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Scott leaned forward to place his elbows on the table and press his palms together. “I just sent Jeremy and Billy to collect the toys from Paul’s Tire Emporium. I figure next Saturday should be soon enough to have the kids out collecting from the bins around town again. I can’t imagine we’ll get much more than we already have.”
Naomi gestured to him with her cup. “It was a brilliant idea on your part to start the drive early this year. We can get this done and out of the way so we can all enjoy the upcoming holidays ourselves.”
Sometimes his impatience paid off. “I’m firming up plans with the food bank for the Thanksgiving dinner the church will be hosting. We need more volunteers, so if you could get the word out that would be great.”
“I certainly will.” She set her cup down and leaned forward. “How’s your family?”
“Good. I talked to Mom yesterday. She made a point of telling me she expected me at the dinner table on Thanksgiving.”
Scott would rather spend the majority of Thanksgiving Day helping feed those less fortunate than himself. At least that was the best explanation he could give his family. But the main reason he had declined to spend dawn till dusk at his parents’ house was the constant teasing he took from his siblings.
Sometimes he could escape to the game room in the basement with all of his nieces and nephews, but even there he wasn’t safe. His sibs would hunt him down.
Growing up the youngest of four, he’d always borne the brunt of the jokes and pranks. He didn’t understand or appreciate the rough ribbing. He sometimes wondered if the taunting hid the fact that his brothers and sister hadn’t wanted another sibling. He’d been a surprise for his parents, a fact his siblings loved to remind him.
It didn’t help the family dynamics any that Scott wasn’t cut from the same cloth as the rest of the high-achieving Crosbys. His father had been disappointed that Scott hadn’t followed his siblings into a professional career. His mother clucked over him as if he was still in kindergarten.
All in all, spending time with his family was stressful for him.
Naomi’s gaze turned speculative. “Scott, when are you going to find a nice girl and settle down?”
Scott coughed at the unexpected question. “I beg your pardon?”
“I worry that you work too hard. A young man should have some fun in his life. And you won’t be young forever.”
He didn’t need the reminder, but hearing it stated out loud accentuated the mortality of life. His parents would be celebrating their fiftieth wedding anniversary soon. A rarity in this day and age. A feat Scott could only hope to replicate one day.
“Time flies, and if you aren’t careful, you’ll be wishing you’d spent a bit more time on yourself than on others,” Naomi added.
Scott bristled. “I don’t think serving the Lord is a waste of my time.”
She gave him an indulgent look. “Don’t put words in my mouth. Serving the Lord is wonderful, but a man of God like you needs a helpmate in life. God doesn’t want all of us to be alone.”
Uh-oh. Scott blinked. He knew the youth of the church had played matchmaker with the Youth Minister, Caleb, and Anne, the former church secretary, now Caleb’s wife. It sounded as if Naomi wanted to pick up where they’d left off. Better put a stop to this pronto. He held up a hand. “I’m content with my life. Besides, I have so much on my plate with Caleb on vacation I think I should wait until the time is right.”
“That excuse will only last so long you know,” she commented with a gleam in her eyes.
Scott stood and backed away as if putting space between them might stop Naomi from whatever was going on in that head of hers. “I better get back to the kids.”
He didn’t want to give Naomi any chance to try to fix him up with someone in the congregation. That could jeopardize the acceptance he enjoyed in Chestnut Grove. Besides, he hadn’t lied when he’d said he had too much on his plate right now. But he also hadn’t wanted to admit he didn’t know if the time to find a wife would ever be right. He would hate to disappoint another person that he loved.
Naomi watched Scott shoot out of the cafeteria as though the Hound of the Baskervilles was on his heels. The man certainly was gun-shy of relationships.
As far as she’d seen, Scott kept everyone at an emotional arm’s length, even while he’d bend over backward to be of help. She understood how hard his decision to follow God’s call into ministry was on his relationship with his family and knew there was a rift or something that needed healing. But she sensed loneliness and a deep hurt in Scott, as well.
“Lord, how would You have me help this young man?”
Naomi waited a beat. An idea formed in her mind. “Ah, yes. Thank You, Lord.”
She knew what to do.
After washing her cup out and putting it on the drain pad, she went to her office where she fired up her computer. With a few clicks and some creative thinking, she added Scott anonymously to the growing number of members in The Kingdom Room.
