Читать книгу Small-Town Dreams and The Girl Next Door: Small-Town Dreams / The Girl Next Door - Kate Welsh - Страница 15

Cassidy sat brushing her hair at the old mahogany vanity in her room. She let the hand holding the brush drift into her lap as Joshua once again took over her thoughts. Not wanting to feel the way she did about him didn’t change the truth. Cassidy Jamison, heir to a multimillion-dollar steel company, was attracted to a country preacher who, though obviously intelligent, had no education or financial prospects.

Her grandfather would hit the roof.

And she didn’t care! Not about her fortune or his lack of one. Not about his lack of formal education. Not about the fact that she had only known him for four days. She only cared about him.

Of course, how she felt didn’t matter, anyway. Cassidy saw little chance that anything long-lasting would evolve from their tentative friendship. And not because she thought him beneath her or because her grandfather wouldn’t approve of him. The problem lay with Joshua himself. He didn’t feel the same way about her. If she’d had any doubt before, the way he’d recoiled from her in the study had shown her the truth.

Cassidy had always thought she’d seen herself with impartial eyes, but now she had to wonder if there was something wrong with her that she’d never acknowledged. She had a trim figure and had been told by others that she was reasonably attractive. She didn’t wear her hair in a long and flowing style, but the short cut suited her face and her busy life-style.

It was certainly true that the current condition of her clothing left something to be desired, but she couldn’t imagine Joshua caring about anything as shallow as how someone dressed, as long as it was modestly. Besides, he’d pick out the particular combination she’d put on that morning, so clothes couldn’t be at the root of his problem with her.

So, why did Joshua practically trip over his own feet trying to get away from her every time they were in close proximity? When she caught her reflection in the mirror trying to check her breath, Cassidy tossed the brush down.

There was nothing wrong with her!

She was a big girl and could accept that he felt none of the same attraction she did. Besides, she needed a friend more than a love interest, she told herself. She’d get over his rejection.

Always brutally honest with herself, Cassidy felt a blush heat her face when she thought of the way he’d acted earlier. He had to suspect that she had feelings for him and was embarrassed by it. The only recourse her pride would allow was for her to get out of Dodge as soon as possible—she pursed her lips and stiffened her spine—and until then, she’d just have to hide her feelings as best she could. First thing tomorrow she’d go down to Earl’s and check on her car. With any luck she’d be on the road by noon.

As she reached out to pick up the hairbrush again, she noticed the New Testament Josh had all but forced into her hands as an excuse to push her out of his vicinity. No. There had been sincerity in his voice as he’d given it to her. She had no doubt that he really and truly wanted her to read it. She shrugged. What did she have to lose?

She read the gospel of Matthew and became utterly fascinated by the unfolding of a kingdom that no one seemed to understand, even those closest to the man named Jesus of Nazareth. Then in chapter 19 she came upon a passage that troubled her.

It was the story of a rich young man who kept all the commandments already and wanted to know what else he had to do to be saved. After the young man turned away in sadness at Christ’s answer, He’d told the disciples, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.”

Troubled, Cassidy longed to seek Joshua out, but couldn’t bear to see that same panicked look in his eyes that had sent her running earlier. An hour later, that passage still haunted and, she admitted, angered her. She heard Josh move through the hall toward his room followed by the click of Bear’s nails on the polished wood floor. After a few minutes the house settled into silence.

Still, those words bothered her and kept her awake. She was the heir to a small fortune. Did that mean she couldn’t go to heaven no matter what she did to earn it? It didn’t seem to fit or to be consistent with Joshua’s evenhanded approach to his faith or with the passage she’d read off his notes earlier. So what could it mean?

She remembered all the books on his desk and her conversation with Josh about how he prepared a lesson. If he could find out what others had read into the Scriptures in those commentaries, then so could she! Surely one of those scholars had answered her questions already.

Luckily, Bear’s night-lights glowed softly throughout the house as Cassidy crept down the hall. She was grateful to the ridiculous dog as she moved down the stairs and into the darkened study. The floor creaked as she tiptoed across the room to the desk. “Please, God,” she whispered, “don’t let Josh find me sneaking around like this. A girl can take only so much humiliation in one night.”

She found references in several books, and after a while she understood that this was one of those passages that the scholars agreed upon. But even so, they all seemed to see different applications in people’s lives.

The first one she read seemed to say that Jesus did not really mean that it was impossible for a wealthy person to enter heaven. The rest followed suit on this, but one author continued on to explain that what Jesus meant was that heaven is impossible to earn or buy. The wealthy tend to think that everything and everyone has a price and that since they can pay that price, they think they can have anything they want. She wondered how many men in her own social circle thought they had already bought their place in heaven through charitable donations.

