Bluegrass Courtship

by Allie Pleiter

  “We like what we’re seeing,” the HomeBase rep said. “Good numbers, good exposure. There isn’t a whole lot of family-oriented television we can get behind these days. We’re glad to be behind Missionnovation, and we’d like to take it to the next level.”

  “If you could just see the kinds of things we’ve been able to do,” Drew said. “Only about half of what we do makes it on the air. Visit a site one of these days, and you’ll see just how far your current backing is taking us. Lives are being changed. Whole communities are changing how they feel about the church. About God. It’s incredible.”

  “I’m sure it is.” The way he said it, though, Drew was pretty sure the man would never take him up on his offer of a site visit. Charlie was right—these people were too busy to stand in a church basement and watch the new furnace fire up. Everybody’s got a different part to play, Drew thought silently. God knows what He’s doing and who He’s doing it with.

  And God was setting gears in motion, no doubt about it. The way Charlie was smiling, they’d have a deal sewn up by sundown, and Drew could get on the red-eye with the happy news that Missionnovation was up, running and expanded for three more years.

  “We got him,” Charlie said after they finished the meeting. “The deal’s just signatures away.”

  Drew shot Charlie a look. “You sound way too much like them sometimes.”

  Charlie slapped his hands together and closed his eyes. “Dear Lord, we think You’ve got him. Please, if it be Your will, let the deal be only signatures away.”

  “Better,” Drew commented, “but only by the tiniest bit.” He could tease Charlie about praying over things because Charlie had, once he came to faith, become a fierce prayer warrior. Thanks to Charlie’s focus, Drew had learned to cover Missionnovation in prayer from its earliest days. Drew had learned to balance prayer and action by watching how Charlie did it. Humbling as it was, Drew felt that Charlie was a stronger man of God than he was, even though Drew had been the first to find Christ. They were good for each other—sharpened by the partnership and honed by the friendship. It was what enabled them to have the high level of trust they did.

  They were getting ready for lunch when Drew’s cell phone rang. It startled him to see Annie’s name on the screen—she knew better than to call with anything less than an emergency on a day like today. His throat tightened as he flipped open the phone.

  “Annie?”

  “Drew, there’s been an accident.” Annie’s voice had the wobbly tone of someone trying to stay calm. The sound of it sent a chill down through his shoes. “Kevin was up on the church roof making Janet’s changes to the steeple flashings and he fell off.”

  Drew shut his eyes and sent a wordless call for help heavenward. No, Lord! Not while I’m off-site! If anything happened to Kevin—or anybody, for that matter—Drew didn’t know what he’d do.

  The fact that Annie hadn’t added “But he’s okay” to her statement told Drew things were serious. “How is he? How far did he fall?” he gulped into the phone, and the questions made Charlie’s eyes shoot up from his paperwork.

  “I’m in the ambulance now. He’s conscious, but they won’t know anything until the X rays.” Annie never cried, but she sounded on the verge of it now. Drew’s heart twisted into a knot of regret. Kevin must be seriously hurt for her to be so shook up. How could he ever have convinced himself it was a good idea to leave the site?

  “Kevin’s tougher than he looks. He’ll be okay.” The words rang hollow—he barely believed them himself.

  “Okay.” There was a silence between them. They both knew Kevin might not be okay.

  Drew heard Kevin moaning in the background. He heard the strained voice of what must be a paramedic telling Kevin to “Please try and lie still, Mr. Cooper.”

  “Tell him I broke everything,” came Kevin’s voice over Annie’s phone, the words thick as if his lips were swollen. Drew pictured the worst; Kevin mangled and bruised on an ambulance gurney, bleeding over everything. Annie would be clutching her clipboard and her files of insurance cards and medical histories she always kept in a red folder in the bus office filing cabinet. He should be there.

  “Annie.” He forced calm into his voice. “It’ll be okay. You know Cooper,” he tried to joke. “He’s always playing things for sympathy.” That was a dumb idea—this was no laughing matter. “Charlie will have people praying over Kevin in ten minutes, if not already. I know you can hold it together until I get there.”

