Chapter 26
Chapter Twenty-Six
Roland checked his watch—he was going to be really early.
He’d managed to get the box to Nelly’s porch, and he smiled at the thought of her opening it.
She might even guess that it was from him. But hopefully it wouldn’t allow her to figure out his identity as a Secret Saint.
But if she did… He was really hoping they could develop something more in their relationship, and having her guess who he was wouldn’t be the worst thing that ever happened.
In fact, he wondered if maybe subconsciously he was hoping she would.
Regardless, he slipped back into his pickup and drove to the tree.
He was pretty sure he saw his partner Secret Saint’s cloak moving gently in the wind in the shadows as he arrived at twenty after eleven.
The entire town was deserted though, so it wasn’t a big deal.
He did think it was funny that both of them seemed to be getting there earlier and earlier.
He didn’t know why she was, but he was eager to see her and could hardly wait, and couldn’t keep himself from leaving his house way before he needed to.
They needed to talk about some of their Secret Saint activities, and he figured he would give her an update on his mom, letting her know that she was going for test results. It was nice to know that someone was praying for her. And… He thought about Nelly. She would pray for him too.
He felt torn between the two of them. Funny that they both seemed so similar, but he knew they weren’t the same. He was absolutely sure of it.
It had to have been him and some change he’d made in his life that all of a sudden had him getting along and working well with others.
He couldn’t just fall in love with every person he ever worked with. That would be a rather debilitating issue to contend with.
“Hey there,” he said as he stopped beside the tree. He wasn’t sure why she hadn’t moved out of the shadows of the other tree that wasn’t very far from the one they met at. Sometimes they would wait at that one, since it was a little bit more sheltered.
“Good evening,” she said, and her voice sounded a little different. Familiar, but before he could figure that out, she stepped out of the shadows and walked forward.
She wore her cape, but the hood was down.
He noticed that right away. And his heart stopped beating. He turned away immediately.
“You forgot to put your hood up,” he said. Still, something nagged at him. Her voice. He knew it.
And the glimpse that he’d had of her hair and face.
“No. I didn’t forget. I left it down on purpose. I have a confession to make.”
“But we said we weren’t going to let each other know what our identities were.” Why was he panicking? That should be a good thing. He was just thinking he wanted to know who she was, wanted to know the name of the woman he seemed to be falling in love with.
“That’s my confession. I didn’t want to, didn’t mean to, but when you were talking about your mother, I figured out who you were.”
Of course. He had said his sister was a doctor. He wanted to slap his forehead, but instead, he turned slowly around.
He had just recognized the voice.
It was Nelly.
And yes, his eyes confirmed what his brain had just figured out. Nelly Bushnell stood in front of him, wearing the Secret Saint cape that had become familiar and beloved to him, only the hood was down, and her hair reflected a muted version of the moonlight above.
“Nelly,” he said, felt her name curl off his tongue, and it all made sense now.
He wasn’t falling in love with two different people.
He wasn’t unable to keep from falling in love with every person that he worked with.
It was the same person. No wonder he felt torn.
No wonder he felt drawn to both of them.
“You,” he said, when she said nothing, waiting, probably to see his reaction. She’d already figured it out and had her reaction.
“What do you think of working with me? Was it a surprise?” he finally asked, wishing that she had explained to him how she felt, how it had changed things between them, if it had at all.
“I was really, really surprised. And I resisted at first, because we had agreed that we weren’t even going to try, and I wanted to honor that, but there was just no way I couldn’t keep my brain from making that connection once you talked about your sister being a doctor.
I mean, the only doctor in town is Dr. Terry. ”
“I know. An amateur mistake, I guess,” he said, a little bit of humor entering his tone. He was adjusting to this idea.
“I wasn’t terribly upset about it. In fact, I had started to develop a different opinion of you from working with you with the children’s program, and after that, and—”
“That’s why you defended me.”
“No. I didn’t know you were the Secret Saint when I first started defending you. I just… I’ve known you from before we even went to school. I knew that wasn’t something you would ever, ever, ever do. Pastor Connelly is wrong about that.”
“Yeah. He is.”
“And then, when I did realize your identity, I knew that you weren’t going to be altruistic by night and steal money from the church by day. It didn’t even make any sense. But of course, I couldn’t say that to the pastor.”
“No. You couldn’t.” Wow, it had been Nelly all along. And she had defended him before she even knew he was a Secret Saint. That made his heart swell, and he almost put his hand over his chest because the feeling was so odd.
“I haven’t known for very long. I honestly wasn’t sure what to do with the information.
We had decided that we weren’t going to try to figure each other out, but we hadn’t decided what we were going to do if one of us did figure it out.
And I finally decided that if it were me—if you knew, and I didn’t—I would want you to tell me.
So the only thing I could do once I figured that out was to tell you. You know?”
“Wow. That makes a lot of sense, and I appreciate your honesty. Not everyone is like that.”
“It’s the way I wanted to be treated. And…I felt like it was fair. You know?”
She seemed like she was a little uncertain, and he wanted to ease her mind. After all, it had taken a certain amount of bravery in order for her to put her hood down and walk toward him.
“Nelly.” He laughed, huffing out a breath that was half laugh, half amazement, shaking his head at his own stupidity. “I should have figured it out. Of course. It all makes sense now.”
“You’re not upset? I know I’m not your favorite person.
” She sighed. “You’ve been kind to me at church, but I figured that might just be because of the children and working with them.
