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“I believe with all my heart that God wants Sinclair to lead our church. I can’t say I know why, but it feels right. Maybe in time we’ll figure that out, but right now I pray your parents will give him a chance. I want you to do that, too.”
“I can’t.” Her eyes blurred again. “Not after what happened.”
Judy pulled her into a warm embrace. “No matter the influence, your sister was an adult who made her own choice to do something foolish. I know you miss her, Hope, but harboring unforgiveness toward Sinclair isn’t good for you. It isn’t good for anyone.”
She shook her head against Judy’s strong shoulder. As far as Hope was concerned, Sinclair was the reason she no longer had a sister.
“You’ve got to let it go.”
Hope pulled out of the older woman’s embrace. “How? There isn’t a day that goes by that feels right. Dad misses Sara. I can see it in his eyes. It’s like I’m left with clouds and can’t make the sun shine again.”
“It’s not up to you to make the sun shine for them. They have to find that sunshine on their own.” Judy squeezed her shoulder. “You think about that school. You have a calling for it. Can you really walk away?”
Hope sucked in her bottom lip. Judy knew the right buttons to push. God could work it all out, but what if quitting messed up His plan?
A youth center? Hope had talked Sinclair out of his set course several times when they were kids. Could she do it again?
Judy gave her shoulder a gentle squeeze. “Come back when you’re ready.”
Hope watched her mother’s lifelong friend walk away, knowing Judy was right. If she quit now, what chance did Hope have for getting the preschool project back on track? It’d fizzle and die—another dream gone.
An image of the completed addition blazed through her mind. Dorrie and her two girls were part of that image. They needed supervision over the summer break. Lots of kids did. Hope knew the community and its needs. Unfortunately, so did Sinclair. After all, he was a local boy returned home.
Tipping her head back with a groan, Hope stared at the blue sky above. Like it or not, people depended on her and she needed to get back to work.
* * *
Sinclair took in the small space of his barren office. He had a desk, a couple chairs and a bookshelf. He could easily see Hope’s empty desk from his. The church offices had been situated along the side of the basement opposite the kitchen and an open area used for Sunday school and probably fellowship dinners. He had a nice-sized window with a view of hayfields, and beyond the parking lot, cherry orchards covered the hills and more fields.
He spotted Hope pacing. She’d changed since the last time he’d seen her. A family member’s death did that to a person on some level, but he also detected a confidence in her that he didn’t remember. Her outward appearance was different, too—so different, it had taken him a couple minutes to recognize her.
Hope had slimmed down, losing her college freshman fifteen and then some. With her bushy long hair cut into a short cap of dusky waves, she looked good. Maybe too good. And they’d be working together.
He’d searched online for ministry positions in northern Michigan for months. There were three churches in his hometown of LeNaro, but the only pastoral staff opening had been here—a community church three miles north of town and smack in the middle of cherry farm country.
He should have known that Hope might still work in this office. She’d worked here through college, but she’d been planning to go to Spain the summer he’d left. He never thought to ask about her during his interview.
He stepped away from the window. Knowing Hope ran the office wouldn’t have made a lick of difference in his decision. He’d come home to make amends for his past. If he faced an uphill battle, it was no less than he deserved.
His brother Ryan barely spoke to him, and Hope still blamed him for Sara’s death. He could see it in her eyes. Her pretty gray eyes that were no longer hidden behind Coke-bottle glasses.
Judy stuck her head into his office. “You okay?”
He nodded, even though it felt like he’d been hit in the gut by a ground ball that had taken a bad hop. “I take it Jim and Teresa Petersen attend here, as well. Maybe I should call and let them know.”
It was his first position as a pastor, and he’d walked into a personal beehive. He could take getting stung, but for how long?
“I’ll talk to them tonight and let you know how it goes.” Judy’s eyes softened.
“Thanks.”
Three years ago, Judy Graves had encouraged him to work through Sara’s accident by sticking around to face his part in it. Judy had been firmly in his corner during the short police investigation. It looked like she was still there.
“You’re here for a reason, Sinclair. Don’t forget that.”
“It’s why I came home.”
Judy gave him a thatta-boy nod and left.
Sinclair glanced back at the window, where sunlight streamed into the room. He stood and opened it, letting in a cool breeze despite the uncommonly hot weather for mid-June in northern Michigan. He’d never grown accustomed to the oppressive heat he’d experienced in the years he spent in Haiti, but he’d managed. He’d worked through it. He’d do the same with Hope, if she’d let him.
* * *
Hope wiped her face with fast-food napkins that she had stashed in her car’s glove compartment before stepping out of her Jetta. After a therapeutic cry and some soft music, she felt halfway ready to go back to work.
She spotted Sinclair reaching into an ancient candy-apple-red Camaro. He still drove that target for speeding tickets. He hadn’t changed.
“Nice image for a minister.”
He whirled around and smiled. “What?”
It was a cruel joke that a guy nicknamed Sin had such a tempting smile. She’d always called him by his full name. Not only did she like it better, but she believed using his full name shielded her from the temptation to follow his antics into trouble.
Sometimes it had worked. Sometimes it hadn’t.
She pointed at his vehicle. “That car.”
His smile only grew wider. “I’m not about an image.”
Hope gave a snort and lifted one eyebrow.
Who was he trying to kid? He reeked with the same reckless charm he’d always had. All show and no substance, like the ridiculously fast car he’d driven since high school.
