Behind the Altar: Behind the Love Trilogy
Read Behind the Altar: Behind the Love Trilogy Online
Authors: P.C. Zick
Behind the Altar
By P. C.
Zick
Behind the Altar
Copyright ©
2014 by
P.C. Zick
All rights reserved.
Cover Design: Author Marketing Club
This is a work of fiction. The characters, events,
and dialogues portrayed in this book are products of the author’s imagination
and are not to be construed as real.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form
or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and
retrieval systems without permission by the author. The only exception is by a
reviewer who may quote short excerpts in a review.
Author Contact:
P. C. Zick
Email –
[email protected]
To my husband, Robert Zick. You are the reason I can write about love.
Leah threw down the dishrag and glared at the woman
who would soon be her mother-in-law.
“I don’t understand
why you shut down the kitchen during the lunch serving,” Leah said, as she
faced Geraldine Davis.
“I told you last week
the Board decided to shut down this charity program you’re running out of the
church kitchen,” Geraldine said. “This kitchen was paid for out of the
collection plates by the good people who attend church every Sunday and work
hard the other days of the week. They don’t want to see the homeless come in here
and destroy it.”
As soon as Geraldine
finished her pronouncement, all 200 pounds of her turned away from the large
metal table in the center of the kitchen. Leah Bryant watched her walk out the side
door that led to the church offices. Geraldine wore a red polyester suit and
matching two-inch heels. Her bleached blond hair, ratted as high as it could go,
gave her five-foot-three frame more authority. Leah often wondered if Geraldine
slept with a box over her head to protect the lacquered helmet between her
weekly appointments.
Jacob, Leah’s
finance, walked into the kitchen from the hall.
“Where’s Mother?” he
asked.
Leah pointed to the
back door. “She shut down the kitchen while I was serving lunch.”
“Leah, you were told
this was going to happen,” he said.
“And you said you
were going to do everything possible to see it didn’t happen.” She threw an
orange at him, just missing his pressed shirt from the dry cleaners. Oxford,
white, and pristine described his shirt as much as it did Jacob. “She didn’t
need to do it at lunchtime.”
Jacob scratched his
blonde hair, cut short over his ears and neck and combed into place with lots
of gel. His creased gray pants matched his tie. They were an oddly matched
couple, even when Leah put on a dress for Sunday services. Leah was his direct
opposite in khaki shorts that came to just above her knee and hung loosely on
her thin hips. She wore a white sleeveless T-shirt tucked into her baggy
shorts. Her long dark brown hair, wavy and thick, was contained in a braid hanging
down her back. The red bandana tied around her head gave her a bit of color in
an otherwise bland landscape of clothing. Leah, at twenty-two, was a
breathtaking beauty despite her lack of attention to her appearance.
“I can only do so
much, and you know that,” Jacob said. “The Board runs this church, not the
minister. For now, the kitchen is closed. Any food orders you make from here on
out will not be paid out of church funds.”
“So if I get funding,
can I use the facilities?” she asked.
“Probably not,” Jacob
said. “The ladies of the church want to use the kitchen and hall for weekly
luncheons and bazaars and need the space during the week to set up. We’ve
already gone over this, Leah. Why are you fighting it?”
“Because those river
folks need the food I serve every day. I know the real reason they’ve shut me
down, and so do you,” Leah said as she walked out of the kitchen and into the
hall to clean up the few plates she’d managed to serve before Geraldine shut it
down.
As Leah headed for
the tables, the side door to the hall opened. She looked up to see a man, maybe
in his late twenties, enter the hall. His brown hair hung down his neck, and he
looked as if he’d been sleeping outside for a few nights. He wore dirty khaki
shorts, flip-flops, and a tank top with the faded words, “Happy Hour Crabs.” Despite
the state of his clothing and hair, his blue eyes mesmerized Leah, as they
drilled into hers. Her entire being felt the heat of his stare as she moved
toward him.
She stood in front of
him still holding a dirty plate. He was eight inches taller than she was so she
tilted her head up and continued to gaze into his eyes.
“Your eyes are the
most astounding shade of green,” he said. “Like the deep green of a magnolia
leaf. You’re beautiful.”
Leah didn’t know how
to respond, especially since her knees starting shaking as soon as he opened
his mouth and spoke in the slow drawl only used by someone who’d grown up in rural
north Florida. He sounded like Reggie and Susie, her only friends in Victory.
“I’ve never seen you
before, but I can tell you’re from around here,” she said.
“I grew up here, but
I don’t remember you,” he said. “I would have remembered.”
“Tampa. I’m from
Tampa. I’ve only been here a few years.”
“And I’ve been away
living in Miami for ten years,” he said. “Don’t get home much.”
