Bossy Bridegroom

by Mary Connealy

  “But what you did, giving to people, even if it was just one at a time, like with your hospice work, was the real thing. True Christian service. Pastor Bert was dead right about that.” Michael rested one hand on her chest. “That’s your gift. This generous heart. And I’m benefiting from it because only someone as generous as you would have forgiven me.”

  Michael suddenly wrapped one arm around her shoulder and practically dragged her toward their shabby old house. “Let’s go home.”

  Jeanie raced along with him. She didn’t want to give up her jobs. The truth was she got so much more than she ever gave in her work. If she helped others, that was wonderful, but those people—the elderly, the library patrons, the children in 4-H and Girl Scouts—made her feel worthwhile. She’d known since she started this whirlwind of volunteering that it was rooted in her own sense of failure and selfishness.

  As if she could be good enough, generous enough, self-sacrificing enough to deserve God’s love. But she knew in her heart that she couldn’t earn salvation. It was a free gift, and her nearly frantic efforts to be worthy were misguided. It was time she let go of her past failure and forgave herself.

  So, if Michael wanted her to quit, she should.

  She would quit in an orderly way so no one was left in need, but she would quit and cut back on her volunteer work. She’d devote herself to her marriage and Michael’s vision for Cold Creek and try, finally, to forgive herself.

  It was scriptural that she’d let Michael be the head of the house. He wanted her to quit. She’d quit.

  Turning to Michael as they entered the house, she opened her mouth to tell him all of this. They were new people in Christ. Their marriage was new, and it was based on complete honesty. This was something she needed to share and work through with her husband.

  Before she could speak, his lips met hers, and she knew without a doubt that Michael wasn’t in the mood to have a heart-to-heart talk. As she wrapped her arms around him, she decided it could wait.

  twelve

  “I want to give notice that I’m quitting.” Jeanie smiled at Tim Russo, the owner of the mini-mart.

  She knew she’d really helped by working two Saturdays a month. The store was family-owned, and the long hours and hectic schedule of the place was a strain. Their profit margin was slim, and they couldn’t pay much. Her help had given the family their only day off twice a month.

  The money wasn’t good enough to tempt many people, and her boss looked at her in dismay. “I can’t say I’m surprised. We really appreciate your help this last year. It’s made a world of difference in our family to have that free time.” Tim smiled, but he looked worried. “I feel like my kids have gotten to know me again.” He squared his shoulders. “But this year, well, they’ve gotten older. They’ve started working with me on the Saturdays you don’t come in. We’ll get by.”

  “I can keep working until you find someone to take my shift.” Her heart sinking, Jeanie nearly backed down and agreed to stay on, but she’d made her decision. She hadn’t told Michael yet. She’d decided to surprise him instead.

  “No need. We’ll be fine.” Tim rested one burly hand on her shoulder. “We really appreciate your help. We’ll try, but we won’t be able to replace you. No, your husband’s back, and you two need time together. I understand that better than anybody. Consider yourself fired.” He shooed her good-naturedly toward the door.

  Jeanie felt bad about it, but she thanked him and left for the library.

  There the mini-mart scene was repeated. The librarian, Julia Leesmith, was a retired schoolteacher, and the library was open only part-time. She insisted she didn’t mind going back to her Thursday night schedule, although she’d have to give up a ladies’ group that met once a month.

  The nursing home was harder. She knew they were shorthanded to begin with, employing lots of high schoolers who were notorious for needing time off for school events. The administrator took her up on her offer to stay until they found a replacement. She’d still be there for her hospice work and the Monday church service, but she’d grown fond of the residents of Cold Creek Manor as well as her coworkers and felt as if she was abandoning friends in need.

  By evening Jeanie was near tears. Determined not to dump her emotional distress on Michael when he was still flying from the triumph of the holiday weekend, she had dinner ready by the time he got home. She remembered he’d insisted on that before.

