Lost & Found Love (8 page)

* * * *

Evan tucked the information he’d uncovered into an envelope and shoved it into his briefcase. He was breaking every ethical rule in the book, but by God, he would take this home for Jenny to see. He’d called in a few favors from former college classmates to get some of it, but the last fax arrived just a few minutes ago. From what he could see, there was plenty of reason for Mary Owens MacVie to warn Jenny about Thomas MacVie.

As he left his office, Wanda Sue Gardner, one of his paralegals, looked up and smiled. “Leaving early, aren’t you, sir?”

Just a year ago, he knew his staff would never have dared to comment on what time he left, but that was before Jenny came back into his life. He smiled. “Jenny wasn’t feeling too well today. These last few weeks are making her miserable.”

“Still waiting to be surprised?”

Evan grinned now. “Yes. Faith if it’s a girl. Peter if it’s a boy.”

Jenny’s BMW was parked on the square in front of the courthouse. He’d taken to driving it lately because she could no longer fit comfortably behind the wheel of the sports car. As he tossed his briefcase into the passenger seat, he saw Joe’s red Mustang. The pastor’s tawny hair glinted gold in the afternoon sunlight, but that wasn’t what attracted Evan’s attention. It was the laughing face and the dark hair of the woman next to him. Tabby.

He felt a surge of protectiveness toward her after what he’d pieced together of her past, and relief that she’d chosen someone as rock solid as Joe Taylor for a friend followed quickly. His eyes narrowed as Joe pulled up in front of Mercer’s and Evan watched the preacher offer Tabby a hand out of the low-slung car. He wondered if the two of them knew how they looked together. Already like a couple.

Evan slid behind the wheel, still smiling, and drove home. The Tahoe was where it sat when he’d left that morning, so it seemed reasonable to assume Jenny decided not to go into the clinic today. In recent weeks, she had begun to shift many of her patients to Dr. Razawi at the hospital. He’d agreed to cover for her, but Evan knew it would be only temporarily. The area was short on doctors. They needed Jenny as much as she needed them. She’d completed additional surgery work that meant she was often called on to help in the OR, especially with emergencies.

When Evan entered the house, he heard her in the kitchen. It never failed to make his breath catch a little when she smiled at him. He’d first fallen in love with her when they were fourteen years old. They’d dated all through high school until their fathers conspired to tear them apart. Evan shoved that back. That was behind them now.

Her father was long dead, and his father was on house arrest for the next two years for his part not only in what had happened thirteen years ago, but also an attempt on Jenny’s life last year. Evan hadn’t spoken to him since then and had no plans to begin any time soon. Evan had Jenny back, and to Evan that was the only thing that mattered.

He took her into his arms, his hands going automatically and protectively to her swollen belly. “How are you feeling?” he whispered into her ear.

“Uncomfortable, but better than this morning. How was your day?”

Evan set his briefcase on the table. “Productive. I have some information on Tabby and Thomas MacVie I think you should read.”

Jenny arched a delicate brow, and her golden eyes twinkled. “Well if Facebook’s to be believed, she’s already seduced the minister, bewitched the P.E. teacher at the elementary school, and has a cat some folks believe is her familiar.”

Evan paused in the act of opening his briefcase. “Oh for Christ’s sake! Has someone actually posted that kind of shit?”

“Not sure. You know I try to avoid looking at the town’s page, but it’s other places too.” Jenny held up her hand and began ticking off on her fingers. “My nurse practitioner, Sara, heard it from her brother, Jim, who heard it from his wife who heard it from Sally Concannon who heard it from both Betty Gatewood and Jeanie Underwood. One of those two supposedly saw Pastor Joe’s clothes strewn all over Tabby’s veranda and heard him singing love songs to her in an upstairs bedroom.”

Evan’s mouth had dropped open halfway through Jenny’s recitation. When his wife finished, he stood there stunned for a moment, then began laughing until he clutched his stomach in both of his hands.

“It’s not funny, Evan,” Jenny said stiffly. “She’s my sister.”

Evan’s face sobered. He’d known she’d come around, particularly if there was a threat. They had both struggled to rebuild their concept of family in the wake of their parents’ betrayals. Jenny was probably a little further along than him in that.

