The Parson's Waiting

him on the road. He slid an arm around her waist and kissed the tip of her nose. Maribeth cast a troubled look back toward the parsonage, then walked on with her boyfriend.
Anna Louise sighed as they disappeared from sight. She thought she had gotten through to Jeremy, but there was no telling with kids that age. In the long run, if it came down to it, she’d rather see them married now than have to perform a hasty wedding six months down the road. Thinking back to the confusion and uncertainties of that age, she realized she wouldn’t want to be their age again for anything.
“You got something against marriage?”
Richard’s voice from the doorway startled her. She hadn’t heard the car drive up, so he must have walked down the hill. “Eavesdropping?” she asked, moving across the office to put the huge old oak desk safely between her and him.
“I didn’t realize you had someone in here when I walked up to the door. As soon as I heard voices, I backed off to wait.”
“Under a window, no doubt.”
He shrugged. “Force of habit. That’s how I get some of my best information.”
“By sneaking around?”
“I prefer to think of it as clever, investigative reporting tactics.”
“Call it what you will, it’s still not right,” she said, not one bit sure why she was making such an issue of it. The conversation had been private, but it had hardly contained significant secrets. In fact, if she had to guess, she’d say half the town would know what she and Jeremy had discussed before suppertime. He and Maribeth would tell their best friends, who’d tell their friends, who’d be overheard by their parents.
“I didn’t come down here so you could catalog my sins or make judgments about my professional ethics,” Richard informed her, drawing her attention away from how quickly gossip spread in Kiley.
“Why did you come?”
“Why else? Maisey had an idea.”
Anna Louise had to laugh at the resigned expression on his face. “I’m surprised she sent you to do her bidding or that you agreed to come.”
“We’re having an Indian summer heat wave. It’s eighty-eight degrees out there and she threatened to walk down here herself, if I didn’t come.”
“You might have suggested she call.”
“I did. She had the idea you wouldn’t agree unless one of us was here in person to persuade you.”
Anna Louise regarded him suspiciously. “Persuade me to do what?”
“She thought maybe you’d like to come by later for a dip in Willow Creek and a picnic. It could be the last chance before cold weather comes.”
The thought of a relaxing, cool swim tempted her just as Maisey had known it would. She’d been swimming in the creek almost every afternoon before Richard had come home. Since his arrival, she’d been uncomfortable with the idea and had stayed away. The thought of his experienced, womanizing eyes assessing her body when she was clad in nothing more than a bathing suit, no matter how unrevealing, had disconcerted her. It still did, especially since she could see he was viewing the prospect with some interest.
“I’d better not,” she said. “I have a busy day.”
“Too busy to take time for dinner?”
“Will you be there?” she inquired bluntly.
He grinned at that. “Oh, yes, I am definitely part of the package. Maisey saw to that, right off. She’s making Virginia ham sandwiches on homemade biscuits and potato salad, two of my favorite things.”
Anna Louise’s mouth watered. Maisey’s potato salad was the best she’d ever had, with its bits of bacon, celery seed and a touch of mustard.
“Tempted?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said without thinking, then added hurriedly, “No.”
“Which is it?”
“I’m tempted, but I’m turning you down. Tell Maisey I’m sorry.”
He looked troubled by her refusal. “Anna Louise, don’t stay away on my account. There’s no reason to.”
“Oh, yes, there is,” she said softly, letting him interpret that however he liked. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have work to do.”
To her relief he didn’t argue. At the door he paused. “If you change your mind, we’ll be at the creek about five. That’ll give us a bit of time before the sun sets.”
“I won’t change my mind,” she said firmly.
“We’ll see,” he said in that smug way that set her teeth on edge.
She didn’t watch him leave, didn’t even permit herself to think about him for the next few hours as she caught up on paperwork. It was four o’clock when she finally yawned and stretched, then put down her pen and shoved aside the calculator she’d been using to balance the accounts. They were still several hundred dollars short of the amount needed for a new roof. For the life of her she couldn’t think how they were going to raise it. Everybody in town was stretched to the limit. Kiley, never particularly prosperous, had been hard hit by the recession of the early nineties and had never fully recovered.
Well, she reminded herself sternly, the Lord had a way of providing. She’d just have to have faith that an inspiration would come to her.
Walking through the doorway that connected the office to her private quarters, she paused by the answering machine, startled by the sight of a blinking light. Almost everyone in town knew they could reach her at the church office during the day. Why would anyone have left a message on her personal machine?
The first thought that crossed her mind was that something had happened to one of her parents. But she dismissed that almost as quickly as it occurred to her. They would have called the office, as well.
The obvious way to find out was to punch the Play button, but she did it with some reluctance. Her unvoiced fears were validated when she heard the first condemning words of the message.
“You’re defiling the church of Kiley,” the strained voice began. “Unless you give up and go back where you belong, you will be damned forever and the people of Kiley along with you.” The man added several passages of Scripture