So, she concluded, salvation is an unearned gift. She couldn’t earn it as she’d thought. No one could.

Further complicating the lives of the rich, another scholar pointed out, are the temptations money brings with it. That was easy enough for Cassidy to grasp. When a CEO friend of her grandfather’s had ordered mandatory drug testing in his company because of falling revenues, it had turned out that drug abuse was rampant in the upper echelon of the company.

Yet another commentary mentioned the way money is almost worshiped in the world of the wealthy and how it is more often than not like a god to them. That was an easy idea for her to translate to her own experience. She’d learned quickly that in the world of cutthroat corporate politics, nothing was more important than the almighty dollar.

Tired of thinking and less content than ever with her life, she leaned her head back onto the big, old desk chair and let it rock back the way Josh had earlier. She closed her eyes and wondered where all this was leading her.

“Cassidy, dear, are you all right?”

Cassidy heard Irma’s voice as if from afar. “What is it?” Cassidy asked, and opened her eyes, blinking in surprise, her mind still in a sleepy fog. “What’s going on?”

“I saw the light on in here and came in to scold Joshua for staying up all night. Instead I found you. What on earth are you doing in here so early in the morning?”

“Doing?” Suddenly realizing where she was, Cassidy sat up. “Oh, I’m terribly sorry. I didn’t mean to overstep myself by using the study without permission.”

“Don’t be foolish. Books are made to be read. You can’t read the print off the pages. So, tell me, what were you reading?”

“Well, last night Josh shoved a New Testament at me and told me to read it in my room. I—”

“Shoved it at you?” Irma cut in and frowned. “Well now, that doesn’t sound like our Josh.”

“He was…um, busy, and I was asking a lot of questions.”

“It still sounds as if he was rude to you.”

He had bordered on rude but Cassidy didn’t want Irma making an issue of it. She forced a smile. “Oh, I wasn’t offended. Really. So, anyway, I took it upstairs and read it, and something bothered me. I didn’t want to pester Joshua again so I tried to sleep on it. After a while, when I heard him go to bed, I remembered the books he’d been using to—” Cassidy halted in mid-thought, horrified that she’d almost revealed Henry and Josh’s secret.

Irma smiled gently. “I know he writes Henry’s sermons. He’s been doing it for over six months. Everyone knows, but Henry doesn’t realize the rest of us figured out how much Josh is doing.”

Loyalty was a beautiful thing to behold, she thought, and let the subject drop. “Well, anyway, he had explained what the books were, so I came down here to look up the passage, hoping that I’d be able to sleep after I found the answer to my question. I certainly didn’t mean to sleep here.”

Irma still didn’t look too happy. “Did you find your answer?”

“I think so. It was about being saved and being wealthy and how hard it is to be both. It was the story of the rich young ruler, and I think I figured out that it’s okay to possess money as long as it doesn’t possess you. And that you can’t buy or earn your way into heaven.”

Finally the older woman smiled. “I’d say you did a fine job of finding your answer. Too bad my son didn’t do his as well.”

“But he did. He was just tired and in the middle of the sermon he was working on. I shouldn’t have invaded his privacy. I guess I’d better get upstairs. Please don’t mention this to Joshua. I don’t want him to be any more annoyed with me than he already is.”

Cassidy didn’t wait for Irma’s response. She fled just as she had last night from Josh. She managed to get dressed and be on her way to Earl’s in less than fifteen minutes.

The hood was up on her car, and Earl was hard at work. “How’s it coming, Mr. Pedmont?” she asked, trying to hide her anxiety.

Startled, Earl straightened and smacked his head on the hood. “Ouch! Oh, howdy. Got to your car in the middle of yesterday,” he said as he wiped his hands on a rag. “Ordered up the fuel filter, but it didn’t get up here till late last night. Figured, Earl, you get up at dawn and you could have the little lady back on the road by nine or ten.”

Cassidy looked at her watch. An hour. She could be gone and out of Joshua’s town in an hour. That was a good thing, she assured herself, and wished she didn’t feel as if she were leaving home instead of heading toward it.

Then she noticed Earl’s frown as he looked back down at the engine. He took his hat off and scratched his head. Then he let out a very discouraged and discouraging sigh. “Weren’t the filter. That’s for sure,” he declared.

“It won’t be done?” she asked, somehow knowing she was doomed.

