Ethan had long ago accepted that he would not marry. When he’d taken the pastorate in Jasper Gulch, he’d assumed that the opportunities to marry or even date would be few, but then the matchmaking had begun. Aghast, he’d done his best to hide his disquiet with the situation. Often, he’d felt pursued since coming here and had wished mightily to be left in peace. Still, as those around him had paired off—why, one of the centennial functions had been a wedding ceremony for fifty couples!—he’d felt more and more alone, and he wasn’t sure why that should be so. Since the death of his girlfriend, Theresa, he’d had a difficult time even forming friendships with women, let alone romantic attachments.
Until Robin Frazier. Suddenly, he felt as if he’d found a friend, but it was foolish to even think that he’d found anything more in her. He hardly even knew her! More to the point, she hardly knew him, and if she did, she would almost certainly be appalled. That was one reason he chose not to wear his clerical collar outside the pulpit or when not on official church business. While ignorant of the details, people needed to know that their pastor was a man like any other. In this case, many might find his failings difficult to forgive.
When Ethan had taken over this post, the former pastor had advised that Ethan give himself plenty of time to get established within the community before deciding to share the tragedies and failures of his past. Sometimes Ethan wished he still had Pastor Peters to talk to, but after his retirement Peters had moved to Colorado to be near his daughter and grandchildren, and Ethan didn’t feel comfortable imposing on their short acquaintance with chatty telephone calls. As his own family barely spoke to him and his few friends from seminary were all married and busy, Ethan sometimes felt quite alone.
Oh, he’d made friends in Jasper Gulch, but he hadn’t found anyone in whom he felt he could confide. What made him think that Robin could be that person? he wondered as Robin crawled gingerly down the ladder.
Quite without meaning to, he found himself guiding her to the bottom, his arms bracketing her slender body, his gloved hands gripping the narrow side rails until her feet safely touched down on the stone floor. Backing away so that she could turn and face him proved surprisingly difficult, which he covered by sweeping off his cap and stuffing it into a coat pocket.
“Let’s get the belfry closed so it’ll warm up in here.”
Grabbing a long pole with two odd hooks on the end, he pushed up the ladder, locked it in place and slid the trapdoor closed.
“That looked easy enough to do,” Robin commented.
Ethan nodded as he returned the pole to its corner. It fit snugly into a pair of holders bolted into the rock.
“There’s just one thing,” she went on, staring up at the closed trapdoor in the rock ceiling. “Where do the ropes come down?”
He lifted a finger and led the way to what had been a deep shelving unit set off to one side of the vestibule. Its twin space on the opposite wall made a tidy coat closet.
“I always thought this was a strange sort of cupboard, recessed as it was with shelves as deep as my arm. When I removed the contents, I found another space with the pulleys and ropes. The ropes themselves are no good, but the wall fittings are all fine. I’ve already ordered the right type and size of ropes, and they should be here in a week or so.
“I should be able to attach them to the bells. Then all we have to do is hope the bells aren’t too badly out of tune to make a pleasant noise for Christmas.”
“I didn’t know bells could be out of tune.”
“Apparently they can, but I think that’s when there are several bells involved.”
She looked up at the ceiling. “Those two sounded fine to me.”
“Do you have musical training?” he asked.
Her clear blue eyes met his, and she touched the mole beneath her eyebrow before calmly saying, “Not much. I sang in glee club in high school and college.”
Glee club. He couldn’t help thinking that many pastors’ wives often had service callings of their own: music, teaching, women’s or children’s ministry, chaplaincy, even a pastorate of one form or another. He told himself not to be an idiot. All he needed from her was help getting the bells roped and the church decorated.
“I’ll let you know when the ropes get here, and we’ll set up a time to attach them,” he said.
“Sounds like a plan.”
