Holiday Homecoming (14 page)

“Thanks,” Mary said. “I've got all the other church work done. I can run the program over to the printer if you want. I'm going into Ticonderoga this afternoon anyway.”

Her gaze darted to the doorway, as if she was waiting for someone. Had she been using church supplies to print something for someone else? That didn't sound like Mary. Maybe it was something for herself and she'd brought her own paper. But why hide it? She volunteered her time as secretary, so no one would begrudge her using the printer.

“I'd appreciate it.” He handed the program back to her.

Mary looked from him to the door.

Waiting for him to leave? Still bothered by her actions, he opened his mouth to ask. The sound of the church's heavy wooden front door opening and closing, followed by footsteps in the hall, stopped him. He waited to see who it was.

“Pastor Connor.” Tom Hall stopped short in the doorway. “I didn't expect to see you here today.”

A
man could get a complex here
.

“But since you are, let's go in your office.”

Mary handed Tom her “secret” sheets as the two men passed by her to enter Connor's office.

“Have a seat,” Connor said, unease warring with his curiosity about what was going on. Tom
was
the chairman of the administrative council. Had Mary been nervous because she knew something he didn't want to hear?

Tom slipped into the chair and placed the pages on the desk. “I could have told you yesterday, but I wanted to have it all official first.”

The word official made Connor think this had to be about his contract renewal. Tom's expression didn't give him a clue as to what he was going to say about it, though. Connor sat opposite Tom and tapped his toe under the desk as he waited for the man to speak.

“At the council meeting Monday night, we voted unanimously to offer you a three-year contract, effective January 31. It's all here.” Tom pushed the contract across the desk.

Connor flattened his foot to the floor with a slap. “For real?” he asked, not caring that his question didn't sound very professional.

Tom nodded. “Some of the council members got wind that you have another offer elsewhere.”

He hadn't shared that information with anyone other than Natalie. Claire... Claire was on the council. Nat must have told her. For once, he was thankful for the church grapevine.

“The possibility that you might leave us brought the couple of members who aren't your biggest fans into line.” Tom dropped his voice. “Personally, I think those people like to oppose the pastor, whoever's called to the position.”

“Thank you,” Connor said, the elation rushing through him making him unable to say more.

“Take your time. Read it over,” Tom said. “We realize how busy you are the next couple of weeks. We don't need your answer until after the first of the New Year. I hope you do re-up with us, but I understand if your other offer is a better opportunity.”

The two men shook hands, and Tom left. Connor pumped his fist. A three-year contract. What could be better? He fell back into his chair.

A life with Natalie, who was in Chicago auditioning for the job she wanted.

* * *

Yesterday and today had reminded Natalie of how much she liked being in front of the camera. The exhilaration, the satisfaction of doing something she thought could make a difference, and doing it well. She was aligned with the station's vision for the Good News segment, and the second part of her audition today had surpassed yesterday's segment, even to her most exacting critic—herself. According to the viewer voting stats, she'd aced the competition last night. She couldn't wait to see today's film clip broadcast and her numbers tonight.

Natalie unlocked her hotel room and dropped her Chinese takeout on the desk, glad to be finished at the station for the day. While her on-camera performances had been a dream, working with the station staff had been more of a challenge. She'd had to get past the looks and block out the whispered comments about her and her former mentor, Kirk, that some of the news staff had made no effort to hide. The tension had been palpable at the obligatory kick-off viewing party last night, which began at the start of the six-thirty newscast and lasted through the eleven o'clock one.

Tonight she'd begged off the informal viewing get-together with a headache, a headache that had relieved itself by the time she'd walked to the nearby restaurant for her takeout. After removing her coat and kicking off her boots, she situated herself cross-legged on the bed with her food and cell phone. She'd barely gotten to talk with Connor yesterday before the viewing party, and he'd been very quiet through the whole call.

Thinking about it now, it was probably because she'd enthused on and on about her day and hadn't let him get more than a word in at a time. Then she'd had to cut him off to go to the viewing. Tonight she had the whole evening free. Natalie opened her broccoli chicken and unlocked her phone to see a missed call from Connor a few minutes earlier. She'd had the phone on vibrate and must not have heard it buzz when she was walking back to the hotel.

Smiling in anticipation of hearing his voice, Natalie called him back.

“Hi,” he said, picking up after the first ring.

“Hi. Sorry I had to cut our call short yesterday.”

“I understand. Work is work.”

She tightened her grip on the phone at his repetition of the words she'd used the other day when he'd had to shorten their time together because of his hospital visit.

“Did the segment go as well today as yesterday?”

“Better. And my viewer votes for yesterday's clip are phenomenal.”

