The Pastor's Wife (10 page)

A pang of memory gnawed at Maura's gut. She remembered a similar time when they were still dating. Nick had tossed a french fry to a hungry seagull. As a result they’d been sur
rounded by a flock of greedy birds, flapping and squawking, demanding more.

It was the day he’d told her about receiving the call to the church in Granger.

“At least the squirrel didn’t have any friends.”

The sound of Nick's voice pulled her back. She absorbed every detail of his expression—how his eyelids seemed half-closed and his mouth pulled down slightly at one corner. He remembered too. They hadn’t known it at the time, but both of their lives had changed that day.

Maura looked down at her half-eaten sandwich. She wasn’t hungry anymore.

“We had some good times, didn’t we?”

Her head jerked up. “What?”

He pursed his lips and his gaze darted away, then back again. “You and I had a good thing together. But as soon as I accepted the call to pastor here, I started neglecting you.” He reached across the table and took her hand. “I’m so sorry for that, Maura.”

Her fingers burned where he touched them, the heat radiating through the rest of her body. They had gone for more than six years without any contact. Not a phone call or even a letter. So where had this come from, this sudden concern for her welfare? In spite of her painful memories, a small seed of hope took hold in her heart. Did he finally see her? Was his love for her finally stronger than his responsibility to his flock?

“Why now?” She could barely speak past the lump that had settled in her throat.

His expression turned sheepish. “God made it pretty clear to me what a jerk I’ve been.”

God.
The lingering taste of beef and onions turned sour in her mouth. She should be glad he acknowledged his past mistake at all. But the fact that someone else had to tell him,
even if it was
God
, felt like sandpaper rubbing against her heart, grinding hope into dust. Couldn’t he have figured it out for himself? She yanked her hand from his grasp and started picking up the lunch remains.

“Would you come to church with me this Sunday?”

Her hand stalled in the middle of balling up the sandwich wrapper. “Excuse me?”

“I know these last years have been … hard.” He rubbed his forehead and frowned. “I can’t stand knowing you blame God for my shortcomings. Why don’t you come back to church? Take that first step toward rebuilding your faith?”

Pinpricks ignited in Maura's nose and behind her eyes as tears threatened to spill. So that's what this was about—the lunch, the apology. It had nothing to do with her. It was all about Nick's guilty conscience and his constant need to fix whatever was broken.

She stood up slowly. “Let me make this perfectly clear. The last six years of my life have not been good. But it's incredibly arrogant for you to assume that you have anything to do with my relationship with God. I lost you, my father, my home, my business, my—” A single sob choked her, keeping her from blurting out the secret she’d kept hidden all this time. She pulled back her shoulders and swallowed her emotions. “Do us both a favor and concentrate on your flock, Pastor. They need you more than I do.”

M
aura was chasing her tail. Literally.

Not for the first time, she wished for a full-length mirror in the parsonage. Standing at the foot of her bed, she looked behind her, checking out the back of her cargo pants. It was no use. Instead of finding out whether the pocket flaps lay flat, she just went around in a tight circle, making herself dizzy.

This is ridiculous.
She put a steadying hand on the nearest wall and stepped into her Keds. It had taken her a good half hour to decide what to wear tonight. Why was she so concerned about how she looked, anyway? She was just going to the Wednesday night youth group meeting. Lainie thought it would be a good idea for Maura to meet the kids before she started to work with them.

“Check them out in their natural habitat,” the genial youth leader had joked.

And if anyone knew about being checked out, it was Maura. During the weeks following the council meeting, she’d been like a specimen under a microscope. She had meetings and consultations with everyone from carpenters to plumbers to pavers, and it seemed her reputation preceded her with all of them. If they weren’t members of Nick's church, they at
least knew about the situation with Miss Hattie's will. Her first exchanges with new people were always interesting.

“Well, nice to finally meet the infamous Mrs. Shepherd.”

“How are you liking life in Granger this time around?”

But one had become her personal favorite, “So
you’re
the one who ran off on Pastor Nick!”

Each time, Maura had gone through the same basic speech. “Nice to meet you. I go by Ms. Sullivan now. Since this is a business meeting, I’d prefer not to talk about my personal life, but I can assure you I’m happy to be in Granger.”

It got to the point where Maura considered having cards printed up so she could hand them to people upon first contact and avoid rattling off what had now become a well-rehearsed monologue.

Despite the discomfort that usually prefaced her business meetings, they had gone well. She’d been surprised at the skilled labor available to her in the small town. A Granger native, Rachel had proved an invaluable resource when it came to finding the right person for the job.

If only things were as smooth on the home front. Ever since their impromptu lunch in the park, the tenuous relationship between her and Nick had been strained. Thankfully, they both had such full schedules that they rarely crossed paths. But occasionally they’d bump into each other at the house, and a storm cloud settled in the room. It was a difficult living arrangement to begin with, but her refusal to attend Sunday services made it worse.

Which made it all the more ironic that she now stood in her room, preparing to attend a youth group meeting at the church. It was the last place she thought she’d end up.

“Oh, just get over it,” she muttered, snatching her purse from a chair in the corner. “You’re a grown woman. Start acting like it.”

With a determined nod, she flicked the light switch and left the room. At the same time, the front door flew open and Nick and Lainie stumbled into the house. Nick's deep, throaty rumble mixed with Lainie's bubbly giggle. It took her by surprise. Nick sounded happy.

Maura took a moment to soak in the scene. She hadn’t seen Nick truly enjoy himself in quite some time. Certainly, there hadn’t been a lot to laugh about since her return to this house. Even before that, during the last months they’d lived together as husband and wife, their interaction had been strained. Frustration seemed to be the emotion they most often had in common.

