The Wonder of His Love: A Christian Romance (Fostered by Love Book 1)

by Kimberly Rae Jordan

  “I cannae be gone from the shop too long.” Finn took an appreciative sniff of the air. “Would you be able to make that to go?”

  “Sure thing. It’ll be waiting for you when you’re ready to leave.” Erin then waved her hand toward the back of the bakery. “Noella is in the office.”

  Finn tipped his head in thanks before making his way past the counter to a short hallway. Noella must’ve heard him coming as she was already on her feet with her car keys in hand when he stepped into her open doorway.

  “G’morning, Noella. How are ya this fine cold day?”

  “Hey, Finn. I would be a lot better if my car wasn’t doing a mighty fine impression of a rock.” She stepped to his side. “How is your day going?”

  “To be honest, any day that starts wi’ a visit to a bakery where I’m offered a sweet roll is going to go pretty well. Though, of course, I wish it was under better circumstances for you.”

  Finn followed Noella as she walked down another short hallway to the back door. He was a bit surprised that even though the air was filled with wonderful bakery aromas, the perfume scent he always associated with Noella reached him. She looked to be dressed for the holiday in a red sweater over which she’d draped a dark green scarf. Both colors complemented her dark hair and eyes. When they reached the back door, she pulled a jacket from a nearby coat rack.

  She glanced at him over her shoulder. “You know Erin would give you one any day that you stopped in here on your way to work.”

  “I know, but I don’t want to take advantage of your generosity. Plus, indulging only rarely makes them a special treat.”

  Noella nodded. “I’m here every day, but I only indulge every once in a while. Too much of a good thing can become, well…too much.”

  Finn wanted to offer to help her with her jacket—his gran would be horrified that he hadn’t—but things Tennyson had said the night before made him a little wary of approaching Noella in that way. When she had her jacket on she pulled out a pair of gloves and slid her hands into them.

  “Are you plannin’ to walk out there in those shoes?” Finn asked, looking askance at the high heel shoes she wore.

  “Robby does a good job keeping our walks clear.” She leaned against the door and pressed against the long bar handle to open it.” I should be able to walk almost to my car without any issue.”

  Finn frowned as he followed her out the door and watched her walk along the sidewalk that, while clear, still had a few patches of snow. “If it’s as dead as you say, you don’t need to be out here while I’m hookin’ it up.”

  Noella shot him a look. “Are you trying to get rid of me, Finn?”

  “No’ at all,” Finn hastened to assure her. “But it is cold, and those shoes are next ta useless out here. There’s no need to risk yourself.”

  “Well, I won’t go any further,” she said as she held out the keys to him. “See if you can resurrect the beast.”

  Finn took the keys from her and moved toward the car that he knew to be hers. The car didn’t respond to any command from the key fob and when he opened the car and slid behind the wheel — after pushing the seat back as far as it would go — there was no response from the engine either. He had a couple ideas of what might be the problem, but he wouldn’t know for sure until he got the car back to the shop. Though he didn’t hate the winter, he had absolutely no desire to be outside working in such cold weather either. The sooner he got the car hooked up to the tow truck, the happier he’d be.

  “I’m goin’ to go grab the truck and bring it ‘round,” Finn said as he joined Noella on the sidewalk. “One of the guys was goin’ to follow me over here with a loaner for you. I’ll go see if he’s here yet and meet you inside once I have the car hooked up.”

  Finn followed Noella back into the bakery and then went through to the front where he had parked the truck. He spotted the mechanic he’d had come with him climbing out of the loaner vehicle. Finn gestured for him to climb into the truck and then the two of them went around to the back.

  Though it was cold, working together they were able to get the job done quickly. Once the car was hooked up and ready to go, Finn went back inside the bakery to give Noella the keys to the loaner vehicle and to pick up his promised sweet roll.

  “What’s this?” Finn asked when Noella picked up a bakery box from her desk after taking the keys from him.

