High Plains Hearts (10 page)

Tess’s heart was light and free when she entered the sanctuary. The first sight of the Christmas decorations always took her breath away. She was never quite prepared for it.

She sang the processional, “O Come, All Ye Faithful,” with gusto. It was one of her favorite hymns, especially the line, “Born the king of angels.”

Reverend Barnes invited one of the children up to the front. A little boy, his red hair slicked into place, joined the minister at the pulpit.

“Do you know what Advent is?” Reverend Barnes asked the young lad.

“Yes, sir. It’s the time of the coming. Jesus is coming. In four weeks and three days. That’s ‘til Christmas Eve. Four weeks and four days, and it’s Christmas morning. We’re going to Aunt Edie’s, unless Uncle Ned has to work, and then she’ll come here, and we’ll drive out to Grandpa’s. He gots horses, you know. Six of them, but they don’t all have shoes. But a horse’s shoe isn’t like a person’s shoe. It doesn’t go on with Velcro.”

The congregation was roaring, but the little boy didn’t hear, so intent was he upon his story. He had the minister’s entire attention, and he wasn’t about to let it go. Tess couldn’t hear his words anymore, but she saw one hand make a little fist and pound it on the sole of his sneaker, obviously exhibiting how a horse was shod.

Reverend Barnes regained control by offering to let the little boy light the first candle. “We light the candle of Hope today,” he said as he guided the boy’s hand to the wick. “And what are we hoping for? This week I want you to focus on that in your prayers and meditation time. Let this be a week of crystallizing your priorities.”

The little boy looked at him, puzzled, so Reverend Barnes clarified. “Deciding what’s really important. What are you hoping for this year?”

“I want a race car,” the boy said loudly. “Not a toy one, but a real one. I want to drive it—vroom! vroom!—to my sister’s school. I could drive real fast if I had a race car. I would—”

His mother, red-faced but laughing, held her arms out for her child, and he happily went to her, wrapping his arms around her neck.

“At least he knows why he wants a race car,” Reverend Barnes said, smiling at the little boy as he settled between his parents. “Let’s take a lesson from him and examine our own wishes and motives—not just for Christmas, but for all aspects of our lives.”

Tess pondered his words as he ended the sermon and moved into the announcements. She listened only vaguely as he ran through the notices of meetings, Sunday school outings, and special projects.

“If any visitors are among us today, we invite you to stand and introduce yourself so we might greet you and welcome you after the service.” It was his traditional ending for the announcements, and Tess automatically looked up to see which family had visiting relatives.

To her astonishment Jake stood up. “I’m Jake Cameron. I was invited by Tess Mahoney, and I’m delighted to be here with you.”

In one motion the entire congregation turned and looked at her. Tess cringed as the dreaded flush crept up her neck and spread onto her face.

Reverend Barnes beamed at her, then Jake, and told the congregation, “This young man helped us with the Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday. We’ve already come to enjoy him, and we look forward to his presence again among us. Welcome, son.”

Jake nodded and stuck the visitor’s label the usher handed him onto his jacket.

Tess didn’t know whether to be ecstatic or furious at Jake. Why hadn’t he told her he was coming—or even that he was considering it?

But, her mind argued back, what difference would it have made?

None.

Tess was discovering something about herself—she was a busybody, always wanting to know why people did what they did and preferably knowing what they were going to do before they did it.

Well, maybe not everyone.

Maybe just Jake.

But at this moment that was more than enough.

From across the sanctuary, his gaze caught hers. He met her still-surprised eyes with a smile, almost as if he were proud of himself for being at Nativity on a Sunday morning. Actually, she was proud of him too, or she would be as soon as she could get over her astonishment at seeing him there.

For the rest of the service she kept stealing glances at him. He seemed genuinely interested and followed along closely with the bulletin and the hymnal.

He was here! She allowed herself to revel in the knowledge. He was here!

The analytical part of her wouldn’t leave it alone without pestering her purely emotional side with questions. Why was he here? Was it because he had been impressed with Nativity and Reverend Barnes on Thanksgiving evening? Or was it because he had felt a tugging on his soul to give himself to the Lord? Or was he here because he knew it would please her? And which one meant the most to her?

