Distant Fire

By Connie Keenan

Linda Cuthbertson doesn't pay much attention when she hears the news that her church has just hired a new music director. That is, until she comes face to face--again--with Drew Lingerfelt. Years, miles and life itself have come between Linda and the man she has always thought of as her first love. Having married and divorced the father of her child, she's made a life for herself with only her daughter, her work, and her faith in God.

But now Drew is back...and so are her feelings for him. He also realizes that he has never totally forgotten about Linda. Has The Lord brought him to the town of Hathaway solely for the purpose of using his musical talent at True Vine Gospel...or is God giving them a second chance to find happiness in each other's arms?

The second book of JOYFUL NOISE, the Christian romance series by the author of THE LARKSPUR VALLEY SERIES.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Connie Keenan
• Release date: Jul 31, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310078491

Connie Keenan

Connie Keenan, who has also written under the pseudonym Consuelo Vazquez, is the author of more than twenty-five novels and novellas and over one hundred short stories. With many more works to come, she's mostly written Christian fiction and sweet contemporary romance. She loves hiking, discovering fun little shops, trying out new recipes, and spending time with her family. Connie and her husband Bill live in North Carolina with a spoiled German Shepherd and two sassy Chihuahuas.

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DISTANT FIRE

CONNIE KEENAN

Distant Fire

By Connie Keenan

Copyright 2014 by Connie Keenan

Smashwords Edition

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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MORE BOOKS BY THIS AUTHOR

Glimmers of Heaven

’Twas the Spy Before Christmas

Dimension

Champagne Taste

Sea Siren (writing as Consuelo Vazquez)

More Than Sparrows

The Christmas Waltz

Forever in My Heart

Greetings from My Sandy Dreams

Unconditional

The Cop and the Mermaid

Paradise Road

Prologue

There were two things that Drew Lingerfelt loved, besides the Lord, above all other things in his young life on earth. One of them was his guitar.

And the other was a girl named Linda.

He could see the entrance to St. Joseph of the Palisades through the windshield of his 1979 Camaro. Earlier in the day, the sky had been a gloomy shade of gray with, as the weather forecasters called it, scattered showers. Now, at a few minutes shy of three o’clock, the sun was shining and the sky above the New Jersey town of West New York had turned a bright and promising shade of blue.

The perfect day, he thought, for a wedding.

Drew sat back, resting his head against the driver’s seat headrest and stretching out his long legs. Trying to get comfortable on a day when he felt more out of sorts than he ever had before. Once more, he lifted his head and looked out through the windshield at the church.

People had begun to arrive. Men in suits and ties, women in their fancy evening dresses and heels. Now that he thought about it, he wasn’t dressed for a wedding. He was in his most faded jeans, a black sweater under his jacket, and his work boots.

Drew hadn’t been invited to this wedding.

His throat was dry, but as he reached for the can of Pepsi on the console, he knocked over a small stack of cassette tapes. The car was used when he bought it, and it hadn’t had a CD player. The worst he could utter was a groan. Even before he accepted the Lord, he just wasn’t much for cursing. Even now, with his nerves on edge, with the little bit of sleep he’d gotten, he wasn’t one to cuss. That wasn’t the way he’d been raised. He started to reach for the cassettes on the floor when the white stretch limo pulled up in front of the church.

At first he felt as if his heart had stopped beating completely. Her parents and friends stepped out of the luxury vehicle first…and then Linda Cuthbertson emerged. Drew’s heart began to pound and he gripped the steering wheel in both hands.

Linda had arrived. The bride had arrived.

Oh, Jesus, this is really happening. I keep wanting to believe it’s a bad dream, but, no. It’s happening.

The realization of that had been with him all day. It was the reason he hadn’t eaten for the past day or so, the reason he hadn’t shaved or returned anyone’s phone call. It wasn’t like him to shut everyone out, but that was exactly what he’d done.

