The Welcome Committee of Butternut Creek (3 page)

“I’m Ouida Kowalski.” She nodded at the child. “This is Gretchen.”

“Weed-a?” he said.

“Yes, that’s how it’s pronounced. It’s spelled O-u-i-d-a. A Southern name and a family name. Most people who aren’t from here don’t know it.” She smiled and held the plate out. “I heard you’re young and single so I brought you some sweet rolls for breakfast.”

He took the offering and couldn’t help but smile back. “Thank you. Are you a member of the church?” he asked, completely ignorant of who was and who wasn’t.

“No, not of any church.” Her smile didn’t diminish. “George, my husband, says we’re missing the spiritual gene. I don’t know.” She shrugged before leaning toward him. “But even if we’re heathens, we’re good neighbors and are delighted you’re here. That parsonage has been empty for too long. I hope you don’t mind, but the kids have been playing on the swing set in your yard.”

Other than noting the existence of grass, he hadn’t studied the back lawn in detail. “No problem. Glad someone can use it.”

“Mama.” Gretchen tugged on her mother’s hand.

“Better go,” Ouida said. “Again, welcome.”

The sun shone and the birds sang and his neighbors had brought him breakfast. There could be no better place to be in the entire world.

When he entered his office, an immediate problem confronted him: sixteen boxes of books and only two small bookcases, already filled with dusty tomes that he felt sure no one had perused in years. Maybe centuries.

“Excuse me.”

He turned to see a plump dark-haired woman.

“I’m the part-time secretary, Maggie Bachelor.” She held out a hand and gave him a hearty handshake. “Good to meet you. I just got here, running a little late. I work from nine to eleven four days a week. I answer the phone, type the newsletter, and print the bulletin.” She ticked off each duty on her fingers. “I’ll need everything written out and on time so I can get the bulletin and the newsletter done.” She put a sheet of paper on his desk. “Here are the deadlines.”

She reminded him of a hummingbird. She talked fast—not that hummingbirds talk—but she also flitted from place to place.

“Do you have your sermon title, scripture, and hymns?”

Fortunately, he’d realized that his first week would be busy and had worked on the sermon last week. “It’s from the tenth chapter of…”

She pointed at a pad and pen on the desk. “Write it down.”

“Do you have a hymnal handy?” Adam had imprudently neglected to memorize the page numbers of the hymns. Actually, he’d neglected to choose any but wasn’t willing to confess that failing.

“On your desk, too.” She fluttered her fingers toward him and left.

Following her instructions, Adam jotted down his sermon title and scripture, then hunted through the hymnal. Finished, he stood and walked the information out to Maggie.

She glanced at the hymns he’d chosen then glanced up at him. “Oh, dear, Pastor, the congregation doesn’t know the last two.”

“Won’t it be fun to learn them?” he asked.

Her expression assured him it wouldn’t. She picked up a pen. “I’ll choose a couple we know.”

“I’d like for the congregation to sing the ones I picked. They go with the theme of the morning.”

“Well, if that’s your choice, but…” Her words, expression, and shrug warned of dire consequences. “Well, then, here’s your visitation and hospital call list for today.” She handed him several note cards.

At eleven thirty, half an hour after Maggie left, Adam heard a knock at the office door. Just outside, he saw a large man wearing enormous paint-stained overalls with an orange-and-yellow Hawaiian shirt underneath.

“Ralph Foxx.” The visitor stretched out a meaty hand. “Two x’s on the end, like that old baseball player, Jimmie double-x Foxx. Played for the Philadelphia A’s.”

Adam didn’t know about the baseball player and hadn’t realized the A’s had ever been in Philly, but he still shook his visitor’s hand and gestured toward chairs covered with books. “Please sit if you can find a place.”

“Don’t mind if I do.” Pulling a chair in from the office, Ralph settled down and made himself comfortable. Adam later discovered settling down comfortably was one of his greatest talents. Talking was another. Within minutes Adam had learned about Ralph’s sciatica, his wife’s hysterectomy, and much more. He didn’t know how to shut off this font of information, but what else did Adam have to do this morning except pick up his car, which Rex had called to tell him was ready?

