Love Is Patient and A Heart's Refuge (23 page)

“And you’re being very obvious, Mother.” Becky didn’t even look up from her work. “You know I’ve got other things on my mind.”

“Like your writing? You haven’t spent that much time on it lately.”

“Been busy.”

“Like I said.”

“I can’t just turn the creativity on and off, Mom. And lately it feels like it’s been off.”

“Why lately?”

Becky dug into the butter, scooping way too much. “Lately,” she thought, because Rick Ethier suddenly showed up in my life. The man who hated my book and let everyone who subscribes to his grandfather’s magazine know why. That’s why “lately.”

“Just not inspired.”

Cora folded her elbows on the counter and leaned close to her daughter. “You should ask Rick to help you with it. He’s a good writer.”

Right.

“Rick is busy turning the magazine around. I doubt he has time for much else.” Or interest. Becky dropped another buttered bun into the large metal bowl beside her.

“He seems like a nice man.”

“Code for ‘Why aren’t you interested?’”

“That’s not what I meant.” Her mother faked an innocent smile and Becky decided to humor her.

“News flash, Mother. He’s only here until he can get the magazine going in a direction that will make enough money so that he can get out of town as fast as his
Jeep’s wheels will turn. He’s temporary. So he’s not my type and I’m not his.”

“Well, for now you can go rescue your boss from your father. Tell them lunch is ready,” Cora said.

Becky glanced out the large picture window beside her at the two men wandering across the yard. Sam was tall but Rick’s blond head topped him by an inch. Now and again Rick would nod and laugh, his smile flashing like a beacon. “I’m busy,” Becky said.

“I can do it,” Leanne said, popping her head into the kitchen.

“Go for it, Leanne,” Becky said. She was only too glad to relinquish the job to her sister. Leanne was obviously far more interested in Rick than she was.

“Becky will go,” Cora said, giving Becky her “don’t argue with me look” honed and perfected over years of raising six children. Becky knew better than to challenge it.

Rick and Sam were crouched down by a young maple tree. The low murmur of her father’s voice was steady, and Becky could hear Sam eagerly inducting Rick into the intricacies of the flora on the yard.

“It’s like a highway,” Sam was saying, his hand waving up and down along the trunk of the tree. “The ants go up the tree to the new growth here.” He pushed himself to his feet and pulled down a branch. “This is where the aphids are. They milk the aphids and then go scurrying down the trunk to the ant colony with the milk past the others that are going up. An amazing small part of how God works everything together. Fascinating, really.”

Becky had always thought so and used to spend hours as a child patiently watching the ants’ progress on other maple trees. She couldn’t imagine that Rick was even remotely interested.

But he was politely looking closer at the branch, angling his head to the side as if to see better, his hair falling aslant. He looked relaxed and was smiling. And for a split second she felt a tug of attraction. Then he looked up at her and the smile disappeared.

And that bothered her more than she liked to admit.

Sam caught the direction of Rick’s gaze. “Come to fetch us, Becks?”

“Orders from the high command. ‘Go ye therefore into the yard and rescue Rick,’ or something like that.” Becky curled her arm through her father’s.

Sam shrugged, his smile taking in Rick and Becky. “Cora is deathly afraid that someday I’m going to bore some very polite visitor to death and then we’d have some explaining to do when the coroner shows up.”

“I could think of worse places to breathe my last,” Rick said easily. “You’ve created a small paradise here.” He looked relaxed with his tie hanging out of the pocket of his suit coat. The top button of his shirt was unbuttoned and he looked more at ease than he had this morning in church.

“I was taught that God reveals himself to us through the Bible and creation,” Sam continued as they started toward the house. “I like to think of my gardening and orchard work as part of my worship to him.”

Rick’s face tightened and for a moment Becky thought he was going to argue with her father. He
caught Becky’s gaze, then looked away. She wondered what he was going to say and almost wished he had voiced his opinion. She knew so little about him.

And had found out even less, snooping through his stark, empty Day-Timer.

The blush that warmed her neck had nothing to do with the warmth of the sun and everything to do with her guilt at the thought of looking through his private papers. Thankfully she had discovered nothing personal or she would have felt even more self-conscious.

“You’re mighty quiet, Becky,” Sam said. “That’s not like my girl at all.”

Becky wrinkled her nose at him. “Maybe I’m trying to give my new boss a good impression, Dad.”

“Too late for that. Isn’t it, Rick?” Sam said, pulling Becky close to his side as the walked up the wooden steps. “My Becky is so transparent, I’m sure you know everything about her already.”

