Her Minnesota Man (A Christian Romance Novel) (41 page)

Her brain stumbled over that thought, but what had she expected? That he'd retire at the age of twenty-seven and settle down in Owatonna to raise tomatoes and hang out at the curling club? Jeb lived and breathed music. Of course there would be a new band.

Laney was suddenly a lot less sanguine about his coming home. With his heavy touring schedules, Jeb lived on the road for weeks or even months at a time. And it would be just like him to refuse to draw her into a relationship that would always be strained by the demands of his career.

She shook that disturbing thought out of her head and hastily changed the subject.

"I got an offer on my building today," she blurted.

"Did you? Was it a good one this time?"

"Yes, very. Just four thousand dollars less than the asking price. So I'll be—"

"Thank you, Mr. Bell." A woman's voice. "Enjoy your flight."

"I hate your phone," Laney grumbled. "It picks up every sound within a mile of you."

"Yeah, sorry. What were you saying about the offer?"

"Just that I'm going to accept it."

"I know that'll be hard," he said. "I'm glad about the money, though."

"I'll be okay, Jeb. I know it's time to move on."

"That's good." He seemed to hesitate, and then he continued in a deeper
tone. "
Laney, I won't be seeing you for a while. I'm trying to get a new project going, and if everything works out, I won't even have a free weekend for the next three months."

Laney's hand went to her throat. So this was it. He was making the break.

Telling her not to wait for him.

"Mr. Bell?" a woman drawled in a rich southern accent. "Could I trouble you to move up a row? This is seat 4B, and you're supposed to be in 3B."

Jeb mumbled an apology, and the woman said something that Laney didn't catch, and then Jeb was back on the phone. "Laney? I'd rather tell you about all of this later, when things are more settled."

She pressed her hand over her mouth, smothering an involuntary cry of distress. A tiny squeak broke through, but Jeb didn't notice because he was being distracted again.

"Jackson?" Another woman. This one sounded very young. "Aren't you Jackson Bell?"

"I'm on the phone," he said dangerously, and then he sighed. "Sorry, princess. I meant to call you earlier, but my whole day's been crazy."

"It's all right," she said.

"Are you okay? You sound—"

"I'm fine," she said firmly, because she
would
be, somehow. "But I have to go." A tear was rolling down her cheek, and she'd start sniffling at any moment now. "You get some rest, and call me sometime when you're not
fighting off
autograph hounds, okay?"

"Yeah, okay. But Laney? When you sell the tearoom, be sure to take some time to look around and think about what you really want in life."

She didn't have to think about it. She wanted
him
.

But he was being stupid again.

"All right, Jeb." She swallowed hard, but couldn't push the hurt down. "And you take care of yourself. 'Bye."

She pressed the End Call button and allowed her tears to flow unchecked.

S
eated at her desk in the tearoom's kitchen, Laney scanned the contents of a letter she'd just received from the Internal Revenue Service.

"Why am I surprised?" she said under her breath. Sighing, she set the letter aside and opened the rest of the day's mail—the tearoom's electric bill and the monthly invoice from the service that laundered her napkins and tablecloths. Both bills included notices about rate hikes.

"Blood from a stone," she murmured darkly, refolding those papers and tossing them onto a growing stack of unpaid bills. In the two weeks since Jeb had been gone, her money troubles had multiplied at an alarming pace.

"What did you say, dear?" Millie looked over from the prep counter, where she was slicing cucumber sandwiches into little triangles for the Graces' afternoon tea.

Laney sighed. "I just got a Notice of Audit letter from the IRS. Also, the electric company and the laundry service are raising their rates."

"Don't worry," Millie said. "We'll think of some more ways to economize until you get this place sold."

"I don't know what else we can do," Laney said bitterly. "I guess we could give up the tablecloths and start using paper napkins, but we kind of need our electricity." Pushing a mess of curls away from her right eye, she shared her biggest worry: "Millie, this buyer's financing is still looking iffy. What am I going to do if the sale falls through? It could be a long while before—"

"Hush, dear. It'll all work out. You'll see."

Laney startled as the phone on her desk rang, but she didn't pick it up. Caroline was out front; she would answer the call.

"Laney," Aggie said from the doorway. "The dining room's empty now. Do you want me to lock up?"

Laney glanced at her watch. "Yes, go ahead. Thanks."

Aggie grabbed the ring of keys off the counter and jangled them as she walked away.

"Laney," Caroline called from the dining room, "Your real estate agent is on Line One."

"There now," Millie said comfortingly. "That'll be good news."

Laney picked up the phone on her desk and forced a cheery tone."Hi, Ron. Do we have a closing date?"

No, they didn't have a closing date. The buyer's financing had fallen through. Holding the phone against her shoulder, Laney massaged her aching temples.

"Okay, Ron," she said wearily. "Thanks for letting me know." She hung up the phone, and then she folded her arms on her desk and laid her head on top of them.

Lord, why is everything so hard? I'm so tired of trying my best and being smacked down at every turn. It would be so much easier to bear if I had Jeb to share this stuff with.

"Is she crying or praying?" Aggie asked in a loud whisper.

