The Happy Hour Choir (13 page)

And I'd hauled off and hurt the Preacher Man again.

The hurt in his eyes flickered to understanding, and he kissed me once more, another feathery kiss teasing promise. “Sure about that?”

Hell, no. I'm not sure of anything.
“Still just a kiss.”

“I don't think so,” he said. “I think you're afraid of something.”

Snakes? Zombies? Falling in love with a man who couldn't possibly ever love me? Getting that man fired? Oh, there were plenty of things that scared me—not that I planned to admit any of them.

“Not even the dark,” I lied as I slid from his embrace. “I meant it when I said to lock up.”

When I got to the door, I turned to see if he would follow me. I wanted him to barge over, slam the door shut, and then tell me I wasn't going anywhere. I wanted him to say to hell with his job and to hell with what everyone else thought. Instead he leaned against the counter with a calculating look.

I walked out the door, catching the screen door to keep it from slamming, holding back tears and willing my throat to stay open. And I wished with every bit of my aching heart that he wouldn't be able to sleep for other things that ached. Just like me.

Chapter 15

E
verything was up-tempo the next night at The Fountain. Somewhat reconciled to the idea that Luke and I weren't going anywhere, I couldn't help but feel hope about the scout's visit. I mean, karma may be a bitch, but I'd done a good turn by leaving Luke alone. Surely that had to count for something in the scheme of the universe.

Bill was trying out a new waitress, a brunette version of Tiffany, who hefted trays with a similar beefy-armed ease. Tiffany, for her part, was excited about her job at the florist, and Ginger had even treated us to a New Orleans sing-along earlier that afternoon. It was one of those rare moments when the world made some semblance of sense. I sighed and leaned a little deeper into the Beatles' “All You Need Is Love,” complete with the Gates brothers drunkenly blaring the “bum-ba-dum-da-dum” in all the right places.

Luke pushed through the door, and my first thought was that he had recognized the song and wanted to join in. The set of his jaw, however, told me that something was very wrong.

“Beulah, you gotta come now. It's Ginger.”

“—love.”
I stopped, leaving the chord progression unresolved. He offered his hand, and I jumped to the floor.

Bill picked up his Co-op cap and put it back down on his head. “What's going on?”

“Miss Ginger's in the hospital,” Luke answered for me.

“What's wrong?”

“We'll find out when we get there,” he said, holding open the door for me.

“We'll be sure to say a prayer for her,” Bill said.

“She'd appreciate that,” I ground out. As if a moment of silence in a bar would amount to anything.

And then I was in Luke's ridiculous roadster racing for the hospital. “That's all you know?”

He sighed. “Tiffany called 911 for an ambulance. Then she called me. She said Miss Ginger grabbed around her heart.” His lips pressed together, and he sped up. I should have been amused by the vision of Reverend Luke Daniels breaking the law, but I was too busy picturing Ginger clutching her heart.

“A heart attack?” I whispered.
Not yet. Please, not yet
. We only had a little bit of time left, and I wasn't ready to give her up.

I crossed my arms and fumed for a good ten minutes before Luke spoke up again. “Good thing Tiffany was there to catch Ginger when she fell and to call for an ambulance.”

“Yeah, but not as lucky as I would be if Ginger were still sitting in her recliner watching
CSI,
” I snapped, even though he had a point.

I closed my eyes and rubbed my temples. It was all Luke's fault. And Ginger's. I wouldn't have been trying to figure out the mysteries of the universe if I hadn't been forced to play all of those religious songs or to sit through Luke's sermons.

Or if I hadn't tasted heaven only to have it wrenched away.

“Beulah, are you praying?”

My eyes snapped open. I'd had enough prayer for a lifetime. “No, I'm not praying. Why does everyone seem to think I'm either praying or ought to be? I've never seen anything to tell me a prayer could amount to a hill of beans.”

Luke nodded, unruffled by my outburst. “You're living proof prayers come true.”

I snorted. “I'm living proof prayers
don't
come true. Just ask my momma what she prayed for all her life. I'm not it.”

Luke took a corner way too sharply and had to jerk to the right to avoid a one-eyed car trying to take his half down the middle. “Yes, but I prayed you would be okay after Carl threw you into that cinder-block wall. Miss Ginger prays for you every day, and here you are.”

