Page 29 of Baker (Bastian Brothers #1)

The fountain sat in the corner, gurgling away. About four feet high, the water that originally fed into the springhouse was now piped out at the top of a small stone platform which then ran over another larger flat stone, and then eventually into a rock reservoir at the base.

“Okay, that is pretty damn good,” I confessed as she beamed at her fountain.

“Right!? I think I can find some fake plants to use as accents on the rocks. I just love it.”

“It’s real nice. The ladies who come out will like it a lot.”

She glowed, then led me through the small space, showing me the spot where her cash register would sit on a weathered slab of oak that they’d pinched from the fallen tree.

Ford was going to sand and polyurethane it.

Then she led me to the backroom, a cramped little closet of a space that was going to be her little personal space.

“I’ll have to keep my stock in the sewing room until we can enlarge, but Granny said that was fine with her. Oh, and we have a window Linc found stashed in one of the line cabins that just needs some cleaning up, so I’ll have a window in my bedroom overlooking the creek that feeds the springhouse.”

She was so damn happy. I’d never seen a person so tickled over an old springhouse with a bedroom the size of Granny’s pantry. Had she never had a place of her own?

“Sounds like it’s going to be real nice,” I said as she dashed over to fix the shawl draped over one shoulder of a dress form.

“All thanks to you and your generosity.” I waved that off.

“Still, I promise I will pay you rent as soon as we have the grand opening. Which is why I’m going to town with you today.

Granny and I printed out flyers, and she said we could hand them out after services to the women leaving church.

” Her green gaze met mine. “Do you think that will be okay?”

I smiled and nodded, but inside a ball of worry formed. Hopefully, people like Manfred would behave themselves on church grounds. I prayed so. Otherwise, we’d have a few Bastians serving knuckle sandwiches instead of the words of Christ on this fine Easter day.

***

The Bastian Grange Methodist Church sat on nicely tended land at the far end of Main Street.

Built in the late 1800s by one of my ancestors and a few of the town elders, it has stood next to a weathered American Elm ever since.

The church had seen some disasters over its time.

A fire in the early 1900s, an F-5 twister in 1938, and a nasty flash flood in 1975 that nearly swept the old girl off her foundation.

Yet, somehow, she persevered. The elm tree at her side was barely clinging to life.

Dutch Elm disease was taking its toll. Funds were being raised to plant a new one after this one was taken down sometime next year.

People in their Easter finery milled about outside, chatting as they filed in.

The sign out front boasted a sermon about the resurrection and a potluck dinner being put on by the Bastian Grange Ladies Prayer Circle, with proceeds going to the elm tree project.

Exiting our vehicles, I could feel the tension flowing from my siblings.

Linc moved closer to Bella. Everyone was freshly washed, shaved, and wearing ironed shirts.

Dodge even had a tie. His son was as nervous as a cat in a room full of Dobermans and withdrew into himself.

Bella and Granny looked very respectable in springy dresses that Bella and she had sewn.

Walking advertisements for Bella Dee’s Boutique.

“They’re just gobsmacked to see such pretty dresses,” Granny told Bella as we slowly made our way to the line leading into the church.

Easter lilies in pots lined the steps going up.

Granny and I took the wheelchair ramp, much to her displeasure.

“Ain’t in no damn wheelchair. I can do steps just fine,” she muttered a few times, but I was good.

I did not remind her that last summer she fell going up those same stairs, which led to a rather long convalescence and a fundraiser for a ramp to be built before snow flew.

Reverend Cox, an older gent with thick silver hair and a kind way about him, saw us coming.

As did the parishioners, making their way inside.

Many paused to gawk as if a circus parade was strolling up the steps.

Most eyes flickered from Granny to Dahn and then lit on Bella, where they stayed until it grew uncomfortable.

Great. Guess Manfred had been at the barber shop talking about our little group of misfits.

Misfits in their eyes, not mine. I might not be super keen on a house filled with strangers, but they fit. Hard as that was for me to admit.

“Hello and welcome to Easter service,” Reverend Cox loudly said as he took Granny’s hand to pat it gently.

“I’m so pleased to see new faces. The Lord is always welcoming to newcomers to our flock.

Leviticus 19:33-34 reminds us to treat foreigners with kindness and love, and to recall the Israelites’ own time in Egypt as strangers. ”

Granny gave a fast glance to the gawkers who, now that the pastor had welcomed our motley group into the fold, quickly turned their gaze to something else.

Granny made the introductions, then marched down the aisle to our pew.

Second from the front on the left. She was quite proud of the fact that the Bastians had their own hard wooden bench.

Being relatives of the town’s founding fathers was about the only claim to prestige she had, so she clung to it.

God knows her son hadn’t been anything to brag about.

We took our seats, the rows behind and in front of us filled with small-town people who had probably never seen a Korean boy or a transfemme person in their lives.

Granny chattered away to anyone who would turn to speak to her, making it a point to tell them that she had inherited a huge family, complete with a great-grandson and an adopted daughter.

Bella’s smile was tense, but while she did her best not to show how edgy she was, I could see it.

Her nicely painted nails dug into Linc’s thick forearm, for she had not let go of him since we’d stepped away from our vehicles in the parking lot.

The pastor’s wife, Veronica, made a point to visit and shake all of our hands. Whether her husband had asked her to do so or she had done so on her own, I couldn’t say, but it was a kind gesture that hopefully would lead others to be civil at the bare minimum.

