Donovan’s Angel (20 page)

Her first impulse was to rush down the hall
and confront the indignant woman, but then she heard Paul’s voice,
quiet and reassuring. She couldn’t hear his words, but she knew
that he would be trying to make the best of a bad situation. She
stopped her headlong rush to the door and finished dressing. There
was no point in making things any more difficult for him than they
already were.

Martie paced the floor as the conversation in
the kitchen droned on and on. Portions of Miss Beulah’s angry
conversation punctuated her restless march in the room that had
recently been a little bit of heaven:

“. . . it’s shameful . . . a minister’s wife
. . . exercise book, my eye!”

Finally she could stand to hear no more.
Slamming the bedroom door shut, she covered her ears. It just
wasn’t fair, she thought. Why did her exercise book have to come
out now? That had to be what Miss Beulah was ranting about.
Jazz Your Way to a Perfect 10
, complete with the Reverend
Donovan’s new wife in scanty attire.

She wished she could turn back time and undo
that book. A year ago she’d never dreamed that she would be married
to a minister and that Miss Beulah would be using her book to
crucify him.

She balled her hands into fists and swatted
them helplessly into the air. When she had told Paul about the
book, she had anticipated the controversy it would create; she just
hadn’t realized it would be this soon. It had been so long since
she’d written the book and she’d been so involved with Paul that
the publication date had completely slipped her mind.

The gray carpet, already worn threadbare from
Paul’s pacing since his marriage, took an additional beating as
Martie waited for the conversation in the kitchen to come to an
end. At last she heard the door slam then the squeal of tires as
Miss Beulah screeched out of the parsonage driveway.

Martie raced down the hall and stopped just
inside the door. Paul was sitting quietly at the table thumbing
through her book. She saw the mixture of emotions that crossed his
face— admiration, pride, bewilderment, and something almost like
anger.

“Paul?” she called tentatively.

He looked up.

“This must be the book you told me
about.”

She crossed to the table and sat down
opposite him.

“Yes. I wrote it while I was still in Texas.
Obviously, it’s caused quite a furor in Pontotoc.”

“A tempest in a teapot.” He flipped to page
twenty-five. “I’m particularly fond of this picture.”

“That’s a position I call the hamstring
stretch.”

“I’m more interested in the way that red
leotard fits than in the exercise,” he said, smiling.

“Apparently, so was Miss Beulah.”

Paul closed the book and walked around the
table. He leaned down and pulled Martie into his arms.

“There’s no need for you to fret about Miss
Beulah. From what I can see, this is nothing more than a good
exercise book. Miss Beulah will have completely forgotten it in a
couple of weeks.”

“But Paul, she had no right to stir up
trouble for us,” Martie protested. “I’m getting more than a little
tired of being the brunt of her rumors and innuendos. And I’m going
to march right over there and tell her so.”

“I understand how you feel, angel, but be
patient with her. She’ll come around. It takes Miss Beulah a while
to accept newcomers. I think she feels a moral obligation to put
you through a test before she will accept you as a part of Pontotoc
society.” He brushed his lips across the top of her hair. “We’ll
weather this storm together.”

“I don’t want to be put through tests. I
don’t want to weather storms.” She pulled out of his arms and
marched around the kitchen, flailing her arms in the air as she
talked. “I don’t want to be patient. I want the whole world to let
me alone so that I can enjoy my husband.”

She stalked outside, slamming the door shut
behind her. She was so angry that she didn’t notice the chill
November air or the paintbox western sky or the mockingbird
pretending to be a jay. Her mind was turned inward, railing against
convention and a fishbowl existence.

Miss Beulah had been the cause of this
marriage in the first place, and now she was trying to split them
apart. She was nothing but an old marriage pooper. Why did she have
to run to Paul with her warped opinions and harsh judgments? Why
didn’t she turn her imagination somewhere else? Why didn’t she take
up needlepoint or ceramics or bullfighting? Why didn’t she plant a
turnip patch and leave them alone?

