The Christmas Sisters Read online

  “And what? Let him rub our noses in his arrogance as long as he sees fit to do it?”

  “What arrogance?” Nic covered her mouth the second the question had slipped out.

  Sam gave her a smile and a wink. A few days ago she might have sided with Lee and company about him. That made her unguarded remark so much sweeter.

  “Anyone walking in here tonight who got eyes could see that Sam Moss has taken back up with Nicolette Dorsey.” Lee seized the moment to press on with his cause.

  “If you have issues with me, then bring them to me. Bring them to the board and we will address them in the proper time and place. Now let's join in prayer and—”

  “You see? You see how he cuts me when things get too close to the truth? I know you've all heard about what's going on. He stands up there all high and mighty wanting us to think he's changed. All the while he goes on his own jolly way openly living with his girlfriend and their illegitimate daughter. Right under our noses!”

  “That's enough, Lee.” Sam stepped forward, not to threaten but to place himself in the midst of his church and to make himself a protective shield between Nic and Willa and the ugliness Lee was spewing. “You've gone too far. I do not want to hash this out here and now, but I won't stand by and let you spread untruths about a member of this church and an innocent child.”

  “You gonna throw me out, Reverend?” Lee looked around the sanctuary nodding now and again to those he must have found sympathetic to his way of thinking. “Ask me to leave this church you just said welcomed everybody?”

  “No.”

  “No?” Nic's voice resonated with soft surprise.

  Sam did not look her way. He did not want to face the hurt and disappointment in her eyes. If he did that, he risked wanting to shelter and stand up for the woman he loved; and that would overshadow his first commitment to his ministry and this church.

  “I won't throw you out or ask you to leave and not come back, Lee. As long as I am minister here, everyone seeking God’s love and mercy will find it extended to them here.”

  “Amen.” Big Hyde held up his hand in an attitude of praise to God.

  Lee glowered at him a moment, then nudged the woman sitting next to him in the pew. She and the two teenage boys next to her lurched up out of the pew.

  “Let's all stand and share a minute of silent prayer.” Silent because too much had been said already. Silent because anything more he said might so easily be misconstrued or twisted around by those who had come into God's house with angry hearts and closed minds. Silent because Sam did not trust himself at this moment not to speak as a man, to speak on behalf of Willa and Nic and even himself instead of as God's servant. He bowed his head.

  Pews creaked. Floorboards groaned. Shoes shuffled then settled into quiet. Above it all the unmistakable scuffing of footsteps, of people leaving the sanctuary, chafed at Sam's battered idealism.

  When the door fell shut and did not swing open again for several seconds, he exhaled, drew his own prayer to a close, and said, “Amen.”

  “Amen,” the congregation echoed.

  When Sam raised his head, more people remained than he had anticipated. That should have lifted his spirits, but he couldn't look out at his church and not see the empty places. He felt their absence in a way he had not anticipated. He recalled the verse that had played through his head these last few days. Foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests....

  Perhaps Sam had asked for too much when he had expected God to give him a home of his own at last. He looked at Nic, who would not return his gaze. He smiled at Willa. She stared back, her eyes so big behind those delicate glasses, her face pale and serious.

  He loved them both so much it made his head light and his heart ache at the same time. And yet he knew at that moment he would have to find a way to make this church whole again, even if it meant he would have to leave.

  “So that's it then.” Nic had not left the front pew.

  Everyone else had gone home already. Collier had taken Willa, and Jessica and Scott promised they'd occupy her with stories and songs until she either fell asleep or Nic got home. One by one the other attendees of the Christmas Sing had filed out, most of them pausing to give Sam a hug or some kind of encouragement. Finally, Sam helped the Sterns take the donated food and money to the office where they could put the benevolence baskets together the next morning.

  Throughout it all, Nic had stayed just where she had sat when she'd walked in earlier, so filled with hope for her life and love for Sam. Hope wavering, she tried not to give in to the doubt and discouragement pressing in around her.

  Sam walked across the front of the dimly lit sanctuary wearing a smile that did not for one minute fool her into thinking it indicated a true lighthearted mood.

  “It's started all over again,” she said softly as he reached her pew.

  “What has?”

  She looked straight ahead. “The gossip, the assumptions, the unfounded rumors, the innuendo, take your pick.”

  “Nic, I am so sorry you got dragged into a power struggle over the running of this church, over my being the minister here.”

  “I didn't get dragged anywhere, Sam. I was here at the vortex of the problem from the very start.”

  He chuckled, but clearly not at her. “Nic, honey, my problems with people in this town started long before you and I had our first date. It was a bold choice to ask me to come back here as pastor.”

  “And brave of you to come back.”

  “So many people do so much braver things for their faith. Coming back here? That was more foolhardy than brave.”

  “Living your faith is a scary business. It puts you at risk of being reviled by people on all sides, believers and nonbelievers—anyone who sees your taking a stand as a threat to their status quo.” She stood. “You saw how it started here tonight. You think word isn't spreading around town even as we sit here, people calling Willa your illegitimate daughter, making up who knows what kind of stories about our living arrangements?”