Yet until he sat in that car and watched her walk onto the sidewalk, dressed in that strapless, eggshell white gown, with its sequins, pearls and veil, he hadn’t wanted to believe it was possible. Her shoulders bare and pretty, her collarbones pronounced and her hair drawn up, she looked even more stunning and radiant than he’d ever seen her. The other women seemed to fade into the background. His eye was then drawn to her middle, where the dress had been tailored to allow for her small, rounded abdomen, which had expanded with her pregnancy.

Lord, this is it. I’m losing her forever.

No. Please, he whispered.

No one had noticed him, standing there and staring at the scene. He watched her father whisk her up the church steps and through the entrance. The rest of the people filtered into the sanctuary, and then the doors were closed. Drew was painfully aware that waiting for her at the altar was her groom, Randolph Welch. The guy she’d been dating after she and Drew had broken up that last time.

The father of Linda’s baby.

If anyone knows of any reason why this man and woman should not be wed, let him speak now or forever hold his peace.

He did. Drew knew of a reason. Many reasons, in fact. Not the least of which was that he had always loved Linda Cuthbertson and always would.

His legs felt heavy as he stepped out of the Camaro and closed the door. Slowly, he walked toward the church and up the concrete steps to the door.

Linda’s family would hate him if he carried through with what he was contemplating doing…especially her father. Her dad had orchestrated that wedding; that wasn’t even the same church his daughter had been attending for the past three years.

Still, Drew could sweep right into the place. Wait for the priest to say those words, and then shout to stop the ceremony. He could spirit Linda away. Like a scene from a romantic and heartbreaking old movie, Drew could run away with her. They could get married and he would raise the baby—boy or girl, it didn’t matter, because he or she was Linda’s baby and so he would love the child as his own.

I do. I know of a reason they shouldn’t be married. Stop this wedding. Because I love her and she loves me. She’s mine and I belong to her.

He stopped with his hand on the door. His body ached and went immobile for some seconds.

She loves him. Linda loves the father of her baby. She wants to be with him. She wouldn’t be here if she didn’t. Her father doesn’t have that much control over her. She doesn’t love you anymore. Whatever you had with her is over.

Drew closed his eyes. Whether he accepted that as truth or not, he knew he had no choice but to leave her in peace. He dropped his hands to his sides and turned, standing for a moment and looking out at that West New York street before descending the church steps.

She would be walking out of that church as Mrs. Randolph Welch. If Drew tried to stop her, if he put his happiness before hers, he would be ruining her wedding. They would still get married because this was what she wanted.

I lost her, Lord. She’s out of my life forever.

Before he could get back into his car, he spied his guitar, secure in its case, there in the backseat. He would start up the engine, pass by home, pack up a few things. Then he was leaving Jersey for a while, or for good.

There were two things Drew had loved most in his life on God’s earth.

And now all that meant anything to him, all he had left, was in that instrument case in the backseat of his Camaro.

Chapter One

Dr. Costello doesn’t really have to retire, does he? The man’s good for another forty years, at least.

Linda Cuthbertson would have laughed if she thought the young receptionist was only joking. She had stepped into the reception area of the dental office specifically to get a handful of supplies from one of the drawers used for storage.

I don’t think Sarah wants to frolic in Hawaii when they’re both over a hundred, she told Terry, matter-of-factly, referring to the dentist’s wife.

I know. But when he’s gone, that’s going to leave us with Dr. Spurlin. Gloom was written on the pretty, younger woman’s face. We are in soooo much trouble.

Oh, now, that’s not true. Dr. Spurlin’s been Doc’s associate for years now. He’s a good dentist, too. And he’s…not that hard to get along with.

The other receptionist, Mary Montgomery, who was closer to Linda’s age, didn’t mince words. The man is insane. Certifiably.

Well, we don’t know that. She was trying to keep a straight face, while at the same time glancing through the window into the waiting room.

Two patients were in there, awaiting their turn to be seen. One was studying their cell phone; the other was reading one of the magazines on the coffee table, the latest issue of In Touch magazine.

"We don’t know if he’s insane? Or if he’s certifiably insane?" Mary demanded.

Both. He’s— Shaking her head, Linda came up with, He’s a little…quirky, to say the least.

