Forbidden Falls

Less than an hour later, she was back wearing sweats and a tank top. It seemed everything Ellie owned fit snugly, without a pleat, gather or wrinkle to spare or rattle around in. Fitted to that extraordinary body with those incredibly long legs Ellie managed to make old sweats look sexy. She’d had two children—how’d she manage her flat stomach and high, full breasts? Surgery? Somehow he couldn’t imagine her spending money on plastic surgery if she didn’t even own a couch.

He handed her one of his blue work shirts, already decorated with a little old paint. He was very happy to see her put it over her sweats and tank. Then he observed with some consternation that she looked every bit as pretty and sexy in that oversize shirt. Thank goodness she got right back to work. Humming. Sometimes actually singing, too softly for him to make out words, but it was very pleasant. Every once in a while Lucy meandered from his office to the bathroom and Noah would hear Ellie say, “Hey there, girlfriend. How’s it going? Bored?”

Around eleven in the morning, he checked on Ellie. In just a couple of hours, she had taped off all the edges and was almost done trimming the baseboards in white. When she heard him in the doorway, she looked up from her place on the floor and a coppery curl fell over her forehead. He couldn’t help but smile at her—she looked cute as the dickens with her hair piled on top of her head and drowning in his shirt. Besides, there wasn’t a bubble or streak on those baseboards. It was perfect.

“Are you extra happy today?” he asked.

“I might be,” she said, smiling. “I talked to my kids last night and gave them my new phone number. I’ll talk to them tonight and then tomorrow I’ll pick them up at eight in the morning for the day. I’m thinking of showing them my new apartment.”

“That’s right, tomorrow’s Saturday. Your day off.”

“Seventy-nine days to go.”

“You’re doing a very nice job there, Ellie.”

“Thanks. I know how to paint. I have a knack.”

“Lucky me. I’m going to put that talent to good use. Listen, I have some errands to do. I might not be back before you’re through today. I’m going to leave Lucy in the RV. I want you to help yourself to the lunch fixings in the refrigerator in the RV. There’s sandwich stuff and fruit, bottled water and soda.”

She wiggled around to her knees. “You don’t have to do that, Rev. Really.”

“I know I don’t have to, but it seems only fair. I could either raise your pay to eight twenty-five an hour or offer you lunch. I went with the lunch idea.”

“You’re actually a very nice guy, aren’t you?”

“Ellie, I’m a man of God. Don’t you expect nice?” Then he grinned.

“Does God know you’re throwing his name around to impress people?” she asked.

He laughed. “The RV is unlocked. Take a nice long break. Would you mind letting Lucy out to do her business? And try not to get paint on my dog or my La-Z-Boy.”

“You have a La-Z-Boy? Oh, brother. You’re certainly not gay….”

“How did they sound when you talked to them?” he asked. He hadn’t planned to ask, but it popped out. “The kids—how did they sound?”

“Well, fair. Not happy. They were a little emotional. They want me to come and get them right now and they’re having a real hard time understanding why I can’t. But they didn’t sound scared or hurt or anything. And I was as nice to Arnie as I could manage—I told him I was working things out so the judge would be happy with my job, and that I had a new place that was small but perfect. He was a jerk, but he promised to take good care of the kids. ‘They’re in better hands than they were, Ellie,’” she mimicked. “School starts soon and he goes to his office every day, getting ready for classes to start, and takes them with him. The school secretary keeps an eye on them. They miss me, but they’re safe. I think.”

“This must be very tough for you.”

“Yes, it is, but I’ll have them tomorrow. I’ll be able to see how they’re really doing.” And then she smiled at him.

Four

The only plan Noah had for Saturday morning was to take life slow and easy. While Ellie was with her kids, the church would be quiet. He began the day with a leisurely cup of coffee, checked his e-mail, listened to his stomach growl. “Is that you or me?” he asked Lucy. He heard it again. “Okay, me. We should think about breakfast.” He looked at Lucy. “I’m talking to a dog.”

