Lynette stood. “Oh, there’s one more thing, which will probably mean more to the success of this fund-raiser than anything else, including our advertising.”
Rick’s head spun. He didn’t need another complication.
The room fell as silent as it had on Sunday when he was nominated for this project, except this time no drips were banging into the buckets.
Lynette smiled at everyone around the room. “Pray for good weather. We’re going to have a fair in the parking lot.”
Chapter 4
L ynette slipped her key into the lock and pushed the huge wooden door of the church open. She came by herself to the church often, to be alone with God. Not that she couldn’t be alone with God at home, but being in the wide-open sanctuary somehow made the connection more intimate.
In silence she walked through the foyer, pausing to drop her notebook and purse on the table before she entered the sanctuary. Mirroring the shape of the building, the sanctuary consisted of a large rectangular room. As she walked up the center aisle, she ran her hand along the tops of the arms of a few of the pews before she chose a seat in the center.
In turn Lynette took in all the features of this church she loved so much. The old wooden pews showed their age yet were not excessively worn. To the front the simple podium sat before a small raised platform, barely large enough for her father and the worship team of five members. Large narrow windows graced both sides of the long room, letting in the bright sunshine on a summer day or the steady gray of a rainy Pacific Northwest winter.
As she closed her eyes and inhaled deeply, she could still smell the lingering fragrance of the remaining flowers from the Carrions’ wedding last weekend.
This building had done its part in the beginning of many happy marriages over the years by providing a place to celebrate a new joining in God’s sight. Also before and after every Sunday service the entire building buzzed with happy voices of children playing as their parents visited with their Christian brothers and sisters.
More important than the building were its people. Her father’s congregation had grown to such a point where she no longer knew every regular attendee by name. Still, as a body of believers, she loved all the people there with the love Christ had shown her.
Lynette tipped her chin and looked up. The dark wood of the open beam ceiling overhead created an illusion of a greater size to the room, although in practical terms it wasn’t the greatest for energy conservation. Often the temperatures were too cool in the winter and too warm in the summer, common for an older building, constructed before people began to think of environmental concerns and the cost of heating. The fact remained that the strength there was the love of the people for each other.
That was why she had to do her best to raise all the money required to fix the roof. These people were depending on her to come through. No one knew her sudden aversion to committees.
In a convoluted sort of way she was glad the committee consisted only of her and Rick. While she had been in group situations with Rick before, she and everyone else knew that performing in the group dynamics of a committee was not where Rick’s talents shone. Rick was a leader. Even when she first met him ten years ago, she could see his potential. He had been kind and gentle, but also firm and friendly when it came time to do a job. Years later Rick had matured and met the potential everyone had seen in him in his present ministry as youth leader. Rick loved people, and he loved the Lord. He was everything she could ever want, but she couldn’t have him.
Lynette dropped her gaze from the ceiling and stared at the empty podium.
Rick had always held a special place in her heart. For many years she had successfully avoided dealing with how she felt about him, but working so closely with him now made her look at him differently. Over time something had changed so gradually she hadn’t noticed, but now she couldn’t help but recognize the connection. All they had to do was look at each other, and no words were needed. She knew what he was thinking, and vice versa. As much as she wanted to deny what sparked between them, no matter how hard she tried to fight it, it was there.
Lynette slouched in the pew and buried her face in her hands. “Dear Lord, help me,” she said out loud. Her own voice echoed back in the large, empty room.
Before she could collect her thoughts to pray, the thump of the main door closing echoed through the large doorway, along with Rick’s voice. “Lynette? Where are you?”
She stood, ran her hands down her sleeves to smooth out a couple of imaginary wrinkles, and left the sanctuary. “I’m here,” she called out once she reached the table, where she picked up her notebook. Rick approached and came to a stop in front of her.
Lynette jerked her thumb over her shoulder. “Let’s go use Dad’s office.”
Rick’s eyebrows raised. “The office? What for?” He stuck one hand in his pocket and extended the other hand, in which he was holding a clipboard with a crumpled note paper attached to it, toward the couch in the lobby. “Can’t we sit here?”
Having to share a couch was exactly the reason she wanted to meet at the church instead of her home. “I think we’ll be able to write better in the office. With the desk,” she said.
With the desk between us, she didn’t say.
He brought the clipboard up and pressed it to his chest. “Is there something wrong? I don’t understand.”
“Nothing is wrong. I just want to use the office.”
His eyebrows scrunched in the middle. “But…” He shrugged his shoulders. “Okay. Let’s go. We’ve got a lot of things to discuss. I’ve got some good news and some bad news.”
She almost stumbled then kept walking to the safety of her father’s office, where the desk would serve as a safe and effective barrier between them. Only after she sat behind her father’s heavy wooden desk and Rick pulled up one of the chairs so he could use a corner for his own writing surface could she dare to ask. “I think I want the bad news first.”
