“Hey, Jo,” Mel said. “This is Ellie Baldwin, who’s looking for a room. And this is Reverend Noah Kincaid. You might have heard about him—he’s the new minister, fixing up the old church. Ellie works for him and needs a place to live. So, what do you think? Want to show her the room?”
“Ohhhh, Mel,” she said miserably.
“You can make up your mind about me later, Mrs. Fitch,” Ellie said, taking charge. “First things first—let’s see if I like the room. How about that?”
“Sure,” she said a bit nervously. She opened her front door, keys to the room in hand, and began to lead them toward the garage. Then she stopped suddenly and turned. “Oh, I apologize. How do you do, Reverend Kincaid? Miss Baldwin. This way.” When they entered the room, Ellie went into a kind of daze. It was perfectly lovely—a double bed with two bedside tables against one wall, a small bathroom with a tub and shower, and on one wall a minirefrigerator, two-burner stove, microwave, sink and a few cupboards. At the foot of the bed was a chest. A comfortable chair and ottoman sat in the corner. There was no closet, but rather a large armoire for clothes. It was finer than anything Ellie had ever lived in. In her life.
“We don’t have a TV in here or anything,” Jo Ellen said.
The bed had a yellow floral comforter and lots of fat, decorative pillows. There was a picture of a meadow and barn over the bed, a full-length mirror on the bathroom door, a reading lamp behind the overstuffed chair. Ellie sighed. She fell in love with the room at once. “Does that phone work?” she asked.
“It does,” Jo said. “It’s a private line.”
There was the sound of a car in the driveway, followed by the slamming of the car door.
“Are there some plates and glasses?” Ellie asked. “A couple of pans?”
“Yes, some. Not much. And towels. This is kind of a one-person room.”
“What a coincidence.” Ellie laughed. “I’m exactly one person.”
“Nothing extra comes with the room,” Jo said. “No housekeeping. You’re on your own. There’s no washer or dryer. I mean, it’s not a bed-and-breakfast—you’d have to take care of all your own needs. Meals, laundry, that sort of thing.”
There were feet on the stairs.
“I understand. There’s probably a coin laundry somewhere nearby.”
The door opened and Nick walked into the room. “Well, I thought there was company here.” He smiled.
Ellie smiled back. He was probably her height, wasn’t all that bad looking and he was fit. His salt-and-pepper hair was still thick, his brows heavy and graying. He wore a short-sleeved shirt—light blue—with a bad tie that he’d loosened, nice dress jeans and boots. His eyes glittered approvingly and he smiled at Ellie.
Jo Ellen cleared her throat and made introductions; everyone shook hands. “How much is the room, Mrs. Fitch?” Ellie asked.
Jo Ellen opened her mouth to speak, when Nick interrupted her. “Honey, is a hundred a month too much?” Nick asked his wife.
“We usually—”
“How does that sound, Ellie?” Nick asked her.
“Very reasonable,” she said. “If you find me acceptable.”
“There won’t be a problem, if you work for the preacher, here,” Nick said.
“How soon can I move in?”
“It’s ready when you are,” he said. And he slipped an arm around his wife’s waist and gave her a squeeze. “Right, honey?”
“Thank you,” Ellie said. “I didn’t bring any money or checks with me today. Can I settle up with you tomorrow?”
“That would be fine,” Jo said, clearly not happy.
“Oh, thank you. I think this will be perfect for me.”
“If you’re sure…”
“Oh, I’m sure,” she said. But when she looked between Mel and Noah, she saw doubtful expressions. Their expressions could have to do with that lascivious gleam in Nick’s eye. “I’ll see you sometime tomorrow, Mrs. Fitch.”
“Sure,” Jo said, standing aside so everyone could go single file down the stairs. Noah followed Mel. Nick held the door open for his wife, then for Ellie.
“Oh, Mr. Fitch—can I talk to you a second?” Ellie asked.
“Of course, sweetheart,” he said.
She spoke to him at the top of the staircase while the others descended. They all stopped at the bottom while Nick listened to Ellie and actually seemed to back away from her. But she was smiling the entire time, smiling with a glow. Then she grabbed his hand in both of hers to shake it vigorously, and hurried down the stairs to join the others.
Everyone said their goodbyes. Nick and Jo Ellen went into their house while Noah, Ellie and Mel began walking back toward the bar and the church. “You sure about this, Ellie?” Mel asked.
“Absolutely, it’s going to be great. I love the room. The price is terrific, I’m going to save a ton in gas, I can walk to work. And I’ll be close enough to sneak away from the reverend here and catch a nap.”
“You got a glimpse of Nick,” Mel said.
“I did. He agreed I’ll be totally safe in that room.”
Mel lifted a brow. “I didn’t see his lips move, actually.”
“Trust me,” Ellie said. And then she walked on. “It’s going to work out perfectly.” When they got to the bar, Mel said goodbye. “Thank you so much, Mel,” Ellie said, waving.
Noah walked Ellie to her little PT Cruiser that sat in front of the church. “What went on while you two were out of earshot?” he asked Ellie.
