Nothing Sacred

Life had just gotten a little easier.

SHELLEY HURRIED UP the hill, hoping Drake would still be there. She’d had a hard time getting away from home that afternoon with Mom upset and all, but every time she thought about Dad’s phone call, she knew she’d do whatever it took to see Drake. Her mom thought she was at her friend Monica’s house. Shelley still hated the lies, couldn’t get used to telling them to her mother, but today she needed Drake more than ever.

And he didn’t like it when she made him wait, as if she was more important than he was. He had a thing about Shelter Valley girls thinking they were better than him and his friends, who mostly lived in a housing project outside Phoenix.

What if Whitney had been on the hill that afternoon? Everyone knew she wanted Drake. And he’d been staring at Whitney pretty intently on Friday night. Her stomach tensed with fear, Shelley remembered turning around from paying Drake’s friend, to see that look in Drake’s eyes as he stared at Whit. Whitney had been more out of it than normal, standing there in forty-degree weather with her shirt off, dancing like she was the hottest girl in town, even though Whitney was one of the least popular girls in school.

Of course, Shelley reminded herself as she ran out of breath three-quarters of the way up the hill, he’d looked at her even more intently when she’d taken off her sweater and unbuttoned her own shirt….

Eyes narrowed as she peered through the five o’clock Arizona dusk, she tried to see if Drake was at the top of the little hill nestled between two bigger hills in the desert outside Shelter Valley. Still too far away to hear voices, she could see some shadows. But she wasn’t sure one of them was her new boyfriend.

Oh, God.

She needed him so badly. Needed to feel his arms around her. Needed to know that she was loved.

“Please, God,” she whispered as she tried not to let her lack of breath slow her pace. “Let him be there. Especially tonight, let him be there. Without Whitney or anyone else. Let him be there waiting for me.”

She’d been hesitant to join his friends in their kind of fun, but this afternoon the preacher had made it all clear. “Things happen for a reason,” he’d said as he was leaving. “It’s up to you to see the signs and know how those things can help you.” He’d all but told her she’d been meant to meet this boy who’d never even stepped foot in Shelter Valley before this year. He and his friends could help her.

Tonight, more than ever, she just needed a little time to forget.

SINCE THE DAY SHE’D BEEN hired as program director for MUTV, Martha had loved her job. Today she hated it. Monday mornings were generally not her favorite anyway. Tim resisted the transition from weekend to school day more than most, which meant she’d already fought World War III before her workday even began. And today, just one week and a day after the good preacher of Shelter Valley Community Church had been in her home to witness the unveiling of yet another humiliation in the life of Martha Moore, she was supposed to trot on over to his place for a production meeting.

She’d been dreading the encounter so much she’d given herself a whopping headache and permission to skip church the day before. She’d expected the kids to celebrate the opportunity for a day off, as well, but Ellen had insisted on going. And on taking the younger kids with her.

Other than feeling like a slovenly mother shirking her responsibilities, Martha had thoroughly enjoyed the time to herself.

Still, the long soak in a bubble-filled tub, listening to seventies hits she usually got too much criticism over, and reading a book she’d been meaning to get through for months, had not been enough to rid her of the headache. Or the dread.

David Cole Marks mistakenly assumed it was his job to insinuate himself into the lives of the pathetic divorced woman and her four equally pathetic and father-deprived children. Anyone in his or her right mind knew that all Marks’s meant-to-be stuff and seeing signs was crap. Just because she’d received one of life’s hardest blows the only time she’d begrudgingly allowed him into her home, just because he’d witnessed her closer to falling apart than coping famously, did not mean they had any need of him. All it meant was one instance of bad timing.

She ought to know. Her life was filled with them.

Like now.

Dropping the note she’d been holding, the one she’d found taped to her office door as she’d come in moments before, Martha couldn’t imagine a worse time for Katie to throw up and her mother, Bonnie, to be in Washington, D.C., introducing her highly successful concept of child-adult day care for possible national funding. Because of that; Katie’s father, Keith, Martha’s boss and partner in the production of MUTV’s Sunday morning spiritual hour project, had left her in the lurch.

With her oversize black leather tote bag still hung over her shoulder, she slumped down in her seat, staring at Keith’s hurried scrawl on the sticky note.

Wasn’t it just like a man to dump her when she needed him most?

Damn him.

Not that Keith had any idea how much she was dreading this morning’s meeting.