  “Erin figured it might be more than just you at the shop, so she packaged up a few sweet treats for you to take back and share.”

  Finn grinned. “And here I was lookin’ forward to makin’ a few of the lads jealous. Now I’ll have to do the nice thing and share.”

  Noella crossed her arms as she smiled back at him. “Well, you could eat them all yourself, though I certainly wouldn’t recommend it. You’d probably make yourself sick.”

  “I did that one year wi’ some fudge that my gran made. I thought if one piece was good, then the whole pan would be wonderful. Boy, that was one decision I came to regret.”

  “And what did your gran do when she realized you’d eaten her whole pan of fudge?”

  Finn chuckled. “Well, at first she didn’t believe it was me. I’m her favorite, you see. But once I started to get sick, she had to believe that her wee darlin’ had, in fact, eaten every single piece that had been left in the pan.”

  It warmed Finn to see the smile that spread across Noella’s face at his little story. If she’d give him half a chance, he would love to tell her so many more stories.

  “Have you been able to eat that fudge since?” she asked.

  “I’d have to say it was close to a decade before I would even dream of touchin’ the stuff again. But I have been eatin’ it again in recent years, though certainly with a lot more restraint.” Finn tapped the lid of the box of baked goods he now held. “Which is why I will do the right thing and share these with the lads back at the shop.”

  “Well, let me know what the problem is with the car and how much the damage will be. I appreciate you coming here to pick it up.”

  Finn nodded. “We’re a little busy today, but hopefully I should be able to get to before too long.”

  Noella walked with him to the back door, and though Finn wasn’t thrilled to have to leave her and go out into the cold, he carried the warm memory of her smile with him as he swung up into the truck and made his way back to the shop.

  ***

  A couple of days later, Noella was grateful for the loaner vehicle that Finn had left for her since they had leftovers at the end of the day. Whenever they had goodies that hadn’t sold by closing time, they would package them up, and Noella would drop them off at a women’s shelter. It was something they’d been doing throughout the past year. Noella had come up with the idea when she realized that there were times they were just throwing away the leftovers. It seemed wrong, so she’d approached Erin with the idea of donating whatever hadn’t sold to a women’s shelter.

  They didn’t have leftovers every day. Or at least enough that would make the trip to the shelter worthwhile. During the Christmas season, they seemed to have even fewer days with leftovers, but Erin had started making extra and leaving them in the back. Today, the leftovers were from the front, and there were enough to make it worth the trip to the shelter.

  “Thanks, April,” Noella said after the girl helped her carry the bakery boxes with the leftovers to the car. “Would you like a ride home?”

  Sometimes, since she was the afternoon cashier, April would come with her to the shelter and then Noella would drop her at her house which wasn’t too far away. The young college student had been working for them for the past year and a half, and they’d been fortunate to hire her since she was a hard worker and rarely missed a shift.

  It took a bit longer than usual to get to the shelter since it had been snowing over the course of the day so traffic was moving much more slowly. After dropping off the leftovers, Noella pulled up in front of April’s parents’ festively decorated home. Once the girl had step
ped into the house, Noella breathed a sigh of relief as she headed for home.

  Though she was feeling her tiredness more than usual, Noella wasn’t surprised. This time of year was never easy for her. It was when memories of the past just couldn’t be ignored. So many negative emotions were tied to the season. However, there was a smattering of happy memories too. Times when they’d celebrated Christmas and her birthday. Times when it had been just the two of them, and her mom had made an effort to make the season happy. But those moments were painfully few and far between.

  But the last memory of Christmas she had connected with her mom was the one where she’d been abandoned just fifteen days before her seventeenth birthday. DFS hadn’t placed her with the Johnsons yet, so that first Christmas and birthday without any family to celebrate with had been horrible. She’d been stuck in a hotel with a glorified babysitter along with several other children.

