by Anna Schmidt
“With no qualifications?” She was trying to turn the compliment into a joke.
Jeb tightened his hold on her hands and leaned toward her. “People lie on résumés all the time, Megan. I long ago developed the skill to see through the listed credentials—or lack of them. You have life skills and innate intelligence that a Harvard graduate would envy. But I’m no longer interested in hiring you.”
Her breath caught and she tried to pull away, but Jeb hung on.
“What I’m saying, Megan, is that I don’t know what God has in mind for us, but I know for sure that He brought us together for a reason. It may be that we’re destined to be the best of friends. It may be something more. Right now I’m hoping it’s that ‘something more.’ How about you?”
She tried speaking, but no sound came out, so she nodded.
Jeb’s grin exploded across his face. He couldn’t remember a time in recent years when he had felt more pure joy. “I’m going to kiss you now, Megan,” he announced. “Purely for research, you understand.”
To his surprise, Megan straightened her back and lifted her chin. Her face was bathed in moonlight and she had closed her eyes and was waiting. She was the picture of innocence and trust. Jeb placed his palms on her cheeks and drew her to him. He kissed her gently, allowing time to appreciate the full softness of her lips, but releasing her before the kiss could move to the next level.
Instead of pulling away she rested her forehead against his. “Jeb?”
“Hmm?”
“No strings, okay? Friendship is such a precious gift and, well, I don’t want to mess that up.”
“Let’s just trust God’s way for us and see where it leads,” he said and kissed her once more.
Megan felt as if she could play the role of Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady. She might not sing as well as a Broadway actress, but ever since Jeb had kissed her she definitely could have danced all night. In the two days that had passed since the opening of the youth center, she had hardly been able to contain her happiness. And every time she ran into Jeb—at the market and then later, when he stopped by to bring Reba a gift certificate for her favorite bookstore as a way of thanking her for taking him in—she couldn’t seem to stop smiling. She might have known that a kiss would change things between them and it had, but not in the way she had thought. Instead of being shy and uncertain with him, she found herself flirting and teasing him. The way he looked at her with that slightly crooked smile set her heart racing. And tonight, she thought as she and Reba worked together on the week’s laundry, they were going to Eagle River for dinner and a movie. A date—an actual date.
“You’ve changed,” Reba announced.
Megan felt a flush rise along her neck and cheeks. While she and Jeb had had eyes only for each other these last couple of days, she had forgotten that others had eyes on them. “How?” she asked, swallowing the protest that would have been a lie.
Reba squinted her eyes. “Can’t put my finger on it. Just kind of giddy—silly almost. Now if it was Faith acting that way, I’d understand. She has got a case of the fever for that city boy for sure, in spite of the fact that she’s trying not to show it.”
Megan unloaded the dryer, then started moving heavy wet linens from the washer to the dryer. “Faith’s too smart to think Caleb’s attention is anything more than a summer fling.” But she didn’t sound convinced and her mood was suddenly as heavy as the sodden laundry she was lifting.
“Whatever. We’re not talking about Faith anyway. We’re talking about you, missy. Your change couldn’t have something to do with a certain young minister, could it?”
Reba’s comment about Faith had not only dampened Megan’s mood, it had made her downright irritable. “His name is Jeb, Reba, and we’re friends. We find we have a lot in common, strange as that may seem, with him being a former big-time business executive and my barely making it through high school.” She slammed the dryer door and started preparing her and Faith’s clothes for a personal load.
“Oh, honey, why do you put yourself down that way? You were top of your class and everyone knows it. The fact that the school board was too provincial to let a pregnant girl deliver the valedictory address is hardly something you need to take on yourself. No matter. You landed well and that’s the test of it.”
Megan started to speak, but Reba wasn’t finished.
“And,” she continued, holding up her palm like a stop sign, “Jeb Matthews sees your inner as well as outer beauty, and he appreciates your brain, which is long overdue for the chance to show what it can do, and that just proves the point. Why, Nellie Barnsworth stopped me at the post office this morning and started singing your praises.”
“I doubt that,” Megan said.
“Okay. She was trying to pump me for information about how you and Jeb were getting on. I told her that as far as I knew you were working together—with Jessica Burbank and others—to make the youth center a success. And that’s when she said that… What is it, honey? Sit down a minute. You’re white as this sheet.”
Reba directed Megan onto the stool and hovered over her, testing for fever with the back of her hand, cupping Megan’s chin with the other. “Talk to me,” she ordered, her voice husky with concern.
Megan allowed Faith’s jeans that she’d been holding to slide to the floor and held up a small metal object. “This was in Faith’s pocket,” she said. “It’s a bottle cap, Reba. From a beer bottle.” This last came in a whisper.
“I’m sure…” Reba began, but her expression told Megan she wasn’t sure at all.
“It’s Caleb.” Megan pushed herself off the stool and headed for the door, but Reba blocked her way.
“Now, just hold your horses. Think before you go and make matters worse. You found a bottle cap. There could be half a dozen explanations of how that ended up in her pocket. You go charging off the way you are now, you’ll do nothing but drive those two young people closer. Take a breath and think.”
