The Pastor Takes a Wife Page 17

  “Much more.” Jeb kissed her temple. “Marry me, Megan.”

  Megan closed her eyes for a minute, silently praying that what she wanted more than anything in her life was also God’s will for her. “Yes,” she whispered and, realizing she’d spoken aloud, she lifted her face to his and grinned. “Yes,” she shouted, the sound bouncing off the hard stone surrounding them. She flung her arms around Jeb. “Tomorrow, next week, next year.”

  Their joyous laughter was interrupted by the approach of townspeople with lamps and chain saws. “You two okay?” Pete Burbank called.

  “Couldn’t be better,” Jeb assured him. “Now get us out of here.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  M egan’s high spirits were dampened by the reality of the storm’s aftermath. Their first indication of the extent of the damage was the large tree that had fallen on Kyle’s sports car, crushing it as if it were made of paper. Megan couldn’t suppress the shudder that ran through her at the idea that Faith could have been in that car.

  The lake road itself was littered with branches and debris. Jeb reached over and held her hand. “Mike Caspin said nobody was hurt, Megan.”

  “And I’m thankful for that, but, Jeb, what about their homes and businesses? What if the inn or Reba’s house or the church…”

  “Shh… It will all work out,” he assured her. “Everyone will pull together as they always do.”

  He turned onto the main road and Megan breathed a sigh of relief when she saw only minor damage—a door ripped askew here, some broken glass there and roof tiles littering the street in several places. “It doesn’t look as bad as it was back there,” she said as they passed people already starting to clean up.

  “I expect the thing blew itself out once it was over the lake, and that saved the town from extensive damage.” He turned onto the lane that led them past the inn and up to the parsonage and church.

  Megan sat forward, scanning each structure for damage, and when she saw Reba and Faith putting the inn’s rocking chairs back in place on the porch, she practically leaped from the car before Jeb could bring it to a stop.

  “Mom!” Faith cried, setting a chair down and running to meet them. “Are you okay?”

  “Just a nasty bruise on this hard head of mine. How about you?”

  “Couple of scratches from climbing around in the cave up there.”

  Mother and daughter held one another at arm’s length as if to reassure themselves that both had indeed survived the storm. Then Megan pulled Faith close and hugged her until the girl was laughing. “Mom, I need to breathe.”

  Megan loosened her hold as the images of how differently this all might have played out raced through her mind once again. “Where’s Kyle?” she asked.

  “Uh-oh, you’re wearing your got-to-protect-my-cub face.”

  “Where is he?”

  “Nursing a black eye and bloody nose,” Faith said, pointing toward a hunched figure on the steps of the church. “Caleb belted him good, and if he hadn’t I think Gramps might have. He was so ticked off.”

  By this time Reba had hobbled down the porch steps, and Jeb, who had hung back to give mother and daughter time, stepped forward.

  “You get yourself up to the house and get some ice on that bump, missy,” Reba ordered. Her snappishness was a clear indication that she had been frightened and now needed to take action.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Megan said, as she took the older woman’s arm and headed back to the house.

  “Faith, could I talk to you a moment?” Jeb asked when Faith started to follow them.

  The girl eyed him with her usual polite but distant smile. “Sure.”

  All around them people were scurrying around, cleaning up after the storm, calling out greetings to those they hadn’t seen since before the storm, and—in a few cases—clearly waiting for Jeb to take charge at the church.

  “I’ll be there in a few minutes,” he called when Rick Epstein shouted a question about boarding up some broken windows. Jeb turned his attention back to Faith. “Could we walk down to the pier?”

  Her eyes narrowed. “I wasn’t drinking, Rev Jeb. The others were, but I promised Mom, and besides…”

  “This isn’t a lecture or sermon, Faith. I need to ask you something, okay?”

  Curious now, Faith walked with him to the pier.

  “Ever skip a rock?” Jeb asked, scooping up a handful of stones from the side of the road. He was suddenly nervous in the presence of this strong-willed girl who he hoped one day might think of him as her father.

  “That’s the big question?”

  “No. It’s small talk,” he admitted, skipping a stone across the water and then offering her one from his collection.

  She took it and skipped it expertly.

  “Wow. Impressive,” he said, and meant it.

  “Thanks.” She took another stone from his hand and skipped it. “Look, if this is about you dating Mom, I have no objections. You make her happy and that’s a good thing.”

  “And what if I didn’t want to date her? What if I wanted to marry her?”

  Faith’s third stone plopped and sank on the first bounce. “That’s not news.”

  “What if we’d decided to marry as soon as possible—like maybe in a week or so?”

  That got her attention. “Are you serious? I thought the plan was to wait until I graduated or at least…”

  “Look, Faith, one thing I’ve figured out in my short time as a minister is that God has a way of tapping us on the shoulder from time to time, reminding us that life on this planet is short and He expects us to make the most of it. What I’m asking, Faith, is your blessing for your mom and me to marry—soon.”

  Instead of answering, Faith sat down on the edge of the pier, her feet dangling over the water. “You had a wife and a daughter.” It wasn’t a question.

  “I did.”

