Winter Winds (30 page)

Maureen grinned at her. “I like him, Dori.”

“You like Phil,” Dori retorted.

“I’m keeping him under surveillance,” Maureen said primly.

This time it was Dori who grinned. “Right. Now how can I help you?” She waved toward the books.

“I’m looking for a good novel.” Maureen moved toward the fiction rack.

Dori followed. “I don’t think I’ve read a Christian book in years,” she said. “I’m not the best person to have in a bookstore
like this one, not that I’m telling the customers.”

“After Adam died—”

“Who’s Adam?”

“My fiancé. He died six years ago. It broke my heart, and I read all kinds of books on death and mourning.” Maureen pointed to the Christian living section. “They helped, but I was overwhelmed by all my emotions. I needed to read something lighter. I tried some novels and found I could lose myself in the story. For a while my sorrow diminished as I lived the struggles of the characters.”

Dori listened with fascination as Maureen lifted first one novel, then another, glancing at back copy, reading first pages. She thought of all her romantic suspense novels. Certainly she’d used them as a means of escape, but she’d never thought of them as a means of healing.

“And I loved the fact that Christian novels offered me hope,” Maureen continued. “Not that they candy-coated life. They acknowledged pain and sorrow and sin, but they didn’t stay mired there like so many secular books do. My life was awfully bleak back then, and the stories taught me that living isn’t static but evolutionary. New plateaus of forward development would always be open to me if I stuck with the Lord. Hope was always there if I chose to grab it.”

She held one book out to Dori. “Sermon’s done. I’ll take this one.”

Long after Maureen left, Dori thought about their conversation. Adam must have died somewhere around the time she herself moved to San Diego. Maureen knew pain, but she had turned to the Lord to get through it.

Just like Trev had turned to the Lord. And Dori had turned
from
Him.

What that all meant she wasn’t yet sure, but it raised one very hard question: How could she be a pastor’s wife if she wasn’t following God? She shivered as she considered the corollary: How could Trev be a pastor with an unbelieving, no, a badly lapsed wife? She hadn’t become an atheist, saying there was no God. To her that was foolish. There were too many proofs that God was there, from creation to the complexity of the human body, to say
nothing of male and female. She’d always wondered how evolutionists explained two sexes.

But she had become hostile and anti-God. She paused. No, she wasn’t anti-God. If He helped someone, good, fine. Let them believe. She’d just decided to ignore Him because she felt He’d failed her.

Ah, Pop, I know you didn’t realize some of the ramifications, or you wouldn’t have done this to Trev and me. It’s not just the awkwardness we’re experiencing or even the issues of love and trust we need to work through. Because of who Trev is, it’s the issue of faith. Me and faith
.

Burdened, she slipped her hands into her slacks pockets as she thought about it all. Her fingers brushed the taped-together card.

A warm feeling washed over her. Certainly there were difficulties, but Trev loved her. He’d told her so last night; he’d written it in the note today. He’d shown it by buying the red fleece top and by remembering to send the plant.

She sighed. It was time she faced the fact that she was starting to love the now Trev as much as she’d loved the old Trev. At the thought, she waited for the familiar fear to wash through her, dislodging the sweetness of this growing realization. Nothing happened. She felt slightly stunned as she returned to work.

When she finished clearing all the Christmas bric-a-brac from the gift shelves, she placed Trev’s cyclamen next to a pair of cream candlesticks and a ceramic statue of a little girl sitting in a rocker reading the Bible. She placed Mae’s bouquet on top of the fiction shelf and stacked some of the duplicate novels artistically around the vase.

She went to the door and turned, looking in, trying to see the store as a customer might. She grinned. Better already.

After a quick lunch, Dori called Mae who walked her through the intricacies of her software. Dori made copious notes so she would be able to remember how things worked tomorrow and all the days after.

She worked steadily through the afternoon without another customer. While she regretted the lack of business, she was happy to be able to spend time familiarizing herself with the store, the inventory, the catalogues, and the new supplies. She called all the
local churches about their Sunday school materials. She actually got to speak to four directors of Christian education who placed orders immediately. The majority of the churches, smaller in size, had volunteer Sunday school directors or superintendents who would return her calls soon.