“Nope. I’d suggest we let the new filter stay in, though. I’d say it was near time to replace it, anyway. Now I guess I’d best send for a fuel pump. It may be that.”

“You aren’t sure?”

“Can’t imagine it could be anything else except maybe the carb, and we really don’t want that.”

“Why don’t we want that?”

“A carb’s an expensive piece, especially on one of these foreign jobs. Ain’t a drop in the bucket on an American car, either.”

No, she had to leave today. She saw the perplexed look on Earl’s lined face and suddenly he didn’t seem as competent to Cassidy as he had. “Maybe I should have it towed to a bigger town. Maybe to a foreign car expert.”

Earl’s crestfallen expression nearly broke Cassidy’s heart. “If you don’t trust ol’ Earl, then maybe you should do that. I’ll ask my supplier to recommend some other fella in some bigger town. Just give me a minute to put her back together the rest of the way, and I’ll make the call.”

“It isn’t that I don’t trust you,” she assured him, even though she didn’t. She hated hurting someone who had been nothing but kind to her. After all, how much damage could he do taking out parts and putting new ones in? The money didn’t matter. It was just that she’d wanted to get away from Josh before she made a bigger fool of herself than she already had. But she’d never been comfortable getting what she wanted at someone else’s expense.

“So how’s the car coming along?” she heard Josh call to Earl from across the garage.

“I ordered up a fuel filter hopin’ it would be something cheap so it weren’t too costly for the little lady. But it must be the pump itself. There wasn’t really a way to tell till I got the filter up here. But the little lady was just asking about havin’ herself towed to a bigger town.”

“Cassie? I thought you agreed not to be in such a hurry to leave.”

Cassidy stared at Josh. He looked worried. Had Irma given him a piece of her mind for being rude? She was suddenly furious with him. He had been rude. “Actually, I got the feeling that I’d worn out my welcome with you. And if I have, that’s too bad, Joshua Daniels, because Irma seems to like me just fine! And I like this town. It’s…it’s…quaint! And my stomach likes it, too!”

She turned to the elderly mechanic, ignoring Josh’s bug-eyed expression. “Earl, you go right ahead and order that fuel pump, and if it needs that carb thingy, get that, too. You just tinker with that foreign job till it purrs like a kitten. No matter how long it takes. Now if you gentlemen will excuse me, my stomach and I are going to have a nice breakfast with Irma and Henry.”

Josh stared after Cassidy’s retreating back.

“Whew-ee, someone sure put a burr under her saddle, and I’d say that someone was you, Josh. What’d you do?”

Josh grimaced and kneaded the back of his neck to relieve a little of the tension he’d been carrying since last night. Irma’s little lecture hadn’t helped it, either. “Irma tells me I was rude.”

Earl poked him. “Boy, are you blind? Stupid? Or just plain off your rocker? You don’t act rude to a sweet girl like that when you live in a town without one single female over twenty or under fifty. Irma and Henry waited fifty years for the Lord to send them a son. And He sent you. Now how are you going to give them any grandchildren to bounce on their old knees if you chase away a find like Cassidy Jamison? You take old Earl’s advice, boy, you stop at The Trading Post and see if Pearl don’t have some flowers or some trinket for you to take to that sweet child as a peace offering.”

“Sweet child? She nearly took my head off.”

“Served you right from what I could see. Rude, huh?” Earl turned away and ambled to the phone on the wall. He looked back after lifting the receiver. “Go on!” he ordered, and pointed toward the door.

Josh went. But he wasn’t buying any peace offering!

Josh clutched at the cedar box he’d found himself buying at The Trading Post an hour earlier. He’d fought the urge to give in to Earl’s suggestion—he liked to think of it as a suggestion rather than an order—but he’d realized that when somebody was right they were right. He had been incredibly rude last night. Especially considering that Cassidy had been seeking knowledge about the God he served—or was supposed to serve.

As he entered the parlor, Josh saw Cassidy sitting in the window seat looking out over the meadow that lay between the parsonage and the wide stream that formed the western border of the town. She seemed to be trying to memorize every rut and sleeping twig.

“That’s quite a scene,” he said after clearing his throat. It wasn’t a comment on the landscape beyond the window. He longed to tell her so, but knew he had to keep his feelings to himself.

“It must be beautiful in spring.” Cassie turned her head and looked up at him. “Josh, I’m sorry I shouted at you and that I embarrassed you in front of Earl.”