Glancing around, I spied several people I grew up with, nodded, and then found Manfred, his wife, and his boys a few pews back, glaring at us with open hostility.

So much for following in the kindness of the pastor and his wife.

Whatever. Haters gotta hate as the saying goes.

As long as their venom stayed on that side of the church, they could simmer in their bigot stew for all I cared.

I had my cattle. The check had been cashed.

He and I were officially done doing business.

What irked me the most was that I’d been soft enough to even interact with such a dick.

I knew he was a shithead. I’d seen his interactions with Ollie over the years.

The only reason Manfred was quiet now around Ollie was the badge that he wore, otherwise, he’d be tossing out racist shit while pretending it was a pun.

Ha-ha, just kidding, man, you people can’t take a joke.

When we played poker next, I would make a point to apologize to my friend for not cutting ties with that asshole sooner.

Ida-Mae Bobbins began playing “The Old Rugged Cross” on a well-loved Hammond electric organ, and everyone quieted.

Reverend Cox appeared and took his place behind the lectern under a large stained-glass window that had been installed after World War II from a donation set aside in the will of Wally Oberdeen.

Wally’s daughter lived outside of town, or had, before she married an Army fellow.

Now she was in Florida when last I heard and on her third or fourth husband.

As the sermon began, I drifted off mentally as I tried to wiggle a finger under my cast to scratch a nasty itch.

My thoughts did not go to Jesus as they probably should have.

They floated around until they touched on Hanley, who was not here.

I’d invited him. He had politely declined, saying that he would worship in the wildness which I thought was so perfectly Hanley.

Maybe if more of us did that nature would be in a much better place.

Thinking of him as the pastor spoke out about how we were both dead and alive in Christ, I realized that I missed Hanley a lot.

Even though I knew I’d be seeing him for dinner, I sort of wished he was here with us.

His presence was calming. Granny gave my thigh a pinch.

I startled, tugged my pinkie from my cast, and heaved out a sigh that any teen would have been proud of.

No one was happier when the sermon ended than I was.

Perhaps Dahn might have been. He’d been fidgeting the entire time, yanking on the collar of his dress shirt, and generally showing signs of slipping into a boredom coma.

I could relate. If not for thigh pinches, I would have dozed off for sure.

“That was interesting,” Ford whispered after we were outside.

Granny was still talking things over with the pastor and his wife.

What they were discussing, I had no clue.

“I don’t think I’ve been in a church since I was a kid.

My mom went occasionally, just big days, you know, but she was never strict about it with me.

Usually Frank and me, that’s my stepdad, would go fishing instead.

Like Easter morning, we’d get up and sneak out before the sun was up and head to Penn Pier.

Mostly just caught striped bass and white perch, but afterward we’d stop at a local donut place for sugar glazed and coffee. ”

“Sounds nice,” Linc said, Bella still tight to his side as churchgoers slipped by, trying to get close enough to see the man in the dress but not too close. Stupid people were annoying.

“Why don’t we head home, get changed, maybe take a ride?” I asked that of Dodge since Dahn was slouched over on a bench a mere breath away from passing out from apathy. “We can saddle some horses or you can take ATVs out for a spin.”

“Yeah, that sounds good,” Dodge replied, then went over to talk to his son. Dahn came alive instantly, and after I went to pull Granny free from the small mob of people that had pinned her to the front doors of the church, we made our way to the car.

“Do you know what Irene Lawrence asked me?” Granny ground out as we made our way to the truck.

I opened my mouth to ask. “She asked me if I knew that my house was filled with deviates against the Lord. Well, I told her that I knew my house was filled with loving decent folks who were my family, and if she wanted to cast stones, she best look at her own clan. God knows the Lawrences are in and out of Ollie’s drunk tank weekly.

Last week, her youngest grandson was arrested over in Piner County for underage drinking and lewd behavior with a girl not even sixteen years of age.

She nearly swallowed her tongue. That old cow.

I never did like her ever since she entered a boughten pie in the bakeoff at the fair. ”

“Granny, that was sixteen years ago, and there was no proof that the pie was from a store.” I bent down to press a kiss to her cheek. “I do love how you stuck up for us deviates, though.”

“You can tell. The crust ain’t nothing like homemade. That pie was boughten sure as I’m standing here.”

“Okay, probably so.” There was no point in arguing pie crust with her.

She was the expert. The ride back home was filled with Granny grumblings and past misdeeds of Irene Lawrence and her family dating back to the late 60s when a dude named Leroy took up with Irene’s sister Naomi, who was quite the floozy.

I reminded Granny that we didn’t use the term floozy for women who were just exercising their sexual natures in a normal, healthy way.

Granny rolled her eyes, apologized to Bella, who was wedged between us, and then went on to talk trash about Naomi and Irene’s entire lineage.

Bella was much less tense when we got back to the ranch. I spied Hanley on the porch instantly. He was hard to miss in a tacky brown suit with a yellow cotton tee.

“Oh my,” Bella whispered when she saw him. “That man needs fashion help desperately.”

Other than his ugly suit, he looked damn fine to me.

So fine that my heart did this skipping bit as if it were going into AFib.

I rubbed it away with the heel of my hand as I exited my truck.

Hanley stood, smiled, and that dancing heartbeat grew stronger.

That wasn’t good. I either needed to see my doctor stat or I was growing feelings.

I hoped it was something that a pill would get rid of, but I feared it might be something no tablet would cure. Maybe a pacemaker was in order…