LITMIR.BIZ

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chance to beg for help.”

      “I don’t need help.” She added quickly, “You’re coming in early tomorrow to check on Lucky and Devil’s Spawn, aren’t you?”

      “Yeah. So the longest you could be trapped here is until seven in the morning.” But then Web, just because he had an evil sense of humor, suddenly whistled.

      Beast immediately lifted his huge black head and bounded to his feet. Everybody loved the vet. Canine, feline, human, didn’t make any difference. Poppy loved him, too—the damn man was the best vet she’d ever known—but sometimes he was so aggravating she could smack him.

      It hadn’t been her best day. Beast had come in with a tangled mess of swamp spurs. Her two younger brothers had called to insist on her participation at a family party. Her laptop was sick. Her favorite jeans had blown out a knee.

      The call from the lawyer was a bright spot, though. Why a lawyer, any lawyer, could conceivably want to get in touch with her was unguessable.

      But Poppy had always loved a mystery.

      Bren Price was polishing the altar candlesticks when the church door opened, letting in a sudden burst of late-September sunshine. Late Thursday afternoons, she often cleaned the altar, because invariably no one was using the church at that time. Right off, though, Bren guessed the reason for the interruption. A miserably distraught Martha Almond spotted her and all but ran up the aisle.

      Bren met her at the base of the pews, her arms already opened wide. “So…it’s bad, is it?” she asked softly.

      Bren already knew the story. Martha’s sixteen-year-old son had been in a car accident. It looked as if he was going to lose his leg. On top of that, the teenager was to blame for the accident because he’d been drinking and partying with a group of friends.

      “Everyone’s blaming me,” Martha wailed. “Thing is, I’m blaming me, too. I just don’t know how I could have stopped him. No matter what I ever said or did, he was just determined…”

      Bren let her pour. It was the typical mom-of-a-teenager list of complaints, but the typical teenager usually managed to slip around fate. Martha’s son hadn’t. In time, things would get better, but right now Martha couldn’t see a ray of sunshine anywhere. She was exhausted and scared and shaken.

      Bren came through with tissues, a listening ear, the warmth of someone holding her. Martha wasn’t the best mom or the worst. Like everybody, she tried her best, and yet sometimes her best wasn’t good enough. Finally Martha’s tears eased up and she sank limply against Bren’s shoulder, as if just needing to gather up some strength before letting go.

      At least, until the door to the chancellery opened and Charles shot through the doorway with an impatient scowl. “Bren, I’ve been looking all over for you—” His expression changed from night to day. He turned back into the pastor his parishioners loved, his eyes kind and his voice a gentle, easy baritone. “Why, Martha, I didn’t realize you were here.”

      Two hours later, Bren was just putting a bubbling crock of Brunswick stew on the table when Charles walked in. One look at his face and she could feel a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. Lately that sick feeling seemed to be there more often than not.

      “Don’t you think it’s a little hot for a heavy meal like this?” he demanded.

      “Yes, actually,” she admitted wryly. “But I knew I had a full afternoon, so I was trying to put something on that we could just come in and eat whenever we were both free.”

      He said nothing then, just sat down and snapped his napkin open. She served iced tea, then took the salad from the refrigerator and sat down across from him. He neither looked at her nor acted as if she were in the same room. The yellow overhead revealed the sharp lines on his normally handsome face. His posture was unrelentingly stiff, his mouth forbidding.

      “Now, Charles, I can see you’re annoyed with me,” she said carefully. “But honestly I have no idea why if you don’t tell me.”

      “You know perfectly well what’s wrong, so don’t try that game.”

      Okay. So it wasn’t going to be one of those times when she could coax him into a better humor. “Tell me anyway, all right?”

      He slammed down his iced tea glass, making the liquid splash and spatter. “I’ve told you before. When a parishioner comes in with a problem, you’re to call me. I’m the minister, not you, Bren. I’m the one they’re here to see. Not you.”

      She felt slapped but tried not to show it. “You’re angry because I was talking to Martha Almond?” she said, confused. “Charles, she was crying. I just offered another woman’s shoulder—”

      “You drew attention to yourself, that’s what you did. You make yourself important.” The chair clattered back when he stood up, his face turning pale as ice. “You’ve always got an excuse. I’m tired of excuses. You know what we’re dealing with. The Baptists have no end of funds. The Methodist church just added a wing. We’re struggling to survive, and here when I need you on my side, I find you doing things to sabotage me. You’ve let me down, Bren. Again.”

      He stalked off in the direction of his study, with Bren still sitting at the table. The steam from the Brunswick stew gradually disappeared. Both his plate and hers stayed untouched. The dusk outside slowly turned pitchy black, somehow making the old, worn kitchen look shabbier.

      Finally Bren stood and started carting dishes. The enamel sink was chipped, the counter scarred from decades of different pastors’ families over the years. The olive-green color would never have been her choice, nor the mismatched giveaway dishes, but as Charles always said, they shouldn’t be focusing on material goods. Whatever they had should be given to those with real needs.

      Bren agreed completely. The hunger for nice things shamed her, made her feel selfish and small.

      When the dishes were done, the kitchen scoured within an inch of its life, she stood in the sink window nuzzling two small fists at the ache in the small of her back. She knew her flaws. Her secret wish for pretty clothes, for dishes she’d chosen herself, for living room furniture that didn’t sag and poke. She wasn’t as patient as she should be. And sometimes she stretched the truth.

      She didn’t used to, but lately she seemed to be truth-stretching with her husband all the time. It was the only way she could find to keep the peace. Charles was going through a terrible time. He was wonderful, as always, to the parishioners. It was her. She couldn’t seem to breathe right, do right, think right. Everything about her seemed to annoy him, no matter how hard she tried.

      The stress of struggling to keep the church afloat was the core problem, she thought. But there was also the childless issue. They’d both wanted children, but at thirty-nine, Bren had quietly given up on the possibility. So had Charles, she’d believed, until he’d had some tests a couple years back and discovered he was sterile. It was those test results that seemed to turn on an angry switch inside him. No one ever saw it but her. No one would believe it if she tried to tell them—which, of course, she wouldn’t.

      Lately, though, she’d realized that nothing she’d done had pleased him for years. Everyone in town thought Charles was the gentlest, kindest man in Righteous.

      So had she. Once upon a time.

      Now it seemed as if she woke up scared and went to bed scared. Some days she felt as if she were a stranger in her own life. She even…

      The phone rang on the far kitchen wall—the line that connected to the rectory office, as well. Immediately she leaped to answer it before Charles could be interrupted.

      “Church of Peace,” she answered swiftly.

      “This is Cal Asher. I need to speak with Mrs. Price.”

      “That’s me.” She frowned curiously. She knew the name Cal Asher. Not personally—she’d never had a reason to seek out a lawyer for anything—but he cut a colorful reputation in Righteous, both for his drinking

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