Rainy Day Blogfest meets WIP Wednesday!

Welcome to my entry to The Rainy Day Blogfest, brought to you by Christine at The Writers Hole and some Wednesday WIP. So please follow the link and read the rest of the wonderful entries after your time here with me and my rough bit of WIP.

In this scene, my MC Wyatt, his heroin Mary and half the town have met at the church to go over Mercy Corners Fall Festival plans for the coming weekend. A early fall rain storm is the back drop and a mood setter for this bit.

It’s Wyatt’s first time back in church since his Uncles death and has been talked into singing (once a choir boy). He sings because something in him, something Mary has awakened in him since her return, makes him say yes.

It’s sort of an odd but touching scene. A rough looking, quiet manly man singing with a soft grace in front of his town and the girl. At this point in the story it’s a surprising change in his character. He’s trying to live…

The first section fits in the under 500 wrd count for the Rainy Day Fest, the rest is there if you would like to continue reading some of my WIP. Thank you.

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…When we've been here ten thousand years
Bright shining as the sun.
We've no less days to sing God's praise
Than when we've first begun.

Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound,
That saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost but now am found,
Was blind, but now I see.

Wyatt’s warm vocals trailed out into the stilled room and then faded into the thunder that growled outside the chapels opened window panes.

Mary was feeling that thunder—or was it her heart.

Wyatt’s eyes, which he’d kept strictly focused on the back wall of the church during his performance, were now wide and open and trained on her own. She was struck by what she found there.

He’d sung of redemption and grace in a voice full of honesty and confidence. If anything, it was how most saw him as a man. But in his eyes—those dark fathomless eyes, Mary could see redemption and given grace were things Wyatt felt undeserving.

Right then and there, Mary sent up her own prayer within the little house of God. She was out of practice, but it was a simple one.

‘Please let him forgive himself.’

“Well thank you there, Wyatt.” Reverend Wright stepped back up to his pulpit and waved on the warm swell of applause rising and falling through the room like the rolling clouds coming in. It wasn’t every day the town protector dipped his shield and sung to a packed church.

Wyatt humbly nodded to the Reverend and quickly took his seat in the front pew. Through announcements and the reading of the closing prayers, Mary could not keep her eyes from the back of Wyatt’s ridged form.

“Almighty and most merciful Father, we humbly beseech Thee, of Thy great goodness, to restrain these immoderate rains with which we have had to contend. Grant us fair weather for our jubilations. Graciously hearken to us as followers who call upon Thee that, armed with Thy power and love, we may advance from our yesterday’s storms and to better days, and conquer our fears and bring out your glory in all of us. Amen.”

“Amen” Mary whispered.

In the prayers ending, Wyatt partly turned his head in the direction where she sat. A wind gust blew into the little chapel, heralding in the first rains of the coming storm.

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“Hon, ya want a ride back to the Inn before I go to Molly’s?” Aunt Sissy had sidled up to Mary’s side after the meeting let out. Mary had left before Wyatt could turn around, she was still angry at him for earlier in the week. But she couldn’t leave.

“That’s okay Sissy.” Mary smiled and placed her hand on the perfumed one that squeezed her shoulder. “I need to talk to the Reverend about scheduling at the Red Cross tent tomorrow.” She hoped Sissy humored her lie and walked on without giving one of her patent pending looks of knowing.

She didn’t.

“Sure, hon.” The intuitive redhead cocked her brow and glanced to the back of the church. “See ya tomorrow then.”

Mary didn’t answer, but it seemed Sissy took that as all the answer she needed. Smiling wistfully, Sissy again glanced towards the back of the church and then to Mary. Sighing deep, Sissy winked then stepped out onto the front steps, popped her umbrella and leisurely sauntered out into the rain.

Mary just shook her head, watching her too-smart-for-her-own-good Aunt smoothly dodge mud puddles to her lemon yellow VW.

“So, did she say it’s Molly’s she’s going to?”

Startled, Mary closed her eyes and smiled away her surprise. She turned and found Wyatt standing at her shoulder looking out into the rain.

