A Wife Worth Waiting For. Arlene James

       Chapter One

      It was a summons, plain and simple. Bolton chuckled and looked again at the folded sheet of stationery, very white against the green blotter on his desk. The shaky slashes of black ink revealed a bold hand infirmed by age and illness, but the wording was that of a self-assured despot. The Reverend Bolton Charles would please present himself at Revere House the following morning at the hour of eleven to discuss a matter of grave importance. His promptness was appreciated—and taken for granted. He would go, of course. Those of his profession could not afford to look askance at the manner in which a need for aid was presented, however high-handed the presentation. The only question in his mind was what he could do for Wallis Revere. Revere had made it plain in the past that Bolton’s “interference” was not wanted. Bolton couldn’t help wondering what had happened to change that. As Bolton considered the possibilities, he sobered.

      Wallis Revere was seventy-three years old, his birthday falling sometime in February. Bolton knew this because, as a minister, it was his practice to mark the birthdays of each and every one of his church members, whether they participated in the function of the church or not, and Wallis Revere did not. Actually, Carol, the reverend’s late wife, had started the practice, and it was one of her many projects that he had struggled to continue during the two years and four months since her death.

      Two years, four months, one week and two days. He could quickly figure the hours and minutes, as well, if he would allow himself the luxury of maudlin reflection. But he would not. Carol was gone. His own life went on. God’s ways were often mysterious, and his own faith was such that he needed no other explanation for the single most devastating event of his life. His wife had died of cancer. He missed her horribly, and yet what he missed most these days was having someone beside him, someone sharing his life, not Carol herself precisely, but someone. Someone to love—he wanted someone to love. A woman. He was man enough, human enough, to admit that he wanted, needed a woman, his own woman. God had designed men and women to want and need and love one another. He never ceased to marvel at that fact. Mysterious ways, he reminded himself, and resolutely turned his thoughts back to work.

      Revere was elderly, ailing from some sort of degenerative bone disease, and stubbornly reclusive. He had not welcomed the three previous calls that Bolton had dutifully paid him. In fact, Revere had been barely civil on those past occasions, dismissing the minister quite firmly in the end. Nevertheless, he had continued his generous monthly monetary contributions to the church’s treasury—and now it appeared that the old boy was ready to extract his money’s worth from the minister whose comfortable salary he helped to provide. It was, of course, the very sort of thing that Bolton Charles was paid to do. Visit the infirm and elderly, render aid to the needy, comfort, advise, counsel, exhort, pray…organize, oversee, encourage, teach, preach, intercede, introduce, support, defend…The list was endless, but they were all duties, each and every one, for which he was called much more than hired, and for that reason he would clear his schedule and appear at Revere House at precisely eleven the next morning. He would have gone even if Revere previously had tossed him out on his backside, revoked his church membership and demanded a refund of his tithes. Bolton’s reasons were simple. He was a man of God, a minister, sworn to aid the needy in body