He’s weird, honey, Mary corrected her.

We’re in trouble, Terry said again. That’s all I’m saying.

"We’ll be fine. That’s all I’m saying. Linda nodded at Terry’s phone. Don’t forget to call tomorrow’s patients and remind them of their appointments."

Yeah, yeah, Mary blustered, exchanging a smile with her longtime coworker. On another subject, do you need to send me those invitations by email?

I already did that, but thanks, Mary. I called the restaurant, too, and made the reservations for the party. We’ll be having about eighteen people that night.

That many?

Yep. Oh, and, hey—the mayor’s coming with his wife. He and Doc are friends, plus they play golf together.

Everyone likes Doc, Terry remarked, looking earnestly impressed. Nobody likes Dr. Spurlin. We won’t be famous anymore when he takes over.

That did make Linda laugh, as well as Mary.

Oh, well. I guess we’ll have to go back to being just a regular, old, obscure dentist’s office then, she sang out.

With her coworkers, Linda could appear cavalier. In truth, she was sick at heart over her beloved boss retiring. She had worked for Dr. Robert Costello almost as long as she and her daughter, Valerie, had lived in Hathaway. It was the second job she’d landed, the first having been as a secretary for a bank. Dr. Costello had been paying better at the time, and when his office and patient list expanded in the late 1990s, he hired Mary as a receptionist and promoted his longtime receptionist, Linda, to the position of office manager. Terry had been a more recent addition, as was the new dental hygienist.

The man was a gem. A Christian who was a regular greeter at the doors to his church’s sanctuary, he had a mischievous sense of humor. Often, he made his patients laugh and feel at ease with his kind manner and Alex Trebek impression. (What are—realigned dentures!)

That was dentist humor, as he liked to say. In fairness, Dr. Spurlin had a sense of humor, too. The problem was, only he understood his jokes. The man was, to put it politely, a bit of an oddball.

They were in trouble. Terry D’Addario was right.

One of the things that she knew could be changed was the fact that she had an office. Linda hadn’t always had that space to herself, but Doc had given it to her along with the promotion, and, yes, she wanted to keep it. It wasn’t even that big a room; Dr. Costello’s, soon to become Dr. Spurlin’s, was slightly larger.

Yet it was quiet in there. She could concentrate on her work. The window offered a sunny view (sunny that day, anyway) of Dumbarton Road, with Towne Bakery and the newly built CVS right across the street. Her desk was set up the way Linda liked, with her laptop computer and framed photos of herself with her daughter. A couple of the pictures were of Valerie with her best friend, Kylie McCoy. Linda had always loved that kid, too.

She had to smile. Both Valerie and Kylie were twenty-five now, not actually kids anymore. In fact, Terry was younger than both of Linda’s girls.

Her things-to-do list, scribbled on a lined Post-It note, on her calendar tugged an exasperated sigh out of her. Thank You, Lord, that we’re not moving from this building, she prayed. There were enough things to get done in preparation for the changeover from one dentist’s practice to the other without the added headache of a physical move to another building.

She was also grateful, simply put, because she liked that location. Besides being only a five-minute drive from her home in the River Walk Point development, she was close to her favorite spots for lunch and the East Hathaway Mall.

Her cell phone, left there beside her laptop, rang with her favorite ringtone, a snippet of Bobby Rydell singing Wildwood Days. Though she also loved Dr. Costello’s ringtone, of Judge Judy snarling, They don’t keep me here because I’m gorgeous, they keep me here because I’m smart!

On the other end was the president of the ladies’ ministry at church.

Hey, Lin, just calling to remind you, Veronica Travers began, not to miss tonight’s meeting. You’ve missed the last three meetings.

Ohhhh, yes. That’s right…

There goes my stay-at-home evening. Linda had planned a restful evening. She was going to pop a chicken pot pie into the oven for herself, afterwards fixing herself coffee with hazelnut creamer, and watch a couple of movies in her pajamas.

But her friend was right: She hadn’t been to a Ladies’ Ministry meeting in almost a month. And Linda had been