Texas Weddings 3 & 4 (4 page)

Again.

***

Kent began the familiar drive back to Computers Unlimited,
trying to hold his temper in check. “Lord, I have so much to do today. Please
give me patience and help me not to overreact at the computer store.”

He tried to push his
emotions aside as he made the trip. With so little time before tomorrow
morning’s service, he certainly needed more than patience. He needed
Divine
intervention. Especially after the night he’d had.

Raising a child alone
might prove to be his undoing, especially when it came to sleep schedules.
Whoever said toddlers slept soundly hadn’t met his daughter. She managed to
stay awake until the wee hours most every night then awaken with the dawn,
raring to go. “How long can she keep this up?” Surely things would change soon.
He prayed.

Kent yawned and tried to keep his wits about him. As he
pulled into the parking lot of the store, he noticed Shauna Alexander’s white
Saturn. She stood next to it, sunlight streaming through her short blond hair.
Today, she wore a bright yellow T-shirt with a rubber duck on the front along
with a trendy pair of jeans. As he pulled up next to her car, she waved and
smiled.

For some reason Kent’s
nerves kicked in just as he opened the car door, and the only word that could
come was a shaky, “Hey.”

“Hey to you, too.” Her
smile broadened, and he couldn’t help but grin back.

“You stole my
computer.” He waggled his finger in her direction.

“No, you stole my
computer.” She crossed her arms and pretended to glare.

They both chuckled.
“I’ll be glad to finally get mine back, to be honest.” Kent admitted. “I’ve got
less
than.
. .” he glanced at his watch, “twenty-four
hours to prepare a sermon.”

“You really are a
pastor.” She looked more than a little surprised. “I guessed as much from some
of the files I found on your computer.”

A sigh escaped his
lips. “I’m not used to the title yet, to be honest.
I’m still
on a learning curve
,
trust me
. You have no
idea.”

“Still, that’s very
cool.”

As she gave him a look of admiration, he felt his cheeks
flush a little. “Don’t get me wrong,” he added quickly. “I love it.”

“Oh, I’m sure it’s great.
A lot of
responsibility, though.
You’re pretty young to pastor a church, but I
guess you hear that a lot.”

Kent took a minute to
explain his situation. “I’ve gone to the same church since I was a kid. Our
pastor just retired, and the board asked me to fill in until they found a
permanent replacement.”

“Ah.” She nodded. “So
you really are on a learning curve, then.” Her eyebrows elevated slightly as
she added, “I know what that feels like, trust me.”

He couldn’t help but
wonder at her cryptic comment but didn’t ask for an explanation. “I worked in
the youth department for about three years,” Kent explained, “but hanging out
with teens is a lot different than facing a congregation full of people of all
ages.”

“I’ll bet.” She
grinned. “That would scare me to death. I have enough trouble getting up in
front younger people. Do you get nervous?”

“Maybe a little.” He
gave a helpless shrug. “But every week gets a little less nerve-wracking.
Tomorrow will be my third Sunday in a row. And no one has left the church yet.
That makes me feel a little better.”

Dimples appeared as
her smile widened. “Well, you’d better get home and get busy. We don’t want to
lose any parishioners because you stood in the parking lot all day gabbing.”

No, but I sure wouldn’t mind standing here a
little bit longer to talk to you.

***

Shauna couldn’t figure out why her cheeks warmed as she
talked to Kent Chapman.
Probably just the late summer heat.
She opened the trunk of her car so that the computer exchange could take place
and then thanked him as he placed the PC inside her vehicle.

“I’m so sorry this
happened.” He spoke as if he had caused the problem. “I hope you didn’t have to
drive very far to get here.”

“Oh, it’s no problem,
really,” Shauna said. “I don’t live far, and I didn’t have any big plans this
morning. Just need to get some lessons ready for Monday. And besides, it’s
certainly not your fault. Just a fluke.”

“Right. A fluke.” He
smiled warmly.

She couldn’t help but chuckle as she confessed, “You should
have seen my face when the computer booted up and I saw that painting of the
Last Supper. It really scared me. I thought maybe someone was trying to tell me
something.”

“Maybe they were.” He
shot her a lopsided grin. “You never know.”

She nodded. “Maybe.
The whole thing seemed a little suspicious. And I really got worried when I
stumbled across those sermon notes, I don’t mind telling you. I thought maybe
the Lord was trying to get through to me in a new way.”

He groaned and pressed
his palm to his forehead. “You didn’t read them, did you?”

She shrugged. “Sort of. I hope that’s not a problem.”

Kent’s face tightened in obvious embarrassment. “I’m just
not very good at putting my thoughts together on paper. At least not yet.”

“Could’ve fooled me. I especially liked the one titled ‘The
Valley of the Shadow.’ ”

His gaze shifted
downward. “That actually came from a journal entry I made during a horrible
period in my life,” he said. “But then you probably already know about that,
too. You seem to know everything about me.”

“Not really,” Shauna
said, suddenly self-conscious. “I mean
,
I wasn’t
trying to pry. I was just trying to figure out whose PC I had, that’s all.”

“I’m just kidding.” He
flashed a warm smile. “And besides, I know a few things about you, too.”

“
Like.
. . ?” Shauna suddenly grew nervous, wondering what secrets her computer had
revealed to this young pastor.

“I know you went to
Texas A&M.”

“That’s right.”
I’m safe so far.
“Best school in the
country.”

“Some would debate
that, but I’d have to agree with you,” he responded with a smile. “And I know
that you wrote a terrific paper on something to do with child psychology.”

Her jaw dropped. “You
read that?”

“I skimmed it,” he
confessed. “Intriguing. Carefully researched and well written. Convinced me.”

“Good grief. What
else?”

