Who Needs Cupid?

by Debra Salonen, Molly O’Keefe

  Josh shook his head. She could see that he was struggling with how to explain this to her. Finally he sighed and said, “Nothing. Nothing is wrong with Fenelon Falls. If anything it’s an idyllic place. It’s perfect.”

  “If it’s perfect, why close the church? Why the new job?”

  Josh looked at the floor for a long time. “It’s too much.”

  Lucky didn’t think she’d heard him correctly. “Too much?”

  He nodded. “I’m going crazy here. I worry all the time. That church is going to fall down at any time, and I don’t have the energy to build a new one.”

  “But we can help. All you needed to do was ask,” Lucky said.

  “There’s no one to ask.” Now Josh was the one crossing his arms over his chest. “Let’s face it. In a few months, it’ll be just you and me at the service. It’s a joke. My ministry here is a joke.”

  Lucky shook her head. “You’re not a joke. We need you. I need you.” Lucky couldn’t have said it any differently, but she felt her heart break when she saw the defensiveness of his stance. “It’s not going to be like this all the time. More people move to town every year. Eventually, the church will be full again.”

  “I can’t wait that long. It seems as if I’ve been paddling upstream for too many years. I’m starting to think I dread Sundays. And I have to tell you that it would be nice to get a paycheck and not have every cent that comes in go to repairing the church.”

  “But your grandfather and your father,” Lucky whispered. “You’re leaving that history. Throwing it away.”

  Josh closed his eyes and clenched his jaw.

  “You’re throwing me away.” Lucky hadn’t meant to say it like that. Worse, when the words came out, so did the tears she’d been trying to hold back for the past ten days. She curled into herself and sank to the floor. She’d never thought she’d feel this kind of pain again. When her parents had been killed, the pain had been so intense she’d thought she would go crazy from it. But at least she’d had Josh. She’d been able to cling to his warmth, listen to his beating heart and know that she would survive. Now, he was going to take that security away.

  She felt Josh next to her, pulling her up off the floor, hugging her close to him. She wanted to push him away but instead, she buried her face into his chest, and after several long minutes, Lucky had cried herself out. She sniffled and then awkwardly stepped out of his arms. She couldn’t face him.

  “Well, now, I feel stupid.” She looked around the kitchen and found a paper towel to blow her nose on.

  “Don’t.” It was a gentle command.

  She knew her attempt at a smile was pathetic. But when she finally looked up, Josh was staring at her, his eyes intense with love. After a slight hesitation, he cupped his hand around her face and gently wiped her cheek with his thumb.

  “Ah, Luck,” he muttered before he kissed her. It was an experimental kind of kiss, soft yet firm at the same time.

  Lucky closed her eyes, her brain not quite in sync with what her mouth was doing. Why exactly were her toes curling? A fine shiver traveled down her back as Josh shifted his hands to tilt her face toward his. Those beautiful blue eyes stared down at her as if he were seeing her for the first time.

  Then he bent his head again for a different kind of kiss, a more possessive, insistent kiss. Lucky pressed her hands against his shoulders, reveling in the feel of hard muscle against her palm, and clung to him as she accepted the gentle probing of his lips. But before another second passed, he was pulling himself away, thrusting his fingers into his short hair and looking around the kitchen in dismay.

  “I’m sorry,” Josh said, his voice hoarse. “I didn’t mean to do that.”

  Lucky tried to smile but she just couldn’t make her lips turn up. What could she say? Nothing that would make him change his mind and stay in Fenelon Falls. He was looking at her with a kind of desperation that she’d never seen before. She knew that he wanted her to tell him it was okay, that everything was going to work out. And no doubt it would. Time really did heal most wounds. But now, she felt scraped raw and she couldn’t say a word.

  “I’m sorry, Luck. I shouldn’t have done that.” Josh backed out of the kitchen, already reaching for his coat. “I’m sorry. I just wanted to talk, to tell you about the job. I shouldn’t have kissed you. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

  Lucky could think of no reply and found even the warmth from the cozy fire couldn’t penetrate the chill she was feeling. She was going to start to cry and she didn’t want to cry in front of him again.