  “I got it covered.” Her voice was tense, but level. Even so, it struck him like a rock thrown into his stomach.

  “Where’s everyone else?” he said, just to keep her talking.

  “Mike has the others staying on site. Janet’s meeting us at the hospital with some other folks from the church.”

  Keep her talking, he thought. Keep her listing things that are going the way they should. It’s all you can do from here. “Was anyone else hurt?”

  “No, just Kevin.”

  “Ow! Could you stop that?” Kevin howled somewhere in the background. Kevin didn’t even like bandages, so he could just imagine what horrors he found inside an ambulance.

  “He looks banged up pretty bad.” Annie’s voice wobbled a bit, but she held on to her composure. “His leg…”

  “Let’s not speculate, Miss Michaels,” came a professionally calm voice. “We’re almost there, so you’ll need to hang up now. Tell your boss we’ll know more in an hour or so.”

  “I…um…I have to go,” Annie said quietly into the phone.

  “I hear. Okay, take care of Kevin, and I’m sure everything will work out. God’s looked out for us before, He’s not going to stop now. Stay steady.”

  Drew snapped his phone shut and sank his head into his hands. A tidal wave of worry for his friend, of regret for a possible wrong choice, swept over him with a force that almost made him ill.

  “He’s seriously hurt. Why did I think it was okay to leave the site?” he said without looking up.

  “You didn’t cause this.” Charlie was choosing his words carefully. “Don’t go there.”

  “Kevin’s been a loose cannon for years. He’s never careful about safety stuff.”

  “Which means it was bound to happen sometime, whether you were there or not.”

  Drew shot him a look. “Don’t placate me. Just get people praying and find me a flight out of here.”

  Charlie gestured toward the open laptop on the table beside him. “I sent out a broadcast e-mail thirty seconds ago. And I’ve already started looking for flights. I can’t get you back to Lexington before nine-thirty this evening. Even if I fly you into Louisville and you drive the rest of the way. Tell Kevin to fall closer to a major metropolitan airport next time.”

  It was supposed to be a joke to break the tension.

  It wasn’t, and it didn’t.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Doc Walsh came by the hospital emergency room where Janet and Annie were waiting with Kevin after his leg had been cast. Having the local doctor treat Kevin had been her mom’s doing. Lexington General Hospital was a fine institution, but Bebe Bishop didn’t trust any hospital unless Doc Walsh was there to supervise. “You made of rubber or somethin’?” the white-haired doctor asked as he glanced over Kevin’s chart.

  Kevin managed something between a smile and a wince. “Could be.”

  Doc Walsh peered over the top of his thick glasses. “Most people I know would have come out of a fall like that with a lot more than broken bones.”

  “Well,” Kevin offered, “I hurt everywhere.”

  “You’ll have a mighty nice collection of bruises tomorrow, that’s for sure.” He signed off on some papers that would allow him to go home to the bed and breakfast where Annie was also staying—the narrow confines of the bus were off-limits for two days at least, until Kevin was allowed onto his foot with the aid of crutches. If Janet knew her mother, Bebe already had a full shift of volunteers scheduled to watch over Kevin while he healed. Maybe even k
eep him in casseroles until he was fifty—the show’s catering or the fact that the bed and breakfast could easily feed him wouldn’t even be taken into consideration.

  “Blue goes nice with green,” Annie tried to tease, but her tense voice gave her away. “You always said you thought you looked good in blue.”

  “You said I looked good in blue,” Kevin corrected, “and I think bruises are more of a purple than blue. And you already know how I feel about purple.”

  Janet gave a puzzled look.

  Annie smirked. “Nothing. Just an argument we were having yesterday over Alphco’s plants.”

  “Hello there, Bebe.” Doc Walsh closed the file and handed the papers back to the nurse. Janet was so busy trying to figure out the series of looks passing between Kevin and Annie that she hadn’t even seen her mother walk in. “You got things all set to transport our guest out to the B and B?”

  Janet had asked her mom to look around for a bigger car to bring Kevin back from the hospital. Her Jeep was not exactly conducive to transporting a tall bruised man with a leg in plaster.

