Levity glimmered in Charity’s eyes. Rick was tempted to tell his best knock-knock joke just to see her laugh again.

But he waited too long, and she started moving closer to the church entry, away from him.

She glanced at her watch. “I need to grab this…stuff and get home,” she said. “I have to work tonight.” With a wave, she turned and pulled open one of the double-glass doors.

Rick waved back, wishing he could think of an excuse to stall her. The way she blurred the clear lines around his personal boundaries, he should have been wishing she would disappear until the building dedication instead of hanging around and distracting him.

Climbing back on the ladder, he still couldn’t help observing when her car pulled out of the church lot. And more than that, he couldn’t help wondering when he’d see her next. Or hoping it wasn’t too long.

DANA CORBIT

has been fascinated with words since third grade, when she began stringing together stanzas of rhyme. That interest, and an inherent curiosity, led her to a career as a newspaper reporter and editor. After earning state and national recognition in journalism, she traded her career for stay-at-home motherhood. But the need for creative expression followed her home and, later, through the move from Indiana to Milford, Michigan. Outside the office, Dana discovered the joy of writing fiction. In stolen hours, during naps and between carpooling and church activities, she escapes into her private world, telling stories from her heart.

Dana makes her home in Grand Rapids, Michigan, with her husband, three young daughters and two cats.

An Honest Life
Dana Corbit

www.millsandboon.co.uk

No man has ever seen God; if we love one another,

God abides in us and His love is perfected in us.

—I John 4:12

To my grandmother, Jane Bowley,

who shares my love of romance and whose own

story of lifetime love inspires me.

A special thanks to the following people

for lending your expertise to this story:

Angela Jacobson, R.N., labor and delivery nurse;

Lisa Cardle, R.N., neonatal intensive care nurse;

Dr. Steven Naum, M.D., hand surgeon;

and Duane Rasch and Jon Tuthill, licensed builders.

Any mistakes contained within are my own.

Dear Reader,

I really enjoyed revisiting the people of Hickory Ridge Community Church in this story. These characters have become so real for me, their ties to each other so powerful, like those in the church of my childhood. Though not perfect, they care for each other and worship together.

Writing Charity Sims’s story was a special joy because Charity has so much to learn about life, matters of the heart and, especially, God’s love. Who better to teach her than the reluctant hero, Rick McKinley? This story is about living An Honest Life before others and in our own hearts. Through God’s love we can finally find peace.

I love hearing from readers. You may write to me at P.O. Box 120044, Grand Rapids, MI, 49512, or contact me through the web site http://www.loveinspiredauthors.com.

Dana Corbit

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter One

Adrenaline pumped through Charity’s veins in the same rhythm that her soft-soled shoes tapped on the hallway floor. She rushed into her sixth labor-delivery-recovery-postpartum room since the seven-to-seven shift started five hours before. And for the sixth time, she grumbled about the barometric pressure changes that likely had triggered labor for so many women. Thanks to it, Stanton Birthing Center had become a madhouse over Labor Day weekend. And this was just barely Saturday morning.

Sucking in a breath of that familiar disinfectant scent, she knocked and pushed open the door. “Hello, Mr. and Mrs.—” she paused, gazing up from her chart to the woman on the bed and the man next to her “—Westin.” She swallowed hard, her heart racing, her hands damp.

How could she have missed the connection when she’d read the name Westin on the room-status board? Too late. Now she had to face these two people and the most humiliating moment of her life.

Andrew Westin coughed into his hand before he finally could say, “Hello, Charity.” His wife said nothing at all, her eyes wide.

With a nod in his direction, Charity turned back to her patient. Serena Jacobs Westin chewed her lip, appearing pained, though the monitor attached to her belly showed she was between contractions. Charity could relate to that nonphysical agony.

“Mrs. Westin, I’ll be your nurse throughout the night.”

Throughout the night? Could she survive that long in the same room with the man she’d pined over and who had rejected her so soundly? Or with the former divorcée Andrew had chosen over her? Charity itched to run for the door, to take that much needed vacation far away from southeast lower Michigan, or at least to beg another labor and delivery nurse to take her patient. But she resigned herself to the task. Other staff members were already busy with two ongoing cesarean sections and a “mec” delivery—where an infant’s waste, called meconium, was present in its amniotic fluid and signaled possible complications. She needed to buck up and do her job.

Wrapping the blood pressure cuff around Serena’s arm, she set up the stethoscope to check her heart rate. “I need to get your vital signs and ask you a few questions before the staff obstetrician examines you. The admitting clerk said your water broke. Can you tell me at what time?”

Serena glanced at Andrew and turned back to her nurse. “Okay. Wait…I’m starting another one.” She gripped her rounded abdomen and focused on a spot on the opposite wall, making the quiet hee-hee sound of Lamaze breathing.

“Come on, sweetheart, breathe,” Andrew crooned, holding his wife’s hand and brushing dark hair back from her face. “That’s right. You’re doing great.”

If a hole in the floor could have swallowed her, Charity would have welcomed its suction. Instead, she fussed with the thick band that held her hair away from her face. Watching the loving way Andrew ministered to Serena only reminded Charity of what she didn’t have. But she couldn’t think about that now. Nor would she acknowledge the sharp edge of envy that pressed against her insides.

“He’s right, Mrs. Westin. You’re doing a great job, and your contraction has ended.” Charity surprised herself by sounding in control, though her mind raced in a dozen directions. To maintain that illusion, she returned to her memorized list of questions. “About your water…”

“Nine o’clock,” Serena answered, sounding strained.

That voice, more than her patient’s response, focused Charity’s thoughts immediately. It hinted that the baby might come soon. She bent to check the paper strip spilling from the fetal monitor. At least she saw no signs of early or late heart rate deceleration that might have indicated fetal distress.

“When is your due date?”

“September 8,” she choked out.

Jotting down the gestation and other information the couple provided about Serena’s last OB visit, Charity continued, “When is the last time you ate or drank anything?”

“Dinner…at six.” Serena closed her eyes, another contraction coming on the heels of the former.

A knock came on the door just as Charity glanced at the monitor again, and a petite woman in blue scrubs stepped into the room.

“Hello, I’m Dr. Kristen Walker, the staff OB.”

“Doctor, I’d like you to meet Andrew and Serena Westin.”

Charity stepped next to the doctor, who was pulling on a pair of latex gloves. “Mrs. Westin is at thirty-nine weeks three days gestation. When she saw her OB two days ago, she was closed, thick and long. She ruptured at twenty-one hundred and could be precipitous. Her tones look good and her vitals are fine.”

With Dr. Walker’s nod, Charity moved to the wall telephone to contact Serena’s regular obstetrician while the staff physician checked the degree of dilation and effacement.

Just as Charity hung up, Dr. Walker straightened and dropped her gloves into the garbage. “Mrs. Westin, you’re already to eight centimeters and one hundred percent effaced. Your doctor is on her way. Keep up your Lamaze breathing because you’ll be ready to push soon.”

Charity moved into action, opening the cherry-finished cabinetry of the homey LDRP room, to reveal the necessary equipment for the delivery. In the infant care center, she turned on the warmer light, prepared the parent-newborn bracelets and readied the oxygen and suction equipment.

“Is she too far along for an epidural?” Andrew asked the doctor.

“I’m afraid so,” Dr. Walker responded. “Everything will progress quickly now.”

Their voices seemed so far away as Charity focused on her role in preparing for the big arrival. The baby hadn’t even crowned and already she felt that same rush of excitement she experienced every day on the job. No matter how many newborns she cradled in her arms, the miraculous birthing process still amazed her.

But it wasn’t time to be amazed yet. So much could still go wrong.

As soon as Dr. Walker left the room, Charity moved quickly to start Serena’s IV. “We’ll have to answer some of the standard questions after you deliver, but I already know the one about religion,” she said as she secured the tube with medical tape.