Martie’s shoes slapped angrily against the
pavement, and she didn’t realize how far she had come until she was
past the courthouse. Suddenly she felt the chill and wished for a
sweater. She wished she had stayed in the warm kitchen with Paul,
secure in the circle of his arms, instead of bolting in her
typical, impulsive fashion.

She turned back toward the parsonage, and her
feet flew down the sidewalk as she ran home to Paul. Her cheeks
were wind-whipped and red as Winesap apples and she was panting for
breath when she burst through the kitchen door.

Her eyes swung frantically around the empty
room. Paul was not there. He was probably so disgusted with her
that he was scouring the country for another parish to serve. He
might even be investigating missionary service in the Arctic.

“Paul?” she called.

There was no answer. She made a quick tour of
the parlor. Her heart sank at the sight of the empty room. She had
half expected him to be watching the evening news. He was probably
already on his way to Iceland or Siberia, winging high in the sky,
forgetting that he had ever known a honky-tonk woman named Martie
Fleming.

She ran her hand lovingly over the garage
sale end table. Did he know that she loved everything about him,
even his beat-up furniture? She had to find him. A daily devotional
book clattered to the floor as she nearly overturned the end table
in her hasty exit from the room. She ran down the hall, calling his
name as she went.

Suddenly she stopped, having heard the
distinct sound of water running. Paul had not run off to Iceland or
Siberia or the Arctic. He was in the shower!

She was too happy even to chide herself as
she burst through the bathroom door. She was so happy that she
didn’t think about her clothes or her shoes or the ribbon in her
hair.

Smiling joyously, she pushed open the shower
door.

“Paul!” she cried. “You didn’t leave me!”

She wrapped her arms around his soapy chest
in an exuberant bear hug.

His laugh echoed in the shower. “Why would I
do a foolish thing like that?” he asked as he slipped his arms
around her waist and rubbed his soapy face against her hair.

“Because I’m impulsive and irrational and
totally unsuitable . . . and I can’t fry chicken.”

“I don’t care if you never cook chicken. I
just want you to be the crazy, wonderful woman I married.” The
washcloth slipped from his hand as he pressed her close.

She rubbed her face against his chest,
inhaling the fresh, soapy smell of him. A glob of bubbles clung to
her cheek as she peered up at him.

“You’re not disgusted with me?” she asked
anxiously.

Tenderly he brushed away the bubbles. “About
what?”

“The book.”

“There’s no reason to be. You wrote an
exercise book, and I don’t know who would have made a better model
for the illustrations. As far as I’m concerned, that’s all there is
to it.”

The water continued to rain around them
unheeded. The Reverend Donovan didn’t find anything at all strange
about his wife being in the shower fully dressed. It was just one
more in a series of impulsive acts that endeared her to him.

Martie squeezed her husband and planted
nibbling kisses all over his wet face and neck.

“You are . . . the most . . . wonderful . . .
man . . . in . . . Pontotoc.”

His hands began to trace lazy circles on her
back.

“I was hoping for the whole world, but that
will have to do,” he murmured.

“You’re incorrigible.”

“And you’re wet.”

She looked down at herself.

“Paul! Why didn’t you tell me that I was
wearing clothes?”

“And spoil all the fun?” He took the soggy
ribbon from her hair and began unbuttoning her blouse.

When she saw the quickening of desire in his
eyes, she put her hands on his chest and rubbed dreamy circles as
her body began to tingle with anticipation.

“Don’t you think I should be mad at you for
not running after me when I left the house?” she asked softly.

The blouse splatted onto the shower floor,
and his breathing grew harsh as he gazed at her breasts, full and
firm and heavy with need, nipples peaked against the minuscule
covering of wet lace.

“You needed to be alone,” he said with
difficulty.

He reached behind her to unzip her skirt. Wet
lace and straining breasts pressed against his pounding heart, and
his hands fumbled with the zipper. Her hands reached behind to help
him.

Martie lifted her face and looked hard at him
as her skirt hit the floor with a heavy thud. She stood very still,
almost without breathing, mesmerized by the promise she saw
there.

“I don’t need to be alone anymore, Paul,” she
whispered.

