At that, Anna Louise’s tears began to flow again in earnest. She ran out of the room. As the door closed behind her, she heard Richard say, “Now look what you’ve done.”
To which Maisey replied, “Sounds to me like the pot calling the kettle black. No woman cries at the mention of a wedding, unless some man has recently disappointed her. When are you going to wake up and smell the coffee? If you wait till you’re even half my age, you’ll have lost the best woman you’re ever likely to meet.”
Anna Louise didn’t hear what Richard said to that. She headed for a ladies’ room, where she could finish up her cry in peace, then repair the damage to her makeup before going back to face Maisey and her exasperating, noble grandson.
Locking herself in one of the stalls, she allowed the tears to fall for another couple of minutes before determinedly drying her eyes. If the man couldn’t admit that he loved her, if he couldn’t make the kind of commitment it took to make a marriage work, then it was his loss. She felt sorry for him. She would pray that someday he would find the courage to build a life with someone who loved him half as much as she did, someone who would lift him out of the depressions his work generated.
In the meantime she would never again let him see her shed another tear over him. She would make no demands. She’d be so pleasant and lukewarm in her attitude toward him that he couldn’t possibly feel threatened. If he wanted to go through life in neutral, then she was not going to waste another instant fighting him.
Feeling stronger and more determined, she finally let herself out of the stall and washed her face. She powdered her nose and touched up her lipstick. She was even able to convince herself that there was no more evidence of the tears she’d shed. She accomplished that by not looking into the mirror for more than the split second it took to fix her makeup.
Unfortunately, all of her good intentions seemed to have been wasted. When she walked back into the intensive care unit, she found Richard’s grandmother alone. Judging from the determined expression on Maisey’s face, Anna Louise wasn’t going to get out of there without answering every single question on her mind.
She considered bolting, then decided that would only postpone the inevitable. “Where’s Richard?”
“I sent him to get me a magazine.”
“Maisey, I left you with a stack of magazines yesterday.”
“He doesn’t know that.”
Anna Louise resigned herself. She sat back down by Maisey’s side. “Okay. What’s on your mind?”
“You and that grandson of mine. It’s plain as day to me how the two of you feel about each other. What’s the holdup?”
If she hadn’t been so exhausted by the whole situation, Anna Louise might have found Maisey’s divide-and-conquer routine amusing. “I think your illness has made your vision a little fuzzy,” she told her. “It’s probably those drugs you mentioned. I mean absolutely nothing to Richard.”
“Fiddle-faddle,” Maisey said emphatically. “Can’t you see the way he looks at you?”
“What way is that?” she inquired, trying to keep the fascinated note from her voice. She was downright pitiful. She was relying on a woman in intensive care to tell her things she should have been able to figure out herself. And she was doing it not five minutes after she’d sworn to walk away from him without a backward glance.
“Oh, for goodness’ sakes, girl, the man is crazy in love with you.”
Anna Louise nodded slowly. “I knew it,” she murmured, grateful to have her own guesswork confirmed even if it meant nothing in the long run.
“What’s that?” Maisey said.
Apparently her hearing was sharper than her vision, Anna Louise thought ruefully. “I said you were imagining things.”
Maisey waved off the criticism. “Don’t tell me I don’t know my own grandson. As for you, you look just as lovesick as he does. Worse, maybe.”
That was hardly a comfort. “Maisey, I appreciate your concern, but I will not discuss this with you. It’s too upsetting.”
“For me or for you?” Maisey inquired pointedly.
Anna Louise leveled a stubborn look straight at her. “Not another word on this subject or I’m out of here.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Maisey protested, then sighed. “Okay, whatever you say.”
Anna Louise started to sit back and relax, prepared to have a nice, quiet visit during the remaining time she was allowed to stay. It didn’t last.
“The vote is coming soon, isn’t it?” Maisey asked.
