Love Inspired November 2013 #2 (23 page)

“I remember that,” she said, placing the photo back on the dresser and turning toward David. “You found God, about the same time that I lost Him.”

Her mouth flattened, and David sensed the sadness in her admission. Back in college, every now and then, particularly when she was upset, he'd had intense conversations with Laura, the kind where you wonder if you said too much, opened up too much, showed your pain too much. Then he would hold her until she was okay. He moved toward her with the intention of holding her again, but she stepped back and shook her head.

“I'll be okay,” she said. “It's like that saying, if you find yourself farther from God, who moved?” She waited a beat and then whispered, “I did.”

In spite of all the tough conversations David had with Laura before, he'd never said anything about faith, or God. At the time, that wasn't at the top of his priorities. Now, though, it was. “Laura, we have an amazing church here, full of people who understand God's love and His grace. Why don't you come with me Wednesday night for the midweek worship?”

The look she gave David resembled shock. Then she glanced down at her stomach and shook her head. “Trust me, I have no business in church right now.”

“Laura—” he began, but she cleared her throat.

“Please, David. I don't want to talk about it. I just want to get my things unpacked and relax awhile. It's been a long day.”

David knew when a conversation had been ended, and this one was done, in spite of how important he felt it was for her to find her faith again, for her to find the peace that he'd found again. “Sure,” he said and turned to go, but he wasn't giving up. He'd already determined several ways he hoped to help Laura. He wanted to help her support her babies until she was able to get a teaching job, and he'd do that—somehow—at the bookstore. And he wanted to help her find her faith and the peace he'd experienced again since he'd turned his life back over to God. In other words, David wanted to help her have the two things she needed most—a friend and a Savior.

Chapter Four

“W
hat's that you're working on?” Zeb Shackleford peered over Laura's shoulder at her pitiful sketch.

“We're starting a book club for kids,” she said. “The first series we're reading is
The Boxcar Children
. I thought it'd be nice to decorate the children's area to look like a boxcar.” She frowned at the plain red rectangle on the page. “I was going to do a sketch and then go to the craft store to see what materials I could use to create a big prop.” She shook her head again at the image on the paper. “But my artistic skills are rather lacking.”

He set the two books he'd been holding on a table nearby and gingerly lowered himself into the seat next to hers. “You know, my sweet Dolly used to say I had quite a knack with a pencil and paper. I used to draw all of the scenes for her classroom bulletin boards. You want me to give it a go for you?”

“Would you mind?” Laura gladly relinquished the sketch pad and colored pencils to the kind man.

“I'd be honored.” He turned the page to a clean sheet, opened the box of pencils and selected the charcoal one. Laura had propped
The Boxcar Children
book on the table to use as a go-by, and he squinted at it for a few seconds then began to draw. It didn't take but a minute of watching him move the pencil around the page for Laura to see that he really did have a talent.

“Dolly,” she said as he drew, “is she your wife?”

“For fifty-seven years before the Lord called her home.” He paused, looked at Laura and said, “I'm looking forward to seeing her again.”

Touched by the affection in his tone, Laura didn't know what to say. She'd met Zeb Monday, only four days ago, but already she'd grown very attached to the kindhearted man who visited the store each day.

“She was a teacher, too,” Zeb said, then turned his attention back to sketching.

“I'm not a teacher yet.” She'd talked to Zeb about her dream to become a teacher, as well as how she'd had to put that plan on hold until she had her babies and until schools were willing to hire her.

Zeb completed the boxcar—which looked amazing—and began to draw the children from the book cover. Laura didn't really need the children drawn, since she was only planning to design a big boxcar prop, but he was doing such an incredible job that she didn't want to stop him. “You know,” he said, “the way I see it, teaching doesn't have to occur inside school walls.” He pointed to the book. “Sounds like you're already working toward encouraging some of the kids around here to increase their joy of reading. That's teaching, any way you look at it.”

Laura smiled. She
had
felt good about the responses they'd already received for the book club. “I guess it is.” Several of Kaden's friends had signed up, and she anticipated adding more tonight if she got this display done and could advertise it properly for the First Friday event. “I've decided to hold the Boxcar Book Club gathering each Monday after school. I thought that'd be a good way to start each child's week, and I'm planning to bring in some of the activities from the book to make it more interactive.”

“Dolly did the same thing, tried to give the kids more hands-on activities when they were learning. She said it helped them retain what they learned if they had an action associated with it.” He put down the pencil and turned the page toward Laura. “I think she'd have liked this. Do you?”

