A Simple Charity (17 page)

After they ordered, the conversation turned to Halfway, where Christmas decorations had been hung earlier in the week. Tate said he thought November was too early, but Kat and Zoey loved the holly garland and white lights strung across the main street. Jack mentioned that the holly was real, harvested by a local Amish nursery. He had chatted with the workers while they’d been setting up.

“And the white candles that the shopkeepers put in the windows are so inviting,” Kat said. “I know they’re LED lights, but there’s something about it that reminds me of an old-fashioned country Christmas.”

“It is very quaint.” Meg was happy that Zoey and Tate had found a serene, greeting-card picturesque community to live in. Despite the cold, Meg, Zoey, and Tate had walked here from the inn, and Meg had to admit that the twinkle of lights in the dark winter night inspired hope and cheer in a person’s heart. Meg’s home in the suburbs of Pittsburgh had a more strip-mall, transient atmosphere.

The arrival of the food brought a sense of relief for Meg; it meant this awkward dinner would be over soon. At Jack’s insistence, she had ordered fried chicken, and she savored the crisp, buttery crust and moist meat, along with au gratin potatoes and salad.

“It’s a good thing we’re walking home,” she teased as she wiped her mouth with a napkin. “I might have to take a few extra laps around Main Street to burn this off.”

“Told ya,” Jack said. “Molly’s fried chicken is to die for.”

“Delicious,” Kat agreed. “I don’t know how the Amish stay so thin with foods like that on the menu.”

“I think they burn off a lot of calories with physical activity,”
Zoey said. “And without television, there’s less temptation to be a couch potato.”

Glancing up, Meg caught Jack studying her with a look of interest in his eyes … a look of longing. Closing her eyes, she swallowed and tossed her napkin on the table. “Excuse me,” she said, ducking out to the ladies’ room.

“I’ll come with!” Zoey called, following.

Meg didn’t wait for her sister; she felt sickened by Jack the creep, and wanted some alone time for self-examination. Was she sending out the wrong signals? Giving Jack the impression that she would get involved with a married man? Well, she wouldn’t. Not in a million years. She locked herself into a stall and sat down to think.

“What a fun dinner,” Zoey said as the door closed on the stall next door. “I’m going to invite Jack and Kat to Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow. I don’t think they have any other family in Halfway, and I noticed the way Jack was looking at you. Well, we know he’s interested if he’s texting you and all that.”

Meg winced. “Okay, time for a reality check. Jack is a married man with a pregnant wife.”

“He’s what? Oh, honey!” Zoey snorted. “He’s not married. Kat is Jack’s sister!
Sister
. Her husband is in the military, stationed over in North Korea right now. Did you really think …?” Zoey’s blustery laugh filled the restroom. “Jack is definitely very available.”

“But wait …” Then that intimate moment she’d witnessed was a family moment, a sibling thing, not …“Are you kidding me?”

“I kid you not, but I think it’s a hoot that you thought they were together. Really, honey, would Tate and I hook you up with a cheating snake and his neglected wife?”

“Well, no, but …” Meg went to the sink to wash her hands and check her teeth and hair. Suddenly, her appearance mattered.

Back at the table, Meg viewed everything with a new perspective. She dug into the fried chicken with a revitalized appetite.
Warm light glimmered on the content faces around the table. Zoey and Kat glowed with the happiness of expectant mothers. Tate leaned back in the booth, relaxed by the conversation, and Jack … well, Jack had the sort of wide-open, friendly face that would look handsome in any light. She felt a new respect for him as he talked about the town’s preparations for holiday shoppers.

“All the Amish towns in Lancaster County have a boom of shoppers this time of year,” Kat said. “That’s why Jack has to work this weekend while I head off to Philly on my own.” She explained that she would leave in the morning for their grandmother’s house.

Zoey turned to Jack. “And you’re going to be alone for Thanksgiving?” When he nodded, she wagged a finger in the air. “Oh, no. That’s no good. You’re coming to have dinner with us. It’s going to be a small gathering. You know Shandell, the young woman who works for us? She’ll be there with her mother. We have some guests staying in the inn, but they’re here to connect with family. So come anytime after five. We’ll eat around six.” She patted his arm. “You can be our unbiased judge. Meg and I are doing a stuffing challenge—sausage-and-apple versus oyster.”

