The Prince Charming List (8 page)

A few minutes later, Jared ran back over to me, rumpled and out of breath. And adorable. I scooted over and made room for him on the bench.

“What would you suggest for the sculpture?” I was curious. And a little uneasy. Bernice was vice president of the Prichett Advancement Council and she’d hinted they didn’t exactly
embrace
change. In fact, she mentioned something about them fighting it, and I quote,
tooth and nail.
Jared was going to be in Prichett all summer and I didn’t want him to make a bad impression in the first week.

Because they might fire him, right, Heather? And then he’d have to leave town.

To my amazement, Jared pulled his wallet out of his back pocket and thumbed through the contents until he found a piece of paper. “Something like this.”

I studied the pencil sketch and resisted the urge to flip it around the other way. Just in case it was upside down. The three twisted spirals didn’t look like anything that occurred in nature.

“What do you think?”

I think I felt the same way my mother felt when I’d bless her with one of my preschool art projects. In a burst of inspiration, I remembered her response.

“Tell me about it!”

I exhaled quietly when he smiled instead of dumping the rest of his milk shake over my head and stomping off to sulk the rest of the night away on his twenty-foot couch. I wasn’t sure why Marissa had described him as temperamental.

“It’s the land that gives back to the people who live here,” Jared said, tapping his finger against the paper. “This is
the land.
”

It looked like a handful of corkscrew pasta to me. But what did I know? When my friends and I played Pictionary, I was the designated timekeeper because no one trusted me with a pen and paper. I drew a coat hanger once and everyone thought it was a swan.

“I’m not sure if they’ll change their minds,” I murmured, hoping he wouldn’t be too disappointed when his dreams were crushed under Junebug’s cloven hoof. “Why don’t you run it by Marissa, first?”

“She says she isn’t on the committee.” Jared put the paper carefully back in his wallet and then slapped a mosquito on the back of his hand. “Looks like they found us again. We must give off tourist pheromones.”

I realized we were alone. While I was studying Jared’s sketch, our pint-size chaperones had raced home to beat their Friday night curfew. Crazy as it sounded, I wished I had one again. It would have given me the perfect excuse to avoid the subject I knew was about to resurface. All twenty feet of it.

This is no big deal. You watch a movie for a few hours. You go home. You’re twenty-one years old. You don’t need a chaperone.

This came from the rational, logical side of me. At least it sounded rational and logical. But if Jared didn’t think I wanted to spend time with him, he’d find someone else to claim my spot on his shiny green couch. What made me nervous wasn’t the
going
to Jared’s house, but how much I
wanted
to. But I didn’t want to get into a potentially uncomfortable situation, either.

“Do you want to come back—”

Jared’s words were snuffed out by the soft but unmistakable sound of church bells down the street. I tilted my head back and saw a star winking at me, right above the trees. Reminding me that logical doesn’t always equal smart.

So not funny, Lord.

“I think I’ll go home—I have to work tomorrow morning.” I held my breath right after I said the words. Here was Jared’s next line:
No problem. When can I see you again?

“Sure. If that’s what you want.”

I sighed. Why didn’t guys memorize the script?

“H
eather, have you met Dex?” Annie’s muffled words greeted me when I stepped into her kitchen on Sunday after church. She was cuddling a pink blanket—Joanna Ruth—and Dex was standing beside her, holding a blue-wrapped bundle—Nathaniel.

“We’ve met. Alex hired him to fix up the apartment this summer.” I was going to start repeating this in my sleep.

“Stephen invited him to have lunch with us, too.” Annie eased Joanna into my arms and ignored the desperate look Dex cast in her direction. “I’ll get you two some lemonade. Why don’t you meet me in the backyard? Stephen is already out there messing with the coals.”

“Hand him over,” I sighed as soon as Annie disappeared. “You’re holding him like he’s a football and you’re about to fumble him.”

I didn’t have to ask him twice. Dex tucked him into the crook of my arm and beat a hasty retreat. At least he had the presence of mind to pause long enough to hold the screen door open for me.

“Hi, Heather.” Stephen waved a basting brush at me.

The entire backyard of the Carpenters’ duplex was the size of the sunroom in the house I grew up in. I wondered where they were going to put a swing set and sandbox when the twins got older. Both Mom and Dad served on a lot of committees at church, so I knew pastors didn’t make much money—especially in towns the size of Prichett. That Faith Community could even afford a full-time youth pastor told me a lot about their priorities. They were definitely in the right place.

I sat down gingerly on the edge of a lawn chair, shifting Joanna and Nathaniel into a more comfortable position in my arms. Joanna smiled at me but Nathaniel was as serious as a professor. He reminded me a little of Dex.

“They’re quite an armful, aren’t they?” The screen door slapped against the frame as Annie came out of the house, carrying a tray of picnic supplies.

