Welcome to Part 3 of my first Christian romance novel. I hope you enjoy it.
Parts 1-4 are a preview. Parts 5-23 are available as they are published to PLM+ members. CLICK HERE for more information.
Chapter 4
Saturday morning brought a muggy but cold southerly wind and a visit from Sheriff Alvin Novotny, scheduled well ahead of time as is Jake’s custom, to inspect the recently completed firing range on Jake’s sprawling ranch hideaway. He consulted with “Sheriff Alvin,” as the locals called him for well over three decades, to make sure no laws were abridged and that the neighbors would not rebel due to the noise.
Alvin assured Jake that the people in the area would actually take comfort in a few gun shots now and then. “Sunset’s not like any place you’ve lived before, Jake. Everybody knows everybody else’s business. The whole town’ll know you’ve got a range and probably what kind of firepower you’ve got just from the sound. You can’t eat beans in this town without everybody fartin’ so get used to it.” That was unsettling to Jake who was almost paranoid about privacy.
Alvin rolled up to the security gate in front of the farmhouse built by the previous owners at nine twenty-seven by Jake’s watch which was twenty-seven minutes late. Jake was at the handgun range cleaning up an already perfectly manicured area when the security alarm sounded on his phone. Jake saw Alvin’s nonplussed image accented by his trademark bushy moustache on the screen and tapped the code to open the gate.
As Sheriff Alvin drove down to the range he thought back to the times when his son Mike brought Jake and his buddies from Baylor down to Sunset for the weekend to hunt. Jake had always been a quiet but intense young man. Alvin was amused by Jake’s resistance to shooting dove, opting instead to sharpen his skills with a rifle and scope. Now, Jake’s a champion long distance shooter and Alvin could take lessons from the kid. And Mike... well... Alvin resisted the urge to grieve over the son he lost in Iraq. Jake did what he could to help….
Alvin exited the cruiser donning his well-worn cowboy hat like he was walking up on a crime scene. He even instinctively reached to check his service weapon, then chuckled softly. This was Jake Jennings he was visiting. He owed Jake more than he could ever repay... literally.
“Morning, Sheriff.”
“Morning, Jake. Damn, this is a nice place you got here. It looks better ever’ time I come.”
“Thanks. I’m pretty proud of it.”
“Well, ya’ should be. You got a better firing range than I got for my people, short or long. ‘Course that’s why we’ve been talkin’ so long about this. I appreciate you being willing to let my boys come and practice their long shots here.” By “boys” Alvin also meant the women who worked as deputies in the Sheriff’s Department and the one female officer on the Sunset police force, but it never paid to quibble with Sheriff Alvin.
“It’s the least I can do for your help getting this thing built. I know you’re busy so let’s go look at the long range.” Jake walked behind the storage shed with Alvin close behind. The two of them took their seats in the Commander, a four-wheeled vehicle made more for desert racing than for ranch utility use and started up the path along the rifle range. “I’ve laid out the long range for four established distances, two-fifty, five hundred, seven fifty, and a thousand yards, but for sniper practice, your people could set up anywhere in the trees. Just not too close to the house. The concussion could set off the alarm system.”
Alvin just shook his head. Jake didn’t get Sunset. Very few people needed alarm systems, especially people who had sophisticated security gates already.
They came to a stop at the thousand-yard plateau. “Where’s the target? We’re so far away, I can’t even find it.”
“Here’re the binoculars, Sheriff. Just follow the orange flags all the way down and you’ll see it. I set one up this morning.”
Alvin took a second to adjust the binoculars and followed the flags. He whistled through his teeth. “That’ll be a challenge for Sheila, our best sniper. She’ll love it.”
Jake smiled. One of Alvin’s ‘boys,’ huh?
Alvin lowered the binoculars and looked around the property for a minute. Jake could tell there was something else on Alvin’s mind. Men like him weren’t the best at talking about personal stuff. They needed to be doing “guy stuff” like this to lead into it.
“You know, Jake. All this time you’ve been in Sunset and I’ve never really thanked you for what you did for Mike’s family.” Alvin looked down and tapped a rock with his dirty boot.
Jake paused long enough to let Alvin’s words really mean something. Responding too quickly could nullify a significant moment. “It’s the least I could do, Sheriff. You know how far back our friendship went. He was sold on going into the Air Force when he was in ROTC at Baylor. We all knew he would make a great officer.”
“Nobody woulda guessed he’d be killed by a one of his ‘allies’ while he was asleep.” Alvin raised the binoculars again to hide the tears welling up in his eyes.