“Hey, when there’s sausage involved, I’m totally biased.”

“Yes! Points for me.” Meg pumped a fist in the air, causing quiet laughter around the table.

“Well, then, I guess I’ll see most of you tomorrow.” Jack excused himself, rose from the table, and slid his jacket on. The shiny gold deputy’s star flashed bright, in contrast with his navy jacket, and Meg was reminded of the star in the heavens that led the three wise men to the newborn Savior. It was a Bible story close to her heart, especially since she was in the business of bringing babies into the world.

“I’ve got to get back to work, but this was a nice surprise.” He placed a twenty onto the bill and headed out, stopping to acknowledge and shake hands with a few other diners on the way to the door.

Everyone seemed to like Jack, though that was no surprise. His friendly manner, earnest concern, and ready smile appealed to young and old. And personally, Meg had always found something downright attractive about a man in uniform. She knew her sister was trying to do a bit of matchmaking, but that was just silly with Meg living so far away. Still, Jack’s presence at dinner would make Thanksgiving a bit more interesting. Meg was looking forward to it.

“What a feast!” Jack said, looking over to the sideboard laden with platters of turkey, stuffing, vegetables in cheese or butter, mashed potatoes, and rolls.

Jack didn’t know the half of it. Meg and Zoey had gotten up early that morning—even before the Macy’s parade had begun on television—to get their birds in the oven. They had used the double ovens in the inn’s kitchen to roast two turkeys with sage stuffing, one of which Tate had shuttled over to a shelter in Lancaster while the sisters continued cooking their evening meal. Dear Zoey had a good and generous heart.

Meg took her seat at the table festively adorned with candles, orange mums, and white roses. “You’ve really outdone yourself this year, Zoey.”

“I couldn’t have done it without your help, sis. But you know I love to do things up over the holidays, and this year, we’ve got so much to be thankful for.” Zoey placed the brocade napkin on her belly and gave it a pat. “So I guess I’ll start off the thankfulness and say how grateful I am to be living in this wonderful little town with the man I love and a baby on the way.” She clasped her hands together and turned to her husband.

“And I’m grateful to Zoey for getting me out of the Wall Street jungle and into the land of milk and honey.” Tate’s graying brows
lifted as he surveyed the dinner guests. “Every day I thank the Lord for my growing family and this good life He’s led us to.”

“And I’m thankful to have a job that I love and a chance to go back to school,” Shandell said.

Shandell’s mother, Chelsea, was grateful to have found a new start here in Lancaster County after a few years in Maryland that she described as “trying.”

“I’m thankful to be here sharing this awesome dinner,” Jack said. “And Chelsea, in many ways you and I are on the same road. Halfway has been a fresh start for me, a do-over. God gave me the chance to start with a clean slate in a small town where folks look out for their neighbors and lend a hand to strangers. Living in Halfway, I’ve got reason to give thanks every day.”

“Okay, then.” A gust of emotion made Meg’s eyes blur over the burst of color in the flower arrangements. She wasn’t one to expose her feelings, but there was no dancing around the facts of the past year. “I am thankful to be able to keep doing the job I love, delivering babies. It’s been a rocky road this year. I … I lost a baby … one of the infants I was delivering and …” She took a breath to steady her nerves. “I thought they were going to kick me out of the profession and throw away the key. But they didn’t.”

“Of course they didn’t,” Zoey said. “You’re good at what you do. The best.”

“Thanks. I know my heart is in the right place. So I’m grateful to be working as a midwife. And very grateful to be here with you all tonight.”

Tate nodded. “You’re always welcome, Meg. Now … the blessing?” He closed his eyes and clasped his hands together. “Good bread, good meat, good God, let’s eat!”

“Oh, honey.” Zoey rolled her eyes. “Boys will be boys.” She reached over and took the hands of Tate and Meg on either side of her and bowed her head to thank God for the bountiful meal.