“Great. When do you have to be to the viewing tonight?”

Her bite of chicken stuck in her throat. Had she picked up a tone of resentment in his voice, or was she being hypersensitive? “I don't. I have the whole night free to talk about anything you want.”

The phone went silent, and she checked to make sure they hadn't lost their connection.

“Unfortunately, I'm not free. I have to be at the church for the singles group Christmas party in a half hour.”

Was Connor saying that because she'd had to go to the viewing party yesterday? Her party was work. She snapped the lid back on her chicken, the throb of her returning headache knocking out her appetite. His commitment was work, too, but he was essentially his own boss. No one was making him go.

“I need to talk with you about something, though.”

“Sounds important.” She tried to keep her tone light.

“The administrative council offered me a new three-year contract.”

What little she'd eaten churned in her stomach. “Is it what you want?”

“I have until the beginning of January to decide.”

In her mind, Connor's nonanswer was an answer. “The same as the offer for the assistant pastor position here.” She couldn't stop herself from pointing it out.

“Yes. I'm still praying on it, but I'm feeling strongly that I'm supposed to stay at Hazardtown Community Church at least a while longer.”

“Oh.” Natalie knew he deserved more of a response, but she was at a loss what to say. She rubbed her temples.

“And, Nat.” His voice was barely audible. “I want you with me.”

The hotel room felt like it was closing in around her. “Are you asking me not to take the job here with the station if it's offered to me?” She bit her lip, half of her hoping he'd say yes, so she wouldn't have to make that decision herself, and the other half ready to accuse him of trying to get back at her by forcing her to choose between him and her career again.

“No. We have to take the path our Lord has for us. He may have a reason you're supposed to be in Chicago and I'm supposed to be in Paradox Lake.”

The throbbing in her head increased.

“Nat, you still there?”

“Yes.”

“I've got to head out now. I love you,” he said under his breath before hanging up.

Not knowing or caring whether he'd actually said the words, she whispered, “I love you, too” into the dead phone.

She closed her eyes and bowed her head. “Thank You, Lord.” She finally had her answer.

Chapter Thirteen

N
atalie rushed around the hotel room, throwing her belongings into her suitcase. The headache medicine she'd gotten from the convenience shop in the hotel lobby had helped her sleep so well, she'd slept right through her alarm this morning. She turned her cell phone on to call a taxi to get to the station for the meeting announcing the winner of the audition blitz. Her eye went right to the missed-call icon. Apparently, she slept through a return call from Connor last night, too.

“Natalie, call me back. I was kind of a pompous jerk last night, hanging up without letting you talk first. I'm not going to make the same mistake I made back in college. I know if we talk, we can work things out and come up with a solution. I love you.”

Her heart soared. She was too frazzled to call Connor back this morning, and what she had to say was better said in person. She didn't want to leave her words open to any misinterpretation. She shot off a quick text—
see you tonight
—and called the taxi company.

Fifteen minutes later, she was in the station lobby, debating whether to take time to stash her luggage in her temporary dressing room and be even later for the meeting, or go right to the conference room, where the station manager was going to announce the winner of the audition blitz. She planned to go directly to the airport following the announcement and a brief appearance at the luncheon celebration afterward.

After a glance at the overhead clock, she opted for dragging her luggage along. It seemed every eye in the room was on her as she gingerly pushed open the conference room door. The station manager stopped his presentation while she slid into a seat in the back, making her wish she could hide under the chair.

“With Kirk gone, she's going to have to lose her ‘I'm special' attitude if she thinks she's going to work here again,” a news writer a couple of seats away said, not bothering to lower her voice.

Natalie clutched her hands in her lap.

“As I was saying—” the manager had resumed talking “—our initial data show both the audition blitz and the Good News segment were well received by our viewers.” He clicked through voter and viewer demographics on the screen beside him. When he'd finished, he individually thanked the staff members who had worked on the project, along with the three women vying for the job. “Now,” he said, “here's what you're all waiting for.” The screen changed to pictures of Natalie and the two women she was competing against. With exaggerated drama, the station manager clicked and the competitors' votes appeared under their pictures. Third place. Second place. First place.

Natalie leaped to her feet. She'd won. By viewer popularity, she'd been voted in as the new Good News reporter.

“Congratulations, Natalie.” The manager waved her up while the others in the room began clapping with varying degrees of enthusiasm. He directed her to the microphone at the podium.

