An Honest Life

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 or been so furious when he rejected her. Not for the first time, she wondered if her accusing him of having an affair with Serena had been inspired more by revenge than holiness.

She would have thought she’d learned a thing or two from that humiliating sequence of events. Like, for instance, that making rash judgments could result in undue embarrassment for all those involved. Andrew had told her there was a perfectly good explanation for his overnight presence at Serena’s house, if she would only wait for it. But Charity hadn’t waited; she’d gone right to the deacons with her charge. And then it had come to light how Andrew and Serena had been counseling Reverend Bob’s pregnant teenage daughter.

Shame over that situation still made Charity hang her head low. If you learned so much, what were you doing, attacking that poor builder? That Rick McKinley was wrong suddenly didn’t seem a good enough defense for her actions.

“Charity, dear, stop daydreaming and eat some toast. You’re going to waste away to nothing. And just look at your eyes. You look exhausted.”

Maybe that’s because I worked all night. That unkind response startled Charity so much she straightened in her chair. Guilt appeared immediately, but she covered it with a smile and a nod. It wasn’t like her to talk back to her mother, even in her thoughts. Mother always had her best interest at heart. She needed to remember that. “You’re right. I am tired.”

“You go straight to bed then. I’ll clean up the kitchen. I did most of the cleaning while I was waiting for you, anyway.”

“Thanks, Mother,” she said, choosing not to respond to that last comment or the mild censure that came with it.

Charity let herself be shooed up the stairs to her room, but the tiny daisies that covered the bed, walls, filmy curtains, even her picture frames, immediately crowded her. It was a little girl’s room. Nothing had changed in that room in twenty years, except the grade level of shelved textbooks and the arrival and upgrades in her desktop computer.

She couldn’t sleep here, or anywhere else. Not as confused as she felt after the events at the hospital. And not with Rick McKinley’s smug face reappearing in her thoughts. Before this morning, she’d only seen him that one time at the groundbreaking, and now his image wouldn’t go away. More frustrating than that, just one confrontation with this guy had dissatisfaction with her whole life twisting inside her like a tightening noose.

That made no sense. Her life was fine. Settled, even. So it had to be something else. Something about the man himself. Crawling under her blankets, she tried to push away the images as well as the agitation that kept her breathing from steadying toward sleep. She could still see him measuring and sawing wood, outside in the September morning. Outside the church.

“Wait. That’s it.” She looked about the room, as surprised at having spoken aloud as having sat straight up in bed.

She’d never seen Rick inside her church. Maybe he didn’t attend anywhere. Come to think of it, she didn’t recognize any of the crew from Sunday services, and since she never missed one, she should know. Oh, Rusty attended regularly, of course, but the rest were definite prospects. Maybe her preoccupation with Rick was a sign of her mission to bring that motley construction crew into the church.

Letting her head float back to the pillow, she imagined all the men, tool belts still slung on their hips, lining the church’s front pew. But her plan stalled, only halfway formed. Before she could act as a candle leading those men to light, she needed to make amends with their difficult leader.

A case of nerves. Nothing else could explain the way her pulse tripped at the thought of facing Rick again. She flipped onto her stomach, burying her face in the pillow and pressing her heart into the mattress to slow the beat.

Maybe it was anticipation for the mission ahead. It had nothing to do with being under the scrutiny of those huge, unreadable eyes or absorbing the tension he radiated in waves. No, she had been and would continue to be unaffected by the rugged Rick McKinley. But an uneasiness settling deep inside made her wonder.

Rick took the last bite of his sandwich during his lunch break, wishing he could bite back the resentment that had soured his mood all morning. That he couldn’t shake the irritation only made him angrier. He stood up from the picnic table, stowed his cooler under a tree and stalked toward the building site. Rusty caught up with him halfway across the parking lot and fell into step beside him.

“Hey, Boss, sorry about the run-in with Sister Charity. You’ve just got to understand that—”

“That what?” Rick jerked to a stop and faced the other man. “That she’s a shrew? That she had nothing better to do than to come here and bother me?” He glanced at his shoulders that had lifted to about ear level and carefully lowered them to a relaxed pose. “No big deal.”

Rusty nodded. “I can see that.”

“Can see what?”

Rusty countered Rick’s sharp look with a sheepish grin. “I know Sister Charity can get under the fingernails of the best of them, but she’s not so bad really. She’s got a real good heart when she lets it shine through. If I had my guess, I’d say it was her mother who taught her to hide it so well.”

Rick didn’t need to hear this, didn’t care what made the spitfire spit. It was like hearing a serial killer explain how he didn’t get enough hugs as a child. So he had no idea what made him ask, “What do you mean?”

“After Mr. Sims died, Sister Laura moved to Milford with Charity, who was about three from what I’ve heard tell. Her mother was a founding member of Hickory Ridge, around since the church still met in an empty storefront at Main and Commerce.”

