The Matchmakers of Butternut Creek

by Jane Myers Perrine

  At that moment, Ouida fell in love with George even more deeply because she knew, really knew, how much he loved her. He loved her more than his dignity, his sense of smell, and those formerly gorgeous Ferragamo shoes.

  * * *

  “How are you doing?” George greeted Adam at the front door Wednesday evening as the preacher entered the living room to see Ouida on the sofa, with a cup of coffee on the end table at her side. She wore a bright aqua top, her shiny curls bristled around her head, and she glowed.

  “You’re looking well.” Adam settled on a chair across from her, then glanced from Ouida to her husband. They both glowed.

  “Yes, well, yes,” Ouida stammered. “Adam, we’ve worked matters out between us, and we have some news for you.”

  “Oh?”

  “First, I’m going to hire a manager for the firm.” George sat and took his wife’s hand. “A manager who’ll take care of the day-to-day details and give me more time to spend with the family.”

  “It will mean less income but we’re fine,” Ouida said.

  “Or maybe not. Could be more help will lead to expansion,” George explained. “But I don’t care, as long as I can spend more time with the girls and…and the new one.”

  “The new one?”

  “Yes, Preacher, that’s the second bit of news. We’re expecting. I’m due in seven months.”

  “Isn’t that wonderful,” Adam said sincerely.

  “Not on George’s schedule at all. Earlier than he’d planned.”

  “But I’m really happy about it.” George gazed at her with deep adoration.

  This looked like a George whom Adam hadn’t known existed, a completely different and much more approachable George, a George in love with his wife and not ashamed to show it.

  Ouida was pregnant, Adam thought as he walked back to the parsonage. It seemed almost like calving season around here. A terrible, stupid, misanthropic thought, Adam realized as soon as it hit him, but envy had overwhelmed his good humor and usual love for others.

  After all his years of being a bachelor, he suddenly discovered he wanted a family just like everyone else, his friends, his neighbors. But he’d fallen in love with a woman who didn’t act as if their relationship would end up in a family. She seldom allowed him to touch her, and only when she initiated it. In fact, they were more like buddies, he and Gussie. Buddies who went to movies together or met for coffee.

  He wanted more, much more.

  If he broke up with Gussie, he didn’t have many choices of other women to bear his children.

  Whoa, had he really considered breaking up with Gussie?

  Yes, they’d been “together” for nearly two months, and she still refused any physical intimacy other than holding hands now and then and an occasional kiss. Last week, he’d put his arm around her shoulders and she’d allowed it for a few seconds before she subtly twisted away. He’d gotten the message.

  What was wrong with him? Why had he allowed such a platonic relationship? Why had he settled?

  Oh, not that he wanted to jump into bed with her. No, that was a lie. He did, but he knew it would be too soon for her and against his belief in commitment and marriage. Plus as a minister, he’d accepted that people held him to a higher moral standard. But could they start with a little cuddling and three or four kisses at a time?

  They were going to meet for coffee again Monday. Of course: coffee. He’d allowed them to get into this rut where Gussie felt comfortable and he felt frustrated: coffee in Marble Falls and once in a while a movie or a date where they drove separate cars. She seemed perfectly content with this. He wasn’t.

  He wanted more.

  Was he expecting too much too soon from a woman who’d been raped? They should discuss that, talk about the physical relationship. Would there ever be a physical relationship?

  Not that he wanted to push her. He just needed to know.

  He’d bring it all up Monday. Could be she wanted more, too, and was too shy to take action. He doubted that. Gussie and shy were antonyms. If her body language when they’d spent the evening with Willow and Sam had told him anything, it was that she felt comfortable with the present arrangement but the idea of anything else—well, she alternated between fear and lack of interest.

  For the first time, Adam didn’t look forward to seeing Gussie.

  * * *

  That afternoon, Adam and Gussie met at the coffee shop but decided to walk around the east side of the lake in the autumn sunshine. They chatted about their day, about the health of Gussie’s parents, about church and life.

