by Linda Wisdom
He nodded. “You better take off your T-shirt. You’re going to end up pretty dirty.” He looked down at his own dirty attire. He gathered up the necessary tools. “You want to grab that box of nails over there?” He walked off expecting Tim to follow.
“Hold on,” Tim protested, standing his ground. “Look, I know my mom made some kind of crazy deal with you in hopes of keeping my ass out of jail, but she didn’t say anything about my having to work it off. No way, Jose! You can find yourself another sucker.” He stalked off.
“All right, Tim. Then I’m sure you can find a way to keep your ass out of jail.” Jess’s calm words slowed the boy’s escape. “You shouldn’t swear, you know,” Tim sneered. “It could ruin your do-good image with your flock.”
Jess shrugged. “Naturally there’s a good part of that vocabulary I don’t use anymore, but sometimes it takes something like that to get a person’s attention while others will just settle for a simple show of superior body strength. If you’d feel better, we could arm wrestle. Best two out of three?”
Tim, always known for his glib tongue, didn’t know what to say for once. It was clear this man wasn’t going to write him off as a lost cause too easily.
“You top me by a good three inches. You’d probably win, even if I am younger.”
“The mind has as much to do with winning a contest as does physical strength, so my size has nothing to do with it,” Jess pointed out mildly. “The mind can’t beat somebody in arm wrestling,” Tim scoffed. “Wanna bet?” Jess ambled over to the redwood patio table. He sat down, planting his elbow on the table.
“Come on, show an old man how it’s done.” He winced inside. An old man at thirty-nine? Of course, he got out of bed a little slower nowadays, especially after that killer volleyball game where he’d redoubled his efforts in order to show off in front of Sara. He’d paid for it dearly the next day.
Tim hesitated. In the end his pride won the internal battle. He walked slowly over to the table and sat down on the bench across from Jess. He set his elbow on the table, his palm flat against Jess’s.
“I don’t want to hurt you too much,” Tim warned, their fingers curling downward.
“Sounds fair to me,” Jess agreed easily. “On the count of three. One, two, three.” A light groan left his lips. Tim hesitated a fraction of a second, a fraction too long, and he found his arm flat on the table.
“You cheated!” Tim accused with the dark glare of one who hated being bested by anyone.
“I used my mind, and you fell for it.”
Tim’s temper began to rise, but he couldn’t find an outlet for it.
“I used to have a bad temper, too,” Jess told him. “There used to be people who were afraid to talk to me for fear of setting it off.”
“You? Come on.”
“Me. I used to get into so much trouble my parents were convinced the hospital had switched babies,” he confided, man-to-man.
Tim laughed. “Mom once said that about me when I threw a couple pair of greasy overalls in with her white sheets.”
Jess tucked that piece of information in the back of his mind. “So if you once had such a lousy temper, how come you don’t have it now?”
“I learned how to control it by thinking with my brain instead of my fists.”
Against his will Tim found himself interested. “How can that work?”
And Jess began to tell him.
WHEN TIM ARRIVED HOME more than four hours later, he was filthy from head to toe and looked more relaxed than he had in weeks.
“What on earth did you do over there?” Sara asked, dismay lacing her voice. “We rebuilt a fence. Oh, Mom, the preacher is coming over for dinner tomorrow after church.” Tim breezed through the house. “I was telling him what a good cook you were, and before I knew it he invited himself over for chicken and dumplings.”
“How nice,” she said faintly. He’s coming over for dinner?
“You know, Mom—” he ducked his head around the door “—I guess he’s not so bad after all. He didn’t get mad when I cussed when I hit my thumb with the hammer.”
“Why does that not make me feel better?” she said with a sigh, wishing Jess hadn’t manipulated a dinner invitation, even though she probably owed him one for what he was doing for her.
“Don’t worry, I’ll stick around for a while. I want to see if he ever screws up. I guess I better take a shower. I’m pretty dirty.” He disappeared.
