The bell on the microwave timer sounded, but they both ignored it. Something else stood between them. Something she wasn’t telling him. Nick wanted to beg her to talk about it since it was probably what had motivated her to leave him. But this was no time to grill her. He stepped closer to Maura and took her hands in his.
“You’re right about who I am. God called me here to this church and it's my duty to love the people and take care of them. But God also called me to be your husband, and that means I need to love and care for you too. I’m so sorry that I hurt you.”
“I know you’re sorry. But does that mean anything will change?”
“I’m telling you now that I intend to be more sensitive to your needs. I promise to do the best I can. But I’m just a man. I’ll make mistakes. And you need to realize there will be times, like tonight, when I have no choice but to go where I’m needed. Like it or not, I don’t have a clear-cut, nine-to-five job.”
He took a chance pointing this out, but they had to address the issue. They’d married so fast and moved out to Granger on a burst of excitement. Not once had they talked through the reality of what their life would be like. They needed to have that conversation now. They both made mistakes, and they both needed to bend. He just hoped Maura saw it the same way.
Finally, she nodded. “I need to take this slow. And I can’t promise you anything. But I think I see a whole lot of prayer in my future.” She glanced over at the microwave. “Your food's getting cold.”
He shrugged. “I can always nuke it again.” He pulled her into his arms and hugged her, wishing that simple act could heal the wounds she carried with her.
12
Quiet down, everybody! I’ve got a few announcements before I set you loose on society.”
Lainie stood at the front of the youth room, one arm raised high in the air. Most of the teens stopped what they were doing and gave her their attention. Standing in her usual corner at the back of the room, Maura once again marveled at Lainie's control over this energetic bunch.
“Thank you,” she said once the group settled down. “First off, I want to remind you that Thanksgiving is a great time to invite friends to church. And to make it even easier, I made up some invitations.” She crooked her finger at one of the girls in the front row. “Sarah, would you hand these out, please?”
Sarah took the box Lainie handed her and started walking around the room.
“Take as many as you think you’ll need,” Lainie continued. “I can always print up more if we run out. As you can see, they’re business cards with the church address, website, and service times. This way, you can invite somebody and just give them the card. Very low key. Very low pressure.”
When Sarah reached her, Maura took one of the cards. What a great idea. It would be much easier to invite a friend if you didn’t have to worry about rattling off all the details like time and location. The card took care of all that.
“One last thing,” Lainie said from the front. “Even if you’re new in town, like me, I’m sure you know about the Founders’ Day Carnival by now. It's the day after Thanksgiving, and we’re blessed to have a booth there. It’ll be a great fundraiser for us, but only if we have enough people to work it. So if you haven’t already, make sure you sign up for a shift on your way out.”
Nobody moved. Lainie grinned and waved her hands toward the door. “That means I’m done. Leave. Be gone. Be blessed.”
The room emptied with amazing speed, leaving Lainie and Maura surrounded by the usual mess.
“Have you ever considered making them help clean up before they leave?” Maura asked as she took the vacuum out of the closet.
“I did once, for about a minute. But my time with them is so short, I hate to use any of it on boring stuff like cleaning.” She tossed two huge throw pillows into a corner. “Besides, this gives us an opportunity to work on our servant's hearts.”
Maura smirked. “Just what I need. Another opportunity.”
“Speaking of which, would you be interested in helping with our fundraiser?”
Maura hesitated. “What would I have to do?”
“Supervise, mostly. I want a couple of kids in the booth at all times so folks can see who they’re contributing to. But I also need an adult to make sure it all runs smoothly. So what do you say? Are you ready to take a shift in the Kiss booth?”
Maura stopped the vacuum in mid-push. “Kissing booth? What are you trying to teach these kids?”
Lainie crossed her arms, her head cocked to the side. “I thought you knew me better than that. I didn’t say kissing booth, I said Kiss booth. As in Hershey's Kisses.”
“Oh, the chocolate kind.”
“Yes. There will be three wicker baskets at the back of the booth. For a dollar, you get to throw three softballs, and if you get one in a basket, you win a small bag of chocolate Kisses.”
Maura continued her vacuuming. “You had me worried for minute. I never should have doubted you.”
Lainie laughed. “I should say not. Although, I’ve gotten that same reaction from everyone who hears the name, which is exactly what I hoped for. It's all part of creating word-of-mouth interest and driving customers to our booth.”
“Now you sound like a marketing expert.”
Lainie grabbed up a bottle of cleaner and spritzed it on the white board. “My daddy's a professor,” she said offhandedly. “He teaches marketing and business theory. I guess after hearing him talk for so many years, I picked up some of the lingo.”
Maura pulled the cord out of the way and maneuvered the vacuum into a corner. “I’ve never heard you talk about your parents before. Are you spending Thanksgiving with them?”
Lainie cleaned the board with one final, decisive wipe. When she turned, her usually perky demeanor had turned serious. “No, we don’t see each other very much anymore.”
“Why not?”