Anna Louise couldn’t pretend she didn’t know which vote Maisey had in mind. It was clear she was referring to the local church association’s upcoming ballot on whether Anna Louise had the right to stay on as pastor of her church in Kiley. Orville had been threatening to make it an issue for months now, and the time was fast approaching when the other area pastors would be forced to take a stand. If anything, Maisey looked even more worried about this than she had over whatever was going on between Richard and Anna Louise.
Anna Louise squeezed her hand. “Don’t you worry about it. Everything’s going to be okay. You just concentrate on getting well.”
“We both know I’m not going to get well, not this time. I want to know you’re going to be okay before I die. You deserve to stay on at the church. Those preachers have no right to take it away from you, if you’re the pastor we want.”
Anna Louise sighed. “Unfortunately, they do have the right. That’s the way the church is structured. But I’m not going to go without a fight. I promise you that.”
When she and Richard eventually left Maisey’s hospital room, Anna Louise knew what she had to do. She’d put it off for too long now. She should have confronted Orville Patterson face-to-face months ago.
The minute Richard had dropped her off, she picked up the most recent message tape from her answering machine, one she hadn’t erased. Then she got into her own car and headed straight for Jasper Junction.
She found Orville in a meeting with some of the church elders. The men exchanged looks that might have been amusing if they hadn’t been so telling about their attitudes toward her.
“I doubt the roof will cave in, just because I’ve walked through the door,” she said dryly. “Orville, I need to see you.”
“I’m in the middle of a meeting. Can’t we do it some other time?”
“I don’t think this can wait. If you don’t care to leave your associates here, I’d be happy to have this conversation in front of them.”
The three men seemed to brighten a little at the prospect of a good fight, but Orville stood and said stiffly, “Follow me. We’ll talk in my office. Excuse me, gentlemen. This won’t take long.”
In his office, Orville placed himself squarely behind his desk, leaned back in his swivel chair and regarded her with the smug look of a benevolent dictator. “Ready to throw in the towel, Miss Perkins?”
“Not a chance,” she said adamantly. “But I am wondering if you might not want to reconsider your position.”
“And just why would I do that? You know I am on solid ground in opposing you.”
“I know no such thing,” she shot back. “I’d like you to listen to something, though.”
With obvious wariness, he studied the tape player she plunked on his desk. “What’s that?”
“Surely, you’ve seen a tape player before,” she said blithely. “This is just smaller than most.”
“Of course. Really, Miss Perkins, I do not have time for this nonsense.”
Anna Louise had grown tired of the insulting refusal to address her with her well-earned title. “It’s Pastor Perkins and I think you’d better make the time,” she said, hitting the play button.
This message was no worse than the others, but it was enough to turn Orville’s expression ashen. “Billy Joe,” he murmured.
Now it was Anna Louise’s turn to gape. “Billy Joe Hunt? You recognize the voice?” Even though Orville didn’t reply, by listening carefully, she could tell that he was right
. It was Billy Joe Hunt. Dear Heaven, if Richard ever found out, he’d string the man up in the town square. Why on earth had he agreed to help build the recreation hall? That was something she’d have to ponder later.
“Do his arguments sound at all familiar?” she inquired.
“Well, I....” Orville sucked in a breath, his expression clearly shaken. “I suppose it’s possible that someone could take what I’ve said and twist it, but I never intended for anyone to threaten you with harm.”
“Oh, I’m sure your intentions were exactly the same as the caller’s. In the long run, all you both want is for me to leave. I’m not going, Orville.” She used his first name deliberately, refusing to use the title he’d denied her. “We can rip this valley apart with a fight or we can find some way to mend fences and agree to disagree. There’s no need for you to dictate that your beliefs be imposed on my congregation.”
She stood. “I will play this tape at the council meeting, if it becomes necessary. I can’t imagine that many of the pastors in the valley would side with anyone who sounds this irrational and filled with hatred.” She met his gaze evenly. “And it won’t help your position that I’ll be able to point out that you know exactly who made these calls.”