“You really should wear a bell.” Mary grumbled.

Wyatt offered a light smirk, but continued to look out into the rain.

“So where is my Aunt going?”

“Marcus Wheeler”

“No. The two of them?”

“Since early Summer. Not long after his wife died of cancer. Sissy thinks she needs to hide it, being that he’s so recent a widow.” Wyatt shook his head and shrugged. “All I know it’s every other Sunday she goes to Huntsville to see him. She wears her heals and her good perfume for church service and then she tells Jack she’s going to Molly Jones house afterward for a visit.”

It made sense. Mary had felt something was different about her Aunt this visit. Different, but good. It explained why Sissy had been trying so hard to push her closer to Wyatt. People in love always had a thing for meddling in others relationships. Happiness was its own spreadable disease.

“But that sort of thing shouldn’t matter. They’re not hurting anyone.” And it didn’t surprise Mary that Wyatt was keeping tabs on her Aunt. Wyatt the constant Sheppard. “And besides, their just giving each other comfort…”

The rain had begun to fall hard, splattering off the concrete steps and onto the pair where they stood under the overhang.

“Everyone deserves that…”

Mary’s words failed her when she turned to find Wyatt’s eyes boring through her. She felt like a butterfly pinned or prey found under his piercing stare. She had never known another man like Wyatt, whose stares spoke louder than most men’s loudest roars.

She never knew another man who could make her feel what she felt right now…

She doesn’t quite remember when she’d accepted his offer of a ride back to the boarding house or even if he gave one. They hadn’t spoken a word after leaving the church steps.

The rain poured now. Both had been soaked to the bone and Mary had begun to shake, but it had nothing to do with the rain or the cold.

She watched him put the car in park in front of the house and swore she saw his shoulders begin their downward dip by a weight from some unfathomable source.

“Wyatt?”

Before she could say another word he had bridged the gap between them and had her ensnared in his arms. Overpowered and overwhelmed by the feel of him—his intensity, she gasped for air in-between their kisses. It felt frightening and familiar and oh so good to be held this way again.

Mary quickly caught up with Wyatt in the moment, crawling up into his lap and held on tight. Her hands reached out and grasped the sopping fabric that covered the lean lines and physical strength Wyatt had become. But what hadn’t changed—the most important thing—he still could make her feel so special and so lov…

“No…”

Before she could respond, Wyatt had roughly slid from under her, depositing her against the car door and pulled himself back to his side of the Jeep.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have…” Wyatt placed his hands to the wheel and focused on squeezing it to death.

“Goodnight Mary.”

“Wyatt?”

“Don’t…” His order came out as a plea. A smothering silence descended on the two.

At this point Mary wasn’t sure how she was supposed to feel…embarrassment, hurt, she defiantly felt confused. So she picked an emotion she had come to grips with earlier in the week----anger.

“Don’t what Wyatt? I’m not the girl you left behind fifteen years ago. You can’t just run and not expect me to ask why this time. You have NO RIGHT to push me away.” Only the thunder outside the car was louder. “If anything at all, we are friends and I care…”

“Mary, please…”

“So don’t what Wyatt…” Her voice had begun to waver. “…care?”

The silence ticked between them once more when he didn’t answer.

“Is this where you run from me again, Wyatt?”

Wyatt’s eyes shot around and met Mary’s in the dim light. She was startled by everything that glistened in his onyx stare--all of it complicated. She realized she couldn’t handle complicated right then. Not tonight.

Mary turned away, opening the car door to step out. She stopped when she heard his voice drift just over the sound of the rain hitting the Jeep roof.

“I ’m not the man you think I am, Mary.”

A small fraction of Mary’s anger slipped away and was replaced by hurt—for both of them.

“No Wyatt, I guess you are not the man I know you to be.” She turned back around to meet his eyes. “The man I know isn’t a coward.”

Mary stepped out into the downpour and slammed the car door, leaving Wyatt behind.

TBC. and edited.