Behind the Altar: Behind the Love Trilogy (9 page)

When Susie and Leah
came back to the house, Jacob was sitting on the front porch. As dusk edged its
way over the day, the house remained dark.

“I’m going to let you
two talk,” Susie said. “I have to make a phone call.”

She went inside,
leaving Leah and Jacob alone.

“I hear Geraldine’s
making some threats,” Leah said. Jacob looked so scared sitting there; she went
immediately to the chair next to him and sat down. She patted his hand. “Susie
and I have some ideas to stop her.”

Jacob listened and
rocked in the chair while Leah told him about Tommy Jackson and the idea about
approaching Donald. He nodded and looked up at her every once in awhile. When
she finished, he smiled.

“It might work. It
might even get Soup’s On back for you,” he said. “Tommy’s a good writer.”

“I still like the
idea of renovating the barn, but if the Board would let me continue there in
the interim that would be great.”

“You believe Dean
when he says Geraldine doesn’t own it?” Jacob asked.

“I do. Dean’s not as
bad as you think, Jacob. I wish you two could talk and figure out how to be
better brothers to one another. I’d give anything to have a sibling.”

Susie came out on the
porch before Jacob could reply. She wore a grin as wide as the front porch.

“You’re not going to
believe who’s coming to church with me tomorrow,” she said. “Tommy Jackson
wants to visit the Sunshine Church, and then he wants me to take him down to
meet the folks at Deer River Camp. Do you think that will be all right with
them, Leah?”

“I don’t think they’d
mind, but I’ll go down there before church and ask them. He’s interested in
doing an article?”

“He said I piqued his
reporter’s instinct for a story.”

“Tommy’s a good guy,
but what about Donald?” Jacob asked. “Should I call him tonight?”

“Yes, I think you
should,” Leah said. “Ask him to call an emergency meeting for right after the
service.”

The three of them
stood grinning at one another, but Leah knew they had a long way to go before
Soup’s On was safe.

“I need to go back to
the parsonage and pack some things,” Leah said. “I’m going to stay with Susie until
we figure this out.”

“That’s probably a
good idea, but that means I’ll be alone with Mother.” Jacob’s grin disappeared
from his face.

When they pulled in
the driveway, Leah could see Geraldine through the front window. She was
holding up a white blouse and looking at it carefully. Leah imagined she was
inspecting the purchases from her day of shopping. When they came into the
living room, Leah saw the blouse with a ruffle down the front with trim the
same charcoal gray of a new suit flung on the couch. A new pair of high heel
sandals sat on the ottoman, and Geraldine was about to grab one of them when the
front door opened, letting in Jacob, Leah, and Susie. Leah could tell she hated
the interruption in admiring her booty.

“I hope this means
the two of you have come to your senses,” Geraldine said when they stood in the
living room watching her fold her new wardrobe.

“I’ve come for some
of my things,” Leah said. “I’m going to move in with Susie. I think it’s best
that way, and Jacob agrees.”

“Everything you have,
I bought for you,” Geraldine said.

“You said those were
all gifts, but if you want them back, I’ll gladly leave them. I’ve been without
before.”

“Mother, you’re not
going to make this difficult for Leah,” Jacob said. “She’s going to take
whatever she wants that is hers, gifts included.”

Geraldine looked from
Jacob to Leah. “Who’d want her stuff anyway? She only owns jeans and T-shirts.
She has no sense for fashion.”

Leah and Susie went
down the hallway to the bedrooms.

“You really need to
think about breaking things off with Leah,” Geraldine said as soon as the two
women walked down the hall. “She’s not who you think she is.”

Leah stopped outside
the door to her bedroom when she heard her name.

“She’s exactly who I
think she is,” Jacob said. “You don’t have anything to say about who I marry.”

“What if I told you I
caught her kissing Dean the other day?”

“You say things like
that all the time about everyone. That didn’t happen.”

“Then why don’t you
ask her?” Geraldine stared at her son. “Leah, please come out here a second.”

Leah came back into
the living room, wondering how she was going to tell Jacob about Dean. She
hadn’t planned on having this conversation with him. Ever.

“Did you kiss Dean
yesterday in back of the church?” Geraldine asked when Leah came into the
living room.

Leah stood there
staring at Geraldine unable to speak. As she tried to figure out how to
respond, Jacob came to her side.

“Don’t dignify that
question with an answer, Leah,” Jacob said as he put his arm around Leah’s
shoulders. “She’s just trying to cause a rift between us.”