“Actually that is just an expression. I don’t have good news.”
Her heart sank, but she didn’t say anything. This project had to be successful. Too many people were depending on them.
“Remember I told you about the dunk tank?”
She nodded. “Yes. If the bad news is that we didn’t get use of the dunk tank after all, I don’t think that’s really such a loss. I can’t figure out what we would do with such a thing anyway.”
Rick shook his head. “No, we’ve got it for sure. It’s just that Sarah told Trevor about it.” Rick laid his pen down and started counting the people off on his fingers as he mentioned them. “And he told his brother who told his friend who told his neighbor who told his uncle who told his sister-in-law who told her boss.”
Lynette shook her head as well. “I don’t understand why you’re telling me this. I don’t know any of those people.”
“Mary’s boss is the mayor.”
“So?”
“I don’t think you understand the big picture here. At our little church community one-day fair, we’re going to be dunking the mayor.”
Lynette felt sick, and it wasn’t because she was too hungry.
“No…” She let her voice trail off. “We can’t pull something off on a grand enough scale to include Mayor Klein.”
“We’re going to have to. He left a message on my voice mail saying he’s looking forward to a fun and carefree day as a welcome change to the old grind.”
“If the mayor is going to be there, do you think the local newspaper is going to be there, too?”
“Yup. This is good public relations for the mayor, so count on it. But just think, we won’t have to spend so much on advertising because his own public relations committee will send out a bulletin to the who’s whos and community boards telling them about it. So maybe there is good news in this after all.”
Lynette didn’t think so. She stood and waved her hands in the air at Rick, coming just short of leaning forward over the expanse of the desktop and wrapping her hands
around his neck. “Are you crazy? This means we have exactly fifteen days left to organize and prepare an event that’s going to draw the mayor and his entourage and the newspaper!”
“Anyone in the paparazzi will tell you there’s no such thing as bad advertising….” His voice trailed off.
All Lynette could do was sink back down in the chair and stare at him across the desk in silence, with her mouth gaping open.
Rick stared back, not saying anything either.
The silence dragged on until Rick sighed, leaned back in the chair, and crossed his arms over his chest. “When did I lose control?”
“As soon as you started taking suggestions from the youth group, I think.”
Rick narrowed one eye, pressed his lips together with one side crooked slightly downward and nodded without commenting further.
Lynette also leaned back in the chair and crossed her arms. “I know we’ve discussed this before, but you said you were able to say no to people.”
“I think I might have been wrong.”
His deadpan expression was her undoing. Lynette couldn’t stop her giggle.
The corners of Rick’s mouth twitched, and he started to laugh, too.
The tension broken, Lynette wiped her eyes. “What are we going to do?”
“I think the only thing we can do is go with it and pray for sunshine. Like you said.”
Lynette sighed and slid the list and notes in front of her. “Between the mayor and the goats we should attract a lot of people. What else can we do that will make money? Do you think we can have the worship team playing and put an offering box in front of them? Or is that too much?”
Rick tapped his pen to his cheek. “It’s obviously a fund-raiser. Whether or not they get any money, it’s good exposure to have visitors listen to upbeat Christian music with wholesome and uplifting themes. I’ll talk to the team.”
“Good idea. If we’re going to have lots of people, we’re going to need lots of food to sell. Do you know anyone who has one of those popcorn or cotton candy machines?”
“Nope. But I can ask Sarah. For someone who is only seventeen, she seems to know a lot of people who have connections.”
Lynette made a tick beside that notation. “I’ll have to think of more kids’ games. I wonder if we should still have the pie-eating contest?”
Rick leaned forward, and Lynette stopped writing. “I think there’s something I forgot to mention.”
Lynette buried her face in her hands. “Do I want to know?”
“The mayor asked me to put his name in for the pie-eating contest, which should generate more people entering.”
“I wonder how many pies we should make.”
“Make as many pies as you have apples. We have to have a pie for anyone who wants to enter, even at the last minute. Besides, we can sell any we have left over.”
She made a few more notes, sticking her tongue out of the corner of her mouth as she continued to think. “I’ll make a few more phone calls for more apple donations. We should plan out everything we’re going to do and assign volunteers today.”
At his nod they agreed on all the events and booths. The major draw for young children would be a booth where the children threw their fishing line into a make-believe pond. Two volunteers hidden inside the pond would attach a toy fish and a card with Matthew 4:19 where Jesus called everyone to be “fishers of men.”
For the older children they planned a paper airplane contest in which they would give away model airplanes as prizes for the different age categories. Since Rick had finally managed to contact his uncle, they had a prize of a getaway weekend to Seattle, including tickets to the Space Needle. They decided to make that a raffle for which the congregation would sell tickets, as well as having them for sale to the community at the fair.
They also planned games that didn’t necessarily award prizes, as well as a bake sale and craft table.