“I hope not,” Rick said, holding open the screen door of the house.

Becky caught his eyes as she walked past him and wondered what he meant by his comment. Then decided she didn’t want to know.

“Okay, everyone, Dad is here. Let’s start,” Cora announced, clapping her hands to get her family’s attention.

Everyone gathered in the kitchen, forming a loose circle. Becky bit back a smile at Leanne’s obvious maneuvering to get beside Rick.

“Let’s pray,” Sam said, glancing around the circle. This was the signal for everyone to take the hand of the person beside them. Rick looked a little baffled.

“We usually hold hands while we pray,” Becky said. “But if you’re uncomfortable with that, we can forget it.”

“No. That’s fine. Don’t change anything on my account.” Rick took Leanne’s hand, flashed her his most charming smile and lowered his head.

The brief spurt of jealousy Becky felt was as sudden as it was surprising.

Her father started praying, his deep voice thanking God for the day. For the church service. For the food they were about to eat. He prayed for each family member, for the community and for the government of the country.

“And as we come to you, Lord, we want to especially pray for those who have hurt us. Those whom we see as our enemies. Help us, Lord, to see them as You see them. To love as You love. In Your name, amen.”

Becky kept her head lowered a moment, trying to take her father’s words into her heart. Rick wasn’t her enemy per se. Her opponent maybe. Someone she’d had a hard time thinking charitably about even before he was her boss.

Please, Lord, help me to care about him as a person. Help me to want only good for him and to forgive him,
she added silently.

She raised her head, catching Rick’s eyes on hers. As she gave him a tentative smile, she was surprised to see one in return. It was a start.

Of what, she didn’t know.

“S
o my challenge to businessmen in Okotoks clinging tenaciously to archaic ways of doing business is find a way to tap into a broader market….”

Becky dropped the page and her elbows onto her desk and clutched her hair, pulling it loose from her ponytail.

Tenacious. Archaic.
Could Gavin Stoddard have found more inflammatory language to convey his point? The magazine was going to be flooded with angry letters all addressed to “The Editor.” Editor being Becky Ellison, innocent bystander.

She carefully shuffled the papers in order to tamp down her own emotions.

Her anger surfaced so quickly these days, the result of working too many long hours switching the magazine’s focus midstream. When she had agreed to help with the youth program, she hadn’t counted on her well-ordered work life getting swirled and rearranged by Rick’s whirlwind plans.

Work was taking up more and more of her time as she ran interference for an owner bound and determined to turn this magazine around on a dime, disgruntled staff notwithstanding.

Cliff was complaining about budget restraints. Trixie about the diminishing bank balance. Becky would have loved to complain to someone, but her only recourse was Rick.

The reason for the general air of discontent around the office.

Becky flipped Gavin’s first column back and carefully read over the second one, just to reassure herself that she wasn’t overreacting.

“…we need to get with the program. Stop thinking that if we are here, people will come…”

Nope. Just as bad.

She walked down the hallway to Rick’s office, took a deep breath and knocked lightly. Without waiting for an answer she slipped inside.

Rick was on the phone, pacing back and forth, talking quietly. But Becky heard the now-familiar edge on his voice. The way he was tugging on the hair at the back of his neck wasn’t a good sign, either.

Looked like she was facing an uphill battle even before she started.

Rick nodded curtly. “I’ll keep it in mind, Grandfather.” He stood in front of the window, one hand on his hip, his knuckles white on the handset.

“No. I’ll stick this through to the end on my own. I don’t want any money coming in that the magazine hasn’t earned.”

Speak for yourself, Becky thought, remembering Cliff and Trixie. The magazine needed a serious injection of cash.

“You don’t need to come down and check on me. I’ll do this on my own, okay?” Rick sighed and lowered the phone. Becky heard the light beep as he disconnected without saying goodbye.

He stared at the handset for a moment, his eyes narrowed, then, with deliberate motions, he hung it up in the cradle. When he looked up at Becky, she almost recoiled at the banked anger in his eyes.

“What can I do for you?”

Becky’s heart did a slow flop, then began racing.

“I thought you heard my knock….” She gestured futilely back at the door. “I’m sorry I interrupted…. I’m too used to coming and going like when Nelson…” She bit her lip on her next words.

“I’m not Nelson, am I?”

“No you’re not, and I’m sorry.” She gave him a tentative smile that bordered on insincere. But she hoped that the outward action would bear inward fruit and soften her heart toward him.

