Quinn closed the door and paused with his hand still holding the doorknob. An unfamiliar shiver of awareness seized his body. He knew a tense magnetism was kindling between him and Livia.
Stamping his feet to keep the circulation going, Quinn picked up a big stick that leaned against the church to use as a cane as he broke ground to his truck. When he’d been shopping two days ago for his family’s gifts, he’d seen a music box with a twirling angel on top. As he’d listened to the song, “Angels We Have Heard on High,” Quinn felt compelled to buy the gift, although he had no idea who he’d give it to. Now that he’d drawn Livia’s name, it seemed the perfect gift for her. He’d had the music box gift-wrapped in the store, so all he had to do was put her name on it.
Quinn returned to the church in time to help Allen shape the three branches of cedar into the semblance of a tree. They used chunks of coal and wood to secure the branches in a discarded bucket they’d found in the woodshed. They wrapped the bucket in a red silk scarf that Livia provided.
Humming a Christmas tune, Marie strung the cranberries and popcorn into a garland. Les had found a box of old ornaments and some tinsel in the supply room, which Livia draped over their tree. She arranged one candle on each windowsill among some pieces of shrubbery not needed for the tree.
Laughing at their feeble efforts at making decorations, Marie said, “This just proves the old saying, ‘poor people have poor ways, and lots of ’em.’”
Livia stood back to survey their handiwork. “Oh, I don’t know,” she said. “Our decorations are festive.”
“To say the least,” Marie said, with another laugh, and joined Sean and Roxanne, who were still practicing at the piano.
While the others had decorated, Eric wrapped up in a blanket and sat on a pew beneath the stained-glass window. He studied his Bible and took notes on his message for the evening service.
Food, such as it was, was set out on one of the pews, and throughout the day, people ate when they wanted to. No one seemed to have much of an appetite, but they were keeping busy, either making gifts or wrapping what they’d found in their belongings.
Eric and Quinn made another trip to the vehicles before dark to get a shopping bag of things Roxanne had bought in Detroit. She took out a package of wrapping paper and some tape. “You can all use this. I’ll put it on a table in the supply room, and you can sneak in there to do your wrapping if you want to keep your presents secret.”
Little by little, wrapped gifts appeared under the makeshift tree.
When the sun shone through the dirty windows of the church, Livia felt almost happy as she hurried to finish the scarf she was making for Sean. But as darkness approached, she accepted the fact that she would not be home for Christmas Day.
Her mother, Hilda, had always been the strong one of the family, the lodestar that kept her children close to home. But Hilda had also given her children freedom to be independent and make their own decisions. Livia could almost believe that she heard her mother’s voice telling her to make the best of the situation.
Considering the ages of her companions, Livia realized that she was the youngest of the group, just as she always was at home. She’d rather liked being the baby of the Kessler family, but when Quinn had hinted that he hadn’t pursued a relationship with her because he was older than she was, Livia would have welcomed adding a few years to her age.
When Allen brought in the bag of sunflower seeds that Livia asked him to bring, Quinn found an old can in the woodshed and filled it with the seeds. He took a shovel and went with Livia to the backyard. He scooped the snow from the ground under the evergreens, and Livia scattered the seed in several piles. Companionably, they stood shoulder to shoulder and watched the chickadees, cardinals, woodpeckers and sparrows hungrily dive into the black seeds.
“This is something else we share,” Quinn said. “We have several bird feeders on our farm, and apparently you do also.”
The more she was around Quinn, Livia realized that they did have a lot in common—their rural background being one of the most important.
“Yes, we feed the birds year-round, and we always have flocks of them.”
When they returned to the building, Eric was questioning Les about the architecture of the church.
“There’s a steeple on the church, so it must have had a bell at one time,” Eric commented.
Les motioned toward a small square door in the ceiling. “It’s still up there, but there ain’t been a rope on it for a long time. It was a pretty-soundin’ bell.”
“Too bad we can’t ring it,” Eric said. “It would be a nice addition to our worship service tonight. Also, if we ring the bell, people living in the area might hear it and come to help us.”
“That’s a possibility, Eric,” Quinn said. “I’ve got a twenty-foot rope in my pickup. And didn’t I see a ladder in the woodshed, Les?”
“Yeah. It’s kinda old and rickety, but I think we can use it.”
With Les standing on the steps watching him, Quinn made another trip to his truck for the rope. Allen volunteered to climb the ladder and attach the rope. When he opened the trapdoor and stepped out on the timbers of the balcony, he shouted down to the others, “Let’s hurry this up. It feels like the North Pole up here. We don’t want to let a lot of cold air into the building.”
Quinn tossed the rope up to him. Following Les’s instructions on where to attach the rope to the bell, Allen soon dropped the rope through the small hole cut in the ceiling for that purpose. He closed the door and clambered down the ladder.
Handing the end of the rope to Les, Quinn said, “You do the honors, Les.”
