Donovan’s Angel (13 page)

“You’re the best for them,” Jolene said.

“No doubt about it,” Sam agreed.

Martie laughed. “You two are real friends. I
wish everybody would feel that way. Let me give this some more
thought.”

Impulsively, Sam reached over and hugged her.
“We’re going to pester you until you say you’ll stay.”

“I’ll count on it.” Martie escorted her
friends to the door and stood waving as they drove off in Sam’s
battered pickup truck.

After they had gone, she changed into jeans
and a bright blue sweater and went outside to do some yard work.
She sat on her heels beside a bed of chrysanthemums and spaded the
weeds. Digging in the earth always had a calming effect on her, and
heaven knew she needed calming down today. She imagined that Paul
was also seeking solace in activity. If nothing else, the Halloween
pageant should have convinced him that she didn’t fit into a
conservative lifestyle.

She attacked a weed with such vigor that she
broke a fingernail. Good, she thought. Maybe she could transfer the
pain in her heart to her finger. She had never dreamed that giving
up Paul would be this hard. But she must. He was probably going
through torture today because of her shenanigans last night. She
hadn’t meant to cause such a ruckus; it was simply a part of her
nature. As a matter of fact, if she hadn’t been worried about the
trouble she’d caused for the man she loved, she would have been
chuckling over the whole thing.

Baby trotted over and dropped a faded pink
rubber ball behind her back. Martie turned around and leaned her
head on her pet’s soft golden fur. “Tell me how to handle
heartbreak, Baby,” she murmured. “I’ve never been in love
before.”

Baby happily wagged her tail in the mistaken
belief that she was the center of her mistress’s universe.

o0o

Martie handled heartbreak by staying so busy
that she didn’t have time to think. She played ball with Baby and
cleaned kitchen cabinets and baked poppy seed cookies. Every time a
certain gray eyed man popped into her thoughts, she went into a
flurry of activity that would have made the fainthearted dizzy just
watching.

A few blocks away in the pastor’s study, Paul
took the opposite approach to the problem. Instead of pushing it
away, he studied it from all angles. He believed that in time
Martie’s detractors would begin to appreciate all the wonderful
qualities that he saw in her. That part of the problem would work
itself out. The major hurdle he had to overcome right now was the
one Martie herself manufactured. He could almost see her mind
magnifying last night’s incidents and putting another fence between
them. He knew that if he let her use the Halloween pageant as an
excuse to avoid him, he would surely lose her. The situation called
for a large dose of the tenacity he had confessed to having.

Having decided upon his course of action, he
finished his work and headed straight for Martie’s house just as
the sun was disappearing. He parked his car and walked to her back
door. Her loud, jazzy music assaulted his ears and he smiled.
Without knocking, he pushed open the screen door and went
inside.

Aristocat and Baby, who were by now
accustomed to his sudden appearances, escorted him down the hall to
Martie’s exercise room. He sat in one of the chairs against the
wall and drank in the sight of her. Her wonderful silver hair was
caught in a scarlet ribbon high on her head and cascaded down in
bright confusion. The red leotard was cut high on the sides and low
in the front, revealing enough smooth, tanned skin to make Paul’s
heart do flip-flops. He was so entranced that he forgot to take out
his pipe.

Unaware of his presence, Martie gyrated to
the beat of the music, hoping to exhaust her energetic body so that
she could fall asleep without another lengthy session of
rationalizing her actions. She was tired of arguing with herself
and impatient with complicated situations. She almost wished for
the carefree days of moving around the country, doing whatever took
her fancy. Almost, but not quite. She didn’t want to give up her
house and her yard and her flower beds, her little piece of earth.
Most of all she didn’t want to give up her beloved Reverend Paul
Donovan. Even if he couldn’t be her lover, he still made a
wonderful backyard neighbor.

The dance ended with a drum cadence and a
loud burst of applause. Startled, Martie spun around to see Paul
sitting quietly against the wall. Without thinking, she flew across
the room, arms outstretched.

Paul stood so quickly the chair crashed to
the floor. His arms welcomed her trim, perspiring body.