Her mind flicked back to Sunday as she noted his hostile body language. For a few hours at her parents’ place she had seen him relaxed and, she thought, enjoying himself with her family. She’d even heard him laugh out loud when Dennis told his infamous Jean Chrétien joke. He’d teased Leanne, putting her completely under his spell. Her father also thought he was very charming and when Rick left, Sam had asked Becky why she had such a hard time with him.

They would know if they saw him now. Today he looked like the other Rick’s evil twin.

She picked the papers up off the desk. “I’ll come another time. When you’re ready to talk instead of interrogate.”

Rick’s eyebrows snapped together. “What do you mean?”

“I’d like to discuss something with you. Not fight it out. It can wait.” It couldn’t, really. Gavin’s column was set to run in the following issue. But she wasn’t going to antagonize Rick when he was already so obviously upset.

“No. Sit down. If you’ve got a problem, I want to deal with it right away.”

Becky bit her lip as she laid Gavin’s column down again. She didn’t sit, preferring to face Rick on her feet. Not that it gave her much of a tactical advantage. He topped her by at least five inches.

“I’m concerned with the language Gavin uses in this column.”

Rick tunneled his hands through his hair, clutching the back of his neck as his eyes bored into hers. “I thought you would be.”

“And that didn’t count?”

“Becky, this guy knows his stuff. He’s laying out a challenge to the local businesses. We need to give them tangible information they can use.”

“But not this man and not this way.” Becky spun the paper around and started reading randomly. “‘…burying your head in the sand…outmoded or nonexistent business plans…’” She looked up at Rick. “This is not the language of community. It doesn’t build up, it breaks down.”

Rick dropped his hip on the edge of the desk, crossing his arms. “Let me guess. You’ve been reading books on building self-esteem.”

“What I’ve been doing is living in a community that deserves to be treated with respect. And this—” she poked her finger at the article “—doesn’t do that.”

“In order for this magazine to succeed we need to look beyond this community. To other towns that are on the edge of Calgary who are struggling with the same issues. Maybe they do need to take a hard look at themselves.” Rick swung his leg, his movements punctuating his comments.

Becky felt her hold on the discussion slowly slipping as she recognized the reality of what Rick was saying. Yet, she knew that she was also right.

“So telling local shop owners and businesses that they are dumb and ‘archaic’ is going to get them to listen to Gavin’s brave new vision for Okotoks and other smaller towns?” Becky walked past Rick to the window overlooking the street, as if drawing strength from the community laid out below her. “These people down there know more than anyone else what they are facing. Rubbing their noses in it isn’t going to sell this magazine.”

Rick pushed himself off his desk, and as he came to stand behind Becky she caught a vague hint of his aftershave and soap, felt the warmth of his chest close to her back. He was too close but she suppressed the urge to move away. To do so would be to admit his dominance over her.

“But giving them practical advice will help sell the
magazine,” he said, his voice quieter now. “People will respond to that.”

Becky turned to face him. Mistake. She had to look up to catch his eyes. And as she did, she noticed the change. In spite of the fact that she was arguing with him, his anger had dissipated and in their blue depths she caught a glint of humor.

He’s enjoying this, she thought with a start. I’m trying to defend a sensible and practical position and he’s laughing at me.

She crossed her arms tightly over her chest as if holding back her rising frustration. “What people will respond to is the underlying tone of Gavin’s article. Superiority.”

“I think you’re being overly sensitive.”

Rick’s words were waved in front of her like a gentle taunt. She swallowed back her response. And tried smiling again.

“I take it you’re going to run Gavin’s article no matter what I say.”

Rick nodded. Decisively.

“Then I have nothing more to say,” she said, slipping past him. She gathered up the papers and tapped them into a neat pile, buying herself some time. Surprisingly she felt reluctant to leave. She had foolishly hoped her opinion would have counted for something but she couldn’t throw out the words that would make him understand.

She glanced one more time back up at him and as their eyes met, she felt it again. That peculiar feeling of connection.

The ring of the phone broke the moment and Becky turned to leave.

“Well, hello, Mrs. Ellison.”

In spite of herself Becky spun back.

Rick held her gaze while he listened, a smile teasing one corner of his mouth. “Sure. I’d love to come for dinner. Next week Saturday should be fine.”

Becky’s heart did a slow flip. Since Rick had started working, her home had become a refuge for her. A place she could simply be herself without having to force her smiles.

Now it seemed her mother was determined to practice the Christian hospitality that Becky was reluctant to extend to her boss.

“Thanks for the invite. I’ll see you next week.” Rick put the phone back in the cradle and grinned toward Becky. “You look a little disgruntled,” he said.

