Her Minnesota Man (A Christian Romance Novel) (36 page)

Jonathan folded his arms. "To put it bluntly, Jackson, you're probably the best all-around artist who ever walked into this office. Too bad you've been squandering your God-given talent."

Too overcome to speak, Jeb simply nodded his understanding.

He'd been a fool to imagine he could get a do-over for the years he'd wasted going his own stubborn way. He was a high-profile recording artist who had sinned so blatantly that any attempt to cross over to the Christian market would naturally provoke questions about his sincerity.

"You must be wondering why I invited you here today," Jonathan went on, "if all I was going to do was tear you down."

No, that was no mystery. "You were aware of my band's success and wanted to meet me," Jeb said dully. "But you'd never actually heard any of the music until today, when you sampled that CD."

"True. But I would have invited you here even if I'd heard the music before."

"Why?" The word twisted itself out of Jeb's throat.

Jonathan's lips quirked. "Because I'm a businessman, Jackson. A very successful businessman."

Jeb was again crushed by disappointment. Was money everything, then? Was this man, the president of a Christian label, no different from the greedy record executives Skeptical Heart had dealt with?

"I should explain that everything you see here—" Jonathan made a sweeping gesture with one thick arm, indicating his spacious, luxuriously furnished office. "—has come to me from the hand of God. And since he can take it all away in the blink of an eye, I try to keep my success in perspective. But I hope he keeps letting me make money because the more money there is, the more Christian music we can send out into the world."

He seemed to be waiting for a response, but Jeb was too overcome by relief and admiration to speak.

Jonathan unbuttoned his suit jacket and shoved it aside so he could thrust his hands into his pants pockets. "That's where I stand, Jackson. Where do
you
stand?"

Jeb hadn't been so humbled since the night he'd given his heart to God. "In all honesty, Jonathan, I haven't got the knack of 'standing' yet. I've been trying to figure out what's right, but I'm not finding all of the answers I need. So—" Jeb had to stop and clear his emotion-clogged throat. "So mostly I just keep falling on God's grace."

For several seconds Jonathan stared at him without expression, weighing that bald response. Jeb knew he'd failed to deliver the correct answer, and he was about to leave when Jonathan's wide face broke into a smile.

"I assume you're still contracted?"

Surprise delayed Jeb's answer for several seconds. Then he nodded and named his record label.

Jonathan removed his hands from his pockets and leaned over his desk to press an intercom button. "Sarah, ask Troy Bangs to come in here. And get Jolene and Michael, too. And Char
Blacklick
, if she's in town." Removing his finger from the button, he spoke to Jeb again. "My people will look into it. If you can stomach losing a great deal of money, we can probably get you out of your contract."

"It was never about money," Jeb said. "All I ever wanted was to make music."

Jonathan waved a hand to indicate a large seating area near the office's corner windows. "Then suppose we make ourselves comfortable, Jackson, and have a serious talk about your future."

"W
hy me?" Laney groaned as she swirled a rag mop over the flooded tile floor of the customers' restroom, sopping up water.

An adorable 4-year-old had apparently tired of the pink feather boa she'd borrowed from the dress-up chest, because she'd tried to flush it down the toilet. Squealing with delight at the miniature Niagara Falls she'd created, the child had flushed again and again before her blithely inattentive mother caught her.

During the ensuing commotion, a party of obnoxious college girls from Chicago had skipped out without paying their $92 bill. All three of the Graces had been busy elsewhere when Millie had noticed the empty table and spotted the snickering miscreants hurrying out the door.

"Mercy, but those mean little girls were fast!" a visibly shaken Millie had told Laney afterward. "I couldn't even get their car's license number."

After she'd soothed Millie, Laney had been heading back to the bathroom to sop up the sixth Great Lake when her real estate agent had phoned with the disheartening news that he'd just received an insultingly low, take-it-or-leave-it offer for the building.

"Although after another day like this one," Laney grumbled as she wrung out her mop over a plastic five-gallon bucket, "I might be willing to
give
this place away."

"Laney?" Aggie poked her head in the doorway. "How are you doing?"

Laney thrust her bottom lip forward and blew out a breath, ruffling the curls that had flopped across her brow. "I can't complain," she said wearily.

"Sure you can." Flashing a conspiratorial grin, Aggie stepped into the room and shut the door. "Just don't let Caroline hear you." She reached for the mop.

Laney tightened her grip and swung the mop to one side, out of her great-aunt's reach. "No, Aggie, I've got this. But thank you."

"Why don't you go home as soon as you finish in here?" Aggie stepped gingerly around the puddle and backed up against the sink counter, out of Laney's way. Folding her plump arms, she added, "We'll close up today. You go have an early supper and a hot bath and then tuck yourself in bed with a good book."

That sounded like heaven, but Laney gave her head a resolute shake and returned to her mopping. "Thanks, but I can hold it together for another couple of hours. Besides, we're running low on cookies, and if I don't get some made today, I'll have to come in extra early tomorrow morning."

"But you look worn out," Aggie protested.

"I am, but it's my own fault. We didn't leave the skating rink until midnight, when it closed, so I barely had five hours of sleep."

Several times, Jeb had suggested she'd been working too hard to stay out so late, but she hadn't wanted the magical evening to end. He'd looked so happy, and it had all been so romantic.

