen was still standing there, good host that he was, waiting to wave his guests out of sight.

  “Not now, Ross,” she said. “Please.”

  Right. The fiancée of this Derrick character wasn’t supposed to be running around with the converts. Far be it from him to criticize someone’s phobias, but Rita had only told him the half of it. But if he wanted to stay on this case he had to stick to Julia like rubber on hot asphalt, and that meant playing along.

  “Good night,” he said just loudly enough for Owen to hear. “See you on Sunday.”

  She backed out of the driveway. He took his time starting up the motorcycle. When her car turned the corner, he waved once more to Owen and pulled noisily away.

  He caught up to the little sedan two blocks later and tail-gated her home.

  Chapter Ten

  Thank heavens Rebecca wasn’t back yet from work, Julia thought. The windows of the lower floor were dark. The outside light over the stairs to her apartment burned faintly, frail and insubstantial against the colorless twilight sky.

  Ross’s motorcycle rumbled up the street, and a warm trickle of pleasure coursed through her. He hadn’t just ridden away. She’d fully expected him to, after her idiotic behavior. When he shut the engine off, the silence seemed to ring more loudly, like a guilty conscience.

  “Mind telling me what that was all about?” he asked, dismounting and hanging his helmet on one handlebar. His leather jacket creaked as he approached her. It was impossible not to stare at his strange new haircut—evidence of his willingness to conform to the image of Christ—but she tried anyway, turning her key ring to find the house key with great concentration.

  Regardless of the new, shorter haircut, his physical presence—male, dangerously attractive—was enough to buckle a woman’s knees. He probably wasn’t even aware of it, but that didn’t make it less powerful. If she acknowledged it, if she let herself enjoy looking at him, somehow that would make her part of it. She couldn’t allow that. She had to reduce him to a spirit without a body or she’d never be able to keep herself from temptation.

  “Julia?”

  The faint scent of leather and cologne teased her nostrils. “You shouldn’t be here,” she said, her head still down.

  He placed one finger under her chin and tilted her head up, forcing her to look. Lord help her, he was so big. So beautiful. His smile flashed briefly in the dim light.

  “Sure. Throw on some jeans and we’ll go for a ride.”

  Temptation pulled at her. Of course she couldn’t go. Of course she had to end the evening right here, on the sidewalk.

  She averted her head and his hand fell away. “I don’t have any jeans. Women aren’t supposed to wear men’s clothes.” Which was a little inconvenient when she wanted to hike or ski or simply weed Rebecca’s garden, but the will of Melchizedek, backed up by the letters of Paul, always came first, particularly before selfish personal comfort.

  “You must have something. I feel a little awkward standing here on the sidewalk. How about you invite me up? Then I can see where you live.”

  A worldly man in her apartment at night? Julia paled at the thought of what would happen if they were discovered. Even if they were sitting across the room from each other, drinking tea and discussing the Sermon on the Mount, the scandal would be dreadful, and Derrick would be justified in never speaking to her again.

  “No,” she mumbled finally. “I can’t do that.”

  Ross considered her for a moment, evidently marshalling resources of patience for her ineptitude. This was why Elect girls didn’t look Outside for male company. It was just too complicated. They didn’t understand the standards of godly behavior.

  “Can’t invite
me in, or can’t go at all?”

  It had to be done. “Can’t go at all.”

  “Julia,” he said softly, “how am I supposed to get to know you and your church if I’m always outside, standing on sidewalks? I can’t come in, you won’t come with me. I may as well go back to Seattle.”

  Father, forgive me. I don’t know what I’m doing, she prayed in despair. She had to act quickly, or he’d leave. She scrambled for the compromise that was the least of many evils. “I’ll run in and change, and be right back in two minutes. Then we can go for a ride. Okay?”

  “If I want to talk to you, I guess it’ll have to be.” He turned away and stood with his hands on his hips.

  She dragged her gaze away and ran up the steps and into her apartment, yanking off her stockings and dress in a haphazard path to the bedroom. This was crazy. How was she supposed to do God’s will when it meant walking such a razor-fine line between obedience and condemnation?