Still, he was a man. And he was dumping her.

Or sort of dumping her. Letting her down. Leaving her to deal with life’s challenges all alone… Okay, she was being a bit self-indulgent here and feeling sorry for herself, but—

“Would a doughnut help?”

Cindy, the short, stocky and perennially cheerful student who was handling the daily computer entries to keep MUTV’s live bulletin board up to date, poked her head into Martha’s tiny office.

“Probably, but I didn’t bring any today. It took me half an hour to get Tim out of bed and another twenty to bully him into opening his eyes and getting dressed.”

“Keith brought some when he stopped by to say he wouldn’t be in.”

“What kind?” Martha didn’t eat doughnuts. She bought them several times a month for everyone else to enjoy, but she hadn’t actually consumed one herself since she’d managed to lose her husband to a woman who didn’t have hips widened by four pregnancies in quick succession.

“Krispy Kreme.”

The freshly made, trademarked confections were delivered from Phoenix to the Valley Diner seven days a week.

“What kind of guy brings doughnuts to work when he isn’t even going to be here to eat them?” she mumbled. Since she’d come to work for Keith Nielson, who was not only her boss, but her friend, he’d been making it difficult for her to maintain her staunch hatred of the male species.

“One who’s feeling guilty?” Cindy suggested, grinning. Martha hadn’t realized she’d mumbled out loud.

“I’ll pass on the doughnut,” she said, thinking of her meeting ahead. “But a cup of coffee would sure be welcome.”

“Got it.” Cindy grinned again and was off.

Of course, bigger hips might discourage preachers, which was a good thing—but the navy slacks and jacket she’d donned that morning looked better when they weren’t bulging at the seams.

Okay, she could do this. She was not going to allow herself to be that weak, to pick up the phone and cancel the meeting. It wasn’t a big deal. And it wouldn’t be a replay of that day almost a year ago when she and Keith had walked into Pastor Edwards’s office for this very same meeting and found him and the beautiful Mrs. Emily Baker making out like randy teenagers. And if she did find David Marks emulating his predecessor, feeling up one of his parishioners, all the better. Then he’d have to leave town.

And no one but Martha and her kids would know that Todd was going to be a father again.

Without her.

No one would know that her four babies hadn’t been enough.

“YOU’RE NUTS, you know that?” Martha laughed. And then stopped, startled, when she heard herself. She hardly ever laughed anymore. Unless she was with Keith, who tried to make her see the lighter side of things.

But not here, not with David Marks, in the chapel at Shelter Valley Community Church. That hallowed room was made for feeling intimidated, reverent, slightly guilty. For listening to sermons. Writing grocery lists. And, as it turned out, for taping a church program.

“I know you’re trying really hard to think so,” the minister challenged with an easy grin. They’d been there an hour, planned almost the entire segment of the show, and he still hadn’t mentioned that afternoon eight days ago when Todd had called with his hideous announcement.

The Moore household had been subdued ever since. But Marks didn’t have even a hint of pity in his eyes when he looked at Martha. Instead there was a genuine warmth, as though he was enjoying their conversation. There was something else, too. Peace, maybe? A kind of empathy unlike any Martha had ever known.

“No one makes contracts to suffer awful things and die,” she said, certain about this at least. “No way is anyone going to believe that we all chose our fates before we were born.”

This was only one of four similar arguments they’d had over the past hour. And while she might’ve had to concede victory on the last three, Martha knew this one she was going to win. Sliding her notebook back into the black satchel, she hooked the strap over her shoulder.

They’d had a good interview. The show would probably be the most interesting they’d had during almost a year of airing the Sunday morning spiritual hour. Open to all kinds of religious groups, the show had featured a variety of segments, but none that were so down to earth and accessible. She was ready to go back to school and pass on her notes to the camera operator, who’d be doing the actual filming at her direction.

“I never said our fates are decided,” he said, leaning back with his feet up and resting on the pew, “only that throughout our lives, our souls choose the circumstances that best allow us to progress. The most important characteristic human beings have is free will.”

With a picture in her mind of some gauzy white clouds inhabited by little blobs arbitrarily choosing to get diseases or have fatal car accidents or be left alone by husbands who preferred sweet young things over years of loyalty and loving, she leaned forward, her elbows on her knees as she glanced sideways at him. Martha opened her mouth to speak. And then changed her mind, several times, about what to say.