  Sliding a plate of meatloaf and mashed potatoes in front of him—it had been his favorite before, and Jeanie had carefully listened to his mother and learned to make it perfectly—she announced, “I’ve started simplifying my life.”

  Michael looked up from his plate. “What do you mean?”

  Jeanie smiled and tried to make it look sincere even though her heart was breaking. “I told the mini-mart, the library, and the nursing home that I quit. The nursing home is the only place that asked me to stay on until they can find a replacement. So I’ll be down to one job soon.”

  “Did they say how long it will take to find a replacement?” Michael tapped the white stoneware plate with his fork.

  Jeanie had found the dishes and silverware used for a few dollars. Except for the bedrooms, their house was furnished out of junk stores with her meager apartment furniture. She was surprised Michael put up with it. But he’d been busy.

  “They could string you along. You probably should have just given them two weeks’ notice.”

  Jeanie gave him a saucy smile that she’d never dared give him in their earlier years. “Well, of course they’re going to string me along. They’re very sorry to lose me.”

  Michael smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes.

  She hurried to reassure him. “The administrator is a good man. He’ll respect my request. But the LPN program is hinged on me putting in some hours. I’ve been carpooling to a community college to take classes once a week. We’re on break now, but classes start again in the fall, and my work counts toward course credits. If I quit completely, I’ll lose the credit I’ve built up. I’d like to finish that. Have my license.”

  Michael’s eyebrows lowered. “You don’t need the license. You’re not going to go back to that kind of work.”

  “I—I might someday.”

  “Why would you? I’m going to take care of you now.”

  Jeanie didn’t respond. To say she wanted to be able to take care of herself seemed like she didn’t trust him. “It would just give me a great feeling of accomplishment to finish what I started.”

  “We’ll have to see if you’ve got time. You can try to get the hours in.” Scooping meatloaf into his mouth, Michael chewed and swallowed. “This is Mom’s recipe, isn’t it?”

  Jeanie’s heart perked a bit. He’d noticed. “Yes, it was always your favorite.”

  “It’s delicious, but it’s no wonder Dad died of a heart attack, adding cheese and this sweet sauce to it. Fat and calories. Did you buy lean hamburger?”

  “The local store doesn’t have much of a selection.” Jeanie began revamping the recipe.

  “What about the senior center? When will you tell them you’re quitting?”

  She hadn’t until this moment let herself think about Golden Days. She’d miss them so much. Tears burned as she remembered how those folks had opened their hearts to her when she arrived in Cold Creek, a new Christian. Her new baby faith had grown under their kindness. No, she didn’t have a servant’s heart at all, no matter what others said. Every time she helped someone, she received more than she gave.

  Grateful that Michael was fixated on the meal, she fought back the tears and quickly swiped her wrist across her eyes. This wasn’t his problem. She’d thought at first that they should talk it through, but now it was a gift she wanted to give him.

  “I won’t just quit there. I have to make sure there’s someone to take over.”

  “Of course you do. I know it’ll be hard to replace you. A lot of those ladies are pretty spry, though. Maybe they could do the cooking a
nd cleaning.”

  “That’s true. Some of them can work circles around me.” She thought fondly of their busy hands and wisdom.

  “So, they’ll find someone. Maybe they could even run it as a co-op.”

  “Well, they already help, or I could never manage dinner for twenty-five people every day. But there’s a lot more to it than just cooking and cleaning. There’s fund-raising and a lot of government paperwork to qualify for the financial aid we get. Some of it gets pretty complicated.”

  Michael waved his fork. “Maybe you could do the paperwork for a while—maybe work on that from the café. But I really need you if we’re going to hope to keep the café open all day. We’ll have our own family business.” He set his fork aside and slid his hand across the table to clasp hers. His warmth and strength helped settle her. “I like that. Us together as a team.”

  The tears no longer threatened as she looked into his bright eyes. “Yes, doing the book work from the café could be a temporary solution.”

