Page 60 of To Bring You Back
“Can you take over?” She stepped from the pitcher and went back to keeping the dog company. Maybe she ought to stay in for the rest of the night for his sake. How would he fare tomorrow if the guys had to come back to finish the footings while she was working?
Drew poured water into the pitcher. “Does it worry you that they keep taking pictures of us?”
There’d been no mention or pictures of Drew in the article she’d seen, so she shook her head. “Does it worry you?”
“It’s definitely an escalation from what I’m used to, but any pastor has to put up with scrutiny.” He turned off the faucet and took a spoon from the jar next to the oven. “I dated a woman at the church where I youth pastored before coming here. Someone told her she was a bad example because she wore skinny jeans, someone else insisted we needed to bring a chaperone on our dates, and a lot of people thought she should do as much with the youth as I did, but she had her own full-time job.”
“I hope you defended her.”
“I did, but expectations have a way of stomping out flames. It takes a certain type to date a pastor, someone with thick skin and the kind of relationship with God that lends peace and discretion in the midst of varying opinions.”
Peace? All that to date a pastor. She looked into poor Bruce’s brown eyes. She’d felt happy and excited yesterday before beginning the journey home, but since then, she’d been on a rollercoaster. She feared it would take a lot more to date a rock star, and she might not have it.
The paparazzi turnedtheir cameras on the car as soon as Gannon opened his door, but he and John continued. They’d come prepared for the attention—autographed T-shirts for the teens at the worksite and two guards to keep the photographers at a respectable distance. For all they’d see, this was nothing more than a community service project.
Behind closed doors would be another story, if Gannon could help it.
Adeline had interrupted when he’d tried to tell her he did consider her problems his own. He wasn’t sure what had prompted her change in tone, but the only way to undo it would be an in-person conversation.
First, he’d pitch in with the porch. If he’d already worked for her an hour or two before he tried a conversation, guilt—if nothing else—would earn him an audience. Besides, if he went inside now, they’d have two minutes, tops, before the teens came in to seek him out.
When he and John stepped into the yard, the porch was already gone. The old columns had been replaced by makeshift supports to keep the porch roof aloft as it waited for the new structure. The adults were in various stages of digging holes for footings with an auger and hole diggers. The youth group kids bagged brush in large paper sacks.
No Adeline.
That would make this next part, focusing on the crowd, less a test of his patience than if she hung in the background the whole time, in sight but out of reach.
One of the boys spotted them and nudged the kid next to him. A girl squawked and jumped, tugging her friend forward and beginning the onslaught.
After twenty minutes of handing out T-shirts, posing for selfies, and giving the local paper a statement, he and John secured the job of mixing and pouring the concrete.
High schoolers rushed to assist them. They’d finished their first batch when the pastor came from behind the house. Had he been with Adeline this whole time?
Gannon tipped the wheelbarrow of concrete, and John used a shovel to guide the slop into the cylindrical form. Meanwhile, the boys who’d helped mix the ingredients waited for them to bring back the wheelbarrow for the next load.
Drew stopped by his students. “How long have you guys been standing here?”
“We’re helping mix concrete, right, Gannon?”
He’d lost track of how many times the kids had ended sentences that way.
The boy wore a proud smile, but if he wanted to impress the pastor, he’d failed.
Drew’s head swung toward where Gannon stood with the wheelbarrow. He seemed to study him, the tattoos exposed by the tank he wore, and maybe the quality of work he was doing. After a few seconds, he gave a slight, unenthusiastic smile and walked over to talk with the project leader, Chip.
“Drew?” John timed the question to coincide with the noise of his shovel grating against the wet concrete. When Gannon nodded, John smirked. “Probably wants to know who does your ink.”
Gannon chuckled, but when he looked a few minutes later and found Drew watching again, he felt as though he might as well be sinking in concrete. If Drew had been with Adeline and he’d come outside with a grudge, she might be inside not because she had a project there but because she was upset.
A window looked out onto what used to be the front porch. Did she know he was out here? Was she happy about it or grumbling?
The work dragged on an hour before Chip pressed the last of the brackets into the wet concrete and smoothed the surface with a trowel, finishing the footings.
Drew raised both hands to get the kids’ attention. “The deacons have offered to take the cleanup from here. Adeline’s got snacks ready, so we’re going to head in for a devo and worship before calling it a night.”
Olivia, the girl with the light brown hair who’d been among the first to greet him, peered at Gannon. “Are you coming, Gannon? John?”
He had no intentions of leaving without seeing Adeline, so he nodded. With that, the kids swept them along into the house. He was in the back entryway when his phone buzzed with a text from Tim.