Lynette laid her pen on the desk and ran her fingers through her hair. “This has been great. I think we’ve made a lot of progress. This weekend we can start constructing the booths and games. At first I had my doubts about this, but I think we can pull this off.”
“I told you before that we make a great team. We should get together more often.”
Lynette jumped to her feet. “Yes. Well. Oh! I think it’s way past our bedtime—we both have to get up for work tomorrow. Let’s lock up, and we can be on our way.”
“Uh…” His voice trailed off.
Lynette didn’t wait for Rick to continue. She hustled him out the door and locked up, the whole time yakking and blabbering on and on about anything that entered her head. Anything except getting together with Rick. She didn’t want to entertain that thought.
As she slid into her car and closed the door, Rick stood to the side, his arms crossed, watching. His confused expression nearly broke her heart. She knew he liked her. Knowing him as she did and judging from what she’d heard, she sometimes wondered if he fancied himself in love with her.
She knew she wasn’t being fair to him. In all the time she tried to discourage him, he never gave up. And now, since they had been seeing each other every day, the situation had become worse instead of better. He left her no alternative but to tell him the reason she couldn’t see him outside of church business, no matter how much she liked him.
But not today. Lynette planned to do the cowardly thing and tell him at the end of the fund-raiser when everything was over and she wouldn’t have to face him anymore, at least not directly.
Lynette waved in the rearview mirror as she drove off for the safety of her home.
Chapter 5
R ick walked into the church building, stepped around the bucket in the lobby, and headed for the pastor’s office, where he knew he would find Lynette.
The woman was going to drive him crazy, if she hadn’t driven him there already.
Instead of making it better, the past week had made everything worse. He’d wanted their time spent together to confirm or deny everything he felt for her. He could definitely say he loved her more than ever. He now knew for sure that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her. He also knew she would be happy being a pastor’s wife. The problem was, he didn’t think she wanted him to be that pastor.
He couldn’t count the times in the past week that he’d tried to talk to her, to slip into the conversation that he loved her and had loved her for a long time. And he’d tried to talk about the future they could have together as pastor and wife.
Every time, as she had countless times over the years, the second he began to address the subjects of love and a future together, she’d changed the subject. Twice she mumbled something he couldn’t understand and literally ran away.
Rick had always thought of himself as a good, Christian man, with godly hopes and dreams and a promising future. Obviously Lynette didn’t agree.
He stepped into the office to see her comparing figures on a spreadsheet to a calculator tape.
“Hi,” she mumbled around the pen in her mouth. “I was adding up how much we have to make. Dad left me all the receipts and estimates. I didn’t know we’d have to pay for a disposal bin too. And do you know how expensive it is to advertise?”
Rick pulled a paper out of his back pocket. “Oh. I nearly forgot. Here’s the bill for the trophy for the pie-eating contest.”
Lynette groaned.
“But I brought a big basket of apples with me.”
“Let me guess. From someone Sarah knows.”
Rick grinned. “How did you know?”
“Actually, in addition to the four baskets someone brought on Sunday, the Browns dropped off a big bag, too. It appears we have plenty of apples.”
“How’s the entry list coming?”
Lynette laid the pen down and folded her hands on top of the pile of papers. “It’s a good thing we have all these apples. It looks as if we’ve got sixty entries, and we want to have some pies to sell after the contest is over.”
; Rick rubbed his hands together. “Looking good then. Just like you. You’re always looking good.”
Lynette’s cheeks flushed a deep shade of crimson, giving her more appeal than ever. “Stop that. We have work to do. Sit down.”
They set to work finalizing the plans for the last booths and events and decided on who would be best suited to do what needed to be done. Before they went home, they divided up the lists so they could each make the appropriate phone calls.
When they were finished, Rick leaned back in the chair and raised his hands, linking his fingers behind his head. “I guess tomorrow we should have the youth group start constructing the props and decorations and things.”
“Yes. It’ll be a lot of work to build a fake pond, because we’ll have to build a frame then somehow cover it. We don’t want to run short on time.”
Rick studied the calendar on the wall. “Next weekend we’ll have to go shopping for all the supplies we need, the table coverings, prizes, groceries, and stuff. Then the weekend after is the big day. We don’t have a lot of time, do we?”
“No, we don’t. I’d better add the model kits to my list.”
Rick sighed. He could see what kind of mood she was in, and today would definitely be strictly business, as would every day this week when they got together with the youth group to begin the building and planning.
But their weekend shopping trip had great possibilities.
“Let’s get to it then,” he said as he selected a pen out of her father’s bin. “We’ll have the youth group meet here every night at seven during the week, and I’ll pick you up at ten sharp on Saturday morning. The end is near.”
For some strange reason he was certain Lynette’s face paled.
“Yes,” she mumbled and abruptly began making more notes. “The end is near.”
Rick was surprised to see Lynette waiting at the curb for him when he arrived at her house for their shopping trip.
Sweet Surprise: Romance Collection Page 55