She stepped behind it and smoothed out the paper with the speech she'd scribbled in the taxi on the way from the hotel. But she didn't need it. At the signal from the cameraperson in the back of the room, she began, “I can hardly express how thrilled I am with the viewers' decision, and I want to thank everyone here for helping me be at my best for the competition.” Natalie paused. “Unfortunately, another commitment forces me to decline the Good News reporter position.” She focused on the second place contender, whose eyes widened before she broke into a wide smile. “And,” Natalie concluded, “thanks again to everyone for this opportunity.”

The room went quiet before erupting in a din of conversations Natalie only heard as fragments. She nodded to the station manager, who stood openmouthed beside her, before she made her way along the side wall to her luggage by the door. She avoided eye contact with anyone else and made an on-the-spot decision to skip the luncheon entirely. Yes, she was running again. Only this time she was running
to
something.

Natalie stepped out of the station building and breathed in the cold winter air, a cleansing contrast to the stuffiness of the conference room. She flagged a passing taxi. “O'Hare, please,” she said.

In the short time she'd been inside, snow had blanketed the sidewalk and streets. Getting to the airport early could be a good thing. Maybe she could get an earlier flight and fly out before the weather got worse, if it was going to get worse. She rifled in her bag and pulled out her cell phone to check the weather forecast and call Connor. Now that she'd done the deed, she felt she could talk to him on the phone and make her message clear. It was simple. She loved him and wanted them to be together, as he'd said last night. Natalie pushed the power button and got nothing but a blank screen. The battery was dead. Frustration at not being able to reach Connor gnawed at her the rest of the way to the airport.

The first thing she saw when she walked into the airport were the airline arrival-departure signs flashing weather-delayed and canceled flights. Relief flooded Natalie. Her flight was still listed as on time. Once through security, she dug through her suitcase for her phone charger. It wasn't there. She must have left it at the hotel. Locating a pay phone, she retrieved enough change from the bottom of her bag to call Connor's cell phone. She tapped her foot to the rings for what seemed like at least ten minutes, waiting for either him or his voice mail to pick up. Instead, she got a no-service recording. She hung up the phone and stared at it. Either he was out somewhere with no cell service, or this was one of the many times the service in the church-parsonage area had gone dead.

She racked her brain. What was the parsonage or church number? She hadn't a clue, so she called directory assistance and got both. But she was out of change. The phone hadn't returned her change from the uncompleted call to Connor's cell phone. Maybe she could use her debit card. After the third unsuccessful try, Natalie put her card away. Either debit cards didn't work, or the debit/credit-card feature was out of order.

Natalie trudged up the airline terminal to get change at one of the stores at the other end. “Great,” she muttered when she looked at the arrival-departure sign she was passing. Now her flight was among the delayed ones.

“Natalie Delacroix, is that you?”

She swung around toward the voice. “Michelle,” she said, recognizing the woman who'd produced the news at the last station Natalie had worked at. Shortly before the format change that had cost Natalie her job, Michelle had left the station when her husband had taken a position outside of New York City. “What are you doing in Chicago?” Natalie asked.

“Exactly what I was going to ask you,” Michelle said. “Well, not what are you doing in Chicago, but what are you doing at the airport. Flying home to see your family?”

“No, an audition for a job. I've been home for a few weeks helping my mother while she recovers from knee surgery.”

“How'd the audition go?” Michelle asked.

“I got the job, but I turned it down. I've decided to stay in Upstate New York, near my family.”

“God works in interesting ways,” Michelle said.

Natalie tilted her head in question.

“I produce a syndicated Christian Women's program in New York City, and our secondary cohost is leaving. Before you walked by, I was sitting here wondering how to get a hold of you. I think you're a good fit for the position. We record the segments for the whole month in a couple of days. I set things up that way so I get more time with my daughter. Generally, you'd only have to come down to New York from the Adirondacks for the recording days. Are you interested?”

“Definitely.” It took all of Natalie's self-control not to punctuate her answer with a
wahoo
.

“Join me, and I'll give you more details.”

Natalie squeezed the handle of her suitcase. Michelle was right. This had to be the Lord's work. “Can you give me a minute? I have to get some change to make a phone call. My flight's been delayed, and my cell phone died.”

“Use my phone,” Michelle said.

Natalie hesitated, uncomfortable with Michelle, a potential boss, listening to her talking to Connor.

Michelle handed her the phone and waved at an empty corner of the gate. “You can take it over there for privacy.”

“Thanks, I'll be right back.”

Natalie stood in the corner watching the blizzard outside while she waited for her calls—first to the parsonage and then to Connor's office—to go through. She got his voice mail both times. She left him the same message at each number. “Hey, it's me. My flight has been delayed because of blizzard conditions here. Hope you're having better weather there. I'm calling from a friend's phone. Mine died, and I must have left my charger at the hotel. I'll call back as soon as I know when I'll be getting into Burlington. Don't worry about the pageant. The flight's only delayed two hours.”
For now, at least.
“And, I may have some good news on the job front.” Natalie couldn't keep the excitement out of her voice. “Love you.”