An instant’s shock spread over his face. “But that sounds very much like blackmail.”
She managed a faint smile. “Why, yes, Orville, I believe it does.”
With that, she walked out, leaving him to face the fact that she was willing to take him on in any type of fight he chose to wage—fair or otherwise. She just wished she felt a little better about her tactics.
* * *
It was another week before Richard found out about the upcoming council meeting. He heard about it not from Anna Louise, but straight from Orville Patterson. He should have suspected something the minute he walked into Patterson’s for a quick cup of coffee and the whole place went quiet.
He spotted Orville sitting in a booth with Billy Joe Hunt and a couple of men he didn’t recognize. The men suddenly seemed fascinated with their cups of coffee and cherry colas from the fountain. Orville regarded him warily. There was an anticipatory gleam in Billy Joe Hunt’s eyes that made Richard’s heart pump a little faster.
Ignoring the lack of welcome, Richard pulled up a chair next to Orville and signaled to Tucker to bring over some coffee. “You all must be talking about Anna Louise,” he said in a deceptively calm voice.
Orville remained tight-lipped, but Billy Joe wasn’t smart enough to keep his mouth closed. “Yeah, I guess the preachers hereabouts will teach her a thing or two come next week.”
“Meaning?”
“A woman don’t belong behind the pulpit. Everybody knows that,” Billy Joe said smugly.
Coming from anyone else, Richard would have dismissed Billy Joe’s comment as yet another example of the small-minded stupidity one could expect to find in Kiley. He wouldn’t have seen it as something worth fighting about. But this was Billy Joe, and years of fury at the man’s ignorance and cruel, senseless acts came bubbling to the surface.
He kept a tight rein on his temper, though. “You have something against the way Anna Louise has done her job?” he asked, his gaze pinned on Billy Joe. “You were there when we worked on the recreation hall. You saw how hard she worked.”
“It’s not personal,” he declared staunchly, ignoring Orville’s warning look. “And that didn’t have nothing to do with the Church. She’s just got no business standing up there on Sunday mornings preaching about sin and such. The Good Book says that’s a man’s job. What she’s doing is blasphemy. Isn’t that right?” He looked to Orville and the others for confirmation.
Something about his voice, his choice of words, caught Richard’s attention. “Say that again.”
“What’s the matter, boy, can’t you hear? The woman is defiling the church. Every word she speaks there is blasphemy, pure and simple.” He again glanced toward Orville for approval. “Ain’t that right?” Orville avoided Billy Joe’s question and Richard’s increasingly furious gaze.
With every fiber of his being, Richard wanted to reach into that booth and grab Billy Joe by his fat neck and strangle him, not for what he’d said just now to him, but for all the times he’d said the same thing to Anna Louise’s answering machine.
He warned himself that Anna Louise wouldn’t thank him for getting into a brawl on her behalf. He even tried to tell himself that it wasn’t really his fight. And a few months ago it might not have been.
But that was before he’d gotten to know Anna Louise, before he’d realized just how much her career meant to her and what it had already cost her to follow her calling. It was before he’d seen her take a whole community into her heart. It was before he’d listened to her preach, speaking the Word of God with an accuracy and a passion that touched the very souls of her congregation.
And it was before she’d opened her arms to one wayward, jaded journalist, expecting nothing in return, just welcoming him, believing in him and slowly filling his heart with hope.
It might not be his fight, but it was Anna Louise’s and these days that amounted to the same thing. He turned his body until he could look Orville Patterson straight in the eye. Here was the real source of the conflict and the one man in a position to halt this absurd vendetta against Anna Louise.
“Is that the way you think, too?” he asked quietly.
Orville’s expression hardened. “Stay out of it, Richard. You’re just passing through.”