“Damn right,” he agreed. “That’s exactly why you need to take a look at this. Start with Thomas MacVie’s rap sheet.”

Jenny lowered herself awkwardly into the chair Evan pulled out for her and took the envelope he offered. As she slowly examined the contents, her brows drew together. “How did you get all this information, Evan?” she asked as she continued to sift through it, reading between the lines as he had.

“A few friends from law school who owed me favors. Plus, Tommy MacVie appears unpopular with not only law enforcement, but also his neighbors. People were more than willing to spill their guts over the phone.”

She looked up at him, her golden eyes concerned. “You called people?”

Evan shrugged. “A couple of neighbors. I didn’t tell them where I was from.”

Jenny ran her finger down the paper. “There are a lot of abuse arrests here, all dismissed.”

Evan nodded. “Lack of evidence. I talked to the D.A. in that area who referred me to the former district attorney, who’s now retired. He said they could never get your mother or Tabby to testify against him. The guy was slick. Even social services couldn’t find enough evidence of abuse. The house was always neat as a pin. Tabby never seemed to want for anything. She was always clean and well fed. One thing did keep coming up…how modest Tabby was. No one ever saw her in a bathing suit, shorts, or even a short-sleeved shirt.”

Jenny tapped her finger on the medical records he had somehow accessed. “She appears to have been very accident prone,” she said in a dubious tone. “A broken arm at five, a wrist at seven, the other arm at eleven, and several ribs a year later. That alone should have been enough to launch a thorough investigation.”

Jenny looked up at her husband. “I want to meet her.”

“You can’t right now.”

“Why?”

“She’s having dinner with Pastor Joe at Mercer’s.”

Jenny’s mouth dropped open. “So the rumors are true?”

Evan chuckled. “Well, I seriously doubt the pastor’s clothes were all over her porch or that they were in a bedroom while he sang love songs to her, but they are neighbors, he does sing—beautifully so Holly tells me—and when you see the two of them together…”

Jenny grinned and finished for him, “They already look like a couple.”

“Exactly.”

* * * *

“What did Jake Allred come by to tell you this afternoon?” Tabby asked Joe curiously over the noise of the wind rushing by the open top and windows of his Mustang.

After dinner, Joe had suggested a drive along a stretch of the Blue Ridge Parkway, leaving the top down so she could enjoy the warm, evening breeze.

“You saw him?” he asked with a quick glance in her direction just as he slowed and pulled off the road. They stopped at a place where they could get out and sit on a large rock overlooking the valley below them.

“Yes.” She kept her gaze on the patchwork quilt of farmland still visible in the waning light as she carefully seated herself, thinking that if she painted landscapes, this would certainly be a view worth capturing. “I glanced out the window and saw him talking to you.”

Joe, who had stretched out beside her, took her hand. Instantly, warmth flooded through her, and she closed her eyes briefly in surprised enjoyment. His thumb rubbed along the back. “He told me if I cared about you, I should take you out publicly and not worry about what anyone might say.”

She stiffened slightly. “Is that what this is all about?” she asked without looking at him. Joe released her hand to touch her hair and her cheek.

“Partly. Tabby, I have to be honest with you. I would have gotten around to this anyway. Jake’s visit just spurred me to act more quickly than I might have.”

“And the fact that I told you right up front that I don’t date ministers makes no difference?” Tabby wasn’t sure whether she was angry or scared by his persistence. Having always kept her distance from men, she wasn’t sure what to do with one who was ignoring the keep off signals.

His fingers cupped her chin. “I can’t help what I feel, Tabby. If I were a lawyer, a doctor, or a musician would you even worry about going out with me?”

Sadness tightened her chest. He was so beautiful, and when he touched her, it felt right. It felt good. She wanted to touch him back. Instead she looked down, breaking eye contact. “But you’re not any of those things, Joseph. You
are
a minister.”

“Why does it make such a difference?” he demanded. “Yes, I am a minister. It’s what I
do
, but can’t you look beyond that to who I
am
? Beneath it, I’m still a man.”