“A plan that needs a lot of prayer if it’s to succeed,” he added with a chortle. “Now, about those pictures you brought with you…”
She went to the credenza that stood against the wall and opened a file folder, spreading out several sheets of paper. Ethan hurried over to take a look. As he studied the pictures she’d brought, he casually unbuttoned his coat.
One photo showed the inside of an unnamed couple’s cabin where a small, spindly evergreen tree had been decorated with berries, beads and bits of broken glass. Another showed the front railings of a porch swathed in evergreen boughs. An arrangement of candles and mistletoe on a fireplace mantel with an open Bible and a Christmas postcard was the focus of a third black-and-white photograph.
The final offering had been shot right there in front of the church. It showed the pastor and two others in white smocks with big bows on them, presumably red, and the entire cast of a pageant, including two real sheep, a donkey and, oddly enough, a chicken. Most of the actors were garbed in blankets with lopsided halos and crowns, wings and sashes askew. Most wore cowboy boots beneath their tunics, and one mulish youngster sported his cowboy hat, too, and had a rope slung over one shoulder, despite the shepherd’s crook in the other hand. The youngest children all carried chrismon patterns—simple symbols of the Christian faith, such as the shape of a shepherd’s crook, dove, Bethlehem star or trumpeting angel. Ethan had to smile.
“Now, that’s a congregation to keep a pastor on his knees.”
“It looks like fun, though, doesn’t it?”
“It does. Just look at the smile on the pastor’s face.”
“I wonder what part the chicken played.”
They both laughed over that. Ethan squinted at the tiny type beneath the photo.
“Those are readers in those smocks. They probably read the Christmas story out of the Bible, and the cast acted it out.”
“Makes sense.”
“We could do something like that,” Ethan mused. “That way no one would have to memorize lines.”
“I thought you might like to have these, too,” she said, offering him several more papers.
“Chrismon patterns.”
“They’d be very simple to make out of fabric. And you might want this.”
The final sheet contained a list of websites where he could order modern versions of antique Christmas bulbs.
“I think you can find everything else you need out there,” she said, waving a hand to indicate the great outdoors. “The various types of greenery have different meanings, you see, and the locals would have been aware of that back then.”
“Robin Frazier, you are a gem beyond price. I don’t have internet access here, but I can find it. Now, I have just two more questions for you.”
“And they are?” she asked cautiously, narrowing her lovely blue eyes at him.
“First, will you serve on the decorating committee?”
She blinked. “Pastor—”
“Ethan,” he corrected automatically.
“Ethan,” she began again, “I’m not even a member of the church.”
“But you are the resident expert on historical Christmas decorations. Or as near as we can come to one.”
She bowed her head, smiling. “I see. All right. In that case, of course I’ll help out. Just do remember that I have a full-time job.”
“Of course. Which leads me to my second question.”
“And that is?”
“Are you free on Saturday for gathering greenery?”
“This Saturday?”
“It’s December 2, Miss Frazier. I’d like to schedule a Hanging of the Green se
rvice for a week from tomorrow. We have no time to lose, and you know exactly what sort of greenery people would have gathered a hundred years ago.”
She looked around the vestibule before glancing at him once more and nodding.
“Saturday would be fine.”
“I’ll pick you up about 9:00 a.m., then. If you’ll just tell me where you live.”
“Oh.” Smiling, she lifted a finely boned hand to press a fingertip to that exquisite little mole beneath her eyebrow. “That would help, wouldn’t it? I’ve taken a kitchenette at Fidler’s Inn. Room six, on the ground floor.”
“Room six,” he repeated. “Um, if you have hiking boots, you might want to wear them.”
“I can do that.”
“And jeans probably wouldn’t hurt.”
“I can do that, too.”
“Okay, then.”
She nodded, and they stood there smiling at each other until she suddenly said, “Well, I’d better grab something to eat and get back to work.”
“Sure, sure.” He cleared his throat, nodding. “Thanks so much for dropping by.”
“Thanks for showing me your view.”