“It's a long story, but I’ll give you the condensed version. They didn’t agree with my choice to become a youth leader.” Lainie snorted. “Actually, it goes farther back than that. They didn’t agree with my choice of becoming a Christian.”
A pang of sadness shot through Maura. No matter how hard her life had been she’d always been secure in her father's love and support, even when he didn’t agree with her choices. She turned off the vacuum and wheeled it back to the closet. How terrible for Lainie to know her parents were opposed to the most important part of who she was.
Lainie shrugged. “I’m not upset about it anymore, but it's too hard to be with them, knowing how they feel. And it makes me sad to think what's missing in their lives. So I just pray for them, and go on doing what I do.” She forced a smile. “What about you? Will you spend Thanksgiving with your parents?”
Maura shook her head. “No. My mother died of breast cancer when I was sixteen. And my Da, that's my dad, passed away about six months ago.”
“I’m sorry.” Lainie paused. “Why do you call him Da?”
“It's what Irish kids call their dads.”
“So you’re full-blooded Irish?”
“Half. My mother was American. The two of them met when she came to Ireland one summer to visit her cousins.”
Lainie put her palm to her chest. “How romantic.”
“You don’t know the half of it,” Maura said with a chuckle. “This is how Da liked to tell the story. It was the beginning of summer, and he was working on his father's farm like he always did, driving a wagon down the same road he always drove down, not expecting anything out of the ordinary, when he spied her. He called her a vision from a dream, riding her bicycle on the side of the road, coming toward him. When he got close enough, he tipped his hat. The vision smiled at him. He passed her, but couldn’t help looking back, just to make sure he hadn’t imagined her. And when he did, she was looking back too. Which is why she ran off the road.”
“No!” Lainie gasped.
“Yes. She ran her bike right into a ditch.” As always, the image of her solid-as-a-rock mother
being so googly-eyed over a boy that she ended up in a ditch got Maura laughing.
“That's priceless,” Lainie said, laughing along with her. “So it must have been love at first sight.”
“Yep. They really loved each other.” Maura dabbed at the tears that were a mixture of joy in the story and pain from the loss of her parents. “I miss them. But at least now they’re together.”
Lainie threw her arm around Maura's shoulder and gave her a quick squeeze. “Thanks for sharing that story with me. It does my heart good to know some people are like that. But since you’re not spending Thanksgiving with family, what are you doing?”
“Rachel Nelson invited me to have dinner with her family. Hey, why don’t you join us?” The request came out of her mouth at the same time she thought it. Normally, she didn’t go around inviting people to someone else's home, but she knew Rachel wouldn’t mind setting a place for one more.
“That's sweet of you, but I couldn’t.”
“Why not? Nick will be there too.”
Lainie's eyebrows shot up. “No kidding? Does that mean you two are getting serious?”
Maura smiled. Lainie certainly knew how to get to the point. “To be honest, I don’t know what it means. We’re still working through some issues.”
Lainie nodded. “Trust God. He’ll fix whatever's broken. You know, I’ve been praying for the two of you since the day I met you.”
It seemed like a million years ago when Maura had walked back into Granger with a chip on her shoulder the size of the Rockies. “I was jealous of you that day I saw you with Nick at the house,” she confessed.
“Of me? Why?”
“I thought you and Nick might be an item.”
“Me and Pastor Nick? Ewww!” Lainie wrinkled her nose and jumped backward, looking like one of the teenagers she led. “Nick's like my big brother. Wow, was your radar off! Besides, there's no way he’d ever date anyone else as long as he's married to you.”
“True.” Maura's cheeks flushed. The conversation was getting a little too personal. “But we’ve gotten off track here. What do you say about Thanksgiving dinner? Will you come?”
“You talked me into it.”
Lainie picked up her purse and Bible. They walked to the door together, and Lainie giggled as she snapped off the lights.
“What's so funny?” Maura asked.
“I was just thinking, considering the way you and I started out, it's amazing how God knit us together. Not only are we friends, He made you my assistant youth director.”
Maura stopped short. On her first go-round at Faith Community, people had tried to hand her all kinds of titles: Sunday school director, Hospitality Hostess, Women's Ministry Liaison. Every one of them had tied up her stomach in knots.
Assistant youth director. She rolled the words around in her head. With a grin, she followed Lainie out of the room.
It worked for her.
13
Thanksgiving turned out far better than Nick could have hoped. After standing up Maura for dinner the previous week, he thought he’d blown any chance of reconciliation. But she surprised him by inviting him to join her for Thanksgiving dinner at the Nelsons. She shocked him even more when she said she’d invited Lainie as well. It was good to know Maura didn’t have any more concerns about him and the youth director.
Rachel made a turkey dinner so good it would make a Pilgrim weep. Lainie provided chocolate cupcakes to supplement the traditional pumpkin pie, eliciting cheers from Ben and Becca. They ate dessert in the living room where the conversation somehow turned to dating. Lainie wanted to know how Derrick and Rachel met. After a hilarious story about Rachel accidentally dumping a jumbo soda on Derrick at a monster truck rally, the conversation took an inevitable turn.