Looking at him now brought back warm memories of the young man who first captured her heart. She’d almost forgotten how his face opened up when he laughed, as if he laid his soul bare for all to see. She didn’t want to admit, but it hurt that another woman could get such a response from him.

They hadn’t noticed her yet, and she knew that the longer she kept her mouth shut, the more uncomfortable it would be when they realized she’d been hiding in the shadows. She strode down the hall. “So what's the joke?”

Her voice came out all wrong, loud and sharp, Nick and Lainie obviously took it the way it sounded. They both froze, looking down the dimly lit hallway to where Maura stood. Nick quickly reverted to his irritated, closed off self. And Lainie, well, if Maura didn’t know better, she’d say that Lainie looked guilty. Which was just plain silly. Lainie didn’t have anything to be guilty about, did she?

Maura made herself smile and walk toward them. “Sounds like you two were having a good time. That's … good.”

Terrific, she’d gone from sounding harsh to sounding brainless. This just wasn’t working. Better to say nothing at all.
So she didn’t, and the three of them stood there, looking at one another.

“I came to get you for the meeting, but I ran into Pastor Nick outside,” Lainie piped up.

Nick added, “I just finished blessing a cow.”

Maura blinked. “A cow?”

“A calf, actually. One of our members is very serious about 1 Corinthians 10:31.”

Maura had no clue when it came to matching scriptures to their verses. She could barely manage to remember all the words in the right order. But Nick had a real knack for it.

“Which is?”

“So whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God,” Nick said in his best pastor's voice. “Whenever this man gets new livestock, he wants me to bless it.”

It was wild, even for Granger. “How could you possibly have time to go bless every new animal that shows up on a farm?” Her mind raced. “It's not so bad if he just has cows. But what about chickens? Do you have to run out there every time one lays an egg?”

“That's what we were laughing about,” Lainie yelped. “Pastor told me about the calf blessing, and I said, can you imagine if he had chickens?”

Maura and Lainie started laughing, drawing a slow smile out of Nick. “Thankfully,” he said with a shrug, “the main thrust of the operation is corn, so there aren’t many animals on his farm. And no chickens.”

“So who is this pious farmer?” Maura asked once she’d stopped laughing.

“I can’t tell you that.”

Maura looked at Lainie, but the young woman just shook her head. “I can’t help you. He wouldn’t tell me, either.”

“It's for your own good, trust me. You know how people talk. I wouldn’t want either of you drawn into any gossip about him at church.” His smile slipped, and he looked pointedly at Maura. “Not that there's any great danger of that.”

The unexpected dig made Maura wince. She had no comeback.

“Don’t be so quick to judge, Pastor. The whole reason I’m here is to pick up Maura for our Wednesday night youth group meeting.” The humor had left Lainie's voice, and it took on a serious tone. She chuckled, as if to soften the rebuke. “Who knows, we could cross paths with your mystery farmer.”

“Highly unlikely. The man I’m talking about doesn’t attend church. He's something of a hermit. But he's a hermit with strong faith.” Nick nodded at each of them. “You two have a nice time. If you’ll excuse me, I’ve got some work to do.”

He walked past Maura, hugging the wall to avoid brushing against her on the way to his office. The sharp sound of the door closing cut into the empty silence of the house.

Poor Lainie. One look at her and Maura could tell she wanted to say something, but what was there to say? Best to pretend this never happened.

“Let's go,” Maura said, motioning toward the front door. “I’m anxious to meet your kids.”

Lainie moved to the middle of the room and held up her hands. “Pipe down, guys! Time to get started!”

For a little person, she had a powerful voice. The kids didn’t stop talking at once, but Lainie raised her arms, rotating like the lens in a lighthouse until she had absolute quiet.

“Thanks,” she said with a smile. “I’ll open us up in prayer, unless somebody else wants to.”

There were no takers. As Lainie said a quick prayer, thanking God for bringing them together and for what He was about to do, Maura snuck a closer look at the kids.

When Lainie invited her to come, she’d had a picture in her head of what the youth group meeting would be like. She’d imagined clean-cut kids sitting in chairs arranged in a neat circle, heads bent over their Bibles, raising their hands to participate in the discussion and afterward, sharing punch and cookies as a treat. It was a scene straight from an old black and white movie. Thankfully, this group shattered her preconceptions.

Teenage bodies, some sitting on the floor, some in bean bag chairs, and some on huge pillows, filled the room. Most of them wore casual clothes, although a few looked trendy. Cans of soda and bags of chips and cheese puffs littered the floor. As soon as Lainie finished her prayer the noise level rose again. It ebbed and peaked, depending on the excitement of the speaker. It reminded Maura of her own youth group when she was a teen.

Lainie held up her hands again, regaining control of the room. “You’ve probably noticed our guest.” Lainie walked over to Maura and pulled her to her feet. “This is Maura Sullivan. She's renovating the Music Box, and we’re going to give her a hand.”

A chorus of moans rose from the group, setting off a matching response inside Maura. This was not good. Her helpers were already disgruntled, and they didn’t even know what she wanted yet.

“It's not as bad as it sounds.” Maura added some bounce to her voice, hoping her enthusiasm would be contagious. “With all of you pitching in, it might even be fun. And when it's all done, I hope some of you will get involved in the actual
theatre … you know, plays, concerts, acting classes, that kind of thing.”

Acting classes? Now why had she said that? Maura hadn’t even considered acting classes as part of her master plan, but suddenly, it made perfect sense. And it seemed to strike a chord with some of the young people. A few of them visibly brightened, nudging the person next to them.