by Rachel Hauck
“Sorry? I was confused. And poor Tom. It seemed like such a brouhaha over something so one-sided.”
“Why didn’t you tell me? You knew how upset I was by Tom Junior disappearing without a word.”
“Because I felt so foolish.” She returned to the table, shoving her plate forward, cupping her tea in her hands. “I’d lost my friend Tom and my women’s group. I didn’t need you loathing me any more than you already did.”
“I didn’t loathe you.”
“Yeah, whatever . . . So, now you know.” Mama popped the table with her palm. “Aren’t you proud? Oh, who am I kidding? It’s just more of the same. Where was I the night of the fire? Where was I half your teen years?”
“Can we not rehash this?” Ginger spent most of her teen years and twenties forgetting the past. Trying to build a future with her handicaps.
“I suppose not. You don’t need further proof I failed you.”
“Mama.” Sigh. “You didn’t fail me.” Ginger wanted her confession to at least sound true even if she didn’t believe it. Not entirely.
“Look at you, all scarred on your arm and side, across your back and that sloppy skin graft on your neck. That’s what government-funded medical care will get you. And you have a sexy figure. But can you show it off? Wear a nice bikini down to the lake? No—”
“Mama, stop. I don’t need an inventory. I see myself every morning in the shower. Can we talk about something else? How’s your Moo Goo?”
“Cold.” Mama picked up her plate for the microwave. “What’s going on with you and Tom Junior?”
“Nothing.” A low warmth crept across Ginger’s cheeks. At least she had the treasure and memory of his touch.
“Are you sure?” Mama’s tone lightened, her words lilting and teasing. “He was mighty handsome as a young man.”
“Mama, no, come on.” The bit of rice Ginger scooped into her mouth went down sticky and dry. “I’m no more right for him than you were for his daddy. Even if Tom Senior wasn’t married, Mama, you never cared about serving your own daughter let alone serving others or being a woman of faith.”
“I thought you didn’t want to talk about how I failed you.”
“I didn’t. I don’t.”
“Look, Ginger, just because I messed up with Tom Senior doesn’t mean you can’t like his son. If there’s something between you, then—”
“Is it seven o’clock already?” Ginger scooted away from the table, downing the last of her tea. “I need to run. The shop’s books await.”
“Ginger, don’t deny your heart.”
She snatched up her purse, a Hermès Birkin clutch gifted to her by Tracie. Styling for celebrities had its perks. “I’m not denying my heart. Tom Wells is not for me.”
If she said it enough, her heart would believe it.
“Listen to me.” Mama grabbed her by the shoulders. The only touch Ginger allowed without flinching. “I ruined things with your daddy because I was young and stubborn.”
“He left you, Mama.”
“But he wanted to come back and I wouldn’t let him. Thought I wanted something better. How did that work out for me? All these years later and I’m alone.”
“No, Mama, you’re not alone.” Ginger drew her into a hug, resting her chin on her shoulder. “You have me.”
“And that is a true gift.” Mama stepped back, her eyes glistening. “Now go on, get your books done. How’s that cute apartment of yours?”
“Good. I like living above the shop.”
“Thanks for dinner,” Mama said.
“Thanks for the truth.”
Ginger made her way down the concrete steps to her car, tossing her bag into the passenger seat, glancing up to the pale light outside Mama’s door.
Tonight she’d discovered a few things about her own heart. She appreciated Mama more than she realized.
And she learned to never make the same mistakes. Which meant loving the wrong man. Ginger marked an X on the image of Tom Wells drifting around her soul. He was officially off-limits, no matter how much she yearned for his tender touch.
On Thursday evening, Tom stepped out of the Rosebud Gazette office and inhaled the smooth fragrance of an Alabama winter, feeling rather pleased. His interview with Riley Conrad had gone well.
Her questions were thought-provoking and interesting. They laughed and reminisced about Rosebud traditions, recalled old names and faces. Including his father.
“Can you tell me? Did he leave town in disgrace? Did he have an affair?” Riley said.