  But when Adam reached to take Gussie’s hand, she jumped.

  Not the reaction he was hoping for. Before he could think about them, the words he’d thought all day rushed from his mouth. “I want more.”

  Gussie took a step back before she turned to face him. “You want more?”

  “From you.”

  “I’m very happy with how things are,” she said tersely. “Why change it? This works. And you promised not to push me.”

  “Gussie,” he said. He paused, hoping her expression and body language would change from wary to calm and happy. When it didn’t, Adam reached out to take her hand again, but she pulled it away. “That’s what’s wrong. Wanting to hold your hand isn’t pushing. Wanting our relationship to grow isn’t pushy.”

  “Feels that way.”

  “No, it’s natural. It’s natural for a man to want to kiss a woman he’s seeing. It’s also usual for her to kiss him with a modicum of enthusiasm.”

  “We’ve kissed.”

  He nodded. “A dozen times, when you’ve allowed it. I wasn’t really allowed to participate as…umm, vigorously as I’d liked, and I felt you weren’t into it.”

  “Whose lips were they? I was there.”

  He stopped himself from answering. Arguing wouldn’t work, wouldn’t build their relationship, but he had no idea how to explain this to her. She looked like a frightened creature, trapped. Not at all what he’d considered when he’d thought this scene through, but he should have. How could he get through to her without upsetting her?

  Dear Lord, he prayed. Please give me wisdom and courage and the right words.

  “Gussie, I don’t want to argue. I’m stating a fact. Our relationship has stalled. I want more. I want to see you more often. I want to treat you like the woman I’m dating, not like my dear friend or my sister.”

  “Oh, so you kiss your sister on the mouth?”

  He wanted to tell her that there wasn’t much difference between how he and Gussie kissed and how he kissed his sister except for the part of their faces where the kisses landed. He didn’t. She couldn’t handle that now, and that depressed him greatly.

  “What do you expect? What do you want from me?” she asked in a grim voice, as if he’d pushed her toward the guillotine.

  “I want…I want what a man wants from a woman, when two people are in a…”

  “I know what a man wants.” She shook as she spat the words out. “I know exactly what a man wants.”

  “Gussie,” he said patiently and clearly, “I’m not Lennie.”

  She took another step back.

  “And I’m not attacking you.”

  “Feels like it.”

  How could he reach her? Not by doing anything that seemed threatening.

  “I want a future with you, to see you more. I want to be with you more often. I care about you, and not the way a man feels toward his sister. I want to show you that. I want more.”

  For a moment he felt like Oliver Twist holding out his empty bowl.

  “I don’t have any more.” She folded her arms in front of her and pulled her shoulders forward, nearly huddling.

  He studied her and felt guilty. For a moment, he considered stopping, accepting what she could give. But that wasn’t good, not for either of them.

  To build her trust, he worded his next comment carefully. Calming words, not confrontation. “I don’t agree. You have so much love and carin
g and faith inside you. I only ask that you share them with me, with a man who cares for you deeply.”

  * * *

  Trapped. Gussie felt trapped. She’d never thought Adam, a man who said he cared about her, would give her an ultimatum. Not that he’d threatened anything, but she knew what he meant, what would come next. This was exactly how her previous attempts to date had ended up, only far more quickly.

  This time felt worse because she’d hoped things would turn out differently. She’d prayed that Adam would be content with how she wanted to continue. Adam was a better man than the other guys. Those failures should have warned her that she hadn’t healed yet, but denial ran deep.

  She’d hoped Adam would stick with her while she worked her life out. But, if she hadn’t done that in thirteen years, how could she ever have believed it would happen now?

  “You said you wouldn’t push,” she repeated. Oh, stupid to say that because Adam wasn’t a demanding man. Adam had been more patient than she had any right to expect. She didn’t want to lose him. She’d miss the joy of picking up an email from him or meeting him for coffee, looking forward to that.