As the day wore on, she decided that things at Harbor Lights were very different from Small Treasures, yet they were the same. She realized she was going to enjoy the challenge of getting the store back in business, maybe even returning it to Mae’s keeping with improvements in sales. She smiled to herself as she washed her dirty hands preparatory to leaving at five. She was drying them on the last paper towel on the roll when she heard the bell over the door ring again.

“Coming,” she called. She hurried out to find Trev waiting.

“Hi,” she said, suddenly shy. He looked so wonderful, tall and strong, full of character and depth, a man worth knowing. A man worth being married to. She swept her hand toward the cyclamen. “Thanks. It’s beautiful.”

He grinned, pleased. “How did today go?”

“Fine, thanks.” She’d tell him about Angie later. “The strangest thing is not knowing the inventory.”

“Well, I’ve come to take you away from it all.” He shoved a gift bag at her.

“For me?” She felt bemused. Two chivalrous moves in one day! She looked at the brightly patterned bag with tissue paper stuffed in the top. She pulled the paper out and put it on the counter by the register. She reached back in and pulled out a flat rectangular package. “A pair of navy tights?”

He grinned. “Keep going.”

She reached in again. Another flat rectangular package. “A navy leotard.”

“Keep going.”

She reached in a third time, and her hand touched a cold silky fabric. She pulled out a pair of nylon navy running shorts.

“We’re going to the fitness center.” He spoke with all the delight of someone who had just presented his true love with tickets for a Caribbean cruise.

She laughed. “Oh, you mad romantic!” She hugged him.

He looked very pleased with himself. Then a thought hit her.

“Did you pick these out yourself or did you send your secretary?” Dori tried to imagine him slinking though the women’s department searching for these items.

He looked surprised. “I got them myself.”

She smiled. Either way the items had been his thought, but knowing he went out of his way to buy them himself made the gesture extra special.

“But what about Ryan?” she asked as she put everything back in the bag.

“Phil and Maureen will see to him.”

“And the suitcase, I’ve no doubt.” Dori looked down at herself. “I guess it doesn’t matter that I don’t look all that great as a result of pushing dust bunnies and spiders around all day.”

“This is a resort town, remember? Casual’s in. You look fine.”

He was the one who looked fine, she thought, in his khaki Dockers, a navy turtleneck, and a cobalt blue sweater that made his blue eyes absolutely riveting.

“Can we get me home in time to change before that party at church tonight? You look so great that I have to dress up to your standard before your congregation, or they’ll think me unworthy”

He grinned at her compliment. “Sweetheart, you look wonderful no matter what you’re wearing, but not to worry. We’ll get home in plenty of time.”

He waited while she turned back the heat, shut off the lights, and locked the door. They climbed in Trev’s car for the short drive to the fitness center.

As they drove, Dori told Trev about Angle’s visit.

“I didn’t know she was Mae’s part-time help, and she didn’t know I was opening the store for Mae.” She pulled out her reassembled gift card and held it for him to see. Passing lights reflected brightly on the many strips of tape.

He made a distressed noise deep in his throat. “I knew she had her sights set on me, but I didn’t realize how bad it was.” He ran a hand through his dark hair. “Please believe me when I tell you that I gave her no encouragement.”

Dori grinned at him as she slid the precious card back in her pocket. “It’s all your own fault, you know. You’re just irresistible to
the ladies and always have been. Remember Gladdy Morris?” She started to laugh.

“The very name makes me shudder.”

“Sixth grade. She thought you were wonderful!”

“If she’d been an adult, she’d have been called a stalker,” Trev said, disgruntled. He pulled into the fitness center parking lot and handed her a nylon zipped bag that he pulled from the backseat. “Towel, soap, sneakers, and stuff.”

The man had thought of everything. Or had he? Blow dryer? Curling iron? She could get pneumonia leaving the center with wet hair on a night like this.

They parted for the changing rooms. Dori found an empty locker to stash her belongings in and changed into the leotard and tights. She pulled the shorts on, thankful he’d gotten them. They did a lot to relieve the am-I-really-wearing-something feeling of the leotard.

