Secretly Yours: A Christian Valentine's Day Romance (Riverbend Romance Novella Book 1) (3 page)

“We’re doing a little fairytale mash-up. I ran the script past Pastor Davis on Monday, so it’s all good.”

Nick narrowed his gaze. “Pastor Davis? He’s not the youth pastor. I am.”

“You weren’t in your office. Loosen up, dude. The drama for the banquet is in good hands.” Jared pointed at himself with both thumbs. “That would be
moi
.”

If the senior pastor had approved it, Nick supposed it would be okay. Jared still should have run it by him first. “How many kids are involved?”

“Just six.” Jared held up both hands, forestalling Nick. “I didn’t want to leave you shorthanded for everything else. Some of them will be playing dual roles. We’ve got it covered.”

Nick shuffled the papers on his desk until the top one showed the teens who’d pledged to raise funds for the missions trip. He pushed the sheet to Jared and offered him a pencil. “Who do you have tied up?”

“Let’s see.” Jared marked off several names and slid it back to Nick.

“Madison? You can’t have her. Her sister needs her in the kitchen.” Though if anyone were a born actor, it had to be Lindsey’s little sister.

Jared shook his head. “No can do, sorry. She’s a natural, and the only girl in the group who can pull this off.”

“Pull what off?”

“The whole drama thing. Seriously, dude. I need her, or we may as well cancel the event.”

“But—”

Jared shook his head. “You can find someone else to plop food on plates, but I need my leading lady.”

A trickle of alarm sifted through Nick. “She’s sixteen, Jared. Way too young for you.”

The other guy laughed. “It’s all on the up and up, I promise. I see great talent. I’m not looking for an underage date.”

“Okay. You had me worried there for a minute.”

“No need.” Jared surged to his feet. “When you’re finalizing your program, give us twenty minutes. I’ll take care of everything else.”

Had he somehow agreed to relinquish Madison? Well, he hadn’t exactly promised Lindsey to reserve her sister as sous chef. He could see Jared’s point, though. Of all the teens doing fundraising, Madison seemed to have the most dramatic talent.

Nick stood and reached across his desk to shake Jared’s hand. “Okay. You’ve got it. But if you have any questions, and I mean even little ones, please ask. It’s my name on the line with the teens’ parents and the community, and I’d rather be safe than sorry.”

“You cause me pain, dude. I know what is appropriate and what is not.” The younger guy grinned. “You’re looking for a play that will entertain the guests, honor God, and stay on theme. I’ve got it covered.”

It wasn’t until the door had swung shut behind Jared that Nick realized the drama major had never even given him the name of the play.

~*~

“I’d like to adapt the Glory Bowl salad recipe for the banquet,” Lindsey told her boss, Antonio.

He swiveled his chair to look her over. “Oh? How so?”

“Well, I’m looking for a lighter salad, not a small meal, so I thought I’d go with the mixed greens from Vitality, the hazelnuts, grated carrots and beets, and then the dressing.”

Antonio nodded. “That works. What are you looking for in an entree?”

Lindsey hesitated. “I was hoping for some guidance on that.”

“What’s the budget? How many tickets?”

“That’s the problem. Nick says we could get anywhere from fifty to a hundred people. And, of course, the more I charge per plate, the less the youth group makes for their fundraiser.”

“Fundraisers.” Antonio shook his head. “Only for you, Lindsey. Only for you. The kind of dinner we are speaking of, with a bottle of the best Castle Rock red, would be easily one-hundred-fifty a couple.” He held up a hand. “Yes, we would be making good money on that, but we are a business, and we do our job well.”

One fifty? Lindsey felt faint. “The wine won’t be an issue. It’s a church event.”

“But it is a gourmet dinner. Of course there is to be wine.” He glared at her until he seemed to understand. “A raspberry soda, perhaps?”

She nodded. “That sounds good. Is there anything we can do with lamb within the budget? Or do you have another suggestion?”

“You cannot just
get
—” he kissed his fingers “—enough local lamb to feed one hundred people without months of advance notice.”

Yeah, she’d been afraid of that. It had seemed a fair request on Nick’s part, but logistically… not so much.

“Also, it is too expensive for a fundraiser unless you are the Ritz.” He peered at her over his glasses. “And you are not.”