  She didn’t want to give up the hope that Adam could fix her.

  But that evening with Willow and Sam? She never wanted to do something like that again, couldn’t repeat that experience, because those hours had underlined the difference between how each couple defined relationship. Caring for each other deeply, displaying that affection…well, she couldn’t do that. Not ever.

  “I’m happy with how things are,” she stated. “I believe our relationship has deepened and will continue to grow.” She sounded like an announcer on an infomercial for a dating service. No, even worse, she sounded like a complete idiot, a frightened fool.

  As her eyes caressed Adam’s face, she realized that his strong, square chin didn’t just make him better looking. Now it jutted out stubbornly. This was not a happy man. He was serious.

  He wanted more.

  “Maybe,” he said slowly. “I know I’m pushing it here, but I need to know. Maybe sometime we could talk about…oh, I don’t know, sex?”

  She blinked. “How crude.”

  “I’m not asking for anything now. But I need to know where this is going. I’ve thought about marriage, but, if we do get married, I’d want a marriage in every way. Does that possibility exist in the future?”

  She didn’t meet his eyes.

  “It’s natural.” He gestured at Gussie, then toward himself. “How do you think we got here? Our parents did have sex at least once or twice. I’d like to know if the idea of having a physical relationship when we get married is at all realistic.”

  “I don’t want to even think about that.”

  “I know you don’t, but I do. It’s not a bad thing. I care for you and want more between us.”

  “I told you I had problems. I warned you,” she stated defensively. Her normal way of reacting when pushed: Blame the other person. Really immature. She needed to learn better coping skills. She needed to listen to Adam and respond like a normal person. She was thirty-one, the rape had happened thirteen years earlier. A normal person shouldn’t still be so broken she couldn’t respond to a man she believed she could love, so broken she couldn’t communicate with him naturally, so broken she shrank from intimacy of any kind.

  “Gussie,” he said, his voice soft with concern and caring. “I want to fall in love with you, but you keep me at arm’s length.” When she began to speak, he held up his hand. “You told me about the date rape and your distrust of men. Thank you for sharing that. But I’m not the guy who hurt you. I’m a man with normal expectations and hopes. I want to make a life with you, share a bed with you. You can trust me. After the months we’ve been together, you know you can trust me.”

  Yes, she knew that. Adam was the best man she’d ever met.

  “My parents,” she said. “They’re getting old, not in the best health. My father hasn’t been out of the hospital for so long. They supported me when I fell apart. I owe them.”

  “Do you owe yourself anything? Do you plan to start having a life of your own at any time? I’d like to be part of it, but I won’t always be around, Gussie.”

  The thought of not having her parents around and Adam’s having moved on tore at her, but the words that spilled from her lips weren’t the ones she should say. “You’re not expecting me to choose between you and my parents, are you? Because I can tell you…”

  “Gussie.” He took her hand. This time she let him. She didn’t know why. But after a few seconds, his touch made her feel such tremendous longing she had to pull her hand away. He let it go.

  The hope that he’d keep her hand in his and persuade her to marry him someday warred inside her brain with the idea that she couldn’t do that. She just could not. Not that she could explain it, but the idea of turning her life and happiness and body over to a man, even to Adam, scared her. She might could work this out if Adam stood next to her and held her hand and forced her to face her life.

  But he didn’t. No, he treated her as an adult, like a thirty-one-year-old woman who should be able to make decisions herself.

  Instead of doing what she wanted, even knowing Adam would never hurt her, she couldn’t speak. As always, she’d chosen to passively allow her life to flow past and not to leap into it.

  “Have you even thought about marriage? With me?” he asked.

  “You’re really going for the jugular here,” she said with an awkward laugh that even she knew didn’t express mirth.

  “Have you?” He kept his eyes on her face.

  “Umm.” What a stupid thing to say. Not even a word, just a sound, but her brain seemed unable to come up with anything else. “Umm,” she repeated.