“Anytime.” She started toward the outer door, reaching into her pocket for her gloves, but he called her back. “Uh, Robin. The bell thing. I’ve told some others that I’m cleaning up the area and doing some research, but I’d really like to keep my plans quiet until Christmas Eve,” he reminded her.
“That’s fine,” she told him. “Whatever you want.”
Grinning, he couldn’t resist ribbing her a little. “Whatever I want, eh?”
“Within reason,” she retorted through a smile.
“I’m a very reasonable man,” he said, straight-faced.
“What you are, Pastor Ethan Johnson,” she said, shaking a dainty finger at him, “is a tease.”
“Maybe a little bit,” he admitted, smiling, “at least with you. It’s just that you’re so very serious. Sweet but serious.” And he should learn to keep his mouth shut. Her blue gaze clouded and skidded away.
Long seconds ticked by before she said, “I have to go.”
He followed her to the door, wondering if he shouldn’t enlist someone else to help gather the greenery and knowing he wouldn’t. “Goodbye, Robin.”
“Goodbye, Ethan,” she whispered. He’d have missed it if the acoustics in the room hadn’t been so extraordinary.
She pushed out into the December sunshine. He followed, calling after her as her footsteps fell swiftly across the plank walkway, “Nine o’clock, Saturday. Don’t forget.”
“I won’t.”
He watched her walk away, wondering if God was telling him that the past could finally be put away once and for all. Or had he come to Jasper Gulch to make another hideous mistake?
*
Robin did not next see Ethan Johnson on Saturday as she assumed she would; she saw him on Thursday evening. He called that day to say that he’d put together a committee to plan, design and construct decorations for the church, but because the ladies felt they hadn’t a minute to lose, they wanted to meet that night. What could she say, that she’d rather not see him again so soon because she found him entirely too attractive for her peace of mind? Of course, she said that she would attend the meeting, and then she prayed for some way to get out of it.
While she was mentally sorting through excuses, her landlady, Mamie Fidler, stopped by her room to say that she was on the committee, too, and going to the meeting.
“Might as well head over there together. No sense in both of us burning gasoline.”
Sixtyish, single and no-nonsense, Mamie Fidler wore hiking boots, denim skirts and flannel shirts year-round everywhere she went, even to church. She had “decorated” the Fidler Inn with utilitarian hominess, so Robin was somewhat surprised that Ethan had recruited her for the committee. On the other hand, Mamie was handy with all sorts of tools, including fishing poles and skinning knives, and she was brutally efficient.
“I’ll drive,” Robin volunteered.
“I’ll get my gear. You got a slicker?”
“I’m afraid not.”
“Too bad,” Mamie opined, shaking her head.
That was how Robin found herself rushing through a light but wet snowfall in twenty-degree weather over a boardwalk dusted with a mixture of rock salt and sand toward a rectangle of light in the darkness. The door in the education wing of the building opened well before they reached it, and Ethan rushed out, armed with an umbrella. Mamie, covered head to ankle in a shapeless water-repellent poncho, plowed ahead, disappearing into the hallway.
“I’m so sorry,” Ethan told Robin, shaking off the umbrella before collapsing it and pulling it in behind them so he could close the door. “The skies were gray earlier, but the weather forecast didn’t call for snow.”
“The weather bureau should consult Mamie.”
“I’m sure that’s true,” he agreed with a chuckle. “I find it wise to consult Mamie on a lot of things, like where’s the best place to find the greenery we’ll need and how to keep it from drying out too badly before Christmas comes.”
Ah. Now things were making sense. “You’re a wise man.”
He laughed. “Maintain that thought, will you?” Placing his warm hand at the small of her back, he applied light pressure, saying softly, “Come along and meet the others, but be forewarned. Some here are used to taking charge in every situation. In this, however, you are our guide. Understand?”
She nodded absently. Even through the thickness of her coat, his touch unsettled her, so she set about nonchalantly peeling off the outer garment as they walked through the corridor to the meeting room. As soon as they reached their destination, he offered to take her things and stow them on a table with everyone else’s. Familiar faces turned from a second table set with muffins and a Crock-Pot of apple cider.