“No, to both counts. He did have some issues to work out and along with my grandfather and mother’s wisdom and support, he resigned his church, took a job in Atlanta, at which he became very successful, and fixed the things he needed to fix in his life. Look, being a pastor doesn’t have to be a lifelong call. My father came to the end of that season in his life.”
“But it took an outside situation to force him to make a change.”
“Doesn’t it for almost everyone? You left Rosebud, Riley. Why’d you come back?”
She gave him a wicked grin. “Outside situation.”
Tom paused on the corner of Main and Alabaster, the glow of a street lamp on his shoulders. Riley’s piece would be this Sunday morning’s feature and hopefully inspire Rosebud’s citizens to check out Encounter Church.
So, now what? Tom glanced left where Alabaster curved around into Park Avenue, ending at Mead Park. To his right was Main Street and downtown.
He’d parked his car in front of Sassy’s Burgers, where he’d eaten every night this week. Most of the shops were open late on Thursday and their golden light fell across the sidewalk in large squares.
Including Ginger Snips. The main window glowed with a string of white lights. Was she there? It was after seven. Tom brushed his hand over his slightly gelled hair, wishing he needed a trim. Wishing he had an excuse to stop by the shop.
But did he need one? Couldn’t he pop in to say hi? He’d told Ginger he wanted to be friends.
He stepped off the curb, ducking in front of a car turning left, and took long strides to Ginger Snips before he changed his mind.
He found the front door open, paint fumes scenting the breeze.
“Well, looky what the cat dragged in again.” Ruby-Jane spotted him. Tom took a cautious step over the threshold. “What brings you here on a Thursday evening, pastor?”
“I was down—” He paused when Ginger emerged from the back room with a paint tray and a bucket swinging from her hand, “—at the Gazette.”
She stopped when she saw him. “Tom, what are you doing here?”
“Just saying hi. So, y’all are painting tonight?”
Ruby-Jane huffed, folding her arms. “That’s what she tells me. Of course the other two, Michele and Casey, get a pass.”
“Leave it alone, RJ. You know why.”
“Still doesn’t seem fair. Just because they have families.”
Ginger set her tray down without a word or a backward glance. “We can waste time talking about it or get to work and be done with it.”
Tom slipped off his jacket and draped it over the nearest chair. “Can I help?”
“No,” Ginger said. “We only have two roller brushes.”
Ruby-Jane shot him a sly smile. “No worry. He can have mine.”
“No, he can’t.” Ginger rose up, steel in her words, a hard glint in her eyes. “Stop yapping and start working.” She peeked at Tom. “Word of advice. Don’t hire your friends to work for you.”
“Duly noted.” He nodded, trying to hold her gaze. You okay? The recessed light dripping down from the ceiling haloed her chestnut hair and reflected in her hazel eyes.
She was breathtaking. But he couldn’t see her for himself, could he? He had to see her as God’s daughter. Pop’s advice from before the wedding had been coming back to him all week, “If you love her, win her to Jesus,” along with the whisper of the Lord, “Tell her she’s beautiful.”
“I meant it,” he
said. “I can help.”
“It’s okay, Tom.” Ginger hoisted the big paint can, sloshing some over the side as she filled the tray. “We got it.”
Tom stepped over, reaching for the handle as she tried to set it down without hitting the corner of the tray.
His fingers grazed hers. When he looked at her, she was looking at him. His pulse drummed in his ears. “Y-you can let go.”
She hesitated. Then, “Ruby-Jane and I are perfectly capable of doing the job.”
“I never said you weren’t. But many hands make light work.”
“Hey, Ging,” Ruby-Jane said, walking over to Tom, offering him her roller. “I need to run. Daddy just called and Mama’s made a big ole spread for the entire family.” RJ held up her phone as if to prove her story. “Apparently my brother just drove into town . . . So, y’all two got this?”
“What brother? All your people live in town.” Ginger rebuffed Ruby-Jane with a stiff lip and a firm jut of her chin. “RJ, you can’t leave.”