  “Good, because I’d like you to be available to work at the café right away. Two weeks’ notice is all anyone can ask, and even that is more tradition than ethical. It’s a dog-eat-dog world out there. Most businesses expect their employees to move on with very little notice.”

  “I’ve always thought it was common courtesy to give an employer time to make adjustments.” It crossed Jeanie’s mind that her new employer was, in effect, her husband. She spoke a bit sharply when she added, “Any decent new employer would respect that.”

  Displeasure cut a furrow across Michael’s forehead. His hand, resting gently on the back of hers, tightened. “If you’re talking about me, I’m not your new employer. We’re partners. I thought that was what you wanted.”

  Fear twisted in Jeanie’s stomach. It was mild, a reflex really, left over from the old days. When Michael first came to town, she’d have used it as an excuse to whack him with the bat. But that wasn’t right for them now. She didn’t fear her husband. But she did respect him, and what she’d just said was rude. Who could blame him for being annoyed?

  She turned her hand over and wove her fingers through his. “It is what I want. I’ll get it all straightened out as soon as possible.”

  Michael nodded, satisfied, then let go of her hand and went back to his meal.

  Her food grew cold as she worried at that fear. Michael had never laid a hand on her, ever. He’d done all his damage with words, cutting insults, tiny at first, then bigger and crueler. She let that worry morph into fretting about her friends at the nursing home and the senior center. The truth was she worked dirt cheap and worked hard. And both places scraped along, just like the library and the mini-mart. It wasn’t a prosperous town. They were going to have a hard time replacing her.

  “Why aren’t you eating?” Michael picked up his plate and carried it to the kitchen sink.

  Jeanie shrugged. “It was hard today. I loved working for those people, and they need me. I feel guilty abandoning them. I guess it killed my appetite.”

  Michael snagged his chair, moved it next to her, and sat down. “Well, don’t skip too many meals.” Michael grinned at her. “If you get any skinnier, you’ll blow away.”

  “I thought you liked me skinny.”

  “I like everything about you.” Michael lifted her onto his lap.

  She squeaked in surprise then wrapped her arms around his neck, glad he was happy with her again. Yes, he liked everything about her, except her jobs and her volunteer work—the things that gave her a feeling of self-worth. And her skinny body. He’d had a real problem with the weight she’d gained after Sally was born. So he didn’t like her skinny and he didn’t like her fat.

  She had a split second to consider calling him on this strange, mildly hurtful conversation. He’d told her he wanted to be held accountable. But he was smiling, and she didn’t want him to stop. And then he was kissing her, reassuring her with his touch that he liked her very much. And she definitely didn’t want him to stop that.

  He’d been so sweet about waiting until she was ready to make their marriage a real one, but she felt his frustration, and that deepened her guilt. But she still wasn’t ready. Michael would just have to be patient.

  One of his very worst skills.

  thirteen

  Jeanie had her hands full controlling her inner battle-ax. But she was careful not to become a nagging shrew of a wife.

  Michael returned to his cheerful self. Of course, she tried hard to be loving and give him the respect due any husband.

  The senior center surprised her by deciding to close when she resigned. Feeling terrible about it, they announced they’d all come to her restaurant for their noon meal, and some of them for breakfast and dinner, too. The community Meals-on-Wheels program had been attached to the senior center, so Jeanie continued providing those meals, and local volunteers delivered them just as they always had, only now they worked out of Jeanie’s Café.

  There was paperwork to do to transfer the government part of the subsidized program to a new address, along with the usual accounting. Michael agreed, somewhat grudgingly, to give a senior discount that equaled the very low price the Cold Creek retirees had been paying at Golden Days.

  It made the café the center of the town’s activities and brought attention to his rapidly expanding row of cabins. After the success of the rented Buffalo Bus on Memorial Day, Michael had found a shabby but functioning bus and bought it. He’d had signs attached to the side so they had an official Buffalo Bus and could run rides whenever a group asked for them.

