A Hickory Ridge Christmas (5 page)

Todd ignored the hopelessness threatening to take
hold in his heart. He couldn't give up, not when there was so much at stake—more now than even a teen romance that had seemed so real at the time. This was about their daughter, and Rebecca deserved to have a father in her life.

A week before, Todd never would have imagined himself admitting this, but he wasn't sure he even wanted a future with Hannah. At least not this Hannah. She was cold and selfish and spiteful.
Is she also hurt and scared?
Todd wanted to ignore that charitable thought. He didn't want to forgive her yet, and that appeared to be just what his heart was tempted to do.

“Lord, why do I have to be the one to keep taking the first step?” he whispered.

But the answer was so clear in his thoughts it was as if God Himself had spoken the words.
Because she can't.
For whatever reason, Hannah couldn't be the one to offer an olive branch. Though his hurt was new, his wounds fresh, Hannah had been harboring hers for a lot longer, allowing them to fester instead of heal. Forgiveness was never easy, but he guessed that it became harder to give over time.

Still, he couldn't allow Hannah's problem with forgiveness to keep him from knowing his daughter. Every day that passed with Hannah nursing her resentment was another day he and Rebecca couldn't be together. That was as unacceptable as Hannah avoiding him by refusing to take his calls.

Suddenly, an idea began forming in his thoughts. Once before, Hannah had been able to avoid him when she'd wanted to, but this time there were no
parents, oceans or continents separating them. Just a few traffic lights, the Huron River and a tiny, downtown shopping district.

Since the choices of destinations were limited in Milford, even outside church and school, friends crossed paths whenever they bought a quart of milk at Breen's IGA, picked out end tables at Huron Valley Furniture or even grabbed a Coney dog or some Thai food from one of those new joints on North Main.

If seeing friends and neighbors regularly was so easy, he imagined that the opposite was true, as well: Avoiding someone a person didn't want to see would be almost impossible. Because Hannah was on a tight budget, she probably wasn't in the market often for new end tables, but she needed milk frequently, and she probably craved a good Coney once in a while.

Todd finally understood John Mellencamp's 1980s anthem, celebrating life in a “Small Town.” Milford was a small town, all right. Hannah was about to find out just how small.

H
annah had tried her best to make it as normal a Sunday morning as possible. She'd hurried Rebecca through their morning routine, and she'd actively contributed to the discussion in her young adult Sunday school class. Even now she was chatting with several women in the vestibule as she usually did, but nothing about this morning or the last few days had felt normal—not with Todd appearing like a case of indigestion everywhere she went.

The conversation continued around her, but Hannah couldn't help but divide her attention between it and the door where Andrew Westin greeted members and guests. She expected one of them to be Todd, and she couldn't decide whether she would be more disappointed if he showed up or if he didn't.

“Hannah, are you with us?”

She turned back to catch Julia Sims grinning at her, excitement dancing in her dark, heavily lashed eyes.

“You're missing the news.”

“What news is that?”

Charity McKinley, Julia's half sister, who was the golden opposite to her raven-dark looks, wore the expression of the cat who had swallowed the canary. Charity reached out her hands to Steffie Wilmington and Serena Jacobs, encouraging those two and several others into a tight circle.

“It's finally happened. I'm pregnant,” she said in the quietest voice possible for someone fairly bursting with excitement.

“Congratulations,” Hannah said, stepping forward to hug Charity. She was thrilled that God had blessed her friend, who'd longed for a child since she and Rick had married four years before.

“That's wonderful,” Serena agreed. “Rick must be thrilled.”

Though it seemed impossible, Charity's smile widened. “That and he's turned into this broccoli-and-whole-grains-toting drill sergeant. ‘Here, sweetheart, eat wheat germ. It's for the baby.'” She imitated her husband's deep voice but she finished with a laugh.

“Was your mom thrilled with the news?” Hannah asked her.

“She's already knitting booties.”

“I'm happy for her, too.” It was great to see healing in Charity's relationship with her mother, Laura Sims, after their painful rift from a few years before. But rather than dampen Charity's excitement by mentioning difficult memories, Hannah changed
the subject. “Looks like our church is having a population explosion.”

“Look what you started,” Julia said, shaking an index finger at Serena, whose swollen belly announced her new arrival, expected in March.

Serena rested her hands on her stomach. “I love being a trendsetter.”

“I don't know about the rest of you,” Steffie said, pausing for effect before she added, “but if I was newlywed, I wouldn't be drinking the water here.”

Immediately the other women turned to Tricia Williams Lancaster. Married just over a year to Michigan State Police Trooper Brett Lancaster, Tricia definitely still qualified as a newlywed, though she already had three children with her late first husband, Rusty.