Adam discovered within a week that the retired men of the church felt it was their duty to keep the minister company, especially a single young man like him who obviously had nothing else to do and needed to be amused.

“Are you working today?” Adam successfully interrupted after five minutes.

Obviously disappointed the minister had gotten a word in, Ralph shook his head. “I’m a painter. Seasonal work. Not much business today. That’s why I’m retired
this
week.”

“Then maybe you can help me.”

The two men spent the next hour moving the church’s books to the library and putting the new minister’s on the shelves as Ralph talked on and on. Finally, Ralph said he couldn’t work anymore, because of that sciatica. When he left, Adam knew more about the Foxx family and its far-flung branches all over the country than he’d wanted, but he’d also learned a few things about church members. Not a wasted morning.

“Getting old isn’t for sissies,” Birdie mumbled to herself. Stiff and straight in the chair of the physical therapy waiting room at the hospital, she flipped through a magazine. Old Elgin Crump who lived down on Highway 28 slumped in his wheelchair. Must be at least eighty-five. Next to him sat Susan Pfannenstiel, her walker pulled up next to the chair.

Two younger patients waited alone, reading magazines. One was a cheerleader, a friend of Bree’s, who’d fallen from the top of a pyramid during halftime at a basketball game. Those stunts should be outlawed. What had happened to the cheerleaders of her time, back when they wore uniforms that covered their navels and reached to their knees? Back then, they just jumped up and down and shouted. Now they jiggled their bodies and built towers the girls toppled off.

Birdie didn’t recognize the young man. Maybe six feet tall but she couldn’t tell. He slumped. His dark hair fell almost to his shoulders, rumpled but clean, like a man who cared about hygiene but had no interest in his appearance. She’d noticed when he came in that his jeans and khaki-colored T-shirt hung straight from his broad shoulders like he’d lost weight and hadn’t bothered to buy clothes that fit.

Mostly she’d noticed his stumbling gait on the crutches when he entered, the lines of pain etched on his face, and the missing right leg. And yet, with the stubble on his world-weary face, he was handsome in a lost-soul way, in the dangerous and slightly disreputable manner many young women would find intriguing.

Was he Effie Peterson’s nephew? Couldn’t be too many amputees in the area, but he didn’t look a bit like the happy kid who used to visit his aunt—no, his great-aunt—years ago. She’d heard Sam’d come back and was living in Effie’s house. No one had been inside since Mercedes and Birdie and her granddaughters had cleaned it after the funeral. Probably covered with dust now and smelled musty.

She should go say hello to the young man, even if he wasn’t Sam Peterson. Wouldn’t hurt. Might be the only time anyone from the church could get in touch with him, but she hated to step up. No one would ever guess Birdie MacDowell hesitated to do anything. She usually didn’t, but speaking to anyone about her church never felt comfortable, not in the least, especially if she had to approach a man who looked so unwelcoming, and do that out here in the middle of a waiting room with people watching.

But doggone it, she had to. God would expect it.

To protect her left shoulder, she pushed herself up with her right hand and briskly walked to his chair.

“Hello.” She stretched out her hand. “I’m Birdie MacDowell.”

He ignored her hand but made brief contact with eyes that held no emotion.

“Are you Effie Peterson’s nephew Sam?”

He dropped his gaze to the magazine.

“I’m a member of the Christian Church on the highway, the one your aunt attended. We’d surely like to see you there sometime.”

He didn’t say a word, didn’t nod or lift his eyes or change expression.

She’d tried, which was all anyone could expect her to do. “We’re a friendly church,” she said to the top of his head. “Give Pastor Adam a call if you need anything.” She took a few steps backward, almost tripped over the footrests on Elgin Crump’s wheelchair, then turned and headed for her chair.

As she settled back in her seat, she noticed everyone staring at her before their gazes fell back on what they were reading. She didn’t care. She was supposed to welcome people to town, invite them to church. She’d done her duty.

