The enamel sink was chipped, the counter scarred from decades of different pastors’ families over the years. The olive-green color would never have been her choice, nor the mismatched giveaway dishes, but as Charles always said, they shouldn’t be focusing on material goods. Whatever they had should be given to those with real needs.
Bren agreed completely. The hunger for nice things shamed her, made her feel selfish and small.
When the dishes were done, the kitchen scoured within an inch of its life, she stood in the sink window nuzzling two small fists at the ache in the small of her back. She knew her flaws. Her secret wish for pretty clothes, for dishes she’d chosen herself, for living room furniture that didn’t sag and poke. She wasn’t as patient as she should be. And sometimes she stretched the truth.
She didn’t used to, but lately she seemed to be truth-stretching with her husband all the time. It was the only way she could find to keep the peace. Charles was going through a terrible time. He was wonderful, as always, to the parishioners. It was her. She couldn’t seem to breathe right, do right, think right. Everything about her seemed to annoy him, no matter how hard she tried.
The stress of struggling to keep the church afloat was the core problem, she thought. But there was also the childless issue. They’d both wanted children, but at thirty-nine, Bren had quietly given up on the possibility. So had Charles, she’d believed, until he’d had some tests a couple years back and discovered he was sterile. It was those test results that seemed to turn on an angry switch inside him. No one ever saw it but her. No one would believe it if she tried to tell them—which, of course, she wouldn’t.
Lately, though, she’d realized that nothing she’d done had pleased him for years. Everyone in town thought Charles was the gentlest, kindest man in Righteous.
So had she. Once upon a time.
Now it seemed as if she woke up scared and went to bed scared. Some days she felt as if she were a stranger in her own life. She even…
The phone rang on the far kitchen wall—the line that connected to the rectory office, as well. Immediately she leaped to answer it before Charles could be interrupted.
“Church of Peace,” she answered swiftly.
“This is Cal Asher. I need to speak with Mrs. Price.”
“That’s me.” She frowned curiously. She knew the name Cal Asher. Not personally—she’d never had a reason to seek out a lawyer for anything—but he cut a colorful reputation in Righteous, both for his drinking and his lawyering. He’d never stepped foot in Charles’s church that she knew of, though. “Are you certain you don’t want my husband, Mr. Asher—”
“No, no, it’s you I’m looking for. I wondered if there was a convenient time you could come in to my office.”
“What is this about?” she asked, confused.
“It’s a legal matter, Mrs. Price. I’m representing a client. You’re mentioned in her will on an issue that she wanted to be kept private. It won’t take me long to give you the information, but I’d prefer to do it in the privacy of my office, unless that’s impossible for you.”
“No, no, of course it’s not impossible,” she said, but a fresh knot was already tying tight in the pit of her stomach. “It’s a little difficult for me to pin down my husband right now. He’s just so busy—”
“No, no, you’re misunderstanding. It was expressly my client’s wishes that I see you alone. Later, whatever you choose to tell your husband or anyone else is up to you, not my business. But for my part in this, I need a short one-on-one meeting with you to convey the issue in my client’s will.”
Bren started to say that that was impossible. The whole thing sounded hokey. Nothing secret was ever legitimate, now, was it? And more to the point, she never did things—serious things—without consulting Charles. She didn’t have that kind of marriage.
“Mrs. Price?”
“Yes, I’m here.” She clapped the receiver tighter to her ear.
“So…can you meet sometime next week? Say Monday morning, ten o’clock?”
“Yes,” she said.
When she hung up the phone, she was still bewildered how or why she could possibly have agreed.
Of course, she could go right in and tell Charles about the call this very minute.
She decided to do just that. She even took a brisk step forward—and then suddenly leaned back against the counter. She stood there without moving for a good long minute. Some instinct held her back. Maybe it was as simple as not wanting to interrupt Charles when he was already in an ornery mood.
Maybe it was something else.
She didn’t know. She couldn’t explain this silly, inexplicably strong intuition that she keep this information to herself…at least for now.
CHAPTER 2
When Poppy clomped up the steps to Cal Asher’s office, it was five minutes to ten. She was crabby at having her Monday workday interrupted and she’d forgotten her thermos. No one—at least no one who knew her—could possibly expect her to be civil without her caffeine quota, and she’d been too darn busy this morning to guzzle it.
She charged in the gloomy vestibule and promptly found another reason to scowl. She wasn’t alone. Someone else had obviously arrived ahead of her and was waiting to see Cal.
More annoying yet, the lone woman sitting there was…well, Poppy couldn’t immediately remember her full name, but she was pretty sure the last name was Price and that she was a minister’s wife.
Poppy liked to think of herself as tolerant, but in her heart she knew perfectly well she was allergic to churches. She had no problem with religion. Hell, she even had some herself, even if she tended to be quiet about it. But something seemed to happen to a lot of people when they attended church. They started turning into serial sinners, tended to claim their beliefs were the only right ones and then felt obligated—for God knows what reason—to push those beliefs on everybody else. Poppy knew everybody else hadn’t noticed it, but as far as she could tell, something about chronic church attenders turned normal people mean, besides. They took cuts in line. Shoved in the grocery store. Demanded to be taken care of first at the vet, the doctor, the dentist, as if their problems were more important than everybody else’s.
In principle, Poppy didn’t care what anybody did as long as they treated their pets well. But wasting a good work morning in a lawyer’s office with no one to talk to but a pastor’s wife…well, it sucked.
She plunked down on a hard-back chair and glanced at her Swiss Army watch, willing the minute dial to hustle along. She’d always been very good at doing, very bad at waiting. She hadn’t dressed up for this shindig because she was going straight back to work, but her one pride and joy—her mane of thick russet hair—was freshly washed. And she’d taken the trouble to throw on a sweatshirt without holes and jeans more reputable than most. Naturally she hadn’t bothered with makeup because she didn’t own any.
As a young teenager, she remembered believing all the advertisements zealously pushed on girls to make them think that makeup had the power to change their looks. Eventually she’d recognized that scam for what it was. Nothing was going