  She pulled on clothes so old they were a scandal, and a warm jacket on top so she wouldn’t have to wear his leather again and smell his scent against her skin. Her fingers were rubbery as she hurried to lace up her sneakers. Maybe the Lord would protect her while she was doing His work. Maybe He’d keep her from temptation. Maybe He wouldn’t allow any of the Elect to see them.

  She ran back down the stairs with fifteen seconds to spare. “Okay, I’m ready,” she announced.

  He leaned on the motorcycle’s seat, his long legs stretched out in front of him, arms crossed. “Let’s go, then, before your landlady catches us.”

  “Don’t make fun of me.”

  He got to his feet. “But it’s so juvenile, Julia. You’re in your twenties, and you’re still worrying about being ‘caught’ when you go out at night. It’s nobody’s business.” He handed her the spare helmet. She pulled it over her hair and did up the chin strap, slowly, clumsily, but without any help from him. If he was going to criticize her, he didn’t deserve the courtesy of a reply.

  “What have you got on?” he demanded, as if he’d just noticed. He swung his leg over the seat and tilted the motorcycle upright, staring over his shoulder at her clothes in dismay.

  “This is all I have.”

  “You can’t ride in a skirt that straight. How are you gonna get your legs around me?”

  Only the thought of this man’s immortal soul kept her from turning around and running back up those stairs. “I will manage.” She placed her left hand on his shoulder and started to swing her leg over. The old black skirt snapped taut like a bandage. “Uh-oh.” Suddenly she saw what he meant.

  Eyes narrowed, he shouted over the roar of the engine, “Hike it up, baby. While I try not to say I told you so.”

  Baby. He called me baby. She fought off the sudden pleasure, and got down to business. Julia pulled her skirt halfway up her thighs and plunked down on the seat, feeling for the foot pegs. Ross looked down, under his arm.

  “Whoa.”

  “Just drive, will you?”

  “Are those bare legs?”

  “Drive!” she shouted, and banged him on the shoulder. Shocked at herself, she clutched him around the waist. She felt reckless, uninhibited, saying what she wanted to and showing more leg than she ever had in her life. This must be what worldly girls felt like all the time. No one watched how they spoke or thought. No one cared. For those who knew the freedom of service to God, this was the forbidden, deceptive lure of bondage to the world.

  Ross chuckled, as if he’d read her mind, amused creases forming in the corners of his eyes. He kicked the bike into gear.

  Now she knew what to expect—the wind, the roar of the engine, the sense of vertigo as he took the turns and she leaned with him at acute angles that courted disaster. He gave the bike the throttle. They swept down the highway like the wind itself, pouring into the turnoff to the far end of the lake, and soon the black mirror of the water appeared through the trees. The road skirted the very edge of the beach littered with driftwood logs and weathered outcroppings of rock.

  On the far side of the lake she looked across the water to the lights of Hamilton Falls glittering against the black backdrop of Mount Ayres. Ross slowed the motorcycle to a stop and parked where the shoulder widened and the ground sloped down to a stand of alders. A silvery strip of sand was just visible at the bottom.

  The motorcycle’s engine ticked as it cooled in the warm silence. Ross peeled out of his jacket and dumped it over the seat as Julia hopped off, pushing her skirt down with both hands. Ross clipped their helmets to a set of rings behind the seat.

  “Come on,” he said. “This looks like a good place for a break.”

  He led the way through the trees. Dry grass brushed Julia’s calves as she followed him. Cooling earth released the scent of hay and dust and the thick summer foliage of the alders.

  The water lapped softly against rocks scattered at its edge. Ross seated himself on the packed sand, and Julia dropped down beside him. She brushed a few flattened tendrils of hair away from her face. Her cheeks and forehead felt as if they’d been rubbed all over with fine grit sandpaper.

  One wrist on an upraised knee, Ross glanced over. “Do you ever take it down?”

  Her hand stilled on her hair and fell away. “Only to wash it.”

  “I want to see it.”

  “No.” Only a woman’s husband ever saw her hair down. Anything else was indecent.

  He reached up and ran a hand through his own hair.

