Roxie shrugged. Cotton and Leona looked at each other.
“Well, is everybody just going to stand here or am I going to have to get it?” Leona’s mother flipped her brake lever and rolled toward the door.
“Park it, Bertie. I’ll go.” Cotton grabbed the handle on the wheelchair. “Leona, you call David and see what you can find out.”
Leona stepped into the hall and dialed David’s number again. While she waited, the familiar voices of the Storys filtered through the walls and drowned out his voice mail greeting. Leona snapped the phone shut and returned to the living room. “Etta May and Nola Gay, what on earth are you doing here?”
“Grab this, would you?” Nola Gay handed Leona a heavy towel-wrapped parcel. “That’s our famous chili and sweet pickles. So be careful with it, dear.”
Etta May wiped her feet on the mat and followed Nola Gay inside. “Shirley activated the prayer phone tree after she got Roxie’s call. Sister and I are first responders.”
“But—”
“Once I get this Crock-Pot plugged in, you’ll have something hot in your belly in nothing flat.” Nola Gay took the bundle from Leona’s frozen grip. “Sister, see if you can’t talk Cotton into laying a fire in the fireplace. It’s freezing in here.” Nola Gay marched toward the kitchen. She stopped at Leona’s mother’s wheelchair and kicked the tire. “Bertie, I could use your help.”
“Well, I’m a little preoccupied at the moment.”
“I can see that. But taking up space isn’t accomplishing a thing. Grate the cheese and that’ll give Leona some help she can sink her teeth into.”
Etta May draped her coat over the back of the couch and winked at Leona. “God’s in control.” She shuffled over to Mother’s wheelchair. “Why don’t I give you a little push in the right direction, Bertie?”
Listening to her mother’s protests disappear into the kitchen, Leona opened her clasped hand and looked at the phone. She had more important things to do than referee squabbles between a gaggle of puffed-up old women. God may be in control, but he obviously needed her help to get her children home safely. She entered David’s number a third time, but the doorbell rang before she could push Send. “What in the world?” Leona stomped to the door and jerked it open.
There stood her boss, wood stacked up to his chin. “Ivan?”
Cotton stepped up and took a couple of pieces off the top of the bundle. “Thanks, Ivan. I was just on my way out to stock her bin.”
“Didn’t smell any smoke when I drove up, so I figured Leona hadn’t got around to starting a fire this evening. Any word?”
“Shirley called the press?” Leona couldn’t help checking the porch for any signs of her kids before she closed the door.
“She called your brother in Christ.” Ivan’s abbreviated statement communicated his conviction just as strongly as his hard-hitting editorials. “Now, where do you want this wood?”
Leona shrugged.
“I’ll show you.” Roxie took Ivan’s elbow and guided him to the box by the hearth.
Leona watched helplessly as Cotton and Roxie unloaded Ivan’s arms. Here she was again, up to her neck in hot water, when suddenly, out of nowhere, unexpected floatation devices splashed into her stew from every direction.
Grab hold.
Leona glanced at the friends gathered around her hearth, but none of them had spoken to her. The explicit words had come from someplace deep within her drained soul, wrapping her weary shoulders in a peace as comforting as a Story-crocheted shawl. She rubbed her eyes. This had been a very long day. She was tired, and her imagination was running amuck. Hearing things would be just the ammunition Maxine Davis needed to have the pastor’s widow committed.
The doorbell rang again, jangling her thoughts. Using her pointed forefinger, she parted the window curtain. Bette Bob McDonald shivered under the front porch light, holding two foil-covered pans. Leona opened the door. “That better be chocolate.”
Bette Bob grinned. “Prayer warriors need their strength.” She bustled past Leona and headed straight for the kitchen, shouting over her shoulder, “Amy called. The hospital is on standby. They’re all set to patch up Parker and Maddie.”
The doorbell buzzed yet again, jarring Leona from the bloody images assaulting her peace. Why was she worrying? Maddie had assured her she and Parker were not lying in a blood-soaked snowdrift. Her daughter had promised, leaving Leona no choice but to trust her. Leona sighed. J.D. claimed her overactive imagination was Satan’s greatest tool. If the king of darkness could keep her fears bigger than the truth, he’d win every time. Leona yanked hard on the reins of her panic, then opened the door.
“Ruthie Crouch?”
The café proprietor thrust two large paper grocery sacks at her. “Heard there was an emergency over here. Maybe these sandwiches will help.”