“I'll be sure to keep that in mind,” Tricia said.

Tricia turned her head as if in search of a new topic, and her face brightened as a square-jawed man with a military haircut and a football player's shoulders squeezed through the doorway.

“If that's not Trooper Joe Rossetti in the flesh and in a
church
on a Sunday morning,” Tricia said with a grin. “God does work in mysterious ways.”

“Brett's friend?” Julia craned her neck for a better look at the handsome State Police trooper. “I thought you said Brett had been inviting him for months. How'd he get him here? Tell him there was an illegal arms sale in the church basement?”

“No, even better. We promised to stuff him with
Sunday dinner after church. What starving single guy can resist that?”

They were all having a laugh over that when Serena suddenly stopped. “Uh, Hannah…”

The youth minister's wife was staring at the entry where her husband had kept his post, and Hannah didn't have to stretch her imagination to guess who'd just come through the door. She spun around in time to see Todd shaking hands with Andrew, but he barely glanced at her before opening the side door and entering the sanctuary.

“It's the guy from last Sunday,” Steffie exclaimed. “What's the story—” she began again, but one of the others cleared her throat to interrupt her.

Slowly, Hannah faced her friends, bracing herself for their questions. Though they couldn't conceal the curiosity in their expressions, no one spoke up, and the one who might have asked was discouraged by Charity's staying hand on her shoulder.

They knew about Todd—at least they had to suspect by now. Serena knew far more than the others, and Andrew had probably discussed Todd's arrival with her, as well. Of the others who hadn't witnessed the scene in the sanctuary last Sunday, they surely had heard about it. Unfortunately, scandalous information sometimes traveled faster than the
Good News,
even in churches.

Still, her friends didn't ask. She should have expected as much. God had blessed her with true friends. They wouldn't pressure her. They would simply wait until she was ready to tell them.

The first notes of the organ prelude saved her from having to decide whether or not she was ready today. Certain rules of etiquette applied to the preacher's daughter, and one of them made it a no-no for her to race into services late.

“I'd better get in there,” she said, clasping her Bible tightly under her arm to keep from fidgeting.

“I'll go with you,” Steffie said. “Where's Grant this morning?”

Hannah stiffened as she pulled open the sanctuary door. “I'm not sure.”

Some amazing friend she was. Hannah hadn't even noticed that Grant was absent, even though Steffie and she usually sat with him during Sunday-morning services. She hoped he wasn't staying away from church because of her and the events of the other night.

It certainly hadn't kept Todd away.

He was already camped out in the center of the third row—right behind her usual spot every Sunday. Though he was studying the church bulletin as if it contained the great secrets of God's universe, Hannah was convinced she could see him smirking.

“Brendan's looking especially nice today,” Steffie whispered after they passed him on their way to the front of the church.

He was also looking taken, given the presence of the striking blonde gripping his hand, but Hannah noticed his deep blue dress shirt and slightly darker tie for Steffie's sake. “Blue is definitely his color.”

“It brings out his eyes.”

Unfortunately for Steffie, she'd only had eyes for Brendan since junior high, and he'd only thought of her as a friend.

“Well, Olivia's here bright and early on this first Sunday of Advent,” Steffie whispered.

As glad as she was that they were finished talking about Brendan, Hannah wished Steffie hadn't switched to that topic. “Now be nice.”

Still, she couldn't resist taking a peek at Olivia Wells. Every Sunday for the last six months, Olivia had sat in coiffed blond perfection on the aisle end of the second row that marked her position as the widower minister's lady friend. The attractive widow had dressed in one of her trademark prim suits—this time red for the holiday season—and her makeup was flawless as always.

“As nice as
she
is?” Steffie asked.

“Nicer.”

That wasn't fair, and Hannah knew it. Maybe she wasn't the woman Hannah would have chosen for her father, but still she had to admit that Olivia had been perfectly pleasant to her and Rebecca as well as the rest of the congregation. Because she felt guilty for suggesting otherwise, she stopped to greet Olivia warmly and gave her hand an extra squeeze before slipping past her to the center of the pew.

“Do you think she and your dad will get married?” Steffie whispered once they'd taken their seats.

“I don't know what I think.”

Both became quiet as the service began, but her answer to Steffie's question continued to roll through
her thoughts. It felt like the most honest thing she'd said all day and for reasons beyond her father's romantic life. Her equilibrium was as fragile as blown glass, susceptible to shattering into tiny shards with the littlest provocation.

Just over her shoulder was the man whom she couldn't seem to escape lately, when once she'd wished away the ocean that had divided them. He'd told her he wouldn't make it easy to cut him out of her life again, and his methods might have been unconventional, but he'd been doing just what he said.