He bent his head then and kissed her. Although she sensed his frustration, his kiss was pure gentleness, asking not taking. Tabby’s hand rested against his shoulder. Waves of heat and desire coursed through her. She wanted him like she’d never wanted anyone. Yes, he was a minister, so what would happen when he got a good look at her standard paintings? Sure, he’d seen one, but he didn’t realize that was the norm for her. His portrait was the departure, not the scene he’d compared to Dante’s
Inferno
.

Her mind raced ahead to a future where she was mindlessly painting flower arrangements or seascapes complete with lighthouses and seagulls, just to make sure she didn’t upset anyone. Panic followed quickly. She couldn’t breathe. She felt as stymied and hemmed in as she had around Tommy and his ultra-conservative view of religion.

She couldn’t do this. They couldn’t do this.

She pushed him away. “Stop, Joseph.”

He vaulted to his feet and stepped away from her as he raked his hands through his hair. “Sorry.”

“Don’t apologize. It’s not you. It’s not anything you’ve done. It’s me.”

He laughed, but with no real amusement. “I have to tell you, that sounds way too close to a classic dump the loser line.”

“Except I’m about to give you some truths I don’t often share.” Tabby sucked in a shaky breath. “Please, sit down. I need you to understand, so maybe we can find some way through this.”

Joe came back and dropped down at her side. Wrists balanced loosely on his knees and hands hanging, he tilted his head to look at her. “Okay. I’m listening.”

Tabby drew her knees up and rested her chin on them. After taking another deep breath to calm herself, she began. “My…father…was a rigid, religious man. I grew up in a small church that believed in a very literal interpretation of the Bible. The man was the head of the household in all things. Spare the rod, spoil the child, and all of that. Ever since I can remember, we were in church on Wednesday evening and, it seemed to me, all day on Sunday between morning services, Sunday school, and the evening preaching. Women and girls wore dresses. We were not to cut our hair. If that were all there was to it, Joseph, I could’ve dealt with it and moved on with life.”

She touched his cheek and saw such tenderness in his expression that it made her ache. “Do you like what you’ve seen so far of my painting of you?” she whispered.

“The sketches are incredible,” he acknowledged.

Tabby shifted and worried her lower lip. “You saw the other painting, right?”

“The one that looked like Dante’s vision of hell.” Joe stared at her intently in the waning light. “The one you tore up.”

“Yes. Joseph, I don’t paint pretty pictures. Every artist has an eye—I guess you’d call it. For writers, it would be their voice. What you saw on the easel that first day? That’s my voice. It’s been my voice my entire life, and my father made me pay the price for that every day I lived there. “

Joe took her hand in his again. She couldn’t mask its trembling. “Tabby, I believe we are all given gifts, like your art and my singing, and it’s up to each of us to choose how we use those gifts. What I believe
is
wrong is to deny what God gives us. If your muse inspires those paintings, then there must be a reason for it.”

Tabby felt like a door had opened in front of her, but it was so hard to take that first step. She stared into the warmth of his blue, blue eyes and wondered if she was about to lose something precious before she’d even held it in her hand. “I can’t change my art,” she whispered. “It’s part of me, and I have to get it out on canvas.”

“Is that why I heard you crying that one night?” Joe asked.

She nodded, realizing now she hadn’t fooled him. “Yes,” she replied, then rushed on. “As long as I can remember, I’ve had the most fantastic images in my head and the overpowering urge to get them on paper. What I didn’t understand then was how regimented everybody seemed to be about what was appropriate for children to draw.”

“This sounds a little like that Harry Chapin song.”

Tabby tilted her head. “What song is that?”

“‘Flowers are Red.’” Joseph hummed the tune, but Tabby had never heard it and shook her head. He sang the refrain. “Flowers are red young man/ Green leaves are green/ There's no need to see flowers any other way/ Than the way they always have been seen….”

He stopped and laughed a little self-consciously. “It’s a story of a little boy who goes to school. He draws with all sorts of colors all over his paper, but because his colors don’t fit everyone’s expectations, he’s punished and forced to conform. Eventually, he stops seeing things in his own unique way.”

He reached over and took her hand. “Is that what everyone tried to do to you?”

She nodded. He understood. For the first time in her life, she felt like someone actually got what it was that drove her.

But the fact remained. He was a minister. People had expectations of him.

“It’s okay, Tabby,” he reassured her.