“Family first. Besides, I’m on salary, not an indentured servant. Tom, I hereby dub you my replacement.” Tom reached for the long handle. “Do me proud.” Ruby-Jane edged toward the back door. “See you in the morning, Ginger.”
“RJ? RJ, wait.” Ginger chased her to the back room but to no avail. When she returned, she took up her roller and slapped it against the wall, mumbling, “. . . brother who just drove into town, my eye.”
“She seems to think we should spend some alone time together.”
Ginger rolled, rolled, rolled on the paint. “I had enough of you last weekend, no offense.”
“None taken. Now, where can I power up some tunes? Let’s get this place painted and beautiful.”
Chapter 9
She wanted to be indifferent. Take him or leave him. Forget Tom Wells was in her shop, singing along with the music from his iPhone piped into the shop through the sound system.
She just wanted to paint, get the job done, go up to her apartment and cleanse her senses of any reference to Tom’s soapy scent.
“How’s it looking?” Tom pointed to his cut-in work at the top of the wall, just under the ceiling.
“Great.” She gave him a thumbs up, then went back to her portion of the wall.
Actually, he irritated her. Why was he here? What did he want with her? Why did he volunteer to do the neck-breaking cut-in work, even borrowing a ladder from Fred’s Grocer across the street, to do the job?
And the music? Smooth and soothing, raining down peace in the shop, watering her soul.
“. . . you’re beautiful,” Tom sang softly with the music, to himself.
Ginger pressed her roller against the wall, squeezing out the last of the beige-rose paint.
“. . . I can tell you’ve been praying.”
“Who is this? Singing?”
“Gospel artist, Mali Music.”
“Never heard of him.”
“Neither had I until a few years ago. He’s the real deal. I like him.”
Real deal? As opposed to a fake deal? Christians and their language . . . that irritated her most. Their two-faced kindness. Their faux helpfulness. Since her discovery of truth with Mama, Ginger had grown a pound of sympathy for her mother. Shana had tried to get it right, to be honest.
Tom’s low, silky bass swirled through her, leaving her with the same sensation as his touch. Squirming, squeezing his vocal notes out of her soul, Ginger glanced up at him as he cut-in under the ceiling. A singing, kind, handsome pastor? Look out. He’d have women all over him.
Desperate ones like Mama who’d surrender their hearts if he’d ease a bit of their pain.
“So, Sunday,” she said, shaking off a strange jealous wave. “You ready?”
“I think so. I’ve got my sermon in my head. Just need to write out my notes.” The beam of his smile went to the bottom of her being and she trapped it there, not willing to let it go. She could create a trio of Tom Wells Jr. treasures—his touch, his voice, his smile.
She would never be with him, but she could remember the one man in her life who made her feel what it was like to be a woman.
“And just what do you hope people will encounter at Encounter Church?” She filled her roller brush in the paint tray, then pressed it against the wall, working around the blue tape protecting the trim and window frame.
“God, His emotions toward us. I hope they find love and friendship with each other.” He laughed low. “Maybe a good potluck dinner now and then.”
“God has emotions?”
“Absolutely. Love, peace, joy. God is love, First John tells us.” He gazed down at her. “Love’s an emotion, right? God created us with emotions. Why wouldn’t He have them Himself?”
“Because emotions can be manipulated. Go bad . . .”
“Ah yes, if you’re a human. But God has perfect emotions. Don’t you think it’s kind of cool God feels love or delight in you?”
“Me?” Ha, ha, now he talked crazy.
“Yes, you.” Tom came down the ladder and toward her. “He loves you. He also likes you.”
“You don’t know any such thing.” His gaze, the intensity of his words, set her heart on fire. “I prayed once. It didn’t go well.”
“Wimp.”
“Excuse me?”
“You prayed once and gave up? Is that how you became the stylist to the stars? By giving up the first time ‘it didn’t go well’?” He took the roller from her hand and rested it against the paint tray. Then he moved over to his iPhone and started the song again. “Follow me.” He led her to the center of the shop and took her in his arms, resting his hand against the small of her back.
