Small-Town Dreams and The Girl Next Door: Small-Town Dreams / The Girl Next Door

Finally he found what he was after, and as he handed it to her he prayed she wouldn’t notice his shaking hands or see his heart’s desire in his eyes. “Why don’t you take this up with you and read some of it. If you have any questions, we can talk tomorrow.”

Cassidy blinked, and he almost winced at the confusion that clouded her eyes.

“Sure. I’ll do that,” she said, backing away. “Sorry I bothered you. I can see how busy you are.”

She retreated from the room in a rush before Josh could call her back and try to explain why he needed to cut their talk short. But then, he hadn’t a clue what excuse he’d use anyway. All he knew was that at what he feared had been a critical moment in Cassidy’s spiritual growth, he had let personal feelings intrude. He had prayed she wouldn’t see into his heart but hadn’t prayed that she would let Jesus into hers.

Josh knew he needed to talk to Henry. For the first time ever, he couldn’t do what the pastor had asked of him. Because even though he had no intention of acting upon his feelings, he was too drawn to this woman to act as a spiritual counsel. The proof was blindingly clear. He had failed her, and yet he was afraid to follow her to try to make it right.

Chapter Seven

Cassidy sat brushing her hair at the old mahogany vanity in her room. She let the hand holding the brush drift into her lap as Joshua once again took over her thoughts. Not wanting to feel the way she did about him didn’t change the truth. Cassidy Jamison, heir to a multimillion-dollar steel company, was attracted to a country preacher who, though obviously intelligent, had no education or financial prospects.

Her grandfather would hit the roof.

And she didn’t care! Not about her fortune or his lack of one. Not about his lack of formal education. Not about the fact that she had only known him for four days. She only cared about him.

Of course, how she felt didn’t matter, anyway. Cassidy saw little chance that anything long-lasting would evolve from their tentative friendship. And not because she thought him beneath her or because her grandfather wouldn’t approve of him. The problem lay with Joshua himself. He didn’t feel the same way about her. If she’d had any doubt before, the way he’d recoiled from her in the study had shown her the truth.

Cassidy had always thought she’d seen herself with impartial eyes, but now she had to wonder if there was something wrong with her that she’d never acknowledged. She had a trim figure and had been told by others that she was reasonably attractive. She didn’t wear her hair in a long and flowing style, but the short cut suited her face and her busy life-style.

It was certainly true that the current condition of her clothing left something to be desired, but she couldn’t imagine Joshua caring about anything as shallow as how someone dressed, as long as it was modestly. Besides, he’d pick out the particular combination she’d put on that morning, so clothes couldn’t be at the root of his problem with her.

So, why did Joshua practically trip over his own feet trying to get away from her every time they were in close proximity? When she caught her reflection in the mirror trying to check her breath, Cassidy tossed the brush down.

There was nothing wrong with her!

She was a big girl and could accept that he felt none of the same attraction she did. Besides, she needed a friend more than a love interest, she told herself. She’d get over his rejection.

Always brutally honest with herself, Cassidy felt a blush heat her face when she thought of the way he’d acted earlier. He had to suspect that she had feelings for him and was embarrassed by it. The only recourse her pride would allow was for her to get out of Dodge as soon as possible—she pursed her lips and stiffened her spine—and until then, she’d just have to hide her feelings as best she could. First thing tomorrow she’d go down to Earl’s and check on her car. With any luck she’d be on the road by noon.

As she reached out to pick up the hairbrush again, she noticed the New Testament Josh had all but forced into her hands as an excuse to push her out of his vicinity. No. There had been sincerity in his voice as he’d given it to her. She had no doubt that he really and truly wanted her to read it. She shrugged. What did she have to lose?

She read the gospel of Matthew and became utterly fascinated by the unfolding of a kingdom that no one seemed to understand, even those closest to the man named Jesus of Nazareth. Then in chapter 19 she came upon a passage that troubled her.