Jake just let that comment stand for what it was, a senseless tragedy. Mike was proud to serve in Iraq. On his third tour a uniformed Iraqi soldier dropped a grenade through a window in a shelter, killing Mike instantly. There was no way to justify a tragedy like that.
“You made things better for Allie and the boys, Jake. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome, Sheriff. It wasn’t all me. It was the iMAJine Foundation. Lots of other people contribute to it too.”
“I know. We get updates from them. You named it for Mindy and Adam didn’t you?”
“Yeah. It was my way of trying to make sense of my own senseless tragedy.”
“I guess we have that in common.” He handed the binoculars back to Jake. The two men looked down range at the target area a thousand yards away during an uneasy pause. Alvin shook his head. “Damn, that’s a long way off.”
“Not through the right scope it isn’t.”
After saying goodbye to Sheriff Alvin, Jake took time for what was becoming his traditional morning walk around his property. It gave him time to think and pray about what he was going through in his transition to his new life in Sunset. This particular walk brought up feelings triggered by the conversation he had with Alvin. Jake ticked off the number of people in his life that he had lost to tragic deaths: his parents, Mindy, Adam, and his friend Mike.
Lord, have I ever really worked through that grief? I take care of people that are grieving all the time, but have I ever taken care of myself? Is that why I’m here? How will that happen?
The people he met in Sunset were incredibly nice and supportive. There was one in particular that kept his mind and heart busy. He didn’t know quite what to think about what place she should have in all of this.
Chapter 5
The next week Jake was granted a full reprieve from the drudgery of reading manuals and suffering through online training programs. He looked forward to visiting some patients on his own.
Heading to “Murderboro” for his first visit of the day he thought back to his days as a chaplain in Houston. Last week he had gotten a taste of the difference between the people in Sunset and those he left behind. The pace may be slower here, but the needs were just as intense.
Marlboro Medical Center could barely be called a hospital by Jake’s standards having come from the massive medical behemoths of the Houston area. Marlboro could only accommodate forty-five patients if it were fully staffed, which it wasn’t. Easy parking, easy in, easy out, friendly staff. And, if the hospice team was to be believed, easy to not make it out on your own two feet. Thus, the name “Murderboro.”
This is way too familiar to me. Lord help me to put the past in the past and focus on the needs of the people I care for today.
Jake’s intended “target” for this morning was Janelle Brenner, a ninety-two-year-old woman who literally lived in one of the patient rooms at the hospital. Mrs. Brenner read three newspapers each day, one of which is the Wall Street Journal, watched a conservative news channel relentlessly and did all her crossword puzzles in pen. She had enough “old money” to pay cash for the privilege of being pampered by the hospital staff in a well-decorated private room not far from the nurse’s station. Mrs. Brenner was the unofficial “Grandma” for the staff.
After the perfunctory introduction to the staff, review of the plan of care and hand sanitizer, Jake said his traditional prayer for wisdom and God’s presence to help this patient with her needs. Knocking on the door he heard a dignified, “Enter.”
Wow, this is going to be good. “Good morning, Mrs. Brenner. I’m Jake Jennings, the chaplain from Sunset Hospice.”
“Pleased to meet you, Chaplain Jennings. I’ve been looking forward to meeting you.” Mrs. Brenner was not only well dressed in a silk robe, but had jewelry to match, perfect makeup and a welcoming smile.
Jake’s radar for patient care told him that this was going to be a polite test of his abilities as a pastoral caregiver. If he was found competent, she would open up to him and allow him to help her with some important spiritual issues. If not, she may only tolerate visits from him on a purely social level but not much else.
“I’ve been looking forward to meeting you as well. Your team members have told me a lot about you.”
“All good, I hope.”
“Wonderful to be exact.”
“Well, young man. You know so much about me. Tell me about yourself.”
Jake’s canned recitation was much like what he gave to Jennifer the week before. He could almost see Mrs. Brenner’s mind calculating the timeline for Jake’s career to see just how experienced he was and how much education he had.
Mrs. Brenner looked up for a moment lost in thought. “I didn’t think they let children be chaplains.”
“Excuse me?”
“Well, you don’t look a day over twenty-eight. And if my feeble brain is working right, your work experience would have made you thirteen when you started as a chaplain.”
Jake responded with a tight smile to keep from laughing out loud and possibly offending her. “Thank you for the compliment, Mrs. Brenner, but I’m forty-two.”
She looked him up and down, then peered over her glasses. “Son, God has been very good to you.”
“Thank you, ma’am. I will treasure that.”