Sara didn’t expect this at all. For Jess to help Tim, yes. For him to sit down with them for Sunday dinner, no. She just hoped she was up to it.
Chapter Eight
Sara sat through the Sunday morning service feeling as if every nerve ending was exposed. It hadn’t helped when Tim told her the pastor coming to dinner might not be so bad since Tim should get on his good side anyway and her chicken and dumplings could go a long way toward accomplishing that. So what if she had to swelter in a hot kitchen precooking the chicken?
For a little over an hour she stared at her hymnal, studied the choir’s new robes, absently noted the pew’s upholstery and spotted a tiny hole, which she didn’t help any by poking at it every so often. In fact she looked everywhere but at the minister speaking so earnestly from the pulpit. She saw plenty of men in the congregation wearing dark blue suits, but they weren’t the same as the man before her.
She couldn’t sit through a meal with him with Tim and Jackson sitting there while she had to make small talk. Oh, yes, this would be a dinner never to be forgotten.
When the congregation rose for the closing hymn so did she, but she could have been singing a nursery rhyme for all she knew. Afterward she filed out with the others.
“I’m looking forward to that fine dinner Tim says you cook, Sara,” Jess said warmly, clasping her hands between his for a brief second as they stood in the foyer.
“Yes, well, Tim exaggerates a lot,” she said weakly, eager to escape.
Recognizing her distress, he released her instantly and bade her a good day.
“Can I drive?” Tim asked as they approached the car.
“No,” she bit out, sliding behind the wheel.
“How am I supposed to get any experience if you won’t-let me? I could flunk my driving test, because you won’t let me practice,” he grumbled. “Don’t worry, they’ll let you take it until you get it right.” She cursed under her breath when the gears protested her abrupt treatment.
“Some example you’re setting for me,” he said piously, wilting under her fierce glare. He subsided into silence for a few minutes before daring to speak again. “Mom, are you mad because the preacher’s coming to dinner?”
“It would have been nice if I had been consulted first.”
“But you’re always complaining I’m not polite enough, and when he started talking about not gettin’ out very much, I thought it was all right to have him over although he invited himself over.”
“Having good manners means you ask your mother if it’s all right to invite someone over for dinner.”
“You’ve never forgiven me for that,” Tim told her with an injured air.
Sara racked her brain for the reason behind his statement. “Something tells me I’m crazy to ask this, but I rarely have sane moments. Exactly what is it I’ve never forgiven you for?” She pulled into the carport and switched off the engine.
“The time I asked Danny, Craig, Lyle and the others over.”
“Tim, you asked ten boys over for dinner, a sleepover and breakfast without asking me first. I believe I had the perfect right to get upset,” she informed him, getting out of the car.
“Yeah, but you didn’t have to get so bent out of shape,” he muttered. “That episode happened more than five years ago, and if you want to further discuss it, we can talk about what happened to the kitchen when you decided to pop popcorn in the oven at three o’clock in the morning.”
“You’re right, that happened long ago. Why go over it again?” He slipped out of sight before she could
say another word.
“I should have spanked him more when he was little,” she decided out loud, following him into the house, dismally thinking of all the work ahead of her.
“So you’re going to let him come here?” Jackson pounced on her the moment she stepped inside.
Sara turned on the old man with a ferocity that took him back a few steps.
“Yes, I’m letting him come here and share a meal with us, and you’re going to sit at that table and use the proper table manners your mother once pounded into your thick head. And if you say one word out of line, you’ll be eating at Elsie’s diner for the rest of your life,” Sara threatened darkly.
Jackson shuddered. It was common knowledge that Elsie, the town’s spinster, had set her cap for him some forty years ago, and she hadn’t given up yet. He refused to set foot inside the diner for fear she’d take it as a favorable sign and send out wedding invitations.
“That’s a cruel thing to say, Sara, after all the hard work I’ve put in here.” He adopted his best injured tone.
She flashed him a self-satisfied smirk. “Then I gather we understand each other?”
