The Wedding Planners of Butternut Creek (8 page)

“But we have to be sure the people we match aren’t married to someone else,” Mercedes said. “Even if that person is elsewhere.”

“Or separated,” Blossom whispered, as if she didn’t like to even approach that sad possibility. “Close to a divorce but still legally married.”

“Guess we’ll just have to find out.” Winnie nodded emphatically. “Let’s go.”

They tracked down the preacher heading back to his office. Poor man cowered like a cornered gerbil.

“Is your sister married?” Birdie asked. The others probably thought she should have been more subtle, sneaked the question into a longer conversation, but they knew good and well that wasn’t how Birdie MacDowell operated.

The preacher straightened and blinked. After a moment, after he cleared his head of all that churchy stuff that filled it after a service, he seemed to understand the reason for the question.

Of course he did.

He knew who the Widows were.

Because she knew him so well, she could tell he was attempting to come up with an answer that would discourage them. She could read it in his eyes, because every one of his emotions ran through them like a slide show.

“My sister isn’t interested in…,” he began.

“Simple question,” Birdie said.

“Only for information,” Winnie drawled.

“So we can serve her better,” Mercedes added.

They all knew he wasn’t buying a word of that explanation but, fortunately for them, he was far too polite to tell them to go away and leave him alone. “What does that mean?” He raised an eyebrow and studied them, almost as if he could read their minds—which, of course, he could after their two-year acquaintance. “Serve her better?”

“Is she married?” Blossom asked. Bless her. The preacher could never turn her down.

“No, she isn’t married, but…”

They had the information they wanted. They turned to toddle back to the kitchen and make plans before he could say more.

Adam sat on the porch swing next to Gussie and put an arm around her, wishing he could kiss her. Not to be considered, of course. Well, that sentiment wasn’t correct because he
was
considering it. Not to be done. The preacher kissing his girlfriend who was not yet his fiancée on the porch of the parsonage at four in the afternoon would start tongues wagging all over town.

“How do you think things are going?” Gussie asked, leaning her head on his shoulder. “Between you and me?”

“I like getting to know you better. Having you around all weekend, seeing you in church.”

“And my parents? How are you guys getting along?”

“Great people. I love having them over here so much of the time. Your mother spoils us terribly and your father is a good guy. Janey likes having them around.”

“Anything else?”

“Well, I’d like to kiss you.” He paused to look down at her.

She laughed. “That wasn’t exactly what I was asking.”

“I don’t care. That’s what I’m usually thinking.”

“There are always people around.” Gussie glanced around the neighborhood. Ouida sat on the porch with George while the girls laughed and chased each other on the front lawn. The Fergusons across the street waved. He knew Tasha Ferguson—a good Baptist but a member of the Butternut Creek network that spread gossip through town faster than the Internet ever could—would rush inside and call Miss Birdie before they’d completed the kiss. It was hard for a man and a woman to get to know each other with the entire town watching and reporting.

“Why don’t I come into Austin this week, take you to dinner. Maybe we could be alone for a while, to see if the chemistry between us still exists.”

“I’d love that. Let me assure you, the chemistry still exists on my part.” She tilted her head with an implied question.

“And mine.” He leaned forward and touched her cheek with his, but for only a second because he’d seen Tasha stroll with what he felt to be feigned casualness toward the mailbox. Checking her mail on Sunday?

“Good to hear.” Gussie stood. “I’ve got to get going. You know I don’t like to drive at night.”

He held her hand as they strolled toward her car. Sure, he’d like to kiss her, but this touch would have to do. They were getting to know each other. That was the plan. That was happening. They were getting to know each other.

But he couldn’t convince himself. Aware that Ouida and George and Tasha and probably her husband looked on, knowing Ouida would cheer for him and Tasha would pass the news to everyone, he leaned down and kissed Gussie. Not on the cheek, not a quick touch on her lips, but a nice, long kiss. If the neighbors were going to gossip, he might as well give them something to talk about.

