And they did, with the scrolls forgotten on the table and the news streaming in the background, the aunts hugged Penn and prayed.
18
Penn scooped a ball of rocky road ice cream into a pink, cut glass ice cream dish and scanned the sky outside the kitchen window. Although it was three o’clock, time for her afternoon snack, the time seemed later.
The sky held an overcast tint all day, a common occurrence for Butler County, Pennsylvania, but the morning’s forecast painted the clouds more ominous than annoying.
She resisted the compulsion to check the weather on her laptop and dragged her spoon across the top of the ice cream. She spread a dollop over her tongue but didn’t taste the chocolate-y treat. Her mind skipped to thoughts of John.
He’d repeatedly told her that he was careful, not a daredevil. He wouldn’t fly in unsafe weather, but what if...? What if his boss needed to get home and urged him to fly in questionable circumstances? What if he dangled a bonus in his pay if John would fly against his better judgment?
Would John work for someone like that? Would the idea of extra money, right in the middle of refurbishing his house...? Would a bonus be enough to entice him? What if—?
The aunts burst through the back door. “Thank goodness. We made it, but the rain’s on our heels.”
As the kitchen darkened, Penn glanced out the window again.
The sky, no longer overcast, framed roiling, black clouds overhead. The tree limbs swished back and forth. A few knocked against the house.
She rose to get a better look as a strike of lightening lit up the backyard and illuminated the room. A booming clap of thunder immediately followed the flash, vibrating the house.
Winnie shivered. “That was right on top of us. I couldn’t even start counting seconds.” She always counted the seconds between a lightning strike and the sound of thunder, multiplied the number by seven, and shared how many miles away the lightning struck.
Jancie switched into big sister mode. “Everybody to the basement. Now.”
Penn grabbed her laptop with one arm.
Jancie seized the other, leading her toward the basement door.
They huddled on a worn, paisley couch, moved down when the new one upstairs took its place several years ago.
Penn opened the computer with trembling fingers, ignoring the tears wetting her cheeks. She reached for the ON button, but Jancie covered her hand.
“We don’t need that thing yet. We need to pray first.” Jancie wiped her face with a crumpled paper towel stuck in her pocket for the trip downstairs.
The house vibrated above them with each thunder crash. As the crabapple trees slammed against the back of the house, Winnie opened the prayer with praises and thanksgiving for God’s omnipotence, for His provision and sovereignty.
Jancie chimed in, praying for peace and comfort. She prayed for safety for people in the storm’s wake. She cloaked Penn’s shoulder with her arm and prayed for John’s safe deliverance.
Penn’s aunts’ soft but firm voices blanketed her. She could have been six years old again. The words swirled around her, their resonance and meaning wooing her to peace. The panic racing her heart, stealing her breath retreated. She envisioned John smiling, his eyes crinkling at the corners, a dimple appearing in his cheek.
Jancie’s amen brought her back to the present and reignited the storm smoldering in her chest. Penn fingered the ON button, and Jancie kneaded her shoulders.
Waiting for the computer to wake, she groped for her ring. Empty finger. Why did she decide not to wear it today?
The local TV station website flashed on the screen. The Doppler radar glowed with reds, greens, and oranges filling the screen. The headline screamed Wild Weather in red type. Thunderstorms. Wind. People had already posted tornado sightings, but none had been confirmed.
Reading over Penn’s shoulders, Winnie gasped. “Pittsburgh had tornadoes before. Remember, Jancie? In 19-what, 1998, I think.”
“John’s out there in that.” Penn wanted her voice to sound strong and firm, but she lacked the energy. Her heart jammed in her throat. Waiting tears stung in the tip of her nose.
“We don’t know that for sure. Don’t borrow trouble, honey.” Winnie kept her voice soothing, but her white knuckles were strangling a lumpy throw pillow relegated to the basement with the couch.
“He said he’d call when he got back. Why hasn’t he called yet?” She tunneled her fingers through her hair, grabbing hanks and tugging against her scalp.
Jancie halted Penn’s hand, removing it from the tangles. “I believe you just answered your own question. If he said he’d call when he got back, he isn’t back yet.”
“Or maybe he can’t. Maybe he’s out there in this...this—”
“Stop.” Jancie closed the laptop. “I mean it. We don’t need any more of that. We know we’ve got a raging storm.” She rose with her hands on her hips. “I tell you what we’re going to do. We’re going to think positive thoughts. What’s that verse, Winnie? About thinking good things? Tell us. We need to hear it now.”
Winnie recited the verse from Philippians without stumbling. “Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable-if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.”
“Exactly right.” Jancie smiled at her sister. “Thank you, dear.”
The tremors in Penn’s fingers expanded into her arms and down her legs, and a faint whisper of nausea flitted in her stomach. She lurched into the basement’s half bath just before her ice cream made a repeat performance. After rinsing her mouth and face, she returned to the couch, ignoring the aunts’ words of comfort. Her mind fast forwarded ahead of this situation.
No plane crashes had been listed on the news website, but her mind traveled down this road years before today.