  “Thanks for the rescue,” she said, once more zipping the pendant along the chain. “I think you need to go now.”

  “Luck—” His voice was quiet, unsure.

  “No, Josh. Don’t do this to yourself or to me. We’ve got a lot of history together and most of it’s good. Let’s leave it at that.”

  “I can’t, Lucky. I need you to under—”

  “I will understand, Josh. But not right now.” She turned away and blotted her eyes with her sleeve. “Please go.”

  “Okay. Lucky, I’m really sorry.”

  “I know you are.” She tried to smile. “That’s the part that hurts the most.”

  Josh put his coat on and he rested both of his hands on her shoulders and kissed the back of her head. “I never meant to hurt you.”

  She nodded, squeezing her eyes shut, but the tears still slipped through. “Well, better now than a nasty divorce and bitter custody battle over the kids, right?” She laughed even though it wasn’t funny and she felt like her heart was breaking all over again.

  He turned her around and just looking at the pain in his face made her want to cry. He brushed her tears away and pulled her into a deep hug. She sniffled against his shirt and then with every bit of willpower she had, she placed her palms against the flat planes of his chest and gently pushed him away. “Go. Now.”

  He dropped his arms. “See you on Sunday?”

  “I’ll think about it.”

  “Avoiding me isn’t going to make it better.”

  She rolled her eyes. “It’s the best I can do right now.”

  “Well, I’ll be looking for you Sunday.”

  “Nobody else gets your jokes?” She gave him a weepy smile.

  “No one laughs at them,” he agreed. “Just you.”

  She nodded and watched him walk out the front door. He looked back once and got into the truck. A few seconds later she heard the engine rev and a beam of light flash across the door as he drove across the street to the small rectory behind the church.

  Lucky exhaled and wiped her face again. She was exhausted and terribly sad. No matter how much she told herself that she didn’t love Josh, deep down she knew she always would.

  Sunday, January 14

  AS JOSH STARTED his sermon, he saw Lucky slip into the back pew. He immediately forgot what he was saying and had to look at his notes. The sparse congregation chuckled at his slip and he sent a grin in Lucky’s direction. But she wasn’t laughing. In fact, she looked as if she’d rather be anywhere else than where she was.

  At the end of the service, she slipped out the door before he could catch her. In good weather, the reception after the service would be held in the front courtyard, but in winter, they pushed the folding chairs back against the wall so people could mingle and catch up with the week’s events. He shook hands and listened intently to what his parishioners were telling him and accepted compliments about his sermon—all the while looking for Lucky to appear by the kitchen where the hospitality committee served coffee and sweet pastries. Lucky wasn’t one to pass up pastry.

  Josh knew she wouldn’t want to be around him, especially after what had happened on Wednesday. That evening had confirmed what he’d already known, leaving Fenelon Falls meant he was leaving Lucky. She was integral to this community, and he couldn’t imagine her transplanted to the city. So much of Lucky’s identity was woven into the fabric of this town, from the Welcome sign she helped to create
for the Chamber of Commerce to her trips with him to visit housebound people to her weekly teas with Elle and Becca at the Cup O’Love, where he suspected they drank harder stuff than tea.

  Lucky was everywhere and anywhere in this town, including his heart. Even now he was scanning for a glimpse of her, straining to hear laughter burst out like the first crocus of spring. But there was only pleasant after-service chatter.

  He could identify each person by name in the room. And he had history with almost every single one of them. He knew their fathers and mothers, sons and daughters. He was as much a part of the church landscape as the old train station was to the town. He’d grown up in this small parish, the son of the good Pastor Watts, a third generation clergyman.

  But he just didn’t have it in him to keep the church going. Through tragedy, death and moving, the stalwart members of the congregation had dwindled to just a dozen or so. Like Max Maxwell, who’d been a regular each Sunday when his wife was alive, but since her death rarely came anymore. It was too much and Josh didn’t blame him. Fenelon Falls Community Church was a sinking ship, with not enough new membership to offset those who were leaving.