“If prayer is so potent, why did I lose my baby? Why did Ginger get cancer? Why did my daddy have to die, and why, in heaven's name, did my momma have to yell at me all the time and beat me with her damned wooden spoon?”

Luke sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. His eyes never left the road. “It's a world of good and evil.”

I tuned him out, thinking only of all those wasted prayers that I would somehow be a half-decent mother and that my baby boy would grow up to be healthy and happy. I prayed and prayed for that child—right up until the day I walked into the nursery and couldn't hear him breathing anymore.

Hot tears slid down my cheeks. “I loved my baby boy so much.” My throat ached, and my words stuck there. “I didn't mean to love him. I didn't want to love him, but I could believe—I could see—as long as I cradled him in my arms. When he died, I saw what a fool I had been to think I could make myself someone different just for him.”

The good Reverend Daniels didn't have anything to say about that.

Of course, he wouldn't. The night before, I'd convinced myself not to get involved with him for his sake, but here was a potent reminder of why
I
needed to stay away from
him
. I couldn't spend the rest of my life listening to religious mumbo jumbo. I was the last person who needed to be the preacher's girlfriend, much less the preacher's wife.

I swiped away my tears. Time to put on my game face for Ginger. “Anyway, that's why I'm done praying.”

He pulled into the hospital parking lot, sliding into the first available parking space with a squeal of tires. He didn't say anything at first, letting the hot engine click and fizz. Finally, he turned to look at me with more compassion than I deserved. “Then I guess I'll have to pray enough for both of us.”

 

I sat with Ginger through the night and well into the next day. It was as though I hadn't realized how much she had gone downhill over the past few months until I saw her lying there in the hospital bed with her skin gray against the white linens of the hospital bed. They still didn't know what was wrong with her, but they had ruled out a heart attack. For the moment, she had a morphine drip to help with the pain.

She slept, but her body still tensed against the pain. She hadn't penciled in her eyebrows nor put on lipstick, and she looked oddly naked without her clip-on earrings. I couldn't bear to look at her, but I couldn't bear to look away.

“Miss Belmont?” A doctor leaned into the room.

“Miss Belmont?” he repeated before I realized he was talking to me.

“Yes.” I didn't bother to correct him. Sometimes organizations underestimated the family we had created, somehow thinking it inferior to those defined by shared blood. In my experience, many of the strongest bonds came from those who
chose
to be together.

“Thanks to some of the tests we ran last night, I think we've narrowed it down to a clot in the spleen.”

“What does that mean?”
And what the hell is a spleen?

He smiled at me then pushed his glasses back up his nose. “That means a little blood thinner should take care of the clot, and we should have Miss Ginger back to her old self in no time.”

I released a shaky breath. “How long?”

“It's hard to say, but it should be a little less than a week.”

He turned to go, but I touched his shoulder. “No, I meant the cancer?”

He shrugged. “You'll have to ask the oncologist about that, but such clots are not uncommon among patients with cancer.”

“But, has the cancer spread?”

His formerly friendly face went blank. He didn't want to get anywhere near cancer or any predictions of what such an unpredictable disease might do next. “You'll have to ask the oncologist.”

I nodded, and he turned to go. My throat was too closed up to speak any more. I glanced at Ginger, but she slept on. Someone rustled behind me, and I knew it was Tiffany because she carried the overwhelming, cloying odor of the florist with her.

“I can sit here with Miss Ginger,” Tiffany said quietly as she slid her arrangement of flowers onto the windowsill. Now three vases of her practice arrangements sat on the sill, each a riot of color.

“I think I'll stay.”

“Go. You haven't eaten anything since lunch yesterday.” Tiffany laid a gentle hand on my arm and bumped me with her belly by accident.

Tamping down an irrational panic, I looked at Tiffany, and she raised her eyebrow and lifted one hand as if to spank me. Motherhood had come naturally to that one. I backed out of the room, but I didn't really know what to do with myself.

Luke would tell you to pray
.

I frowned. Where was Luke anyway? Had I permanently offended him? And why did that thought twist my insides into a bunch when I had no intentions of taking back a word of what I'd said?