That excitement continued to bubble through Natalie as she walked back to where Michelle was sitting. Everything was falling into place. Connor could accept Hazardtown Community Church's three-year contract, and it looked like she might have a great job opportunity that wouldn't take her away from Paradox Lake—a job that would leave her time to be the pastor's wife, if Connor proposed again. If he didn't, she'd propose to him. All she had to do was keep her promise and be back for the Christmas pageant tomorrow night.

* * *

“And, I may have some good news on the job front. Love you.” Connor replayed the message on the parsonage phone that Natalie had left hours ago. The first time he'd played it, he'd been jazzed by her “love you.” Now, well past the time her plane would have arrived with a two-hour delay, he focused in on the excitement in her voice about the job. It had to mean she'd won the audition blitz and accepted the job in Chicago, without talking with him first. Shades of her first job. He'd told her about his offer from Hazardtown Community Church and that he'd probably accept it. But he hadn't planned on making a decision until she was home and they'd talked about it.

He tapped his finger on his renewal contract. The council had a couple of new benefits that skewed toward a pastor with a family. He and Natalie must have been more obvious at the open house than he'd thought. Had that weighed into the change of heart of the council members he'd been sure would oppose his contract renewal? What would they think of a pastor whose wife was only here weekends at best? He still had the offer from his friend, but his heart wasn't in it.

Connor began dialing the number to hear Natalie's voice mail again to see if he could read her voice any better. He punched the off button when he heard a car pull in the driveway. Maybe Natalie had run in to someone from Paradox Lake at the Burlington airport, gotten a ride home and was stopping in to surprise him. Connor tossed the phone on the couch in disgust. He was one lovesick puppy, coming up with that scenario to explain Natalie not having called him since early this afternoon. But he didn't want to let himself think that history was repeating itself, that she'd gotten the job and was having second thoughts about them.

The front door opened and Josh breezed in on a gust of wintry air. “It's a cold one out there tonight.” He pulled off his ski cap and stuffed it in his coat pocket.

“What brings you out this way?” Josh wasn't the type to drop in without a purpose, especially on a Friday night.

“I was over at Sonrise, dropping off a prop for the pageant that I worked on at home. I saw your lights on, so I stopped. I thought you and Natalie would be out doing something tonight after you picked her up from the airport.”

“How did you know I was supposed to pick her up?” Gossip-wise, sometimes being the pastor was almost as bad as being the town drunk's kid.

“Claire.”

Was Claire why Josh wasn't at the Strand “helping” Tessa show this weekend's movie? Josh doing his usual hit-and-run on Natalie's sister made him uneasy, not that it was his business. “Nat's flight's been delayed because of a storm. I'm waiting to hear back from her.”
And have been for hours
. “What were you dropping off at Sonrise? I thought you and Drew had everything there at dress rehearsal Tuesday.”

Josh looked sheepish. “Hope said the cradle the Hazards lent the Sunday school for the manger scene didn't look like the ‘real' one in the Bible storybook you gave her. So I told her I'd make her one like the picture in her book before tomorrow.”

“Indulge her much?” Connor asked, glad for the diversion Josh was providing.

“Whenever I can.” Josh peeled off his coat. “Gonna ask me in?”

“Be my guest.” Connor motioned to the couch.

His brother made himself comfortable, picked up the remote and flicked on the TV, channel surfing until he found a basketball game. “I could use a cup of coffee.”

“The K-Cups are in the cupboard above the coffeemaker.”

Josh unfolded himself from the recliner. “You want one?”

“No. Thanks.” Connor sank into the couch. He was on edge enough about not knowing what was going on with Natalie. He didn't need coffee or to deal with this strange pod creature who was impersonating Josh.

“What was that? A junior varsity freshman could have made that shot,” Josh said to the television as he returned, placing his coffee mug on the table next to the recliner.

“Out with it,” Connor said.

“What?” Josh asked between plays.

“Why are you really here?”

“Watching out for you, baby bro.”

Connor could think of several times he could have used Josh's concern. This wasn't one of them.

“I was talking with Claire—”

“Your latest pursuit?” Connor interrupted. He felt bad for Tessa, who really seemed to like Josh. She put up with his company regularly. Connor knew how rejection felt. Justified or not, he was feeling it now. Of course, since Josh was closemouthed about everything that wasn't a brag, Conner had no idea what his brother and Tessa's relationship was.