“That car will do you no good come winter, you know.” Hope sounded like somebody’s mother. No, worse, someone’s grandmother.
Sinclair’s smile widened. “I know. I’ll figure it out.”
He was good at doing that. He constantly lived with a no worries now, figure it out later mentality. She remembered a youth rally they’d attended, and Sinclair had confided in her that he’d been called to the ministry. He’d bragged to her that he’d pastor a church someday, but she’d laughed at the idea. Hope hadn’t believed he’d follow through. Yet here he was, her new pastor.
He walked toward her. “I’m worried you might quit.”
“I might.”
“Please don’t.”
“Why?” Hope enjoyed watching him squirm for an answer.
Then he looked at her with intense eyes and said, “Because I need you.”
How many years had she dreamed of hearing those words come from him? Hope swallowed hard and looked away. Sinclair Marsh never needed anyone.
“That bothers you.” His voice was laced with empathy.
“You bother me.” Hope didn’t want his understanding. She didn’t want anything from him anymore.
“I’m sorry to hear that.” His voice softened.
Was that regret she read in his eyes? She quickly looked away again. “How ’bout you do your job, and I’ll do mine.”
“Our jobs cross. We’re going to end up in the middle of that intersection quite a bit. What then?”
He made a good point. How in the world were they going to go about their day-to-day duties without crashing into each other? “We’ll just have to deal with it.”
His gaze softened further. “Hope—”
She held her hand up to stop him from talking about Sara. “Don’t go there.”
“We have to. Eventually.”
“Maybe, but not today.” Hope turned and headed for the church office.
* * *
By the time Hope made it home later that afternoon, her emotions were all over the place. She felt rubbed raw. All afternoon she’d been aware of Sinclair’s presence. At the coffeemaker or the laser printer. The last straw had been hearing him on the piano upstairs in the sanctuary. The guy had played heart-wrenchingly beautiful music for a solid hour. By four o’clock, she couldn’t take it anymore and left work half an hour early.
Sitting in the driveway, Hope hesitated before getting out of her car. Looking at the white farmhouse where she’d grown up and still called home at the ripe age of twenty-seven, Hope wondered how she’d break the news of their new minister to her folks.
With a sigh, she got out and trudged toward the house. Her mother met her at the side door, letting out their black-and-white shepherd mix named Gypsy. “Judy called.”
Hope cringed. Did they already know? “What did she want?”
“Why didn’t you tell us the church hired Sinclair Marsh?”
“Because I just found out today.”
“Why didn’t they bring you in on the decision?”
Hope let her head fall back. “I don’t know, Mom. I was on vacation. Besides, the board found interim pastors without my input, so I guess they didn’t need it. Can we talk about this later? I’m beat.”
“Your father’s not happy.”
Hope didn’t expect that he would be.
“I think you should talk to him.” Her mom gave her a ghost of a smile.
She didn’t feel encouraged. “Now?”
“He’s in the barn.”
Hope left her purse on the bench against the wall in the kitchen before she plodded back down the porch steps. They had a small farm with a whole lot of cattle for beef. An oddity, considering the surrounding fruit growers. Entering the barn, she spotted her father in his workshop with a blowtorch and soldering wire.
She slipped into a nearby chair and waited. It didn’t take long for one of the barn cats to find its way onto her lap.
When her dad finished mending the metal, he flipped up his safety glasses and looked at her. His eyes were red. Could be from the work, or something else?
“Hi, Daddy.”
“You gonna quit?”
“No.” She stroked the calico cat’s fur. How could she?
“Don’t expect us to go there.” Her father slipped his glasses back in place. Conversation over.
Hope watched her father finish fixing whatever it was for one of the tractor engines. He had kept the tractor that had crushed Sara. Her father’s rationale had been that it wasn’t the tractor’s fault it flipped.
True. It was Sinclair’s. And Hope’s for not being there to stop her sister from doing something so stupid.
Hope often wondered if it would have been easier on her dad if she had been the one under that tractor. Sara had been his kindred spirit—the one who wanted to take over the farm someday. Sara had been the one who knew how to help. Her little sister didn’t need to be told what needed to be done or shown how to do it. Sara just knew.
Hope didn’t know. She’d tried, but she couldn’t fill the empty void Sara left behind.
“Put those in the box over there, would you?” Her father handed her his safety glasses.
Hope gently shooed the cat down and brushed off her skirt. She laid the glasses alongside a few other pairs and closed the lid, careful to keep the edge of her skirt from brushing the greasy side of the workbench.
“You should have changed your clothes before coming out here.”
Hope shrugged. “It’s okay.”
“Your mother sent you, didn’t she?”
Hope nodded.
“We were finally getting some distance.” Her father’s face looked worn.
“I know.” Her heart tore in two. They may have accepted Sara’s death, but Sinclair’s return reopened the wound and made it feel fresh and sore, like a torn scab.
“Let’s see what your mother has cooked up, huh?”
Hope followed her father out of his workshop. The dog flew past them, barking the whole way, toward a candy-apple-red Camaro that pulled into the driveway.
Sinclair.
“What’s he want?” her father growled.
“I’ll send him on his way.” She glanced into her father’s metal-gray eyes, which looked hard as steel.
Her father slowed her down with a touch of his hand. “Wait. I want to hear what he’s come to say.”