  He watched her for a few more seconds. “That tells me what I need to know. Let me know when you’re ready for more, if you ever are.” He watched her for a few more seconds. “I’m going back to get my car. Do you want to come with me?”

  “Adam, please. Be patient,” she whispered.

  On those words, he turned away.

  She swallowed hard and watched Adam walk back along the path to the sidewalk and up the street. When she lost sight of him, she knew he’d get into his ugly old car and drive off.

  This didn’t count as a good-bye. Impossible that their involvement with the youth of the area wouldn’t throw them together. They’d see each other again, at the tubing party and other events. Maybe she should give up working with the churches and the kids to avoid ever seeing him.

  No, she couldn’t. Not that.

  So she sat on a bench and didn’t move, didn’t think for five or ten more minutes.

  After that, she stood and headed toward her car. Once inside, she turned the ignition, listened to the soft purr of her engine. For a moment she thought of Adam driving back to Butternut Creek in his old clunker and broke out in tears.

  * * *

  If he could have, Adam would have wept, but he knew that wasn’t macho nor particularly appropriate. He’d broken up with Gussie. It had been his decision and that gave him no right to hurt.

  Not that they’d had anything to break up. Meeting for coffee, a couple of movies, and one dinner didn’t exactly signify a deep, enduring passion on her part. Besides, he’d set all of them up. Gussie hadn’t taken an active part or showed much interest in their being together.

  But she had shared something with him she hadn’t, he felt sure, shared with many others. He could understand where she was, could appreciate the knowledge she’d trusted him that much, but he couldn’t fall in love alone.

  To hell with deep enduring passion. They could have their love—Sam and Willow and the Kowalskis and their new babies and happy families, he thought bitterly as he pulled into the drive.

  Why had he turned on his friends? He’d become a curmudgeon, a grumpy nearly twenty-seven-year-old grouch who envied people who loved each other because he didn’t have that. As a minister, as a person, as a Christian, he shouldn’t
feel like this. No matter how frustrated and alone he felt, he couldn’t stop caring about others.

  “Most loving God,” he whispered. “Please help me to stop feeling sorry for myself and to appreciate the lives and joys of others. Amen.” He spent several minutes in meditation and hoped that would handle his negative feelings.

  The question that haunted him, the one he feared even in quiet contemplation, was how he should handle the Widows. They had high expectations. They’d grilled him about meeting with Gussie. If they didn’t see him making progress on the marriage front, they’d be after him, and right now he couldn’t handle that covey of matchmakers. He most especially could not handle the head matchmaker.

  Which meant he wouldn’t say a word. Let them figure it out. He got out of the car and headed toward the porch.

  “Excuse me,” said an attractive blond woman who stood by the porch of the parsonage. “My son lost his backpack and someone said you might have it.”

  Darn Chewy.

  “I’m Adam Jordan, minister at the Christian Church.”

  “Diane Fuller.” She shook his hand.

  “I’m afraid my dog gets out sometimes and brings things home.” He waved toward the porch. “We try to find who they belong to, but those two had no identification.”

  “The red one.” She ascended the steps to the porch, knelt, and unzipped it. “Yes.” She nodded as she took out a notebook. “This is Paul’s.” Then she smiled.

  A nice smile.

  “It’s hard being a single mother,” she said. “I’m divorced,” she added with a toss of her hair. “Keeping up on Paul’s possessions isn’t easy.”

  The woman was interested in him, flirting. Amazing. She wore nice slacks, a white shirt, and black heels. All in all, Diane Fuller looked like a nice person, a pretty woman, but he felt nothing for her. Had the weeks of frustration with Gussie leached all the interest and optimism from him?

  No, he didn’t think so. Maybe he was just a little tired now.

  He could only hope Miss Birdie didn’t find out about this woman, ever.

  “I’m sure it is.” He paused before he asked, “Do you and your son have a church home?”