Winter Winds

by Gayle Roper

  She nodded and immediately got up and followed him downstairs. Jack, who seemed as much under her spell as Trev himself, sat at her side when she collapsed into a kitchen chair. She fondled his ears and rested her cheek on his silky head.

  Trev called information, then the airport. He punched his way through several prerecorded options until he finally had someone on the line. He dropped into a chair across from Dori and rested his elbow on the table.

  “That’s right. A black bag with the name Dori MacAllister on it. It has a piece of red yarn tied to the handle. Yes, from O’Hare.” He repeated the flight number. As he talked, he stared at the container of ivy growing lush and green on the table. He blinked. Ivy? He reached out and touched one of the leaves. It was real, all right. Where had it come from?

  “Nothing? You’re sure?” He paused and listened. “Seaside? You’re sure? Yeah, thanks.”

  He hung up. “Someone named Joanne Pilotti from Seaside came in looking for this suitcase. She has yours.”

  “And she’s from Seaside?” Dori rose. “Phone book?”

  “Top drawer beside the dishwasher.”

  She opened to the p’s in a flash. “Do you think it’s Pilate like the exercise program or Pilotti like Italian?”

  “Look up both and see what’s there.”

  There was neither a Pilate nor a Pilotti.

  “I bet she only has a cell phone,” Dori said. “So I still don’t have any clothes.” She straightened. “And my books! She’s got my books.”

  Trev eyed her cautiously. “What books?”

  “My books to read. You know I never go anywhere without something to read.”

  He hadn’t known that though now that he thought about it, she frequently had her nose in a book growing up.

  “I finished the one I had in my carry-on last night when I couldn’t sleep and you were snoring happily away. How will I ever get to sleep tonight without a book to shut off my mind?”

  “By closing your eyes?”

  “Funny. But closing your eyes doesn’t turn off your thinking. Reading does that.”

  “Oh.” Trev didn’t want to disagree, but closing his eyes had done it for him for years and years. “You know, Ryan and I both have books. You can borrow one of ours.”

  “Bioethics and the evangelical community? Though I guess that would put me to sleep, wouldn’t it?”

  He watched her smile and purposed to do everything he could to help her smile a lot. Absently he fiddled with the ivy leaves.

  “You like it?” Dori asked.

  “What? Sleeping? Yeah, I like it a lot. Or reading? I like it too.”

  “No, you idiot.” The light tone took away any sting. “The ivy.”

  He stilled his hand and studied the plant. “Yeah. It’s okay.”

  “Okay? That’s the best you can do?”

  She sounded mildly offended, but then he suspected it wouldn’t take much for her to be offended, given her circumstances. Years ago she would have been goading him for the fun of it. Now he wasn’t sure. He looked at her carefully, not certain what she wanted from him. After all, he’d lived in this house for two years without ivy. In fact, he hadn’t even realized he was missing ivy. And it was only ivy, not the cure for cancer. “It’s fine.”

  She glared at him, and he knew he’d failed again. Suddenly this marriage thing seemed harder than he’d realized. Then in the far reaches of his mind, he had a flash of Pop and Honey looking at a flower of some kind that Honey had put on the living room coffee table.

  “Isn’t it lovely?” Honey’d said.

  “Absolutely,” Pop had answered. “But not as lovely as you.”

  And Honey had melted into his arms. When she left the room, Pop put the plant on the floor. “It blocks the TV when I lie down,” he’d said to Trev and Phil. “And it’s just going to die. I don’t get women and flowers.”

  Well, a pot of ivy wasn’t lovely, but he could try. “It’s nice and green and bushy.” She still looked unhappy. “Thank you.”

  Home run. She smiled sweetly. “Can we still go out to eat even if I can’t put on clean clothes and real shoes?”

  “Hey, this is a resort town. You can go out to eat in almost anything except bare feet.”

  “Which aren’t a problem this time of year.” Dori looked out the window at the black night held back by the warmth and light of the house. “Should I buy some snow boots?”

  “If you want, though it doesn’t snow much here because of the ocean.”

  “What?”