The accusation stung, because until just this moment it had probably been true. Right now, though, he recognized that anywhere Anna Louise Perkins lived was home to him. Like it or not, he’d just have to figure some way to make it work. He regarded Orville—his closest childhood friend—with utter contempt.
“I never thought I’d live to say this,” Richard told the man with whom he’d grown up and attended Sunday services for the first eighteen years of his life, before he’d left Kiley and his faith behind. He cast a regretful look toward Tucker as he spoke, but he could see that Tucker was merely nodding encouragement.
Richard continued, “You’re a fool, Orville, and this is one fight I intend to see that you lose. Before you take on Anna Louise, I’d suggest you go back and take a closer look at some of the Scripture you’re always spouting. I seem to recall quite a bit that you’ve evidently forgotten.”
He cited the pertinent passages, then stood and leaned over until he was in Billy Joe’s face. “As for you, if you so much as dial Anna Louise’s number again, you will have not only me, but the sheriff to deal with.”
He allowed the threat to sink in, then nodded curtly. “Good day, gentlemen.”
Not until he was back outside did he admit to himself what he’d done in Patterson’s Drugstore and Soda Fountain. He’d drawn a battle line in public and placed himself squarely on the same side as Anna Louise. He stood right where he was for a minute and thought about the meaning of that. Slowly a grin spread across his face.
“Well, I’ll be,” he muttered. He wondered if Anna Louise would recognize it for the confession of love it was or if she’d just blast him for interfering.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Anna Louise heard about the argument Richard had had with Orville Patterson from half a dozen people before suppertime the same day. Several people called her at the church. Two more stopped her on the street. Maisey even managed to sneak out of ICU to get to a phone after Millicent reported the astonishing turn of events to her. She was clearly elated.
Even more amazing, Orville Patterson’s daddy repeated every last word the men had spoken when Anna Louise stopped by the drugstore to pick up a prescription before going to call on a member of the congregation who lived alone and was down with the flu. Since Tucker Patterson told her with a grin on his face, she had to assume he’d taken Richard’s side over his own son’s.
At first she’d been alarmed when Tucker mentioned that Billy Joe Hunt had been there, but he’d reassured her that Richard had
held his temper firmly in check.
“Did he realize—” She cut herself off, not wanting to get into the harassment issue with him.
“That Billy Joe was the one who’d been making those calls to you?” he asked, surprising her. “Yes, he figured that out straightaway. There was fire in his eyes, I’ll tell you that, but he didn’t strangle the man the way I was tempted to do. He just warned him that one more call would be the end of his sorry hide.”
“Amazing,” Anna Louise murmured, half to herself.
“When are you going to marry that young man and put him out of his misery?” Tucker had asked then.
“He hasn’t asked.”
“He will,” Tucker said confidently. “You going to say yes?”
Anna Louise hadn’t allowed herself to think that far into the future. She’d been trying too hard to convince herself to give up any hope of Richard making a commitment in their lifetimes. “I guess we’ll see when the time comes,” she told Tucker. “If it does.”
When Anna Louise had finished her calls for the afternoon, she went looking for the man who’d stood up for her. Despite Tucker’s interpretation, she wasn’t sure what to make of what he’d done. The only way to understand it was to look him in the eye and ask.
Figuring that the unseasonably warm afternoon would have drawn him outdoors, she looked first out by Willow Creek. There was no sign of him. She finally found him in Maisey’s apple orchard, sitting on a blanket that had been doubled up. He was propped up against a tree, wearing a heavy jacket, an old hat shading his eyes from the setting sun.
“Thank you,” she said softly, dropping down beside him on the blanket that turned out to be scant protection from the cold, hard ground. One day of sixty-degree temperatures was no match for a winter’s worth of icy weather.
“For what?”
“For standing up for me. You didn’t have to, you know. I can fight my own battles. I’ve been doing it a long time now.”
His blue eyes glinted back at her. “Maybe so, but I didn’t see that I had much choice.”
The Parson's Waiting Page 16