She recalled the situation in the choir room before church began, and once again she took the Lord at His word. She would relax and let Him do His work. All the Lord was asking of her was that she welcome each movement that brought a hungry soul closer to His presence.

Keeping her attention on the remainder of the worship was difficult, at best. When Reverend Barnes pronounced the benediction, she was almost glad.

She left the choir area—Nativity was too small to have a true loft—and instead of returning to the music room to hang up her robe, she hurried over to him.

“It’s great to have you here!” she said, trying to strike a median note between gushing with happiness and sounding accusatory. “I didn’t expect to see you here, though. You didn’t say anything yesterday about coming to church.”

“It was a spur-of-the-moment thing. I got up, showered and shaved, and was ready to head out the door to Panda’s when I thought I’d give this a try instead.” One of the men he had worked on the dinner with stopped to greet him, and Tess was impressed by how easily Jake spoke with him although he had met him only briefly that one evening.

Tess didn’t hear the first part of their conversation, but she caught the later words, when the man asked if Jake was going to start coming to Nativity.

“This is a wonderful church, and I’ve certainly enjoyed it,” Jake replied, and Tess noted, with a heart that sank just a notch, that he didn’t really answer the man’s question.

She reminded herself that she had known him only a few days, but those days seemed like years. Was it possible to fall in love this quickly?

This man with the chocolate brown eyes and dark hair silvered with early gray, could he be the one intended for her? Maybe, she thought somewhat ruefully, at her age God sped up the clock and ran courtships at breakneck speed. It was probably necessary when you were on the outer fringes of the dating stage of life.

“This is all too grand,” the birdlike voice of Ellen Smalley twittered in Tess’s ear as she fluttered in place, adjusting the lace collar on her nut-brown dress, and tucking an escaping strand of faded brown hair back into the bun at the nape of her neck. “You know, you can go sit with him after the choir sings. Many couples like to do that. Then they’re together for the rest of the service. It can be so cozy.”

Jake was still in conversation with the man, but Tess saw him watching her curiously as she spoke with the organist. As much as she loved the woman, she wanted her to do nothing more than go away and forget she ever saw Jake Cameron.

It was clear that Ellen Smalley had no intentions of going away, and she certainly wasn’t going to forget Jake. “I believe I’m remembering correctly”—flutter, flutter, adjust sleeves, tap hair—“that he has a splendid singing voice. A baritone, as I recall.”

“I’m sorry. I don’t know,” Tess replied, trying to smile serenely although her teeth were clenched so tightly that her latest round of dental work was in serious peril.

“We could use a strong baritone in the choir. Well, we could use any strong male voice in the choir. Ted Walman is the only loudish voice we have, and”—the organist’s voice sank to a whisper that everyone in the narthex could hear—“he can’t sing for a hill of beans.”

Tess smiled her fake smile at those who lingered nearby, obviously eavesdropping on their conversation. She fervently hoped none of them was a friend of Ted Walman.

“He’s visiting,” Tess said. “He’s a member of another church elsewhere in town.”

Mrs. Smalley drew back in reproof, her arms crossed over her plump bosom that did, for all the world, round out into a shape that looked like a bird’s chest. “You’re not thinking of leaving us and going there, are you?” she asked bluntly.

“No!” Tess’s sharp reply turned heads.

“Well—” Mrs. Smalley said with a sniff, turning her attention to Tess’s clothes and plucking a stray thread from the sleeve of her choir robe—“I hope not. We love you here at Nativity, and we want you to stay with us forever and ever and ever.”

Tess hugged her. “I won’t leave. Don’t worry.” Her heart melted as she realized how much she cared for the organist, even if the woman did often drive her crazy with her snoopiness.

“I’m glad to hear that,” Mrs. Smalley replied, brushing some invisible dust from a nearby tabletop. “He seems like a good fellow.”

Jake had finished his conversation with the man and moved back closer to Tess. Seeing her opportunity to make her getaway, she told him, “I need to put away my robe.”

“Oh, honey, let me do that,” Mrs. Smalley chirped, holding out her arms. “I don’t want to be the one who stands in the way of love’s progress.”

