“I suppose,” Kristin said. “I don’t want to. Mother’s going to kill me. And then we’ll get married. I know my mother always wanted me to have a nice, big church wedding. So did I, but I guess we can’t do that now.”
“But we can, Kristin,” Terry objected. “Don’t you see? We can still have just the kind of wedding you want. There’s no law that says you can’t have a nice wedding and wear a long white dress if that’s what you want to do. We don’t have to go running off to some chapel in Vegas or to a Justice of the Peace somewhere. So what if it takes a month or two to put together a wedding? If there are people who stand around after the baby’s born, counting months and pointing fingers, then it’s their problem, not ours.”
Joanna nodded. “Terry’s right, Kristin. You can have as nice a wedding as you want.”
“But how?” Kristin asked tremulously. “Terry and I both work. Weddings take a lot of planning, and I know my mother. She’ll be so mad that she won’t lift a finger.” At that, Kristin once again burst into inconsolable sobs.
“If your mother won’t help us, mine will,” Terry said. “I know we can do it. It’ll work out, hon. I know it will. Don’t cry, please. We’ll be fine.”
Listening to him, he sounded so confident, so sure of himself, that Terry almost had Joanna convinced that it really would be fine.
“Is that what you want, Kristin?” Joanna asked kindly. “To marry Terry and keep the baby?”
“Yes,” she whispered, “but how . . .”
“Do you attend church regularly?”
“I used to,” Kristin said, sniffling. “My parents go to Cornerstone out in Sierra Vista. I tried it a few times, but I didn’t like it.”
Cornerstone in Sierra Vista was a nondenominational megachurch made up of disaffected evangelicals from many denominations who had coalesced into a separate church of their own. Cornerstone’s fiery pastor had been in the news for first blocking and then physically assaulting an elderly man who, along with his wife, had parked in the church parking lot while attending a weekday luncheon at a nearby senior center. The assault charges were eventually dropped but the incident had left both church and pastor with an unfortunate reputation in the community.
Even Marianne had been constrained to comment, telling Joanna at one of their weekday luncheons, “Cornerstone is longer on judgment and hellfire and brimstone than it is on forgiveness and the milk of human kindness.” Joanna hoped, for Kristin’s sake, that the same didn’t hold true for the young woman’s parents.
Joanna turned to her deputy. “What about you, Terry?” she asked.
He shrugged. “The last time I went to church I think I was about seven years old.”
“So you’re telling me that you’d both like to have a church wedding but neither one of you has a specific church in mind. Is that right?”
Terry Gregovich nodded. “That’s about it,” he said.
Joanna pulled a piece of paper loose from one of several half-used tablets of Post-its and jotted down a telephone number. “This is Reverend Marianne Maculyea’s number up at Canyon United Methodist Church,” she said. “Marianne’s a good friend of mine, and she has a cool head on her shoulders. I’m sure she can help talk you through some of the decisions you both need to be making right now, the bottom line of which is—baby or no baby—do you really love one another enough to get married? Since Marianne doesn’t know either one of you, she should be a truly impartial observer. Then, who knows, if you do decide on a church wedding, maybe Canyon would be a good place to do it.”
Joanna passed the note across her desk. Kristin took it as if grabbing hold of a lifeline.
“Does that mean you’re not going to fire us?” Terry asked.
Joanna shook her head. “It sounds to me as if the two of you were dealing with a life-or-death situation yesterday. Under the circumstances, I wouldn’t call that a firing offense. A lot of people seem to think that police officers are cops first and people later. I happen to believe it’s the other way around. On the other hand, you’re not getting a walk. From now on, I expect your behavior to be above reproach. That goes for both of you. I know love is grand, but it isn’t supposed to infringe on work. No hanging around the office mooning at one another when you’re supposed to be out in the field, Deputy Gregovich. Do I make myself clear?”
“Absolutely. You can count on me, Sheriff Brady,” the deputy replied.
“And if you want to take time off together,” Joanna continued, “it has to be arranged in advance through proper channels. No more of this instant comp time or ‘I feel a headache coming on, so I think I’ll go home.’ Understood, Kristin?”
The young woman nodded eagerly.
“Okay, then,” Joanna said, “it’s probably time we all went to work. Terry and Spike need to get over to Texas Canyon to help the Search and Rescue guys look for Lucinda Ridder. And I’m sure Kristin and I have a bale of incoming mail to handle. Right, Kristin?”