"Both," Laney admitted as she raised her head and saw all three of the Graces watching her with obvious concern. She gave them a wan smile. "The building's not sold, after all. The guy didn't get his financing."

"Ah," Caroline murmured. "It wasn't God's timing, then."

That mild comment lit Laney's fuse. "Apparently not," she snapped. "Apparently, his plan is for me to go bankrupt!"

Instead of registering shock at that outburst, Caroline's eyes narrowed in keen speculation. "This is about Jeb, isn't it?"

"No," Laney said quickly, but then she realized that it probably was.

She'd told the Graces only that she and Jeb had argued bitterly about a personal matter, and that they'd made up just before h
e'd returned to
L.A. on urgent business. She figured they had guessed the rest—that she'd fallen in love with him, and that she was afraid he didn't feel the same way.

"Stop trying to forget him," Caroline advised. "You've been best friends for most of your life, and you don't just forget something that special."

Aggie nodded sagely. "And the harder you try, the more miserable you're going to be."

Laney stared at her great-aunts. "Who said I'm trying to forget—"

"You don't talk about him," Millie interrupted gently. "And when we mention him, you always change the subject."

"I'm dealing with this the best way I know how," Laney said evenly. "He didn't promise to come back, and I can't just put my life on hold until he decides how he feels about—" She sighed and shook her head. "Anyway, I have other problems right now, so I'm not going to spend any more emotional energy wondering and worrying about Jeb."

Maybe if she kept telling herself that, her stubborn heart would get the message. It was worth a try, wasn't it?

"He'll be back," Millie said.

That earned her a sharp glance from her elder sister.

"We don't know that," Caroline said. "But letting that go for a minute." Her gaze shifted back to Laney. "We know you're upset about having to sell this place. But you need to stop thinking you've failed your mother's memory. Hannah couldn't have worked any harder than you've been doing, and she wasn't any smarter than you are, either. If she had lived longer, I'm sure she would have sold this place by now."

Aggie nodded her agreement. "Sometimes these things just happen."

"This business was your mother's delight," Millie chimed in. "But you're not having any fun with it, Laney. So why aren't you asking God to let you move on to something else?"

"Maybe I'm afraid," Laney admitted. Her folded arms slid off the desk and plopped into her lap as she leaned back in her chair. "Because when things change, you never know if they're going to get better or worse. And what if they get worse?"

"What if they get better?" Aggie countered with a touch of impatience. "What if things could be a
lot
better, but they're not because you don't have the guts to take a chance?"

"
Don't be
too hard on the girl, Agatha." Caroline removed her glasses and bent forward to polish them on the hem of her dress. "She's had one trouble after another since Hannah passed."

"
And even before," Millie said. "Nursing
her sweet mother and then losing her that way."

Laney shook her head, rejecting their sympathy.
"When I remember how well Mom dealt with her troubles," she said quietly, "I feel so ashamed of my whining."

"I know what you mean." Caroline slid her glasses back onto her face. "Hannah had courage, that's for sure."

Aggie put an arm around Millie, whose eyes had filled with tears.

"She was only twenty-two when your father left," Caroline remembered.

"She was heartbroken and scared to death," Millie said, slipping away from Aggie to pluck a tissue from the box on Laney's desk. "Her parents were killed in a car crash while she was still in college, so she had no family to help her."

"Except us," Aggie said. "But she didn't know that at first."

"But she pulled herself together," Caroline said, straightening her own back. "She had a baby coming, so she couldn't afford to sit around feeling sorry for herself. She worked hard and she prayed. And in time, her broken heart healed."

Millie blew her nose into her tissue and then said, "A Christian doesn't have the right to squander her life on bitterness, Laney."

"I hear you." Conviction thickened Laney's voice.

"When Hannah was fighting the cancer," Caroline said, "she worried about leaving you. But she wasn't bitter, even at the end. She knew you'd be okay."

Suffused with shame, Laney shook her head. She hadn't been okay since her mother's death. She'd been foundering.

She pushed her chair away from the desk and stood. "I need to be by myself for a while."

"Go ahead," Caroline urged. "We'll take care of everything here."

Millie smiled sweetly. "You go and have a good, long think about all of this. When we sit down to our tea in a few minutes, we'll pray for you."

"Thank you. For everything." Her vision blurring, Laney hugged each of her great-aunts. Then she snatched a couple of tissues from the box, gathered her jacket and purse, and went out the kitchen door.

At home, she changed her clothes and then decided to go for a walk. She started to grab her jacket off its peg by the kitchen door, but reached instead for a hooded Minnesota Twins sweatshirt Jeb had left behind. It was ridiculously huge on her, falling almost to her knees, and she surprised herself by chuckling as she rolled up the sleeves—and rolled, and rolled.

She flipped the hood over her head and went out the door.

Her aimless stroll took her to Lake
Kohlmier
, where she sat on a bench facing the water. Raising her eyes to the sky filled with scudding gray clouds, she whispered a prayer.

"Lord, I don't want to fight you any more. You know the desires of my heart, but it looks like you have other plans for my life. I want to be okay with that, but I'm going to need a lot of help. Please show me how to let go of Jeb and how to stop feeling so bitter about everything."