“No offense, Mom,” Becca said, “but I’ve heard that story a million times. What I want to know is how did Maura and Pastor Nick meet?”
Everyone in the room looked at Maura, including Nick. How would she respond to this?
“Why are you all looking at me?” she said with a laugh. “Nick was there too.” She smiled at him and gave him a nudge. “Go on. I want to hear how you remember it.”
He cleared his throat. “Well, we were in college, and Maura worked as a waitress at her father's coffee shop. I came in a lot, but just because the chowder was so good.”
“Oh, please,” Maura said. “Nobody likes chowder that much. He came in all the time because he was checking me out.”
Becca and Lainie giggled. Ben groaned. Derrick put his arm around Rachel.
Nick smiled. “Yes, I was. I wanted to ask her out, but she had a firm policy of never dating customers.”
“Bad policy,” Rachel said.
Maura shrugged.
Becca leaned forward in her seat. “But she gave in, right?”
Ben threw a pillow at his sister. “Well, duh. They’re sitting together, aren’t they?”
“It wasn’t that easy,” Nick said, waving his finger at them. “I had to find a way around her rule. So I did what any self-respecting gentleman would do. I vanquished a giant.”
Lainie set her empty pie plate on the coffee table with a clunk. “You what?”
“I vanquished a giant.”
Maura snorted. “I’d hardly call Butch a giant.”
“He was six-nine if he was an inch.”
She patted Nick's arm. “I think I’d better take it from here. What he did was challenge one of the regulars to a game of darts, and he got me to agree to go out with him if he won.”
“Which I did,” Nick said. Maura looked at him with her mouth quirked. “Okay, Butch was a sucker for young love, so I’m pretty sure he threw the game. But I still won.”
Maura nodded. “Yes, you did. Which led to our first date. And the rest is history.”
“Cool story,” Derrick said. “Now who's up for Pictionary?”
Nick silently thanked Derrick for changing the subject before the kids could ask anymore pointed questions.
Becca, Lainie, and Maura faced off against Ben, Derrick, and Rachel. Maura's amazing adeptness at translating her team's swirls and squiggles clinched the victory for them. It was a rousing game and the perfect end to a great night.
“You continue to surprise me with your hidden skills,” Nick told her when they returned to the parsonage.
“Is that right?” she asked with raised eyebrows. “Other than Pictionary, what skills are you talking about?”
“Taking on a renovation project for one thing. And your flair for drama. I mean, I always knew you enjoyed it, I just didn’t know you had such a passion for it. And there's the way you’ve won over the kids in the youth group.”
“That's not a skill,” she said, dismissing his compliment with a twitch of her shoulder. “That's just getting to know people.”
“Don’t sell yourself short. Not everybody can find something to relate to with a room full of teenagers. Respecting them and earning their respect in return, that's something special.”
“Maybe, which reminds me. On the way out of church on Sunday Lainie made some off-handed reference to me being her assistant youth director.” She put her fists on her hips, and gave him a serious look. “You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”
Nick raised his hands. “It wasn’t me, I promise. But you have been spending a lot of time working with her, and I could see tonight how well you two get along. Maybe she was just planting a little seed.”
“Maybe.”
A smile lit up Maura's face, bringing a warm glow to Nick's heart. Funny, he never would have thought to suggest that she get involved with the youth ministry. But she seemed to be a natural. He’d discovered another new facet to his wife.
Standing in the middle of the living room, sharing such easy camaraderie, Nick wondered what to do next. He didn’t want the day to end.
“Would you like some coffee? I can put on a pot.”
“No, thanks,” Maura said. “I’m pretty tired, and I’ve got an early m
orning tomorrow.”
“You’re not working at the theatre are you?”
“I probably should. But no, I’m helping Lainie get the youth group booth set up at the carnival. After that, I’ve got first shift.”
Another surprise. Surely, Maura knew the whole town would show up for the celebration, yet she agreed to participate in a church-sponsored booth. Maybe this meant she was warming up to the idea of being an active part of the congregation.
“Too bad you’re working,” he said. “I hoped you’d be my date tomorrow.”
Maura bit down on her lower lip. “Hmm, that's a problem, isn’t it? Especially since I planned to ask you to escort me to the carnival after my shift is over. Would you mind waiting for me?”
I’ve been waiting for you for six years, and I didn’t even know it. “I’d love to wait for you.”
“Good. Stop by the booth at one o’clock, and I’ll let you show me the sights.” She moved toward him for a hug, he thought, but at the last minute she moved sideways and planted a kiss on his cheek.
As simple and chaste as the kiss was, it set his heart to pounding like a bongo drum. I love you. It danced through his head as she walked away from him, leaving him dazed and temporarily unable to speak.
“Maura, wait!” he finally called after her.
She stopped and turned in the open doorway, her look expectant. “Yes?”
“I … Uh, what booth will you be in?”
“The Kiss booth. Goodnight.”
With a wave of her hand she went into the bedroom and closed the door. It wasn’t until Nick was settled down into his own bed that he realized what she’d said.
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