“Somebody named Joey
Something-or-other up in College Station has been getting a lot of mail from
you.”

“Okay, that’s enough.”
This guy had really overstepped his bounds now. She slammed the trunk closed.

“I’m sorry.” He spoke
with sincerity. “I really am. I was just looking for a name—trying to
figure out whom the computer belonged to.
Same as you.
That’s all.”

“Right.”

“Right,” he echoed.

“Well, everything’s
straightened out now.” Shauna gazed intently into his green eyes. “So I guess
I’d better get back on the road. I’m supposed to meet my mom for lunch.” She
walked around to the driver’s side and opened the door. He followed her and
held the door open until she was safely inside.

“My parishioners thank
you,” Kent said with a tad bit of dramatic flair. “I have a hard time putting
together my sermons by hand.”

“No problem.”

“I didn’t realize how much I relied on my computer until I
had to do without it. I really depend on it—and on the Internet. I guess
it’s right, what the kids say about me. I really am a twenty-first century
pastor. I need all the modern conveniences to survive.”

“Twenty-first
century?” Shauna had to wonder what he meant. “Is that some sort of a tag or
something? Your logo?”

“It’s kind of a joke,”
he said with a laugh. “It started when I set up an Internet server at our
church—Grace.com.”

“Grace.com?” She grew more confused by the moment.

“I pastor Grace Community Church,” he explained. “We’re near
downtown.”

“Oh, I’ve heard about that one,” she said. “You guys are
really involved in the community, right?”

“Yes.” He smiled. “And I’m particularly interested in using
technology to reach out to the
unchurched
. Anyway, I
came up with the screen name ‘
21stcenturypastor
’
awhile back. One of the teens gave me
that label after I preached a message to the youth group last year on
relevance.”

“Sounds like you’ve been preaching longer than three weeks,
then.”

He nodded. “I guess God’s been getting me ready for a while
now. Just didn’t see it at the time. Like I said before, it’s one thing to
share in front of a roomful of teens, another thing altogether to stand in
front of people of all ages. Teens are a little more forgiving when you make
mistakes.” Kent smiled, as if remembering. “More prone to make fun of you,” he
was quick to add, “but less prone to hold it against you.”

“Come on now,” Shauna said, feigning offense. “We’re all
forgiving. Just don’t worry so much about what everyone thinks.”

“I try to stay focused on what the Lord thinks,” he said
with a nod. “But thanks for the reminder.”

“No problem.” Shauna stood in silence a
moment
as she looked him over. This very contemporary looking twenty-something
certainly didn’t fit the typical pastor mode, but stranger things had happened.
Why wouldn’t the Lord use him to lead a congregation? Hadn’t He chosen Shauna
to work with two-year-olds?

“It’s all still new to me,” Kent continued, oblivious to her
thoughts, “but I enjoy it, especially getting to know the people.”

“Do you like the preaching part?” Shauna asked, genuinely
curious. “Are you good at it?” She clamped her hand over her
mouth,
embarrassed she had phrased the question in such a way.

He laughed. “I do like
to preach. Surprisingly. And people tell me I’m not half bad behind the pulpit,
to answer your last question. Probably a little better at the public speaking
part than the putting notes together part. Somehow when I stand up in front of
the people, the words just seem to flow. Never could figure that out.”

She grinned and
nodded. “Well, maybe I’ll have to come and hear a sermon or two before I draw
any conclusions.”

“Better come soon
then,” he explained. “I’ll only be preaching a few months—just till the
church locates a real pastor. I’m the in-between guy.” His eyes lit up with a
fire as he continued to speak. “But I love the fact that God could use someone
like me—someone who has made mistakes then come back to the Lord—to
speak to the lives of people. To give them hope. You know?”

Shauna nodded. With
passion like his, why would his church need to look for someone else? “I’d like
to come.”
Did I really just say that?

“Great!” He smiled broadly, and his green eyes twinkled a
bit. “I’ll be looking for you.” He closed the door and waved a final good-bye.
As Shauna pulled away, she couldn’t help but look into her rearview mirror.
Mr. Twenty-first Century Pastor is awfully
cute.

Stop it, girl! What do you think you’re doing?
Somewhere in College
Station a young man named Joey might someday ask her to marry him.

five

“Do you have anything for a headache? I think I have a
migraine.” Shauna asked the question, though she knew that all the pain
reliever in the world wouldn’t cure her aching head.

“Tough day, huh?”
Ellen asked.

Shauna rubbed the back
of her neck and rolled her head from left to right trying to stretch the
tenseness out of her muscles. Nothing seemed to help. “Man, I had no idea kids
were this difficult. Is it too late to change my major?”

Ellen looked a little
puzzled. “You’ve already got your degree, right?”

“Yeah,” Shauna
mumbled. “I was just kidding. But I really do need something for this headache,
if you’ve got it.”

Her new friend opened
her purse and pulled out a giant-sized bottle of pain reliever. “I always keep
this on hand,” she said with a smile. “Never leave home without it.”

Shauna nodded
sympathetically. “I just wish someone had told me,” she muttered. “That’s the
least they could have done.” She glanced over at the table where her students
sat, eating lunch. At once, she spotted a problem—and not an unusual one.
“Charity! Stop throwing your food at Clay. Behave!”

“I behave, teacher.”
With a look of mischief in her eyes, the child turned back to the table.

“I see you’ve gotten
to know Charity,” Ellen spoke quietly, eyebrows elevating slightly.

“Why do you think I
have this headache?” Shauna swallowed the tablets Ellen placed in her
outstretched palm without even reaching for a glass of water. She turned back
toward the table just in time to see the rambunctious youngster pinch the
little girl next to her. “Charity!”