“Neither do I.”

In slow motion he slid the straps of her lace
teddy down her arms. The erotic friction of his touch was
heightened by the water pouring around them and the soap that still
clung to his hands.

The teddy fell to the floor, forgotten, as
they came together, their cries of desire drowned out by the sound
of the rushing water.

o0o

As it turned out, their magic moment in the
shower was the calm before the storm. Paul’s return to the pulpit
was greeted with mixed reactions from his congregation. Jolene,
Bob, and Sam sat on one side of the church along with a faithful
group of staunch supporters; Miss Beulah and the dissidents sat on
the other.

As Paul looked out over his divided
congregation, he silently prayed for strength and courage and a
healing miracle for his flock.

Martie felt the crackling of tension in the
church and knew that she was the cause. It wasn’t just her
Jazzercise book, she reasoned. It would have been merely a tempest
in a teapot, as Paul had said, if it weren’t for the other things:
her flamboyant clothes, her less-than-conservative ideas, the
Halloween pageant.

She was a stranger to sadness and guilt, but
both now edged their way into her consciousness. Tears filled her
heart. Not for herself— she was more angry than hurt over this
latest manufactured scandal. No. The tears were for Paul, for the
coldness and censure of his beloved flock.

The usual camaraderie was gone as the
congregation filed out of the church, tight-lipped, and headed
straight for their cars. The faithful few stopped to chat and shake
hands. Paul and Martie stood side by side, handling the situation
with pasted-on smiles and stiff upper lips. But it took a toll on
them.

o0o

Later, instead of a Sunday afternoon stroll
along tree-lined streets still sporting a touch of autumn gold,
they went their separate ways. Paul disappeared into his study, and
Martie went to her former home to lose herself in a strenuous
Jazzercise routine.

As she twisted and cavorted to the frantic
rhythm of a popular rock song, she was thankful that they had
decided to keep her house with its large studio. The parsonage was
barely big enough for her to practice in when she didn’t want to
get out, and it certainly couldn’t accommodate her classes. Sweat
trickled down the back of her neck as she threw herself into the
routine, trying to block out everything except the music.

Baby and Aristocat sat on the floor watching
their mistress, and when the record ended, Martie sat cross-legged
on the floor beside her pets. She scratched behind their ears and
poured out her troubles to them.

“It’s not that I’ve done anything wrong, you
understand.” Baby thumped her tail to show that she did. “It’s just
that I’m in trouble again.”

She propped her elbows on her knees and
cupped her chin in her palms.

“What I’d really like to do is go over to
Miss Beulah’s and crown her with a potted plant. Of course, Paul
won’t let me. He said petunias wouldn’t become her.”

She smiled at her attentive retriever.

“Isn’t he wonderful? Always finding the humor
in a bad situation. That’s just his way of cautioning me to be
patient. If I were in his shoes, I would be a bear. I’d growl at
the people who were saying nasty things, and I might even claw a
few faces. Sometimes I think he’s too kind-hearted.”

Baby turned doleful eyes to her mistress and
gave Martie’s hands a sandpaper kiss, a hearty swipe with a wet
pink tongue.

Martie mulled over the problem until she
could no longer stand to think of unhappy things. Calling to her
pets, she locked up her house and hurried home.

o0o

The minute she entered the parsonage door she
could smell the fragrant smoke of Paul’s pipe. It was coming from
the parlor, which meant that he was no longer cloistered in his
study. She was filled with such joy that she called from the
kitchen, “Get ready to part company with your shorts, Paul. I’ve
worked up quite an appetite.”

She pushed open the parlor door, focusing on
the beloved man sitting in a sagging chair.

“And it’s not for food.”

A loud cough on her right caused her to turn
around. Victor Cranston and other straitlaced members of his
committee were lined up against the parlor wall like participants
in the Spanish Inquisition.

Vividly aware of her scanty leotard and of
its effect, that of waving a red flag before a bull, she bounced
out of the tense situation in the only way she knew, with pizzazz.
Purposely not looking at her husband, she turned the full thrust of
her performance toward the scowling committee.