  “Sandy Burnside’s in the parking lot with her Cadillac. You could practically camp out in the backseat of that thing.”

  “Look,” said Annie, taking Janet’s elbow, “you’ve done more than enough already. I’ll see to getting Kevin settled in at the B and B. We’ve hijacked enough of your afternoon. He and I have to go over what we’re going to do about the prayer meeting tonight, anyway.”

  “The prayer meeting!” Bebe exclaimed. “Well of course we’ll have it, even if we have to run it ourselves. After all, we’ve got to pray for Kevin’s leg now.”

  Tell me what to say.

  It was an impulsive cry for help.

  It was also the first prayer Janet had said in years. Annie, oblivious to the argument Janet had with Drew before he left, had no idea what she was asking when she gave Janet Drew’s cell phone number and asked her to call him. Drew answered on the first ring. “Drew, it’s Janet.”

  There was a moment of surprised silence before he said, “How is he? He’s okay, isn’t he?”

  “He’ll be okay. They’ve set the broken leg and done some other things for the broken ribs. All things considered, he’s amazingly intact. I mean, for someone who tumbled off a roof.” Janet tried to focus on assuring Drew and ignore how awkward this felt given how they’d left things. “He’s banged up, but according to Doc Walsh it’s mostly bruises except for the leg and ribs. Oh, and I think one finger, too.”

  “Ring finger, left hand. Annie sends detailed updates on the hour.” She heard him sigh. “How is she doing?”

  Janet sank down onto a bench outside the hospital entrance. Now that they were talking, she was tired all of a sudden. “Worried, but efficient. Stress kicks her organizational skills into overdrive. She’s got things under control.”

  There was a long pause on the other end of the phone. “I should have been there.” His tone was almost as if he was lecturing himself, as if he’d forgotten she was still on the line.

  Janet let out the breath she hadn’t even realized she’d been holding. “He’s going to be okay. He feels like a jerk, if that helps. He’s terrified of what you’ll do to him when you get back.”

  “It’s not his fault. It’s my job to watch out for these people.” He groaned. “I hate that I can’t get back sooner. There’s a jet taking off and landing here every eight seconds, and I can’t get myself to Kentucky for another four hours? That’s crazy.”

  He sounded on the verge of his boiling point. Considering what he was supposed to be doing out there, Janet doubted he was anything more than a ticking time bomb at any of those meetings. Charlie had his hands full. She tried humor. “You’re just used to living in the center of the universe, that’s all.”

  Another long pause. This is why she tried to talk Annie out of making her call Drew—this wasn’t helping at all. She heard Drew mumble on the other end of the line and she imagined him pacing the sidewalk outside a trendy Los Angeles restaurant. The guy could barely sit still under ordinary conditions—he must be like a caged animal right now. Hey, God, are You listening? I need help here. “Think of it this way,” she started in, not really knowing where she was heading. “God must have something He needs you to do in L.A. over the next four hours. I can’t think of any other reason the Lord of the Universe wouldn’t be clearing the way for you to get back to us sooner than that. There’s just got to be something keeping you there.”

  No one was more surprised at her comments than Janet herself. She wasn’t used to God popping up in her conversations—or prayers or thoughts—anymore. For as long as she’d turned her back on Him, God was under no obligation toward any prayer of hers.

  Still, Drew’s tone changed completely. “You’re right. God is still in control. Kevin already has loads of people praying for him, with more to come after tonight’s meeting. It’s covered. I need to remember that God’s got it covered. You know, Janet, you got a lot of spiritual wisdom for someone who claims she doesn’t do church.”

  If Janet managed to use godly wisdom to keep one highly worried absent friend from losing it, that didn’t make her religious again. She was just speaking in his dialect. Still, the notion that God had given her the right words wiggled its way uncomfortably under her skin. She wasn’t sure she was ready to find her way back to faith. “Go be smooth and charming and all that Hollywood stuff. Eat tiny organic salads with powerful people in sunglasses or whatever it is y’all do out there in TV land.”