“Right, okay. It was only a question. What do you suggest?”

“Perhaps a roulade.” He tapped his pen. “No. Again with the budget. Cacciatore, then.”

Hmm. It would still be a flight of steps above the spaghetti dinners they’d put on as fundraisers back when she was in youth group. Memories of congealed pasta and bland meatballs drowned in cheap tomato sauce caused a shudder to run through her.

“No?” Antonio eyed her. “I feel sure it is a good move for you. Ingredients we can get that do not cost the moon. The purpose is to please the guests and to make money, yes?”

“Sorry, yes. I think cacciatore can work.” Easier to have her untrained staff help with that than a roulade, for sure. If only Madison hadn’t bailed on her in preference for the drama team. Should’ve been no surprise, but, whatever. “Perhaps we can borrow the pasta maker?”

“Do you have enough sous chefs to pull that off, Lindsey? For you, I would say yes, but I am concerned you bite off too much.”

“But it is to be a local meal...”

Antonio waved a hand. “Indeed. This I understand. It is what we are all about here at the Water Wheel, yes? But there is a line of what is sensible and what is not.”

Lindsey nodded. “I understand.” But there must be a way. She’d promised Nick and, for some reason, the look she was sure to see on his face when she delivered the final banquet meant more to her than it ought to, being as she didn’t care a speck about him. Less than a speck.

“That is good, Lindsey. Write out your plan and leave it on my desk. Your banquet is only five weeks away now, and it is time to place some of the orders so ingredients arrive on time.”

She knew when she’d been dismissed. “Thanks.” She backed out of Antonio’s office and nearly ran into one of the waitresses.

The girl kept her platter from falling by the luckiest of moves.

“Sorry,” murmured Lindsey. She needed to get her head back in the game, both for the remainder of today’s shift and for the upcoming banquet.

“Earth to Lindsey.”

She glanced up at Marc as she approached her workstation. “Hey.”

“Don’t run Beatrix over.” He waggled his eyebrows at her. “Got a hot date with her tonight, and she’ll need her dancing shoes on.”

So… unlikely that Marc was her secret admirer. Not that she’d suspected him. And there really wasn’t anyone else. Other than Nick.

Why again was he singling her out? Was it really possible he’d changed since high school? She couldn’t imagine Pastor Davis and the elders not doing a thorough check on the guy before hiring him to work with their youth. On an intellectual level, she understood he had to be different. But at gut level? Hard to believe when his smile was just as devastating as it had been way back when.

Chapter 5

Madison cautiously turned the car into the church parking lot and eased to a stop. “There! How’d I do?”

Lindsey let out the breath she’d been holding for the past twenty minutes. “Good.” How had she gotten stuck being the designated adult to ride along with a beginning driver? Yeah, Greg sure didn’t have patience for it.

Her sister spilled from the driver’s seat and thrust both fists triumphantly in the air. “Did you see that?”

A group of teens turned from their hacky sack game near the church door. “Dude, Madison! You’re driving?”

Only because there hadn’t been any fresh snow in a few days, and the streets had been cleared. Lindsey climbed out of the passenger side and rounded the back of the vehicle to snag the red magnet with the large L on it, signaling to the otherwise unsuspecting world that a newbie was behind the wheel. A car pulled in beside her and she glanced over. Nick.

Lindsey wrenched her attention back to Madison. “I’ll be back for you at nine-thirty,” she called.
 

Not that her sister heard her. Madison pirouetted across the parking lot to catcalls from the guys.

Nick laughed. “Kids, eh? Were we ever that young?”

Had she really heard those words from Nick Harrison? The guy who’d stomped across every heart in sight when they were teens? She turned slowly to face him.

He was right there, mere inches from her. Tall, dark, too hot for his own good. He always had been.

“Lindsey?” His eyes darkened, and he took a step closer.

She backed up, but there was nowhere to go. She bumped into the car.

“Lindsey, about high school.” His eyes searched hers.

She tried to look away, but his gaze was more magnetic than the L she held in her hand.

“I was a jerk back then. I know that, and I’m sorry.”

Lindsey leaned against the car and crossed her arms. Maybe she could pull off nonchalance. “Yeah, you were.”

Nick grimaced. “I was full of myself. A kid.” He gestured at the teens goofing off on the church steps. “God got a hold of me and changed me from the inside out. I’m a different person than I was then, Lindsey.”