Laney's mop slowed as she remembered the tender kisses they'd shared at her kitchen door. Afterward, she'd gone upstairs and donned a long white nightgown and twirled around her bedroom just like Audrey Hepburn, hugging her pillow and singing that bit from
My Fair Lady
about how she could have danced all night.

Then morning had come, and climbing out of her cozy bed had required tremendous willpower. She'd made it to the tearoom at her usual time, but she'd been slogging through a marathon of disasters ever since.

"Aggie, why am I like this?" she asked suddenly. "Why do I get bent out of shape over things like a flooded bathroom? Mom never lost control the way I do. What was her secret?"

Tilting her head to one side, Aggie regarded her with a sober expression. "It was no secret, Laney. She told you often enough. Why don't you just slow down for a minute and think about it?" She pushed away from the counter and quietly left the room.

"I'm too tired to think about it," Laney muttered, but as she again wrung out her mop, she recalled her mother's frequent reminders about the importance of
maintaining a
habit of gratitude.

"That's my problem," Laney murmured as she mopped around the base of the toilet. "Lord, please help me be more aware of my blessings."

For the rest of the afternoon, she paused every few minutes to think of at least one blessing and breathe a quiet prayer of thanks. When she forgot to set her oven timer and ended up burning a batch of delicate almond cookies, she was dismayed for only a moment. Then she remembered how much fun baking with her mother had always been, and how their mistakes had always seemed so hilarious, and she felt another warm rush of gratitude.

At last she headed home. She couldn't wait to tell Jeb about her breakthrough, but when she pulled into his driveway, the Explorer was nowhere in sight.

Her first thought was that he'd gone fishing. But as the garage door rumbled open, she saw his canoe still hanging from its hooks on the wall—and Jeb rarely went fishing without it.

Maybe he was spending some more time with Pastor Jerry or with one of the men he'd made friends with at church. He'd had a lot of "guy time" in the past few days, and the fellowship and instruction appeared to be doing him a lot of good.

Laney shrugged off her disappointment and went inside. Wherever he was, he'd be home before too much longer. If he'd made any plans for the evening, he'd have told her. Jeb was thoughtful that way.

After a quick look at her mail, she jogged upstairs and wriggled out of her vintage floral "tearoom" dress and into her favorite jeans—the ones that did absolute wonders for her too-plump backside. Grinning at her reflection in her full-length mirror, she buttoned herself into the clingy wine-colored blouse Jeb hadn't seemed able to peel his gaze away from the other night.

She pushed her fingers through her unruly curls, but as usual, it didn't help. Good thing Jeb liked her crazy hair.

She rummaged in her makeup drawer and found a pot of shimmery lip gloss, which she applied with her pinky. Jeb's gaze had been straying to her mouth a lot lately, and she couldn't resist the feminine urge to drive her man just a little bit crazy.

Back downstairs, she was peeling potatoes for his favorite hotdish—creamy scalloped potatoes with ham and onions and peas—when she heard a car pull into one of the driveways. It didn't sound like the Explorer, and whoever it was hadn't pulled up far enough to be seen from the kitchen windows, so Laney put down her paring knife and went outside.

Rounding the corner of her house, she saw a silver Cadillac and a woman in a long black coat standing next to it, hands cupped near her face as she lit a cigarette. The sun had already set, but even in the twilight Laney had no trouble recognizing Jeb's manager.

"He's not home," she called with careful politeness as she walked toward the woman who'd been so rude to her on Sunday afternoon. "Can I help you with anything?"

"Where is he?" The demand was delivered in an impatient tone that
made Laney blink
.

"I'm not sure." The evening air was chilly, so Laney folded her arms for warmth. Realizing that she was still holding a half-peeled potato, she tucked it behind the crook of one elbow and hoped Shari
Daltry
hadn't noticed. What was it about this woman that made her feel like a gauche teenager? "I haven't talked to him since yesterday."

Shari turned her head to one side but kept her unfriendly gaze pinned to Laney as she drew on her cigarette and then released a lungful of smoke that curled artistically upward. "From what I've seen of this town," she said finally, "it's not big enough to disappear in."

Determined to live up to her etiquette training as well as her mother's godly example of answering insults with kindness, Laney was so focused on making a civil reply that her arms came uncrossed and the potato fell. It thudded against the concrete driveway and bounced a few times before rolling to an awkward stop next to one of Shari's glamorous high-heeled boots.

Shari tipped her head forward and peered down at it. "You dropped your
 
potato," she observed with evident distaste.

"Sorry." Laney stooped to retrieve the traitorous tuber. "I was in the middle of making supper when you—"

"I need to speak to Jackson," Shari interrupted. "Urgently."

"He's not home," Laney reiterated with what she believed was remarkable patience. "Have you tried his cell phone?"

"Yes, I've tried his cell," the woman snapped. "He's not answering."

He was probably screening his calls, and Laney couldn't blame him. If he was with his new friends, he needed that fellowship a whole lot more than he needed his pushy manager harassing him about unfinished band business.

"I don't know where he is," Laney said, "but I'm sure he'll be home very soon." She hesitated for only an instant before adding, "If you'd like to wait in my house, I'll put on a pot of coffee and give you something to snack on while I finish getting supper in the oven."

"Well, wouldn't that be nice?" Shari drawled in an offensive monotone as she raised the cigarette to her lips. She inhaled deeply, her gaze riveted to Laney. "But, no." She flicked the cigarette away; its glowing orange tip described a long arc before dropping onto the grass. "I'm on my way to the Minneapolis airport to catch a flight back to L.A."