Still keeping his long face, he ambled out of the kitchen, muttering to himself about the cruelty of women.
“And shave and put on a clean shirt,” she called after him. “Damn women,” he spoke under his breath. “I heard that!”
Knowing she had little time, Sara quickly changed into shorts and T-shirt and proceeded to start dinner. In no time she had the broth simmering and a blueberry cobbler baking in the oven. So they wouldn’t have to suffer through their meal in the lingering heat of the kitchen, she instructed Tim to set the dining-room table and switch on the room air conditioner. When she was satisfied everything was under control, she took the time for a quick shower and changed into rose-pink cotton slacks and a striped short-sleeved blouse. That she applied fresh makeup and brushed up her hair was not meant to impress Jess, she told herself as she put away her lipstick and studied herself in the mirror. She really should use eye makeup more often. It did bring out the blue in her eyes. There had once been a time when she wouldn’t have left the house without her make-up on. Now she rarely had the time to apply a coat of mascara in the mornings. Rarely took the time was more like it. When she heard the doorbell, she took a deep breath and headed for the front door.
“Reverend,” Sara murmured, opening the door and stepping back. Why couldn’t he have worn a formal suit and looked all prim and proper instead of wearing pale gray cotton trousers and a gray-and-blue striped shirt with the cuffs folded back and looking absolutely gorgeous?
“Sara.” His smile was pure male beauty.
When Sara had first seen Jess again, she had only felt horror that her past had resurfaced and experienced no true feeling for him as a man. It wasn’t until she saw him at Tess and Charlie’s barbecue that she fully realized the boy had grown up into a good-looking man. Why couldn’t he have turned bald and sported a pot belly? Or been married with six kids and had the kind of sweet-faced, sweet-natured wife no one could dislike?
Jess saw the worry in Sara’s eyes and understood their meaning. “I didn’t come here to torment you, Sara,” he said softly. “I heard chicken and dumplings, and it mushroomed from there.”
He stood so close to her she could smell the subtle scent of his cologne. It smelled expensive and sexy. So very like him.
She smiled. “Then I hope you brought your appetite with you, because I usually make more than enough for an army. With the way Tim eats I have to. And don’t expect any concessions just because you’re company.”
He grinned back. “I won’t.”
To Sara’s surprise, dinner turned out to be quite harmless. Jess asked Tim about his interests and learned about his love for his motorcycle. Even Jackson spoke up about his disgust at modern movies-in his opinion there was no one better than Clark Gable and Rita Hayworth. Not to mention his ideas for pepping up church socials. Sara did suffer a bit when Jackson brought up his idea for a wet T-shirt contest while Tim listened with an eagerness he never displayed for school. She privately decided to have a talk with Jackson later that day. One thing she did enjoy was the sight of father and son talking so easily.
Sara also enjoyed just looking at Jess. He looked so right at her table. When he picked up a piece of chicken and ate it with obvious appreciation, she felt her mouth go dry. She was so lost in gazing at him she hadn’t noticed that he was also studying her. She stared across the table at him, seeing something in his eyes she couldn’t remember seeing before. And it left her feeling warm.
“Would you care for more salad?” She spoke huskily, feeling the need to break the spell between them and picked up the bowl when he nodded. Sara almost jumped when Jess merely put his hand over hers to steady the bowl while he took what salad he wanted.
“Thank you.” He smiled.
She smiled back, unable to think of anything to say and felt a curious sense of relief when all the dinner plates were cleaned.
“Blueberry cobbler anyone?” she asked, wishing her voice would return to normal.
“With French vanilla ice cream?” Jackson asked hopefully.
“Whipped cream.” Her tone indicated take it or leave it.
”An old man can’t even get ice cream with his cobbler anymore,” he grumbled while Sara took away their dinner plates. “I’m sure Elsie would be only too happy to serve you ice cream with your cobbler,” she said sweetly, returning with three bowls of still-warm cobbler topped with whipped cream.