“It was no less than I deserved. I should be apologizing to you. Last night I was tired and cranky, but that’s no excuse.” Again he found himself shoving an offering into her hands. “I got you something. It’s sort of a souvenir.” There was confusion in her eyes again this time, too, but no hurt at least. Instead she smiled, and he tried to ignore the kick his heart gave in answer.

“It’s lovely.”

He grinned. “No, it isn’t. It’s tourist junk. But apology gifts are few and far between in the winter around here. If I’d waited till spring or summer to be rude, you could have had wildflowers. Instead you get a cedar box with a tacky pair of earrings inside.” He didn’t mention that he wished with everything in him that she’d be around come spring. But praying for such a thing went against what he believed.

She opened the box and sniffed the cedar—just like a tourist. Then she laughed at the earrings. It wasn’t a mocking laugh but one of delight. “Oh, they’re adorable,” she said, and held up a gold and rose-pink, minnow-shaped fishing lure that hung by its tail from what looked like a modified fishhook.

“Pearl’s son Jamie turns lures into earnings, then she sells them for him,” he told her.

“Thank you. I love them.”

“Does that mean I’m forgiven?”

Her eyes narrowed a bit as she considered him for a long moment. “Are you apologizing because Irma told you to?”

He shook his head. “I’m apologizing because I was a clod.”

She grinned. “In that case, you’re forgiven for being a clod.”

“Thanks. I think.”

“You’re welcome, I’m sure.”

“Josh, are you taking that parcel up to Stephanie Tully?” Irma asked as she came into the room. “I think it might be for her birthday from her aunt in Wilkes-Barre. It would be so nice if she got it today.”

Irma spied the box and earrings a split second later. Josh didn’t like her smile one bit.

“Oh, you bought yourself a pair of those clever earrings Jamie makes.”

Josh waited for the inevitable.

“Josh gave them to me as an apology for our misunderstanding,” explained Cassidy.

That I see eyebrow of Irma’s arched over one of her suddenly sparkling eyes. “Well, isn’t that interesting. You know, you should take Cassidy along today. Stephanie mentioned that she wanted her and Larry to have a long talk with you soon—when I saw her after last Sunday’s service. Cassidy could keep Krystal busy, while you work with her parents.”

“I don’t know anything about children,” Cassidy protested. “I don’t think I’ve been around a child since I was one myself.”

“Don’t be silly. Children are just little people with simple interests. You’d be fine,” Irma said.

“It would be a big help,” Josh admitted, however reluctantly. “I have a feeling that they really needed to talk out a problem.” He held his breath, unwilling to hope for her answer.

“If you really think I could be of some help, then sure. I’ll tag along.”

“Thanks,” he said, not sure he meant it. This meant hours with her. How much temptation could one man stand?

“Don’t thank me till the kid lives through the experience. I’ll just go get my jacket,” she said, her tone a forced brand of optimism that made him feel small and petty.

It wasn’t her fault he wanted things he couldn’t have, he chastised himself. How had he come to feel this much so quickly?

Josh shot Irma a disgruntled look. “Ma, please stop pushing us together. It’s crazy, and someone’s going to get hurt. I don’t want it to be Cassie.” He didn’t wait for a reply but stalked from the room in search of his own jacket and the package he had to deliver to Stephanie.

Josh already knew riding in the truck together would generate an intimacy he dreaded but also looked forward to. He couldn’t ignore the irony of his situation. He might be uncomfortable when he was with Cassie, but he’d utterly panicked when he’d thought she was about to leave town. There seemed to be no easy solution—no solution at all from where he stood. An heiress didn’t belong in Mountain View, and he was only marginally free to pursue a relationship, anyway.

Several hours later, Josh and Larry Tully walked across the fields toward Larry’s small house. It had been a productive afternoon. Josh now had a carpentry project lined up for next spring and summer. It would help boost the church’s dwindling treasury and would help solve the problem between Stephanie and Larry.

He’d gotten to the bottom of the issue between the couple quickly and had helped them see that it wasn’t as huge a gulf as they’d thought. Stephanie’s widowed mother was terribly lonely and afraid living several counties away, and had asked to move in with them. Though they wanted to help, neither really wanted to try fitting another adult into their little two-bedroom home. Unfortunately, Larry had put his foot down, and said no without asking his wife’s opinion first. Stephanie had taken the opposite stand even though she wasn’t exactly crazy about the idea herself.

Josh had gotten Larry to admit that he really liked his mother-in-law and wanted to help but that he felt the crowded conditions would be too much of a strain on their marriage. Stephanie had admitted that while she loved her mother dearly, she did not relish being the “daughter” in her own kitchen.