The question at this point wasn't whether he would continue trying; it was why Hannah was trying so hard to prevent him from keeping his word. Why was she fighting so determinedly against what she knew in her heart to be right? Rebecca deserved the chance to know her father.

But then this wasn't about Rebecca, and she knew it. Fear paralyzed her every thought, tainted her every move. What was she afraid of? That she would feel guilty every time she saw Todd and Rebecca together? That he would love her again? Or that he wouldn't?

Hannah managed to make it through the opening hymn and the offertory, singing the notes even if their message couldn't penetrate the guilt and uncertainty crowding her heart. But as Reverend Bob stepped to the lectern, she straightened in her seat and concentrated on the sermon. Since Hannah's childhood, the melodic sound of her father's voice had always made her feel God's presence. She really needed to feel it today.

Reverend Bob began his usual first Sunday of Advent sermon on preparations for the birth of Jesus. “When Gabriel appeared to Mary to tell her that she'd been chosen to give birth to God's son, how did she respond? Did she say, ‘Not now, God, I'm betrothed to this really great guy, and an unexplained pregnancy will mess up my plans'?

“No, she answered in Luke 1:38, ‘Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.' Her dutiful answer becomes even more amazing when we consider several biblical scholars' assertions, based on cultural norms of the period, that Mary was probably only a girl of about thirteen at the time.”

Though Hannah was certain her father had included that information in his sermons before, that detail suddenly struck her. Jesus's mother had been younger than Hannah had been when she'd delivered Rebecca.

She could just imagine the disapproving glances— Hannah remembered a few of those, as well—that Mary must have faced though she wasn't guilty of any sin. And the fear—had Mary been afraid about becoming a mother first and then the mother of God's only son?

“Did Mary hesitate, though in her time a man who found his betrothed to be with child from another man could easily have had her stoned?” Reverend Bob continued and then paused, shaking his head. “No, she simply submitted to God's will. She was an example to all of us. How will we answer when God asks something of us?”

Hannah swallowed. The words seemed to speak to her alone. What would she do? Would she stop and act or keep running? Until now, it had always been easier to run, but she was tired. Bone tired. Now she only needed to find the strength to do what God had been telling her to do all along.

 

Hannah drove into the nearly empty parking lot at Hickory Ridge Church, surprised that her father had demanded a meeting with her on a Thursday night and commanded her to ask Mary Nelson to babysit Rebecca. As a rule, Reverend Bob never demanded or commanded anything, rather made suggestions and let the Lord do the rest.

She pulled to a stop under one of the streetlamps that cast a yellow haze over piles of plowed snow on the parking lot's perimeter. With daylight saving time in full force, those lights were already illuminating a midnight sky at just after the dinner hour.

Leaning her forehead on the steering wheel, Hannah took a deep breath and prayed a quick plea for fortification. Dad had probably put together the puzzle about Todd, and now he would expect to hear the truth from her. Just like Todd, her father had deserved to know everything years ago, but that didn't make facing this conversation any easier.

At the sound of a car engine, Hannah lifted her head and caught sight of another pair of headlights. She glanced to Reverend Bob's regular parking place near the main entry, but the black sedan he'd been driving for years was already there. A mini SUV
pulled into the parking space next to hers. It wasn't until the driver opened the door and light flooded the interior that she recognized him.

“Not now. Not now.” She threw open the door and stepped out into the slushy snow.

The subject of her frustration climbed out, as well, and waved a gloved hand as he closed his car door.

She marched around the car to face him, lifting on her toes to look larger than her usual five feet two. “Okay, I get it that you're not going away. Will you stop following me already? Stalking is a crime in Michigan.”

Todd only smiled as he pulled his stocking cap down over his ears. “Really? I'll be sure to keep that in mind.”

“And I know the Milford Police Chief, too.”

“Oh, you mean Pete Conyers. Saw him at the Rite Aid yesterday. What are the odds that we would both run out of toothpaste the same night?”

Hannah frowned. Of course, Todd knew Pete. He'd been a young cop in the village while Todd and Hannah were still at Milford High. She would have trumped his comment by saying her good friend was a State Police trooper, but Todd would only have said how nice it was to meet Brett Lancaster when Todd had moved his church membership to Hickory Ridge on Sunday.

With a sigh, she asked, “What are you doing here, Todd?”

“It's a command appearance.” He raised an eyebrow, lifting the same side of his mouth with it. “You?”

Hannah didn't even answer him. She turned away and squeezed her eyes shut instead. She'd always
thought of her father as a purposeful man, a man of God who had clear-cut views on sin and consequences, but she'd never before thought of him as cruel. Was Dad really going to make her confess everything in front of Todd?