Once when she was about eight and the aunts were folding laundry in the basement, she’d spent some time nosing through things that didn’t belong to her—the aunts’ purses, envelopes on the kitchen desk. She’d found yellowed newspaper clippings of her parents’ crash in the family Bible, tucked within the flimsy pages and stored on the bottom shelf of the hall bookcase.
She’d never seen the articles before and surmised, because they were hidden in the back of the big Bible opened only on Christmas Eve, the aunts didn’t want her to see them. She’d kept her find a secret. The pictures haunted her for months afterward until she’d confessed to Dr. Suzie.
Thank goodness for Dr. Suzie—always listening without judging, offering gentle advice with scripture verses and a lollipop, too. The appointments with her had been a haven especially in the first few years after the tragedy. Maybe she should call Dr. Suzie again. Would a children’s therapist agree to chat with a twenty-six-year-old?
Common sense told her she was over reacting. She and John weren’t dating. They were getting to know each other. They’d enjoyed time together and one kiss.
But she’d let her heart open up to John in a way she hadn’t before. Refusing to listen to common sense, she’d let her heart look forward to being with him, let herself enjoy his arms around her.
If her body reacted this way—shaking, heart pounding, not-being-able-to-breatheto a scenario that hadn’t been proven yet, and to a person just beginning to mean something to her, how would she handle his flying if they began dating? She covered her face with her hands.
The aunts closed in around her. Hands warmed her back and her forearms.
“Come on, honey.” Jancie kissed the top of her head. “Those old thoughts aren’t good for us.”
“I can’t help it.” Penn leapt from the couch with so much force Winnie toppled against the padded arm. “Do you think I want to think about plane crashes and...and...” She stopped pacing in front of the glass block window, but nothing showed through the opaque cubes. She pressed her sides.
“Of course, you don’t. None of us do.”
“I don’t want to.” She threw ba
ck her shoulders. “And I’m not going to.” She’d been happy before John Townsend ever zoomed into her life on his stupid motorcycle. She’d be happy without him again.
No more roller coasters. No more crazy rides on the back of his bike—or hugging him during those trips. Or losing herself in dark-eyed smiles with a dimple. Or melting into his kisses.
No more John.
~*~
Her elbow on the accounting textbook, Penn gazed out her bedroom window. She surveyed the storm’s havoc in their backyard. No real damage, thankfully. Mostly debris, branches, and green leaves scattered over the grass.
A few trees at the back of their property lay broken on top of each other near the shed, unscathed by the trees’ crash landing.
Peri, also unaffected by the earlier storm, munched on wet grass in the adjacent corral.
They’d have to have help to clear those trees. Plenty of men at church owned chain saws and were always willing to help widows and orphans and anyone else who needed a hand. She drew a slow breath. Maybe the youth group could help clean up the yard, a good summer service project for a Saturday afternoon complete with frozen yogurt afterward.
She’d successfully reassured the aunts that she felt calm after the storm, but they’d still tut-tutted when she declined to sit with them, choosing to retreat to her bedroom instead.
Alone in her room, she’d considered all the details of her dilemma, placing the pros and cons on an imaginary scale. That exercise brought a pang in her heart as she remembered John doing the same thing in their conversations about lemons and lemonade and again when he asked her to the baseball game. The baseball game. The first time he’d kissed her.
The last time, too.
~*~
John stretched his hands over his head, enjoying the pull on his lats. Returning home at midnight wasn’t his idea of the perfect trip. Returning in one piece after the monster storm they’d encountered was. He poured himself a glass of milk and glanced through the week’s worth of mail on the counter David had gathered for him.
The storm, one of those freaky summer ones that popped up with all the advance notice of a cat burglar, had sidelined him and his boss the last hour or so of the home stretch. They’d waited at an airport in West Virginia scrutinizing every update on the weather channel and all local news reports. His eyes burned with computer screen fatigue.
Most of his body burned with some kind of fatigue. A stressful week emotionally and now physically. Two rejection e-mails greeted him Tuesday morning. Not a good feeling despite reciting an old professor’s adage that rejections weren’t personal. If the query rejections weren’t personal, why did they sting so much?
He rubbed his temples and remembered the e-mail accepting a longer article for a start-up travel magazine and another requesting a sample of his writing for an on-line magazine. Not bad. One article sold and possibly another.
He drained his milk and licked off the liquid mustache. His whiskers tickled his tongue. A while since he’d shaved. Long day. Glad to be home.
Home.
He’d told Penn he’d call her when he got home.
Too late now.
He’d call first thing tomorrow morning. He smiled. It felt good to have someone to share good news. He couldn’t wait to see her again. He wished he could ride over to her house right now, throw some stones up to her window, if he knew which one it was, that is, and wake her up.
She’d come down to the front porch, and they could spend some time on the swing again.
Nice.
He grinned, remembering last Saturday night and their goodnight kiss. Would she have a hello kiss for him?
Another grin.
He’d call tomorrow.
No...later today.
Maybe they could get together tonight or Saturday.
He bounced his leg as he considered possible restaurants.
Yeah. It was good to be home.
19
Grace and Trudy hopped out of the church van and sprinted toward Penn. “We’re here to help, Miss Penn.” They waved matching purple gardening gloves before wiggling their fingers into them. “Just let us know what to do.”