But when it came to alcohol and the damage it could do, Megan was incapable of rational thought. The years she had spent putting her father to bed after he came home drunk, living with his promises to give it up, watching his health decline, were all too vivid. Megan’s hatred and fear for what alcohol could do knew no bounds.
On the other hand, Reba was a force to be reckoned with when she needed to be—and this was one of those times. Short of knocking the older woman aside, Megan had little choice but to back away.
And then she heard Faith call from the front hallway. “Mom?” She sounded upset, and this time Reba stepped aside voluntarily as both women hurried into the front lobby.
“What’s happened?” Reba asked, her eyes searching Faith for possible physical injury.
But Faith strode past Reba as if she weren’t even there and faced her mother. “Is it true? Are you and the preacher seeing each other? It’s the talk of the town and everyone is saying…” Her face contorted with horror. “You aren’t…lovers, are you?”
Megan clenched her fist to restrain herself from striking her beloved child. She squeezed her eyes shut and sent up a silent prayer for patience and wisdom. “Lower your voice, Faith. This is a place of business.”
Faith just continued to glare at her. “Well?”
“We’ll discuss this later at home,” Megan told her. To her shock, Faith burst into angry tears and stormed off into the kitchen, where she started unloading the dishwasher—one of her regular afternoon chores. Only this time each dish was slammed into its place in the cupboard, and cabinet doors crashed against each other.
“You don’t get it, do you?” Faith shouted. Megan had followed her and Reba had closed the door to the kitchen and remained at the front desk. “I have spent my whole life being better than the best because I was the girl who didn’t have a father—who didn’t even know for sure who Daddy was, and now you’ve set your sights on the minister? Do you know what people are saying? Do you know that they think you’re chasing after Reverend Matthews and he’s bei
ng nice because he feels sorry for you? You’re a laughingstock, Mom, and furthermore, you’re making me one, as well.”
“Calm down and lower your voice, young lady,” Megan instructed, surrendering to the inevitability of holding this conversation now. She felt the imprint of the bottle cap on her clenched palm. “Reverend Matthews and I are friends,” she began, but could not deny that Faith’s words had stung. More to the point they had brought to the surface doubts and insecurities that Megan had thought were not issues. “It’s true that he asked me out for dinner and a movie tonight, but that can wait. You and I need to talk, Faith, and not just about my friendship with Jeb.” She picked up the receiver of the wall phone and punched Reba’s code for the church office.
“Hey there.” Jeb’s voice was like salve on a raw sore. She knew he’d seen the inn’s number on caller ID. He was probably thinking Reba was calling.
“Hi,” she said and cleared her throat. “It’s me.”
She was as sure of his smile as if he were the one standing not two feet away, instead of her red-faced, scowling daughter.
“Hi, me,” he teased. “Couldn’t wait to see me, huh?”
Ordinarily Megan would have fired back with some joke about him not being so sure of himself. Instead she cut to the chase. “I’m going to have to cancel. Something’s come up.”
“Reba?” His tone was professional, concerned.
“No. A family matter.”
“Faith?” He was clearly surprised, as anyone who knew the girl would have been. Faith was never a problem, never one to cause concern, never… “She’s all right, isn’t she?”
Megan heard the edge of panic in the question. “She’s fine. We just need— A couple of things came up suddenly today that we need to work through.”
“Can I help?”
“I’ll let you know.”
“Rain check then on tonight?”
Megan hesitated. “I’ll let you know,” she murmured.
“Megan?”
She slipped the receiver back into its cradle and faced her child. In the silence between them the dryer buzzer shrilled. “Finish your chores,” Megan said. “I’m going to get that last load of laundry started and then we’ll go up to the house and talk about things.”
“Things?” Faith’s tone dripped with sarcasm.
Megan hesitated only a moment before retracing her steps and placing the beer bottle cap squarely in the center of the empty kitchen table. “Things,” she said, forcing in her voice a calm and steadiness she was far from feeling.
Jeb kept an eye on Reba’s small house while he washed up his supper dishes. After Megan’s phone call, he’d seen her and Faith walk up the hill to the house and go inside. Their body language told the story. Faith lagged behind Megan’s purposeful strides across the lawn. Megan’s head was bent while Faith’s chin jutted forward defiantly, and Jeb couldn’t help thinking that if his own daughter had lived, there would surely have been moments like this between them.
Several hours had passed since he’d observed that scene and now he was wondering if he should call Megan. Just check in to be sure everything was all right. He was about to retrieve his cell phone from his desk when he saw Reba’s back porch light go on. Then he watched as Reba shooed Megan out the kitchen door. He heard the two women exchange comments but could not make them out. Megan stood on the porch for a minute, looking around as if lost, then started down the driveway.
Jeb grabbed a light jacket—more for Megan than himself—and followed her. She stopped at the roadside to wait for passing traffic and then crossed over to the inn’s small beach and pier on the lake. He was halfway down the hill when he stopped, his role as Megan’s minister warring with his deep personal attraction to her.
