by Annie Jones
Miss Bert's face went positively florid. “Nicolette, you apologize to Reverend Moss this very instant!”
Sam held his hand up. He had as much coming from Nic, that much and a whole lot more. “I'm not pretending to be anything that I'm not. And while it is now my job to feed my flock, bald-faced lies are no longer the daily bread of choice on my menu.”
“And you expect me to swallow that?”
He grinned at her quick follow-through. “Like the whale devoured Jonah.”
She narrowed those heart-wrenching brown eyes on him. “So, you admit there's something fishy about all this, huh?”
“I admit...” He bowed his head. The leather that had protected him from the cutting winter wind now laid heavy on his back and shoulders. A film of sweat beaded up on his neck. He shrugged out of the jacket then held it out to the older woman. “Would you hang this up for me, Miss Bert? It's hot as the devil's frying pan in here. You ladies sure do like to fiddle with that thermostat when you come in for a visit, don't you?”
“Well, if you didn't keep it like an iceberg in here.” Bert played along with believable gruffness. Might have worked, too, if she'd have gotten the phrase right.
“Iceberg?” Nic sighed. “Don't you mean icebox? Which is an exaggeration anyway. The coldest anyone could keep a house in Persuasion in December is a bait store ice chest.”
Sam conceded with a wince that the older lady invoking an iceberg in Alabama did give a false ring to Bert's complaint.
“I know you too are just trying to get his coat hung up in the house so I can’t throw him as easily.” Nic narrowed her eyes, looking more pleased with herself than angry at her aunt. “You never could think on your feet, Aunt Bert.”
“Maybe I don't think on my feet, young lady, but I sure as fire can walk on them, and that's just what I'm going to do.” She lumbered up from her chair and started for the door. “If you need me I'll be calming my nerves with my sisters.”
Calming their nerves was Duet code for venting their frustration by chattering a mile a minute about whatever or whoever had gotten on their bad side. Sometimes all four of the ladies calmed their nerves at the same time, often each on her own subject without seeming to notice they had no common topic. Miss Bert moved off at her uneven gait, the grumbling already begun just under her breath. “Come in here and start picking on the only preacher we've had in over a year, I swear. Gonna scare the man off; then where'll we be?”
“Better off, that's where you'll be,” Nic called after her aunt, who waved the answer away without looking back.
“You have every right to believe that.” Sam started to fold his arms but decided that looked too defensive. He pulled out a chair to sit beside her at the table.
Her scorching glare warned him not to try it.
He grabbed the back of the chair instead and braced his arms straight, leaning in enough to keep his voice down and his eyes fixed on Nic. “You have every reason to think that your aunts, my church, and this town would be better off if I hightailed it back to New Mexico and left things here to go on like they have until they all but faded away.”
She pressed her lips together.
“But I can't do that,” he said quietly.
“Why not? You didn't have any problem nine years ago leaving this place and...and everyone in it.”
“I had a lot of problems nine years ago, Nic. You of all people know that.”
She looked toward the window. The yellow-checkered curtains softened and warmed the pale sunlight streaming into the silent room, but Nic's expression stayed hard and cold. “And now you've come back with this cockamamie story about being a minister.”
“I don't blame you for not believing it, but it's true. I am a minister.”
She tucked her hair behind her ear then stole an anxious peek over her shoulder.
“Maybe we should take this discussion someplace more private.”
“What discussion? There is no discussion here, Sam. You are out.
“Out?” He managed not to grin too big over that bold pronouncement. “Out where? Out of luck? Out of my league? Out of—”
“Out of my house.” She curled her hand into a fist. “Out of my aunts' lives. That's all I have any say over.”
“Actually, you don't—”
She nailed him with a glare that would have sent old Scratch running for cover. But Sam had looked the devil in the eye more than once and had no fear of him—or of one stubborn, impossible woman who mistakenly thought she had right on her side.
“I've signed a lease here. It's legal. Your aunts are all adults who can associate with whomever they see fit. You won't be running me out of this house or this town anytime soon, no matter how many daggers you shoot at me with those big brown eyes of yours.”
“You are wrong about that.” She stood slowly. “Just like you were wrong to come back here.”
He took a deep breath and shook his head. “This town and its one tiny church are in a lot of trouble, Nic.”
“Then they don't need any more.”
Sam chuckled. “If I didn't know better, I'd swear you'd been talking to Big Hyde.”
“I don't need outside input to help me form an opinion about you.” The quiet clatter of her cup and saucer as she settled them in the sink underscored the crisp tension in her words.
“No, I suppose you don't.” He looked at his white-knuckled hands gripping the back of the painted kitchen chair, then forced himself to ease up and let go. “I don't expect you to understand this now, but I want you to know that I came back to find peace. To offer peace. There is no other place on earth that I could more ably do that than my old hometown.”
“There is no place on earth where you would be more apt to fail, Sam” she said it, not in anger or spite but more like a gentle correction. A tender warning from one wounded soul to another.
Sam blinked. What could he say to that? In his heart, deep where he pushed down all his fears and misgivings, he had a nagging apprehension that she spoke the unflinching truth. “Nic, I—”
“Whatever you are up to, it won't work, Sam.”