“Flex for them, sweetheart,” Stephen teased. “Show them the bulging biceps you’re getting without an annual gym fee.”

Annie looked at him in mock disgust. “Next thing you know, he’ll be hiring me out to chop wood at Lester’s place.”

Stephen pretended to consider it and Annie pitched a plastic spoon at him. Then she turned to Dex and me. “Why don’t you guys figure out this ice-cream maker while I put Jo and Nate down for their nap?”

Dex hadn’t said two words to me and I was still trying to decide if he was stuck-up or just shy. He must have come right to the Carpenters’ from church, because he was wearing wrinkle-free khakis (I can always pick out a polyester cotton blend from the real thing) and a junior executive white shirt with the cuffs buttoned at the wrist.

“We can figure this out, right, Dex?” I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt and went with
shy
. If necessary, I could talk enough for both of us. “There has to be directions in the box somewhere.”

Stephen coughed lightly and I looked up.

“Don’t count on it,” he whispered with an anxious glance toward the house.

I blinked. “No directions?”

“Annie puts all the directions and warranties for stuff in a box. Which happens to be underneath the Christmas ornaments, which happens to be in the basement behind the hot water heater. You’ll just have to wing it.”

I slid the box toward Dex. “Winging it? Here you go, Dex. That’s definitely your department.”

For a second I thought I’d offended him. He stared down at the ice-cream maker and his glasses slid down to the end of his nose. When he lifted it out of the box, his hands were shaking.

“Dex—”

He laughed, so suddenly and freely that it collided with the apology I was about to make and blew it into pieces. Then he muttered something that sounded like
distractions
.

“An ice-cream maker is a distraction?”

Dex ignored me as he dove headfirst into the box and then began lobbing pieces of the ice-cream maker at me. “Green is a distraction,” he muttered. “Gold is a distraction.”

Was he talking about the Green Bay Packers? Because that was the only green and gold distraction I knew about. Or maybe he was trying to figure out how to get to the next level. If that was the case, he needed someone to lead him back to the real world.

“It’s a good thing we’re making vanilla ice cream then,” I said as gently as possible. “Because vanilla is
white
. Very harmless.”

“The chicken is ready,” Stephen called.

I sent a silent thank-you to God for the distraction.

“This is delicious!” Annie scooped up another helping of ice cream and dumped a handful of chocolate chips on top. Since imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, I sprinkled some on mine, too. “We got this last year for our anniversary and never used it because we were busy packing up to move to Prichett.”

“Two weeks from now it will be five years,” Stephen said.

“Are you planning anything special?” I tried not to look at Dex, who was stirring his ice cream into something that resembled the cooked cereal Mom had force-fed me as a child.

Annie laughed and wove her fingers into Stephen’s. “Not yet. I can only plan things several hours in advance. I think the twins borrowed some of my brain cells when they were born.”

“If I could convince her to let us hire a sitter for the evening, I’d take her out for a nice dinner. Something expensive. Something
hot
.” Stephen gave her The Smile. The one reserved for couples who are truly soul mates. The one that makes girls with no significant other—like me—sigh with envy.

“
Hot?
Remind me again what hot food tastes like.” Annie closed her eyes.

“You’ve got a whole youth group full of teenage girls,” I pointed out. “I’m sure they’d love to babysit.”

“And they’re great,” Annie said quickly. “It’s just that the twins are only three months old—”

“But they go to bed at seven,” Stephen murmured.

“And that’s a lot of responsibility for someone.”

“I’ll do it.” The words slipped out before I could completely think the offer through. Annie and Stephen gave so much of themselves to the youth group, they deserved to have some time away. It would be my gift to them to watch the twins so they could go out on their anniversary and eat hot food.

Annie squeaked and almost tipped the bowl of ice cream off my lap when she hugged me. Dex stopped stirring and stared at me in disbelief.

“You told me that you never babysat.”

Annie and Stephen exchanged a worried glance. How dare Dex question my gift? And my credentials.

“I can change diapers and warm up bottles.” And I’m sure there was a
Twins for Dummies
book out there somewhere if I needed a quick reference guide. I gave Dex a look guaranteed to refreeze his ice cream and then smiled at Annie. “We’ll be fine. You just name the time and I’ll be here.”

The concern in Annie’s eyes faded and she nodded happily. Stephen sent me a grateful look that inspired me to do another good deed.

“If you want me to, I can even come over a few minutes early and fix your hair.”

Annie pursed her lips and blew a strand of sunset-red hair off her forehead. “That sounds almost as good as hot food.”

“Great.” I resisted the urge to cross my arms and give Dex a
so there
smile. Not that he would have noticed. He’d tuned out again and was stacking dishes on the tray as efficiently as a busboy.

“We’ve got a lot of leftovers,” Annie said. “You guys should take some potato salad home.”

