Betting on Love (14 page)

She continued, “And Addy is amazing with music. Every chance I got I’d sneak a peek in the auditorium. She had those kids jumping and dancing and singing and shouting. Part of me wanted to just run right in there and join them.”

“You should have.”

Melody ducked her head. “I did.” She giggled and held up two fingers. “Twice.”

He smiled at her, but he didn’t respond. Instead, he cleared his throat again, and Melody couldn’t help but wonder if he’d come down with a cold or if he had a sore throat or something. “Have you got a cold? Do you want me to get you a drink?”

Bright red patches covered his neck and cheeks again, and Drew shook his head. “I was just wondering.” He leaned back against the bench and wiped his hands on the front of his jeans. “Well, the Bible school picnic is Sunday evening. And I wondered if you’d want to go with me.”

Melody shrugged. She didn’t see any harm in that. She and Drew were friends now. Of course she’d be willing to go with him to the picnic. They were having cornhole and horseshoes and volleyball. She chuckled inwardly. She’d be his best competition. She may have given her heart to Jesus, but she was still going to whip up on Drew every chance she could. “Sure. Everyone will be there. It sounds like fun.” She teasingly punched his arm. “I’ll need a friend to whip at cornhole.”

His expression fell as he stood up. A hesitant smile bowed his lips. “Great.” He smacked the side of his leg. “I’ll pick you at five.”

Melody frowned as she watched Drew walk away. That was weird. She’d never seen Drew act that way.

She didn’t get it, Lord. She didn’t understand that I was asking her on a date.

Drew leaned back against the seat in his truck. He smacked the top of the steering wheel then turned the ignition. The truck grumbled to life a little slower than she normally did. Ignoring it, he shifted her into R
EVERSE
and pulled out of the driveway.

I wanted it to be perfect. When I saw her sitting under that tree reading her Bible, well, I thought there wasn’t a better place in the world to ask her on our first date. But she thought I was just asking her to ride to the church with me—as a friend.

He stared out over the countryside as he made his way back to the homesite. He’d left his dad alone working on the electric because he wanted to ask her in person. And he had asked her. And she had said yes. But a lot of good that did. They were going as friends.

He pulled into what would soon be his driveway and turned off the truck. His dad walked out of the house and wiped sweat from his forehead. It was an awfully hot day in July, and wiring a house sure didn’t cool a fellow off. “How’d it go, son?”

“She said yes.” Drew walked past his dad and back into the house.

“That’s great.” His dad followed behind him. “So why are you upset?”

“She thinks we’re going as friends. It was obvious she didn’t understand I was asking her on a date.”

His dad laughed as he grabbed a water bottle out of the cooler. He wiped the outside of it against his forehead before he unscrewed the top and gulped a long drink. “Maybe that’s for the best.”

“What?”

His dad lifted his hands in surrender. “At least for right now. The girl’s only just accepted Christ, and the two of you were at each other’s throats just before that. Dating you might be a bit more than she can think about right now.”

Drew chewed on his dad’s words. He might be right. But at the same time, Drew didn’t wait for anything. He wasn’t one to sit on something and stew about it. If he wanted it, he went out and got it. He tried to follow the Lord’s leading, and there were times he had to take things a little slower, but for the most part he just set his mind to something and went after it.

“I don’t know, Dad. I just think I botched up asking her out. You know I’d never done it before.”

“Let me ask you something, son. Is going to a church picnic really going on a date?”

Drew lifted his eyebrows and shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s somewhere I wanted to go with her.”

“When you take a woman on a date, you want it to be somewhere that you can get to know each other. Somewhere where everyone you know in the world isn’t going to be there. Do you get what I’m saying?”

“So asking her to the picnic wasn’t really like asking her on a date?” Drew pursed his lips. “You could have told me that to begin with.”

A low chuckle escaped his dad’s mouth as he shrugged. “Maybe so, but I thought you might want to figure it out on your own. That’s how you usually like to do things.”

Drew wrinkled his nose at him. His dad didn’t have to point out that Drew was mule headed. He knew it all too well.

Merriment still lit his dad’s eyes as he swatted Drew’s arm. “Come on, son. Right now I need you to help me get this wire through the wall.”

Drew helped his dad as his mind replayed his invitation to Melody. She talked with such ease with him now. The transformation had been so dramatic and sudden. He knew she still had her spunky, competitive spirit, and he loved that, too.

He’d just wait until they were at the picnic, and then he’d ask her again. This time he’d make sure she understood he wanted to take her on a date. Especially now that he understood taking her to a Bible school picnic wasn’t a real one anyway.

Melody waited in line to load up her plate with several homemade foods at the Bible school picnic. Standing behind her, Drew pointed to tiny pieces of bread with some kind of dressing and cucumbers on top. “See those? Nelli Jo makes them. They’re delicious.”

Melody grabbed one and placed it on her plate. She’d never been to a potluck picnic of this sort until she’d come to visit her aunt and uncle. Most everything she and her mother ate came from a box or can.

He pointed to another dish. “There’s Mom’s potato salad.”

Her mouth watered as she put a spoonful of Drew’s mom’s potato salad on her plate.

As they made their way down the line, she looked back at Drew’s plate. It was already piled up with food, and they hadn’t yet made it to the coleslaw. She wasn’t going to tell Drew until after he’d tasted it, but she’d made it again. Only this time, Aunt Renee helped her with each step, and she hadn’t forgotten the sugar.

