Chapter 19
Chapter Nineteen
Nelly’s step was light as she walked toward their meeting spot at twenty till midnight.
She had gotten the note out of the tree as she was about to put her own note in. She had been impressed. His sources were really good, although she supposed that one only had to drive down Main Street in order to see that the Christmas tree was missing.
Still, she had no idea where he lived, and if he lived out of town, for him to have figured it out in less than twelve hours was pretty amazing in her opinion.
Regardless, she was all in about skipping out on their earlier plans and focusing on the tree. After all, not only was it something to do for the town, but she loved the annual Christmas tree lighting celebration, and she didn’t want anything to mess it up.
Hopefully the police would figure out who had taken the tree and the money. Maybe the same person had done both.
And surely no one was going to accuse Roland of stealing the very tree he had donated to the town square.
That kind of cast a pall over everything for her. She couldn’t believe that the pastor would believe that Roland could do such a thing, and it bothered her. She wanted to figure out some way of exonerating his name.
Interestingly, Roland didn’t seem to be too bothered by it.
At least he hadn’t acted like it had while they were doing the Christmas program with the children.
He had been helpful and encouraging and patient the way he always was.
And he hadn’t even snipped and snapped at her like he usually did.
Typically, there was an underlying tension, a push and pull back and forth, that they both made sure not to allow to erupt in front of the children, but both of them knew they wanted to.
Sometimes there were angry glares and narrow eyes as well. But all of that had been missing today.
Was it because he had heard her defend him?
Nothing else had changed.
It didn’t matter—she felt good for saying what she knew was right. There had to be another explanation. Maybe the camera blanked out, or maybe someone had cut a wire like what happened in the movies. She didn’t know; she just knew that it couldn’t be Roland.
“Good evening,” she said as her Secret Saint partner stepped out from the shadows. She was twenty minutes early, and her partner was already there. It made her smile—she loved that he was dependable and conscientious about his work.
“I’m sorry about the change of plans.” He spoke immediately.
“No. I’m happy about them. I am super thrilled that people will wake up in the morning and see that there’s a tree, and nothing has to be canceled.”
“Yeah. The Christmas tree lighting ceremony is one of my favorite things about Christmas.”
“Mine too,” she said, shocked that he would admit it. And then, the thought went through her head—her Secret Saint partner would be at the Christmas tree lighting ceremony.
Wow. That made her anticipate it even more. She could look around, try to see if she could find someone who was the same size and stature as him?
No. She didn’t want to know his identity, but the idea that he would be there filled her with warmth and anticipation.
“I have my truck parked closer to the town square. I’ve got a tree in the back and a stand to go with it.”
“That’s great. I brought fifteen strands of lights. I heard that there were ten, and I wanted to be safe rather than sorry.”
“All right then. I’ve got a ladder in my truck too, so we should be good to go.”
“Awesome.”
They walked together side by side, toward the town square. She adjusted her cape to make sure it didn’t fall down, and he put a hand on his ski mask, as though to make sure it was still there.
“How was your day?” she asked casually as they strolled. It almost felt like they were just out for an evening walk together. She almost wanted to reach over and thread her fingers through his.
Except…that would be entirely inappropriate. She didn’t even know who he was.
“I actually had a really good day. I mean, not every day is perfect, and…I suppose something happened that could have ruined it. But it didn’t. You know how bad things sometimes become good things?”
“Yeah. I know what you mean.” She didn’t really have anything like that right now, but it was like God gave them something that could totally derail them, but if they just waited, patiently, with their hand in His, He turned things around.
“Yeah, well, that’s kind of what happened.
Something that could have been really bad, and then…
someone else made it so that, even though they didn’t take the problem away, they made it better,” he said, his voice kind of trailing off like that wasn’t exactly what he wanted to say, but he wasn’t exactly sure how to say it.
“That’s perfect for around this time of year. Christmas is definitely not a season where we want to wallow in all the bad and evil.”
“No. That’s why I was so interested in getting this tree back up.
We can sit and mope about the fact that we’ve got a thief among us, or we can just get to work and pull together, and the camaraderie of the community coming together kind of outshines the fact that sometimes there are people who ruin things by displaying a complete and total lack of character. ”
She laughed. That was one way to put it anyway. “I think, most of the time, the good outweighs the bad. It’s just that the bad looms so large in our heads.”
“No, I agree. For some reason, it does, but I do think that the good definitely outweighs the bad. Always.”
It took a little wrangling from them to get the tree in position, but it helped that the tree was wrapped.
It was much easier to put in a stand that way.
And her Secret Saint partner was obviously very familiar with handling Christmas trees.
She assumed that he had put a lot of Christmas trees up for people, either as a Secret Saint, or as himself, or both.
Part of her brain wanted to go down that trail, thinking about people in town who would have had a reason to put a lot of trees up. But she didn’t allow it to do so.
Finally, they decided the tree looked straight from all angles, and her partner took his pocketknife out and cut the wrapping off.
The branches burst out, full and beautiful and perfect.
She walked over to where she had set the bags of lights down and got the first bag out.
“Do we start at the top or the bottom?” she asked.
“My mom always started at the bottom, but I don’t know that that is the way the rest of the world does it.”
She laughed. “All right. That’s where we always started too, although for the last decade, we’ve had a pre-lit tree, and I haven’t had to string lights at all.”
“You haven’t strung lights at Christmas? Isn’t that what Christmas is all about?”