And there I stood in front of the elevator. I pushed the “down” button just as I saw a sign to the chapel. No way was I going to that chapel. Not after what I'd told Luke. But I also had a deep, aching need to keep Ginger close.

The bell dinged.

The door opened, but I was on my way down the hall to find the chapel.

At the end of the hall, I found the tiny, dark room with plain chairs and only one stained glass window. A six-foot rail stretched across the tiny room, and Luke knelt at that rail.

He took up almost the entire room, and I sucked in a breath. Need, desire, and desperation mixed together.

Hearing my gasp, he stood.

“What are you doing?” he asked, his voice low but optimistic.

“I, uh, wondered if you wanted to go down and get some lunch.” My shoes were fascinating. The carpet was fascinating. Anything that kept Luke from asking me what I was doing in the chapel was fascinating. But I looked up at him anyway.

“That sounds like a great idea,” he said with a sad, tired smile. In that smile I saw yet another person in a long line of people I had disappointed. He had hoped I had come there to pray, to redeem myself after all the awful, sacrilegious things I'd said.

My feet stayed bolted to the floor.

“I hear they have an extra-salty cream of tomato,” he said. He smiled to rid his face of any remaining disappointment and laid a hand on my shoulder.

Tears ran down my cheeks hot and fast.

“Okay, we'll find something other than cream of tomato. . . .” Luke was no stranger to crying women, but he clearly didn't like it any more than any other man.

“Not the soup,” I croaked over the lump in my throat. No, it was the roller coaster of emotions, the belief that I had finally figured out what life was all about—the whys and the hows—only to be slapped down by the reality that I would lose Ginger sooner rather than later.

“I know.” He folded me into his embrace, and I burrowed into his crisply ironed shirt, drinking in his scent of sandalwood and soap. I had wanted the comfort of his arms from the beginning so I let myself have a really good cry.

As my sobs subsided, he held me tighter before planting a kiss on the top of my head. I reached up to touch one of the dimples I liked so much, and his smile faded. His eyes lost their twinkle.

He leaned forward, but I met him halfway. We were desperate for fingers to touch, for lips to meet. His lips were every bit as soft as his hands were callused, and I leaned into him, into the memory of him from the night before. But something had changed. He tore his mouth from mine before either of us could deepen the kiss. He leaned his forehead against mine, his eyes closed. Another woman might think he didn't want to kiss her, but I could feel, almost touch, how badly he wanted to kiss me.

“Good to see that the two of you are so concerned about Miss Ginger's health,” someone said as I touched my fingers to my swollen lips.

“Miss Lottie.” Luke nodded dismissively, his eyes never leaving mine. “What a pleasant surprise.”

His tone suggested it was anything but.

Miss Lottie carried on, oblivious to the steel in his tone of voice. “Bill's wife told Miss Georgette, who told me that Ginger was in the hospital. I thought I'd stop by for a moment of prayer. That is what this room is for, right? Prayer?”

“It is a place of prayer as well as a place to reflect on minding one's own business.” He took my arm and led me out of the small chapel. Lottie Miller's mouth hung open.

“Beulah, I'm so sorry,” Luke said.

“You're sorry?” I hissed. “What are you apologizing for?”

“For letting my emotions get the best of me in a place like this,” he said. “There's something about you. I can't stand to see you hurting.”

I jerked my arm from his embrace. “So you were kissing me because you felt sorry for me?”

“That's not what I said.”

“That's what it sounded like. Am I an embarrassment to you?”

“No, of course not.” But there was Luke the minister again, carefully choosing the words he would say next. “With my job, though, I have a certain obligation to be beyond reproach. I can't think only of myself. I have to—”

“You know what? You're a horrible liar.” I turned on my heel to head back to Ginger's room. My stomach growled in protest, but I didn't want to share a hallway with Luke in that moment, much less a table.

He grabbed my wrist and twirled me back in front of him. Gone was Luke the minister, and back was Luke, the mortal of the flashing eyes. “Don't put words in my mouth, Beulah. And don't project emotions on me that aren't my own. No, I didn't want one of my church members to find me kissing you in a chapel, but I did it, and I would do it all over again.”