When she left the changing room, Trev was waiting for her in the hall. He looked at her very carefully, top to toes. He grinned. “You look even better than I imagined.”

She flushed with pleasure.

An attractive woman in a red leotard walked by, looking like she’d never broken a sweat in her life. “Hi, Paul,” she said, her voice definitely flirty.

Trev glanced up. “Oh, hi, Melody.” No flirtiness.

Dori shook her head as he reached around her for the door. “Ladies’ man.”

He snorted.

“Amy Skolnik,” she said over her shoulder as she walked into the room noisy with clangs and grunts and redolent with sweat.

“At least she was cute,” Trev muttered.

Was she ever! In eighth grade Dori had been so jealous of her naturally curly red-gold hair and her braceless teeth. “And Jeannie Markowitz and Jordan Darlington and—”

“Enough, woman!” He led her to the first machine where they waited for the large man with the black back brace to finish his reps. “What do you want me to do—start mentioning the guys you dated? Rob Baldwin? Hal Commons? Denny Lipinski?”

She just smiled sweetly at him. “A list of guys I dated wouldn’t
come near the list of girls you dated. Add to that the ones who chased you unsuccessfully and you have the Chester County phone book.”

“I’m a changed man,” he said, hand over his heart, as he stepped back for the large man to get up.

“Hey, Trevelyan,” the man said as he mopped sweat from his face with a ratty, once-blue towel that had lost most of its loops. “I hear you got married.”

Trev nodded. “This is my wife, Dori.”

The man nodded. “Hey, Dori. Nice to meet ya. And congratulations on your marriage. You’ve broken the hearts of all the women here, you know.” He turned and wiped the moisture from the leather bench he’d been lying on. He turned back, looking concerned. “Not that he ever gave them any encouragement, you understand. They just all liked him. Personally, I never understood what they saw in him, him being a minister and all.” He grinned. “When they could have had me.”

Dori laughed as the man walked away. Trev bent to adjust the weights on the machine to a level he thought Dori could handle.

“And just what did they see in you, you being a minister and all,” she teased, wagging a finger at Trev.

He grabbed the offending finger and opened his mouth to retort.

“Well, aren’t we having a good time,” said a snide voice.

B
OTH
D
ORI AND
T
REV
swung toward the man standing just inside the weight room. Bob Warrington stared at them with Penni Aaronson, her lush curves accented by her black leotard and tights, huddled at his side.

“What can I do for you, Bob?” Trev asked. Dori noticed that all traces of his laughter disappeared when he saw Bob. Her own stomach gave a little jump. These constant meetings couldn’t be good for anyone’s digestion.

“I got a letter in the mail today. So did Penni.”

Penni nodded energetically. “That was mean, Pastor Paul.” Her lower lip trembled.

Dori looked from Bob to Penni to Trev. Mean? Trev? No way.

Trev looked quickly around the weight room. “Here is hardly the place for this conversation, Bob. Why don’t you call me at the office for an appointment? I’ll be glad to talk whenever it’s convenient for you.”

“You know you can’t get away with this,” Bob said, his voice shaking with anger. Apparently now was the convenient time and talking in the weight room didn’t bother him at all. Neither did the people at the machines who looked on with interest. “If I don’t play
on the church basketball team, we’ll lose the championship. Believe me, no one will appreciate that. We’ve won for the past three years.”

Undoubtedly all because of Bob.

Trev ignored him as he held out his hand to Dori. She took it, letting him pull her out into the hall.

Bob and Penni followed them. Dori’s shoulders twitched. It felt like Snoopy’s evil twin was doing Snoopy’s vulture act, staring at them with malevolent eyes.

Bob hissed, “Wait until my father hears. He’ll have a few words to say. Don’t think he won’t.”

Once they were in the hall, Trev glanced around. “Let’s find an empty room to talk. I’d just as soon not all of Seaside knew the chapel’s family problems.”

Dori had no doubt that Bob would be happy to air them to the world, but Trev was right. Some discussions should be private. “You think you run this church,” Bob said, his voice spiteful. “Well, you don’t. No one crosses my father and lives to tell about it.”