Geraldine marched
over to Jacob and put her face very close to his. Jacob didn’t back down as he
might have a day earlier.

“If you side with
that tramp, you need to go and pack your bags as well,” Geraldine said.

“I’d be careful who
you’re telling to leave,” Jacob said. “This is the parsonage provided by the
church for the minister, who is me. I’ve allowed you to live her after Father’s
death, but I could just as easily send you back to daddy’s hunting cabin in the
woods. Don’t push me.”

Leah walked back to
her soon-to-be former bedroom. Susie was just inside the door with her back
against the wall. Leah shut the door behind her. The two friends fell together
on the bed, holding their mouths to keep from howling in laughter at what both
had just heard.

After Susie helped
Leah unpack, they headed down to the Tavern. Leah wanted to grab any leftover
food, so she could take it down to the river in the morning before church. When
a person doesn’t have much food to eat, it doesn’t matter if they eat dinner
for breakfast or breakfast for dinner. It’s all food, and it all goes to the
same place.

When they entered,
Leah immediately saw him sitting at the bar talking to Reggie, who was wiping
down the counter. She wanted to run out the door, and she wanted to run into
his arms.

“Hey,” Susie nudged
her when Leah stopped just inside the threshold, staring at Dean’s back. “I
didn’t know he’d be here; just act cool, and it will be OK.”

Leah nodded her head
and moved toward Reggie just as Dean turned to look at her. Immediately, her
eyes were drawn into the depths of his endless stare. She walked toward him in
a daze

“Hello, you two
beautiful women,” Reggie said as they slid onto the barstools, and Leah
regained her balance. She left a seat for Susie next to Dean. “What can I do
for you?”

“That one doesn’t
drink,” Dean said as he passed his thumb around Susie to point at Leah. He took
a long drag on his beer. “She’ll have some lemonade.”

“I don’t want
anything, thank you,” Leah said. “I just came to see if you had any food for me
to take down to the river in the morning.”

“Sure do. My special
was pork chops, and I didn’t sell as many as I wanted. I’ve got mashed potatoes
and gravy, too, along with some collard greens.”

“Sounds like a great
meal,” Leah said. “I just remembered that I haven’t had anything to eat today,
except for a bite of a burger. Any chance I could have a plate right now?”

“Sure thing,” Reggie
said. “I put the rest in aluminum pans because I thought you might be by
tonight. You can warm them up just before you take them down there.”

“Thanks, Reggie.”

“Reggie, Leah’s going
to be staying at the house for a little while,” Susie said as Leah poked her
with her elbow.

“Sure, no problem,
unless she hogs the bathroom when I stay over,” Reggie said. He grinned as he
sat a glass of red wine in front of Susie. “Let me go get some food for this
starving girl, since you didn’t serve her any dinner.”

Reggie left, and
Susie slid off the stool giving Leah a long stare. “Talk to him,” she whispered
before she left for the bathroom.

“You moved out?” Dean
asked as soon as Susie left.

“Yes. Geradline’s
making it impossible right now.”

“What about you and
Jacob?”

“We’re taking some
time to think about things.”

“Things?” Dean slid
over to the stool next to her. He put his hands over hers resting on the bar.
“Talk to me.”

“You left tonight.
What do you want me to say?”

“Leah, are you
leaving Jacob?”

“I don’t know,” she
said. “He’s so vulnerable, yet tonight he did something I’ve never seen him do
before. He stood up to Geraldine.”

“So you feel differently
about him?”

“I feel affection for
him.”

“I felt that for a
dog once,” Dean said. “But it’s a strange way to refer to your fiancé.”

Leah felt the tears
coming to the surface, and she fought them. Dean took a finger, put it under
her chin, and turned her face toward him. “What is it?”

“You know what it is,
and I don’t know what to do about it. I was ready to make love to you back
there, and then an hour later I’m commiserating with Jacob and offering him
comfort. What’s wrong with me?”

“More like what’s
right with you,” Dean said. He moved back to his stool as Susie returned.

“Don’t mean to
interrupt anything,” she said as she slid back on her stool.

“You’re not,” Leah
said. “We were just talking about tomorrow, and what Geraldine said.”

“So what exactly did
she say?” Dean asked.

“She’s threatening to
run the river people away,” Susie said. “Jacob told her he supports Leah and
the idea of continuing Soup’s On. She threatened to kick him out of the
parsonage until Jacob reminded her that he was the minister.”