“Wow.” Gussie blinked. “Nice surprise. Now I don’t want to leave.”

That evening after a sandwich supper, Hector and Bree took Janey to an ice cream social at the Church of Christ, and the Miltons strolled home.

The absences left Adam on the long sofa watching a college basketball game and Hannah working on her laptop at the table.

He watched her for a few minutes. Once he saw a trace of a smile, a flicker of quickly suppressed pleasure. Had she read an email from a doctor in Kenya or a friend from med school? Did she keep up with anyone from either place?

When she closed the computer, she glanced up at him.

“Want to talk?” he asked.

“No.” She dropped her eyes.

“I haven’t seen you in two years, and the occasional emails don’t make up for that. I’d like to know what you did, what Kenya was like.”

“Don’t you really mean,
Hey, Sis, what happened?
”

She spoke in a strangled voice, a voice so filled with pain he nearly stopped her. He didn’t need to know that story if it hurt her so much. No, maybe he didn’t have to know, but he felt she needed to tell him.

“You want to know how I screwed up so badly they sent me home?” she continued with an angry edge to her words. “Why I look like a refugee myself?”

“Well, actually, yeah, I’d like to know that, but I’m interested in other stuff, too, things you might feel better about sharing than that.”

“Like?”

“Like what’s Africa like? Who else worked there? Did you make any friends, visit any cities, learn anything new?”

“Africa is amazing; medical personnel and volunteers; yes, yes, and yes.” She ticked the answers off on her fingers.

“Okay, here’s another. I know you had malaria, but there are good treatments for that, and medication to avoid it. You’re a doctor. You know that. So, how did you get so sick?”

“You used up your questions, little brother.”

Those words constituted her attempt to put him in his place and usually worked. Her self-confidence had intimidated him when they were kids, but no longer. He’d faced down Miss Birdie and lived. His sister didn’t scare him anymore.

“How did you feel about coming back?”

“Don’t act like a minister.”

“I’m not acting. I am a minister. I’m also your brother.” He paused because, despite his bravado of twenty seconds earlier, she
did
intimidate him—but he refused to give in or give up. “I want to know more about your time in Africa, and I want to spend time with you before you flit off.”

“Don’t flit around much anymore,” she sang.

Despite her pitiful effort to make a joke, she didn’t smile. His beautiful, brilliant sister who excelled at everything she did looked sad and sick. She played the violin well enough that she could have gone to Juilliard. She flew through every school she attended, driven to finish her education and begin saving the world. But in the end, after all that preparation and years of work, she hadn’t. The world had broken her.

“I’m your brother. I love you,” he said.

Before he realized she’d moved, Hannah stood and launched herself toward him. She threw herself on the sofa, leaned against him, and sobbed. Once he’d recovered from the shock, he put his arm around her and held her. She wept into his chest, the pitiable bawling of a calf that has lost its mother. He patted her back and said, “There, there,” and “I love you.” She’d never allowed that kind of contact before.

Finally she stopped crying and took a deep breath. “I am such a loser.”

“Hannah, if there is anything you are
not
it’s a loser.”

“You don’t know. Life hasn’t turned out the way I hoped, the way I’d planned, the way I’d always expected.” She pulled away and moved to the ottoman. “I’d always thought I’d be another Schweitzer or Livingstone.” She held up her hand. “I know, I know. I don’t play the organ and the only thing Livingstone and I have in common is malaria—although, of course, I didn’t die.” She looked up at him. “I thought I could save an entire continent.”

What he saw in her eyes scared him. She looked hopeless, nearly doomed.

“Would you tell me about it?” He spoke casually, exerting no pressure on her, because pushing Hannah never worked.

“I’ve always done whatever I wanted.” She glared at him. Daring him to disagree. “I’ve carried through on every decision I made, every one.”