  “Speaking of that, your Aunt Bert cornered me in the hallway after the service and suggested I move into Lula's room at their house the next few days.”

  “She did?”

  “Yeah. It'll give you all more room in the house over the holidays, and Bert is just itching for someone to start a rumor about her and me staying there unchaperoned.”

  “I'll bet.” Nic laughed at the idea of her aunt at the center of any kind of scandal. “Thing is, I'm not sure if she wants those rumors so she can take on the gossips or because, like all The Duets and most of the Dorsey girls, she just likes everyone talking about her.”

  “Maybe a little of both.” He folded his hands together, cleared his throat then shifted his feet on the uneven floor. “I am sorry about what happened tonight. I'd never have encouraged Lee to speak if I thought he'd stoop so low as to attack anyone but me.”

  “Another lesson learned,” she whispered. “When someone gets that self-righteous, he stops thinking about others as people with feelings and begins to see everything and everyone as obstacles to his getting his way.”

  “I suppose so.” He shook his head. “Still, everything about my renting a room at your house was so innocent. I'd lived there a month before you even showed up, and then it was with both your sisters and Willa. We never spent any time alone there.”

  “You'll eat better at Aunt Bert's, that's for sure.” She smiled then bowed her head. “Of course moving for a few days only provides a short-term solution to a long-term problem.”

  “The gossip about us, the cruel things people might say about and to Willa.” He filled in what she had left unsaid.

  “Sam, how can I stay here and raise her in a town where someone will always look at her as Sam and Nic's illegitimate daughter? And that's the nicest of it, I'm sure.”

  “We talked about forgiveness not wiping away consequences, Nic.”

  “That's easier to face when it's not your child we're talking about.”
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  “What if it is?”

  “What?”

  “My child we are talking about?”

  “Legally she is my child. Your name is not on the birth certificate.”

  “Since when did a name on a birth certificate make any man a real father? That comes from here, Nic.” He put his hand to his chest. “I know it's not the same way you feel about her. Sure, my connection cannot be as deep or as strong as yours yet, but I do love that little girl.”

  “I know you do.”

  “And I understand your drive to protect her. But you can't pack her up in shredded newspapers, put her in a ballet slipper shoe box, and tape the lid down tight to keep anything bad from ever happening to her.”

  It touched her to hear him conjure up the image of the box that housed Willa's precious snowbird ornament, even if he used it to make her confront her futile actions.

  “Maybe you are a wise man after all, Sam.” She swept her hand along the back of the pew.

  “If you stop to think it over, you will see that running away from Persuasion is not the answer.” He took her hand in his and pulled her around so that she faced him. “You said it yourself. There are enough good people in town to make this the right choice for raising Willa in a safe, nurturing environment.”

  “But if Willa and I don't leave, things may get very hard on you.”

  “Don't worry about me. I have a backup plan.” He put his hand on hers on the back of the pew and met her gaze in the dimming light of the sanctuary.

  “Sam?” Something about the way he said it gave her heart an anxious flutter. Or maybe that was his touch. She couldn’t allow herself to sort it out now, she had to ask, “What have you got in mind?”

  Before he could answer, the door at the back swung open.

  “Sorry to interrupt, Nic.” Petie stood in the doorway clutching her winter coat tight around her body. “Hi, Sam. Sorry about this, but Nic promised she'd come with me when the time came, and well, it's time.”

  “Time for what?” He asked Nic, but his eyes stayed trained on Petie.

  “You'll see.” Petie motioned for them to follow her. “You can come, too, but we have to hurry. Time's running out.”

  Twenty-Two

  “What are we doing? Where are we going?” Sam put his folded arms on the back of the front seat of Petie's car.

  “Over to the old Bode County High football field.” Petie made a wide turn toward what was now Bode County Middle School but had once been the high school.

  “The old one? From when we went there?” He sounded like that was a thousand years ago. Well, in some ways, he supposed, it might as well have been. Still, why would anyone go out to a football field abandoned nearly a decade ago? “What are you up to, Petie?”

  “I told you she wrote Parker an e-mail.” Nic hung on to her seat belt as the car went sliding into the straight stretch that led to the darkened field. “Slow down, Petie! Parker will either be there to meet you or he won't. Your wrecking the car on the way over won't improve the odds one iota.”

  “Be there?” Sam squinted to make out the outline of the battered scoreboard coming up on their left. “Why would he be there and not at the house?”

  “Because that's what Petie asked in her e-mail.” Nic relaxed as the car pulled to a stop by the lone raft of metal bleachers.

  “Okay, we're a little early.” Petie turned off the engine then the car lights and scanned the area around them as she spoke. Edginess glittered in her eyes. She sat with one hand on the wheel and the other on the back of the seat, like someone ready to move in either direction at a moment's notice. “Let me get you up to speed. I'd like your opinion on this anyway.”

  He decided to keep to himself any comment on the value of asking for his opinion after she'd already gone ahead with her plan.

  “I know that Nic or Collier or Aunt Bert or...possibly the mailman has filled you in on my situation with Parker, about his administrative assistant, that is.”

  “Yes.”