“Oh, Your Righteousness, you probably don’t want to know. What if it makes you an accessory to the crime or something?”
He sighed heavily. Impatiently. “Just lay it on me, Ellie.”
“You sure?”
“I’m sure. Come on. You smiled the whole time.”
“Yeah, that part wasn’t so easy. I wanted to smack him just from the look in his eye. I said, I know about you, so don’t try anything. My boyfriend is a six-foot-five-inch bouncer in a mean bar and my father is a judge, and if you even exhale within twenty feet of my boobs, I’m going to have your nuts on a platter. And then I’m going to call my boyfriend and my father.”
Noah was speechless for just a second, but then he burst out laughing. “You didn’t!”
“Of course I did. I think that’s called a preemptive strike. Isn’t that what it’s called?”
“You’re out of your mind,” he said, laughing in appreciation.
“I got that room for a hundred bucks a month. And it’s a great room.”
He shook his head. “You think that threat will hold?”
She peered at him, lifting a corner of her mouth and an eyebrow at the same time. “That bouncer? He’s a friend. I babysat for him and his wife a couple of times. He’d come out here and scare the bejesus out of that imbecile if I asked him to. But before we even get to that, Mr. Nick has a date with my knee. And I know how to do that.”
Noah just chuckled and shook his head.
“I just want that room. It’s the best room I’ve ever seen. My gramma and I slept on a pullout sofa together my whole life. The only thing that could make that room prettier would be if my kids came with it.”
Noah sobered. Two sentences hit him in the gut—she slept on a pullout sofa bed her entire life? With her grandmother? They must have lived in one room. And her kids? It must have been so traumatic to leave her children with a guy she knew didn’t love them. When they got better acquainted, he meant to ask more about that. “So,” he said. “When will you move in?”
“Oh, right away. I’ll bring money and my stuff tomorrow. It’ll just take one trip. Can I have a little time in the morning to unload the car? I’d like to do it when Mr. Hands is at work. I plan to avoid him.”
“What about the duplex?” he asked.
“That nice lady next door owns it. She’ll let me go without a problem. She understands my situation. She’s on my side.”
“You can move in one trip?” he asked, looking at her car.
She turned to look at him. “Noah, the kids have their clothes and toys with them. I have very little to move. Believe me, I live a one-trip existence.”
“My car is full of stuff,” Ellie said to Noah when she arrived at the church the next morning. Then she crouched in front of Lucy, grabbed her head in her hands and kissed her snout, receiving a lick in return. “Morning, girlfriend. You’re looking better every day.” Then to Noah, “If it’s okay with you, I’d like to take an hour to tote it up the stairs to my new residence. I just want to wait until Mr. Fitch has gone to work.”
“Ellie,” he asked, “did you leave anything behind? Or in storage somewhere?”
“Nah, that’s it. I travel light. So, what’s on the schedule for today?”
He tried not to let it show that he felt something cinch in his chest at the very idea she could fit all her worldly goods in the little PT Cruiser she drove. Up until he married, while working and going to school, he’d had next to nothing, but that was different. He liked having a light load; it was all part of the changes he wanted to make in his life. But Ellie had a family! What about her grandmother’s house, her grandmother’s furniture—the pullout sofa and piano? But asking about that would have to wait. He said, “Well, I’d like you to get started painting the bathrooms today, if you think you can do it.”
“Of course I can do it. I should probably change clothes. Around nine, I’ll go move my stuff, but I’ll wait till later to put it away. I’ll grab something old and ratty to put on and get started. You have the paint?”
“Some yellow, some white, some blue. Can you work with that?”
She made a face. “How were you planning to use them? One blue bathroom, one yellow, white trim? Because that’s very boring.”
He looked at her long fingernails. Today was hot pink with sparkles. He looked down—she was wearing tennis shoes, but somehow he knew her toes matched her nails. Against his better judgment he said, “Use it any way you like.”
“Good deal. Do you have any masking tape? Any caulking?”
“Yes, why?”
“Straight lines and edges. Just out of curiosity, how’d you settle on those colors?”
“They were on sale,” he said.
She shifted her weight to one foot. “Have you ever actually had a church before?”
“Not exactly.”
“Listen, I’ll make something work with those colors. Even though they’re pretty dorky colors….”
He had a fleeting thought that this was not the woman to be lecturing him about good taste in anything. “Aren’t you the least bit afraid I might take that personally? Maybe I’m sensitive about the colors I picked.”
“No,” she said, tilting her head and peering at him. “You’re not gay.”
He smiled at her. “You sure about that?”
And she smiled, her hands on her hips. “Obviously. Or you’d have chosen more interesting colors.”
He sighed heavily. He watched her walk toward the upstairs bathroom in her shrink-wrap jeans. He squinted. He followed, Lucy ever at his side. She had a tattoo peeking out of the back of her low-rise jeans, right in the small of her back. “I…ah…have an old painting shirt you can throw over your clothes, if you’d like. Would that help?”
“Sure, thanks. After I get my stuff out of the car, I’ll put on my old sweats. You have all the supplies for me to get started?”
“Stacked outside the bathroom in the hall.”
