Small-Town Dreams and The Girl Next Door: Small-Town Dreams / The Girl Next Door. Kate Welsh

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      Irma smiled gently. “I know he writes Henry’s sermons. He’s been doing it for over six months. Everyone knows, but Henry doesn’t realize the rest of us figured out how much Josh is doing.”

      Loyalty was a beautiful thing to behold, she thought, and let the subject drop. “Well, anyway, he had explained what the books were, so I came down here to look up the passage, hoping that I’d be able to sleep after I found the answer to my question. I certainly didn’t mean to sleep here.”

      Irma still didn’t look too happy. “Did you find your answer?”

      “I think so. It was about being saved and being wealthy and how hard it is to be both. It was the story of the rich young ruler, and I think I figured out that it’s okay to possess money as long as it doesn’t possess you. And that you can’t buy or earn your way into heaven.”

      Finally the older woman smiled. “I’d say you did a fine job of finding your answer. Too bad my son didn’t do his as well.”

      “But he did. He was just tired and in the middle of the sermon he was working on. I shouldn’t have invaded his privacy. I guess I’d better get upstairs. Please don’t mention this to Joshua. I don’t want him to be any more annoyed with me than he already is.”

      Cassidy didn’t wait for Irma’s response. She fled just as she had last night from Josh. She managed to get dressed and be on her way to Earl’s in less than fifteen minutes.

      The hood was up on her car, and Earl was hard at work. “How’s it coming, Mr. Pedmont?” she asked, trying to hide her anxiety.

      Startled, Earl straightened and smacked his head on the hood. “Ouch! Oh, howdy. Got to your car in the middle of yesterday,” he said as he wiped his hands on a rag. “Ordered up the fuel filter, but it didn’t get up here till late last night. Figured, Earl, you get up at dawn and you could have the little lady back on the road by nine or ten.”

      Cassidy looked at her watch. An hour. She could be gone and out of Joshua’s town in an hour. That was a good thing, she assured herself, and wished she didn’t feel as if she were leaving home instead of heading toward it.

      Then she noticed Earl’s frown as he looked back down at the engine. He took his hat off and scratched his head. Then he let out a very discouraged and discouraging sigh. “Weren’t the filter. That’s for sure,” he declared.

      “It won’t be done?” she asked, somehow knowing she was doomed.

      “Nope. I’d suggest we let the new filter stay in, though. I’d say it was near time to replace it, anyway. Now I guess I’d best send for a fuel pump. It may be that.”

      “You aren’t sure?”

      “Can’t imagine it could be anything else except maybe the carb, and we really don’t want that.”

      “Why don’t we want that?”

      “A carb’s an expensive piece, especially on one of these foreign jobs. Ain’t a drop in the bucket on an American car, either.”

      No, she had to leave today. She saw the perplexed look on Earl’s lined face and suddenly he didn’t seem as competent to Cassidy as he had. “Maybe I should have it towed to a bigger town. Maybe to a foreign car expert.”

      Earl’s crestfallen expression nearly broke Cassidy’s heart. “If you don’t trust ol’ Earl, then maybe you should do that. I’ll ask my supplier to recommend some other fella in some bigger town. Just give me a minute to put her back together the rest of the way, and I’ll make the call.”

      “It isn’t that I don’t trust you,” she assured him, even though she didn’t. She hated hurting someone who had been nothing but kind to her. After all, how much damage could he do taking out parts and putting new ones in? The money didn’t matter. It was just that she’d wanted to get away from Josh before she made a bigger fool of herself than she already had. But she’d never been comfortable getting what she wanted at someone else’s expense.

      “So how’s the car coming along?” she heard Josh call to Earl from across the garage.

      “I ordered up a fuel filter hopin’ it would be something cheap so it weren’t too costly for the little lady. But it must be the pump itself. There wasn’t really a way to tell till I got the filter up here. But the little lady was just asking about havin’ herself towed to a bigger town.”

      “Cassie? I thought you agreed not to be in such a hurry to leave.”

      Cassidy stared at Josh. He looked worried. Had Irma given him a piece of her mind for being rude? She was suddenly furious with him. He had been rude. “Actually, I got the feeling that I’d worn out my welcome with you. And if I have, that’s too bad, Joshua Daniels, because Irma seems to like me just fine! And I like this town. It’s…it’s…quaint! And my stomach likes it, too!”

      She turned to the elderly mechanic, ignoring Josh’s bug-eyed expression. “Earl, you go right ahead and order that fuel pump, and if it needs that carb thingy, get that, too. You just tinker with that foreign job till it purrs like a kitten. No matter how long it takes. Now if you gentlemen will excuse me, my stomach and I are going to have a nice breakfast with Irma and Henry.”

      

      Josh stared after Cassidy’s retreating back.

      “Whew-ee, someone sure put a burr under her saddle, and I’d say that someone was you, Josh. What’d you do?”

      Josh grimaced and kneaded the back of his neck to relieve a little of the tension he’d been carrying since last night. Irma’s little lecture hadn’t helped it, either. “Irma tells me I was rude.”

      Earl poked him. “Boy, are you blind? Stupid? Or just plain off your rocker? You don’t act rude to a sweet girl like that when you live in a town without one single female over twenty or under fifty. Irma and Henry waited fifty years for the Lord to send them a son. And He sent you. Now how are you going to give them any grandchildren to bounce on their old knees if you chase away a find like Cassidy Jamison? You take old Earl’s advice, boy, you stop at The Trading Post and see if Pearl don’t have some flowers or some trinket for you to take to that sweet child as a peace offering.”

      “Sweet child? She nearly took my head off.”

      “Served you right from what I could see. Rude, huh?” Earl turned away and ambled to the phone on the wall. He looked back after lifting the receiver. “Go on!” he ordered, and pointed toward the door.

      Josh went. But he wasn’t buying any peace offering!

      

      Josh clutched at the cedar box he’d found himself buying at The Trading Post an hour earlier. He’d fought the urge to give in to Earl’s suggestion—he liked to think of it as a suggestion rather than an order—but he’d realized that when somebody was right they were right. He had been incredibly rude last night. Especially considering that Cassidy had been seeking knowledge about the God he served—or was supposed to serve.

      As he entered the parlor, Josh saw Cassidy sitting in the window seat looking out over the meadow that lay between the parsonage and the wide stream that formed the western border of the town. She seemed to be trying to memorize every rut and sleeping twig.

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