LITMIR.BIZ

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had just exited.

      “Isn’t she great?” Rusty must have missed the way Rick tensed and Andrew startled when he said that. “She was in there when Tricia had Max two years ago. Didn’t even break a sweat when Max came breech and ended up in an emergency C-section.”

      As the two sang more of Charity’s praises, Rick stepped away from both the conversation and comments he couldn’t reconcile with the scrubs-wearing shrew, who had made his acquaintance with a sledgehammer. At least he’d moved far enough away that they wouldn’t expect him to comment when Andrew wondered aloud why the object of their discussion had just raced from the church lot.

      “Probably some woman thing,” one of them said, with the other buying that easy explanation.

      Rick didn’t believe there was anything easy about understanding what made Charity Sims tick—double time. But then why was he wasting precious seconds thinking about that irrational woman? Just who did she think she was, anyway, being the censor and church police, all rolled up into one?

      Everything about her was ironic, her name most of all. Charity. He couldn’t imagine anyone less charitable. And that sun-kissed exterior of hers couldn’t have been more incongruent with the dark inside he’d glimpsed. Without invitation, long tresses of golden thread appeared in his thoughts. She’d worn her hair tied back, but a few strands had escaped, making him imagine a riotous mane had it all been set free. But the green-gold eyes he envisioned next, their superior expression judging and convicting him with a single glance, cleared his thoughts of such nonsense.

      This woman was a perfect example of why he kept his personal relationship with God just that—personal. She reminded him of those biblical Pharisees, praying out loud on the temple steps for show while they didn’t know the Father at all deep inside, where it counted. Was she just like them, a hypocrite play-acting her faith for an audience? She’d certainly deserved applause for that performance on the church lawn.

      “Boss, if you’re planning to daydream all morning, then the rest of us would like to head off on our Labor Day weekend.”

      Rusty’s chiding sent Rick slamming back to earth, bringing resentment along for the ride. “Funny, I thought my foreman and crew didn’t have to be led by the hand.” The words were barely out of his mouth, and he already regretted them. Rusty Williams was his best friend—his only friend. He’d never let anyone else get that close. “Hey, sorry—”

      But the foreman shook it away with a wave and grin. Good ol’ Rusty. Rick moved back to his power saw as the table saw across the building site roared to life. As he marked a two-by-four to be cut, he concluded he wouldn’t waste any more energy thinking about the motivations of the annoying Charity Sims.

      He would focus on more important things like completing this center project on time and proving that R and J Construction was ready to add more commercial projects to its residential work. Instead of worrying about that woman’s contradictions, he would concentrate on the irony that the Hickory Ridge project presented. In order to push his company firmly out of the red column and into the black, he had to work in the one place he had long disdained—a church.

      Charity parked in the garage but couldn’t convince her body to climb out of the car. That made no sense at all. She needed to get her thoughts in perspective, and who better to help her than Mother? Laura Sims would applaud her, first for her dignity in facing the Westin issue and later for her fortitude in putting that nasty general contractor in his place.

      Why did that certain approval hold so little appeal for her today? Again, she wondered whether she’d been right to reproach the builder in front of his crew, even if he had been wrong. She still could see the shocked expression on his bronzed face and the contempt that had trailed so closely behind it. Could she possibly deserve his derision?

      The squeak of the interior garage door helped her shake the image that filled her with humiliation rather than the holy vindication she would have expected.

      “Charity, dear, you’re not planning to spend the whole morning in the car, are you?” Laura stood in the doorway, wiping her hands on her apron. “I’ve been holding breakfast for you, and here you are letting it get cold while you sit behind your steering wheel.”

      “Sorry, Mother—”

      “I should think so. I didn’t even get a call that you would be late. I deserve that much consideration. You know how I worry.”

      As much as she resented her mother playing her, Charity felt her strings being plucked and recognized she had no choice but to produce a melody. “I don’t know what I was thinking. I should have called, but I didn’t want to wake you. I know how you like to sleep in on Saturdays.”

      She would have mentioned she was twenty-nine years old—plenty old enough to care for herself—if she’d thought it would have made a difference. It wouldn’t have.

      “But it’s even more important to me to know you’re safe,” Laura responded as she pulled her daughter into the house. “You’re all I have since your father went to his heavenly home, bless his sweet soul.”

      Hearing the standard soliloquy on her late father’s many attributes cuing up, Charity spoke quickly to interrupt the tape. “I’m glad you care, Mother. Now let’s eat before your great breakfast gets cold.”

      Between bites of eggs and fried potatoes, Charity filled her mother in on the details of her embarrassing experience at the hospital. She mentioned stopping by the church as an aside.

      “Oh, you poor dear.” Laura made a tsk-tsk sound and shook her head before sipping her coffee. “That had to have been so difficult. We both thought Andrew was the perfect choice for you—the Lord’s choice. He seemed so much like your dear father. But Andrew’s decision to marry that divorcée shows we were mistaken.”

      Obviously. And apparently Laura still resented the woman who’d eliminated her daughter’s chance at the handsome youth minister. She wished her mother would just let it go, as Charity finally had. Especially after today.

      “I’m fine, Mother.”

      “Sweetheart, the godly man we’ve always hoped for is out there somewhere, waiting for you. We have only to wait for God to reveal His plan.”

      “I know you’re right,” she answered, anything but sure. How many times had she heard those same words—and believed them? So why did they sound so empty now?

      Absently tracing patterns in her remaining scrambled eggs, Charity let the questions plaguing her lately resurface. She’d always figured with her devout mother and near-sainted late father, she’d received faith as a birthright. The rest she was beginning to question. But what more could she do? She already walked the Christian walk and talked its talk head and shoulders better than others in her church. Not that she expected a reward, but didn’t God answer the prayers of the faithful?

      As if she noticed how quiet Charity had become, Laura reached over and squeezed her hand. “I’m just sure you’ll meet him soon.”

      Charity’s fork stilled as Rick’s face—too handsome for his own good—sneaked uninvited into her thoughts. She’d met a “him” all right, but if first impressions could be trusted, he didn’t belong in this conversation at all.

      “Good, you can be sure for the both of us.” If only her attempt at humor didn’t sound so strained.

      “What did you work on at the church?” Laura asked as she cleared away the dishes.

      “I couldn’t get focused. I didn’t get much done.” She couldn’t explain why she was reluctant to discuss that exchange with Rick, even if her mother had given her a perfect opportunity to broach the subject.

      Laura offered her a closed-lipped, all-knowing mother smile. “You probably just got impatient and left. You’ve always been impatient.”

      The comment ruffled her, but Laura was right. If not for Charity’s rush to find a husband, maybe she wouldn’t have chased Andrew so desperately

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