  Her heart hammered in her chest and she lost the battle not to stare. He looked wild and elemental, a force of nature temporarily stilled for her benefit. Her insides turned soft and molten while her skin prickled with an awareness and anticipation that felt almost like fear.

  The moon’s edge rose above the mountain and bathed them in a faint light. His eyes glittered, pale silver in sockets filled with darkness, as he held her gaze. “Take it down,” he whispered.

  She couldn’t. She wanted to. Slowly, she reached up and pulled the elastic out of her braid, threading the strands apart with her fingers, working her way up to the crown of her head. Her curls, released from captivity, sprang around her temples and bounced off her shoulders. She shoved the elastic in her pocket and searched for words to break the spell.

  “There. Happy now?”

  His teeth flashed white in a grin. “Very. All we need now is a leather mini. And maybe a tank top to match.” He rolled onto both elbows, tipping his head back to look at the sky. His white T-shirt stretched across his pectorals, hugging his biceps.

  She’d begun to shiver with tension. It was an effort to straighten her legs. Leaning on her hands, she crossed her ankles with fake nonchalance. “You will never see me in a leather mini,” she said with finality.

  He made a face that was supposed to convey regret, then quirked an eyebrow at her. “A week ago you would have said I’d never see you on a motorcycle, either.”

  “It’s just that it doesn’t look good, Ross.”

  “Does everybody mind everybody else’s business here?”

  “It isn’t that at all. We have to watch our example for our own sake, the sake of the Elect and the sake of people who might be looking on. People like you.”

  “How can it look bad to me if I’m the one who wants you to ride with me?” He shook his head. It sounded circular even to Julia. But there it was. “Okay. Start at the beginning for me. What’s an example?”

  “It’s how you appear to people on the Outside. We don’t go to movies. We don’t dance. We don’t listen to worldly music.” She recited the words like an incantation against evil. “We don’t wear pants, we don’t have short hair—the women don’t, anyway—we don’t swear. We don’t wear jewelry. We don’t wear makeup.”

  “So…what do you do?”

  Julia floundered to a stop. “We’re examples of Christ’s life.”

  “But how?”

  “I’ve just told you.”

  “Julia, from what I remember, Christ didn’t go around not doing
things. He was a positive force. He healed. He taught. He did things for people. He loved. So what do you do?”

  “His Spirit lives in us. That’s what makes the fellowship so beautiful.”

  “Beautiful? It sounds passive to me.”

  She turned on him. “Passive? Do you think that denying myself day in and day out is passive? Do you know how hard it is to wear mourning when you’re a teenager, and all the other kids at school are in bright T-shirts and shorts? Do you know what it’s like to know I could be as pretty as my sister if I just had a little bit of makeup? How much I’d love to wear a miniskirt?” She scrambled to her feet. “Don’t you dare call me passive. Living the way Melchizedek asks us to is harder than anything you’ll ever do!”

  Her voice shook and she pressed her lips together, turning away to look down the silent, blurry beach, her arms crossed angrily on her midriff. If only she could stop shaking. The wind ruffled across the sand, tossing a few grains farther to the east. In time, she thought irrelevantly, the whole beach could be changed that way.

  Something tugged on the hem of her skirt. “Hey.” She looked down her nose at the man lounging at her feet. “Sit down. I apologize.”

  She allowed herself to be coaxed down beside him. Her hands still trembled and her throat ached. She wished she could walk away and hide in the wavering shadows under the trees. Or run up the slope to the highway. She’d never hitchhiked in her life, but right now she was willing to try.

  “I have some idea of how hard it is. I gotta admit, seeing my hair all over the barber’s floor felt a little weird.”

  “Why did you do it?” Julia asked stiffly.

  He shrugged. “I didn’t see any guys like me in the parking lot the other night. So I figured if I was going to come to a service I should show a little respect.”

  She wanted to thank him, but she was still so upset the words wouldn’t come.

  “You say you have the Spirit of Christ.” Ross tossed a pebble out toward the center of the lake, where the moonlight made a glittering track toward them. “So logically you would do the things He did. What about helping out at the food bank? Volunteering for a suicide hotline? Or doing something for troubled kids or at the homeless shelter?”