When Rick prompted him to move along in the story with a twirl of an index finger, Rusty held up his hand. “I’m getting there. It’s said that the late Joseph Sims was a real good Christian man, a deacon who had just been called into the ministry when he passed. Sister Laura has spent almost three decades preparing her daughter to marry someone just like him.”

Rick started walking again but turned to speak over his shoulder. “What does that have to do with attacking strangers on construction sites?”

Rusty raised both hands in a gesture of simplicity. “Charity is trying to act the part of a perfect minister’s wife, hoping that will help her catch a minister. But she’s got it all wrong.”

“That’s pretty obvious, but I don’t see how any of this matters.”

“Hear me out, okay?” Glancing first at the parsonage, Rusty turned back to his boss. “Almost two years ago, when Andrew started his fellowship at Hickory Ridge, Charity chased after him like toilet paper stuck to a shoe, and she was appreciated about as much. It was a real blow to her when he married Serena instead.”

Andrew and Serena who had just had a child together? With Charity as their nurse? A seed of pity for the woman he’d immediately disliked threatened to sprout inside Rick, but he pushed it safely underground. “I bet that made it uncomfortable today at the hospital.”

“It might have been, but I just know Sister Charity did everything she could to make the delivery comfortable for Serena. Charity’s a great nurse. You can just tell how much she cares about those babies—and their moms. That’s how I know she has a good heart.”

Rick took a few more steps away. “She wasn’t displaying any good heart when she marched in and attacked me over my choice of music.”

Rusty walked up behind him again. “Our Charity. What a gal.” He laid a hand on his boss’s shoulder until Rick faced him, and then Rusty leaned in for a close examination. “Well, it doesn’t look like she left any marks—visible ones, anyway. Why don’t you give her a break this time?”

“Yeah, you’re probably right.”

“Besides, it’s not like you have to work with her every day or anything. You probably won’t have to see her again until the dedication.”

From your mouth to God’s ears. But to Rick, he only said, “Okay. You’re right.” It was awfully hard for him to see gray in his black-and-white world, and his friend expected him to see the full range of hues from soft silver to dark steel. “But that woman is as pious as the rest of those church people I remember.”

“I’m one of those church people, R.J., and you know me, warts and all. It’s not fair to pile us into one pot any more than it would be for me to judge your relationship with God.”

Rick stared at Rusty. He did know him, through years of work and through a friendship where the roots had grown deep. “Point taken. But hey, she attacked me.”

“I’m not debating that. I don’t know what put a bee in her bonnet. But I’m telling you there’s another side to Charity. The side that appears when she puts on her scrubs and heads into those fancy labor rooms.”

“Obviously, her transformation didn’t work today because she had scrubs on when she was here.” Rick tried a bit of humor, but Rusty shook his head, apparently not buying it.

“I’ll never forget when she helped deliver Max.” Rusty paused as if he was reliving that special day. “When she handed me that big round boy, I saw tears in her eyes.”

Rick raised his hands in surrender. “Okay, she’s not completely evil.”

“Far from it, my friend.” Rusty grinned and, without another word, turned and jogged to the rear of the building site that would eventually be the gymnasium.

Rick exhaled as he watched him, all of the wind ripped from his perfectly good rant. Watching the other workers, he had the creepy sensation that they’d been observing him during the discussion with Rusty. At least they couldn’t have heard it. But the breath he exhaled, he immediately drew back in. Just how long had they stood there discussing this woman who was a stranger to him? Stranger? After that discussion, he knew more about Charity Sims’ personal life than he’d learned about many crew members who had worked for him for months. Years even.

Rick tightened his tool belt and returned to the saw, hoping the blare would drown out thoughts of anything other than roofing trusses and subcontractors. Nothing would be allowed to divert his focus from completing this project on time and with the highest quality workmanship.

Sweaty work had always been his ticket out of his past and into the security and respect he craved. With this project, he could finally prove to those who believed he would amount to nothing that they were wrong.

Because it didn’t make much difference when compared to such critical matters, he would cut Charity some slack. She would likely keep her distance from him now, anyway. If she didn’t, well, he’d cross that bridge when he slammed into it.

Chapter Three

Two days later, Labor Day offered a sunny Monday off for many laborers, but fidgetiness kept Charity from enjoying the respite. Concentrating on the pots of chrysanthemums and garden tools at her feet was impossible when she only had to peek around the church building’s corner to see the prospect who had become “priority one” in her mission work. Even on the holiday, Rick remained the lone construction worker, toiling as if some supervisor still had him on the clock. Or as if he had something to prove.

After adding another look in that direction to the dozen earlier, she regretted turning down her mother’s invitation for their annual holiday outlet shopping spree. At the time, relaxation had seemed more important. Well, if relaxation wore grass-stained gardening shoes and was on constant alert, then she was well on the road to tranquility.