“I’m happy for you.”

“No forgiveness, huh?” he asked softly.

She shrugged. “Sure. You’re forgiven. We’ve all done stupid things.” Nick had been stupider than average, but still. Who was she to hold a grudge?

“So you’ll go out with me?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“But—”

Lindsey forced herself to look him in the eye and not drown. Tougher than it sounded. “Nick, what you’re doing here for the youth is great. I’m committed to doing my share to make the Valentine’s fundraiser a success. But I’m not looking for a relationship. Okay? Can we just leave it at that?”

He shifted, blocking her view of the teens, and swept her hair away from her face. “What can I do or say to make you understand?”

She sidled toward the rear of the car. “You don’t need to do anything.”

“Is there someone else? Madison said…”

“My sister talks entirely too much.”

He chuckled. “Probably true.” The grin slid off his face, and his eyes intensified. “Lindsey, the old Nick Harrison is gone. He’s been saved. Washed in the blood of Jesus.”

“I’m glad for you. I really am.”

Another car pulled into the parking lot, and several teens spilled out then swarmed toward the steps. One glanced over and elbowed his buddy. They both grinned. One sent a thumbs-up.

“I need to go.” Wait. Had he said the exact same thing at the same time as her?

She narrowed her gaze at him. “What we don’t need is a bunch of teenagers getting some crazy idea about why we’re out here talking so long, okay? Especially when they’d be dead wrong.”

He opened her car door and she slid inside, tossing the L into the passenger seat. She turned the ignition as he leaned in.

“But they wouldn’t be.”

She shifted into reverse, knowing full well the car door was still open and Nick was in the way.

“Until later,” he said, and swung it closed.

Lindsey bit her lip and made her escape.

~*~

“Whoa, Pastor Nick! She’s hot!”

“Need advice for your love life, Pastor Nick?”

“Who is she, anyway?”

“You’re kidding. Madison’s sister?”

“You can’t keep secrets from us, Pastor Nick.”

And that’s what he got for trying to talk to Lindsey just before youth group. Like bees swarming him, incessantly buzzing, as he strode toward the church door.

Someone tucked a hand behind his elbow, and he glanced down to see Madison beaming up at him. “Don’t worry, Pastor Nick. We’re on your side.”

They climbed the steps. He patted her hand, removed it, and managed to get a teen or two between them. That’s what he was afraid of. This gang of teenagers, committed to a cause, could do way more than set a third-world country on fire in an upcoming missions trip. Being the center of their attention could be terrifying.

Nick stifled a groan as they entered the youth room en masse. The whole place was covered with heart, dove, and flower decorations. How was he going to teach the teens about romance and purity God’s way with all this speculation going on around him? He’d just become a personalized object lesson.

God, this one is up to You.

“So, Pastor Nick, she doesn’t seem as into you as, you know, you are into her.”

Could this get more humiliating?

“I could give you some advice,” Aidan said, arm wrapped around his girlfriend of three weeks.

Apparently, yes, it could get more humiliating.

“Yeah, we can totally help you.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” Nick forced out a chuckle. “I don’t need any help here.” Except perhaps God’s. “You want to talk about love? Hit the carpet. Let’s talk.” He’d planned for an icebreaker game to lead into the devotional but, hey. The ice was broken. He could adjust.

“There’s a few things to learn here.” He eyed Aidan as the gang settled onto the carpet. “No PDA, remember?”

Aidan rolled his eyes and shifted a few inches from his girlfriend.

“I want to talk to you guys about God’s love for us. It’s constant, whether we respond or not. How come we don’t always accept it? What reasons might you have for not wanting a boyfriend or girlfriend right now? Do any of those reasons relate to God?”

The kids looked at each other.

“We don’t think we need it?” one girl offered.

“Yeah, maybe it’s cool to be single. You know, independent.”

“Sometimes being part of a couple means you’re not as much yourself.”

“Maybe we think the other person is too cool to really like us, so we’re afraid they’re only pretending.”

“Yeah, who wants to get hurt? Or feel used.”

Nick nodded. “Those all sound valid. But what about God? Can we trust His motives for loving us?”

Groupthink happened again as the kids exchanged looks. Nick could all but see their antennae swivel as they communicated telepathically.