“Good for Jacob,”
Dean said. “I bet she didn’t like it when Leah left.”

“She reminded Leah of
everything she’s done for her and all the things she’s bought her. Jacob told
her to lay off.”

“Let’s talk about
something else,” Leah said. “I don’t like talking about people behind their
backs.”

Reggie brought a
steaming plate with two pork chops, mashed potatoes, and collard greens and set
it in front of Leah. “Now, eat girl, you’re nothing but skin and bones.”

Leah was starved.
She’d missed breakfast and forgot about lunch in the excitement of finding the
barn. The few bites of Dean’s hamburger did little to fill her up.  

When she finished,
Reggie told Susie to pull her car around back so he could load up the pans.
Dean offered to follow them back to the house to help them unload.

“That’s not
necessary,” Leah said.

“Thanks, Dean; we
could use the help,” Susie said. Leah glared at her friend, but Susie just
shrugged.

After they’d put all
the food away in the spare refrigerator on the back porch of Susie’s house,
Susie said good night and went inside, leaving Dean and Leah alone. They sat
down on the back steps, and Dean reached for her hand.

“Look at the stars,”
he said as he began to kiss each of her fingers. “Choose one and make a wish.”

“OK,” she said as her
whole body tingled with the touch of his lips on her fingertips. She wished for
this moment to last forever.

“Leah,” he said as
she turned to face him. He pulled her close. They kissed deeply and long, but
without the urgency of the previous times. This time was unhurried and
luxurious as if nothing else existed in the universe but them.

When they pulled
apart, they stared into one another’s eyes as Dean put his hand in her hair and
his fingers massaged her scalp. She rubbed his back and felt the muscles strong
and firm beneath her small hands.

“There’s something
between us,” he said. “But everything’s happened so fast. I left tonight
because I don’t want to mess this up. You need to leave Jacob because that’s
what you have to do not because you want to come running to me.”

“But I do want to
come running to you; except when I’m not with you, I feel so guilty and bad. I
keep wondering how I could do that to Jacob,” she said as she broke his gaze
and stared out into Susie’s backyard. “And I don’t want to let anyone down,
especially those folks who need me down at the river. It’s all so mixed up in
my mind, and now you want to help me, too.”

“Let’s go one step at
a time,” he said. “I’m not quite sure what I want yet either.”

Leah looked at him
with raised eyebrows. “What do you mean?”

“I’ve never been in a
serious relationship. Mostly, I’m with a woman for one night, rarely two
nights, and then I move on to someone new. But then again I’ve never had the
feelings for any of those women that I’ve felt for you. I’m as confused as you
are.”

“I see. Maybe you
just want me because of Jacob and Geraldine,” Leah said. “It’d be a great way
to get back for whatever happened before you left.”

“I’ve thought about
that, but I don’t think that’s it. Now let’s talk about tomorrow. Are you going
to church?”

“Yes. There’s a
reporter coming to meet the river folks, so I need to get down there early with
the food and ask them if they’d mind being interviewed. Then Jacob has asked
Donald Cameron to call an emergency board meeting to discuss Soup’s On and
Geraldine’s threats.”

Dean whistled.
“Sounds like a big day ahead. What time do you want to go down to the river?
I’ll come around and help you with the food.”

“Thanks, that’d be
great because Susie has to wait here for the reporter.”

“What time?”

“Eight o’clock. I’ll
get up early and heat everything up.”

“Pork chops for
breakfast then,” he said. “I guess they won’t mind, will they?”

“They will be
grateful for whatever I can bring them.”

Dean gave her another
long kiss before standing up. “Get some sleep tonight. The next few days are
going to be filled with plenty of fireworks and maybe more. Geraldine’s going
to explode, and it’s bound to be ugly.”

“Thank you, Dean,”
Leah said as she stood up on the bottom step. It brought her head to his chin
and she looked up at him. “I’m glad you’re here.”

“For now, we have one
goal, and that’s to get Soup’s On back to serving food to the river folks in a
suitable setting. I look forward to meeting them in the morning.” He gave her a
quick hug and jumped on his bike that he’d pulled around to the back of the
house. “Good night, beautiful lady.”

He roared off, leaving
Leah standing there with a smile on her face. She turned and walked back into
the kitchen still smiling.

“Man, you’ve got it
bad,” Susie said when Leah walked into the kitchen. Susie was sitting at the
kitchen table reading the paper and drinking a glass of milk. “But I guess I
can’t blame you, even though I feel sorry for Jacob.”