“Just plain gruntled,” she returned with calculated crispness. “I was hoping you would reconsider the Gavin articles.” Which wasn’t the full reason for her momentary funk. She was gone this weekend with her children’s choir and was hoping for some time with just her family next weekend.

“I’m going to run the articles,” Rick said, his tone taking on the edge that Becky recognized all too well. “Just make sure you don’t edit the life out of ’em.”

“And you make sure you’re on hand with the shields when the rotten tomatoes come sailing in.”

“When life throws you tomatoes, make salsa,” he quipped with a crooked grin.

Becky resisted the urge to roll her eyes. At least he was in a better mood than when she came in. Thank goodness for that.

“Before you go, I want you to empty a couple of days in your busy schedule next month.” Rick rifled through one pile of papers on his tidy desk and pulled one out. “The owners of the Triple Bar J are putting on a fund-raising ride and were hoping we could do a feature article on it.”

“When?”

“The third week of the month.”

Becky’s mind scrambled through her schedule. “I can’t tell you until…”

“You check out your schedule. The ride is a whole week, but I told them we could go in with them one day and out the next. So it would be two days.”

“I’ll let you know.”

“Soon. I don’t want to miss this chance.”

“I thought we were getting away from cows and farmers.” The words slipped past her lips before she even realized she had spoken.

Rick shot her a penetrating look. “Triple Bar J is part of the holdings of a much larger entity. Get them and we’ve got a good ‘in’ on a corporate market.” He waved the paper slowly, as if thinking, his eyes holding hers. “They’ve already expressed a great deal of interest in the article we’re going to be doing on the premier. Said they want to be a part of that issue. You have that under control, don’t you?”

Becky squirmed a little. She’d had a firm commitment from the premier’s office for a while now. She knew she should have told Rick but was hoping she could hold off long enough so he would end up getting too busy to help her with it. “Yes, I do.”

“And it’s an exclusive?”

“Of course.” She stifled her immediate resentment. “Otherwise what would be the point? Any one of the dailies would scoop us.”

“Good. Then all we have to do is get this account with Triple Bar J and this magazine will be on the upward swing.” He slapped his hand against the paper in triumph and flashed her a wide smile. “And the sooner that happens, the sooner I’m out of here.”

“That’s not going to happen in one issue,” Becky retorted. “Or two or three. Our cost overrun is getting a little scary, what with the market survey and all the extra promotion we’re doing.”

“It will pay back.”

Becky wasn’t so sure. And he didn’t want to take any money from Grandfather Colson. Of course, what did it matter to Rick whether the magazine made money or not? One way or the other he had a ticket out of here.

Back in her office she flipped open her agenda to see if she could squeeze two days out of the week Rick wanted her on the trail ride.

Notes and scribbles filled all available space before and after.

A thread of panic spiraled up within her as she looked at her full days and evenings. She had promised her editor that she would have a proposal in his hands in a couple of months. All she had so far was a rough idea and a lot of scratched-out writing. She thought she had given herself lots of time. But as she flipped through the weeks ahead she could see chunks of time gobbled up by work and other activities, some doubling up.

You don’t find time…You make time.
She remembered Rick’s words.

That was all well and good, but how? She needed this job and she had other responsibilities in the church that she couldn’t shirk. God had given her many gifts and she didn’t feel right if she didn’t use them.

She had already cancelled a meeting for tomorrow night because Rick wanted to discuss the new layout of the magazine with Design. That was a guaranteed three-aspirin meeting. Cliff had been haranguing her for the past week about taking care of him. And Rick was going to talk about using stock photos for the next few issues.

Blessed are the peacemakers, Becky thought, pushing her Day-Timer aside.

She started in on Gavin’s article. It grated even harder on closer reading. Easy for Rick to approve this veiled rant at the businesses of Okotoks. He was going to be out of here as soon as possible. She deleted a few of the more offensive adjectives. Hardly editing the life out of them, as Rick had warned her, but hardly the damage control she had hoped to inflict.

She wound a bit of hair round her finger as she mentally ticked off her options. Edit it to her standards and run the risk of getting Rick riled up?

Run it with a disclaimer so she could at least look her fellow community members in the eye?

Or offer an alternative.

As the last thought slipped lightly into her mind, Becky caught it. Another column. Something positive. Upbeat and uplifting. And done free of charge.

She knew exactly who could do it.

Rick flipped through the binder holding the final proof of the magazine. From here, the first new and improved
Going West
would head to the printer. “Looks good, Cliff. I like the new font and the spacing is very pleasing. What do you think, Becky?”