Lost & Found Love. Laura Browning

arrival was out of the question. Another difference to keep in mind about such a small community. Someone new around here was news. Not exactly what she wanted to be. “Yes.”

      “Cool.” He grinned, the shyness disappearing. “I like art way better than math and science, but not as good as English.”

      Tabby laughed. “Maybe I can change your mind.”

      “What’s in the pet carrier?” He craned his neck to see.

      Tabby held it so he could. “My cat. Katie Scarlett…Katie for short.”

      Tyler’s eyes rounded, and he laughed. “She looks like you—black hair and gold eyes too. Can I take the groceries back to the kitchen for you?”

      While doing her student teaching, Tabby had gotten used to the lightning fast conversational changes children always seemed to make.

      “If you don’t mind. You caught me just walking in for the first time.” She followed him, since he already seemed to know his way around the house. If all her welcomes were this warm, then the task her mother had given her should be easy. Tabby sucked in a deep, cleansing breath of relief.

      They put the groceries away. Tyler pointed to the kitchen door that led out to the back corner of the veranda. “It will be easier to unload your car and come in this door. You can go up the back stairs. I can help.”

      “That’s mighty nice. Thank you.”

      “You sure don’t have much stuff,” he commented as he looked at her open trunk.

      Tabby laughed again, finding it so much easier to relax here. “I just got out of college, so no, I don’t. Just my clothes, my bike, and my art supplies.” As Tyler made a move to grab a stack of canvases, Tabby stopped him with a smile and a gentle hand on his shoulder. “I’ll get those. You carry my case there with my paints and brushes. We’ll take everything to the top floor.”

      After they’d unloaded, she opened her wallet, but Tyler shook his head. “Holly and Jake, my sister and her husband, would kill me if I took money for being neighborly.”

      Tabby’s eyes widened. This place couldn’t be for real. She felt like she’d walked into The Andy Griffith Show with Tyler as a cuter, twenty-first century version of Opie. “Well thanks then, Tyler. I guess I’ll see you in a week, or sooner.”

      With a wave, the boy sprinted out the door and down the walk, no doubt on his way to tell everyone, including the mysterious Tarpleys, that he had actually met the new art teacher. Tabby smiled. She could get to like this town if Tyler and the Tarpleys were any example of what to expect. If the one welcome she really wanted was just as warm, Tabby could easily call Mountain Meadow home.

      * * * *

      Joe studied the two sulky combatants as they faced him from the other side of his desk. As Pastor Joe, head of the town’s largest Baptist church, he had mediated many disagreements. This one between Hannah Hairston and Charlie Gardner was just the latest in a long line. The two had been at each other since the Christmas pageant last year when Charlie had knocked Hannah’s halo off. The latest problem was a dispute over glue and scissors in the first grade vacation bible school group. The teenager in charge of the class called Joe in for help when it looked as if the problem was escalating.

      “Let me see if I understand this. Charlie, you want the glue, and Hannah won’t give it to you… And Hannah, you want the scissors, and Charlie won’t give those to you. Is that correct?”

      They both nodded. Joe worked hard to keep the smile off his face.

      “Well, you give me the scissors, Charlie, and Hannah, you give me the glue.” They dutifully handed them over. “I’ll give the glue to Charlie and give Hannah the scissors. Does everyone have what they want now?”

      Charlie nodded, and Hannah did, too, but then she asked suspiciously, “What if I want the glue back, Pastor Joe?”

      Joe looked at Molly Saunders and said gently, “Well then you give it to Molly, and she will help you exchange it. How about that?”

      Molly’s look of gratitude also revealed a bit of the crush he feared she still harbored. “Thanks, Pastor Joe.”

      “No problem, Molly.”

      It was opening day of a week’s worth of vacation bible school. Joe recruited his high school students to assist with the younger kids during the day, and in the evenings, he met with the teenagers. Joe watched Molly leave with the two children in tow. He loved his job, and he loved the area, but lately discontent nagged him. It had started last Christmas right after the ceasefire between the Presbyterian and Baptist church ladies.

      He’d watched Jake, the town’s police chief, and Holly Allred settle into their marriage, and seen the love and trust restored to Evan Richardson and Jenny Owens, one of the rural area’s few doctors. The two couples had forged strong, loving relationships, even marrying in a double ceremony. The wedding had been short notice, but the Allreds had been out in force. Jenny had no family, and Evan was alienated from his. Still, it had been a joyous affair.

      What Joe suffered now, he tried to reassure himself, was not so much a crisis in faith as simple loneliness. Sure he had parishioners all around him. In fact, he spent a lot of time surrounded by people—just not someone with whom he could share his feelings or concerns.

      It was hard enough as a single man in a community like Mountain Meadow. It was almost impossible when you were also the minister of the Baptist church. Women, he found, fell into two categories when it came to ministers. They either turned tail as fast as they could, or they instantly envisioned remodeling the parsonage. It didn’t matter that all he might want was company for dinner and a movie. Joe might be a man of God, but he was still a man. He’d like to be able to enjoy the company of an attractive woman once in a while without her obsessing over how the parsonage would look with a woman’s touch or, conversely, trying to end the evening early.

      Lately, he’d even wondered if he’d made a mistake choosing the path he had. Joe closed his eyes for a moment. A crisis of confidence wasn’t what he needed right now. He’d grown up in a small community like this, farther west, and the path he’d chosen as a kid and a teen had been anything but holy. Seeing his best friend killed in a knife fight had been a wake-up call. No, he hadn’t chosen wrong. It just wasn’t always an easy or a comfortable choice. Having someone he could talk to would help. His monthly clandestine card games with Evan, Jake, and Sam provided some outlet, but not the intimacy he craved.

      The last of the teens left, and Joe locked the church before walking through the parking lot and across to the backyard of the parsonage. In the house next door, a light on the third floor glowed, but otherwise, the house was dark and nearly as empty looking as it had been the past few months. He jumped slightly as a dark shadow dashed back toward the house and up onto the veranda railing. Two glowing eyes glared at him. A cat?

      Joe didn’t have anything against cats, but he definitely did not want paw prints all over his prized possession, a vintage, cherry-red Mustang convertible. He’d gotten it his first year in college and spent years restoring it to mint condition. He didn’t need to drive it often with work right beyond his backyard, but he enjoyed it this time of year for the odd afternoon drive along the Blue Ridge Parkway.

      That was one of the attractions of living in Mountain Meadow, one he couldn’t lightly dismiss. He knew the car raised the eyebrows of a few of his more conservative flock, but this was one area where he wouldn’t compromise. It was a way to relax, one of his few vices other than the odd poker game. He grinned.

      As he walked by, he saw the car was still pristine, and he glanced back at the veranda railing, but the cat was gone. He spotted a bike leaning against the wall of the house. He’d heard the rumor his neighbor was the new art teacher, and he’d already half formed a picture of a motherly woman with paint stained fingers and Birkenstocks. The bike didn’t quite fit that image. It screamed serious bicyclist. He might have to readjust his mental image of his new neighbor.

      Before he settled down