  “Mom says your daughter would have been about my age.”

  “A year or so younger.”

  “You must miss them both.”

  Jeb began to see where this was going, so he sat next to her without touching her. “I will always miss them, Faith. But they aren’t coming back. This isn’t about trying to replace them. Your mother is nothing at all like my late wife and you are nothing like my daughter—and I am not at all the man I was when they were part of my life.”

  “Still…”

  “I think your mom deserves some real happiness—the kind that comes wrapped in the love of a man who respects her and sees a future with her that could make such a difference. I think I can offer her that, and I already know what she gives to me.”

  Faith’s hair fell across her face. “What?”

  “She makes my heart sing in ways it hasn’t in a very long time—even long before my wife and daughter died. And I think because she has known her own pain, she understands the pain of others.”

  Several minutes passed and Jeb had to fight his instinct to keep stating his case as he would have in a business situation.

  “Do I have to call you Dad?”

  “Well, the way you phrased that tells me you’d rather not, and that’s fine with me.”

  “Because I have a dad.” Faith continued as if he hadn’t spoken. “He doesn’t seem to want me, but he’s out there and Mom told me I could make my own choice about when or even whether to contact him.” She swiped at tears and Jeb risked touching her shoulder.

  Instead of jerking away as he might have expected, she collapsed against him, her tears coming in earnest now. “He just doesn’t know you,” Jeb said, wrapping his arm around her. “And when and if you decide to contact him, he’s going to regret all the time he let pass without knowing you. In the meantime, you’ve got your grandfather.”

  “And you,” she whispered.

  “And me,” Jeb assured her.

  They decided on an outdoor wedding in Reba’s flower garden next to the inn—a decision that Megan had second thoughts about when she came downstairs one morning and found Reba
surrounded by crude drawings and pictures of massive floral displays.

  “Containers,” she announced. “That’s the answer. With containers, you can have the color palette and design you want. I’ve already contacted Margie Caspin and she’s agreed to let us dig some of her perennials. Question is whether or not they’ll hold up. Well, with stakes and enough water, we can make them work. Now then…”

  “Reba, this looks like a lot of work, and where are you going to get containers this size?”

  “They have some at the garden center in Eagle River.”

  “But they’ll cost a fortune.”

  “Not at all. I spoke to the owner and suggested that they could launch a whole new facet of their business by agreeing to set up this wedding on a rental basis.”

  “Still…”

  “Oh, honey, let me give you and Jeb this, okay?”

  Megan hesitated.

  “The more you learn to say yes, the better your life is going to be, missy,” Reba warned.

  “Yes,” Megan said, her expression a mask of pain. Then she grinned. “Yes, thank you,” she said and hugged Reba.

  “Mom?” Faith shouted from outside as a car horn tooted. “Are you coming or what?”

  “Jessica’s taking us shopping for a gown and maid of honor dress,” Megan reminded Reba. “Promise me you won’t try digging up anything until we get back, okay?” She kissed Reba’s forehead and grabbed her purse. “Coming!”

  Chapter Seventeen

  M egan was determined to remember every detail of her wedding day, but it had held so many surprises that she knew it would be some time before the full impact of all the ways her life had changed hit her.

  The day had begun with Owen’s announcement as the two of them sat together in the back of the empty church just hours before the guests were scheduled to arrive.

  “I was thinking about that Armstrong kid,” he said. “The older boy. Seems to me he’s on a path to self-destruction.”

  “I understand that his parents have taken him back to Milwaukee and admitted him to a clinic for alcohol abuse,” Megan said.

  “That’s a start. But I was talking to Jeb last night, and he suggested there were others in town who might benefit from getting some help.”

  Megan thought about the rumors surrounding at least half a dozen people who lived in the area. “Probably,” she admitted.

  “Jeb thought that he and I might start an AA group at the church—put the word out and see if anybody shows up.”

  That got Megan’s full attention. She sat down opposite her father and took his hand. “Dad, that’s a wonderful idea, don’t you think?”

  Owen shrugged. “Jeb seems to think that folks would connect with my experience, and I have to say that finding an AA meeting most everywhere I went helped keep me sober these last four years.” He looked at Megan. “Do you think I could do it—help somebody else?”

  “I know you can.”

  Owen smiled. “It would be a way of leaving something behind—something you and Faith could take pride in.”

  Jeb had taken Megan and Owen to see a specialist in Chicago and the news had not been good. Short of a transplant, there was little hope that Owen would make it past another couple of years, at best.

  “Doctors don’t know everything,” Megan said, her voice strained as she tried to force out the words around the lump in her throat.

  “No, and maybe God will send us a miracle, but in the meantime, nothing wrong with putting my house in order. So, what do you think?”

  “I just wish…”

  Owen cupped her cheek. “No more wishing, child. What do you think about the AA meeting idea?”

  “I think Jeb knows a winner when he sees one. Go for it, Dad, but either way know this—I am so proud of the way you turned your life around, and I am so thankful that you decided to come back here so I could know that.”

  “Want to know who inspired me?”

  “God?”