  In his father’s tenure, the church had had lean times, but nothing like this. The congregation had been large, over three hundred strong, with many anonymous donors who gave generously to support the church. The truth was Josh had very little left over from his parents’ healthy savings. That and the church property. The building with the elegant steeple that defined the landscape of Fenelon Falls was eroding into a splintered heap.

  With the closing of the plants and the farmers simply hanging on from one season to the next, he couldn’t in good conscience ask for donations. And he admitted it. He lived in a different era than his father had. During his father’s and his grandfather’s time, Sunday was the day that people set aside for worship, for communion. Now churches competed with video games and twenty-four-hour supermarkets. Most other churches were emphasizing performance to try to compete with cable television.

  After the congregation went home and the Sunday helpers had put away the coffeepot for another week and realigned the chairs in rows for the next service, Josh realized Lucky wouldn’t be joining him for their usual rounds. But at least she’d come to the service.

  He swapped his robe for his parka, gathered up his sermon portfolio and made sure that the side doors to the church were locked. Then he made sure the hymnals were back in place on the folding seats along with the Bibles.

  “Nice sermon, Pastor.”

  He suppressed a smile. Lucky always could read his mind. Just when he needed to talk to someone, she would appear, as if she were an angel sent just to keep him on the straight and narrow.

  “Nice of you to show up,” he replied, not looking up at her, just walking up and down, occasionally flipping a hymnal over or separating the Bibles so they were accessible from both ends of the rows.

  “I can’t disappoint Mrs. Simmons two weeks in a row, can I?”

  “No, I don’t think she’d ever forgive you if you did,” Josh teased and was rewarded with one of Lucky’s exasperated looks. “Besides, the middle of the month’s bills are due this week.”

  “I noticed you didn’t say anything about leaving.” Lucky was staring at him intently. “Have you changed your mind?”

  “No. I’m still going.”

  “So when are you going to tell everyone?” Lucky asked.

  “Next week. There are some funds that will need to be dispersed to the people who need it.” He sounded a lot calmer than he felt. “Like your pew fund.”

  Lucky nodded. “I guess we don’t need those now, do we?” She looked forlorn.

  Josh knew that had once been Lucky’s dream. Real pews. But since the space served as both the sanctuary and fellowship hall, pews had been impractical, not to mention expensive. Folding chairs were a much more prudent option.

  “So, hey. I want to show you something,” Josh said and sat down, patting the seat beside him. After Lucky sat next to him, Josh opened the well-used portfolio, careful not to spill out all his notes. He sorted through the pile and handed her a brochure.

  “That’s the church in Chicago. The one I’m going to.”

  Lucky took it with surprise. “The church has a brochure?”

  He nodded. “Just look at it.”

  “Spas have brochures, summer camps have brochures. Churches don’t have brochures. At least not in full color.”

  “Churches with a lot of people have brochures.” He pointed to a bulleted list. “Look at what they have. A soup kitchen and a homeless shelter. And a hundred-voice choir.”

  “And twenty-three ministers,” Lucky noted dryly. She looked up at him, her eyes enormous. “What does a church need with twenty-three ministers? Are you sure this is a step up?”

  “I’ll have a chance to work with some of the best thinkers of our time.”

  “Doing what?”

  “I’ll start as an associate, then move up to full clergy.”

  “Associate? An assistant?” Lucky was skeptical.

  “Not assistant, associate.”

  Lucky gave him back the brochure, as if she couldn’t think about it anymore. “When do you start?”

  “They want me by the middle of February.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “But they’ll give me time to wrap up things here.”

  Lucky didn’t say anything. She just stared straight ahead.

  “Lucky, look at me.” It was a soft command and she unwillingly turned to him. Then, he saw what he didn’t want. She was begging him to stay.

  “I don’t want to let you go,” she whispered. She clasped his hands. “You’re my best friend.”

