The Trouble With Angels Page 0,22

the crazy part. She assured me I hadn't done anything."

"But why did she break up with you?"

"That's what I insisted upon knowing. It was her answer that turned my life around. She looked at me with those big, beautiful eyes of hers and said she realized after our talk that she wasn't going to have a part in my future.

"I wanted to argue with her right then and there, wondering where she'd ever come up with anything so stupid, but she wouldn't let me. She was close to crying by then, so she asked that I let her finish. She said she realized when I told her about the job in Seattle that I had no intention of including her in the rest of my life."

"Did you?" It sounded to Paul as if his future daughter-in-law might be guilty of a little manipulation. He wondered if his son realized this.

"That's just it. Of course I did. I naturally assumed that Annie would be there with me. I can't imagine what my life would be like without Annie. She's a part of me now. That's why I took it so hard when she severed the relationship."

What Paul noticed, and what hurt more than he dared show, was that not once during this painful time had Joe sought him out for his advice. Not once had his son contacted him to talk about this special young woman he loved.

Paul didn't think his son was looking for him to comment, and if he had been, Paul wasn't sure what he would have said. He might have said something wholesome about the benefits of love, something he could have used in a sermon one day. Fortunately he was saved from having to say anything. The phone rang.

"Who'd be calling this time of night?" Joe asked.

Paul didn't wonder anymore. Calls this late almost always meant unwelcome news. He walked into his small office and reached for the receiver, not wanting to disturb Annie, whom he presumed was sleeping.

"Hello."

"Reverend Morris?" Bernard Bartelli's voice trembled from the other end of the line. "I'm sorry to wake you."

"I was up, don't worry about it, Bernard. Now tell me what's happened." A part of Paul prayed that Madge had been released from her physical agony, yet he understood better than some how devastating that would be to those she'd left behind.

"It's Madge," Bernard said, struggling to keep his voice even. "She felt so much better after your visit and was up and walking around. Then she fell. I'm at the hospital. The doctor thinks she might have broken her hip."

Paul closed his eyes in pain and frustration. "I'm so sorry."

"Why would this happen to Madge?" Bernard demanded. "Why would God ask her to suffer more? Hasn't she already suffered enough?"

"I assure you, Mr. Nichols, I didn't leave a message on your answering machine," Maureen said, and drew in a shaky breath, determined to settle this matter once and for all. "But I did intend to contact you." It just so happened that her mother had beaten her to the punch.

Her words were met with a brief silence. "In other words, you didn't call me, but you planned on doing so."

"That's right."

"Then who left the message?"

"Actually, I'm fairly certain it was my mother," she said. "But since I've got you on the line, I'd like to ask you about riding lessons for my daughter."

Thom Nichols rattled off the details as if he'd given them out a hundred times that same afternoon and could recite them backward if asked. Maureen wrote down the pertinent information.

"My daughter's twelve," she said.

"I have a twelve-year-old myself," came Thom's companionable reply. "They can be quite a handful, can't they?"

"Oh, yes."

Thom told her about a recent incident with his daughter and Maureen found herself doodling, drawing a series of looped circles. She'd recently read an article that claimed there was some deep sexual meaning in doodles. Frankly, she had never been one to talk on the phone and draw silly, nonsensical symbols. All at once it was as if she were another Georgia O'Keeffe. She didn't know if it was the man or the sorry state of her sex life.

Thom Nichols was the friendly sort, she noted, and he liked to talk. Maureen found herself smiling once or twice, and before she realized what she was doing, she'd agreed to drive out to Nichols's Riding Stables the following day and meet Thom and his daughter.

If everything met with Maureen's approval, she'd sign Karen up for