The detail of the boxcar, as well as the four children, was astounding. “It's incredible.”

“Okay, so to create this to scale, I believe you'll need six pieces of craft board, the thickest kind they sell. You'll also need to fix this door so it opens, because they'll probably want to go inside of it, don't you think?”

Laura nodded. “That's what I wanted.”

He ran tiny dashes around the drawing to show how he believed the boards should be assembled. “Then all you'll need is some wood stands to hold it in place. I'm pretty sure David can get wood for you out of some of those crates that are always stacked behind the stores.”

He handed her the sketch pad. “Take it over to Scraps and Crafts. It's straight across the square—you can't miss it. Diane Marsh owns the place and will be able to tell you exactly what you need to build a boxcar prop for the kids.” He lifted a finger. “Her grandson is about Kaden's age. Have you got an Andy Marsh on your list of kids signed up?”

Laura remembered the name. “Yes, I do.”

“Chances are, Diane will donate the materials if she knows it'll help Andy enjoy his reading. She's talked to me about that before, wanting him to learn to like books.”

“I'm pretty sure it was his grandmother who called and signed him up,” she said.

Zeb grinned. “Sounds like Diane. She loves those grandchildren. The other ones are older, teens I think. If you start something for teens, she'll probably sign them up, too.”

Laura had been thinking the same thing, that if this book club was a success, she could start more. “I hope to do just that.”

He pushed up from the chair and picked up the two books. Glancing at his watch, he said, “I'd go with you to see Diane, but I'm supposed to be at the hospital in a half hour so I'd better go.”

“The hospital?”

“I read to the kids on the children's floor a couple of days each week during their lunch.” He turned the books so Laura could see the titles,
Daniel and the Lion's Den
and
The Story of Moses
. “Picked a couple of Bible stories for today.”

Laura's heart moved the way it did every time she heard about one of Zeb's regular activities. She'd never met anyone like him. “That's wonderful, Zeb. I'm sure they love having you read to them.”

He leaned one of the books toward Laura and said, “You should go with me sometime, and David, too. I've got to tell you, they do way more for me than I do for them. Makes you really understand what Christ meant when He said it's more blessed to give than to receive, you know?”

Laura nodded. She did know, and yet that made her current situation all the more painful. David had asked her to go to his midweek Bible study on Wednesday at the Claremont Community Church, and she'd declined. And Mandy had invited her to a ladies' Bible study that she was hosting last night, and again, she'd declined. Now Zeb was reminding her subtly that...she missed church. But she'd so blatantly turned her back on God that she wasn't certain He'd want her. And she didn't know whether she could handle the guilt of entering a church and being surrounded by all of the people who “got it right.”

Zeb had turned his attention to the two children's books in his hand and didn't notice Laura's discomposure. Instead, he flipped through the pages and smiled. “These illustrations are beautiful. The kids will love them.” He moved toward the counter. “I'll leave the money over here so you don't have to get up.”

“Don't leave any money, Mr. Zeb. David doesn't want you to pay, and neither do I. And I'm getting up anyway.” She maneuvered her way out of the chair, then winced when one of the babies apparently kicked her for disturbing her sleep. “Whoa.”

He quickly turned from the counter. “You okay?”

“Yes,” she said, gritting her teeth as another kick matched the first, then exhaling when the twins finally settled down. “I'm fine. One of them is apparently attempting to teach the other one karate,” she said with a laugh. “But I'm not taking your money.”

He frowned. “I told you not to get up.”

“I'm going to the craft store as soon as David gets back from the post office, so I needed to get up anyway. And I want to walk you to the door.” She gently steered him farther away from the checkout counter and toward the door.

“You're just trying to keep me from paying.”

“And I'm doing a pretty good job of it, too, aren't I?” She smiled, gave him a hug and then opened the door for him to leave.

“One of these days I'm going to repay you,” he said.

“You can repay me by letting me go with you to visit those kids one day. That sounds like a teacher's dream.”

He smiled. “It is. You have a blessed day, Miss Laura.”

“You, too.”

Zeb exited, leaving Laura alone in the bookstore. That was something she'd noticed this week more than anything else; it was almost always empty. In the four days she'd been working, Laura had learned how to collect used books and log the credits in the computer, how to shelve the titles according to genre and author, how to select which books would appeal to readers in the various reading nooks and how to guide customers in their purchases. All of that could be considered part of her job description, but it wasn't the most important thing she learned during her first week on the job.

She learned David wasn't making any money.