He knew that. High school in two and a half years with six AP courses, and she’d started college with eighteen hours of credit. She’d graduated from Harvard in two years with heavy class loads and dashed through medical school. The only thing that slowed her was the internship, because the hospital refused to allow her to take two rotations at the same time. Then, after a year of residency, she’d accepted the prestigious fellowship in Kenya.

“But I failed this one.” She shook her head. “I realized the refugees in the camps were real people, not case studies in a book or a bunch of symptoms to study. But…” She stopped and swallowed hard. “The children.” Her voice shook. “Oh, Adam, the children got to me. They were so thin and ill. They pulled at my heart.” She shook her head. “They died. So many died, real people who depended on me but they still died. I could do nothing.”

He listened silently, the only way, he’d learned, to deal with his sister. Listen the few times she shared.

“I couldn’t eat. I worried about them. Then I got sick and I couldn’t fight it.” She gulped and shook her head. “I never get sick. I never stop fighting.”

The realization of all she’d been through, her illness and mental state, hurt him. He wanted to say something comforting and deep and sensitive that would turn her life around.

“I love you,” he said.

She nodded. He hoped his words had helped, but Hannah was hard to read at the best of times. Obviously, this was not even a
good
time for her.

“I love you,” he repeated, because he wanted to emphasize that and to hear her speak, to know she had taken his words in.

“I know. Thank you.” She reached across the gap between them to pat his hand. “All I heard from others was ‘God talk,’ those quotes that didn’t help me but made me feel even more guilty.”

“Like what?”

“Oh, the main one was, ‘God doesn’t give us more burdens than we can handle together.’” She swallowed hard. “I couldn’t handle it all. I fell apart and that was all my fault because I didn’t have enough faith. That’s what everyone said.”

For a moment, Adam felt the weight of ministry. The counseling part had always frightened him. Who was he to have the wisdom to address his hurting sister? But if he didn’t, who would?

“I don’t like that quote,” Adam said. “In the first place, I don’t think God gave you the burdens.” He paused, searching for words. “What you faced came from a lot of choices other people made. Deforestation, the lack of available medical care, drought, overuse of the land, greed. You didn’t have a part in creating those.”

“I know.” She tapped her forehead. “Up here I know that but still, I couldn’t handle it all. I got depressed and sick and didn’t eat and didn’t sleep. I broke and God wasn’t there.”

“Hannah, what do you know about sheep?”

“What…”

Before he could say anything more, laughter and the clomping of feet came from the front porch. Hector and Janey had arrived home and Hannah gathered her blanket around her, stood, and sprinted toward the back stairs.

“This isn’t over,” he shouted as she left.

“I don’t care about sheep,” she shouted back.

Then the front door opened and Hector galumphed through the foyer, his big feet pounding across the hardwood.

“God loves you even when you’re stupid and smelly,” Adam shouted to Hannah’s disappearing back before he realized that didn’t count as one of his best counseling efforts.

In addition, when he turned around, Hector and Janey were watching him from the doorway.

“That’s from the Twenty-Third Psalm,” he attempted to explain.

“Don’t remember that part,” Hector said after a few seconds of shocked silence.

“We brought everyone ice cream.” Janey changed the subject. “Enough for everyone, for Gussie’s mom and dad and your sister.”

W
ith a glance around the sanctuary a few minutes into the service, Birdie couldn’t spot the preacher’s sister. Third Sunday she was in town, and still no show.

Gussie and Janey had just sung a wonderful anthem. Nice to have music, good music. Gussie even had the choir singing a prayer response. Not everyone in the choir liked that. Ralph complained he had to stay awake and Ethel Peavey hated to put down her crossword puzzle but Birdie thought it added to the service.

After another sweep of the sanctuary, Birdie couldn’t help but think that the preacher’s sister should attend to support and encourage her brother. But she didn’t.

As the lay leader read the scripture, one Birdie knew well so she didn’t have to pay attention, she stood and walked toward the outside door, not far because she usually chose one of the back rows to get a good view of the congregation, the choir, and the minister.

