Like Sweet Potato Pie Read online

  © 2012 by Jennifer Rogers Spinola

  Print ISBN 978-1-61626-365-2

  eBook Editions:

  Adobe Digital Edition (.epub) 978-1-60742-796-2

  Kindle and MobiPocket Edition (.prc) 978-1-60742-793-3

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted for commercial purposes, except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without written permission of the publisher.

  Scripture taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. NIV®.

  Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

  All scripture quotations are taken from the King James Version of the Bible.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any similarity to actual people, organizations, and/or events is purely coincidental.

  For more information about Jennifer Rogers Spinola, please access the author’s website at the following Internet address: www.jenniferrogersspinola.com

  Cover design: Faceout Studio, www.faceoutstudio.com

  Published by Barbour Publishing, Inc., P.O. Box 719, Uhrichsville, OH 44683, www.barbourbooks.com

  Our mission is to publish and distribute inspirational products offering exceptional value and biblical encouragement to the masses.

  Printed in the United States of America.

  Dedication

  To my husband, Athos, who’s sprinkled a lot of sugar and spice on this wrinkled old American sweet potato. Thanks for seven unforgettable years.

  Acknowledgments

  Writing a book is a bit like a recipe—a lot editing and plot twisting, a splash of re-writing, a sprinkle of wild ideas, a good dose of craziness, and a pinch of pure miracle. Whip everything together with a deadline in mind, and voila! Dessert’s on the table. I just have to uncover my eyes before I reach in to taste the first bite.

  And when it comes to baking books, nobody does a better job than Roger Bruner and his wife, Kathleen, who’ve coached me every step of the way, reading and rereading my rough manuscripts until their eyes burn. Roger, your own books, the fiction-writing craft books you’ve given me, and your urging to join ACFW has made such a difference!

  Cindy Lowry, thanks for all the invaluable IRS/back tax info and for answering my questions so patiently. I’m in your debt!

  Lessa Goens, one-in-a-million cousin, cop, and soulmate (how often does a girl get one of those?!)—you’re the best! I’ll never understand how you pull ideas out of thin air or text me back within minutes with the perfect plot fix-it I’d never considered.

  Jenn Fromke, Christy Truitt, Shelly Dippel, Karen Schravemade—YOU ARE AMAZING! How on earth I’m allowed to be in the same crit group with such talented women is a pure mystery. Somebody must’ve been asleep the day I joined.

  Since this book is as much about love as it is writing, a big thank you to Kathy Cooksey and Cherilyn Amborski, who’ve been my prayer/relationship/child-raising partners for years now, always putting up with my grumbling and questions and pointing me toward the Savior. I’ve learned so much from you! Thank you also to my sweet Aunt Lois Lambert, who—even without a husband or child—has taught me so much about love, life, and relationships. I can’t ever thank you enough for your help and advice all these years. You are an inspiration!

  To my editor, Rebecca Germany, plus April, Laura, Linda, and Jessie at Barbour Books, thank you for your unending patience with a newbie.

  To Athos and Ethan, I love you more than I can say!

  To my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, thank you for your amazing love. I will never be the same.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Discussion Questions

  About the Author

  Chapter 1

  Saturday afternoon, and I could hardly wait to hang up my stained apron and flee Barnes & Noble. The long day of shelving books and pinch-hitting in the Starbucks café with two baristas out sick left my feet screaming for mercy. I liked drinking coffee, not steaming it. Ugh. Even my hair smelled like espresso.

  But there was no time to complain about my aching back or the foaming milk roaring in my ears. I needed to get to my friend Becky—and fast. She was part of my plot. My lips twisted into a smug little smile.

  I pulled up to her cozy brick house and honked the horn, hanging my head out the window. “Hurry up! We can’t be late!”

  “Hold yer horses, Shiloh P. Jacobs! I done got ev’rything!” Becky ran out hauling two heavy plastic bags and a cardboard mason jar box.