Fifteen minutes later, Serena’s regular obstetrician whipped through the door, yanking on his gloves. While the physician examined the mother and announced her ready to push, Charity checked to ensure they were prepared for the best…and the worst. Then she held her breath and braced one of her patient’s legs while awaiting the miracle of life.

Charity wondered if she’d ever had a longer twelve-hour shift as she pulled her champagne-colored coupe out of West Oakland Regional Hospital’s parking lot, practically letting her car drive itself back from Commerce Township to the Village of Milford. Her adrenaline boost had disappeared, leaving only her normal void.

A sad smile pulled at her lips when she thought of sweet Seth, who had announced his arrival with a howl that said, “Here I am.” The Westin baby had chubby cheeks and blue eyes that were already threatening to turn brown. But like all the other newborns sleeping in the nursery or rooming with their mothers, he was someone else’s child.

“Get over it, Charity,” she said aloud, shaking her head at the empty road she traveled. Helping with Serena Westin’s delivery had taken a heavier toll than she’d expected.

She hoped it was only her pulse—instead of her biological clock—that pounded in her ears. Whatever it was, it refused to let her favorite contemporary Christian music in the cassette player drown it out. December and her thirtieth birthday loomed before her, and she didn’t have a marriage prospect in sight.

Figuring she wouldn’t get any sleep this morning anyway, she continued up General Motors Road instead of turning on South Milford Road and heading straight home. Mother wouldn’t mind. She wouldn’t be up for breakfast for another hour anyway.

At Hickory Ridge Road, Charity turned right. A few miles up on the left, Hickory Ridge Community Church’s well-tended flower beds—her work, of course—promised the gardening therapy and solace she needed. Focusing her thoughts on the gardening gloves, trowel and pruning shears she always kept in the trunk, she flicked back a seed of misgiving. Church hadn’t offered her much peace lately, often unsettling her nerves. Even at her weekly prayer meetings, she’d felt empty. That wouldn’t happen this time, when she could soak up the silence in the late summer sunshine—alone.

But as soon as she turned into the church drive, she realized how wrong she was. The whir of power saws and the bam-bam-bam of hydraulic nail guns reverberated off the windshield and filtered in the open window, setting her teeth on edge. Can nothing go right today?

R and J Construction had been working several weeks on the new Family Life Center building project, but she wished they’d taken this particular Saturday off. She drove farther until she reached the new asphalt parking lot past the parsonage. As soon as she shut off the engine, blaring rock music from the building site assailed her ears and had her grinding her molars.

Ignore it. She retrieved her gardening equipment and headed over to the farthest point away from that skeleton of a building—the landscaped bed on the side of the church facing the road. But tuning out those worldly sounds proved impossible, even as she dug below the roots of a grass clump that had dared invade the mulch-covered area.

“That’s enough,” she announced, just as a second song started beating its way into her mind.

Righteous indignation straightened her posture as she marched toward the construction site and a man dressed in faded jeans and a white T-shirt. As he straightened from bending over two sawhorses, she recognized him. He’d been at the center’s groundbreaking ceremony.

“Excuse me,” she said in her loudest speaking voice, suddenly uncomfortable to still be wearing her blue hospital scrubs out in public.

He jerked his head up. “May I help you?” he called out, shoving light brown hair out of his eyes.

“If you don’t mind…” She crossed her arms and let her words trail off, figuring them useless under the power saw’s drone and that incessant drumbeat.

The man pointed to his ears and shook his head. “Sorry. Can’t hear you.”

Charity didn’t like the way his cornflower-blue eyes twinkled or the way his mouth turned up slightly at the corners. This was not funny. Stepping closer, she yelled again. “You might be able to if we didn’t have to shout over that…noise.”

The man turned his head to the right and executed a piercing two-finger whistle. Church member Rusty Williams appeared from the other end of the framed structure and, at his boss’s nod, turned off the stereo. Amazingly, the saw stopped at the same time.

“Good to see you, Sister Charity,” Rusty said, pausing beside them. “Did you just get off work? I didn’t realize you two had met.”

Charity nodded at the question and forcibly dropped her hands to her sides, trying not to smile at Rusty’s habit of calling church members “brother” or “sister.” Hardly anyone else at church—especially anyone as young as Rusty—referred to other members that way. Finally, she responded to his second comment. “We haven’t really.”

Rusty grinned and stood between them. “Charity Sims, I’d like you to meet R.J.—I mean Rick McKinley, owner of R and J Construction, the general contractor on the project.” He turned to his boss. “Rick, I’d like you to meet Sister Charity, another fine member of Hickory Ridge Church. Now if you two will excuse me…” He started to walk away but turned back. “Oh, tell your mother hello for me, okay?”

Nodding, she turned back to Rick. He shoved his hair out of his eyes again. In need of a good cut, his hair was sun streaked from outdoor work.

“Now, you were saying…” he prompted, interrupting her observation.

“I was trying to say you could help me by turning off that awful music.”

He shrugged, that infuriating grin returning, as he indicated with his head toward the boom box that was indeed already turned off. “So?” he challenged.

Charity stiffened again, the power of her conviction making it impossible to relax. “You must know that music like that is inappropriate for work at a church setting.”

He nodded slowly, tucking thumbs through his tool belt in a casual pose, but his chiseled jaw tensed. “I’m sorry you feel that way, Miss Sims, but music makes work easier for my crew. Especially on a holiday weekend when every other Michigander is fishing at a cabin up north or cruising the big lake.”

Her arms folded again over her chest. How obtuse could this man be? “Mr. McKinley, it’s not music I’m opposed to. It’s the type you chose. Secular? Here at our church? What would people think if they drove up to meet with Reverend Bob Woods, our youth minister Andrew Westin or the deacons?”

His gaze hardened, and he seemed to have tightened all over. Sturdy muscles in his arms strained against his shirt. “They’d probably think my construction crew was playing some music. It’s not even offensive music. Just run-of-the-mill pop.”

“Whatever it is—” she paused, nodding toward the despised radio “—it doesn’t belong here at Hickory Ridge. I can’t believe you would defend it after I’ve made that clear to you.”

“Oh, you’ve made something clear, all right.” He jutted his chin forward. “You’ve proved a point, but it has nothing to do with music.”

Charity gritted her teeth, her face becoming hot. Why did she have to put up with this impossible man? “I have no idea what you’re talking about, but I insist that you keep that music turned off.”

He stared at her a few seconds, his gaze furious enough to make her step back if she weren’t so determined to hold her ground. The mission of the righteous was never easy. When she was certain she couldn’t stay in that position a second longer facing his challenging stare, he jerked his hand sharply and startled her.

That hand ended up in an exaggerated salute at Rick’s forehead. “Yes, ma’am.” With that, he stalked over to the boom box, flipped the power switch and cranked the volume full blast.

“I said turn it off,” she shouted.

Rick glanced back at her and pointed to his ears, indicating he couldn’t hear what she was saying. Her hands tightened at her sides as she marched toward him. Rick McKinley would get a piece of her mind if she had to jam it right into his smug face. But when she got close enough to do just that, he didn’t even give her the satisfaction of meeting her gaze. Something behind her seemed to have all of his attention.

Unable to resist seeing what was more important than listening to her, she glanced over her shoulder. Andrew Westin’s car pulled farther up the drive, past the aging farmhouse that served as a parsonage, right toward them.

Her anger evaporated as embarrassment covered her like a sunbath. Charity shot a glance back at Rick before she turned to watch Andrew park and climb out of his car.

Why did she continually make a fool of herself in front of men? Why had she blown her top over something as trivial as a radio station? Antagonism from an infuriating man wasn’t excuse enough. No matter what her reasons for rebuking the builder—or for that other unpleasant showdown in her past—she didn’t plan to wait around to face both of these guys together.

“Obviously, I’m not going to get through to you, so I’m leaving,” she shouted, hiding behind a facade of anger. With that, she about-faced and stalked to the parking lot, passing Andrew without a wave. She wished she didn’t wonder about the looks focused on her back or why nothing made sense anymore.