“We’re not—” Tess started to object. But Jake took her elbow and smoothly interjected a “Thank you” to the organist and steered Tess out of the church as if she were a small canoe.

“There’s no arguing with people like that,” Jake said. “Bless their souls—they care so deeply for others they can’t quite separate what’s helping and what’s meddling. I’m going to have to watch my p’s and q’s in this church; they love you so very much.”

They walked to her house together, not saying much because it was too cold to do more than walk home as quickly as possible. Although the temperature was barely above zero, the sun had never been brighter, the sky bluer, or the clouds fluffier than they were that morning.

Nor any cat hungrier. Cora meowed loudly at both Tess and Jake as they walked in the door. When she realized Jake hadn’t brought her any food, she stalked away, her tail twitching angrily.

“A cat the color of pussy willows,” Jake mused. “What was your grandmother like?”

Tess laughed. “Well, she certainly wouldn’t have gone off in a huff just because you hadn’t brought her food! No, Grandma was a very mannerly, very polite, very gentle, and sweet woman.”

Jake knelt and tried to lure Cora out from under the Hoosier cabinet with his key chain. “Cora is a lot more like my grandmother. Now there’s a personality fit.”

“You’re kidding!”

“When I was a teenager, Grandmother had advanced diabetes and kept trying to bribe me into bringing her chocolates, if you can believe it. And not sugar-free ones either. No, they had to be those expensive specialty ones.”

“Did you?”

“No! I loved the lady. I didn’t want her to die, and I certainly didn’t want to be the angel of death for her. But she kept trying to get me to do it, and I kept refusing, and she kept getting angry.”

“That must have been hard.” Her heart melted with sympathy for the young man whose grandmother asked such a difficult task of him. “Didn’t it hurt to be put in that position with her?”

“Well, I loved her. Besides, she was sick, and that probably wasn’t making her mind work all that great. What hurt the most was seeing her like that, not the way she treated me. I could go out and do something to take my mind off my problems, but she was her own problem, and she couldn’t get away from that.”

“Wow. Pretty deep thinking for a teenager,” Tess commented. “I’m impressed!”

“Mom counseled me through it. It was during Dad’s rough patch, so we were all having a hard go then. Mom would put her arm around my shoulder, give me a little hug, and tell me, ‘This, too, shall pass,’ and it did.”

She was filled with admiration for the woman who held together the family when members of it were falling apart. What a remarkable person she must be.

Cora finally succumbed to curiosity and strolled over to investigate Jake’s keys. She took her time, though, as if saying to him she was in no hurry to look at the keys, but if it would make him happy, she’d humor him and bat them around for a while.

“This is a wonderful cat, you know,” he said to Tess as he teased Cora with the ball on the key ring.

“Why don’t you have one?” she asked. “You seem to be crazy about cats.”

“I moved from a no-pets apartment to my house about a year ago, and I’ve been having some more construction done on it. I thought I’d wait until that was done, since the workers were in and out all day long with the doors open. Not good for a kitten.”

“How do you like living in the Pines?” She felt as if she were being as curious as Cora, asking all these questions, but she really wanted to know the answers. “Aside from going to your house, the only time I ever get out there is to look at the Christmas decorations at night.”

He grinned as Cora swatted the key ring, trying to get the ball free from the keys. “Done your sightseeing, or should that be light-seeing, yet this year?”

When she shook her head no, he stopped playing with Cora and looked up at her, his dark eyes gleaming with an idea. “Tonight we can drive through town and check out the Christmas lights. It’s still a little early in the season, but down in the Pines a few folks have put up some pretty elaborate displays.”

It sounded like fun. She hadn’t yet made the annual Christmastime circuit of town, gawking at the lights that brightened the winter nights, and going with him sounded even more fun.

Especially if they went in his car. Not only were the leather seats incredibly comfortable, but his heater actually warmed the car. This was a wonder to her. Her old van’s heater vaguely blew out tepid air, only neutralizing the icy interior. She couldn’t stay in it long in the heart of winter, not without losing the feeling in her fingers and toes.

He gave Cora one final loving nose rub and stood up. “I’ll come back around six thirty. We can do the grand tour of the lights and then have a late supper. How does that sound?”