The Wedding Chapel by Rachel Hauck Read Free Book Online

his mind, Jimmy fished his truck keys from the fruit bowl by the kitchen door and stepped into the midday sun, summer’s grip still hot and strong on the passing September days.
    But that’s the way it was in Middle Tennessee. He’d spent more than his share of autumn afternoons baking under the sun’s rays, running football practice, building boys into men.
    Then one day God would flip the switch, drop the temperatures, color the trees with the beauty of heaven, and cheer up life with full-on football weather.
    He missed those days. Missed filling his life with meaning. But nine years ago, when he turned seventy-four, he heard the bong of time in his chest and knew it was time to hand over the reins of Rock Mill High’s football program to a younger man.
    Tom Meyers was doing a good job of it too. Hadn’t won a national title yet, but it was harder today than in Jimmy’s day.
    As he walked to his truck, his thoughts bounced from football to the chapel, to Keith’s proposition. He was a young buck, this real estate agent, and a good man as far as Jimmy knew. His daddy had played on one of Jimmy’s championship teams.
    Settled behind the wheel, Jimmy fired up the engine, then paused with his hand on the gear shift. His old chapel . . . The memories surfaced . . .
    Shoot fire, he had forgotten the chapel key.
    Leaving the truck engine idling, he traced his way back to the house, crossed the kitchen to the living room, then made his way up the stairs. In his room, under the dormer eaves, he opened the narrow half door leading to the attic and climbed up.
    Stooping down, he reached through the dark, retrieving a small cedar box. When he raised the lid, the scent of the wood enhanced his memory.
    “What are you going to do with the place?” Dad had followed Jimmy into his room, not willing to leave it be.
    “Lock it up.”
    “After all your hard work? Jimmy, let it be useful—”
    “I’m locking it up since you wouldn’t let me burn it.” Jimmy searched his dresser for something, anything, he could use to store the key. He spied a dust-covered cedar box he’d made in Sunday school eons ago. Popping it open, he dropped the key inside.
    “You won’t always feel this way,” Dad said. “She might come back.”
    “Yeah? Did Mama?” It was a low blow, but anger threw mean punches.
    “What have I been telling you? Don’t be like me. Move on. Find another gal.” Dad moved to the door, his wide, large shoulders rounded down with the weight of the conversation. “Just promise me you won’t throw away the key.”
    He wasn’t talking about the metal piece in the cedar box. Jimmy knew it. Falling on his bed, stretching out, locking his hands behind his head, he nodded. “I won’t . . . I won’t throw away the key.”
    Returning the box to its hideaway, Jimmy shook away the fragrance of the past. But he had thrown away the key. To his heart. While the physical key to the chapel remained, Jimmy kept the letter of the law but not the grace.
    He squeezed the key against his palm. “Sorry, Daddy.” Even at eighty-three, he missed his father.
    But today represented a new chance. To pass the key on, give the old chapel the life it never had. It was too late for his heart but not for the chapel’s. Not his dreams for her.
    But did he have the courage? Jimmy wouldn’t know until he opened the door and stepped inside his past for the first time in a long time.
    With that in mind, Jimmy left the house, nurturing a sense of purpose. Perhaps the Divine was intervening, answering an unspoken prayer in his heart.
    He drove slowly down the street, the slightest touch of fall painting the edge of the green hills.
    He jutted his elbow out the open window and caught a whiff of burning firewood. Change was in the air, and it had him hankering for something he could not see nor touch.
    Turning off Dunbar Street onto River Road, Jimmy headed north for three short miles.
    Along the sloping hills, another housing development