Chased by feelings that had everything—and nothing—to do with the two men behind her, she rushed to the car and her escape. Only after she’d shot up some gravel in the church drive and had reached Hickory Ridge Road could she finally let go of the breath she’d held. Her relief was short-lived, though, as it was followed by hot and humiliating tears.

Chapter Two

Andrew Westin’s lips moved, but Rick couldn’t hear a word over the blaring radio. Feeling sheepish for letting that self-righteous so-and-so push his hot button, Rick jogged over to the boom box and shut off the power. Great, now you’re going to lose the contract. What will you do next, spit at Reverend Bob?

“Hey, Andrew, sorry about that.”

But the youth minister only waved away the apology, his focus on Charity’s retreating car. A smile lit his face when he finally turned back to Rick. “Did you hear me, man? It’s a boy.” It didn’t seem to matter to Andrew that he looked like he hadn’t slept since the Fourth of July and his hair had hat head, minus the hat.

“Oh, that’s great.” Rick stepped forward and gripped the other man’s hand. “Congratulations.” Andrew’s laughter was so contagious that Rick couldn’t help joining in, despite his sour mood.

“It all happened so fast. He’s so tiny. It was exciting and scary. You just wouldn’t believe—”

“Is the baby okay?” Rick interrupted, trying to decipher the cryptic dialogue. “Is your wife okay?”

Andrew beamed as he breathed deeply and started again. “He’s great. Serena’s great. Eight pounds, twelve ounces. Him, not her. A head full of dark hair. That’s the both of them.” He stopped to chuckle at his joke. “Seth Michael Westin. Our boy.” He stepped away long enough to pass blue bubblegum cigars out to several crew members before handing one to Rick.

What did that kind of joy feel like? Rick couldn’t begin to guess, and he refused to let himself wonder and risk wishing. “What good news,” he said when he could think of nothing else to say.

Rusty saved him from further platitudes by hurrying through the framed area where they would eventually hang glass double doors. Never one to worry about his manly-man image, Rusty wrapped Andrew in a bear hug that had to hurt.

“Brother Andrew, don’t tell me you got yourself a boy.” He slapped the youth minister’s back when he finally released him.

“Sure did.” Andrew stuffed a plastic-wrapped gum cigar into the other man’s mouth. “He’s a keeper, too.”

Rusty pulled the candy out of his mouth and twirled it in his fingers. “What does your sweet step-daughter think of her baby brother?”

“Tessa hasn’t met him yet. I’m going to shower and then pick her up from Robert and Diana Lidstrom’s, so we can go visit Mommy and Seth.”

“Did the delivery go okay?” Rusty asked the question casually, leaning against the sawhorse in the relaxed pose of a seasoned father of three. “Any complications?”

“No, it was real easy—at least for me.” Andrew laughed again. “But it was strange having Charity as the labor and delivery nurse.” He glanced back to the drive Charity had just exited.

“Isn’t she great?” Rusty must have missed the way Rick tensed and Andrew startled when he said that. “She was in there when Tricia had Max two years ago. Didn’t even break a sweat when Max came breech and ended up in an emergency C-section.”

As the two sang more of Charity’s praises, Rick stepped away from both the conversation and comments he couldn’t reconcile with the scrubs-wearing shrew, who had made his acquaintance with a sledgehammer. At least he’d moved far enough away that they wouldn’t expect him to comment when Andrew wondered aloud why the object of their discussion had just raced from the church lot.

“Probably some woman thing,” one of them said, with the other buying that easy explanation.

Rick didn’t believe there was anything easy about understanding what made Charity Sims tick—double time. But then why was he wasting precious seconds thinking about that irrational woman? Just who did she think she was, anyway, being the censor and church police, all rolled up into one?

Everything about her was ironic, her name most of all. Charity. He couldn’t imagine anyone less charitable. And that sun-kissed exterior of hers couldn’t have been more incongruent with the dark inside he’d glimpsed. Without invitation, long tresses of golden thread appeared in his thoughts. She’d worn her hair tied back, but a few strands had escaped, making him imagine a riotous mane had it all been set free. But the green-gold eyes he envisioned next, their superior expression judging and convicting him with a single glance, cleared his thoughts of such nonsense.

This woman was a perfect example of why he kept his personal relationship with God just that—personal. She reminded him of those biblical Pharisees, praying out loud on the temple steps for show while they didn’t know the Father at all deep inside, where it counted. Was she just like them, a hypocrite play-acting her faith for an audience? She’d certainly deserved applause for that performance on the church lawn.

“Boss, if you’re planning to daydream all morning, then the rest of us would like to head off on our Labor Day weekend.”

Rusty’s chiding sent Rick slamming back to earth, bringing resentment along for the ride. “Funny, I thought my foreman and crew didn’t have to be led by the hand.” The words were barely out of his mouth, and he already regretted them. Rusty Williams was his best friend—his only friend. He’d never let anyone else get that close. “Hey, sorry—”

But the foreman shook it away with a wave and grin. Good ol’ Rusty. Rick moved back to his power saw as the table saw across the building site roared to life. As he marked a two-by-four to be cut, he concluded he wouldn’t waste any more energy thinking about the motivations of the annoying Charity Sims.

He would focus on more important things like completing this center project on time and proving that R and J Construction was ready to add more commercial projects to its residential work. Instead of worrying about that woman’s contradictions, he would concentrate on the irony that the Hickory Ridge project presented. In order to push his company firmly out of the red column and into the black, he had to work in the one place he had long disdained—a church.

Charity parked in the garage but couldn’t convince her body to climb out of the car. That made no sense at all. She needed to get her thoughts in perspective, and who better to help her than Mother? Laura Sims would applaud her, first for her dignity in facing the Westin issue and later for her fortitude in putting that nasty general contractor in his place.

Why did that certain approval hold so little appeal for her today? Again, she wondered whether she’d been right to reproach the builder in front of his crew, even if he had been wrong. She still could see the shocked expression on his bronzed face and the contempt that had trailed so closely behind it. Could she possibly deserve his derision?

The squeak of the interior garage door helped her shake the image that filled her with humiliation rather than the holy vindication she would have expected.

“Charity, dear, you’re not planning to spend the whole morning in the car, are you?” Laura stood in the doorway, wiping her hands on her apron. “I’ve been holding breakfast for you, and here you are letting it get cold while you sit behind your steering wheel.”

“Sorry, Mother—”

“I should think so. I didn’t even get a call that you would be late. I deserve that much consideration. You know how I worry.”

As much as she resented her mother playing her, Charity felt her strings being plucked and recognized she had no choice but to produce a melody. “I don’t know what I was thinking. I should have called, but I didn’t want to wake you. I know how you like to sleep in on Saturdays.”

She would have mentioned she was twenty-nine years old—plenty old enough to care for herself—if she’d thought it would have made a difference. It wouldn’t have.

“But it’s even more important to me to know you’re safe,” Laura responded as she pulled her daughter into the house. “You’re all I have since your father went to his heavenly home, bless his sweet soul.”

Hearing the standard soliloquy on her late father’s many attributes cuing up, Charity spoke quickly to interrupt the tape. “I’m glad you care, Mother. Now let’s eat before your great breakfast gets cold.”

Between bites of eggs and fried potatoes, Charity filled her mother in on the details of her embarrassing experience at the hospital. She mentioned stopping by the church as an aside.

“Oh, you poor dear.” Laura made a tsk-tsk sound and shook her head before sipping her coffee. “That had to have been so difficult. We both thought Andrew was the perfect choice for you—the Lord’s choice. He seemed so much like your dear father. But Andrew’s decision to marry that divorcée shows we were mistaken.”

Obviously. And apparently Laura still resented the woman who’d eliminated her daughter’s chance at the handsome youth minister. She wished her mother would just let it go, as Charity finally had. Especially after today.

“I’m fine, Mother.”

“Sweetheart, the godly man we’ve always hoped for is out there somewhere, waiting for you. We have only to wait for God to reveal His plan.”

“I know you’re right,” she answered, anything but sure. How many times had she heard those same words—and believed them? So why did they sound so empty now?