After all, you can’t just do what you want when there are other people involved. And you’ve been very mature about it.”
“Well, you’re right. We had to get along, we couldn’t indulge the way we felt with no thought to how that would affect everyone else. You know, sucking it up for the greater good.” She laughed a little, and it made him smile. “I like it when you laugh.”
She didn’t say anything, but he could almost see her brows going up and her eyes widening.
He swallowed, realizing his throat was rather dry and he was all of a sudden nervous.
“Is this going to change anything?” he asked. He really wanted it to, but at the same time, he only wanted the changes to bring them closer together. He didn’t want things to change so that she decided to quit being a Secret Saint or distance herself from him.
“It doesn’t have to.” She paused and then said, almost as though she were afraid of his answer, “Unless you want it to.”
“No!” he said almost too quickly. And it wasn’t quite true, but he didn’t know how to explain why it wasn’t.
Because he did want it to change. He wanted…
He wanted her to love him the way he loved her, but a person couldn’t control that.
They couldn’t make someone else feel something that they didn’t.
But he couldn’t quite get up the nerve to ask her if she might ever be able to feel for him the way he felt for her.
Maybe he could just give it a little bit of time and see if she responded to him and any overtures that he might make.
“Unless you do?” he added, knowing that he sounded as uncertain as he felt.
“No!” she said softly yet fiercely. “I don’t. I love the work that we’ve been doing. I love helping people, and the feeling that gives, and the way I know that I am being the heart and hands of Jesus.” She paused for a moment, and then she said, “And I love working with you.”
“Well, then it’s settled,” he said, relief making his chest feel light. “Nothing has to change.”
“No. Nothing has to change.”
Her words hung in the air between them, and he didn’t realize it, until he had moved closer, close enough to see her eyes wide and looking up into his, feel her breath on his face, and move his hand to touch her hair, moving it back.
When she didn’t move away from that, he allowed his fingers to trail down, his thumb to touch the lobe of her ear while his fingers touched her neck.
“I didn’t realize it was you hiding behind that cloak all the time,” he said, and then realizing that he no longer needed it, he reached his hand up and pulled his ski mask off. “I guess I don’t need to hide anymore, since you already know who I am.”
“No. But we still need our disguises if we’re going to be anywhere where we might get caught on camera.”
That caused a sour note to enter into his happiness. “Like the church.”
“It’s the outside that has a camera.”
“Yeah.”
“I know that’s not you,” she said, and there was no question in her voice.
“You know how nice it is to have someone who believes in you?”
She smiled. “I think that’s my job as a teacher, to believe in my kids, but it’s different with you.”
“Your kids are lucky.” He didn’t really mean lucky. He meant blessed. Her kids were blessed to have her behind them, but then he realized that he was just as blessed, because…she believed in him too.
Maybe that idea didn’t make him as happy as it should have, because he was in the same category as her third-grade class was, and that wasn’t where he wanted to be.
“I guess I’m blessed too,” he said, and he heard the flat tone that had entered his voice, almost as though he were disappointed about it.
“You’re a little different than my third-grade class,” she said, as though she were reading his mind.
His brows went up, and then he figured he could take that one of two ways. Either it was obvious that he was different, because he was a man, or she was saying that he was special.
“Different in a good way? Special?” he asked, wondering if she would catch the difference.
“You’re definitely special,” she said.
He stood there, processing. And then the thought occurred to him that he didn’t have to figure this out this second. He could let it unfold naturally. He didn’t have to push. It was enough that they now knew each other’s identities, and they could get used to that.
He dropped his hand from her hair and noted that she hadn’t moved away from him.
“I’m going to enjoy working with you, Nelly.”
“I already enjoy working with you, Roland,” she repeated.
And then, because he figured it needed to be said, he began, “I’m sorry for my part in our childhood feud. I was not very kind to you with that valentine, and…I think part of it was because I was jealous.”
“Jealous?”
“Yeah. I had a sizable crush on you, and that was a really nice valentine, and at first, I was excited because you had given it to me, but then I saw that it wasn’t really meant for me.”
“Oh,” she said, her eyes widening as comprehension dawned.
“Yeah. That was not what I wanted to see from you, and then to know that you had a crush on someone else, when I thought you were the cutest thing in the classroom, I guess… I lashed out, and I was not kind.”
“And I reacted terribly. It never even occurred to me that you might have been doing that because you were jealous.”
“That’s funny, because of course you wouldn’t, but yeah.”
“You’d think I’d know. I teach third graders every single day and have for years. I should have figured that out before now.”
“Don’t worry about it. I guess I was just a really good actor.”
“And I was a sore loser.”
“You were hurt, and you were lashing out.”
“But I didn’t have to carry it on for two decades.”
“That’s a good point. But I helped you. I competed as well.”
“You weren’t nearly as into it as I was.”
“Maybe not, because… I think I always secretly wanted the best for you, you know? I guess I never really got over the crush I had on you.” He shook his head. “Not that I would ever have admitted that to myself.”
“This means we’re burying the hatchet once and for all?”
“Absolutely. I wish we’d done it years ago. I enjoy working with you. And I think we work well together.”
“Same.”
They stared at each other for a bit before he moved away, and they began to talk about the different things that they had planned for the next night’s Secret Saint activities.
There might have been a part of him that was worried that once he found out who he was actually working with, the Secret Saint excitement would diminish. But if he were being honest, finding out that it was Nelly only made him want to do it more.
It was definitely some of the best news he’d had in a long time.