She laughed out loud, because she knew that wasn’t what he truly believed. “I guess I’ve missed the real meaning of the season for at least a decade.”
“I’m glad I can give it back to you. My goodness, the idea of not stringing lights on a tree. That’s insane.”
They shared easy laughter as he removed his gloves, and she did as well. Then, he grabbed the end of the lights and plugged it in. They lit up, and he carefully moved the branches and pushed the plug in next to the trunk, so it wouldn’t be so obvious.
She walked around the other side of the tree so he could hand the lights to her as they came around.
She hadn’t given much thought to the fact that both of them had taken their gloves off, until he handed her the lights and their fingers brushed. It was unexpected, and she was grateful for her hood that kept her face shielded, since her mouth opened in surprise.
She had not been expecting that, and…it felt odd.
She was careful when she handed them back not to allow it to happen again.
Not because she didn’t want to, just because…
she didn’t even know him. She supposed he could be married, but she rejected that idea immediately.
He was a man of principle and character, and if he were married, he wouldn’t have said he wasn’t back when they’d first met.
Not to mention, didn’t he say something about maybe giving it up when he got married and had children?
She couldn’t remember exactly what they had said about that.
She didn’t want those thoughts to intrude anyway and bring down her evening. She’d been having such a great day, despite the shadow that hung over her because of the accusations against Roland.
She had a good mind to ask her partner about it. But so far, she hadn’t mentioned any names, and if the pastor went to the police with his accusations, her Secret Saint partner would know exactly who she was talking about and potentially be able to figure out her identity.
She was less concerned about that than she ever had been, but she still wanted to protect it. It was just better that way for everyone.
“So tell me about your family,” she said casually as she took the lights from him again and carefully arranged them on the branches in front of her.
“Well,” he paused, and she realized what she had said.
“No names. Or identifying information. I wasn’t trying to figure out who you were, I was just…” She paused. She might as well just say the truth. “I know you said you weren’t married, but…I guess I’m just curious about you.”
“There’s no way I would be running around with another woman in the middle of the night if I were married to someone.
She would be my partner. In fact, I feel like that’s what you should be looking for in a partner—someone that you love doing things with.
They don’t have to be exactly like you, and you don’t have to agree on everything. ”
“I agree with that. You definitely want to be with someone who makes you laugh and who has fun with you, but the most important thing is that they’re a Christian.”
“A Christian who lives what they believe and doesn’t just say it.”
“Okay. That’s right. I suppose we use the word Christian loosely a lot of times.”
“Yeah. But anyway, I guess you know, opposites attract, and you and I have found that our different interests and areas of expertise have given us a really great partnership. I feel like that’s what a marriage is.
A really great partnership. Where maybe you’re the same, like two college professors—they’re both kind of boring to the rest of the world, where they sit in their library at night with their noses in books or dissertations or whatever, and they’re both completely happy. ”
“Or that same college professor could be happily married to a man who isn’t interested in books or learning, but is good with his hands, and does a lot of handwork around the house, while she maybe runs the finances and takes care of the taxes and that type of thing.”
“Yeah. The two college professors would probably be pretty happy with each other, but they’d have to hire out for a lot of work, because they have the same strengths.”
“And there’s nothing wrong with that, but you can complement each other and have the same strengths, or you can complement each other and have different strengths. It’s probably six of one, half a dozen of the other.”
They had to pause for a moment while Nelly grabbed another string of lights, pulled it out of the package, and plugged it into the end of the other one.
She took a little bit of time to make sure that she had that end tucked in amongst the branches before she started to unwind it again.
“So you don’t have to be exactly the same, but you do have to have some shared interests or shared something.”
“Yeah. Probably a college professor and…who wouldn’t be compatible with a college professor?”
“Someone who is in a motorcycle gang?” She shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t even know. I guess they still could end up together, you know? You expand another person’s world when you’re not exactly like them. And as long as you’re willing to have your world expanded—”
“And as long as it’s not being expanded away from the Lord,” he interrupted her.
“Exactly. But just someone who shows you life beyond what you know. And that’s a good partnership, I think.”
“So you’re saying you’re looking for someone who doesn’t live in Mistletoe Meadows?”
She laughed. “No. Not at all. I mean, I guess I don’t care, and I don’t think I would mind being married to someone who wasn’t from here. But it’d be nice to be married to someone who knows and loves the same things I do.”
“So you do think it’s better to have someone who’s exactly like you?” he said, like he had a gotcha moment with her.
“No. I would be just as happy being married to someone who didn’t, as long as we shared the most important things. And as long as… I don’t know, I guess you could really be married to anyone as long as they loved the Lord and followed Him.”
“That’s the conclusion that I’ve come to. I mean, I haven’t thought about it a whole lot, but it doesn’t really matter whether they’re from here, or there, or across the world, or whether they’re my complete, total opposite.”
“With that said, arranged marriages should be okay then.”
“I don’t know if I’d go that far,” he said.
They laughed and continued to chat, the feeling of camaraderie and working together warming her heart as it always did when she was with her partner.
All too soon, they were done, and they parted ways, heading back to their respective homes.
For some reason, her heart was a lot lighter.
Whether it was because she now knew that he was truly unmarried, or whether it was…
just the joy of doing wonderful things with someone she admired and respected, she wasn’t sure.
But becoming a Secret Saint was one of the best things she’d done in a long time.