O ye of little faith, he wanted to tease. Knowing it would only fan the flames of her doubt about his sincerity, he cocked his head and put his hands on his hips and asked instead, “Why won't it work?”
“Because if it's not real, if you are not telling the truth, these people who already expect the worst of you, they will eventually see through you.” She leaned her hip against the old blue-tiled kitchen counter. “And they will not take kindly to being made fools of, especially not by a Moss.”
“Fair enough.” He nodded, bowed his head for a split second then fixed his gaze on her, his voice low. “And if I am for real, if I am telling the truth?”
She straightened, her gaze never wavering from his. “Then you may find that this town has little tolerance for those who embrace true forgiveness. That they have their own brand of redemption around here. And that they have no interest in practicing what you intend to preach.”
“You say that like the voice of experience.”
She pinched the neck of her Christmas red sweater between her thumb and forefinger and sank her top teeth into her lower lip. From the far end of the house, The Duets' voices rose in excitement. A discovery of some kind, it sounded like as their indistinct words ebbed and flowed like waves from a not-too-distant shore.
Nic focused on the yet empty room beyond the kitchen. “Maybe we should find someplace more private to talk.”
He stepped between her and the large, arched doorway that opened to the rest of the house. “We could go to my office in the church.”
“I don't—”
“You'll be perfectly safe with me. I promise.” He'd meant it as a joke, but even with the jest still hanging in the air between them, he saw that Nic did not find it funny. Well, maybe neither did he. He'd made promises about taking care of her before, and how well had he done honoring those?
“No, Sam.” She put her hand up,
almost touching his chest.
Whether she started it as an overture of comfort and kindness or if she wanted to keep some barrier between them, he could not tell. Maybe she had only pulled up short from physically pushing him away.
The old Sam would have pressed on for the answer—the answer he wanted to hear, of course. He conceded to her wishes with a nod. He would have plenty of time to make inroads with her, to reach out to her, to make some kind of peace between them. She had come home for Christmas, and her home was now his. Sam saw no reason to rush anything or push for answers neither of them might be ready to hear.
“Mommy! Mommy! Look what I got here!”
“Mommy?” The endearment buzzed softly over Sam's lips.
He whipped around just in time to see a tiny slip of a child parading into the kitchen with her cupped hands before her, bearing some unseen treasure.
“And who might this be?” Sam asked, his eyes on Nic's daughter and his mind unable to fix on any one thought or emotion.
“It's baby Jesus.” The child held the tiny carved wooden figure aloft, still cradled in the hollow of her small hands like a fragile baby bird.
Not a far-off description for the girl herself. She darted past him and headed for Nic, who had dropped back into a chair and welcomed the child with open arms.
“So it is.” Sam bent at the knees to put himself eye level with the girl. She looked to be all of five or six if Sam judged correctly based on the kids who gathered around him Sundays for the children's sermons at his old church. He peered between the child's parted fingers. “It is for a fact, baby Jesus.”
Nicolette’s daughter. Funny, he'd never thought of Nic as having children. He did not have children. He had not gotten married. He had made no home or family although his church had been those to him. For some reason he had always pictured Nic the same way. Never in all these years had he thought of her as somebody's wife, as somebody's mother.
He smiled at the sweet thing laying her head on Nic's shoulder. He had never imagined her existence, but suddenly, seeing this delicate girl, her eyes wide as saucers behind doll-like, pale blue glasses, Sam could not fathom a world without this precious life in it. The power of that realization hit him hard and at the same time made his heart light. “And what's your name, sweetie?”
The child tipped her head. “Willa, what's yours?”
“Sam.”
“Mister...that is, Reverend Moss.” Nic ground his title out through clenched teeth.
“Pleased to meet you, Willa.” He held out his hand to the child.
She eyed it, then slid just her fingers into his for a fleeting handshake.
Sam had to smile. He might have personally dealt Nic an unfair hand, but God had given her this incredible gift. Given to Nic and her husband, Sam reminded himself, this darling child.
Willa turned to her mother. “The Duets told me to bring the baby Jesus to you so you could see about hiding him for us to find on Christmas Eve, Mommy.”
“It's a family tradition.” Nic smiled, weak and wary, but a real smile all the same.
“I recall. Christmas Eve day, Dodie and Collier Jack hid the baby Jesus figure from the nativity for you and your sisters to look for on Christmas Eve.”
“Not just for the kids, right, Mommy?” Little Willa craned her neck to look up into Nic's face. An awkward rhythm halted the child's words, not quite slurring but something he could not quite put his finger on.
“That's right, sugar, not just for the kids.” Nic smoothed the girl's hair down.
Willa waved her hands and did a sudden jerky jumping movement like a startled baby unable to control its limbs.
Sam cleared his throat not sure how to respond.
Just that fast, Nic had quieted the girl's excited flailing with strong, sure hands.
“No one should be left out from finding Jesus. Not grownups... or kids...or...or...” Willa blinked slowly, her huge brown eyes magnified by the thick lenses.
He did not know if the girl had a sudden attack of shyness or just paused to size him up.