  I lowered my sunglasses—pricey Dolce & Gabbanas, from the days when I actually had money—and gave her an exaggerated wink. “Just put the goods in the trunk.”

  Becky looked great. Ever since arriving in this little Virginia town from my reporter’s post in Tokyo, I’d vigorously attacked her wardrobe. “The Fashion Nazi,” she called me.

  Still, Becky had thrown away a lot of her bulky plaid stuff and the oversize black clothes that tended to wash her out. Ditto with sloppy NASCAR and Future Farmers of America sweatshirts and the like. I’d convinced her to make charcoal gray and brown her new black and to add in softer tones like aqua and lemon yellow that made her blond hair shine.

  “Fashion Nazi” is a bit over the top. I’m just a New York Yankee who knows that nobody looks good in a faded 1990s Ricky Rudd T-shirt that could fit Uncle Cletus.

  Today Becky impressed even me—a frilly, sea-green eyelet top with cap sleeves that matched her eyes, plus a pair of crisp white capris. New sandals from Payless. Artsy emerald-green earrings I’d convinced her to buy at JCPenney’s.

  Wait a second. I squinted and leaned in closer. Did I see nail polish? On Becky Donaldson?

  “Becky?” I blinked. “Who are you? Where’s Becky?”

  She stared at me like I’d burst into flames then put her hands on her hips. “You started this whole shindig, Miss Fashion Plate, so don’t gimme no lip!”

  I feigned confusion. “Aren’t you always calling me Miss Independent? Which is it?”

  “Yer gonna be Miss Flattened if ya don’t open up yer trunk this minute!”

  She grinned, and I noticed the happy color in her cheeks. I nodded in satisfaction. Becky’s heart was healing.

  She’d suffered through a few tough weeks after her surprise pregnancy and subsequent miscarriage, which followed four painful years of infertility. But nothing kept Becky Donaldson down for long.

  “What’s in the box?” I glanced over at the giant cardboard square that she cradle
d like eggs.

  “Stuff,” she sniffed, slamming the car door shut and buckling up. “You’ll see soon enough.”

  I raised my eyebrows.

  “G’won!” She pushed my head forward. “Get out that lead foot a yers or we’ll be late!”

  The afternoon dazzled, sun shining on the last of the season’s bright yellow goldenrod blooming along the end of Becky’s driveway. During my few months in Virginia, I’d learned a few things. After goldenrod comes that crisp, smoke-scented air, like a ripe apple, that warns of fall. The deep blue early October sky. Frost on the grass.

  And goldenrod never lies. Splashes of pumpkin orange and dusky yellow had already rippled through the woods, whispering of chilly mornings and scattering leaves. Summer had gone without a word, leaving me only a few wild-flung days of surprising warmth.

  Like today. I peeled off my jacket and tossed it in the seat, backing out of the driveway.

  “That thing ya hung on yer rearview mirror’s gone,” said Becky abruptly, flipping down the visor to check her …

  Lipstick? Becky considered ChapStick high-maintenance stuff. Aliens had abducted Becky. Or maybe she’d actually started listening to me.

  “What’d ya do with it?” She flipped the visor shut.

  “The omamori?”

  “Yeah. That red dangly thing that said who-knows-what in Jap’nese.”

  “Right. A charm. You know, for good luck. I … well … decided I don’t need it anymore.” I smirked. “Unless you’re driving, and then I need all the good luck I can get.”

  “Har-har,” Becky snarked. “I ken drive! Jest put me on Daytona Speedway an’ watch me go!”

  “Exactly.”

  She grinned. “Well, good fer you. Good luck ain’t worth a hoot anyway.”

  I kept my eyes on the road, trying to think of some way to break the news to Becky. She had to know. But I couldn’t blast her to kingdom come either.

  I flexed my fingers on the steering wheel. “I’ve been thinking, Becky.” I kept my tone conversational, turning down a winding country road. “I really like root beer now. I don’t know if I’ve ever told you that.”

