Love Remains (20 page)

It wasn’t until she looked over her right shoulder to take the menu from the waitress that she realized she’d sat right next to Bobby Patterson. He gave her a benign smile when their eyes met then immediately turned his attention to his own menu.

Her breath caught in her throat—and triggered the first coughing spell she’d had in almost a week. She excused herself and fled to the restroom.

Flannery entered a few seconds behind her. “You okay?”

Zarah nodded and pressed a wad of paper towels over her mouth. Once the coughing subsided, she tossed those towels and grabbed fresh ones to dab at the perspiration on her forehead and at her streaming eyes.

“I couldn’t believe it when Bobby went around to sit by you. I was sure you’d see him coming and move down to where I’m sitting.”

“I wasn’t paying attention.” Zarah’s voice came out raspy. She told Flannery about her all-too-brief conversation with Pastor Ben leading to her distraction.

“Maybe they’re finally increasing the singles’ ministry budget like you and Patrick have been asking for the past several years.”

Zarah hadn’t thought about that. “Maybe you’re right. Or maybe Patrick already told Pastor Joe he’s getting married, and they’re going to dissolve the singles’ ministry entirely.”

Flannery turned to face the mirror and fluffed her hair. “I don’t know why you automatically assume everything is going to be bad.”

“Because it usually is.” Zarah checked to make sure her mascara hadn’t run. “Come on. They’ll place their orders without us if we don’t get back out there.”

“Want to move down to my end of the table?”

“That would be pretty conspicuous, don’t you think?”

“Yeah, but then you wouldn’t have to sit by
him.”

“I think I can bear it for an hour or so.” And she didn’t want him to know how much his nearness unnerved her.

But when they rounded the corner, the chair to Bobby’s left—her chair—wasn’t empty. Lyssa Thompson tossed her bleached-blond hair over her shoulder, wrapped both hands around Bobby’s arm, and threw her head back and laughed.

Really, Zarah just couldn’t take having her place at the table stolen on top of everything else today. Not only that, but she didn’t want Bobby to get hurt by being the rebound from the breakup Lyssa had cried to her about on the phone less than two weeks ago.

Zarah marched right up behind the chair and cleared her throat.

Lyssa looked up with a little squeak. “Oh, Zarah, you scared me.”

“I need my chair back, Lyssa.” Zarah’s pulse pounded so hard, she could feel it in the tip of her nose. Normally she would have avoided the confrontation, taken her purse from where it hung off the back of the chair, and moved. But this wasn’t a normal situation.

“Is this your chair? I thought it was empty.” Lyssa batted short, stubby eyelashes at her.

Zarah smiled at the bald-faced lie. “Nope, not empty.” She kept smiling as Lyssa slunk back around to the far end of the table—across from Flannery—to the chair she’d been in before Zarah had gone to the restroom. Zarah resumed her seat and draped her napkin across her lap.

“Thank you.” Bobby’s whisper tickled her ear, and his shoulder pressed against hers.

“For what?” With as close as he was, she dared not turn to look at him. She opened the menu instead.

“For standing your ground.”

She risked turning to look at him when the contact between their arms ended. He winked at her.

And with that one gesture, she was seventeen years old again, staring in wonder at the handsome young soldier who was the first person to ever notice or take an interest in her.

Was it possible that, after all this time, she could excavate beneath all the hurt feelings, the anger, the bitterness, and find that her love
for Bobby remained as strong as it had been fourteen years ago? Or was she only setting herself up for an even greater heartbreak when he disappointed her again?

Was she strong enough to find out?

Chapter 15

W
hile spending a couple of hours talking to Caylor and Flannery Sunday afternoon—about Patrick’s engagement and the singles’ group, not about Bobby, not yet—had helped Zarah sleep better the next couple of nights, by Wednesday afternoon, anxiety over what Pastor Joe wanted to talk to them about weighed on her mind again.

“Dr. Mitchell?”

She tore her eyes away from the artifacts on the specimen table and looked at the graduate-student intern. “I’m sorry, what did you say?”

“I think I identified one of the soldiers in this photo, and I hope you can confirm it for me.”

Zarah moved around the corner of the table so she could see the intern’s laptop screen.

“I found him in a couple of the photos from that new group of Battle of Franklin pictures we just got. I thought I recognized him, and when I pulled up the Stone’s River photos, sure enough, I found a couple of images of him there, too. Except he was identified in those.” She pulled up the other images for comparison.

Zarah examined the images—grainy at the level of magnification needed to see the soldier’s face. “I do believe you’re right, Felicity. Good job.”

“Dr. Mitchell.” Another of the interns came into the room. “I’m back with that box of letters and journals the state library and archives was restoring for us, just like you asked.” He set the large box on the end of the long, wide, underlit specimen table.

“Great.” Zarah slipped on a pair of white cotton gloves and opened the box. “Oh, good, they sent a copy of the microfiche along with it. Excellent—that means one of you can start typing them in from the microfiche while someone else works at scanning the originals into the computer in the documents room for the visual database.”

Adam groaned. “Tell me again why the Tennessee State Library and
Archives
doesn’t do that for us?”

“Because that’s why we exist—to research, document, and preserve items of significance to the history of Middle Tennessee. Anything to do with the government goes to them; everything else comes to us. They’re just helping out while Danica, our document restoration expert, is on maternity leave.”

Zarah glanced at the wall clock. “But you don’t have to worry about it today. Go ahead and wrap up whatever you’re working on and knock off a few minutes early. Adam, tell Jonah and Amberleigh, please.”

“Sure thing. Thanks, Dr. M.” Adam bounded out of the room.

Felicity finished what she was doing, shut down the laptop, and stowed it in the cabinet, which Zarah locked behind her.