  “After I had a while to think on that, and on what you had said about my not adapting all that well to this empty nest business, everything just sort of came together. All at once like an image coming in clean and sharp when you finally find the right focus on a camera, you know what I mean?”

  “Actually, I do,” he said, thinking of his own new plan to make things right.

  “And it dawned on me that I stood to lose my husband, and not to some other woman. She was incidental, not personally significant at all. Right place right time sort of thing.”

  “More like wrong place wrong time, if you ask me,” Nic muttered. “Which seems to have suited her plans quite nicely, too.”

  “Yes, she was in the wrong to go after my husband, Nic. I'll grant you that. My point is, she is neither the issue nor the problem here. If you don't take care of your house, let support beams rot, the roof fall in, and the very foundation crack and crumble, you can't blame some storm that comes along for knocking the whole thing down. You've got to take responsibility for your part in it all.”

  Sam put his hand on Nic's shoulder. “Funny thing, your sister and I just had a talk about responsibility for things that go awry in our lives.”

  Through the windshield a thousand tiny stars littered the night sky. The town lay quiet around them with only a few Christmas lights still glowing here and there. Sam checked his watch. It was almost ten o'clock. “What time did you ask Parker to meet you here?”

  “He should show up any minute now.” Petie chewed her lower lip and pinched the top button of her closed coat between her thumb and forefinger. “In my note I confessed everything, how I'd checked his e-mail and knew about his...about how confused and unhappy he is. Then I did the only thing I had left to do, offered him the only thing I still had to offer.”

  “Which was?”

  “My heart.” Her tear-filled eyes met his. “My whole heart, not just the bit left over after I divvied up the pieces between the kids, my family, and the part I held back out of fear over growing older and things changing.”

  “Oh, Petie, after all the things you've told us about Park lately, what if—”

  Sam gripped Nic's arm to keep her from voicing any doubts. If it all fell apart, he knew she would not want even the inkling of an I-told-you-so to stand between her and her sister.

  “I told him how much I love him, how much he has always meant to me. I let him know what I should have been saying to him all along over all these years. He has always been my hero. He was in those days on the football field at homecoming. He still is each night when he drags in from work dead tired and sometimes grumpy but home.”

  “That's really great, Petie. It had to mean a lot to him.”

  “I guess we'll soon see. I told him if he wanted to rekindle the relationship we knew back when it was just the two of us, to meet me here on the field at ten.” She clicked the key in the ignition over a few notches making only the lights on the dash come on.

  Sam checked his watch. He hoped against hope that he would find the car clock running fast and could tell Petie it was not really fifteen minutes after the hour already.

  “He could be running late.” Nic moved her hand to her sister's shoulder.

  “Held up by what? Traffic?” Petie stared straight ahead as if she thought the answer lay out there on the dead grass of the empty field. “It was a foolish idea, wasn't it?”

  “No.” Sam and Nic spoke at the same time, though the joining of their voices did not strengthen their weak replies with greater confidence.

  “Don't patronize me. It was dumb. To think one e-mail could make up for at least a year of letting things slip away. He told the kids he might not even come for Christmas. That's how bad things have gotten. Why did I think my one letter could...”

  She sighed. Or had she stifled a sob? Sitting behind her, Sam couldn't tell for sure, and before he could move closer to comfort her, she cranked the key in the ignition. The engine growled to life. She flicked on the car lights.<
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  Nic's hand jolted out toward the steering wheel. “Petie, you can't drive when you're this...oh, my word!”

  “Well, I'll be!” Sam sat back in the seat, blinking against the sudden bursts of brightness as one by one the stadium's huge overhead lights hummed then sprang to life.

  Petie cut the engine and flung open her car door. She scrambled to stand by her seat, hanging onto the open door with one hand and shading her eyes with the other. She peered over the car's roof toward the bleachers. “Park? Parker Sipes, are you out there?”

  “I'd almost given up on you coming, darlin'.” All those years up north had not put a dent in Parker's low, lazy drawl.

  “I been sitting here in the dark since before ten,” she called back.

  Laughter answered her. “Guess that's a fine metaphor for us lately, isn't it? Two people right next to each other, both completely in the dark about what the other one needs or wants.”

  “Oh, Parker, I love you!”

  “I love you, too, sweet thing. And I have missed you more than I ever thought possible.” He started toward the car, and as he passed from the shadow where he had stood to the brilliant light, it became clear he was wearing his old Pirates football jersey.

  “You stay right where you are!” Petie held up her hand. “I'm coming to you.”

  “How 'bout you meet me halfway?”

  Petie hopped to the ground and began working open the buttons on her coat as she bent down to grin at Nic, then Sam. “He came!

  “I'm so glad for you both.” Nic scooted over to the driver's seat, then reached up to give her sister a quick kiss on the cheek. “We'll take your car back to the house and see you there...well, we'll see you when we see you.”

  “Thanks.” Petie gave Nic a wink, then pulled her coat off to show her old cheerleader's uniform.

  Nic probably had something to say about that, but Petie never gave her the chance. Wham! The door slammed shut and Petie was gone in a blur of box pleats and bouncelessly perfect hair.