  “The Gulf Stream and its warmth usually mean rain, not snow.” He stood. “How about after dinner we run to the mall, and you can buy some clothes to tide you over until we recover your suitcase.”

  They settled for the family side of Dante’s at the Dock, a restaurant that also had a fancy side.

  “Sometime when you have your stuff back, we’ll eat in the pricey side. They have great stuff over there.”

  She looked around the Formica-topped tables with their paper place mats and napkins and bottles of ketchup. “This section is fine, but—” She glanced at the wall that separated them from the linen tablecloths and napkins and fine glassware. “I’d love to eat over there.” She turned back to him. “I’ll hold you to that offer.”

  Trev grinned. They said that the way to a man’s heart was through his stomach. Well, he bet that applied to a woman too, but in the sense of food at a fine restaurant. It had to be one of the most successful courting ploys known to man.

  Courting.

  His breath caught as a very real and terrible truth struck home. Never once had he courted Dori. First there were all those years he’d kept his heart in check lest Pop have a snit and follow through on his threat to send one of them away. Then when he had declared himself, they ran off immediately and married because they couldn’t stand the idea of just sleeping together.

  “I’m a Christian,” Dori had told him. “I can’t just live with someone, even you. Besides, Pop would kill us.”

  While her first argument meant little to him, her second point was one he accepted readily, and he knew that with Phil around, Pop was bound to find out sooner rather than later. Of course they knew he wouldn’t be pleased with the marriage either, but at least it was honorable.

  Then she’d disappeared for six years.

  He had to court her this time. He could see it so plainly. Certainly they had issues to discuss and discard, forgiveness to offer and receive, but there had to be more if they were to establish a solid home and family. He had to woo her, to show her clearly that she was special, that quite simply she was his heart.

  “Remember the night you confronted me about my drinking?” he asked after the waiter took away their salad dishes and left their entrees.

  She nodded, busy putting butter on a fragment of roll.

  Of course she remembered. Minutes later she’d been in his arms. He cleared his throat.

  You broke all those promises. You broke your vows. He could see those words in the note she’d left on the TV with her mother’s ring.

  Oh, Lord, help me do this right.

  “You were right, you know. I was drinking too much. Way too much.”

  She looked at him, her roll stalled partway to her mouth. “It worried me terribly.”

  “I know I said I’d stop, and I really meant to.”

  She just watched him, waiting. His heart pounded out his anxiety, and he had to force the words around the constriction in his throat. So much rode on her understanding how repentant he was, on her accepting his changed life.

  “I really didn’t mean to drink again because I knew it meant so much to you that I stop. It was just that once.”

  Dori didn’t say anything, just continued waiting, her big eyes fixed on his face. He took a deep breath and forced himself to go on.

  “On that Monday after Las Vegas when I went to class, I was so tired I could hardly stay awake. As I’m sure you remember, the weekend hadn’t been filled with much sleep.” H
e smiled at her, inviting her to acknowledge that fact.

  She remained solemn, unmoved, and he swallowed. She was obviously not going to make this confession any easier, and he supposed he couldn’t blame her. He’d hurt her dreadfully, though he still didn’t think it was bad enough for six year’s worth of dreadfully. That prick of self-expiation eased his tension a bit. It no longer felt as if his heart would crack his ribs with its pounding.

  “The guys started teasing me,” he continued. “They thought I’d had a wild weekend, and that’s why I kept falling asleep.” He heard his words and grinned before he could stop himself. “Well, in a way I did, but not in the way they thought.”

  Dori suddenly became very interested in putting everything on her baked potato. She piled sour cream on top of a huge gob of butter and shook salt and pepper over it all as if she were sprinkling chocolate jimmies on ice cream.

  Trev cleared his throat. “They insisted that I come with them because they had the perfect cure for what they thought was a hangover. I couldn’t tell them what I had really done over the weekend because we still hadn’t decided whether to tell people or keep it a secret.”

  “We kept trying to second-guess Pop’s reactions and what would get us into the least trouble with him,” Dori said, staring at her plate.

