Annie Jones - Marrying Minister Right

Back to the imitation of him, she blustered, “That’s because I’m a big grump like I’ve been all week, Avery. In fact, I’m so grumpy lately I’ve had to resort to talking to my cleaning supplies.”

“Says the girl talking to herself,” Michael muttered, even as he chuckled softly and began rolling the cord of the vacuum. “Guess we’re all on edge a little lately. Kind of in a transition period, not really sure what to do or what will happen next.”

“Well, maybe the person who’s looking around out here can help with that.” Avery pushed the door open and stood back.

“Heather?” Michael took a step forward.

“Wow. You do have dust in your eyes if you think…” Avery looked at him slyly. “Hey, that’s who you wish it was, isn’t it?”

“No, no. She wouldn’t…I don’t have any reason to…” He looked up at the altar and sighed. “Yes. Yes, I’ve sort of been keeping an eye out for her to come back.”

Avery rolled her eyes the way young girls do at someone old, in this case twenty-eight years old, like Michael. She clearly thought him totally inept when it came to relationships with members of the opposite sex. “Well, until she does—”

“Yeah, I know.” Michael put his hand up to forestall some cutting remark from the girl. His sister, Avery’s mom, had struggled with the girl always having a flip answer for everything. Michael hoped to defuse that a bit by taking the fun and shock value out of her smart comebacks by beating her to the punch line. “Until Heather comes back I can always talk to my vacuum cleaner.”

“I was going to say you should talk to this guy who’s been hanging around the lobby the last few minutes.”

“Oh. Uh…a guy, huh?” Michael cleared his throat. He really wished he had that cold drink right now. “Who is he? What does he want?”

“Reverend Garrison?” A man who looked like he saw the world through numbers on the other side of thick but new glasses, barged in past Avery.

Michael came down the aisle and shook his hand. “Michael Garrison.”

“Paisley,” he said.

Michael glanced down at his grubby shirt and jeans. “Tie-dyed, actually.”

“No, my name is Paisley. I’m here for the…the…” He reared back as if to give out with a great, whooshing sneeze.

Michael stepped back.

Nothing happened. The man cleared his throat and finished. “Temp job.”

“Temp?” Michael shook his head. “I don’t know who gave the idea that we’re hiring, even on a temp basis, but—”

“No, no. I’m an intake worker for a social service agency in Manhattan, and they are loaning me out for a few days. I was supposed to meet someone with a private organization looking for a place to set up a base of operations.”

“Not anyone from our church,” Michael assured him.

“Is it a lady someone?” Avery came into the sanctuary, took a seat in the last row, leaned both elbows on the pew in front of her and rested her chin in her hands.

“Yes, actually it is.” He squinted at Avery as if sizing her up. “I got to town early so I’ve been going around to places I thought she might go. It’s a Christian charity so I thought, you know, churches.” He sort of wrinkled his nose as he said it.

Michael didn’t know if the man was showing contempt or felt another sneeze coming on.

“Ask him,” Avery mouthed as she pointed to the man heading for the door.

Michael shook his head. Avery was trying to make more out of this than it merited. Besides, Michael didn’t want to know if Heather was in town or not. It didn’t matter either way. He had his work to do and she had hers.

Mr. Paisley reached the door, paused and looked up.

This time to emphasize the urgency of her silent demand, Avery stood and gestured with both hands. Michael replied with his own emphatic gesture, slashing his hand across his throat to tell her to cut it out. He shook his head again.

The door creaked open.

“Heather Waters,” Avery shouted just as the man crossed the threshold into the lobby.

“What?” He caught the door before it could swing shut and stared at the teen.

In a frantic, full-body gesture, Michael swung his arms out, brought them in across his body, then out again as though trying to signal an oncoming train to hit the brakes.

“The, um, someone you’re looking for?” Avery glanced Michael’s way, rolled her eyes and totally ignored his wishes. “Is her name Heather Waters?”

“Yes. Yes, it is. Do either of you have any idea how I can find her here in town?”

Heather. In town.

Michael dropped his hands to his sides. “No. I have no idea where she is. I doubt she’d seek me out.”

“But he wants her to!” Avery called out even as the man nodded and went back out the door.

“Avery, that’s enough,” Michael snapped.

“What’s the big deal? You’re single. My mom always says, ‘Michael’s a minister, he’s not a monk.’ She says she wishes you’d find a nice girl but you’re too hung up on some girl who…” The girl’s jaw dropped. She jumped up from the pew so fast she knocked a hymnal from the rack. “No way!”

“I said that’s enough.” He had dealt with far too much chaos these last few weeks. He did not need any more of it in his life, especially from an already-hard-to-handle teenager with a gleam in her eye and an impossible matchmaking scheme churning in her mind.

“But…but she’s the girl, isn’t she?” Avery pointed to the door. “You should go. She’s in town somewhere! You should go and find her and tell her—”

“She doesn’t want to hear anything from me.” Though Michael wasn’t sure why Heather felt the way she did, she had made herself perfectly clear. Michael had never wanted anything for Heather but her happiness.

If talking to him, or even just seeing him brought back old feelings that caused her pain, then Michael would do everything in his power to honor her wishes and make himself scarce around her.

“But if she needs a building as a base, maybe she could work out of the church. Then the two of you could—”

“There is no two of us. Don’t you get that, Avery?” He raised his voice to his niece in the house of the Lord. If just talking about Heather Waters did this to him, he was better off avoiding her anyway.

He clenched his jaw, then eased his breath out slowly. “I’m sorry. I…You were right when you said I’ve been really grumpy lately.”

“No problem,” she said quietly. But a quiet born of anger, embarrassment, injured feelings, not respect.

Not good, Michael thought. He had made so much progress bringing Avery out of her surly shell and now he had all but shoved her right back into it.

“Avery, I—”

“What did you want me to do around here?” She bent and picked up the hymnal and all but jammed it back in the rack.

“You can stay and go around the building picking up whatever the wind has blown in or…” He hesitated to send her out on a snack run now. One of her mother’s concerns was that as her defiance grew she’d decide to strike out on her own, or take off with some of her more questionable friends. “Or just put the vacuum away and make a couple of sandwiches in the church kitchen.”

She folded her arms and narrowed her eyes. “What? Am I grounded?”

Suddenly, even having her take the shortcut through the parking lot to the small parsonage felt risky. “No. You’re not grounded. I just think…” That he was in over his head dealing with a mouthy young teen with raging hormones and authority issues. “Look, just stay in the church while I go get us some sodas. Answer the phone. Take messages. I won’t be gone long.”

“Take your time. I’m not going anywhere.” She turned, went to the door in a sulky huff, then looked back over her shoulder, and through clenched teeth added, “Ever.”