Free Call Me Irresistible by Susan Elizabeth Phillips Page B

get by that Meg hadn’t figured out how to do for herself?
    A church bell tolled six o’clock, reminding her of the church Ted had given Lucy as a wedding present. A pickup rattled by with a dog in the back, and the phone slipped from Meg’s fingers. Lucy’s church! Sitting empty.
    She remembered passing the country club when they’d driven there because Lucy had pointed it out. She recalled lots of twists and turns, but Wynette had so many back roads. Which ones had Lucy taken?
    Two hours later, just as Meg was about to give up, she found what she was looking for.

Chapter Six
    T he old wooden church sat on a rise at the end of a gravel lane. Meg’s headlights picked out the squat white steeple just above the central doors. In the dark, she couldn’t see the overgrown graveyard off to the right, but she remembered it was there. She also remembered Lucy retrieving a hidden key from somewhere near the base of the steps. She shone her headlights on the front of the building and began fumbling around among the stones and shrubbery. The gravel ground into her knees, and she scraped her knuckles, but she couldn’t find any evidence of a key. Breaking a window seemed sacrilegious, but she had to get in.
    The glare of the headlights sent her shadow shooting grotesquely up the simple wooden facade. As she turned back to her car, she spotted a roughly carved stone frog perched underneath a shrub. She picked it up and found the key beneath. Tucking it deep in her pocket for safekeeping, she parked the Rustmobile, retrieved her suitcase, and climbed the five wooden steps.
    According to Lucy, the Lutherans had abandoned the tiny country church sometime in the 1960s. A pair of arched windows bracketed the double front doors. The key turned easily in the lock. The inside was musty, the air hot from the day. When she’d last visited, the interior had been washed in sunlight, but now the darkness reminded her of every horror movie she’d ever seen. She fumbled for a switch, hoping the electricity was turned on. Magically, two white wall globes sprang to life. She couldn’t leave them on long for fear someone would see—just long enough to explore. She dropped her suitcase and locked the door behind her.
    The pews were gone, leaving an empty, echoing space. The founding fathers hadn’t believed in ornamentation. No stained-glass windows, soaring vaults, or stone columns for these stern Lutherans. The room was narrow, not even thirty feet wide, with scrubbed pine floors and a pair of ceiling fans hanging from a simple stamped-metal ceiling. Five long transom windows lined each wall. An austere staircase led to a small wooden choir loft at the rear, the church’s only extravagance.
    Lucy had said that Ted had lived in the church for a few months while his house was being built, but whatever furniture he’d brought here was gone. Only an ugly easy chair with stuffing showing through a corner of its brown upholstery remained, along with a black metal futon she discovered in the choir loft. Lucy had planned to furnish the space with cozy seating areas, painted tables, and folk art. All Meg cared about right now was the possibility of running water.
    Her sneakers squeaked on the old pine floor as she made her way toward the small door positioned to the right of what had once been the altar. Beyond it lay a room barely ten feet deep that served as both kitchen and storage space. An ancient, silent refrigerator, the kind with rounded corners, rested next to a small side window. The kitchen also held an old-fashioned four-burner enameled stove, a metal cupboard, and a porcelain sink. Perpendicular to the back door another door led to a bathroom more modern than the rest of the church with a toilet, white pedestal sink, and shower stall. She gazed at the X-shaped porcelain faucets and slowly, hopefully, twisted one handle.
    Fresh water gushed from the spout. So basic. So luxurious.
    She didn’t care that there was no hot water. Within