Cold swirled in Leona’s dropped jaw as she stared at the rosy-cheeked woman. “Oh, my. I don’t know what to say. You didn’t have to—”
Ruthie held up a hand. “Don’t get all mushy, Leona. I’m just doing my civic duty.”
Roxie appeared at Leona’s side. “Ruthie, you look absolutely frozen. Did you walk?”
She nodded. “Didn’t want to block Leona’s driveway, so I parked down the street.” Ruthie jerked her head in the direction of the lone streetlight.
“Come on in and have some coffee.” Roxie took the old girl’s hand, obviously ignoring Ruthie’s ingenious reference to Leona’s parking problems. “Sit by the fire.”
“Well . . .” Ruthie cast a wary look in Leona’s direction.
Leona shredded the breath trapped behind her now clenched teeth. “Absolutely.” She took Ruthie’s other roughened hand, resisting the urge to ask how many burgers these palms had pattied. “By all means, come in.”
Ruthie gave a pleased nod. “It is pretty slick out there.”
“Then I insist you stay.” Leona helped Ruthie remove her coat and dropped it over the pile of coats growing at the same rate as her anxiety level.
“You do?” A surprised look crossed Ruthie’s face. “Well, I have been on my feet all day.”
Roxie patted J.D.’s chair. “Sit here. It’s a recliner. Put your feet up.”
Leona pressed the protest forming in her throat into an agreeable smile and nodded her assent.
“This is real Christian of you, Leona.”
Christian?
Maybe that was stretching things a bit, especially since it was Ruthie who had come to her to make amends rather than the other way around. Claiming her thoughts and actions had been anywhere near Christlike when it came to Ruthie Crouch would raise the Lord’s eyebrow; of that she was certain.
Ruthie sank into the cracked vinyl and pulled the lever, lifting her fallen arches perpendicular to the floor. “A cup of coffee, when you get a chance, would hit the spot.” Ruthie closed her eyes and exhaled slowly.
“Sure, Ruthie.” Leona flashed Roxie an I’ll-get-even glare. “Make yourself at home.”
The doorbell rang again. Leona’s feet, uncooperative and unable to move, seemed planted in the snow-tracked carpet. “My word. Bad news travels fast.”
“Why don’t you try to complete that call to David. Let me get the door.” Roxie pointed to the phone still in Leona’s clutches.
“You’re a doll.” Leona turned her back to the door and punched in David’s number.
Roxie opened the door and a swoosh of cold air blasted the room.
“Well, if it isn’t
et tu, Brute
and the missus,” Roxie growled.
Leona wheeled and shut the phone.
Howard flicked snow from his hat brim. “Mrs. Brewer, if you don’t mind, I need to speak to Leona.”
“Before or after you stab her in the back?” Roxie crossed her arms over her chest, blocking their entrance into the parsonage.
Maxine brushed the snow from her shoulders. “This is private church business, between us and Leona.”
Leona stepped forward. “What can I do for you, Howard?” She hoped her icy tone would freeze the melting snow sliding down the slope of the elder’s nose.
“May we come in?”
“I’d pat ’em down first.” Roxie hadn’t budged from her barricade. “Maybe run them through a metal detector.”
“Roxie.” Leona pulled an imaginary zipper across her taut lips and Roxie reluctantly followed suit and clamped her mouth shut. “Of course, Howard. Come in. Get out of this weather.”
“Thank you.” Howard wiped his feet on the mat.
With each scuff of his heavy all-weather boot across the rubber scrollwork, Leona couldn’t shake the feeling that she was the mat facedown on the porch. Howard and Maxine scooted past Roxie with record speed. Howard took out a hanky and buffed his head dry while Maxine fiddled with the buttons on her coat.
“The new pastor and his family are . . .” The stammering elder paused. He lowered his hanky and caught the drop hanging from the end of his snout. “As I was saying, the new pastor is . . .”
Glancing from Maxine to Howard, Leona zeroed her gaze on the nervous board chairman. “Spit it out, Howard.”
Volkswagen Beetle red crept up the slick sides of the elder’s bald head. “With David.”
“Hell’s bells.” Roxie’s eyes flashed fire. “You sorry little snake.”
“Roxie, please.” Leona stepped between her friend and the target of their mutual disgust.
“I talked to Ted earlier and he told me they’d caught a ride to Mt. Hope with a guy named David in a limo.”
“And?” Leona squeezed the cell phone tight.
Waving his hanky as if it were a white flag, Howard continued, “And, so . . . I’m going to have to ask you if the Postiers can spend the night here in the parsonage.”