  Trev sighed in relief at her comment. She was listening. “Anyway, right or wrong, I went with them. The next thing I knew, I woke up on the living room floor of the apartment, lying facedown in my own vomit.”

  Her eyes were on him again, and she flinched slightly at the last bit. Well, so did he. It was hard to believe that he had once thought being drunk was cool.

  “I haven’t had anything to drink since that day.”

  She nodded. “That’s good, Trev.” She smiled. “I’m glad.”

  He smiled back, relief flooding him. “So I’m forgiven?”

  “Of course. I’m sure your congregation appreciates not having to peel you off the floor so you can preach.”

  His smile dimmed a bit. “While I care what my congregation thinks, I’m more concerned about you. I know I broke my promise to you, but I swear, that was the only time.”

  She looked at him, obviously pleased with his confession. She reached out and gently squeezed his hand resting on the table beside his iced tea. He turned his over and gripped hers. He studied her. Something was wrong here. Why wasn’t she reacting more strongly?

  Like a bolt of lightning knocking out a power station, the realization that his drunken performance wasn’t what had driven her away short-circuited his brain. He stared at her, unable to think, unable to talk. For six years he’d thought he understood what was bothering her, and for six years he’d been wrong. For six years he’d been able to wrap a cloak of self-protection about himself because he thought she’d overreacted. Regardless of what he’d done, she’d done worse.

  He was okay; she was not.

  Now he was totally lost. He just stared at her, her hand still clutched in his. She stared back, puzzled.

  “Ahem.”

  Trev actually jumped. He was so intent on Dori that he hadn’t noticed anyone or anything else. Now he looked up and saw the Shaw family staring from him to Dori. In a brief moment of panic he wondered what they’d heard. What great material to hang him with—our pastor, the drunk.

  But they were all smiles, all eight of them, Frank and Janie and their six little stair steps.

  “We heard the news, Pastor Paul.” Frank beamed at him. “We just wanted to say congratulations and wish you well.”

  Trev stood, struggling to pull himself together. “Thanks, Frank. This is my wife, Dori.”

  “You are such a lucky woman!” Janie rushed to Dori and embraced her. “Pastor Paul is such a prize.”

  Dori didn’t roll her eyes or throw up at Janie’s comment, but Trev had no doubt she wanted to. In fact, she smiled warmly at Janie and returned the hug.

  Janie bulldozed on. “I don’t know how many times we’ve said that Pastor Paul needed a godly woman by his side.”

  “And he’s gotten a mighty pretty one, too,” Frank said gallantly.

  Trev’s thanks and Dori’s thank you stepped on each other, and everyone laughed. Did he and Dori sound as strained to the Shaws as they did to him?

  “Now you two go right back to your dinners,” Janie said. “We don’t want to butt in on a private time.” Then she added sotto voce, “Though, Pastor Paul, I’d think you’d want to take your bride to the fancy side.”

  Trev felt himself flush. How to explain?

  “I lost my suitcase,” Dori said. “No other clothes than the ones I’m wearing.”

  “Oh, my!” Janie patted Trev on the arm. “See what happens when I jump to conclusions?”

  Trev smiled at Janie to show he understood her apology. “We’re going to the mall after dinner so Dori can get what she needs until the confusion is resolved.”

  Frank took Janie by the hand. “Come on, honey. We’ve got to let these nice people eat.” He turned to the six sets of bright little eyes, all fixed on Dori. “Stop staring and say good-bye, kids.”

  The Shaws walked away in a flurry of good-byes. Frank’s words drifted back. “Staring is very impolite, guys.”

  “Yeah, I know,” piped one little carrying voice. “I think she’s prettier than Angie.”

  Several little heads bobbed in agreement.

  “At least they seem more welcoming than the Warringtons,” Dori said, watching them crowd into a booth across the restaurant.

  “Frank’s an elder, and he’s one of the best. He’s still relatively young, but he’s got a good head on his shoulders, and he loves the Lord.”

  Trev felt relieved to be away from the painful conversation they had been having, and Dori seemed more than happy to steer clear too. Why she was glad to be done with it he didn’t know, but for himself, he needed to think. Every preconceived notion had just been knocked awry and he had to have time to regroup, to analyze things anew.