Outside, Birdie glanced at the parsonage in the hope that Adam’s sister was running late. Seeing no one, she returned to the pew and settled next to Mercedes again.

“What were you doing?” her friend whispered.

“His sister hasn’t left the parsonage yet. Not coming. Again.” Birdie hrrmphed. “Call the Widows together. We’re going to have to come up with another plan to get her and the coach together.”

That afternoon, Gabe considered going to the parsonage. Nothing better to do. He didn’t care about today’s televised games. Maybe he could find a pickup game in the church parking lot.

Why shouldn’t he go? Why did he need a reason to visit Adam and Hector? They were close. He spent a lot of time at the parsonage, often played ball in the parking lot, and attended church. Besides, today he needed to talk to Hector about colleges, needed to set up a few visits. He’d be taking Hector on those visits because Adam’s days were pretty full with church and Gussie.

Gabe had time on weekends with the basketball season over. He wasn’t dating anyone steadily. The teacher in San Saba had begun to hint at spending more time together, which constituted a good reason to head out to small college towns Fridays and Saturdays. If she didn’t like his absence, Gabe would find someone else to date, someone who didn’t expect more of him than he wanted to give. He’d never had trouble finding a woman to keep him company. With little effort on his part, women wanted to spend time with him. Flirted and tossed their hair and let him know they were interested and available.

Except for Adam’s sister.

Good Lord, she wasn’t the reason he hesitated about going to the parsonage, was she? Okay, maybe a little. He’d never had a woman react to him like that: negatively. He had no idea how to respond to that, no experience in rejection. The lack made him feel inept and socially dysfunctional.

He felt like a high school girl with all the dithering. With a decisive stride, he headed over to the parsonage to talk to Adam and Hector, set up a game. Maybe he wouldn’t see her. She could be someplace else, like upstairs.

But she wasn’t. When he walked inside, Hannah huddled in the same chair reading, still wrapped in a blanket. Had she moved since the first time he’d seen her?

He had no more idea how to deal with her than a cat would know what to do with a grapefruit. Then his mouth opened on its own and said, “How ya doin’?” with absolutely no permission from his brain. He froze. He hadn’t just used the pickup line from a sitcom character, had he? He’d entered a world of deep stupidity.

She glanced up. “Not original,” she said before looking back at her magazine.

“What are you reading?” he asked, unable to move away from her and seemingly determined to sound like a geek attempting to pick up a woman and not doing it well—which was precisely why the guys were called “geeks.”

This time she didn’t glance up. “An article in
The Journal of Applied Helminthology
.”

What was she talking about?

“Helminthology is the study of parasitic worms,” she explained.

“Oh,” he said.

She looked up and smiled, not an actual smile, only a curving of the lips. No joy appeared in her eyes. “Have you read the article?”

“Umm, no.” He sounded like an idiot. The woman could turn him inside out, make him feel stupid, then ignore him as she did now.

“I do know what a parasite is. I have been to college?” Why had he made that a question? He panicked around her. “University of Texas,” he stated firmly.

She kept reading.

Fortunately, before he could say something that made him sound even more stupid, Hector said, “Coach, Pops and I have set up some college visits. They match up with the open dates on the calendar you gave us.” Hector searched through the pile of papers and folders on the counter. “Think I left it upstairs. Be right back.” He hurtled up the back steps.

As Gabe moved to the counter, Hannah glanced up at him for a second with a softer emotion in her eyes. Pity? Probably thought his entire calendar was empty, that the only thing he had to do was visit colleges with Hector.

Not true. He also planned to visit colleges with Bobby.

“You set up a visit at San Pablo College for April eighteenth.” Adam tapped the list on the whiteboard and turned toward Gabe. “That still work for you?”

“I’m keeping my weekends free. Whatever you can set up.”