“Is Peri here today?” Trudy folded her hands together like a prayer. “Can we go see him? Can we pet him?”
Quivering on tippy toes, Grace added her two cents. “Was he scared in the storm? Can we feed him, please?”
Penn breathed in the pungent scent of fresh wood as she sent up a thank-you prayer. These girls would be fine distractions today. Their giggly selves and manual labor just might keep her mind from wallowing about John and the cellphone she’d turned off yesterday.
“Yes, Peri’s here. He’s fine. Storms usually don’t bother him. He’s brave. I already put some oats in his trough, but we can visit him for a minute before we get started.”
Jack and another boy she didn’t recognize hopped off the van.
Andy called a final admonition to work hard and flicked his fingers in a salute from the driver’s side window. “Hi, Penn. I’m taking the rest of this group out to Mrs. Jeffries’ place.”
He shifted into reverse. “Just give me a call when the job’s done, and I’ll come back to pick ‘em up.” He edged the van down the driveway.
“Will do. It’ll be after lunch. My aunts are preparing a feast. Thanks, Andy.” Penn swiveled back to the girls, but something caught the corner of her eye. Glancing in the street, she found only Andy, idling the van in front of the mailbox. Andy threw his head back, gave the thumbs up sign, and eased the van forward revealing a black motorcycle on the other side of the street.
Her heart seized.
John lounged on top of the motorcycle.
He was alive. Thank you, God. She gripped the edge of the porch for support.
Alive and handsome as ever. She wanted to run to him, jump into his arms, and hug him till he begged for mercy, but that couldn’t happen.
Not now. Not ever. She stuck her feet to the ground.
The girls. Get the girls out of earshot. “Grace, you and Trudy can pile up the twigs and small branches in the backyard.”
The boys sauntered up the driveway. “Jack, you and your friend can load the cut wood into Mr. Blanton’s trailer. He’s already back there sawing the trees into firewood for his heater.”
As if on cue, a chain saw sputtered to life behind the house.
“I’ll be back to help in a minute.” Penn pointed Grace toward the backyard.
“OK. Hey, John. Are you helping, too?” Grace called over her shoulder.
“We’ll see. Now go. The morning’s racing by.” Penn crossed her arms and pressed them into her stomach before she faced John.
“I guess I see now why you were busy yesterday.” He surveyed the scarred trees in Elbert and Maud’s yard next door. “Too busy to turn on your cell. Or answer your land line.” He swung back to her. “Mars got a pretty wicked storm on Thursday, too, huh?”
She caught her breath. So he had been in the storm. She sent another thank-you prayer. Two in the space of minutes.
“A pretty intense one.” She studied the grass instead of making eye contact. “You made it back safe and sound, I see.”
He reached for her chin. “Penn, look at me.”
She stiffened when his fingers touched her skin.
~*~
John dropped his hand. A frown lined his forehead. What was going on here? He scrubbed his chin. She looked more pained than happy to see him. What happened to the warm, happy Penn he’d kissed right here on this very driveway only a week ago?
“Hey, Penn. It’s me, John. What’s up? I mean, besides your yard.”
She grimaced, licked her lips.
He could almost visualize the wheels turning in her head, searching for an answer. What was the deal? Was she shy because of the kiss? She didn’t even have a smile for him.
Two steps forward, one step back.
“It’s just...we’ve got a lot going on here this morning.”
“Yeah.
Andy told me the youth group was spreading out all over town to help with the clean up today. I’m here to help, too.” He stretched on beat up leather work gloves.
She retrieved floral canvas gloves from her back pocket, her attention on them instead of him. “Umm, that’s very kind, but...but I think we’ve got it covered.”
“John!” Winnie burst through the front door. “You made it back.” She grabbed the hand railing and descended the steps as fast as she could. “We were so worried about you flying in that storm.” She flew to him with open arms.
John jerked his head toward Penn. They were worried about him flying in the storm? Was that the reason behind the cold shoulder today? He watched emotions play across her ashen face.
Of course, she’d been worried. She’d lost her parents...
“We tried not to worry. We prayed and prayed, and, of course, God is faithful.” She squeezed so hard he lost his breath for a second. “Thanks be to God. You’re here.”
He delighted in Winnie’s enthusiasm. Now that was a greeting.
Why couldn’t Penn have welcomed him like that?
Maybe add a little kiss, too.
How could he reassure her that he’d been safe on Thursday? That he never took chances when flying was involved. That he cared about getting to know her.
John spread his arms wide. “I heard you needed help, so here I am.”
Winnie still held onto his waist. “Fabulous. What a sweet friend you are. Right, Penny?” She urged him toward the backyard. “Penn. Right?”
Penn remained rooted in the middle of the driveway. “Yeah, sure. Thank you.”
Not exactly enthusiasm, but she didn’t chase him off her property either.
Winnie quirked an eyebrow at her niece. “We do need help. Our yard’s a sight, but many hands make light work.” She grunted as she picked up a broken twig. “After, we’ll have lunch. You can stay for lunch. Right, John?”
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