  While the Johnsons had definitely gone all out for the holidays, Noella hadn’t been able to get into it the way the other foster children in their care had. What they had done that she appreciated the most was celebrate her half-birthday. As if realizing that sharing a birthday with a holiday was challenging, they’d thrown her a party on the twenty-fifth of June when she’d been seventeen and a half.

  One afternoon she’d come home from school—just days from the end of the school year—to find they’d planned a half-birthday party for her. And that had been the start of having her big birthday celebration on her half birthday. They still acknowledged her birthday at Christmas but in a much smaller way. Noella had appreciated the shift of focus and enjoyed having a celebration when the weather was nice enough for a trip to the park or to just have a barbecue in the back yard.

  But while that helped give her birthday memories that weren’t associated with her past, Christmas was still a difficult time. And it wasn’t just her past experiences that made it that way. It was the time of year when her mom tried to make contact. Some years Noella just ignored the request that she call her mom, but this year she knew that she was going to give in.

  Noella was surprised to see her car in the driveway when she pulled up to the house. When he’d called the day before, Finn had apologized that it had taken a little longer than it should have due to a couple of mechanics who had called in sick, and everything had backed up as a result. He’d explained the problem to her, but honestly, it had all gone over her head. All she cared about was having her car fixed and how much it was going to cost her.

  She parked the loaner car against the curb and gathered up her stuff before stepping out onto the snowy street. As she walked up the driveway to the front door, Noella spotted Tenn’s car parked there as well. No doubt he would apologize for not helping her out the other day. Tenn had always had a need to make things right. From the time she’d first met him, he’d never liked to have strife or anger around him.

  Savory warmth greeted her as she walked into the house, causing her stomach to growl. Tennyson and Finn were in the kitchen with Erin, and they all greeted her with smiles, but it was the one on Finn’s face that did funny things to her stomach. She snapped the elastic on her wrist and waited for the feelings to subside as she returned their smiles.

  “Sit,” Erin directed as she picked up a plate from the counter.

  Noella settled onto the stool at the island counter next to Finn. “I see my car out there. Does that mean it’s fixed?”

  “Yep. We were able to get ‘er fixed up,” Finn said with a smile. “She’s gonna run just fine now.”

  Erin slid a plate with a chicken breast and a pile of broccoli and cheese rice in front of Noella. It was Noella’s favorite casserole, and Erin knew it, so no doubt she had made it on purpose. Both of them knew how to cook—Mama Kay had made sure of that—but Erin tended to do most of the cooking since she was usually home early enough. Ever since they’d moved into their small house, they’d fallen into a pattern of sorts that worked for them.

  “You guys planning to be here Sunday afternoon?” Erin asked as she set a glass of water down in front of Noella.

  “I am,” Tennyson said before popping the last bite on his plate into his mouth.

  “What is Sunday afternoon?” Finn asked.

  “We’re cutting down and then decorating the Christmas tree.” Erin leaned against the counter. “It’s our tradition. We already helped Mama Kay and Papa Don with their tree.”

  “Tha’ sounds like fun,” Finn said. “Count me in. I’m not returnin’ to Scotland this year for Christmas, so I’m happy to help decorate all the trees I can ‘round here.”

  “Well, I hope you won’t just help decorate the trees but that you’ll join us for all our Christmas festivities,” Erin said. “Christmases with the Johnsons can be wild, but there’s always room for one more.”

  “Your brother already mentioned that to me, and now it looks like I’ll be takin’ you both up on your generous offers.”

  Noella remained silent as Tenn and Erin continued to talk about what they had done in years past. She contemplated what it would be like to celebrate Christmas with Finn around. Not surprisingly, she didn’t outright dislike the idea. Of course, that was the part of her that had been slowly developing a pretty big crush on Finn over the past year. The part of her that still didn’t think Finn was the right man for her thought it was a bad idea.