“Sometimes people need a little help recognizing that the right time is right now,” she stated aloud and sat back. Now all she had to do was wait and watch the fun happen.
“Go to sleep and good night, my sweet prince,” Trista cooed softly to Aidan as she gently laid him in his crib. The teddy bear motif on the bumpers and mobile included little cubs frolicking in the grass and always made her smile. She’d found the crib and bedding at a secondhand store in Richmond. They were perfect for her little boy.
She tucked the blanket more securely around Aidan. Heartbreaking joy squeezed her chest, bringing tears to her eyes. She touched the downy softness of his dark hair. If anything were ever to happen to him, she didn’t think she could take it.
“Oh, God, if You’re real, please watch over this little life,” she whispered with a small hiccuping sob.
Aidan stirred. She quickly backed away to keep from disturbing him further. He needed his sleep. She did, too, but sleep had become hard to find ever since Aidan’s birth. She was terrified he’d need her in the middle of the night. She’d read all the baby books she could find and still feared that something bad would happen.
Being a parent was the most nerve-racking thing she’d ever experienced and she could only imagine that her anxiety would grow along with Aidan.
The sound of the phone ringing in the living room made her wince. Quickly, she left Aidan’s room, keeping the door cracked open, and rushed to answer the phone.
“Hello?”
Silence greeted her.
Trista frowned. “Hello? Is someone there?”
Straining to listen, she swore she heard the sound of muffled sobs as if the person on the other end of the line were trying to keep their tears quiet. Then the line went dead.
An eerie chill crept up Trista’s spine as she replaced the receiver. She didn’t know who had her number other than Kelly, Ross and her office. Fearing something had happened to her brother or his wife, she quickly snatched up the receiver and dialed their home number.
“Hi,” her brother’s booming voice intoned.
“Is everything okay?” Trista asked, skipping the pleasantries of greeting. She noted the blinking light of the answering machine. She’d forgotten to check it again when she’d come home from work.
“Yes. Why?”
She could hear the wariness in his voice. She couldn’t blame him with all the problems that had plagued the adoption agency of late. First the discovery of so many adoption records having been falsified over the years. Then Kelly received that threatening note at the Fourth of July celebration, and less than three weeks later the offices had been broken into and set on fire.
And just last month, Ross’s SUV’s front windshield had been shattered and another note left behind, demanding they stop investigating the phony records. “Is Kelly there? Is she okay?”
“She is. Trista, what’s going on?”
“Nothing.” She rolled her tense shoulders and shifted the receiver to the other side of her head. Her sweatshirt bunched up as she moved. She tugged at it. “I just received the strangest call. When I answered, there was no response, but I’m sure I heard crying.”
“Hmm. Do you think Mom could have called you?”
Trista scoffed. “No. She can’t even remember my name. How would she know where to call me?”
“I have no idea. But Alzheimer’s is a strange disease.”
A disease that was hereditary. A knot formed in her stomach. “Yes, well…be that as it may, I don’t think it was Mom.”
“It was probably a wrong number. I wouldn’t worry too much about it. Whoever it was will call back if it was important,” Ross commented. “Kelly says you’re coming over Saturday to cook dinner.”
“Yep. Kelly requested lasagna. Will you make one of your killer salads?”
“Of course. Hey, I was thinking of driving out to visit Mom on Sunday after church. Will you come?”
Trista closed her eyes as guilt and resentment warred in her heart. Ross was so good at visiting their mother in the nursing home outside of Richmond. For Trista, the visits were torture. Michelle Van Zandt barely recognized her only daughter.
The last time Trista had gone to the home, Michelle had become so upset because she’d thought Trista was there to steal her husband away.
Henry Van Zandt had died from liver failure years ago. That their mother still worried her husband was cheating on her only served to instill in Trista a loathing to ever go down the matrimonial road again.
After her disaster of a marriage to Kevin and watching her mother’s decline, Trista vowed to concentrate on her son to make sure he didn’t grow up making the same mistakes his family made. She’d even bought a book on how to prevent Alzheimer’s, for herself and Aidan.
“Trista?”
“Uh, I don’t know. We’ll see.” That was as much commitment as she could give at the moment.
Ross sighed. “We can talk about it more on Saturday.”