Holding the rope in his hand, Les hesitated. “I’ve been having second thoughts about ringing the bell. I should have told you to check the wooden structure, Allen. That bell weighs about a thousand pounds, and the timbers that hold it are old. I’m not sure how strong they are. If they give way and the bell falls through the ceiling, we’ll not have a roof over our head. As the old sayin’ goes, ‘We’d be up the creek without a paddle.’ We’re gonna need all the protection we can get tonight.”
“Don’t ring it then, if that’s the case,” Eric said.
“I hate to throw cold water on the idea,” Les said.
“I can go up and check out the timbers,” Quinn said. “I should be able to tell if they’re stable.”
“That would be wise,” Les agreed. “My old legs are too unsteady to climb the ladder, or I’d go. You’re a muscular guy, Quinn, so watch where you step.”
Fearful for Quinn, Livia said, “If it’s so dangerous, maybe we shouldn’t ring the bell.”
He glanced her way. “It’ll be all right,” he assured her. “I’ve climbed around in barn lofts since I was a kid. This won’t be much different.”
Quinn’s stomach was flat and his hips slender, but his shoulders were brawny. While his muscular physique stood him in good stead professionally when handling horses, cows and other large animals, Livia wondered if his shoulders were too wide to crawl through the trapdoor.
He set his right foot on the first rung. The old wooden ladder creaked under his weight, as it had under Allen’s. Livia held her breath until Quinn climbed the ten feet and squeezed through the small opening. She heard his steps as he moved from rafter to rafter circling the bell tower.
Les stood under the opening, his eyes squinted tightly, trying to see what was going on.
“How does the wooden frame look?” he called.
On his hands and knees now, Quinn peered through the opening. “Solid as a rock,” he assured Les. “But while I’m up here, I’ll take a look at the flue and be sure it’s all right. We don’t want to risk a fire.”
Quinn crawled carefully toward the flue, wishing he’d brought a flashlight. He ran his hands over the bricks, and while he felt some warmth, it wasn’t more than would be expected after the stove had been burning for hours. Turning toward the ladder, he hit his head on a beam, his foot slipped off the rafter and he fell hard. Pain ran up his left leg as it plunged through the ceiling.
Lath and plaster fell on the group waiting below, and Livia stifled a cry as Quinn’s leg, up to his knee, hung through the ceiling. Quickly, Allen climbed the ladder.
“Are you hurt, Quinn?” he called, sticking his head into the attic.
“Not much,” Quinn gasped, “but I sure got a scare. I was afraid I’d come through the ceiling.”
“Do you need any help?”
“I’ll see if I can make it by myself,” Quinn said. He wiggled backward, keenly aware of a sharp nail that tore the seat of his pants. He carefully pulled his leg out of the hole. He wiggled his foot, thankful that he didn’t seem to have broken a bone. No doubt the heavy boots and socks he wore had prevented any serious damage.
“Allen, I’ll crawl toward you, but before I come down, we’d better put something over that hole in the ceiling to keep the cold air out of the room. See if there’s a board to cover it, or perhaps we can use one of our blankets.”
Allen came down a few rungs on the ladder. “Eric, bring one of our blankets, so he can fill the hole.”
Eric grabbed the first blanket he found and gave it to Allen, who in turn handed it to Quinn. Aware of the pain in his leg, and hoping he didn’t have a serious injury, he crawled back to the hole and covered it.
Both Eric and Allen held the ladder as Quinn started down. When he put his weight on his left leg, a pain shot from his ankle to his hip, and he almost fell from the ladder. Gritting his teeth and holding tightly to each rung, he reached the floor without any further incident. He held Allen’s arm as he walked to the nearest pew and sat down.
Alarmed by the pallor on his face, Livia hurried to him. “You’ve hurt your leg, haven’t you?”
“’Fraid so,” he admitted. “I shouldn’t have been so clumsy.”
She knelt beside him and started unlacing his boot. Sean joined her, and helped her pull off Quinn’s boot and sock. His fingers moved quickly and gingerly over Quinn’s cold foot and leg.
“Sean has had training with injuries like this,” Livia explained. “It comes in handy in basketball training and during the games, too.”
“I don’t believe you have any broken bones,” Sean said. “I think it’s a sprain or an injured muscle. Try to stand and walk a little.”
With his hand on Sean’s shoulder, Quinn took several steps. “Is the pain bad?” Livia asked.
Quinn shook his head. “It’s uncomfortable, but I’m sure I’ll be all right. Sorry to cause such a commotion,” he apologized to the others.
“I’ll bet you stepped on the place where the stovepipe used to go through the ceiling,” Les said. “The stovepipe went straight up then, but we decided to put a curved ell extension when we bought this new stove. We just patched the ceiling when we finished, and I forgot that place would be weak.”
When Livia walked away, Quinn checked out the rip in his pants. Pointing to a pew on the other side of the aisle, Quinn quietly said to Allen, “There’s a pair of jeans in my pack under that seat. Will you bring them? I tore my pants. I’ll go to the supply room and change them.”
Although Quinn tried to be nonchalant, the episode had embarrassed him. He didn’t like to be the center of attention. But was it worth having ripped pants and a sore leg to witness Livia’s obvious concern for him? Could he dare to hope that her anxiety indicated a kind feeling in her heart for him?