Bluegrass Courtship. Allie Pleiter

our accountants. Call anyone you like to confirm anything you hear from me.” He handed her a paper while he pulled open a cabinet revealing a safe. Opening it, he pulled out a fat checkbook.

      “I, however,” he sat back down again, “am going to trust you from this very moment.” He pointed to the file. “There’s a list of what we’ll need so far. That’s only the beginning, of course, but it should keep you busy while we set about finishing the job that oak tree started.” He pulled a check from the checkbook and wrote it out to Bishop Hardware, signed it, but left the amount blank. “And this here’s a blank check made out to your store. We want satisfied customers. This check is for you to make any repairs or modifications you find you need after we’re gone. If the plaster cracks, fix it. If the pipes leak, call a plumber. We’ll cover your costs for anything you need to fix that you think was our doing. I don’t want you to feel we’ve taken advantage of you or Middleburg in any way.”

      Janet stared at the check, filled—except for the “in the amount of” line—with Downing’s large, flamboyant handwriting. He’d signed his name so large it overshot the signature line on either side.

      “I was raised to be a man of my word. I believe in what I do. I’m the real deal, Janet Bishop, and I mean to prove it to you.” He extended his hand with something near fire in his eyes. “Will you let me?”

      Chapter Four

      “Can you believe it?”

      “Hi, Mom.”

      Barbara Bishop, “Bebe” to her close friends, rushed into the store. “I saw the bus out front even before Sandy Burnside called me at the library.” Janet’s mother read books for the preschool story hour every Wednesday. It didn’t take much imagination to picture Goodnight Moon coming to a screaming halt once word of Missionnovation’s arrival hit the streets. Bebe Bishop was a big fan, and part of the reason Janet ended up watching the spectacle every other Thursday when they had dinner together. Before she heard Howard own up to it, Janet half-suspected her own mother of sending in a tape. “Can you believe it?” Her mother’s breathless excitement bounced the words out in short spurts. “I mean, can you really believe it, Jannybean?”

      “With that huge bus parked right in front of the store, it’s a little hard to ignore.”

      “I heard he came right in here. Did you meet him? And anyone else? Did you meet Kevin Cooper?” Her small, lean frame was practically vibrating with excitement.

      Kevin Cooper was the landscaping expert of the Missionnovation team, and a personal favorite of Janet’s mother, who was close to her pruning shears and potting soil herself. The trellis of blooming flowers that graced Janet’s back deck this summer was copied directly from a Missionnovation episode. Janet had the misfortune to mention to her mother during said episode that she had “some spare lumber just like that lying around the shop.” Before she knew it, Janet’s back deck had its own Missionnovation-inspired garden trellis.

      “No.” Janet hadn’t yet seen any of the people she saw on TV except for Downing. Despite her “Shenanigan” title, Annie must be a producer or some such thing because Janet had never seen her on the show. “But Drew Downing was in here.”

      “I got to meet him,” her mother boasted as she unzipped the dark blue canvas Bishop Hardware windbreaker she always wore. It had been Janet’s dad’s and she had to cuff up the sleeves more than a few times in order to make it fit. “He seems just like he is on the show. A nice fellow. Bit high energy, but of course I knew to expect that. He invited me to the prayer meeting at the bus tonight.” She pulled a Missionnovation Daily Devotional booklet out of one of the jacket’s interior pockets. “They don’t ever show those on TV, but I read about them. And now we get to be part of it. It’s just amazing. Even you have to think this is amazing. After all we’ve been through trying to raise enough money to fix that preschool?”

      “It’s gonna be something, that’s for sure.”

      Her mother shot her one of her looks. That “oh, stop being such a wet blanket” look she always gave Janet when she got all worked up about something church-related. Janet no longer did the bubbly religion thing. She told herself she respected the Almighty enough not to try and fake Him out after all she’d seen.

      “No prayer meeting,” Janet said before her mom even had a chance to ask. “I’ll see enough of those folks during the day.”

      “They’re ordering through the store, aren’t they? I hadn’t even thought about that. Should be a whole lot of business. God’s been kind to you. You think about that.” She tapped her green brochure on Janet’s arm. “You may want to think about giving Him another chance one of these days.” Another look.

      It was an exchange they’d had far too often. A few years back, Tony Donalds, the son of Middleburg Community Church’s pastor at the time, had pulled Janet into a serious relationship. It had been a whirlwind of newly energized faith with the promise of future adventure. And it had opened up facets of Janet’s relationship with God she’d never discovered before.

      It just hadn’t been real. Because Tony hadn’t been real.

      Janet didn’t blame Pastor Donalds—now the former pastor, of course—for not seeing his son’s true nature. Tony’d fooled them all. He’d been traveling to raise funds—and then home to raise Janet’s hopes—for a mission project that never existed. To capture it in a tired cliché, Tony took the money and ran.

      They’d been ring-shopping, hoping to announce their engagement within the month, when it all unraveled. While her mom thought of it as God saving Janet in the nick of time, Janet saw it differently. She’d seen how false “the God’s honest truth” could be, and she had every right to put permanent distance between herself and the church.

      “Did you hear?” Dinah Hopkins’s voice pulled Janet from her thoughts. Dinah owned the Taste and See Bakery just up the street, and she had become Janet’s close friend since moving in just over a year ago. It had started out over Dinah’s outstanding chocolate chip cookies and grown into a close friendship between the two businesswomen. And even though Dinah was as “bubbly churchy” as Janet’s mother, somehow their differences never came between them. Janet was glad for the diversion—until she saw the green-and-white bandana tied around Dinah’s wrist.

      “Dinah,” Bebe cooed, “you been prayin’ for God to send you the man of your dreams? I know you’ve got a thing for that wild Drew Downing—and now he’s right here in Middleburg.”

      “I took one look at that fine lookin’ man and thought ‘my stars, but he’s a blessin’ to the universe.’” Dinah sported the remains of a fierce Jersey accent, so such southernisms sounded ridiculous the way she said them. It always made Janet’s mother laugh, which is why Dinah fired up the Southern twang every time she was with Bebe. Dinah and Janet’s mom were too much alike. Janet, Dinah and Emily Montague, who owned the bath shop up the street, were Middleburg’s three single female shopkeepers. Although with Emily’s new engagement to horse farmer Gil Sorrent, it’d be down to two single shopkeepers soon.

      While Dinah often scouted potential mates, being single didn’t really bother Janet. Lots of women were happily single well into their forties, much less their thirties. Life was much kinder to an independent woman now than it had been in her mother’s day.

      “You didn’t already take Drew Downing a plate of cookies, did you?” Dinah wasn’t exactly known for her shy, retiring nature. While she’d never admit it openly, Janet liked the many crazy adventures Dinah made for the shopkeeper trio. Dinah didn’t always, however, know where to draw the line. “You’re not that shameless.” Janet lowered one eyebrow. “Are you?”

      Dinah winked. “What do you think—‘Drew may dig Dave’s, but he’ll die for Dinah’s.’”

      Janet rolled her eyes while her mother erupted in a laugh. “Dinah, you didn’t.”

      “I didn’t. But I might.”

      “Don’t.