  She contemplated Erin’s words from earlier in the day as she watched Finn grin at something Tennyson had said, his dimples deepening in his cheeks. Finn seemed like a hard worker, and maybe he would never take advantage of her. But then again, several of the men her mom had been with had started out as hard working men—or at least they had appeared to be. It was when they’d realized how much money her mom brought home that things would change.

  Maybe she was putting too simple of a spin on what she remembered, but she’d been young and to her, it had seemed pretty simple. Her mom would be saving up for something special—whether it was a trip to Disneyland or a newer car or a better place to live—then suddenly, when Noella would ask about their plans, the money was gone. The man in her mom’s life had needed it. And yet said man was sitting on her mom’s couch more than he was out working until he either left her mom high and dry or—in not so many cases—her mom kicked them out. And then the cycle would begin again.

  Too many men saw the desperation in her mom to be loved and exploited it. Noella was determined to never be in that same situation. And a prenup agreement would only protect her in the case of a divorce. She needed a man who would never want or need her money even while they were together.

  “Don’t you like the casserole?”

  Erin’s voice broke through Noella’s thoughts, and she glanced over at the woman. “What?”

  “You were looking at it like there was something wrong with it.”

  Noella shook her head. “It’s delicious. Sorry. My mind was elsewhere.”

  The knowing look Erin gave her told Noella that she had a pretty good idea where her mind had been. “Well, stop thinking about things that make you scowl at my culinary efforts. It makes me feel insecure.”

  Noella laughed at that, as did the two guys. If there was one place that Erin was never insecure, it was in the kitchen. Whether it be baking or cooking, the woman was a whiz. Noella could do both as well, but she tended to stick pretty close to the recipes while Erin was much more into experimenting and rarely followed a recipe as it was written. They made a good pair at the bakery since Noella was actually much more comfortable handling the administrative side of the business as well as the social media aspect.

  She’d taken business administration in college and had excelled at it, but she’d never thought that she would be part owner of a business before the age of thirty. She and Erin had started out selling at bake sales around Christmas time and then other holidays. As people had begun to want more of their goodies, they’d found themselves in the position of having to either start a baking business of their own or discontinue it complete
ly. After talking with their foster dad and Tennyson and Forrest, both of whom had also taken business courses in college, they’d decided to take the plunge. Their foster dad had co-signed for their loan, and both of them had worked hard to make sure he never regretted doing that for them.

  Now the bakery was booming with sales from walk-in traffic as well as from specialty orders for wedding and birthday cakes. Erin was self-taught in decorating, but you’d never know it from looking at her designs. Noella knew that there was talent in Erin that went beyond just watching videos on YouTube. She was proud of the business the two of them had built. She still didn’t feel completely secure since she knew things could change on a moment’s notice, but as long as it was in her power to make the bakery a success, she would do what she could to make that possible.

  “You mentioned once that you had siblings,” Erin said, her gaze on Finn. “Are you close with them?”

  5

  Noella looked at Finn in time to see him nod. “I have a brother and two sisters. They are quite a bit older than me. Brice is forty and is married wi’ two kids. My sisters are twins and are ten years older than me. Emily is married and pregnant with her first. Amelia is single and has no desire to marry, so she says.”

  “Do you miss them?” Noella asked.

  “Yes, but I’m in contact wi’ them a lot. I usually talk to my folks once a week, and my siblings a couple of times a month. My gran still resists technology and usually sends me letters, but occasionally she’ll pop into one of my parents’ Skype conversations with me.”

  Noella almost asked Finn about his relationship with his parents, but then she didn’t want to have to divulge anything about her own situation, so just let it be. She could see the affection in his expression as he talked about his family. Clearly, he loved them and enjoyed having them in his life. As she listened to him talk a bit more about his family, Noella was reminded again of the call from her mother. Maybe she would cave and give her a call to see what she wanted. If it was an update on whatever number marriage she was on along with more excuses about why she’d done what she had to her, Noella would just end the call and move on.