Perfect. Now she was going to have to endure his lecture on how she should forgive their parents for the past and how their mother needed them now. She was well practiced in tuning out her brother’s lectures. “I’ll see you Saturday.”
She hung up and pushed the play button on the answering machine.
“Hi, babe. I need to talk with you. Call me, okay?”
Her ex-husband’s voice filled the room and she clenched her teeth. With a sharp jab of her finger she deleted the message.
What did he want now? He’d given up total custody of their son in the divorce, in exchange for the condo and all their possessions. She didn’t have anything else for him to take.
Restless and edgy, she cleaned the updated kitchen, straightened up Aidan’s plethora of toys strewn around the apartment and channel surfed on the twenty-inch TV that Ross had bought for her as a welcoming gift. When that didn’t relax her, she pulled out her laptop and set it on the pine coffee table. She could at least work.
Once the computer was ready she stared at the screen. She didn’t want to work. Instead, she surfed the Internet looking for fun things to do with Aidan around town.
A local farm had a pumpkin patch and hayride day coming up. That would be good.
Hmm. Story time at the new bookstore downtown. Aidan loved listening to stories.
She drummed her fingers on the table. Ugh! She needed a manicure.
Maybe Kelly was right. She’d been working too hard and not taking care of herself. She wished she had a friend in town but that was another thing her marriage to Kevin had ruined.
He’d so monopolized every moment, getting upset when she wanted to spend time with her friends, that she’d eventually let the friendships fade. She didn’t even know how to get hold of any of her old college gang.
She needed to link up with others who were in the same boat.
Single and lonely.
She frowned. She wasn’t lonely. She had Aidan. She just needed someone to talk to.
What was the name of that online group Kelly mentioned?
The Kingdom Room.
Heart pounding with anticipation, she went to the Web site. She hesitated a moment before bolstering her courage and registering. After filling in the blanks and choosing a screen name, she was in.
For an hour she lurked, reading the posts from the last few days. Men and women both conversed about various aspects of being single. A few mentioned their children. Nothing overly personal or uncomfortable here.
Okay, this was doable.
She wasn’t looking for a romantic encounter, just friends to understand.
With a deep breath, she jumped into the current thread of conversation, hoping to find someone out there to connect with.
Yet, a little voice inside her head taunted her—only more hurt would be her reward.
Chapter Two
By Tuesday morning Scott’s e-mail in-box was bursting.
He stared at the amount of posts. What was going on?
After booting up the computer when he first walked into his office, he’d gone in search of some tea. Setting his mug of Earl Grey on the marble coaster on his mahogany desk, he slipped into his fabric-covered chair.
Normally, he took a moment to let the soothing hues of blues and brown in the office soothe his mind before turning his thoughts to work. But the staggering number of e-mails held his attention.
He clicked into the in-box and began to scroll through the e-mails. They were all addressed to Called2serve. A dawning realization clenched his gut as he read the posts. Someone, Naomi he was sure, had registered him to The Kingdom Room and added him to their e-mail loop.
He didn’t have time for this.
His father had called just as he was leaving the apartment he rented in a private residence east of Main Street. The phone call had been strange. His father had asked if Scott would say a few words at his parents’ fiftieth wedding anniversary. Scott could hear the emotion in his father’s voice and it left Scott feeling off-kilter.
Joseph Crosby had always been as solid as a hundred-year-old oak tree and just as unbendable.
His father was a family practitioner in Richmond. He’d had a long career and a great reputation. Everyone knew Doc Crosby. Candice Crosby was a star in her own right as a skilled surgeon. Scott and his sibs never lacked for medical care.
Scott’s sister, Elise, followed their father into medicine and was now a pediatrician. Her husband was a contractor and had built their home as well as Scott’s two brothers’ homes.
John and Kyle Crosby had veered from medicine and both became lawyers. An honorable profession according to their father.
And then there was Scott. The quiet one. The underachiever. The assistant pastor.
Another e-mail popped up.
Scott shook his head to clear his thoughts. He really didn’t have time for an Internet singles group. He needed to focus on organizing the upcoming Thanksgiving Day dinner for the homeless.
But curiosity got the better of him; he couldn’t help quickly scanning the e-mails before deleting them. Some were interesting threads of conversation regarding the holidays and the difficulty of being single when so many people seemed to expect couples at gatherings.
One post in particular grabbed his attention.