In the silence of waiting for Willa to go on, tension radiated from Nic like heat from glowing coal. She kept her child close and her eyes trained on Sam's face.
Protective. That's all he could think. A mama protecting her little one. But from what? Sam posed no danger to anyone here, least of all this extraordinary wisp of a child.
“Or even someone who isn't like everyone else. Looking for Jesus is something anyone can do, even me,” Willa finally said, a soft kind of sadness weighing down on her words.
“Even you,” Sam whispered, understanding at last. Something was different about cherub-faced Willa. No wonder Nic felt compelled to protect her so fiercely, even from a man who, under better circumstances, could have been the girl's father.
Overhead the hurried pounding of footsteps in the upstairs hallway did a fair impression of Sam's pulse as he studied the child then raised his discerning gaze to Nic’s.
She narrowed her eyes at him, her jaw clenched.
The footsteps came to the back stairway, a cramped passageway with tight turns and steep steps that no one liked to use unless she needed to get straight to the kitchen unseen or in a big hurry. The noise broke the spell of the hushed anticipation between them.
In a flash, Nic took the figure from Willa's open palm and plunked it on the table by the salt and pepper pigs. “I'll tend to hiding the baby, Willa. You better scoot now and see about helping The Duets set up the nativity. Otherwise they may get in an argument like last year, and someone's bound to end up with a camel in her coffee cup.”
Willa pressed both hands over her mouth, hunched up her thin shoulders, and giggled.
Sam held his hand out to the child. “Maybe I should take you back in there then. This sounds like a job for a wise man.”
“A wise man, yes. Some wise guy? No thanks.” Nic gave Willa the gentlest of pushes in the right direction. “You run along, sugar. I'll be there in a jiff.”
“I could have—”
“No.” Nic shook her head and her hair shimmied over her stiff shoulders. “I won't have you trying to get to me through my daughter.”
“Nic, I—”
“No. No.” She stood and walked the length of the kitchen, then turned and leaned against the back door.
He half expected her to fling it open and order him from the premises.
“Now, you and I are going to have to talk.”
“Okay.”
The clomping from the back stairway grew louder.
“Someplace private. But not intimate.”
“Of course not. In fact, you should probably include your husband in our meeting to avoid even the hint of impropriety.”
“I don't...that won't be possible.” Her expression darkened but did not give away any deeper meaning behind her response.
“This is between you and me. I want to keep it that way.”
“In other words, you don't want any witnesses.” He grinned.
“I don't want any funny business.”
“Regardless of whether you believe it or not, I am a changed man. The last thing I want is to give so much as the appearance of inappropriate behavior.”
“Good. Good. Because I won't stand for any of that kind of nonsense.”
“The Dorsey name means something in this town. I understand that. I won’t allow it to become tainted by innuendo or speculation.”
She shut her eyes and turned her head, her mouth open to add something to his take on things, or to discount it, he wasn't sure which. She didn't get the chance to do either.
“Heavenly mercies, Nic, I am so glad it's you down here.” Petie came out of the stairwell like she'd been shot out of a cannon. She landed with her arms looped over Nic's neck, short of breath, but somehow able to go on raving. “I have a problem and I have got to tell someone. Now promise you won't fly into a panic about this?”
“We're not alone, Petie, sugar. Sam Moss is here.” Nic extricated herself f
rom her sister's grip and waved a hand in Sam's direction. “The Reverend Sam Moss, that is.”
“Sam? A reverend?” She put both hands to her forehead like she had to shade her eyes just to gaze at him.
“Good to see you, Petie. If you want me to make myself scarce I can—”
“Oh no, no! By all means stay. Stay. Before this is all said and done, I may need the services of a man of God.”
“Has something bad happened, Petie?” he asked even as Nic demanded to know, “What is it this time?”
Petie straightened up and gave her sister a look that would frost a firecracker. “Bad? Well, I guess you could say something bad has happened. If you consider it bad that I have probably, without malice aforethought mind you, killed my husband.”
“What?” Nic's mouth hung open.
Sam scowled.
“I've killed Park. It's his own fault, of course, the fool. If he had just listened to me. But he doesn't listen, does he?”
“Can you blame him?” Nic muttered for Sam alone to hear.
“Why don't men listen to their wives?” Petie directed the question to Sam.
“Well, I can't speak from experience, not having a wife but—”
“Isn't there something in the Bible that says 'men listen to your wives and ye shall not be killed by doing something stupid'?”
“Not that I recall, but—” Given that the woman seemed more peeved than grieved by this turn of events, Sam had no idea whether to offer advice or comfort...or the phone number of a good Christian counselor.
“Well, there should be. Don't you think there should be?”
“I'm not big on second-guessing what should or should not be in the Bible, Petie.”
“Then just take my word for it. Somewhere there ought to be written down a set of guidelines for men, and the very first one should read—” she smacked the back of her hand into her open palm for emphasis as she rattled off the first rule of Petie's proclamation for men—”Husbands, pay attention to your wives when they tell you things for your own good. One day it may save you from eating spoiled tuna casserole that was left on the counter, who knows how long, and was supposed to have been sent down the disposal weeks ago.”