Absently tracing patterns in her remaining scrambled eggs, Charity let the questions plaguing her lately resurface. She’d always figured with her devout mother and near-sainted late father, she’d received faith as a birthright. The rest she was beginning to question. But what more could she do? She already walked the Christian walk and talked its talk head and shoulders better than others in her church. Not that she expected a reward, but didn’t God answer the prayers of the faithful?

As if she noticed how quiet Charity had become, Laura reached over and squeezed her hand. “I’m just sure you’ll meet him soon.”

Charity’s fork stilled as Rick’s face—too handsome for his own good—sneaked uninvited into her thoughts. She’d met a “him” all right, but if first impressions could be trusted, he didn’t belong in this conversation at all.

“Good, you can be sure for the both of us.” If only her attempt at humor didn’t sound so strained.

“What did you work on at the church?” Laura asked as she cleared away the dishes.

“I couldn’t get focused. I didn’t get much done.” She couldn’t explain why she was reluctant to discuss that exchange with Rick, even if her mother had given her a perfect opportunity to broach the subject.

Laura offered her a closed-lipped, all-knowing mother smile. “You probably just got impatient and left. You’ve always been impatient.”

The comment ruffled her, but Laura was right. If not for Charity’s rush to find a husband, maybe she wouldn’t have chased Andrew so desperately or been so furious when he rejected her. Not for the first time, she wondered if her accusing him of having an affair with Serena had been inspired more by revenge than holiness.

She would have thought she’d learned a thing or two from that humiliating sequence of events. Like, for instance, that making rash judgments could result in undue embarrassment for all those involved. Andrew had told her there was a perfectly good explanation for his overnight presence at Serena’s house, if she would only wait for it. But Charity hadn’t waited; she’d gone right to the deacons with her charge. And then it had come to light how Andrew and Serena had been counseling Reverend Bob’s pregnant teenage daughter.

Shame over that situation still made Charity hang her head low. If you learned so much, what were you doing, attacking that poor builder? That Rick McKinley was wrong suddenly didn’t seem a good enough defense for her actions.

“Charity, dear, stop daydreaming and eat some toast. You’re going to waste away to nothing. And just look at your eyes. You look exhausted.”

Maybe that’s because I worked all night. That unkind response startled Charity so much she straightened in her chair. Guilt appeared immediately, but she covered it with a smile and a nod. It wasn’t like her to talk back to her mother, even in her thoughts. Mother always had her best interest at heart. She needed to remember that. “You’re right. I am tired.”

“You go straight to bed then. I’ll clean up the kitchen. I did most of the cleaning while I was waiting for you, anyway.”

“Thanks, Mother,” she said, choosing not to respond to that last comment or the mild censure that came with it.

Charity let herself be shooed up the stairs to her room, but the tiny daisies that covered the bed, walls, filmy curtains, even her picture frames, immediately crowded her. It was a little girl’s room. Nothing had changed in that room in twenty years, except the grade level of shelved textbooks and the arrival and upgrades in her desktop computer.

She couldn’t sleep here, or anywhere else. Not as confused as she felt after the events at the hospital. And not with Rick McKinley’s smug face reappearing in her thoughts. Before this morning, she’d only seen him that one time at the groundbreaking, and now his image wouldn’t go away. More frustrating than that, just one confrontation with this guy had dissatisfaction with her whole life twisting inside her like a tightening noose.

That made no sense. Her life was fine. Settled, even. So it had to be something else. Something about the man himself. Crawling under her blankets, she tried to push away the images as well as the agitation that kept her breathing from steadying toward sleep. She could still see him measuring and sawing wood, outside in the September morning. Outside the church.

“Wait. That’s it.” She looked about the room, as surprised at having spoken aloud as having sat straight up in bed.

She’d never seen Rick inside her church. Maybe he didn’t attend anywhere. Come to think of it, she didn’t recognize any of the crew from Sunday services, and since she never missed one, she should know. Oh, Rusty attended regularly, of course, but the rest were definite prospects. Maybe her preoccupation with Rick was a sign of her mission to bring that motley construction crew into the church.

Letting her head float back to the pillow, she imagined all the men, tool belts still slung on their hips, lining the church’s front pew. But her plan stalled, only halfway formed. Before she could act as a candle leading those men to light, she needed to make amends with their difficult leader.

A case of nerves. Nothing else could explain the way her pulse tripped at the thought of facing Rick again. She flipped onto her stomach, burying her face in the pillow and pressing her heart into the mattress to slow the beat.

Maybe it was anticipation for the mission ahead. It had nothing to do with being under the scrutiny of those huge, unreadable eyes or absorbing the tension he radiated in waves. No, she had been and would continue to be unaffected by the rugged Rick McKinley. But an uneasiness settling deep inside made her wonder.

Rick took the last bite of his sandwich during his lunch break, wishing he could bite back the resentment that had soured his mood all morning. That he couldn’t shake the irritation only made him angrier. He stood up from the picnic table, stowed his cooler under a tree and stalked toward the building site. Rusty caught up with him halfway across the parking lot and fell into step beside him.

“Hey, Boss, sorry about the run-in with Sister Charity. You’ve just got to understand that—”

“That what?” Rick jerked to a stop and faced the other man. “That she’s a shrew? That she had nothing better to do than to come here and bother me?” He glanced at his shoulders that had lifted to about ear level and carefully lowered them to a relaxed pose. “No big deal.”

Rusty nodded. “I can see that.”

“Can see what?”

Rusty countered Rick’s sharp look with a sheepish grin. “I know Sister Charity can get under the fingernails of the best of them, but she’s not so bad really. She’s got a real good heart when she lets it shine through. If I had my guess, I’d say it was her mother who taught her to hide it so well.”

Rick didn’t need to hear this, didn’t care what made the spitfire spit. It was like hearing a serial killer explain how he didn’t get enough hugs as a child. So he had no idea what made him ask, “What do you mean?”

“After Mr. Sims died, Sister Laura moved to Milford with Charity, who was about three from what I’ve heard tell. Her mother was a founding member of Hickory Ridge, around since the church still met in an empty storefront at Main and Commerce.”

When Rick prompted him to move along in the story with a twirl of an index finger, Rusty held up his hand. “I’m getting there. It’s said that the late Joseph Sims was a real good Christian man, a deacon who had just been called into the ministry when he passed. Sister Laura has spent almost three decades preparing her daughter to marry someone just like him.”

Rick started walking again but turned to speak over his shoulder. “What does that have to do with attacking strangers on construction sites?”

Rusty raised both hands in a gesture of simplicity. “Charity is trying to act the part of a perfect minister’s wife, hoping that will help her catch a minister. But she’s got it all wrong.”

“That’s pretty obvious, but I don’t see how any of this matters.”

“Hear me out, okay?” Glancing first at the parsonage, Rusty turned back to his boss. “Almost two years ago, when Andrew started his fellowship at Hickory Ridge, Charity chased after him like toilet paper stuck to a shoe, and she was appreciated about as much. It was a real blow to her when he married Serena instead.”

Andrew and Serena who had just had a child together? With Charity as their nurse? A seed of pity for the woman he’d immediately disliked threatened to sprout inside Rick, but he pushed it safely underground. “I bet that made it uncomfortable today at the hospital.”

“It might have been, but I just know Sister Charity did everything she could to make the delivery comfortable for Serena. Charity’s a great nurse. You can just tell how much she cares about those babies—and their moms. That’s how I know she has a good heart.”

Rick took a few more steps away. “She wasn’t displaying any good heart when she marched in and attacked me over my choice of music.”

Rusty walked up behind him again. “Our Charity. What a gal.” He laid a hand on his boss’s shoulder until Rick faced him, and then Rusty leaned in for a close examination. “Well, it doesn’t look like she left any marks—visible ones, anyway. Why don’t you give her a break this time?”

“Yeah, you’re probably right.”

“Besides, it’s not like you have to work with her every day or anything. You probably won’t have to see her again until the dedication.”