  “Root beer? Naw, don’t reckon so. The first time, ya told me it tasted like cheap NyQuil.” She glared at me.

  I flinched. Back then, yeah, I probably did say something like that. “Sorry. People change though. I really like it now.”

  “Well good! Yer finally startin’ to get some sense in that globetrottin’ head a yers. Livin’ in Japan all them years an’ eatin’ …?”

  “I love sushi. Don’t you dare.” I waved a finger at her.

  I couldn’t find sushi in Staunton. Not even a measly little piece of salmon. Know what futility feels like? Try hunting for pickled ginger slices in a grocery store stocked with lard and cornmeal.

  “Raw fish? Shucks, Shah-loh,” she said, drawling out my name in her own distinctive Becky style. “I’d take a root beer an’ sweet potater pie over some piece a raw, dead fish any day!”

  “Jesus ate fish,” I sniffed.

  “Yeah, and He cooked it, too! That oughtta tell ya somethin’!”

  Actually, He did.

  She had that eyebrow up. Fixed an odd expression on me.

  “What?” I glanced over.

  “How’d ya know Jesus ate fish?” Becky’s eyes narrowed. “You ain’t set foot in a church since they started buildin’ Talladega.”

  “Talla-what?”

  “The racetrack.”

  I ignored her, but color flared in my cheeks. “Anyway, sushi’s paradise.” We came around a bend where cows lolled on green fields, oblivious to the fate of summer. “Gourmet paradise. Don’t knock it ‘til you’ve tried it.”

  “Over my dead redneck body.” Becky’d spent all her twenty-five years living in rural Staunton, and it had morphed into her veins.

  “Even deep-fried? What about all the fried dill pickles and MoonPies in the South?” I was teasing. Now. A few months ago … well, let’s just say things were different. And so was I.

  “You smack a piece a deep-fried sushi on my plate and see what happens!”

  I choked back a laugh, remembering how I’d arrived in the summer, arrogant and judgmental and so full of hurt I fairly spewed. I probably said a lot of things to hurt Becky. And Adam. And … well, other people, too. I just thanked heaven they were pretty good forgivers.

  “I reckon ya changed a lotta things, Shah-loh. It’s the good ol’ Virginia air workin’ wonders on yer taste buds. Next you’ll start tearin’ open bags a pork rinds and goin’ hog wild!”

  I laughed at her unintended pun. “Over my dead Yankee body.”

  But I didn’t want to talk about death. Not anymore. Mom’s untimely passing had given me my fill of funeral flowers, cemetery visits, and regrets. And living in her house, even painted and spruced up, still took some getting used to. I hadn’t been close to Mom for years—if I ever had—but it shook me nonetheless.

  You’re stalling. Just tell her, Shiloh P. Jacobs!

  I took a deep breath and tried awkwardly to segue. “There’s something else that’s changed in my life besides root beer.”

  “Ya got another job?”

  I winced. As if getting fired from the Associated Press’s coveted Tokyo bureau for plagiarism at age twenty-four didn’t stink sufficiently, now I worked two low-totem-pole jobs to pay off my bills. Debts. Loans. For eternity or until I sold Mom’s house. Whichever came first.

  “No. Better.”

  “Better ‘n that?”

  “Lots better.” I tried to keep my cheeks from smiling so much, but today I couldn’t manage a poker face.

  Becky stared at me with that narrow-eyed look again, and her mouth slowly wobbled. “Shah-loh,” she whispered. “Don’t tell me ya believe in Jesus!”

  I swerved.

  Becky screamed. I jerked the car back into my lane, jaw dropping in surprise. “How did you …?”

  But Becky hadn’t heard me. She straightened the box on her lap and glanced inside then closed her eyes in relief. The contents remained in one piece. Or however many pieces they were supposed to.

  “Well, yer gonna meet Him real soon if ya don’t watch where yer goin’!”