“Now, from your education I assume you are Baptist?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“I’m Missouri Synod Lutheran myself.”
“I loved studying Martin Luther in seminary. In fact, I’ve told people that if I ever had to enter witness protection and could never go to a Baptist church again, I’d become a Lutheran. I guess that makes me a closet Lutheran, doesn’t it?”
Mrs. Brenner smiled. “I guess it does just that. I haven’t been able to attend in many months due to my heart condition. When I visited my son last year he took me to his church. They played guitars and drums and such. It wasn’t nearly liberal enough for me.”
“Wait. I thought you said you were Missouri Synod. Don’t you mean your son’s church wasn’t conservative enough for you?”
“You know your Lutherans, don’t you Son.”
With that, Chaplain Jacob Jennings found a dear place in Mrs. Janelle Brenner’s heart.
Chapter 6
With one successful visit completed, Jake decided to try a follow-up visit to Robert Mason. Jake’s intuitive hunch that he needed to talk was right on target. Mr. Mason was too weak to get out of bed this morning. Mrs. Mason stayed in the room only long enough to be polite and then promptly excused herself to go do a million chores that needed doing around the house, but only as a reason to leave so that Mr. Mason could be free to talk in private.
“Thank you for coming to see me, Chaplain Jennings.”
“It’s my pleasure, Mr. Mason. Please feel free to call me Jake.”
“Oh, okay Jake. You can call me Robert.” Robert adjusted his oxygen tubing for a few seconds to collect his thoughts. “Jake. I have something I need to talk to you about. That I need your help with, actually.”
Jake was surprised and a little skeptical that Mr. Mason was going to discuss his real concerns. Very few patients were that forward with their needs. It typically took a couple of visits for patients to be comfortable enough to discuss important issues with a new chaplain. Many patients started off with a smaller issue to test a chaplain to see if a more serious issue would be dealt with competently. “Sure, Robert. What can I do to help?”
“I’m concerned about my Sylvia. What’s going to happen to her when I’m gone? Who’s going to be there to help her? I’ve been the strong one in the family all these years and now I’m stuck in this bed. After I’m gone the kids will be a lot of help, but who will be there to help her when she’s sad?”
“Do you feel like you are letting her down?”
Robert looked at Jake for a moment. “That’s exactly how I feel.”
“You didn’t choose to get sick, Robert.”
“You’re right, of course, but what do I do?”
“Have you talked to Sylvia about how you feel? My guess is that she’s been thinking about the same thing and has been planning for how she will deal with things for a while. Maybe it will help to talk about it. Both of you may feel better for having done it.”
“You know, you’re right. It would just help me to know there’s someone there to help when she needs someone to talk to.”
“If you are willing to allow it, we will, Robert. That’s one of the responsibilities hospice takes seriously, to care for family members after our patients are gone. We will keep up with how she is doing to make sure she’s going to get through this. She won’t be on her own.”
The relief on Mr. Mason’s face was hard to miss. “You don’t know how much that means to me. I worked all my adult life to set us up for our retirement and now I won’t be around for much of it. I just need to make sure my Sylvia is taken care of the right way.”
The two men and new fast friends talked about what it meant to finish strong in a life cut short by an unfair illness, and how to start saying goodbye to loved ones in a way that would leave lasting positive memories and a faithful legacy for the Mason family.
On his way out the door of the Mason home Jake met Jennifer arriving for her visit.
“Hey, Jake. I hope you didn’t wear out my patient before I got here. That’s my job.”
“No, I think I left a little for you to work with.”
“Good... How’s it going so far?”
“Great. I’ve had some awesome visits this morning. Just the kind of thing I’ve needed.”
“That’s good to hear... Hey, Jake. I’ll be done pretty quick. You have time for lunch?” Jen’s consistent smile and sparkle wavered for a moment as if she was afraid Jake would turn her down.
Jake had not seen Jen look hesitant or pensive. Even if he had lunch plans he felt compelled to say yes anyway. “Sure, I’ve got time. Where would you like to meet?”
“It’s nice enough to sit outside. How about The Clown, say, in forty-five minutes?”
“Sounds good. See you there.”
Jen’s smile and sparkle were back with a vengeance. “Well. Mr. Mason’s waiting. See you in a little while.” Jen’s gaze at Jake lingered for an intense moment before she resumed her energetic pace toward the Masons’ door.
Jake made it to his car before he realized what happened. He just made a lunch date with a woman who seemed to be interested in him. He promised himself he would avoid doing that when he moved to Sunset. Now, he was right in the middle of it. This is SO not good, Jennings.
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