  Michael came into the café one hot day in the middle of June, exuberant. “We’re building a golf course.”

  Jeanie looked up from her book work. She now did the books for the senior center, Meals-on-Wheels, the café, craft shop, and cabins as well. Michael had offered to do it, but she’d insisted. It had seemed like a matter of honor that she not turn over all the money to him, but she regretted taking on so much work that Michael would have done joyfully.

  She really wasn’t book smart. She was reminded of that daily as she struggled at her computer to make her account columns balance.

  “A golf course?”

  “Yeah, it was Jake Hanson’s idea. There’s a nice plot of land, too rough for much else, on the south side of town. He’s getting a group together to do the work themselves. Did you know Jake is rich?”

  “I guess I never thought about it. He doesn’t live a fancy life.”

  “He’s loaded. I’m going to encourage him to keep investing in this Cold Creek revitalization project. He sounds willing. He’s excited about the golf course.”

  “Can you do that? Build a golf course yourself?” Jeanie knew nothing about golf, and that was the plain truth.

  “Sure you can. It’s mainly working with the contours and hazards already there and planting grass. Jake has the farm equipment, and we’ve got lots of people who can pitch in. It’ll be rough at first, but that’ll make for a challenging course. And I want to open up the garage bay on this place. Make it a bait and tackle shop, maybe carry some camping equipment. You’ve got the back room full of crafts, and I think we need to move them to the abandoned building next to the city offices on Main Street.”

  “Open another business?” Jeanie glanced at her mangled efforts at bookkeeping, wondering if she was up to it.

  Mayor Herne rushed into the café, his face flushed pink from the summer heat. He pulled out a handkerchief and mopped his brow. “This golf course will be great. If we throw a lot of effort into it, we could seed the grass in September and possibly have it open for the late fall. There are several schoolteachers who aren’t busy this summer who offered to do a lot of the heavy labor, cutting a fairway through a stand of trees here and there.”

  Jeanie didn’t speak up about her worries over the craft shop or the bait and tackle. Heaving a sigh of relief that the golf course wasn’t her problem, she went back to her figuring.

  Michael and Bucky talked. A few more people ca
me in, excited about the course. Jake came in carrying pictures of his baby, and he divided his time between fatherly pride and a long suppressed love of golf.

  “I wish you’d brought Emily in, Jake. I haven’t been out yet with a meal. I get lonely for her.” Emily had been the best support in this last year. She was steady, sensible. Buffy was, too, but she had the same scars from her childhood that Jeanie had. And she had her hands really full. Plus Jeanie felt like such a failure around Buffy, no matter how kindly Buffy treated her.

  Michael offered to design a simple clubhouse, and several of the men owned golf carts. They kept them in Hot Springs at the country club, the nearest place to play. But they offered to rent them out for people wanting to get from the cabins to the shops uptown to the golf course.

  Jeanie listened with part of her attention while she did her figuring. Michael and his enthusiasm had caught fire yet again. She wanted to smile. She also had a twinge of concern that the local people were taking on too much, maybe donating more than they could afford.

  With a mental shrug, Jeanie typed on until the crowd got agitated with a need to act and they all scrambled out the door, heading toward the future Cold Creek Links.

  Jeanie spent another hour on her books then walked out to the nursing home to spend some time with her hospice patients. The outlook was bleak for both the patients, as was always the case, but one, Pete Hillman, had his family called in and wasn’t expected to live through the night. Sadness hung heavy in the air. Jeanie spent a long while with Pete’s two sons and their elderly mother as they discussed details of a funeral and all the complications involved in a loved one’s death.

  Her other hospice person, Janet Lessman, was in nearly as fragile a condition, and the elderly woman had her husband sitting faithfully by her side for hours every day. They had time for a brief visit and some prayer before she left.

  By the time she walked home, it was well past time for dinner.