When she considered the problems and pain that plagued the others in the waiting room, she guessed she was pretty lucky to have only this shoulder acting up. Not good at all for a waitress to have a bad shoulder but better than a bad back or a bad knee.

“Mrs. MacDowell,” the physical therapy clerk, a flighty teenager named Trixie, called from the doorway.

Inwardly cursing the weakness she hated to display, Birdie again pushed herself up with her right hand and straightened to walk into the therapy area. Curtains covered the treatment area in the back while other clients walked or pushed and tugged on the machines and weights on the main floor. Birdie stepped on a stool to pull herself onto a high table. Across the room, a pretty redheaded woman watched another patient for a few seconds before turning and approaching Birdie.

“I’m Willow Thomas, the new physical therapist.” She held out her hand.

Birdie took it, noticing the woman’s gentle grip. She figured the dead-fish handshake wasn’t a sign of weak character but an effort not to crush anyone’s arthritic joints.

“Welcome home, Willow. We’re all glad to see you back. I remember you from way back when you sang in the Cherub Choir at church.” She smiled in as friendly a way as she could muster with the darned pain. “Won’t ever forget when you and your friends used to come into the diner after football games when you were in high school.”

How old was Willow? A little younger than Martha’s age, she guessed. Thirty-two or thirty-three. Probably she’d been too old to have met Sam when he visited Effie during the summer, too wide an age difference.

The young woman smiled, a lovely expression that made her features glow. “I didn’t know if you’d remember me. It’s good to be home.”

“You’re still one of our kids. Hope to see you in church again Sunday.”

“My sons and I plan to be there.”

Birdie swelled with a sense of accomplishment. Someone had accepted her invitation, even appeared pleased to get it.

“I’m not going to work with you today because I have a few folks to evaluate,” Willow said. “But I wanted to introduce myself. Christine will oversee your exercises.”

“As usual,” Birdie grumbled to herself. Christine, a PT aide, was sweet but so young she didn’t know anything. Birdie had attempted to talk to her about the Beatles and the first Gulf War, but she had to explain history and culture before 1990 to Christine. It was a whole heck of a lot easier to count the exercises out loud than attempt conversation with the child. Christine placed the cane in Birdie’s upraised hands and watched Birdie move it slowly forward and back over her head.

In a few minutes, Birdie heard the clerk call Sam Peterson.

“How’s the pain been?” the aide asked Birdie.

Obviously Christine hadn’t seen Sam yet or the young woman wouldn’t be paying attention to her.

“Fine, just fine,” Birdie lied. She couldn’t let on she was getting too old to carry heavy trays. If she did and lost her job, how would she support her granddaughters? If she didn’t tell anyone, if she gritted her teeth, she could push through exactly like she always had.

“Well, that’s good. Willow wants me to teach you another exercise to loosen up your shoulder and increase your range of motion.”

Then Christine glanced away from Birdie and her eyes grew enormous. Birdie lifted her head to see Sam limp into the therapy room and watched the reaction of the females. It was as entertaining as she’d expected. Trixie could barely take her gaze off him and tripped over Angus’s wheelchair while Christine just stood mouth open and outright gawked at the man. The cheerleader, who had been absorbed by her magazine back in the waiting room, followed his unsteady progress with wide eyes.

Sam didn’t notice. He barely lifted his gaze as he manipulated around the obstacles. When he did glance up, his eyes landed on Willow, who was talking to the cheerleader and hadn’t seen him yet. His reaction stunned Birdie. He stopped still, completely motionless, and gaped at Willow. Birdie bet she was the only one who had a handle on the meaning of his expression because the others were too busy watching other parts of the man, but she recognized it. Right there between the therapy table and the exercise ramp, he fell in love. At least, that was the way Birdie saw it. She was seldom wrong.

For barely a second, his expression was unguarded and vulnerable. Almost immediately, so quickly she might have thought it hadn’t happened, his features became sullen again as he looked at his foot and swung himself forward.