Bluegrass Courtship. Allie Pleiter

leaned forward. Her mother and Dinah drew close. Janet waited for dramatic effect, as if choosing just the words powerful enough to describe the iconic Missionnovation bus. “It’s a bus. It’s big. It’s green. It rolls. It blocked my front window all afternoon.”

      Her mother frowned at her. “It’s the most exciting thing to happen to Middleburg since I don’t know when, they’re buying a truckload of lumber and supplies from you and you still can’t let yourself get into the spirit of the thing. Honestly, Janet, I wish you’d find a way to stop being such a cynic.”

      Dinah deepened her voice and flexed a bicep. “It takes a hard woman to run a hardware store in hard times. Good thing you’ve got me to put a little buzz in your beehive.” Dinah had a habit of seasoning her speech with odd little metaphors.

      “Are we done yet?” Janet walked back toward her office. “I suddenly have eight colors of ceramic tile to order.”

      “That church has needed new bathrooms since the dawn of time,” Bebe said to Dinah as they followed Janet down the aisle.

      “You know it. Wow. Drew Downing and Missionnovation, right here in Middleburg. I may have to start liking Howard Epson now. Didn’t see that coming. So, Mrs. B., you going to the prayer meeting tonight?”

      Janet turned. “I thought we were going to the movies tonight, Dinah.”

      “Yeah, well, that was before Drew Downing rolled into town. I got all the entertainment I need live and in person. Did you know he plays the guitar? Musician, craftsman and hunk. Mercy!” She winked at Bebe. “Do you think he leads the singing at these things?”

      “We’ll find out.”

      Janet watched her friend gab away about the virtues of Missionnovation as Dinah walked out of the store with Bebe. Leaving her alone. And now Janet would be going to the movies alone, too. The day was just getting better by the moment.

      Chapter Five

      Drew waved to the audience after he closed the final prayer of the worship service. “Good night everybody, and God bless. We’ll see you in the morning. It’ll take a truckload of hands to pull that building apart, but you’ll love it when we put it back together.”

      Drew, Kevin and the two other on-screen members of the design team—electrics and utilities expert Mike Overmayer and furnishings guru Jeremy Sutter—stood around for a few minutes, shaking hands and signing autographs. Drew introduced everyone he could to Annie and some of the other offscreen staff no one ever saw. Annie ran from the cameras, but Drew knew it was tiring to be the team member without celebrity status. He couldn’t do what he did without Annie, and he liked to see her get credit. Even if she did blush mightily as she signed her name to the back of someone’s devotional booklet. As opposed to Jeremy, who offered to sign everyone’s.

      It was almost ten, but it felt like two in the morning. He recognized the usual first-day combination of jazzed up and worn out. So, while he’d encouraged the town to go home and get a good night’s rest, Drew doubted he’d do much more than grab sleep in fits and spurts tonight.

      Kevin, no stranger to the nocturnal challenges of Night One, as it was known around the bus, walked up to Drew as the crowd thinned and handed him a travel mug of coffee. Caffeine had long since lost any effect on the pair—it had become more sustenance than stimulant. Annie always joked that coffee and chocolate chip cookies were the official dinner of Missionnovation. “So, who is it?” Kevin said under his breath as they waved good-night to the last of the fans and turned toward the bus.

      “The octopus?” Drew nodded in thanks as he took a long drink of coffee. “Howard Epson. He showed up within the first hour—I’m amazed he hasn’t asked you to let him sod the lawn himself yet.”

      “Howard, I’ve met. Definitely one of our finer octo…” He searched for the proper plural noun. “What’s the plural of octopus?”

      “Ask Annie—she’d know. Octopi?” Drew guessed as the bus doors slid open.

      “Yeah, but who is it?”

      “Who is who?”

      “Who is whom? And it’s octopoda.” Annie corrected as they walked past her head poking up from a box of files.

      “The hostile. The person you kept looking for in the crowd tonight—” he nodded toward Annie “—whom I’m pretty sure you didn’t find. When are you going to stop that? Don’t you get that by definition, the hostiles aren’t going to show up to the Night One prayer meeting?”

      Drew winced. “Was I that obvious?”

      “Only to me,” Kevin replied.

      “And me,” Annie added, now triumphantly holding the file she’d evidently been seeking in the enormous box. She straightened up and grabbed her coat. “Y’all can stay up all night and plan your brains out, I’m out of here.” Annie, while a bedrock of calm during the day, knew her limits and disappeared at night whenever possible, generally to a local hotel or, in this case, the local bed and breakfast. Kevin and Drew always had the bus, while Jeremy, Mike, and the others slept on-site in a collection of rented trailers. Drew gladly approved Annie’s off-site lodging budget—if she came unglued, the rest of them would fall to pieces within the hour.

      And they were, officially, on-site. The bus had been moved to the block just south of the church, beside the firehouse just off Middleburg’s main road. Close enough to Ballad Road for them to run over and get something when needed—which Drew imagined would more often than not be something from Bishop Hardware—but not enough to become a logjam for local businesses. The fire station was more than happy to have a little of the limelight, and Missionnovation had long since learned that strong firefighters came in mighty handy on demolition and move-in day.

      Kevin collapsed onto the bus couch. He hit a few buttons on the stereo in the wall beside him, and country music began to play over the bus’s sound system. “You still haven’t answered me.”

      “The hardware store owner,” Drew said, sitting at the table. “Our hostile is the hardware store owner.”

      A frown creased Kevin’s face. “A bit of a challenge, but you ought to be able to bring him around by the end of the week if not sooner.”

      “No chance. This is one situation where I cannot bring him around.”

      Kevin propped himself up on one elbow. “Drew Downing, admitting defeat on Day One? Why?”

      “Because he is a she. Janet Bishop, owner of Bishop Hardware and not, it seems, a big fan of Missionnovation.”

      “Oh, well at least we know it’s not genetic,” Kevin laughed. “Now I know why Barbara Bishop introduced herself as Janet Bishop’s mother like it ought to mean something. Janet may be your hostile, but her mom is definitely a big fan.” A smug grin played across Kevin’s face. “I’m her favorite member of the design team. Plants rule!”

      Kevin was a big, burly guy with a head full of dark brown curls, usually escaping from under a baseball cap worn backward. His role was landscaping and comic relief. If something goofy happened on the show, Kevin was usually behind it. Drew lost count of the number of arguments Kevin had diffused with some joke or prank. They’d split the Missionnovation viewer demographic right down the middle—girls loved Drew, moms and grandmas loved Kevin. Drew, of course, lost no opportunity to rub in Kevin’s “gray hair” appeal. Kevin, in turn, mocked Drew’s “hunk” status every chance he got. Mike and Jeremy wisely stayed out of the rivalry. Mostly because Mike didn’t care who liked him, and Jeremy was sure everyone secretly loved him best anyway.

      “The hardware store owner, hmm?” Kevin hoisted his feet up on the couch. “That should make things interesting. How you gonna make this work without her cooperation?”

      “She’s cooperating, just with suspicion.”

      Kevin rolled his eyes. “Oh, you love the suspicious