Throughout the week, they'd received several bags of used books from customers who typically swapped out for other books during the same shopping trip. Then they had a few who came in and visited, browsed titles and perhaps even sat in a reading nook to peruse a book for a while before they placed it back on the shelf. Hence, no revenue. And while David did offer a few new books for purchase, the majority of the store was composed of trade-ins, and most of his sales were for credit. Or, in the case of Zeb Shackleford, free.

Laura didn't mind David giving so many books to the precious older man, but she didn't understand how he could continue running this business with virtually no income. And then this morning he'd given her a paycheck for her first week of employment, and he'd paid her well. Nothing excessive, but more than she'd expected considering the fact that he let her rest whenever she needed, let her go to her doctor's appointment yesterday and told her she could arrive late and leave early if she felt weary from the pregnancy.

But with the lack of customers and income that Laura had seen this week, she had no doubt David wasn't making enough money to support the store, much less to pay Laura as though everything were a-okay, hunky-dory.

And something else that wasn't a-okay or hunky-dory was the fact that her good-looking and nice guy of a boss was undeniably single. She'd paid attention throughout the week; he never texted, didn't phone anyone for quiet conversations, and even though several pretty ladies had stopped by the store over the past few days, he'd offered nothing more than a friendly smile. No flirting. No invitations for dinner or even coffee. And Laura got the impression that at least a couple of the twentysomething females had stopped by specifically to see the dashing owner and maybe even find themselves on the receiving end of his attention.

But David didn't appear to even notice he had a following. Then again, Laura had never actually realized how cute he was until this week. Maybe it was the pregnancy hormones kicking in. Or maybe he'd always been attractive, and she'd been too absorbed in Jared to notice. But in any case, he hadn't seemed the least bit interested in any of the single ladies of Claremont, which was a problem. A big one. Because Laura needed him to be interested in someone else. That would control this ridiculous notion that he might be interested in the very pregnant friend working in his shop. And it would also control her bizarre impulse to return the interest. Ever since their heart-to-heart Monday night, when he talked to her about loving and losing Mia, she'd felt even closer to David. And she wasn't ready for a relationship, at all.

Merely thinking about that day when she realized that she was pregnant and when Jared practically demanded that she end the pregnancy caused Laura's stomach to pitch. She'd jumped into that relationship headfirst and had been undeniably stupid. She wouldn't make that mistake again. Oh, no, it would be a long time before she handed her heart over. But when she did, she knew what she wanted. A guy who was honest. A guy who was faithful. A guy who loved her completely—no one else, just Laura—and a guy who she loved the very same way.

She flinched as an image of David carrying her luggage up the stairs overtook her thoughts. David, giving her a job. David, holding her hand to help her stand. That was the kind of guy she wanted next time, but she simply wasn't ready for that yet. Not that it mattered. There was still the fact that she'd dated his friend, was having his babies, in fact. And the fact that she didn't exactly look the part of a girl anyone would date, seven months pregnant and waddling. And, as far as David was concerned, she didn't share his faith. Not anymore. She'd given up on God because she assumed He'd given up on her.

Plenty of reasons for David not to look at her beyond friendship. Which was good. Exactly what she wanted.

Really.

The bell on the front door rang, and Laura turned to see the object of her thoughts entering with a big brown box tucked under one arm. He wore a black cashmere sweater over a blue-and-white striped button-down shirt, well-worn jeans and black boots. He scanned the store. “No customers?”

She shook her head then tucked a wayward lock of hair behind her ear. In spite of all of the cute maternity clothes her mother had bought her for the pregnancy, she never felt like she looked half as good as he did. Because right now, he looked very good. She stopped herself from attempting to check her reflection in the nearest window and tried to control the nervousness that had started occurring whenever her boss came around. “It's been a slow hour,” she said. Truthfully, it'd been a slow week, but she wouldn't point out the obvious.

“That's okay. It'll give us time to check out what we got in the mail.” A dark wave of brown hair shifted to cover one eye as he nudged the door shut with his shoulder. He jerked his head to the side to toss it back into place. Laura liked the way he managed to dress neat but also look rumpled, like he'd taken in a game of Frisbee on the square on his way to the post office. In college, he'd often played ultimate Frisbee with Jared and several of the other guys they hung around. Even though David gave the appearance of being Mr. Studious, he'd surprised everyone with his athleticism and competitiveness on the quad. Laura had thought it funny that he'd turned out to be the superb athlete in the bunch, something Jared and the gang hadn't expected.