From your mouth to God’s ears. But to Rick, he only said, “Okay. You’re right.” It was awfully hard for him to see gray in his black-and-white world, and his friend expected him to see the full range of hues from soft silver to dark steel. “But that woman is as pious as the rest of those church people I remember.”

“I’m one of those church people, R.J., and you know me, warts and all. It’s not fair to pile us into one pot any more than it would be for me to judge your relationship with God.”

Rick stared at Rusty. He did know him, through years of work and through a friendship where the roots had grown deep. “Point taken. But hey, she attacked me.”

“I’m not debating that. I don’t know what put a bee in her bonnet. But I’m telling you there’s another side to Charity. The side that appears when she puts on her scrubs and heads into those fancy labor rooms.”

“Obviously, her transformation didn’t work today because she had scrubs on when she was here.” Rick tried a bit of humor, but Rusty shook his head, apparently not buying it.

“I’ll never forget when she helped deliver Max.” Rusty paused as if he was reliving that special day. “When she handed me that big round boy, I saw tears in her eyes.”

Rick raised his hands in surrender. “Okay, she’s not completely evil.”

“Far from it, my friend.” Rusty grinned and, without another word, turned and jogged to the rear of the building site that would eventually be the gymnasium.

Rick exhaled as he watched him, all of the wind ripped from his perfectly good rant. Watching the other workers, he had the creepy sensation that they’d been observing him during the discussion with Rusty. At least they couldn’t have heard it. But the breath he exhaled, he immediately drew back in. Just how long had they stood there discussing this woman who was a stranger to him? Stranger? After that discussion, he knew more about Charity Sims’ personal life than he’d learned about many crew members who had worked for him for months. Years even.

Rick tightened his tool belt and returned to the saw, hoping the blare would drown out thoughts of anything other than roofing trusses and subcontractors. Nothing would be allowed to divert his focus from completing this project on time and with the highest quality workmanship.

Sweaty work had always been his ticket out of his past and into the security and respect he craved. With this project, he could finally prove to those who believed he would amount to nothing that they were wrong.

Because it didn’t make much difference when compared to such critical matters, he would cut Charity some slack. She would likely keep her distance from him now, anyway. If she didn’t, well, he’d cross that bridge when he slammed into it.

Chapter Three

Two days later, Labor Day offered a sunny Monday off for many laborers, but fidgetiness kept Charity from enjoying the respite. Concentrating on the pots of chrysanthemums and garden tools at her feet was impossible when she only had to peek around the church building’s corner to see the prospect who had become “priority one” in her mission work. Even on the holiday, Rick remained the lone construction worker, toiling as if some supervisor still had him on the clock. Or as if he had something to prove.

After adding another look in that direction to the dozen earlier, she regretted turning down her mother’s invitation for their annual holiday outlet shopping spree. At the time, relaxation had seemed more important. Well, if relaxation wore grass-stained gardening shoes and was on constant alert, then she was well on the road to tranquility.

She continued yanking fists of dying wax begonias from the earth, the loose dirt seeming the most solid thing beneath her lately. But finally she gave in to her curiosity and took another peek at the building project. Too bad Rick, sporting a Detroit Red Wings cap and sunglasses, picked that moment to trudge toward the front of the church building where she’d been working.

“Sure is a beautiful morning. It was, anyway.” He stopped several feet away but gazed directly at her, sunlight catching on his unusual blue eyes. “It’s afternoon now.”

Though Charity’s cheeks burned, and her mouth competed with the Sahara on the dryness scale, she managed an affirmative noise in her throat. An awkward silence followed until they both spoke at once to break it.

“Hey, I’m sorry—”

“You know, I’m sorry—”

Charity couldn’t help laughing and felt relieved when Rick joined in. As he took a few more steps toward her, she scrambled to her feet. The filth she wiped from her palms to her holey jeans probably came with a dose of perspiration. She resisted the temptation to pat her hands on her loose ponytail. It shouldn’t have mattered how she looked. “I wasn’t bothering you, was I?”

“No. Was my noise bothering you? I didn’t have any music on this morning.” His smile was no less than devastating, that soft-looking mouth incongruous with the hard lines of his cheekbones. A small split tamed the perfection of his straight teeth.

Could her face and neck have gotten any warmer? “Uh…no. Of course not.”

“I really am sorry about the other day. I was obnoxious.”

How tempted she felt to let him take the blame for the whole crazy incident, but she resisted. She took her mission to bring this man to church seriously. To that end, she forced herself to look directly at him and to smile back. The Lord’s work required great sacrifice.

“No, I’m the one who overreacted and berated you about the music,” she said. “I went about it all wrong.”

Stuffing his hands in his pockets as if suddenly more uncomfortable in the situation, Rick pressed his lips into a straight line. That only made more obvious how little about Rick McKinley was soft. Not his features, all sharp angles and hard planes, and not his physique, which appeared as hard as the bricks stacked next to the building.

At her realization she’d been gawking, Charity glanced away from him, ashamed. “I’d better get these planted.”

She sat cross-legged on the ground, digging her fingers back into the earth. To safety. She pulled a few weeds, expecting him to retreat to the construction site. But he stayed there, staring across the field at Andrew and Serena’s house.

“I didn’t expect to see anyone here today,” he said as he dropped to his knees a few feet from her and yanked out a handful of weeds. “I figured everyone would be grabbing that last taste of summer. All of my crew are doing that.”

“But not you.” The words slipped past her better judgment before she could censor them. Her slip and his closeness made her so nervous she dropped the trowel and had to scramble to retrieve it. Now he probably thought she was wondering why he’d come here today and why he remained so close she could smell the sawdust on his clothes. And he would have thought right. “Me, neither,” she added in a rush. “I’m ready for summer to be over. I thought I’d get a head start on fall while everyone else was gone.”

“Do you do all of the gardening work at the church?”

She almost smiled at that. And it pleased her more than it should have that he’d attempted to make conversation when he easily could have left. He probably just wanted someone to talk to, and his crew was off for the day. It wasn’t as if he was interested in her or anything. They had nothing in common, as far as she could tell. Besides, she would never date a guy who quite possibly didn’t even go to church.

“The trustees take care of the grounds, but I’m in charge of the landscape committee. I do what I can with a limited budget and donate the rest.”

He nodded and yanked off his cap, tucking it in the waistband of his pants. Though his hair was sweaty and mussed, Charity could tell he’d gotten a haircut and appeared almost presentable. He resumed plucking weeds, even reaching beside her to borrow the trowel and dig out a few deep roots.

“You do a good job,” he said after a while.

It was the smallest of compliments, and yet Charity felt her insides warm with pleasure. From the way she’d reacted, she would have sworn he’d just dubbed her a master landscaper or something. “It looks bad right now.”

“No, it looks in transition.”

Neither said anything for a while, but they continued in companionable silence until they’d cleared the planting bed. “I have to get more plants from over there in the shade,” she told him. He surprised her by following and helping her carry flowers.

“Thanks, but you don’t need to do that. You’ll probably want to get back to your own work.”

Why had she encouraged him to leave when it was the last thing she wanted? But his nearness felt a little too nice to be a good idea.

“I don’t mind.” He laid the green plastic pots on the ground. “I needed a real break, anyway.”

Charity turned her head away to hide her grin. In her defense, it had been an awfully long time since she’d had an actual conversation with someone who wasn’t her mother, a co-worker or a fellow church member. But this wasn’t about her. This conversation presented an opportunity, and she needed to get busy with church work.

“How is the project coming along?” she asked.

“Now that we’ve framed the walls, we’ll be setting the trusses and sheathing the roof.” He glanced back at the structure and shook his head. “Until the building has a roof, we can’t install windows, doors or flooring.”

“Do you think you’ll meet the November deadline?”

He shrugged. “It’s going to be tight. If all the subcontractors—plumbing, electric, heating and cooling, insulation, drywall and finish flooring—are on time, and that’s a big if, then we’ve got a chance, anyway.”