As the music played, he turned her in a slow, swaying circle, singing softly in her ear.
. . . you’re beautiful.
For a moment, she was enraptured, completely caught up in the swirl of being in his arms and the velvet texture of his voice slipping through her. But only for a moment.
“Tom, stop fooling around.” She pushed away from his warmth and into the cold space of the shop. “Don’t be singing about how I’m beautiful.”
“But you are.”
“Don’t you understand?” She gritted her teeth and tightened her hands into fists about her ears. She jerked off her scarf and gathered her hair on top of her head, exposing the botched skin graft. “Beautiful, huh?”
“Yes.” He stepped toward her, hand outstretched.
But she backed away. “And this?” She turned her back to him, raised the lower hem of her top, and exposed the crimped, rough skin of her back and right side. “It’s disgusting. And not desirable. So don’t come up in here singing, ‘you’re beautiful’ when it’s not true.”
“Who told you it’s not true?”
“Me. My bathroom mirror. The men Mama dated when I was a teenager. ‘Too bad about all those scars, Shana, she might have been a real looker.’”
“Most people don’t see your scars. You cover them up. Just because a few foolish, lustful men projected their idea of beauty on you, you accept it? Ever think those scars protected you? Kept you from predators?”
“Also from nice men like you who might have been my high school boyfriend or taken me to the prom.”
“I like your scars.”
She reached down for her roller. “Now you’re just being mean.”
“I like that they’ve made you a fighter. I like your face, your eyes, your smile, your heart. I love your ability to see beauty in others and bring it out for the rest of us to see. Those are the things that make you beautiful and extraordinary.”
Eyes flooding, she rolled paint onto the wall, her back to Tom. “You’d better get back to work or we’ll be here all night.”
“But first . . .” He rested his hand against her shoulder and turned her to him. “Tell me you’re beautiful.”
She refused, eyes averted, unable to contain her tears. In her ears, her pulse roared.
“Ginger.” He touched her chin, turned her attention to him
. “Say it. It’s the first road to healing. You are beautiful.”
“I’m not your project, Tom.”
“Agreed. But you are my friend. And I hate to see my friends believe lies about themselves.”
“I believe what’s true.”
“Then say it. ‘I’m beautiful.’”
She dropped her roller brush and crossed the room. “You’re infuriating. Why do you care? I’m the daughter of the woman who helped ruin your father’s ministry. I asked her about it, by the way, and she confessed. She loved your father but nothing happened between them.”
“That doesn’t disqualify you from God’s love, from my friendship, or from admitting you’re beautiful.”
“Tell that to Edward. What would he say if he saw you in here, with me?”
“Edward isn’t my God or my conscience. My father and family have moved on, Ginger. Seems your mama has moved on, too. But you’re stuck as the trailer fire girl. So let’s put a big bucket of water on that fire by confessing your beauty.”
Stuck. Isn’t that what she confessed Saturday morning, standing in the muddy meadow? But she’d never give Tom the satisfaction. Ginger gestured toward the door, willing him to go and leave her be. “You can go, Tom.”
“Not unless you say it.” He didn’t respect her space at all. He came up to her and swept his fingers over the scar on her neck. Ginger nearly buckled at his touch.
“Why do you want me to say it?” Her voice wilted as she spoke.
“Because I want you to combat the lie in your heart with truth.”
“If you get the burned girl to say she’s pretty, do you earn a gold star from God?”
“Man, are you really so cynical? Ginger, I like you. I always have and I’ve always seen a beautiful woman—”
“Who allowed himself to be intimidated by his friends?” She used the courage he admired to push back.
“I was seventeen. Give me credit for maturing a little.” He walked to the front door, flung it open. “You want me to defend you to Edward Frizz? To Rosebud?” He ran into the middle of Main Street. “Hey Rosebud, Alabama—”
Ginger dashed to the door. “Tom, no, what are you doing?”
Arms wide, head back, Tom shouted, “Ginger Winters is a beautiful woman. And I don’t care about her scars! I don’t care what her mama—”