It was the story of a rich young man who kept all the commandments already and wanted to know what else he had to do to be saved. After the young man turned away in sadness at Christ’s answer, He’d told the disciples, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.”

Troubled, Cassidy longed to seek Joshua out, but couldn’t bear to see that same panicked look in his eyes that had sent her running earlier. An hour later, that passage still haunted and, she admitted, angered her. She heard Josh move through the hall toward his room followed by the click of Bear’s nails on the polished wood floor. After a few minutes the house settled into silence.

Still, those words bothered her and kept her awake. She was the heir to a small fortune. Did that mean she couldn’t go to heaven no matter what she did to earn it? It didn’t seem to fit or to be consistent with Joshua’s evenhanded approach to his faith or with the passage she’d read off his notes earlier. So what could it mean?

She remembered all the books on his desk and her conversation with Josh about how he prepared a lesson. If he could find out what others had read into the Scriptures in those commentaries, then so could she! Surely one of those scholars had answered her questions already.

Luckily, Bear’s night-lights glowed softly throughout the house as Cassidy crept down the hall. She was grateful to the ridiculous dog as she moved down the stairs and into the darkened study. The floor creaked as she tiptoed across the room to the desk. “Please, God,” she whispered, “don’t let Josh find me sneaking around like this. A girl can take only so much humiliation in one night.”

She found references in several books, and after a while she understood that this was one of those passages that the scholars agreed upon. But even so, they all seemed to see different applications in people’s lives.

The first one she read seemed to say that Jesus did not really mean that it was impossible for a wealthy person to enter heaven. The rest followed suit on this, but one author continued on to explain that what Jesus meant was that heaven is impossible to earn or buy. The wealthy tend to think that everything and everyone has a price and that since they can pay that price, they think they can have anything they want. She wondered how many men in her own social circle thought they had already bought their place in heaven through charitable donations.

So, she concluded, salvation is an unearned gift. She couldn’t earn it as she’d thought. No one could.

Further complicating the lives of the rich, another scholar pointed out, are the temptations money brings with it. That was easy enough for Cassidy to grasp. When a CEO friend of her grandfather’s had ordered mandatory drug testing in his company because of falling revenues, it had turned out that drug abuse was rampant in the upper echelon of the company.

Yet another commentary mentioned the way money is almost worshiped in the world of the wealthy and how it is more often than not like a god to them. That was an easy idea for her to translate to her own experience. She’d learned quickly that in the world of cutthroat corporate politics, nothing was more important than the almighty dollar.

Tired of thinking and less content than ever with her life, she leaned her head back onto the big, old desk chair and let it rock back the way Josh had earlier. She closed her eyes and wondered where all this was leading her.

“Cassidy, dear, are you all right?”

Cassidy heard Irma’s voice as if from afar. “What is it?” Cassidy asked, and opened her eyes, blinking in surprise, her mind still in a sleepy fog. “What’s going on?”

“I saw the light on in here and came in to scold Joshua for staying up all night. Instead I found you. What on earth are you doing in here so early in the morning?”

“Doing?” Suddenly realizing where she was, Cassidy sat up. “Oh, I’m terribly sorry. I didn’t mean to overstep myself by using the study without permission.”

“Don’t be foolish. Books are made to be read. You can’t read the print off the pages. So, tell me, what were you reading?”

“Well, last night Josh shoved a New Testament at me and told me to read it in my room. I—”

“Shoved it at you?” Irma cut in and frowned. “Well now, that doesn’t sound like our Josh.”

“He was…um, busy, and I was asking a lot of questions.”

“It still sounds as if he was rude to you.”

He had bordered on rude but Cassidy didn’t want Irma making an issue of it. She forced a smile. “Oh, I wasn’t offended. Really. So, anyway, I took it upstairs and read it, and something bothered me. I didn’t want to pester Joshua again so I tried to sleep on it. After a while, when I heard him go to bed, I remembered the books he’d been using to—” Cassidy halted in mid-thought, horrified that she’d almost revealed Henry and Josh’s secret.

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.