Roxie flew around Leona, hands thrashing the air. “Hell’s bells! Have you lost your mind, Howard Davis?”
“Roxanne!” Leona pulled her back.
Hands on hips, Maxine launched a rescue missile, aiming for the blank space on Leona’s shocked face. “The Double D is chock-full and you’re the only one with enough room to put them up, Leona. Besides, it seems logical that if they’re going to live in the parsonage, then they should check it out. See what changes they’d like to have made before they move in.”
“Changes?” Leona felt her blood boil.
“You know, new carpet, paint, whatever it takes to make this place presentable.”
“How about I stick your pointed head in that firetrap oven you’ve stuck my friend with for the past eighteen years and let you check that out, Maxine Davis!” Roxie struggled to break free of Leona’s hold.
A pounding pressure pulsed through Leona’s veins and rang in her ears. Every stick of wallpaper holding this dilapidated old house together had been lovingly chosen and applied with her very own hands. Not once had the board offered to hire any of the work done. She’d spent hours, and tons of her own elbow grease, increasing the value of this property, and for what? For the next pastor, that’s what. But she’d die before she’d give Maxine Davis the pleasure of knowing her comment had skewered her heart like a meat kabob.
Leona squared her shoulders and shook her friend. “Roxie, I’m going to send you to the kitchen if you don’t settle down.” She blinked back the tears gathering like storm clouds behind her lashes and conjured her Christian-hospitality voice. “The Postiers are welcome to stay here.”
Roxie’s jaw dropped. “That’s all you’ve got to say about it?”
“What do you want me to do? Throw a fit? Make them sleep in a snowdrift?”
“How about you let me stuff this used car salesman in a snowdrift?” Ruthie lowered the recliner footrest and came to stand by Leona, hands planted on her hips.
“Now, Ruthie, you aren’t even a Christian—”
Anger erupted and spewed from Leona’s mouth. “You just wait one cotton-pickin’ minute, Howard Davis. How dare you declare who is and who is not a Christian. Who made you the Almighty’s judge and jury?”
Leona balled her fist and reared back. But in midswing, a hand came out of nowhere and clamped down hard around her wrist. The phone shot out of Leona’s hand and sailed through the air. Tater Tot jumped off the couch and scurried after the shiny silver projectile clattering across the wooden floor.
“If anybody is going to hit him—” Cotton released Leona’s wrist and stepped between her and Howard—“it’s going to be me.”
“I’d like a round or two in the ring myself.” Ruthie whipped a spatula out of her pocket and assumed a battle position beside Cotton.
“Well, if she gets to flip him, I think I should get to tighten his loose screws.” Roxie grabbed the screwdriver on the hospital bed and lined up beside Ruthie to create a unified wall of hostility.
“I can run over his foot and make him a cripple for life.” Leona’s mother pushed her way between Cotton and Ruthie.
“Mother. What on earth?” Leona said.
“If it bleeds, it leads.” Ivan reached in his shirt pocket and snatched his notepad. He propped one foot up on the hearth, flipped to a blank page, and began scribbling notable quotes.
Nola Gay, Etta May, and Bette Bob burst into the room.
“What’s all the commotion—” Nola surveyed the tense faces. “What’s going on here?”
“Howard’s being ugly to my girl,” Mother snapped.
“That true, Howard?”
“Of course not, Nola Gay,” Maxine spat out.
“That’s good, because I would hate to think that one of our leaders and his dear wife willfully added another ounce of grief to our dear, sweet, overloaded pastor’s wife.” Nola Gay came and put both hands on Leona’s mother’s wheelchair. “If my friend Bertie says you’re being ugly, then you’re being ugly. May you choke on sweet pickles if it is so, Howard Davis.”
Bette Bob stuck her head between the Storys. “If you’re up to no good, Howard Davis, your church dinners will never see another brownie.”
“And good luck meeting the budget if Sister and I are forced to withdraw our tithes.” Etta May shook an accusing finger in the elder’s face. “And you call yourself a servant of the Lord.”
Howard and Maxine inched closer together, simultaneously slinking toward the door.
Grab hold
. Leona heard the command distinctly.
Grab hold to these friends who love you, and know that I am God.
Within moments after their arrival, the rescue team had Parker’s neck stabilized. Satisfied her patient could be safely moved, Maddie directed his transfer to the backseat of the limo. “We’ll take him to Mt. Hope. It’s closer,” she shouted over the howling winds at the serious-faced EMT on the other end of the board.