Where did the sudden hot/cold attitude come from?
Chapter Five
He was an absolute and utter failure. Michelle reached out to him yesterday in the barn and asked for truth. He’d tried, but part of him resisted enough that he’d been forced to shut her out.
She worried about whether she was a good person, and he’d wanted nothing more than to reassure her. She was a good person. Even though she’d left him for a job and never looked back, that didn’t make her bad or wrong. They had been two different people on different paths.
The need to comfort her even after all the pain she’d inflicted on him when she left locked his muscles even now as he climbed from the truck and approached the church’s white doors. They stood open, the pastor in front of the right-side door with his Bible in his hands and a warm smile on his face.
“Lord have mercy, is that Michelle?” An elderly woman with spiked gray hair and glasses thick enough to resemble coke bottles squinted toward the parking lot. She elbowed Pastor Thomas. “Guess we’d best go say hello.”
The hair on the back of his neck rose.
Footsteps shuffled around him, a whole group of older women making a line on the steps and marching down. He didn’t doubt their good intentions, but the protective instinct he’d always possessed reared up and spun him around. He followed the woman across the asphalt and over to Michelle’s rental car.
She stared out the driver’s side window with panic on brilliant display.
“Mercy, child. It’s been so long since we’ve seen you.” Mrs. Porter grinned and leaned toward the window. “Come on out here and say hello. We won’t bite.”
Sarah said something to Michelle, who gulped and nodded. The panicked expression eased, and a false smile appeared. She opened the door. “Good morning.”
“Look at that. Right back from the city like she never left.” Mrs. Dinkins motioned toward Michelle. “It’s good to see you. How have you been? Things going well in the city?”
“Never better.” She spoke quickly, her tense posture not dissuading the women at all.
Mrs. Green smacked the back of her hand against Mrs. Dinkins’s arm. “Elinore, you know good and well she didn’t come back here to talk about life over there. No one from the city wants to talk about all that. I bet you came back because you realized how much you missed it here.” She sniffed and raised her chin with a swell of pride puffing out her chest. “Well, didn’t you?”
“Excuse me.” He cut through the throng of women like Moses parting the Red Sea. “Glad you both made it.”
Giggles and hushed whispers sounded at his back. He ignored them and focused on getting Michelle through to the front steps where she’d find some peace and quiet.
“Sorry about them.” Sarah flapped a hand in the other women’s direction. “They’re mostly harmless. Curious is all.”
“They don’t know about my amnesia?”
“We heard.” Mrs. Dinkins rushed to catch up, her short heels clacking madly. “You poor thing. It must be devastating. But surely you remember now. You can’t have forgotten all this.” She flourished her arms at the town sprawled out on the other side of the street and several blocks in either direction.
“Amnesia isn’t the friendliest infliction.” Mrs. Porter trotted beside Sarah. “Why I heard about a man who lost his memory, and it drove him plumb crazy. He ended up smacking his head so hard he jostled those memories right back in place.”
“I won’t be hitting myself in the head, but thanks for the tip.” Michelle’s face paled with every forward step. By the time they reached the church and Pastor Thomas, she trembled and gasped tiny puffs of air. “Is he going to tell me that all I need to do is pray and have faith and God will make it all right?”
“I doubt it. He might offer to pray for you, but not with that intention in mind.” He dropped his hands to his sides, unclenching his fists and flexing his fingers. “I’ve been praying for you. And so has Sarah.”
Her breathing steadied, the panicked edge falling away. She climbed the steps alongside him and paused to shake Pastor Thomas’s hand.
He greeted her with a warm smile and encouraged her with a wave toward the open doors. “It’s good to have you here.”
Chase waited until they’d crossed the foyer with its echoing ceiling and were seated in the pew he’d occupied for ten years. Michelle didn’t press for him to speak. She never had. It was one of the many things he’d loved about her.
“Michelle, dear. Lovely to see you.” Mrs. Perkins stopped at the end of the pew and held out a hand. “You remember me, don’t you? I used to teach your Sunday School class.”
“It’s good to see you again.” She accepted the offered hand, all while staring at Chase. Mrs. Perkins ambled off, and Michelleslumped into the padded seat. “They all think I can snap my fingers and make myself remember them.” She snapped her fingers in her own face. “Trust me, I’ve tried.”
His gaze panned the church. “Do you want me to tell you?”
“It won’t do any good.” She smoothed her flowered skirt over her knees and tucked it beneath her thighs. “I’m terrible with names. I think I always have been, because when I went back to work that one day, I found stacks of sticky notes with names and descriptions on them, like I’d been trying to remind myself how to keep people straight.” She puckered her face into a sour expression. “Mr. Wilson has a goatee and talks like he’s eaten a bushel of lemons. Seriously? I couldn’t have told myself something better than that?”
“Did it help you recognize him?”