After dinner everyone pitched in. The large industrial kitchen made cleanup easy, and Zoey was excited to try their mother’s recipe for turkey noodle soup with the leftovers. Shandell and Chelsea left for a late movie—their Thanksgiving tradition—while Tate, Zoey, Jack, and Meg settled into sofas in front of the inn’s broad stone fireplace.

“Isn’t it nice that Shandell and her mom have that movie tradition on Thanksgiving?” Zoey snuggled closer to Tate on the sofa. “We need some tradition, sweetie. Something to pass down to the baby.”

Tate lifted her hand as if she were royalty. “It’s not enough that you get up at the crack of dawn to cook for the mission supper? Or the family gathering for dinner?”

“Well, that’s sort of a tradition,” Zoey said, yawning.

Meg could see that her sister was fading. “It’s a wonderful way to start Thanksgiving, even if it does require getting up so early.”

“Sorry, but the early morning is catching up with me, and baby needs sleep.” Zoey sighed. “I’m going up to bed. But you guys stay. Eat, drink, and be merry.”

Tate wasn’t far behind his wife, and soon Meg found herself nursing a cup of tea by the fire, alone with Jack. There was something very freeing about being away from the commitment to her expectant mothers, something so comforting about spending time in the Halfway to Heaven inn. Zoey and Tate had made a peaceful retreat here. Although this had all the makings of one of Zoey’s grand matchmaking schemes, Meg reminded herself that she and Jack had actually been the ones to initiate a relationship. And they weren’t starting from scratch.

“I have to say, it’s nice to have a conversation with you that can extend beyond three lines of text.”

He nodded. “Nothing like face time. But with you living hundreds of miles away, you gotta make some compromises. Besides, I’m an awesome texter, right?”

With a chuckle, she leaned back into the plush sofa. “You do make me laugh. I look forward to your messages.”

He grinned. “Snap. I was going to text you from across the table tonight at dinner, at the beginning. You looked so mad at me, I was glad we were separated by the salt and pepper.”

She pressed her eyes closed. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“What was that? Let me guess. I wasn’t hip to it at the time, but now I’m thinking that you thought Kat and I were married.”

She shot him a look. “I was so furious. Mad and disappointed with you.”

He grinned. “Meggie-Margaret. I’m not that guy. And I’d never do anything to make you mad at me. At least, not deliberately.”

Thinking back on the swell of anger and anxiety in that moment, Meg let out a sigh. “That was a near disaster. I’m so glad you redeemed yourself,” she teased.

“I didn’t do anything wrong!”

She turned to him, and they both fell into laughter. It was easy to laugh with Jack, easy to snuggle against him on the couch and ask him questions about his family, his dreams. There were so many stories to tell, so many blank pages to fill, and she was hungry for the details of Jack’s life.

“So I got my training with Philadelphia’s police force,” Jack was saying, “and when I wanted to come out this way to be near Kat and Brendan, it just so happened that Halfway was looking for a deputy. I figured it was meant to be. Hank offered me the job, I said giddyup, and here I am.”

“And that was in January? So you’re coming up on your first year here. How do you like it?”

“Let’s just say I stepped into a Norman Rockwell painting. That’s Halfway: good folks, good neighbors. People following the Golden Rule. Let me tell you, it’s a long way from Philadelphia, in more ways than one.”

“A Norman Rockwell painting. Freckle-faced kids and dogs and a smiling milkman?”

“Exactly. I’m the cop in the diner, trying to talk the little kid with the hobo sack out of running away.”

She squinted at him, pretending to assess his broad jaw, wide mouth, and warm eyes. “Yes, I see the resemblance. A cop with a good heart.”

He smacked a hand to his chest. “Shucks. I try not to let it show.” He put his mug down on the end table. “How about you? What brought you to Pittsburgh?”

“My mom and stepfather live there. It’s where I went to nursing school. I still have friends there, but you know how that goes. People get married, have kids and jobs. It’s hard to get together, especially with the demands of my job. You try to schedule things, and the best-laid plans go up in smoke.”