“Oh, I hope everything moves quickly. That would be great if it would be ready for the Thanksgiving celebration.”

She dug a few holes and indicated for Rick to hand her individual plants to put into them. Once she lowered them into the ground and patted the dirt back into place, she turned back to him. “Have you heard about that event? It’s like a family holiday dinner times fifty.”

“Sounds okay, I guess, if you like things like that. But if anything throws the schedule off, it won’t be happening this year inside the new building.”

“If the project is done, you’ll come to the church celebration, won’t you?”

He made a noncommittal sound and handed her another plant. Well, at least it wasn’t an outright no. She could almost guarantee he’d be a regular church attendee before that next holiday.

She looked back at him again. “How was your Labor Day weekend?”

“Short. I worked Saturday, remember? And isn’t today still part of the long weekend?”

She nodded and took a deep breath before diving in. “Didn’t see you at church Sunday.”

“I wasn’t there. I don’t attend church.”

Now that sounded like a definite no. Her confidence slipped, but it wasn’t like her to give up easily. “You need to give it a chance, Rick. You’d just love Hickory Ridge. It’s a great church community.” She refused to hear how empty those words sounded in her ears or to wonder whether she even believed what she’d said. If the church was so great, then why did she feel so lonely lately every time she entered its doors?

“It’s not your specific church I’m opposed to. I disagree with organized religion overall.”

Charity’s mouth went dry. How could anyone believe such a thing when church was so much a part of her life, the center point of her daily schedule? But then the shock evaporated into irritation. “If you don’t believe in churches, then why are you building the Family Life Center?”

“I believe in honest work and giving clients the very best. And my foreman, Rusty, convinced me this was a good project for us—a group he believes in—so we went for the contract.”

The dispassionate way he said it bothered her even more. “I don’t understand how you can think this important project is just work. And if it’s just about earning a living, then why are you here alone today when you won’t accomplish much?”

Instead of answering her question, he shrugged. Charity planted her hands on her hips, refusing to wonder why his apathetic attitude annoyed her so much. Of course, it was justified, and she hurriedly searched for a reason to tell him before he spoke again. But he beat her to it.

“Hey, great news about the youth minister’s new baby. I heard you helped with the delivery.”

A punch couldn’t have knocked the wind out of her as effectively as that statement had. Uneasiness put an end to her annoyance. How much did Rick know about Andrew? Had Andrew told him the whole embarrassing story?

Her thoughts whirling off-kilter, she struggled for some appropriate response. She had to think of something to say before the awkward pause in their conversation expanded like a fault line during an earthquake. In a rush, she choked out, “Yes, Seth is a sweet baby. He is so perfect—such a wonderful gift from God.”

“That’s funny,” he said. “I thought they were all supposed to be gifts from God—even the less-than-perfect ones.”

Charity jerked up her head, but he only looked away. That wasn’t what she’d meant to say. He’d just gotten her all flustered, and now she’d fallen in a trap of her own words. Why did it seem she couldn’t string two coherent thoughts together when this man was around?

“That’s not what I meant, and you know it,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest, part for effect and part as self-protection from the way he muddled her thoughts. “I know perfectly well that all children are precious to God. In Matthew 19:14, Jesus even says, ‘Let the children come to me, and do not hinder them; for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven.’”

She couldn’t help feeling a little smug over that comeback. That would show him not to twist her words.

But Rick only shook his head, a strange smile appearing on his lips. “Yes, the Bible is an amazing book, the Book of Matthew in particular, where the Beatitudes are found. One of them says ‘Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.’ Meek and humble mean the same thing, don’t they?”

Charity felt color draining from her face. He’d as much as accused her of having no humility. She searched madly for some appropriate retort, something to put this arrogant fool in his place, but she finally ran out of steam. “Oh…just forget it. Did you have some real purpose here, or did you just come to bother me?”

Rick made a negative sound and didn’t meet her gaze when he said, “I didn’t know you’d be here.”

“Then why are you here? Really?”

“I thought it would be quiet at the site with the holiday and all.” He shrugged and took a few steps toward his black extended cab pickup. Over his shoulder he said, “I came to pray.”

To pray? Charity still reeled from Rick’s words, even as she watched him dump his tools in the truck and drive from the church lot. Part of her wanted to offer him good riddance, while the other part wished to pepper him with questions. It made no sense that he would have such a problem with churches and yet come to pray at the deserted church lot. Come to think of it, why was he praying at all if he didn’t attend church? And how was he quoting Scripture if he didn’t hear it every week in sermons?

Was it possible for him to have faith, even if he didn’t teach Sunday school or sing in the choir or, at the very minimum, attend Sunday services regularly? She just didn’t know.

And equally confusing was how he seemed so intent on twisting everything she said to make her look bad. It was as if he wanted to make some statement, but whatever it was, she wasn’t getting it.

At least he hadn’t pushed the issue of the Westin baby or any nastiness from her past regarding Andrew. Maybe he didn’t know as much as she’d first suspected. The relief that pushed a heavy breath from her lungs surprised her. Why did it matter so much that a near stranger didn’t know about her less than shining past?

Gardening having lost its appeal, Charity gathered up her tools and crossed to her car. She refused to acknowledge the voice inside that questioned her leaving right then, when the church grounds were finally empty and she could work alone.

She needed to get home and rest; that was it. The excuse was sure easier to swallow than that she was still bothered by that conversation with Rick. And not just the mini scriptural debate, either. She’d had plenty of those over the years, and she could hold her own against all but the best-trained biblical scholars. Far more troubling was how enjoyable she’d found chatting with Rick and planting with him side by side.

The image of his startling blue eyes, with character lines crinkling at the corners, stole into her thoughts. How light and sparkling those eyes appeared when Rick laughed. How anger darkened that color at least two shades. She knew. She’d seen—and probably inspired—both reactions.

Suppressing that image took more energy than should have been necessary, but she’d accomplished it by the time she’d closed the car’s trunk. Obviously, she had to be a little friendly with him to accomplish her mission of bringing him to church, but she wasn’t supposed to enjoy herself so much. She admonished herself to focus on her Christian duty rather than the handsome prospect as she climbed behind the wheel.

But that didn’t stop her from jerking her head sharply toward the sound of gravel being shot up at the end of the long church drive. Her pulse slowed only when inside the cloud of dust, she saw Andrew’s car instead of a pickup. You just didn’t want to argue with him again, she told herself, trying hard to believe it.

Obviously on the return ride from the hospital, Serena sat next to her husband, and a plastic handle from an infant car seat protruded from the center back seat. As they passed, Andrew stopped and rolled down his car window. Charity pressed her foot to the brake and hit the automatic window button.

A head full of dark curls suddenly pressed up against the back of Andrew’s seat, Tessa’s tiny hand waving madly through the crack between the door-frame and the headrest. “Hi, Miss Charity. We have a new baby brother.”

Teaching the Tiny Tot Sunday school class did have its advantages, like getting to know sweet little kids like this one. “That’s great, Tessa. I heard you’re a big sister. Boy, that’s an important job.”

“It sure is,” the kindergartner announced and sat back to fuss over the bundle in the car seat.

Andrew shook his head, his grin so big his cheeks had to ache. “Are you having a good holiday, Charity?”

“Not as good as yours, having your family home again.” Charity leaned forward so she could see the youth minister’s wife. “Welcome home, Serena. I bet you’re glad to be back.” It was surprising how much easier it was to have a friendly conversation with the other woman after having served as her nurse. Until now, they’d been polite but not overly friendly.

“I’m looking forward to having food with flavor in it. The hospital menu was pretty bland, but I guess you already know that,” Serena said just as Seth started fussing from Tessa’s overzealous attention. “Oh, I forgot the sleepless nights. Looking forward to those, too.”

Charity laughed with her. Not that she wouldn’t mind walking the floors a few hours with her own colicky newborn, but she refused to be envious today. It only exhausted her. “Let me know if you need anything,” she said and found that she meant it.

