Next Door Daddy (9 page)

L
acy caught sight of Polly just as she was being directed toward her class, and hurried over to give her a quick hug of welcome before dashing to her own class—the couples class, as in married couples. As it turned out, Lacy and Clint taught the young couples class. Pastor Allen taught the senior couples, leaving only one other adult class for Polly. The singles class.

She took a shuddering breath. She had to get over this. For a person who'd been used to attending a couples class for years with her husband, walking into a singles class that was populated—at least two-thirds of the way with eager-faced cowboys—still unsettled her as much today as it did the first time she'd tried do it. It didn't matter that it had been two years.

But the reality was that she was a single. And there was nothing she could do that would change the fact this second.

Sitting out on her upper balcony last night, she'd watched the night sky and prayed. She'd claimed the Lord's promise—fear not, for I am with you always. She knew it was true, she just had to keep focusing on that. She'd prayed that she could overcome this stumbling block. She'd awakened with the hope that today attending church would be different for her. That today something in her life was going to change…She sighed. But, what had began that morning as a step forward for Polly had disintegrated before even stepping out of Nate's truck. Standing at the edge of the doorway of the class, hidden from the occupants' view, she felt just as much like a misfit as she always did as she listened to the joking and kidding going on inside. Lighthearted. The way singles were supposed to feel.

A wave of wistful longing rolled over Polly and she closed her eyes against the onslaught. She would never know that feeling again. Would she?

“Don't be shy, young lady,” Stanley Orr said, stopping to smile jovially at her. “Nobody in thar is gonna bite you,” he boomed loud enough for everyone in the building to hear him. Polly knew everyone in the classroom had heard his words, there was no way for them not to.

With no easy way to avoid the inevitable, like disappearing into thin air, Polly nodded and did as she was told, stepping around the corner.

All eyes were on the doorway waiting on her to appear. Yep, they'd heard Stanley, all right.

A rakish-looking cowboy in the front row patted the seat beside him. “Speak for yourself, Stanley,” he drawled, causing laughter to ripple through the room. “I'm sorta partial to shy ladies.”

She wanted to crawl under a rug but there wasn't one.

“Don't mind them,” Ashby Templeton said from the second row. She was the epitome of stylishness, from the jaw length cut of her hair to her expensive dress. Polly had been introduced to her early on but hadn't been around her since. “Please sit by me. Dan—” she lifted a perfect brow at the smiling cowboy “—is a nice-enough guy, but he doesn't need any more encouragement.”

Polly chose the seat beside Ashby. Dan the cowboy looked over his shoulder and made a charming face as he held out his hand. “Dan Dawson, darlin', and really, I don't bite.”

Polly slipped her hand in his. “Polly McDonald, Mr. Dawson.”

He frowned, his eyes dancing with playful teasing. “Please, call me Dan, or wound me for life.”

She took her hand back. His charming antics made her smile, even as they made her uncomfortable. “Dan,” she said. “I couldn't possibly be responsible for wounding you for life.” There, she'd managed a semblance, though a horrible one, of flirting.

He gave a crooked Dean Martin smile and clasped a hand over his heart once again, sending the room into chuckles. It was a classic overused move but it worked for this cowboy. Polly glanced at Ashby who shook her head and looked less than impressed.

“Lost cause,” she whispered, leaning close to Polly's ear. “Mr. Good Times Cowboy is the guy to steer clear of.”

Polly saw the flash of playful challenge in Dan's gaze as it settled on Ashby. “Now, don't get jealous, Ash, you had your chance at this cowboy. And, sugar, you passed it up. Remember?”

Ashby crossed her arms stiffly. “Several times, I might add.”

There were sparks bouncing off these two like flint and steel. Polly looked around to see if she were the only one seeing them. She wasn't. Every eye in the room was on Ashby and Dan. It seemed something was brewing there. She immediately wondered if Norma Sue and her buddies had gotten a whiff of this or had instigated it. She was beginning to view everything as suspect.

Sheriff Brady came to the rescue. He strode into the room and took the seat at the front of the class, drawing all eyes. Dan shifted his gaze from Ashby to Polly, winking before giving his attention to Brady.

The lawman was the Sunday-school teacher.

She didn't know why that struck her as cute, but it did. She wondered if when he caught someone speeding, he sentenced them to attend Sunday school. Or maybe he sentenced them to sit in the front row.
That
might explain what Dan Dawson was doing here.

Brady welcomed her to the class and then invited everyone to introduce themselves. There were six single women. Two of them schoolteachers, three of them worked at the candy store, which she assumed meant they lived at the women's shelter, No Place Like Home, since the candy store was an extension of the women's shelter. Then there were ten single cowboys, and as they each introduced themselves she wondered if there was anywhere else in all of Texas where more charming single men could possibly be in one room. Mule Hollow was indeed a treasure for single women looking for good men.

She wished them all the best. She just didn't fit as one of them.

Still, she'd come to church with an open mind and hope in her heart of hearts that here she could learn to fit in. But, despite the warm welcome, the charming smiles, the teasing flirtations and her single status, nothing had changed but her zip code. She didn't belong in the singles class. At least not in her heart.

The knowledge sank over her like a sheet fluttering over furniture that had been put into storage. Furniture whose season had come and gone…She tried to fight off the feeling, but it was of no use. She made it through the hour, amid friends, listened to a very well-prepared lesson on the body of Christ, and how each person played an important role in the church…but she couldn't rid herself of feeling out of place.

What part did she play?

Despite her appearance as that of a single woman, she wasn't. She'd been a working, functioning part of a successful loving team…just as the lesson taught that each member of the church worked to make up the body of Christ. She and Marc had been united as one. And though Marc wasn't by her side, visible to everyone else, he remained in her heart. To be blunt, he still completed her.