  “Sorry. You just … surprised me. How did you know?” My decision had been private. Personal, real, and life changing, but private. I hadn’t spilled the news to a soul.

  Becky’s lip quivered, the radiant color in her face turning to blotches. “I don’t know. There’s somethin’ different about ya today, like ya won the lotto or somethin’. You’re sorta shinin’ from the inside! Ya got stars in yer eyes! You’re … well, you jest look beautiful. More beautiful than I’ve ever seen ya.” She mopped her face with her hand.

  “Wow,” I said, tearing up myself. “It’s really that obvious?”

  “All over yer face,” Becky sobbed.

  “I just realized I needed Jesus to pay for my sins.” I kept my eyes on the curvy country road, hardly believing my own words. “I saw the change in Mom’s life, and then I met you and our friends, and God kept showing me something was missing. That I couldn’t forgive until God forgave me. And that Jesus gave His life for me. I started reading First John like Adam said, and—”

  “Adam?” Becky grinned. “I shoulda known!”

  “Wipe that smirk off your face!” I ordered, trying to laugh and cry and drive at the same time. Everyone knew Adam Carter, landscaper, had a good heart—although a bit of a stuffy, straitlaced one, too. I’d written him off as a religious nut for a while.

  But that’s not why I said yes to God.

  “I couldn’t get out of my mind what I read—’The blood of Jesus his Son purifies us from all sin.’ It’s what Mom discovered before she died, and it changed her whole life.”

  I trembled, remembering the force of my decision, the strength and joy and forgiveness rushing in, breaking up the hardened anger that had closed up my heart for years.

  “I found Mom’s journals, how she wrote about Jesus cha
nging her life after getting tangled in all those cults for years. And then I met Adam’s brother, who’s got an amazing story of forgiveness, and …” I glanced over in annoyance. “Are you listening?”

  “Shiloh Pearl Jacobs!” Becky sat up straight, coming back to her senses. “Pull over right this minute!”

  “Why? What’s wrong?”

  “Jest do it! Now!”

  “Where? Here?” I gestured to a long, dusty, gravel driveway and swerved into it. As soon as I shifted into PARK, Becky attacked me with a hug. She laughed and shouted, “Praise the Lord!”—then stuck her head out the window and whooped and hollered and waved her arms.

  “Shah-loh’s a Christian!” she yelled, cupping her hands around her mouth. “I been prayin’ fer her a long time!”

  A shiny green Chevy pickup zoomed by and honked in reply. I put my arm out the window and waved and honked back. Not that long ago I would’ve slumped down in the seat and tried to disappear, but not now. I felt like I did at the top of Mount Fuji: light-headed, sun dazzling my eyes, and lungs bursting with joy.

  “So how’s bein’ a Christian?” Becky stuck her head back in the window.

  “New. Different. Amazing.” My hands trembled as I reached to punch on the hazard lights and pull back into the road. “And also a little scary.”

  “Scary? How come?”

  “A lot of reasons.” I pulled off my sunglasses to wipe my eyes. “I’ve … well, changed, Becky. I don’t know who I am anymore, or how I’m supposed to act, or—”

  “Act? Act like a woman who loves Jesus, Shah-loh! Ain’t nothin’ to it!”

  “Sure, but it’s all strange to me. I’m totally ignorant about the Bible except what I’ve read on my own and heard on some of Mom’s old sermon CDs. I’ve never gone to church.”

  “Never?” Becky blinked.

  “Nope.” I played with a strand of brown hair that hung down from my ponytail, sticky with something—milk? Caramel syrup? “I don’t know how I’m supposed to tell people either. I promise you, not everybody’s going to be as happy about this as you are.”

  “Ya reckon?”

  “Are you kidding? My family will just think I’m weirder than ever… . Not that we really act anything like family. Dad and I don’t speak, you know, and my older sister just calls when she wants something.” I looked out over the rolling green hillsides, rippling wheat-colored grasses lining the pasture fence. “Half sister. We’re only related by Dad.”