She nuzzled her head against his shoulder.
“You old honey bear!” she cried. “How long have you been sitting
there?”

“Long enough to know that I can never let you
go.”

“Paul!” Her anguished cry was born of the
realization that once again she had let her heart rule her head.
Without thinking she had yielded to her natural impulse—to get as
close as possible to the man she loved. She put her hands against
his chest and pushed herself out of his arms. “I didn’t mean to do
that.”

“I’m glad you did, Martie. It proves my
point.”

“I’m not even going to ask.”

“You already know. We were meant to be
together and nothing can stop us. Not anything nor anybody.” He
caught her shoulders and pulled her back into his arms. “Not even
you.”

“It won’t work, Paul,” she said, resting her
head on his shoulder. “After last night you should know that.”

He chuckled. “Last night got a little out of
hand, but it was no disaster. It might even be a blessing in
disguise. When word gets around, the pews will be spilling over
with curious people.”

“You’re too good, Paul. Why aren’t you
chastising me for being so foolhardy? I’ll bet half your
congregation is in cultural shock today.” She sighed. “I’ve given
this some thought. I won’t be a part of your life anymore, and I
certainly won’t be a part of your work. I’m nothing but trouble for
you, and I’ll never change.”

He stood very still, and only the tensing of
his jaw betrayed his conflict. “I don’t want you to change,” he
said, tilting her chin so that she had to look up at him. “Before
you go, I want to give you something.” He pulled her so close that
she found it hard to breathe, and then his mouth crushed hers with
fierce possessiveness, dominating, demanding, taking charge in a
kiss that ripped away barriers.

Martie clung to him, feeling boneless and
lightheaded as the embrace transported her into a starburst world
of yearning flesh and heated passions. He pulled her scantily clad
hips against his as his tongue took her mouth with quick, explosive
thrusts. Her legs would hardly support her weight when he finally
released her.

“Tell me again how you’re going out of my
life,” he said.

Her voice shook as she tried to turn the
situation around. “A kiss to last a lifetime, Paul?”

“No. A kiss to begin a lifetime.”

“Wrong. I won’t deny that I respond to your
kisses, but I still haven’t changed my mind about stepping out of
your life.”

Paul’s eyes darkened. He still had one trump
card. If he knew Martie as well as he thought he did, this one
should do the trick.

“That’s exactly what Miss Beulah wants you to
do.”

“Miss Beulah has nothing to do with this
decision.”

“I know that, but she’ll be overjoyed to hear
about it.”

Her eyes blazed as she thrust out her
stubborn jaw. “Has she been to see you?”

“You know that’s confidential, Martie. I
can’t tell you who comes to me for counseling.” He suppressed a
smile as he watched her come up fighting.

“She has! I wish that goat
had
tagged her bloomers.” Martie paced the floor with long, angry
strides and waved her hands in the air as she talked. “She wants
you to get rid of me, doesn’t she? Never mind what the children
want! Well, you can tell her for me that I wouldn’t leave the
children’s department in a million years. Not even if the president
of the United States asked me to.”

He could no longer hold back his smile; it
burst forth, a beacon of joy that lit up the room.

“Does this mean you aren’t leaving?”

“You bet your britches, I’m not! Those
children are
my
work, Paul. Forget about telling Miss
Beulah. I’ll tell her myself.”

“Now that the crisis is over, I’m famished.
What do you have in your refrigerator?”

“Salami and some tofu, I think.”

“Wait right here, angel. I’ll go home and get
the cheese.”

“I adore impromptu picnics. Let’s eat outside
under the oak tree.”

o0o

They did. And while they ate, Paul reflected
that for him it was a victory celebration. He could see time
wearing away the edges of Martie’s defensiveness. He would wait,
not as patiently as he first had, but with the sure knowledge that
she would someday come to him freely, unfettered by doubts and
mistaken convictions.

The wind nipping around them finally drove
them inside. Paul built the first fire of the season in Martie’s
fireplace, and she dragged out a long-handled corn popper. They
burned the first batch but eventually got the hang of it.