  Drew gave a soft laugh. “The salads are tiny out here. I’d give anything for a steak, mashed potatoes and pie from Deacon’s right now. I just had some purple juice smoothie thing to drink with lunch. And just try to get a normal cup of coffee out here.”

  He sounded better already. “When does your flight get in?”

  “Ten-fifteen.”

  “I’ll pick you up at the airport.” Again, it jumped out of her mouth unbidden. Where had that come from? Hadn’t their last conversation been an argument? Besides, he had people for that sort of thing, he didn’t need her for it. “We…um…Deacon’s is open late tonight,” she backpedaled, “so we can swing by and feed you on your way back to the bus. Kevin’s staying at the bed and breakfast where Annie is so people can look after him until he’s up and around again.” Now she was practically running on at the mouth.

  “Man, I’d like that.” She heard him fumble with the phone. “Hang on, I’ve got the flight number here somewhere…flight 2156 touching down at ten-fifteen.”

  “I’ll be there.”

  “I’ll be glad.” There was a gaping silence as he realized what he just said. “Um…glad to get out of here,” Drew added, but it was a poor cover-up neither of them believed.

  Janet said goodbye quickly and snapped her phone shut, sinking onto the bench again.

  He felt it. Like it or not, she had unfinished business with Drew Downing. Too much of it.

  Janet bumbled through the next few hours, checking in with Annie at the bus and with her mom at the bed and breakfast. Kevin now had an army of church volunteers assembled to nurse him back to health. Annie’s composure was unraveling as she realized the prayer meeting now fell solely on her shoulders. When Janet suggested she just cancel the thing given the circumstances, Annie’s jaw dropped. “We couldn’t!”

  “Why not?” Janet retorted. “People can pray anywhere, right? It doesn’t need to be a group activity—just tell people to pray for Kevin and the project on their own tonight.”

  “Not in a million years.” Annie said. “Even if Drew wouldn’t have my hide—which he would—I’d want to gather people to pray when things go wrong. That’s the best time to gather people to pray.” She sank back against the bus. “I just hate the thought of getting in front of that microphone. I’ll get Jeremy to do it.”

  Janet leaned back against the bus with her. The woman looked petrified, and Janet wanted to help any way she could. “So don’t use a mic. Just have people gather lik
e you said. Someone’ll start singing if the church choir shows up again anyway. You don’t need to make a production of it if that’s driving you crazy.”

  Annie blinked at her. “You’re right. There’s always more than one way to do a prayer meeting. Why didn’t I think of that?”

  Janet had to smile. “You would have, just as soon as you caught your breath.”

  “You should come.” It wasn’t a manipulative invitation the way Annie said it—it was just a heartfelt statement from one exhausted person to another.

  “Not really my thing,” Janet said. “Mom’ll be there, though. And the whole rest of the church—I mean those that aren’t on Kevin nurse duty.”

  Annie’s eyes fell shut and she let her head fall back against the bus wall. “Praise God he’s all right. It could have been so much worse. I don’t know what I’d do without him.”

  As Janet finished up with Annie and said good-night, she wondered if Drew realized what was going on between Annie and Kevin. The looks, the fighting. Janet wondered if even they realized how much they cared for each other yet. She caught herself gazing heavenward and asking “What are You up to?” And then she shook herself because it was something she would have done years ago.

  Chapter Nineteen

  “No offense, but you look awful.” Drew had practically shuffled toward Janet, looking drawn and frazzled. Even though it was early for an insomniac like him, he looked like he’d fall asleep the minute he got in the car.

  “Longest day of my life. Literally, with the time change and all. I sure hope it was worth it.” He slung his jacket over one shoulder and began walking toward the airport exit. “What a blessing not to have to wait for baggage. Get me outta here.”

  “Did you get what you went for?”

  If there was anything between them, he was too tired to show it. Maybe she’d imagined what passed between them when he said how much he was looking forward to seeing her. “I don’t know how Charlie does it,” he said, shaking his head. “All that negotiating is exhausting. I feel like I ran a marathon and all I did all day was sit around tables talking. How’d the prayer meeting go?” he asked, evidently too wiped out to remember she didn’t go to those things.