Frustrations escalated and she spent the end of the class praying for the Lord to help bring her emotions back under wraps.

She knew now, no matter how it looked to the world, she did not and never would belong in a room of carefree singles looking for that someone special to share their life with.

She'd been there, done that. Happily. And there was no going back.

And so it remained, that though she was in a room full of friendly faces, church—and Sunday school especially—was the loneliest place of all.

 

Gil had gone home for the afternoon with Max, and Nate noticed immediately on the trip home from church that Pollyanna was preoccupied. He'd slunk back to church after the Sunday-school hour and waited by the front door of the sanctuary for her and Gil. She'd looked upset when she'd spotted him, and he wondered if he'd upset her by not sticking around for the early hour of church. He'd tried, he really had…but the minute he'd pulled into that parking lot, he'd known he couldn't do it. If she wanted to be upset with him, then so be it.

He'd stopped caring what everyone thought about him the day Kayla died. He sounded like a broken record. But, walking into the church was hard enough, much less walking into a stinking class for singles. A couples class was no easier. He'd known it, but Gil had wanted him to go with him so he'd tried.

It hadn't worked.

And now Pollyanna was mad at him. She sat watching the pastures pass by outside her window, ignoring him. He didn't blame her. He deserved to be shut out after running off like he had.

“I don't know about you,” she said suddenly. “But I need a good long bike ride.”

“Excuse me?”

“I said I need a good long bike ride. I need something to cure this, this discontent that keeps overcoming me.”

Confused, he glanced at her. She wasn't mad at him?

She waved a hand, the motion full of frustration. “I need the endorphins the exercise will set off. I just need a bike ride.” She tapped her foot impatiently, growing more agitated by the second. Maybe her attitude had nothing to do with him.

“It's a good day for a bike ride,” he offered. He rode his horse when he was upset, so maybe Pollyanna's bike did the same for her. Maybe he needed a bike ride, too.

She looked at him flatly, and he realized suddenly he should have been asking the obvious, giving her an opportunity to open up. “Is there something wrong?”

“No,” she snapped. “Why should there be something wrong? We just got out of church. We're supposed to feel
happy,
” she ground out, her foot tapping quicker. He'd never seen her this way.

He turned into her driveway and headed slowly up the lane. Bogie hopped from the front porch and came barreling toward them. Nate had to slow done to make certain he didn't run over the pup. When he had the truck securely parked, he lay an arm over the back of the seat and stared at Pollyanna. She'd made no move to exit the cab. Instead she stared out the windshield frowning.

“Look,” he said. “I've only known you for a few weeks, but I'm pretty sure I'm reading the signals right. Something is bugging you. Do you want to talk about it?”

“No,” she said flatly.

“Okay—” he started to say, but she cut him off, jumping out of the truck and slamming the door.

What was wrong with her? Nate couldn't leave her like this. He followed her up the flagstone walk. She'd stopped beside the planters of not yet blooming tulips. “Pollyanna, obviously something is bothering you. Talk to me. You've talked to me before.”

Her back was to him, her shoulders slumped as she reached out and gently touched the tips of the spikes. “I
hate
being here.”

That shocked him. “You hate Mule Hollow?”

Her head slashed around and she cut her eyes at him. “No. I hate being a widow.” She swung away, her body rigid. “I
detest
everything being a widow does to me. I loathe walking into a singles class. I hate having to look to the future without Marc and I despise having cute cowboys flirt with me.” She held up a hand to silence him when he started to speak. “And believe me, I know how silly that sounds. But it's the truth.”

Well, I'll be.
Nate pushed his Stetson back and rubbed his temple. “Actually, it doesn't sound silly at all.”

That brought her around to face him. She lifted her chin, giving him her full attention.

He shifted from one boot to the other and tucked his hand into his back pocket. “I didn't have cows to look at this morning. I hate going to Sunday-school class, too. It's hard enough to walk into the main sanctuary. But to walk into a more intimate setting like the couples class—which they've invited me to continue to be a member of, still that didn't help—I just can't do it. Not without Kayla at my side. The only thing worse would be to go to a
singles
class. I can't bring myself to look at myself as single. And like you, it's also not that I can't do it, but that I don't want to.” His voice was almost a whisper as he finished. Even saying he was single felt wrong. Polly was watching him so intently and he lifted a shoulder. “I wanted to be Kayla's husband until I was old, fat and had a bald spot. I was supposed be a father by now. I wasn't supposed to have female veterinarians chasing me or matchmakers scheming to find me a soul mate. I already have one. So you see, Pollyanna, I don't think anything you've said is silly.” That was the longest, most honest conversation he'd had since Kayla died.

He and Pollyanna stared at each other for a long moment, both lost in the past as the feeling of discontent pulsed between them.

Literally deflating before his eyes, Pollyanna sank to the step, her hand resting on the edge of the planter, her eyes pained.

“I'm so ashamed,” she whispered, then, lifting her chin, she looked up at him with such sorrow.

Nate sat down on the step beside her, and fought the desire to put his arm across her shoulders and comfort her.

She inhaled a shaky breath. “I believe God's word is the truth. I believe Marc is in Heaven. I know that. I was there when he gave his life to the Lord, and I know…I know because of our profession of faith that I am going to see him again. And—” she splayed her hands on her lap and studied them “—and for that I am eternally grateful and happy.” Her eyes flashed. “And I am. And most days I move forward…but sometimes I miss him
soooo
much. And it overshadows my joy that he is in Heaven.” She paused, her breath ragged.