In addition to Mamie Fidler, Robin recognized Allison Douglas, Rosemary Middleton and her daughter, Marie, Abigail Rose and Nadine Shaw, the mayor’s wife. Everyone greeted Robin and invited her to partake of the muffins, provided by Rosemary, who ran the local grocery along with her husband, and cider, which Allison had brought. Marie Middleton would be of great use, being a florist. Nadine’s inclusion made sense because her eldest daughter, Faith, was marrying Dale Massey on Christmas night, so the decorations would be of special interest to her, but Robin couldn’t help feeling nervous around any of the Shaws, the mayor and his wife in particular.
Robin made a point of sitting at the opposite end of the conference table from Nadine, and unless it was her imagination, Ethan made a point of sitting next to her. Everyone else seemed to think so, too, though Abigail was the only one who gave an overt sign, raising both eyebrows. The others merely traded casual glances, all except Mamie, but Robin knew her landlady well enough by now not to mistake the twinkle in her golden eyes.
Ethan’s attention was explained when he raised his head from the opening prayer and said, “Now, then, ladies, thanks to Robin, you have before you copies of photos of Christmas decorations from one hundred years ago.” He went on to say that she had agreed to act as their historical consultant on this project. That won her smiles from the others, and she relaxed somewhat. “Robin,” he concluded firmly, “will have the final say on all designs.”
Soon they were all deep in conversation about swags, garlands and wreaths, as well as the past tendency to attach meanings to certain types of greenery. Marie started sketching, and Mamie set about estimating the necessary foot length of boughs that would be needed. Before long they had a design and a plan. Nadine divided up the responsibilities, and everyone went along without protest until she came to gathering the greenery itself.
“We’ll take care of that on the Shaw Ranch.”
“Uh, no, we have that covered already,” Ethan said.
“But—”
“The McGuire Ranch has more of what we need,” Mamie stated bluntly.
“You have enough to worry about,” Allison pointed
out, “with the wedding and all.”
“Robin and I will take care of the greenery,” Ethan insisted, looping an arm around the back of Robin’s chair.
Just like that, every eye riveted to the pair of them again, and just like that, Robin’s breath caught in her throat.
“We, um, want to leave you and Marie free to concentrate on the wedding,” she offered with a wan smile.
“And I need Robin’s expertise on the specific meanings of the various types of greenery,” Ethan said. The speculation in the eyes around the table did not dim one iota, however.
“Who would really know the difference these days?” Nadine asked.
“I would,” he answered firmly, and that was the end of it.
Robin wondered if Ethan realized that he had just made them the object of conjecture and gossip. Surely he wouldn’t want that, especially if he ever found out why she’d really come to town. A pastor wouldn’t want to be linked to a woman who had come here under false pretenses to meet the family who didn’t even know she existed.
Then again, perhaps she had misjudged him entirely and he would be all too glad for a connection, any connection, no matter how distant, to the first family of Jasper Gulch—that was, if the Shaws didn’t toss her out on her ear the instant they discovered the truth about her great-grandmother Lillian.
Or rather, Lucy.
Chapter Three
It occurred to Ethan, belatedly, that the speculation about him and Robin Frazier could serve a purpose. He hadn’t meant to suggest that a romance might be brewing between then, but the presence of a possible love interest could provide him with a shield against unwanted attention. Perhaps, if everyone thought his own interest to be fixed, he could relax, at least for a little while, instead of being on constant alert for lures being cast his way.
The thought buoyed the young pastor so much that within hours the next morning, he had women sewing chrismon symbols out of white fabric and nearly a dozen children lined up for parts in the Christmas pageant to be performed on Christmas Eve. Moreover, he was busy writing a script, dependent largely on scripture, for the reading, which he proposed to do with one man and two women.
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