“I was just teasing,” he said defensively, taking one of the bowls out of her hands and setting it in front of himself. The way he dug into his dessert with relish told them he really didn’t mind that there wasn’t any ice cream at all.
“You are a fine cook, Sara,” Jess complimented after polishing off his second helping of dessert. “I can’t understand why Tim and Jackson don’t weigh three hundred pounds eating like this.”
“Probably because she only cooks like this when we have company,” Tim replied, standing up and clearing the table without Sara asking him to. She knew he was doing it to make a good impression and quite probably succeeding.
“I insist on helping with the dishes,” Jess offered, rising from his chair and helping carry dishes into the kitchen. “I’m afraid if I sit down, I’ll be asleep in minutes.”
Tim brightened at the idea of getting out of his least favorite chore. “That’s very nice, Reverend, but after all you are company,” Sara purred, sounding as sweet as cotton candy. Tim’s face fell.
“Oh, but I insist,” Jess told her, setting the dishes on the counter and rummaging beneath the sink for detergent.
“Since we have a dishwasher there’s little to be done,” she bit out, keeping her face frozen in a smile that was beginning to hurt from her efforts in keeping it in place. “Then we’ll finish all that much sooner, won’t we?
“Ah, here it is!” He held the bottle of dishwashing liquid aloft. “First we’ll load the dishwasher, then work on the pans. You wash, I’ll dry.”
Having him for a dish washing partner was the last thing she needed, and as soon as Tim left the room she let him know it.
“I’m well aware of your game, and I don’t like it,” she muttered.
“I don’t know what you mean.” Jess was innocence personified.
“You know very well what I’m talking about, so don’t act dumb with me. The way you covered my hand anytime I offered you something. The way you watched me eat dessert,” she hissed, practically flinging the dishes in the dishwasher, little caring if any broke. “And you a minister, too. I wonder what some of your prim and proper members would have thought of your little antics today.”
In one swift movement Jess turned the water off and spun Sara around, keeping his hands on her shoulders so she couldn’t move away.
“I hadn’t thought about our games in years,” he admitted, “but sitting there across from you, I started to remember some of the good
times we had, and maybe some part of me wanted to recall them again.” His eyes bored into hers, wanting her to understand.
“We can’t go back. We both know that.” Sara felt an incredible sadness, because a part of her liked the idea of returning to that time of fewer worries in her life, but she was smart enough to know fate wouldn’t allow that. But it didn’t stop her from dreaming even for a moment.
“Mom!” They parted, each looking guilty as if they had been caught doing something wrong, but their eyes didn’t leave each other’s faces.
“Coming, Tim.” Sara broke the eye contact first. Tim was standing in the dining room with a worried look on his face. “I can’t believe you’re doing it.”
Her guilty half suspected the worst. “Doing what?”
“Making him do the dishes,” he said in a low voice. “Mom, he’s company, and you always said company doesn’t do the dishes.”
“I did not make him do anything,” she told him. “He volunteered on his own, a gesture you could learn from.”
“Yeah, but still, he shouldn’t have to do the dishes.” Sara pushed him toward the kitchen. “Fine. You go in and tell him he’s been relieved.”
Caught neatly in his own trap, Tim sighed and gave in. “I’ll probably be the only kid in school with dishpan hands,” he groused, then raised his voice when he entered the kitchen. “Come on, Preach, you can’t have chapped hands. It’ll ruin the image. I told Mom I’d finish them for you guys.”
“Thanks, Tim.” When Jess walked out of the kitchen, his expression was solemn, but his eyes danced with laughter. “Why do I have the feeling it wasn’t his idea?” he whispered.
“Let’s just say next time he’ll think twice before speaking up.”
Jess looked around. “Where’s Jackson?”
“Snoring in front of the TV, He claims to one and all he loves baseball, but he always falls asleep before the end of the first inning,” she said softly. “Why are we whispering?”
He grabbed her hand and pulled her toward the hallway. “We’re whispering so no one knows we’re sneaking out of the house for a walk,” he confided.