After the popcorn was gone Paul stayed to
hear the last few songs on the Ray Charles record they were
playing. And then came the rain, fat droplets that splatted against
the windowpane and danced on the rooftop. Martie wouldn’t hear of
him leaving in the rain, and he cheerfully agreed that he would
probably melt if he got wet. The steady beat of the rain, the
crackle of the fire, and the haunting strains of blues music set
the stage for two people who skirted around their love and failed
to recognize their compatibility. The fence Martie had built
between them was so shaky that one puff from Paul would have blown
it down, but he didn’t know that. And she didn’t know that the
fishbowl life she had imagined for him existed primarily in her own
mind.

When the fire had died to embers and the rain
had become nothing more than a soft sighing of wind, Paul went
home. And Martie’s heart went with him.

o0o

Paul was sitting in the back of the darkened
church listening to the choir practice when Martie swept down the
aisle in her purple tie-dyed caftan. He saw the shock wave wash
over the members of the adult choir as she made her flamboyant way
to the choir loft. Making a steeple of his folded hands, he sat
back to watch the action.

“Hello, everybody,” Martie called and waved,
jingling her ornate copper and brass bracelet. “I’ve come to join
the choir.”

Paul grinned as Essie Mae hit a resounding
off-key chord on the organ and Miss Beulah dropped her hymnbook on
the postman’s toe. Trust Martie to create a stir wherever she went,
he thought.

Completely unaware of the interested observer
in the back of the church, Martie mounted the steps to the choir
loft, the sleeves of her caftan flowing behind her, and took her
place beside an apoplectic Miss Beulah.

“Since Pontotoc is going to be my permanent
home,” she announced, “I’ve decided to get involved in everything
that interests me. I like to sing.”

“Bravo, Martie,” Paul whispered.

Buck Hunter, the choir director, who had been
crowned with a coconut cream pie at the Halloween fiasco, gave
Martie a thin smile. “What do you sing?”

Paul saw the impish grin light her face.

“Mostly country-western and blues,” she said.
“Some call it honky-tonk music. But I can sing anything. Church
music, too.”

Don’t go too far, Martie, Paul pleaded
silently. Just this once curb your impulses.

The top of Buck’s bald head turned red, and
he coughed behind his freckled hand. “I meant what part do you
sing?”

“Alto,” she replied. “Low voices are best
suited for performing, you know.”

Miss Beulah, who had been twitching as if she
were sitting in a bed of ants, could no longer keep quiet. “You’ve
performed
?”

In the back of the church, Paul sent a silent
prayer winging upward. He knew that tone of voice: it was the one
Miss Beulah used when she was breathing down the neck of
scandal.

“Oh, yes,” Martie answered serenely.
“Performing is a great way to meet people. I have friends all over
the West.” She smiled directly into Miss Beulah’s mortified face.
“I find that most people are goodhearted and quite likable, don’t
you?”

Paul nearly gave himself away by laughing
aloud. He recovered in time, so that only a small strangled sound
escaped his lips.

Miss Beulah fidgeted. “Why I . . . that is to
say . . . and on the other hand . . .” For once in her life, she
was speechless. If she had been a balloon, she would have risen
slowly to the ceiling and whined around the church as the air
escaped. She was, to say the least, deflated. “B-Buck,” she finally
stammered, “what did you say the next number was?”

“Number one fifty-three.
Love, Mercy, and
Grace
.”

“Thank you, Lord,” Paul whispered as the
organ boomed a chord and the choir got off to a shaky start. He
relaxed, listening to the music, and suddenly he was riveted to his
seat. As the choir began the chorus, Martie’s distinctive, husky
voice wrapped itself like velvet around the words. The beauty of
her singing soared through the church, and Paul was sure that even
the angels must be bending down to listen.

o0o

When choir practice ended Paul joined the
singers chatting at the front of the church. He was pleased to see
that feelings toward Martie had mellowed; she was the center of a
laughing group, and even her outrageous costume seemed to have been
forgotten.

Martie felt a delicious tingling sensation
when she saw Paul. Keeping him always in sight, she chatted with
first one departing group and then another until only the two of
them were left.