That got Dex’s attention. His eyes locked on the mountain of potato salad in the bowl on the center of the picnic table. Annie had told us she’d never learned to cook, so every month she picked out something new to try and practiced until she got it right. She’d confessed this potato salad was only her second attempt. Somehow the salad dressing had morphed into a gluelike substance that bonded the potatoes, celery and onion together like a chunk of concrete. I’d seen Stephen discreetly cutting it into bite-size pieces with his knife.

Annie handed Dex a small plastic container with a lid. My heart rate kicked into high gear when I saw him hesitate.

Dex, read your script. Don’t you dare hurt Annie’s feelings. Repeat after me: I’d love to take some home.

“Do you have a bigger container?” Dex asked her.

Not bothering to hide her delight, Annie covered the entire bowl with a piece of foil and presented it to him with as much ceremony as a queen would bestow knighthood on a loyal subject.

I dub thee Sir Dex of the First Order of Leftover Potato Salad.

I watched him blush and tried not to laugh.

“Heather doesn’t have any,” Stephen said.

I’d been hoping no one would notice.

“Maybe they can share it.” Annie smiled her megawatt smile.

Her comment triggered some kind of convulsive twitch in Dex, because he dropped the bowl and the potato salad ended up all over the grass at his feet.

Or maybe he’d planned it that way. As far as I was concerned, if a guy was willing to snoop in someone’s Bible, he was capable of just about anything.

Dex left as soon as he finished directing the potato salad into Annie’s marigolds with the garden hose. Annie didn’t want to send him away empty-handed, so she made him take the rest of the ice cream home. Oddly enough, he hugged Annie goodbye, shook Stephen’s hand…and wouldn’t look me in the eye. Go figure. Maybe it was delayed guilt over the faucet.

The twins were still sleeping and I decided it was time for me to leave, too, so Annie and Stephen could have some time alone before Joanna and Nathaniel woke up for round two.

I’d ignored the cell phone chirping in my purse during lunch so I checked my voice mail as soon as I got into the car. There was a message from Bree, asking if I’d like to come out to the farm and go riding with her. I didn’t bother calling her back—I answered in person when I showed up at the front door an hour later.

Elise sent me out to the barn, where Bree was already saddling up Buckshot.

“I wasn’t sure you’d make it,” she said, and tossed a brush at me. “I caught Rose for you, just in case.”

“I didn’t get your message right away because there was an incident with Dex and a bowl of Annie’s potato salad.” I slid open the door to Rose’s stall and peeked in. She was peeking back at me.

“Dex was at Annie’s, too?”

“Apparently Pastor Charles and Jeanne were in charge of an afternoon service at the Golden Oaks today, so Annie invited Dex over.”

Bree had a strange expression on her face so obviously I needed to explain the situation more clearly. “He’s new in town and probably doesn’t know many people.”

“Mmm. Just like you.”

I wasn’t quite sure where she was going with this. “I guess so.” I had a flash of inspiration. “Maybe they’ll invite Jared over sometime. He’s new in town, too.”

“Did he call you last night?”

I’d told Bree all about Friday night when I’d called her during my lunch break the day before. CNN newsbreaks couldn’t compete with the crucial information friends needed to share during the beginning of a relationship. Or a
non
relationship. “No. But his motorcycle was gone all day so maybe he was out at Lester’s farm, dipping Junebug in bronze.”

While I was talking, Bree saddled up both our horses. I couldn’t spread cream cheese on a bagel that fast.

“But you’re worried he didn’t call because you didn’t go back to his place.”

Was I that transparent? But this was Bree, so the moment called for honesty. “I don’t want to think he’s—”

“A player? Shallow? Looking for some fun in the sun?” She tossed Rose’s reins to me and walked Buckshot out of the barn.

“Bree!” I guess her moment called for honesty, too. I followed her into the yard, Rose kicking up dust behind me. She actually stood still for me this time when I vaulted myself into the saddle.

“I hate to say this, but if turning down that invitation is enough for him to lose interest, then
you
don’t want to be interested.”

“You’re right.” Depressingly right.

“I wondered about Riley last summer when he started hanging around. Mom freaked out because he’s older than me and she was worried he was going to mess up my plans for college, but I was worried I was just a challenge.”

“Aren’t you?”

She grinned. “Sure. But that’s not the point. It’s kind of confusing, don’t you think? There’s one theory that says we should go out with a lot of guys and eventually we’ll pick the right one, and then there’s another theory that says it’s better to look for friendship and hope at some point it develops into something more.”

“But you have an idea what you’re looking for.” Did Bree have a list, too? Probably not. She was way too practical and independent…

“You have a list, don’t you?”

“A list?” I decided to play dumb.

“You know, the Prince Charming list. The Mr. Right list.” Bree wasn’t fooled for a second.