  For the rest of their meal, he talked about church and his vision for it. Dori listened as if she actually cared, even asking questions at appropriate places.

  Catastrophe momentarily averted.

  Trev was at the cash register paying their bill when a man and woman came through the door.

  “Hello, Bob, Penni.” He nodded at them, knowing he couldn’t have planned a more upsetting meeting if he’d worked at it. Even Barry running around undressed would have been better than this.

  “Oh. Pastor.” Penni looked at him with the deer-in-the-head-lights big eyes that were her forte. Personally he thought she looked like an exaggerated cartoon character when she pulled that move, but apparently Bob liked it well enough.

  Bob gave him an abrupt nod. “Heard you just got married.”

  Trev put his arm around Dori’s waist. “This is my wife, Dori, and, honey, this is Penni Aaronson and Bob Warrington.”

  Dori smiled at Penni. To Bob she said, “I think I met your family?”

  There was a moment of horrified hesitation that Trev was pleased to see went right past Dori. With an innocent smile, Trev said, “We saw your parents and Angie up in Pennsylvania this morning.”

  “Oh.” Penni’s eyes returned to near normal.

  “Ah.” Bob sounded like a tire going flat. “They said they were going away overnight. Things have been rough at work.”

  Trev agreed things had been tough, but he doubted that the father-son car dealership was the problem.

  “I saw your mom and Angie again in the supermarket this afternoon,” Dori added.

  Penni went wide-eyed again and looked up at Bob. “Oh, honey, I just realized. Poor Angie.” She shook her head.

  Bob narrowed his eyes at Trev. “Come on, Penni.” He grabbed her hand. “Our table’s waiting.”

  Zipped against the blustery cold that seemed a few degrees warmer than Bob’s manner toward them, Trev and Dori hurried to the car. Once inside, she turned to him. “That Bob’s as charming as his father and
mother.”

  “That Bob was dying a thousand deaths, as was Penni. And terrible man that I am, I couldn’t help but enjoy it a bit too much.” Oh, Lord, forgive me.

  “Trev, what are you talking about?”

  “You remember that you said you’d met Bob’s family?”

  “Yes. So?”

  “Well, he has a closer family than his parents. He’s got a wife and two little kids.”

  Dori raised an eyebrow. “I take it Penni’s not the wife?”

  “No. Her name’s Shannon. He left her for Penni about two weeks ago.”

  “Ouch. And how did the Warringtons take that?”

  “Believe it or not, they keep defending Bob, at least publicly.” Trev wondered if Jonathan wasn’t a bit more critical in private. The problem was that the congregation needed to see public distress for Bob’s actions from an elder of Jonathan’s standing, son or no son. Wrong was wrong.

  “But how can they justify what he’s done? Nothing can excuse a man for being unfaithful.”

  “I agree. They can’t, of course. So they’ve gone after Shannon.”

  Dori made a disgusted sound. “Did she do something terrible that would cause Bob to leave?”

  “Like have a boyfriend or gamble away their house in Atlantic City?”

  She nodded.

  “Nope. Shannon’s a very nice girl. She’s not the greatest housekeeper, but she’s got a three-year-old and a three-month-old baby.” Trev pictured the svelte Penni. “I think it bothers Bob that Shannon’s had a tough time losing her pregnancy weight. In short, she looks and acts like a thousand other tired, overweight young moms.”

  “I bet she can’t make big eyes like Penni.” Dori widened her eyes and blinked rapidly.

  Trev laughed. He couldn’t help it. Still, he also couldn’t help wondering how he could confront Bob about his and Shannon’s troubled marriage when his own was little more than a farce.

  Sixteen

  DORI MACALLISTER.

  Dori MacAllister Trevelyan.

  Dori Trevelyan.

  Dori looked out at Trev’s congregation and remembered how as a child and teen she had yearned to be a Trevelyan. Then she would feel she belonged, and the world would know she belonged. She would no longer be the one in the family with the different name.