  “You. Whatever good I may have time to do in this life, nothing will hold a candle to the good your mother and I did when we had you.”

  He fumbled in his pocket and pulled out an envelope that looked as if it had been lost at the post office for decades. “I had forgotten about this, Megan, until the other day when Jon Barnsworth stopped me in the bank and asked that I come to his office.”

  “What is it?” Megan hesitated to take the envelope, suddenly terrified that it might change everything.

  “When your mother left me, she left this for you. I was supposed to give it to you when you were eighteen, but by then I was gone and you had Faith and, well, I was so pickled I forgot all about it.”

  “How did Mr. Barnsworth get it?”

  “I had put this in a small safe-deposit box I had at the bank. When the rent on the box went unpaid for a couple of years a bank employee was told to empty the box. She brought this to Barnsworth and he just held on to it. Then with the passing of time he forgot about it as well, until I came back to town.” He laid the envelope on the table. “It’s yours if you want it.”

  The same looped handwriting that Megan had studied in the front of her childhood books had bled across the thick rose-colored parchment envelope.

  “It’s from her.”

  Owen nodded. “Maybe it’s unfair to give it to you today, of all days, but I want you to start this life with Jeb without anything missing from your past. You can open it and read it, or toss it in the trash. Your choice.”

  Megan stared at the envelope for a long moment as memories triggered by the strange yet familiar scrawl assailed her. In what seemed like slow motion she slid her thumb under the flap. It gave easily, the glue having long since dried out.

  There were two matching sheets of paper inside.

  “Do you know what it says?” she asked.

  “No. You want to read it to me, fine. If not, I’ll leave you to it.”

  “Stay, Dad. This may be the answer we’ve both waited a lifetime to hear.”

  Owen settled back in the pew, his arms folded across his chest as Megan unfolded the letter.

  “‘My darling Megan.’” Her voice cracked and she cleared her throat impatiently. “‘There are no words to explain what I’ll have done by the time you read this. And there is no way I can find to not hurt you and your father in what I am doing. Someday I hope you will understand why. The truth is that I don’t think I can do this anymore. I thought when I met your father that love would conquer everything, but the truth is that I want so much more than a life in Singing Springs. The very idea that I might never have the chance to follow my dreams scares me beyond anything I can imagine. And I know how selfish that must sound, but perhaps when you are my age you will understand because you will have followed dreams of your own. My wish for you is that you find everything you want in this life—happiness, success in whatever you choose to do and the love of a man as devoted and decent and caring as your father. Perhaps one day we will see each other again, but if that day never comes I will understand. This is the most difficult decision I will ever make, Megan, and if it is the wrong decision then God forgive me. All my love forever, Mom.’”

  Megan clutched the paper as the storm of unacknowledged feelings rocketed through her. Anger, hostility, anguish, resentment gradually gave way to sorrow for a woman so deeply self-centered that she had knowingly turned her back on the love of a man devoted to her and of a child who had once thought the sun rose and set in her.

  She folded the pages precisely and returned them to the envelope.

  “Can you forgive her?” Owen asked after a long moment.

  “Can you?”

  He nodded. “That’s why I went to California. Once I realized that I had destroyed my life and a good deal of yours by blaming myself, I had to see for myself how it had all turned out for her.”

  “And?”

  “She never knew I was there.”

  “But I thought…”

  “She’s got a family out there, Megan. Husband, gr
own kids and three grandchildren. She dotes on them and she’s quite the social leader in San Diego—heading up all sorts of charity events and such. From what I was able to find out, she traveled quite a bit when she first left, moved from one job to the next and finally married her boss—a real estate tycoon.”

  “Oh, Dad, I’m so sorry.”

  “I’m not. She was right. I knew early on that she wasn’t happy, but I had my work here and thought in time… Jeb was telling me that he thought that way too when he was married before. ‘The danger of believing in someday’ is what Jeb called it.”

  Megan waited for tears that did not come. Instead she felt a sense of peace, of closure. Her mother had made choices as Megan had. Whether or not her mother’s had been guided by God’s grace she couldn’t say, but she knew that hers had. Every painful and joyous moment of her life had been leading her to this day. She had never been surer of anything in her life.

  “Dad?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Ready to walk me down the aisle?”

  Owen hugged her hard as the letter slipped from her grasp. “Nothing would give me greater pleasure,” he assured her.

  Reba insisted that it was bad luck for the groom to see his bride the day of the wedding and stationed herself on the front porch of the inn. There she had the best view of the church and parsonage and could oversee setting up the chairs outdoors for the wedding, as well. She had assigned Jessica the role of helping Faith get Megan ready.

  “Reba’s snapping at everyone,” Megan told Jessica, as her friend applied the subtle makeup that she had assured Megan would simply highlight her natural beauty.

  “It’s the maternal thing. She’s sending her chick out into a world she won’t be here to oversee.”

  “I’m glad her daughter and family came up for this. They’ll be a comfort to her.”

  Jessica laughed. “I’m not so sure. Seems to me her daughter is every bit as strong-willed and stubborn as Reba is. That’s going to be an interesting household once they all move in together in Arizona.”