His training dictated that he be available to those he served, but not intrusive. “If a person is not ready to hear what you have to say,” one professor had advised, “you cannot change that. You can only let them know you are there and wait for that person to turn to you—and to God.”
On the other hand this woman, who he had come to care for in a way he had thought impossible, was clearly in pain. He watched as she stood at the end of the pier, her fists clenched at her sides, her face raised to the darkening skies, her body rigid. She was a portrait in loneliness and, when he saw her shoulders sag, her arms wrapped around herself as if trying to keep from flying apart as she knelt on the pier, Jeb’s decision was made.
“It’s getting cooler,” he said softly, as he draped the jacket over her shoulders and then sat on the pier next to her without touching her further. She’d been sobbing when he’d reached her, her tears raining unchecked down her cheeks, her breath coming in choked gasps.
Jeb picked up a small smooth rock from a collection someone had left on the pier and skipped the stone across the water. Then another and another until all of them were gone. As the last stone sank, sending out rings of ripples on the water that spread all the way back to where they sat, Megan pulled his jacket tighter around her and let go the last of her tears with a sigh.
“I always thought that Dad might teach me how to do that—skip stones like that,” she said. Her voice was wistful as if coming from far away. “Then I could have taught Faith. There were so many things I never taught her—things a father probably would have.”
“Skipping stones might be overrated on the scale of things you need to teach a child,” Jeb said.
“Maybe. Lying isn’t overrated though.”
“You think Faith is lying to you? About what?”
“Earlier today I found a cap from a beer bottle in the pocket of her jeans. When I confronted her about it, she said it was just a good luck piece that Caleb gave her.”
“And you think?”
“I think that the reason Caleb gave her the cap was to commemorate her first taste of beer.”
Jeb thought she was probably right and wondered if he had ever taken the time to be so perceptive when it had come to his daughter, Sally.
“That’s just half the story.” Megan glanced at him and then immediately back at the dark water below. “Faith is upset about—well, us. She claims we are quite the topic of gossip around town these days, especially in her peer group.”
Jeb suppressed a smile. “Hey, that’s just kids. Their hormones are raging and they can’t imagine that’s not true for any man and woman who happen to spend time together.”
“I have lived in this town my whole life, Jeb. And for most of that life I have been a topic of gossip. Faith and I had just reached a place in our lives where it seemed like people were willing to accept us as we are.”
“And you believe that our spending time together has somehow jeopardized that?” For the second time that evening a minister’s objectivity struggled with a man’s personal feelings—and lost. “You can’t let kids dictate your life, Megan.”
“Faith is my life.”
Jeb closed his eyes, silently praying for words that would offer her the counsel she needed without being complicated by his own needs. “Have you thought about a day, Megan, when you will have launched Faith into a life of her own? When the best you can do for her is to let her go?”
“All the time,” she admitted. “I just didn’t think it would come so fast.”
“You have to trust in the tools you’ve given her to make the right decisions. She’ll be tested in many ways and she might even yield to temptation, as you suspect she did in tasting beer. But in the long run…”
“Oh, Jeb, don’t you see that the beer is more than just a run-of-the-mill temptation? My father—her grandfather—is an alcoholic. He has tried probably hundreds of times to quit, or rationalize his ability to stop at one drink, and failed. I am so afraid for Faith. If it had been anything else…”
And suddenly Jeb understood that because of her fear that Faith might get pulled under by a family history of alcohol, Megan was willing to do anything.
“Megan, when you first got down here to the pier, it looked like you might
be praying. Were you making a bargain with God?”
Chapter Nine
M egan felt her back arch like a cat preparing for a fight. “I know it may seem childish to you, Jeb, but offering God something in exchange for His help works for me. I don’t believe someone like me…”
“Stop right there,” Jeb said. “God doesn’t pick and choose, Megan. All prayers are equal.”
“Okay, poor choice of words. What I’m trying to say is… Oh, I can’t explain it to you. Can’t you just respect that offering something in return for a blessing works for me?”
“How?”
“When Faith was born I promised God that if He would help me I would dedicate myself to making sure she had a good life. There were some in town who wanted me to give her up for adoption. There was a summer couple who had been unable to have children who were willing to pay for me to go to college in exchange for giving up all claim to Faith.”
“Didn’t you see that as God offering you a way to assure Faith’s future—and your own?”
“But how could I know that for sure? What if that couple divorced and Faith was miserable? What if she believed I had abandoned her just so that I could have the life I wanted?”
“Is that why you think your mother left?”
“I don’t know why she left and probably never will. I didn’t want that uncertainty for my child. And when Reba offered to take us in, that felt like God’s true answer.”
“So tonight the bargain was what?”
Megan felt a shyness wash over her. “This is going to sound ridiculous,” she warned.
“Try me.”
“It’s not you—not really. Now that I think about it, anytime Faith thought I was getting involved with someone, she shut down or acted out. I understand that it was her dislike of change. Before Reba took us in, there were some hard years with her grandfather. She adored him, but he could appear to love her in return one day and be unspeakably cruel to her the next. And that doesn’t begin to address the questions she was having about her own father abandoning her.”