“Oh yum.” He pushed some of his food toward the middle of the plate with his fork. “I have to make room for Renee’s coleslaw.”

He scooped up a big spoonful and dropped it on his plate, then peered at Melody. A blush spread across his cheeks, and he started to open his mouth. She looked away from him, knowing he was probably remembering the last time he thought he was eating Aunt Renee’s dish.
Well, this time he won’t be disappointed.

With her plate as full as she could get it, she walked over to the folding chair Drew brought for her and sat down. Though it was hot for late afternoon in July, the enormous shade tree they sat under kept it from being unbearable—as long as the insects left them alone. She swatted at a fly.

Drew joined her and set his plate in his chair. “I’m going to go get a drink. What would you like?”

“Sweet tea, of course.”

He winked. “Of course.”

He made his way to the table set up with several two-liter bottles of sodas as well as pitchers of lemonade and sweet tea. She noticed how strong he looked in the maroon T-shirt that hugged his true-farming-boy’s muscles. As always, he wore jeans and boots. She wasn’t sure she’d ever seen him without them. The white line along the edges of his haircut was now a bright red, sunburned from the hours he spent outside.

Drew was a good man. A hard worker. He was God-fearing. And he wasn’t hard to look at either.
He’d make such a good husband.
Her face warmed at the thought.

He turned back around with two cups in his hands and made his way toward her. She averted her gaze even though she knew he didn’t know what she was thinking. She didn’t have those kinds of silly notions floating around in her mind. She knew all kinds of girls who dreamed of the boy they’d one day meet and marry. She didn’t have those dreams. Hers were always about getting away.

Taking a bite of her food, she tried to shoo the thought away. She wanted to feel normal in front of Drew, to enjoy their friendship.

“Mmm. Renee, the coleslaw is wonderful.”

She looked up, and Drew had lifted his empty fork in the air at her aunt, who sat on the other side of him.

“Melody made it.” Her aunt nonchalantly nodded toward her then continued to talk to the woman sitting beside her.

Drew turned to her. His eyebrows raised in surprise. He nodded. His eyes gleamed with just a hint of mischievousness. “Good job.”

She placed her hand against her chest and batted her eyes, feigning arrogance. “Did you doubt I could do it?”

He blinked and cocked his head to one side. “Yes.”

Melody swatted his arm for his teasing, and Drew laughed outright. “You gonna play me at cornhole?”

“Absolutely.” He leaned close to her. “Now that you’re a Christian, you gonna let me win?”

She wrinkled her nose. “Absolutely not.”

He made a fist and gently tapped her jaw then pulled her ponytail. “That’s my girl.”

Melody’s jaw dropped. “What are we? In seventh grade?”

Drew pinched her nose. “I happened to like seventh grade.”

“Well then, I’ll do you like I did every other thirteen-year-old boy when I was in middle school.”

In one quick motion, she dropped her plate to the ground, jumped up, moved behind Drew, and wrapped her arm around his neck in a headlock. She rubbed his head with the knuckles of her free hand and yelled, “You want a piece of me, big guy? You think you can mess with me?”

Laughing, Drew hopped up to his full height, but Melody didn’t let go even though her feet were dangling in the air. Reaching around his back with one arm, he grabbed her around the waist and twisted her until she was in front of him.

For a moment, panic set in as she realized Drew was so much bigger and stronger than she was. They were only playing, but fear flooded her for a brief moment. He must have seen it in her eyes because he let her go.

Knowing she shouldn’t be afraid, she tried to laugh as she lifted her hands up. “You got me.”

She looked around, noting how many of their church friends were covering their mouths and giggling at their antics. Uncle Roy even appeared downright amused. She pointed at Drew and tried to chuckle. “He got me there. Beat me that time.”

Drew had already sat back down. He gazed at her with too much intensity. He was trying to read what had happened. God was working on her heart, teaching her to trust. She just wished she could completely get over her past.

Drew’s hands wouldn’t stop sweating as he drove Melody back to Roy and Renee’s place. He’d been puzzled about her reaction to their horseplay before the kids performed their Bible school program. He thought he saw fear in her gaze, but that didn’t make sense. He’d never given her any reason to be afraid of him. The only thing he could figure was that she got embarrassed teasing around like that in front of the whole church.

He liked that she’d gotten so spunky with him. She didn’t back down for anything, even though she probably didn’t weigh a hundred pounds soaking wet. He snuck a quick peek at her in the passenger’s seat.

She was tired. It had been an eventful couple of weeks for her. If he knew her well at all, he figured she’d spent plenty an evening staying awake far too long trying to soak in more of what the Bible said. Then she’d have to get up early to head over to AJ’s for work. He loved that she was so excited, but a girl needed her rest.

Several times she’d started to lay her head back, but he’d hit a pothole, and she’d wake back up. He tried to be careful, but there wasn’t much a man could do with these old country roads and his pickup.

He huffed. Here he had been so mad that she didn’t understand he was trying to ask her on a date to the church picnic. His dad had been right. That wasn’t no kind of date. A date would be just the two of them going to dinner or seeing a movie or whatever it was people liked to do. His idea of a perfect date would be going fishing and then frying up the catch, but he probably wouldn’t mind eating dinner somewhere nice either.