Lucy looked at him with questioning eyes.

“Let’s go to Jack’s,” he said. And Lucy followed obligingly.

While Lucy had her breakfast on the porch, Noah had his at the bar. He sat beside a local rancher and commiserated on the price of fuel, visited with Preacher for a while and discussed next week’s menu ideas, listened to Jack brag about the great progress his young protégé, Rick, was making as he adjusted to a prosthetic leg. Then he took his coffee out to the porch to soak in a little of that sunshine.

One of the best things about having a dog, Noah had realized, was that she usually drew a crowd, and that meant he got to know a lot of people. Noah had noticed the majority of dogs around these parts were herders, working dogs. One of his favorite visitors was young Christopher, Preacher’s son. Chris had a pup named Comet, a border collie by the looks of him and, at a few months of age, was already almost as large as Lucy. Since dogs weren’t allowed in the bar, Chris and Comet visited with Noah and Lucy on the porch.

Around noon, Noah finally ambled back over to the church, intending to take his good old time with the newspaper. He got set up in the church office, glanced at the lists on his desk before spreading out the weekend edition. He could, of course, help out with the painting of the bathrooms, but he didn’t want Ellie to think her work was less than adequate, so he gave up on that idea and got back to the sports pages.

He heard a sound and cocked his head to listen. There was movement in the church, so he went off to investigate, but Lucy beat him to it—she was already looking in the doorway of the upstairs bathroom, tail wagging.

There was Ellie, wearing his long, oversize blue work shirt, painting the top half of the bathroom walls yellow. She must have heard Noah approach, but she didn’t say a word. She didn’t even turn to look at him. And she wasn’t humming. She was working that paint roller with a vengeance.

“What are you doing here?” he asked.

“Painting,” she said.

“What about the kids?”

She stopped and looked at him and her expression was at once furious and completely broken. “He wouldn’t let me have them.”

“What? Why?”

She lowered the roller to the pan on the floor. “He wouldn’t let them speak to me on the phone last night and wouldn’t let them come with me this morning. He said they had misbehaved and were grounded. They were disrespectful to him by complaining to me that they wanted to leave. My God, they’re babies! They want their mother! When I told him we had a court order, he told me to take it to the judge.”

“Ellie, did you call the judge?”

She rolled her eyes before leveling them at him. “A—the judge is not on my side, and B—he’s not around on Saturdays.”

“How about the police?”

“The police? Now come on, Rev. Do the police get into stuff like this?”

“I don’t know. I’ve been in situations in the past where they have, though not in this state. He has to turn over the kids on your scheduled days. He’s been ordered by the court. He’s in contempt. He could go to jail. Or at least be fined or something.”

“Oh, your lips to God’s ears. Listen,” she said, “I’m pissed as hell about this, plus my kids are all torn up. I left them crying and begging and clawing for me with Arnie holding them back and threatening them. But I’m afraid of him, you know? Afraid he’ll take it out on them or something.”

Noah thought for a second. Then he said, “Wait a minute—did he suggest you resolve this problem by moving back in with him?”

“Not exactly, but he did say we could’ve been a family if I hadn’t been so impossible. That’s not true, by the way. I tried—for two months and twenty-six days. He’s the stubbornest, most unreasonable man I’ve ever—”

He grabbed her hand. “Come on,” he said, pulling her out of the bathroom.

“What the hell …? What are you doing?”

He stopped right at his office door and slowly unbuttoned the paint-splattered work shirt that she wore. “We’re gonna go get your kids. It’s your day.”

He hung the shirt on his office doorknob. He looked at her low-cut, sleeveless T-shirt, her tight jeans. He sighed. Well, this was Ellie. No doubt this had always been Ellie. And he was in a position he’d never been in before in his life—he liked her just fine the way she was. The fact that he worried about the judgment of others made him furious with himself.

“I have to rinse my roller, my pan …”

“No time. Let’s go,” he said.