With a few waves and an increasing volume of newborn wails, the Westins drove past to park near the old barn behind the house. Charity continued out of the drive, her thoughts still on the family climbing out of the small car.

The Westins had given her an idea. Sure, she needed to continue her mission to bring Rick to church, but she shouldn’t focus her ministry so singularly. There were plenty of other needs in the church she could address as well. The Westins might appreciate some help in adapting to life with their new baby, and Tessa probably needed a little extra attention right now because of her changed status in the family.

That was it. If she was busy ministering to several church families, she would be much too preoccupied to let her thoughts focus on one brooding man. The plan seemed pretty good, but for some reason, it still didn’t allow her to relax. In theory, it sounded perfect, but she worried it would fail woefully in practice.

Chapter Four

Rick stomped into his downtown Milford house, not even taking the time to wipe off his work boots as he usually did. A little dirt couldn’t harm the badly scarred hardwood floors he’d recently uncovered, but it seemed counterproductive to his restoration project to make things any worse. Today, though, he just didn’t care.

He didn’t even take time to admire his handiwork on the newly refinished crown moldings and six-panel doors, glancing beyond their glossy mahogany to the rest of the nearly gutted structure. Everything was dark and drab—just the way he felt.

Why couldn’t I just avoid her? Now that was the question of the day. He could probably spend another year trying to figure out the answer to it. But for whatever reason, the flower beds she tended—or the gardener herself—had diverted his interest from his own work until he finally had no choice but to talk to her.

It was bad enough that he’d started round two in their featherweight matchup by mentioning the Westin baby. But then he’d made it worse by throwing her an uppercut to the chin for that sanctimonious-sounding comment about the baby being a gift from God. Every child was, and she hadn’t specifically singled that one out. But he’d been unable to resist the temptation to put her in her place, anyway.

In his defense, a flimsy one at best, she had all but called him a “heathen” for working on the church project when he didn’t attend. He sure hadn’t done much to convince her otherwise, he thought, as he kicked aside a sealed can of wood stain.

A real Christian should have been able to take the high road—to turn the other cheek, even—from her uninformed judgments. The thought halted him in kitchen doorway before he could step on the cracked, yellow linoleum. Just past the entry, Rick opened the junk drawer beneath the wall telephone and rustled through the mess until he connected with one of his most special possessions, an old Gideon’s New Testament, its cover reattached with the handyman’s solution to all problems: duct tape. If only he could move beyond just learning the Scriptures and begin to follow the lessons inside it.

Conviction settled deep in his heart before he could tuck the Bible back in the drawer. Sure, Charity seemed to use Scripture as a weapon to protect her from whatever she was afraid of, but hadn’t he done the same thing? He was as guilty as she, playing her same judgmental game.

Father, I’m having some trouble with this one. I’m sorry I’ve behaved so badly, but this Charity just gets under my skin. Please forgive me and give me patience for dealing with all difficult people.

He paused long enough to open the refrigerator, pull out the fixings for a turkey with Swiss sandwich and set the armload on the tile countertop. “You know how sanctimonious she is,” he prayed aloud this time as he made the sandwich. “You know her….” He let his words trail off as a realization struck him again. “But I get the feeling she doesn’t know you.” His prayer ended without an “amen” as they would be talking more throughout the day.

After downing the sandwich, Rick grabbed a sander and started smoothing the rough spots on the stripped hardwood. Focusing on the scrape of the sandpaper and the earthy scent of the fine wood dust, he hoped to extricate thoughts of Charity from his mind. But she only burrowed through his consciousness in layers not unlike those he uncovered in the old wood.

Her face flashed before him again—the perfect, porcelain features and huge, almost golden eyes that showed every emotion from flattery to fury. He liked the former a lot better, especially combined with that girlish blush. And her small rosebud mouth…it sure contrasted with her penchant for speaking out of turn.

When he saw her again—and he no longer held any illusions that he could avoid her for the duration of the project—he vowed to be nice to her. No matter how hard she made it. He would be a loving Christian example to her if it killed him, and if he needed to spend more time with her—say dinner—to make that point, then—

“Knock it off.” His words bounced off the walls as he reached for his hammer and aimed for an errant nail, landing on his thumb instead. “Ow!”

Could he have been attracted to Charity Sims? No, it couldn’t be that. But she did pull at him somehow. Maybe it was an emptiness he sensed beneath her religious armor. Or maybe he’d just imagined that to excuse some of his earlier behavior.

Anyway, even if he was interested in her, it wouldn’t have made a difference. She looked down at him, at least for his beliefs. And if that didn’t matter to him, it just proved he’d spent way too many months—make that years—without as much as a coffee date.

Were he to choose someone for a romantic relationship, she would be someone kind and pure-hearted like Rusty’s Tricia. Although Rusty had been young when they’d wed and had only become a man during their marriage, Tricia had stood steady by his side. Envious? Not at all. He was more amazed, really. Rusty and Tricia were the only couple he knew who contradicted his theory that true love, at least the romantic kind, didn’t exist.

Why was he allowing himself to think those thoughts, anyway? About anyone, let alone someone like Charity Sims. He’d been on his own as long as he could remember. He liked being alone. Except for his relationship with God and, much later, Rusty, he had avoided the complications of friendships. It had been for the best.

Needing people could be disastrous for a loner like him. It would only make him vulnerable—something he couldn’t allow. He could never again let himself be that lost child of his memories. The only way to avoid that was to rely only on the person beneath his own skin. He’d never needed anyone, and he wasn’t about to start now.

Early Tuesday afternoon Rick perched two extra two-by-fours on his shoulder and headed back to the framed building. A noise to his right caught his attention, and he turned to see a familiar car coming up the drive. He didn’t have to look twice to recognize the driver, and he smiled against his will.

“Here we go again,” he said, unloading his cargo onto the stack before glancing back at the parking lot.

If the idea of another verbal sparring round with Charity bothered him so much, then he shouldn’t have been sauntering right to her, his heart tapping out Morse code in his chest. He reminded himself of a clown punching bag, the kind with sand in the bottom to keep it popping back up for more punishment.

But his comparison didn’t stop him from stepping next to her car when she parked it and bending to speak into her open window. “We’ve got to stop meeting like this. People will talk.”

Her hair wasn’t tied back this time but flowed to her shoulder blades in a wavy mass. A crazy temptation to see if her tresses felt like silk had him tucking his thumbs safely through his tool belt.

Instead of saying something clever, she blushed. “I came to pick up some materials for my Sunday school class.”

“Did you forget them when you were here yesterday?” He extinguished the thought that she’d made an excuse to see him, but not before feeling the tiniest bit pleased.

“Yeah, I forgot.” But the way she chewed her lip and refused to meet his gaze as she got out of the car decreased her credibility. She fussed with her hair, shoving it over her shoulders as if it was a bother.

She seemed so uncomfortable, the woman of far too many words suddenly struck silent, and he scrambled for a way to relieve her discomfiture. “Did you come to monitor our progress? I can show you the roof trusses we’ve set. We’ve worked really hard. I promise.”

“No, that isn’t necessary.” She shook her head emphatically. “I just need to get my things from the church so I can get over to Andrew and Serena’s house.”

“The Westins?”

Nodding, Charity took a few steps toward the door. “I talked to them this morning and promised to come over and play with Tessa for a while before I go to work. It’s a big transition for her, suddenly having a brother.”

So she hadn’t come by to see him after all. He hated the disappointment that reared inside him, but that didn’t stop him from wanting to delay her departure a few minutes longer. “It’s nice of you to think of that little girl.” Her blush deepened at the compliment.

“Tessa’s really special. I teach her in Sunday school. Although she lives with a painful illness, juvenile rheumatoid arthritis, she’s always smiling.”

Charity gazed at the parsonage, her eyes shining a bit too much, but she rolled her lips inward and looked away a few seconds. When she faced him again, the shimmer of threatened tears was gone. Rick wondered if it had been there at all. It was the most honest expression she’d displayed since they’d met.