She didn’t make it a habit to let the grad students leave before five, but they’d gotten a lot accomplished so far this week—and Zarah didn’t want to stay much longer herself.

She straightened the stacks of photos of the state’s centennial celebration she’d been staring at all afternoon, turned off all the lights, and locked the room.

The meeting with Pastor Joe wasn’t until five thirty, and it didn’t usually take more than ten minutes for Zarah to get over to the church from here, even at five o’clock, but she left early anyway. No point in sitting around here stressing.

She pulled into the church parking lot seven minutes later. She had time to go home and change clothes—but the dress pants, silk tank, and short-sleeved jacket she wore were as comfortable as anything else in her wardrobe. Plus, appearing pulled-together and professional was never a bad thing.

Though the lingering late-September heat nearly made it unbearable, Zarah sat in the car, eyes closed, mind running through every eventuality she could imagine, until she heard the unmistakable rumble of Patrick’s truck pulling into the space beside her.

She climbed out of the car, bringing her leather carryall with her. She might not need the notebook and pen she planned to take out for the meeting, but she couldn’t leave the bag with the laptop in it in the car for several hours. Her life was on that computer.

“Have a good day today?” Dressed in his usual work boots, khakis, and solid-color polo shirt with his company logo over his heart, Patrick grinned at her.

She had to smile back—if for no other reason than that she couldn’t imagine him in a tuxedo. His getting married would be worth it just for that spectacle. “We got a lot accomplished today. You?”

Patrick launched into the details of the house he was renovating, which took the entire walk to the pastor’s office.

“He’s on the phone,” the secretary said, “but he’ll be—”

The office door opened, and Pastor Joe stepped out. “I’m ready. Come in, Patrick, Zarah. Veda, ask Ben to come in, please.”

“Yes, sir.” The secretary picked up her phone and dialed an extension.

Patrick motioned Zarah to enter ahead of him. It was only the second time she’d ever been into the senior pastor’s office. It was just as big as she remembered, and even though three walls were lined with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, several stacks of books sat on the floor near his desk.

“Let’s sit at the table.”

Zarah followed the minister to the table at the far end of the room
and had just sat down when the associate pastor arrived.

“Ben, close the door, will you?” Pastor Joe picked up a legal pad from his desk and carried it over to the table.

Zarah sank onto the edge of one of the chairs and pulled it close to the table, setting her own notebook and pen out. She pressed her palms to the tops of her thighs, trying to control her nerves.

As soon as everyone was seated, Pastor Joe started. “I asked the two of you to come because you’re the tacit leaders of the singles’ Sunday school class. Patrick, I believe you’ve been teaching the class for several years now?”

“Eight, sir,” Patrick confirmed.

“And Zarah, you’ve been providing administrative support—record keeping and outreach, is that correct?”

“Record keeping, outreach, event planning, mentoring, pretty much anything that’s needed.”

“Very noble.” Instead of complimentary, Pastor Joe’s words sounded condescending. “You may not know, but the senior ministers recently attended a church growth and membership conference. One of the topics discussed at the retreat, which we’ve been scrutinizing since we came back, is that of the singles’ ministry and how it doesn’t mesh well with the rest of the church. It sets unrealistic and, frankly, unchristian examples for young people in the church. We are a family-oriented church. We want our young people thinking about building families.”

Zarah’s skin prickled with heat; her insides froze into a solid block.

“We understand you have provided leadership with good intentions, but the ministers of the church have decided unanimously that changes are in order to better integrate the unmarried members of our church into the congregation.”

“You’re just going to change things—without even asking the people affected by these changes if they want them or not?” The words had come out of Zarah’s mouth without conscious thought or effort.

“It is the duty of the ministers of the church to ensure that the members are being ministered to in the best way possible.”

“But isn’t it your duty to find out in what way those members
want
to be ministered to?” Zarah gripped her pen so hard the clip bit into her palm.

“Zarah, just listen to what they have to say—I think you’ll like it.”

She stared at Patrick, wondering what alien had invaded his body.

“Now, as I was saying… We will combine the young marrieds and the post-college, twentysomething singles into a new Young Professionals class. This will take the place of the Nearly Married/Newly Married class—so they’ll be integrated into it as well. They will continue to meet in the large room that currently houses the singles’ Sunday school class.” Pastor Joe looked up from his notepad. “Patrick and his fiancée have agreed to teach that class. Then we’ll have the Single Again/Single Parents/Divorce Care class. They’ll meet in room 301A.”

The last room before the youth wing of the education building. They’d never be able to hear their lesson over the music and noise the teenagers made on Sunday mornings.

“We have wonderful teachers lined up for that class, too. A couple who’ve both been through divorce and are now happily remarried.” Pastor Joe leaned back in his chair and looked at Patrick and Zarah as if that was all he had to say.

“And what about those of us who are over thirty but who aren’t qualified for the Single Again class? What are we supposed to do?” She tried to keep the anger and hurt out of her voice, but it didn’t work.

“Oh, yes. We will encourage those people to integrate into one of the wonderful classes we already have for people of that age group. If they insist that they want to have a class of their own, I have a couple lined up, ready to teach it.”

“A couple? A married couple?” Zarah leaned forward and clasped her hands atop her notebook. “Is there a particular reason why you’re not looking for someone from within the singles’ group to teach it?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact. Because the ministers feel that a married couple provides a much better example. They can give unmarried people something to strive for, something to want to model their own lives after. The couple I have in mind are in their forties, so they’re right in the same age range. But they’ve been married for twenty years, so they’ll be able to start steering the singles onto the right path. They’ve already got a lot of ideas for activities and small group Bible studies they want to do, if the older singles decide they want to go that route.”