“Miami isn’t all that
far away,” she said. “You’ve never come back to see your family in ten years?”
“You don’t know my
family, and Miami is worlds away from Victory. Can I help you?” He nodded to
the plate she held as a shield between their two bodies.
“No, I’m cleaning up.
I’m afraid if you came for lunch, I won’t be able to serve you any hot food,”
she said. “But I might be able to find something in the fridge if you need to
eat.”
“That would be
great,” he said. “I haven’t eaten since last night.”
She nodded and walked
to the kitchen, wondering how she could handle one more mouth to feed when she
didn’t have any way to feed the ones already living on the riverbanks. She
pulled out some leftover potato salad and cole slaw that she’d made that
morning. She’d only been able to serve three men before Geraldine made her
appearance, so there was plenty left. She’d passed out most of the fried
chicken to the folks who weren’t able to get the full lunch when they showed up
a few minutes after the closure. She pulled a plate out of the cupboard and
heaped high with the leftovers, including a few pieces of chicken. Jacob had
left the kitchen, probably in his office working on Sunday’s sermon. She felt a
twinge of guilt when she thought of him diligently working on his homilies
while she served the man in the hall—a man who made her feel unlike anything
she’d ever felt before.
“I’m a lunatic for
letting some guy off the streets get to me,” she whispered to herself as she
picked up his food.
She walked back into
the hall carrying the plate. He was reading the announcements on the bulletin
board when she returned. When he turned toward her, he was grinning.
“Do you know the
minister here?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said and
wondered why she didn’t tell him how well she knew the minister.
“Is he good?” he
asked.
“The parishioners
like him.”
“That’s good. I knew
the minister before him. What happened to him?”
“Big Jim? He died a few
months ago, and his son, Jacob, took over.”
“Sorry to hear about Big
Jim. That was convenient to have his son ready to take over. Is Geraldine still
around?”
“Mrs. Davis is still
very involved; maybe too involved.” Immediately Leah regretted speaking disrespectfully
about Geraldine, the woman who’d taken her in off the streets and given her a
place in her home and in the church. Geraldine was the reason she was engaged
to Jacob.
Dean kept reading the
announcements on the board. “Yes, Geraldine would keep herself involved, I’m
sure. Never liked the bitch myself.”
Leah giggled despite
her discomfort in talking so poorly about her. Right now, she completely agreed
with the stranger in front of her.
“Here’s some food,”
she said. “It’s not much, but hopefully it will help you get through the day.
They shut my kitchen down, so that’s why no one else is here.”
“Your kitchen?” he
asked as he sat down in front of the plate filled with cold food.
“Yes, Soup’s On,” she
said. “I feed the area homeless and those without the means to cook or buy
their own food. At least, I did. The Board voted to stop funding it. I can’t
even use the facilities because the ladies of the church need the hall for
their socials.”
“That makes sense,” Dean
said. “That’s much more important than helping those less fortunate.”
“It doesn’t make much
sense,” Leah said as she sat across from him at the long rectangular table. “It’s
been a wonderful thing for the community, but they don’t want their place of
worship sullied by those ‘dirty homeless people.’ That’s what one of the
Christian Society ladies said to me the other day.”
“You’re very
passionate about your work, aren’t you?” he asked.
“Yes, I am. I was
homeless myself until Mrs. Davis took me into her home. That’s why I can’t
figure out why she didn’t do anything to stop the Board from making the
decision.”
Her hands rested in
front of her on the table, and he reached over and placed his hands on top of
hers. She felt a tingle move up her arms. She found herself once again
mesmerized by his eyes. The tingle extended to other parts of her body.
“You look familiar to
me,” she said. “I feel as if I’ve met you before.”
“Maybe we have,” he
said as he squeezed her hands. “When I look at you, it feels like I’m falling
into a deep well.”
She pulled her hands
away quickly and put them in her lap. She looked down at the surface of the
table.
“Do you have a place
to sleep tonight?” she asked and immediately regretted the question, but it was
a routine one she asked of all who came into Soup’s On for a meal. “What I mean
is, there’s a camp down at the river where folks stay. I’m sure they’d welcome
you there.”
“Thanks, but I’m not
sure if I’m staying yet. Depends on a few things.”
“Why are you here?”
she asked.
“Before we get to
that, I want to ask you something,” he said. “Since you served me lunch, will
you have dinner with me tonight?”
“Dinner?”
Before she could answer,
the door to the kitchen swung open. Jacob and Geraldine walked into the hall.
“Hello, Jacob,” the
stranger said. “Mom, how are you?”
“You’re not welcome
here,” Jacob said.
“That’s right, Dean,”
Geraldine said. “You need to turn around and get out of here before I call the
police.”