“Yeah, I’ve seen her playing on her swing set. She’s always laughing,” he said when she didn’t speak.

He glimpsed the shine again before she turned to pull open one of the glass double doors. “You’re sure you don’t want a tour?” he said, relieved when she stopped again and turned back to him. “Or better yet, you could come back tomorrow, and I could put you to work on the crew. How are you with a pneumatic nailer?”

She laughed at that, the sound sweetly feminine. Melodic even. “I don’t think you want to let me loose on society with one of those.”

“That’s too bad. I sure could have used a bigger crew, especially for framing. I only have eight, and a dozen would have been better. Faster.”

Something akin to relief filled him when she allowed the glass door to fall shut and turned back to him. “Adding me to the crew would be like subtracting one of your regular guys. Maybe even two. They would have to work full-time to fix my mistakes.”

“You’d be fine as long as you remember one rule. Measure twice, cut once.” He demonstrated the concept with his hands.

“I’ll try to remember that.”

Levity glimmered in her eyes, tempting him to tell his best knock-knock joke just to see her laugh again. But he waited too long, and she reopened the door. “Sorry, I’ve really got to go.” She waved and disappeared inside.

A few minutes later, after Rick had returned to the power saw, Charity crossed the parking lot and hurried to the parsonage. She emerged again with the petite curly-haired brunette, who danced rings around Charity as they approached the wooden play structure behind the house.

As much as Rick tried to focus on his own directions about measuring and cutting, he found himself watching them. First, Tessa slid down the yellow slide into Charity’s open arms. Then, Charity stood and twirled around and around with the child’s legs tucked around her waist. When both appeared sufficiently dizzy, Charity carefully lowered to the ground, and both rested on their backs kicking their feet up in the air.

The scene was so sweet and private that Rick felt it was an invasion to watch, but he couldn’t make himself look away. Charity’s laughter drifted across the lot on the few occasions when he turned off the saw and his crew took a break with the nailer. His chest tightened, the sound of their laughter threatening to wrap itself around his heart, but still he observed them.

Though she wrestled and laughed with Tessa, Charity moved cautiously, as if to protect the child. A nurse’s instinct. Hospitals—Charity, working there, and Tessa, a frequent guest—probably were the common denominator connecting the two.

Before Charity had mentioned anything about Tessa, Rick had already known about the Westins’ fragile child, the information courtesy of Rusty. If only his friend would stop telling him stories about the people at Hickory Ridge. It felt too personal.

He especially wished Rusty would stop talking about Charity. Without that information, Rick could have been just a casual observer now, one who might have guessed he was witnessing a tender moment between mother and child. But Rick knew better. And the knowing ruffled his thoughts even more. This was not her child but Serena’s daughter. Serena, the woman who had taken what Charity had believed to be her place in Andrew’s heart and by his side in church hierarchy. The youth minister’s wife.

But the loving picture the woman and young girl painted together, still giggling as Tessa straddled Charity’s belly and tickled her under the chin, revealed none of that uncomfortable history. The sides of Rick’s mouth turned up in a smile he couldn’t restrain.

For once, Charity was being benevolent and living up to her name. She was such a paradox. Just when he thought he had her figured out and could justify his resentment toward her, she allowed him to glimpse this other, endearing side. He wasn’t sure how to process this observation, fearing he liked this side a little too much.

In what felt like a short time later, Charity and Tessa walked hand in hand through the back door into the house. Rick surprised himself by wishing she wouldn’t leave so soon. The way she blurred the clear lines around his personal boundaries, he should have been wishing she would disappear until the building dedication instead of hanging around and distracting him.

From his perch on the ladder, Rick glanced at Charity as she climbed in the car. She looked over and waved shyly before closing the door. Despite his embarrassment over getting caught watching, Rick couldn’t help wondering when he’d see her next. Or hoping it wasn’t too long.

At work a few hours later, Charity tried to contain the smile that pulled at her lips as she yanked the shirt of her fresh scrubs over her head. Finally, she just gave in. It was amazing what a play date with Tessa and a civil conversation with Rick—especially that—could do for her mood. She’d sensed his gaze upon her several times as she’d played with Tessa, but she’d probably imagined that.

But she hadn’t imagined during their earlier conversation that Rick had been pleasant. Nice even. It couldn’t have stunned her more that he’d taken the time to discuss the child with her, and her cheeks warmed at the thought of his compliment.

As tempting as it had been to mention his comment about praying and to spring into a litany of questions, she’d resisted. She would have avoided anything to keep him grinning like that, with sunlight dancing over his eyes and dimples softening the hard lines of his face.

“The slow night doesn’t seem to be bothering you,” Dr. Walker said as they passed in the hall.

“What’s making you so happy?”

She raised an eyebrow at the young obstetrician she’d always enjoyed working with, but tempered her smile anyway. “Can’t a person enjoy her job without having to withstand the third degree?”

“Guess not.” The doctor chuckled as she headed down the hall in the opposite direction.

Farther down the birthing center hallway, Charity reached the nurse’s station and the room-status board. Set up in a grid, that dry-erase board was nearly blank except for a few last names listed with MBV—for a mother-baby vaginal delivery—and MBC—for mother-baby cesarean section. She seconded Dr. Walker’s prediction that it would be a light night.

Charity traced her hand along the wooden handrail that mirrored wood flooring. At the doorway to an empty LDRP room, she stood for several seconds before stepping inside. There she took in the dark wood, the rich colors of the wallpaper and the muted lighting that she usually didn’t have the luxury of time to observe. Instead of the medical equipment she usually focused on, hidden behind wood cabinetry, she examined the sleeper chair that waited in the room’s corner for another exhausted father.

The crib against the wall caught her attention. Inside its Plexiglas part referred to as a “bucket,” she imagined a tiny baby squirming under the warm lights. She could see a nurse leaning over the crib, starting to “eye and thigh” him, inserting erythromycin in his eyes to prevent infection and injecting vitamin K in his thigh for blood clotting. Though those two jobs would have been automatic for her, she was strangely certain she wasn’t the RN on duty.

Stranger still, she suspected she was the other woman in her daydream—the one resting on the bed with a man by her side. It was so close, this dream of hers, that she could almost grasp it. Could cradle the sweet baby against her heart. Could lace her fingers with those of the man who touched her hair so gently.

“Hey, Charity, quit daydreaming,” Jenny Lancaster-Porter called from the doorway, grinning at her fellow labor and delivery nurse. “The clerk just put a walk-in in Room 224, and another mom’s taking the chair ride from ER.”

Charity jumped guiltily at being caught imagining things that were becoming closer and closer to impossible. But at that moment they hadn’t seemed unattainable, not when for the first time, she’d imagined herself on the other side of the bed. The one with a family, with joy, with hope for the future.

Jenny snapped her fingers in front of Charity’s face. “Girlfriend, are you coming? These babies can’t wait.”

On command, Charity’s thoughts clicked into focus the way they always did, and she followed at Jenny’s heels. “I’ll take the walk-in. You take the chair.”

Jenny winked. “Already wrote that on the board.”

Both chuckled at Charity’s attempt to hand the precipitous case to her friend and Jenny’s hearty receipt of the gift. Jenny liked her deliveries fast and furious, and Charity didn’t mind the occasional slow and steady, so they had developed a great working rhythm from several years of working shifts together.

“You’ll be on dinner break, your patient and baby settled in for the night, and I’ll still be walking the halls with mine,” Charity said as she turned into Room 224.

Just the opposite proved true, with Charity’s patient crowning within half an hour, and Jenny’s walking the halls for two hours and eventually being sent home after a bout of false labor. Charity had barely had time to get a fetal heart rate and start an IV before the delivery, let alone to record advance directives in case something went wrong or to inquire about nursing or bottle-feeding.

The rest of the shift was equally unpredictable. It was as if every full-term mother who had avoided ruining her Labor Day barbecue had gone into labor just before dawn broke. Staying busy had prevented her from analyzing that earlier daydream. Or how familiar the man in her dream had seemed.

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