  He cleared his throat and he squeezed her hands tight. He didn’t want to be without her, either. They had been through so much together. Was he crazy? He would never find someone who knew him the way Lucky did. He broke eye contact, then said, “I’m not going far, Luck.”

  “But what if I want to talk to you?” She sounded about twelve years old.

  “There’s the telephone, e-mail, visits. You have my cell number.”

  She exhaled a sigh. “That’s not the same. You know, it’s a completely different world out there.”

  Josh nodded. “You’re right. And that’s why I’ve got to go.” Then he voiced a thought that had been swirling around in his head since the kiss in her kitchen that had left him shaken, a thought he hadn’t dared to utter before. “But you can come, too.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  LUCKY STRAIGHTENED in her chair, her eye trained on Josh’s face. Had she heard him right? There was no way he was asking her to go with him. But a rush of emotion—disbelief mixed with impulsive hope—made her voice catch in her throat.

  “What?” she croaked.

  Josh looked a little shell-shocked himself. He stood quickly and turned his back to her.

  Lucky didn’t say a word, but her mind was mulling this new thought over. She could go with Josh. It was an option she hadn’t considered. Apparently, based on Josh’s silence, one he hadn’t considered, either. But what about the Lucky Duck? And Elle and Becca? And who would visit Mrs. Simmons to help her write out her checks? Images from her life flitted through her brain. She had a great life. Her bungalow was paid for, the Duck was starting to turn a profit, and she had good friends. Not to mention roots that were intertwined with the town of Fenelon Falls. Most people would work and save for years to have exactly what she had. She had everything…except Josh.

  She sucked in a deep breath and said, “I don’t know.”

  Josh finally turned around.

  She couldn’t tell if he was relieved or disappointed. And all he did was nod, as if he didn’t know, either.

  She glanced at her watch. “It’s time to go visit Mrs. Simmons.”

  JOSH SIPPED on hot cocoa, made from a packaged mix. It was a poor substitute for the Cup’s cocoa, but he would drink every drop. As he changed the batteries in the smoke detectors,
he listened to Lucky chat with Mrs. Simmons, who’d attended services with Josh’s grandfather. Mrs. Simmons had outlived her husband and her two children and was still independent within the confines of her small house. During the winter months, she didn’t attend church services so he and Lucky dropped by every Sunday to check on her and to help her with any chores that she needed done. After missing last week, Lucky was making up for lost time. She’d shed her parka in Mrs. Simmons overheated living room, rolled up her sleeves and was sitting on the floor in front of a large pile of papers.

  “You missed two puzzles here,” Lucky was saying. “I don’t want to toss something you want to finish.”

  “Let me see, dear,” Mrs. Simmons replied, peering at what Lucky held out in front of her. “Oh, you can throw all those away.”

  Josh heard the rustle of papers and then Lucky said, “What about this mail?”

  “That’s junk mail.” Mrs. Simmons waved the mail away. “I missed you last Sunday.”

  Josh held his breath, but Lucky didn’t hesitate. “I was a little under the weather. So I trusted Josh to do the heavy lifting. Are you sure this is junk mail? There’s the heat bill. Oh, and the telephone bill.”

  “I thought I paid the phone bill.” Mrs. Simmons pondered. “Look in my checkbook, will you, dear? I thought something else had happened to you. Josh didn’t say that you were sick. I figured the two of you had had some kind of disagreement.”

  “It doesn’t look like it,” Lucky said, referring to Mrs. Simmons’s check register. “Did Josh pay some bills for you last week?”

  “Josh, did you pay bills last time?” Mrs. Simmons asked.

  He brought the stepstool to the living room to check the smoke alarm there. “No. I didn’t.”

  Lucky just nodded and started writing out the check to the energy company. She carefully recorded the amount in Mrs. Simmons’s checkbook, and then gave Mrs. Simmons the check to sign, explaining what she had just withdrawn. Mrs. Simmons’s hand shook as she signed her name. By the time she was finished signing, Lucky had the check to the phone company written out.