Hannah mumbled something he didn’t understand.

Gabe turned to look at her, but she’d buried her face in the magazine.

“Sis, play nice,” Adam said. “Pretend you’re an adult.”

“What did she say?” Gabe asked.

“You don’t want to know.”

What had he done to hack her off so much? Had he said anything insulting? He didn’t usually. Her prickly reactions reminded him of grade school when Linda Lockridge had shown her interest in him by kicking him in the shins during recess. The fact that Hannah had made a comment, even an unintelligible one, showed she hadn’t really been reading but had listened to the conversation. Interesting. Could be she felt a little attraction, that a spark flared between them.

Then Adam whispered, “I think she likes you,” before he burst out laughing. After that chortle, he became more solemn.

They’d looked through a few notes when Adam spoke in a low voice. “What do you think about my sister?”

Why had Adam asked that? Had Gabe’s interest and confusion been so obvious? Should’ve known he couldn’t hide it from Adam. As a minister, Hannah’s brother probably excelled at reading people and had extra sense about his sister. Wouldn’t look kindly on Gabe’s fiddling with her. Not that Gabe would ever fiddle with his friend’s sister—or anyone’s sister. He considered himself a gentleman. Okay, so why had he panicked at the question?

In an effort to dodge the query, because he did not want to discuss Adam’s sister, Gabe looked up the back steps in the hope Hector had found the folder and was on his way down. He wasn’t. Gabe would have to answer.

“Nothing. You know that. We’ve never had any contact when you haven’t been around. She hasn’t left this place, has she?” Probably way too much information, but Adam’s query had rattled him. “Not with me. No, not with me. Never.”

“What are you talking about?” Adam stared at him.

Gabe glanced at the stairs again, willing Hector to hurry back. “Why did you ask me that?”

“Looking for insight.” Adam shook his head. “She doesn’t listen to me. She opened up once, but she’s closed the door.” Adam looked at Gabe grimly. “What do you think about her? Any thoughts to help me? You know a lot more about women than I do. I could use any clues you’ve picked up on.”

“No, none.” Gabe attempted to back out of the conversation. “We need to check the calendar again…”

“Hey, I need input here, Coach,” Adam said. “I’m not one of the Widows. I’m not attempting to fix you up with my sister.”

“The Widows are trying to fix me up with your sister?”

Adam waved the question away. “Not important.”

Gabe disagreed but kept his mouth shut.

“I’m worried,” Adam said. “Because you’re a friend and an outside observer, I need to know what you think about my sister.”

What could he say to Hannah’s brother? Acceptable words didn’t come, so he shrugged.

Not satisfied with that, Adam kept watching him.

“Okay, I find her intimidating.” Gabe moaned inside. Exactly what he did
not
want to do, insult both Adam and his sister.

Once, although it seemed in the far distant past, he’d been a cool guy, a man who could answer questions from friends and talk to women. That calm, composed communicator had disappeared when skinny, sickly, spiky-haired Hannah Jordan glared at him. He couldn’t for the life of him understand why he couldn’t speak lucidly or act normal around her.

Adam glanced at his sister and lowered his voice again. Probably not necessary because she didn’t show the slightest interest in them or their conversation. “I wish you’d known her before she went to Africa.”

Gabe did, too.

“I really need help on this,” Adam continued. “I don’t know who she is. I need reinforcements to reach her.”

“I don’t know how I could help you. She doesn’t like me.”

“Maybe because you’re an athlete. The popular clique gave her a rough time.” He gazed toward his sister. “She was two years younger than her classmates, skinny and intense. Wore thick glasses.”

“Didn’t you protect her?” That flash of anger surprised him.

Adam snorted. “If you think Hannah expected or wanted my interference, you don’t know her well.”

“I don’t know her at all, Adam. Don’t know how I could help. She isn’t very chatty around me.”

“Don’t suppose you know anything about epidemiology?”

