Kathryn Springer - The Prince Charming List

“You don’t mind if I stop over when things aren’t so crazy, do you?”

“No.” That came out pathetically quick. He probably had girls fainting in a line behind him. Personality had always meant more to me than looks, but Jared Ward seemed to have been blessed with both. What was a girl to do?

“So, any idea when that will be?”

In about five minutes. As soon as I see what Dex did to the bathroom…but I couldn’t say that without sounding like one of those desperate-for-a-Friday-date girls. And today was Thursday.

“The craziness tends to last a while.” I was being truthful, not coy, and I couldn’t resist the urge to test his confidence a little. “Like last night, when I was horseback riding with a friend? Some maniac on a motorcycle broke the sound barrier as he drove past us and almost sent the horses into orbit.”

Jared’s eyes widened, making them look even bluer. Not fair. “That was you?”

I wasn’t offended. It had been dark when he’d stopped to ask directions. I tipped the brim of my invisible cowboy hat.

“I’m sorry, I’m a city boy. When I got on that flat stretch of country road I just had to open it up.” Jared tucked his hands into the front pockets of his jeans, the kind deliberately created with worn spots and artistically placed rips. “When I saw the horses running, I thought it was on purpose. You looked like you had it under control.”

How could I remain upset after that flattering—but totally erroneous—assessment?

“At least you slowed down the second time,” I murmured. Forgiveness was an important part of my faith, after all.

“So, Friday nights aren’t crazy, are they? What do people do around here on the weekends? Count tractors?”

He wasn’t going to give up, which left me feeling flattered and flustered. “I’m not sure. I haven’t been here very long, either,” I admitted.

“Really? Let’s figure it out together. What time do you get off work tomorrow night?”

“Five.”

“Great.” He bounded down the stairs and didn’t stop until he reached his home-away-from-home at the end of the alley. I didn’t realize I was still staring until he turned and waved at me. The wave I returned was limp with embarrassment and as soon as he disappeared, I lunged back into the apartment.

I was right. The take-out carton was lying on its side under the coffee table and Snap was cheerfully cleaning the last of the fried rice out from between her toes.

I fortified myself with a Tootsie Roll from Bernice’s cache in the canister marked Tea, pretended I was a FEMA worker and bravely entered the bathroom. With my eyes closed. I turned toward the spot where my bathtub had been that morning. When I opened them, there was a faucet.

“Snap, I have a faucet. A real, live, normal-looking faucet!”

And a date for Friday night, an irritating little voice reminded me.

It’s not a date. It’s two people who are new in town getting together to see the sites. All two or three of them.

I decided to celebrate—the faucet, of course—with a long soak in the bathtub.

When my phone rang a little after ten, I hoped it was Bree. She’d warned me she’d be putting in long hours helping her dad with the farm and there’d be times she wouldn’t be able to talk to me until after dark. Which was fine with me because I did some of my best talking late at night.

“Does it work?”

“Dex?”

Silence. I took that as a yes. His question had been so uncertain I wondered what exactly had taken place while I was gone during the day.

“Yes, it works.”

“I was late for another job.”

“There aren’t that many places to work around here,” I said, daring to tease him. “Did Sally give you a job as a waitress?”

“No.”

Obviously teasing Dex was like playing tennis when no one was on the other side of the net. Still, he’d made that “shaken not stirred” comment, so maybe there was a sense of humor buried in there somewhere. If someone had the patience to look for it.

“I’m not coming over tomorrow,” he said. “I’ll be back on Monday to start in the kitchen. Did you want me to replace the cupboards or paint them?”

The image of a crowbar and splintered wood sprang into my head. “Paint them. Definitely. And thanks for the Chinese—”

He’d hung up on me again.

“Food.”

In the name of dessert, I grabbed another handful of Tootsie Rolls, tucked my Bible under my arm and curled up in the chair by the window to talk to God.

Psalms was always a good place to hear His voice. Even though David was a guy, he tried to live honestly before God. There were times he praised Him, times he questioned Him and times he asked Him for things. And times he asked God—in no uncertain terms—to squash his enemies. Which, truthfully, made me a little squeamish. But after having met Mrs. Kirkwood, I was a little more understanding. David also asked God to direct his steps, something I was doing on a daily (hourly?) basis. We had a lot in common.

My Bible fell open to Haggai again. Not because a divine hand stretched out and turned to it but because there was a folded-up piece of paper there. A receipt for sweet and sour chicken from the grocery store. Scrawled on the back of it was a question.

What does it mean that the people earned wages and put them in a purse with holes in it?

Dex had hijacked my devotional time!

Panicked, I thumbed through my Bible, looking for the extremely personal poetry, musings and notes to God that I sometimes wrote on the back of church bulletins and making sure The List, safely hidden in the Song of Songs, hadn’t been tampered with.

I breathed a sigh of relief when everything seemed to be in its rightful place. Not that Dex had been rifling through my Bible, but still…how had he known I was accidentally reading Haggai?

I skimmed through the verses and found the one he’d questioned. Why did he think I knew what the purses with holes passage meant? I wasn’t exactly a Bible scholar.

I did, however, know purses. They were kind of my specialty. And I was pretty good at finding shoes that matched, too. Encouraging him might not be a good idea, but I couldn’t resist. I grabbed a pen, took out a fresh sticky note and wrote the first thing I thought of when I imagined a rip in my Juicy bag.

You might lose something important.

I put it back in Haggai, chapter one. A booby trap to see if I’d catch a snoopy handyman.

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