She continued yanking fists of dying wax begonias from the earth, the loose dirt seeming the most solid thing beneath her lately. But finally she gave in to her curiosity and took another peek at the building project. Too bad Rick, sporting a Detroit Red Wings cap and sunglasses, picked that moment to trudge toward the front of the church building where she’d been working.

“Sure is a beautiful morning. It was, anyway.” He stopped several feet away but gazed directly at her, sunlight catching on his unusual blue eyes. “It’s afternoon now.”

Though Charity’s cheeks burned, and her mouth competed with the Sahara on the dryness scale, she managed an affirmative noise in her throat. An awkward silence followed until they both spoke at once to break it.

“Hey, I’m sorry—”

“You know, I’m sorry—”

Charity couldn’t help laughing and felt relieved when Rick joined in. As he took a few more steps toward her, she scrambled to her feet. The filth she wiped from her palms to her holey jeans probably came with a dose of perspiration. She resisted the temptation to pat her hands on her loose ponytail. It shouldn’t have mattered how she looked. “I wasn’t bothering you, was I?”

“No. Was my noise bothering you? I didn’t have any music on this morning.” His smile was no less than devastating, that soft-looking mouth incongruous with the hard lines of his cheekbones. A small split tamed the perfection of his straight teeth.

Could her face and neck have gotten any warmer? “Uh…no. Of course not.”

“I really am sorry about the other day. I was obnoxious.”

How tempted she felt to let him take the blame for the whole crazy incident, but she resisted. She took her mission to bring this man to church seriously. To that end, she forced herself to look directly at him and to smile back. The Lord’s work required great sacrifice.

“No, I’m the one who overreacted and berated you about the music,” she said. “I went about it all wrong.”

Stuffing his hands in his pockets as if suddenly more uncomfortable in the situation, Rick pressed his lips into a straight line. That only made more obvious how little about Rick McKinley was soft. Not his features, all sharp angles and hard planes, and not his physique, which appeared as hard as the bricks stacked next to the building.

At her realization she’d been gawking, Charity glanced away from him, ashamed. “I’d better get these planted.”

She sat cross-legged on the ground, digging her fingers back into the earth. To safety. She pulled a few weeds, expecting him to retreat to the construction site. But he stayed there, staring across the field at Andrew and Serena’s house.

“I didn’t expect to see anyone here today,” he said as he dropped to his knees a few feet from her and yanked out a handful of weeds. “I figured everyone would be grabbing that last taste of summer. All of my crew are doing that.”

“But not you.” The words slipped past her better judgment before she could censor them. Her slip and his closeness made her so nervous she dropped the trowel and had to scramble to retrieve it. Now he probably thought she was wondering why he’d come here today and why he remained so close she could smell the sawdust on his clothes. And he would have thought right. “Me, neither,” she added in a rush. “I’m ready for summer to be over. I thought I’d get a head start on fall while everyone else was gone.”

“Do you do all of the gardening work at the church?”

She almost smiled at that. And it pleased her more than it should have that he’d attempted to make conversation when he easily could have left. He probably just wanted someone to talk to, and his crew was off for the day. It wasn’t as if he was interested in her or anything. They had nothing in common, as far as she could tell. Besides, she would never date a guy who quite possibly didn’t even go to church.

“The trustees take care of the grounds, but I’m in charge of the landscape committee. I do what I can with a limited budget and donate the rest.”

He nodded and yanked off his cap, tucking it in the waistband of his pants. Though his hair was sweaty and mussed, Charity could tell he’d gotten a haircut and appeared almost presentable. He resumed plucking weeds, even reaching beside her to borrow the trowel and dig out a few deep roots.

“You do a good job,” he said after a while.

It was the smallest of compliments, and yet Charity felt her insides warm with pleasure. From the way she’d reacted, she would have sworn he’d just dubbed her a master landscaper or something. “It looks bad right now.”

“No, it looks in transition.”

Neither said anything for a while, but they continued in companionable silence until they’d cleared the planting bed. “I have to get more plants from over there in the shade,” she told him. He surprised her by following and helping her carry flowers.

“Thanks, but you don’t need to do that. You’ll probably want to get back to your own work.”

Why had she encouraged him to leave when it was the last thing she wanted? But his nearness felt a little too nice to be a good idea.

“I don’t mind.” He laid the green plastic pots on the ground. “I needed a real break, anyway.”

Charity turned her head away to hide her grin. In her defense, it had been an awfully long time since she’d had an actual conversation with someone who wasn’t her mother, a co-worker or a fellow church member. But this wasn’t about her. This conversation presented an opportunity, and she needed to get busy with church work.

“How is the project coming along?” she asked.