Page 33 of To Bring You Back
“Just a quick break.” To fantasize about a man she had no business thinking about. She tugged out the other earbud and stuffed the pair in her pocket.
Drew surveyed the couple of feet of siding she’d covered. “Where’d you get the idea to do this?”
“I watched a video. It sounded a lot faster than using a scraper.” Her voice sounded high and breathless. Any moment, Drew would ask what in the world had her so worked up.
He eyed the ladder he’d lent her, which lay in the grass. “Who’s going to steady that while you work?”
“Tegan, if she’s home when I do the top, but the middle section will be fine.” Her laugh sounded like something from a haunted house.
Drew frowned at her progress, pointing a finger along an indent in a piece of siding. “You’ve got to hold it farther back so you don’t gouge the wood. I’ll show you.”
In his nice shirt and khakis, he hadn’t dressed for the work, but holding the power tool hadn’t allowed her to shut off Gannon’s song yet. She needed to turn it off. To forget she’d ever opened that door again.
She released control of the pressure washer, and he fired it up and aimed at the house.
While he shouted instructions she ought to pay attention to, she stepped back to stop the music. Once she’d backed out of her music app, she moved forward to retake the washer.
Drew kept at it, his progress much smoother and quicker than hers had been. “This is fun.”
Maybe to him.
She fiddled with the phone as he continued spraying everything in arm’s reach. She owed him for the help, but even more so for the interruption. She and Gannon had had their chance, and someone had died.
End of story.
Drew reached the end of the house and turned off the machine. “I promised the Bordens I would stop by tonight. I can come back tomorrow so you don’t have to stand on the ladder alone.”
She took the wand of the power washer from him. “The work will do me good, I promise.”
He angled his head, eyeing the top of the house. “Once you get up there, the ladder is going to feel a lot taller than you expect.”
A group of college-age women dressed to go clubbing appeared on the sidewalk, faces turned toward her house. One craned her neck, and the others slowed.
Adeline shook her head.
Even if they didn’t know Gannon was a little taller and worked out more than Drew, the pastor’s blond hair should’ve been different enough from Gannon’s brown to get them to stop staring.
Drew waved hello. As the women moved along, he tucked his hands in his pockets. “Got a call at the church today asking if it’s true Gannon Vaughn attends.”
“Everyone’s going a little crazy, including Olivia and her friends.”
“I did some research on him.”
Adeline laughed. Studious Drew, whose radio was never tuned to anything but the easy-listening Christian station. “You’re getting into this too?”
Drew’s light skin flushed, and his mouth blipped an embarrassed smile. “Not for the normal reasons. Olivia’s friend Sophie wanted to use one of his songs during worship, said it was about God. I shut it down, but you know how high schoolers are. Lots of questions, and ‘because I said so’ isn’t a good enough reason for anything. I wanted to be prepared to talk about what makes a worship song and a worship leader.”
She could see “Yours” making a good worship song for those who knew its true meaning—and weren’t too in love with Gannon to stop thinking about him while singing one of his songs. “And what’d you conclude?”
Drew shrugged as if they were talking theory or the politics of a foreign country. “Awestruck’s lyrics are clean. Some, if you’re listening for it, paraphrase Scripture. Psalms, especially. And Gannon is quick to credit God with his success in interviews, claims to be a Christian. But the band is with a secular label. None of their marketing, songs, or concerts are overtly Christian.”
“Not all Christians work in ministry.”
Was she defending him? Yeah. Because she found it comforting that Drew could pick out the influence of faith in Gannon’s lyrics. It seemed that, after all this time, Gannon hadn’t left his roots of faith.
“True. And not all Christians live consistent lives either. I’m not sure what to make of his relationship with Harper English. He’s said they’re friends, but she’s been less cut and dry on the matter, and she stays at his place sometimes.”
She may as well have slammed blindly into a wall. “She does?”