“No, not a lot of people do,” he started, ready to take off on a rant that he did not consider himself to be a jock of very little brain only because he didn’t know about epidemiology. Fortunately, before he could, Hector leaped down the stairs with a folder and tossed it on the counter.

Hannah enjoyed Coach Borden’s visits. She could embarrass him with so little effort, almost too easily. That counted as a good thing, because with her brain fogged with exhaustion and depression she couldn’t attempt anything more difficult than a short, snarky reply. Recently snark had come effortlessly to her. Although she had few social or personal communication skills, she’d learned to get along with people by swallowing sarcastic words, by acting polite and interested and friendly. Lately, however, cutting words seemed to tumble from her mouth with no effort and no filter.

She attempted to squelch her bottomless pit of snark, which the man did not deserve, really, and turned back to her medical journal. Aah, science. What a wonderful escape. Facts were either true or false and results could be duplicated or they weren’t facts. People did not behave in a predictable way. Neither did life.

“Hannah.”

She pulled her mind from the article and looked to see Janey in front of her. Hannah couldn’t be snarky with Janey. She could imagine hurt in those dark eyes if Hannah ignored the child or used harsh words. Adam had told her about the Firestones in his emails, that they’d been homeless and living in the park by the basketball court before he moved them into the parsonage.

Besides, this was a child. Hannah had spent the last few years of her life attempting to save children. Could hardly hurt one now.

“Hey, Janey.” She spoke in the liveliest voice she had. It didn’t evoke rainbows or dancing unicorns but was the best she could muster. Then she attempted a sweet smile but discovered she no longer possessed that expression or anything close. “What do you need?”

“Miss Yvonne and I are gardening in the backyard.” When Janey leaned forward, her floppy hat brushed Hannah’s cheek as she whispered, “It’s in really bad shape. The preacher hasn’t done anything back there since he got here.” Then she drew back and spoke in her normal soft voice. “Hector mows it but Yvonne says the soil isn’t good.”

Hannah nodded. What was the child saying? Did she expect Hannah to do something about the bad soil?

“It’s hard work,” Janey said. “We could really use your help.”

Well, yes, Janey did expect her to do something about the bad soil. Mentally, she sorted through all her excuses: too tired, busy reading, hated gardens, and, the best one, the true reason: She really did not want to.

But she couldn’t say any of those, not while looking into Janey’s serious eyes. They showed a fear of rejection. Hannah could not do that.

Who knew Adam would unleash Janey, his secret weapon, on her?

“Let me get my shoes.” Hannah unwound from the blanket and stood. “Do I need a jacket?” If she got really cold, she could come back inside right away using her recent bout with malaria to escape whatever Janey and Yvonne had in mind.

“I’ve got them.” Janey held up Hannah’s sneakers and hoodie.

Once shod and wrapped up against the cold of a Texas spring, Hannah followed Janey out the back door and into the yard.

“Welcome,” Yvonne said heartily and waved with more energy in that gesture than Hannah had felt for months.

Stop being a whiner
, she lectured herself.
You’re out here. Get to work
.

In emails, Adam had told her about the charm and beauty of the Hill Country. She’d glimpsed it on her drive from the airport. For a moment, she stood in the sunlight and felt it settle in her bones and chase some of the chill away. She could see the glory he’d described in the huge sky that stretched around them, blue and clear. If she looked straight up, the vista looked so much like the big sky in Africa that she felt overwhelmed with homesickness for her people, her village, her camp.

In Africa, the clear, deep blueness stretched out all around her and went on forever and ever. Here, if she looked around her, the sky shrank. Trees defined the scope of the panorama, and houses limited the curve of the horizon.

“It’s pretty in Butternut Creek, isn’t it?” Janey said as she took Hannah’s hand and pulled her toward Yvonne.

Yes, it was. Pretty but different. The fact hit her hard: She was in Texas. For a moment she prayed to herself.
Dear Lord, help me accept
.