Dreaming of Her Pen Pal's Kiss

Journee Barclay isn't interested in the big, hulky football player the town of Mistletoe wants her to date. She's been writing to a sweet, shy computer geek and she's hoping he'll eventually ask to meet her. But putting the town off is getting to be more difficult every day.

Football star Dante Tolzien came to the town of Mistletoe, Arkansas to rest and recover from his recent car accident on the advice of his doctor. While in the hospital, he enjoyed writing to a secret pen pal. While a part of him would love to meet his unknown friend, another part of him is more interested in the real live nurse in front of him.

Unfortunately, she seems to be stuck on a man no one has ever met.

When Journee and Dante are entered in Mistletoe's own Not-Such-An-Ironman contest together, sparks fly. But can they let go of their pen pals in order to pursue a relationship with each other?

Chapter 1

“Is that another name for your pen pal program?” Journee asked
her dad while seated across the desk from him in his church office in Mistletoe,
Arkansas.

“It is.”

Her dad, glasses perched on the end of his nose, his salt-and-pepper
hair not nearly as thick as it used to be, tapped the desk in front of him with
one finger, as though thinking.

Journee’s stomach shivered, just a little, for some odd
reason. She already had four people she was writing to in the church’s new pen pal
program. But out of those four people, only one had written her more than once.

She wondered if she came on too strong in her original
letter. Maybe she just didn’t write the kind of letters people wanted to
respond to. Maybe people were too busy. She didn’t want to admit to her
failure, but she had to admit to being discouraged.

Her dad, Pastor Race, tilted his head and narrowed his eyes
just a little, as though he were thinking. Or as though he knew what she was
going to say before she said it. Which was most likely the case.

Her mouth opened anyway, and the words he probably knew were
going to come out spilled. “I can take the name.”

“I haven’t even told you whether it’s a man or woman.” Humor
laced his words, along with a heavy dose of affection.

She’d lost her parents when she was pretty young, and it was
funny how she had nothing but good memories of them. Like her brain had
completely blanked out and recorded over anything bad that had ever happened.

Still, Race and Penny had adopted her and her five siblings,
and she honestly had nothing but good memories of them either. It wasn’t that
everything that had ever happened in her life had been good, other than her
parents being killed a car accident, but God had blessed her with two sets of
wonderful parents.

She wasn’t quite sure why, when some people didn’t even get
one.

“Dad, you know it doesn’t matter. I just love writing
people. Or maybe, I just love writing in general. And things really get slow in
the ER at night. I have plenty of time.”

The ER in a small town was an odd thing. For days, they’d go
with barely a soul showing up, and then one night, they might have nothing but
chaos all night long.

Most of the time though, it was quiet and she had plenty of
time to daydream or, as she’d been doing, write her letters.

“I know you do. I just don’t want to give you more than you
can handle.” He tapped his finger some more. “Although, while I do have at
least forty people writing from the church, I have more requests for partners
than I do people to match them with. I was almost thinking of writing to this
person myself.”

Whoever it was, they would definitely benefit from writing
to her dad more than they would from writing to her. She’d never met a wiser
person.

“Maybe that’s what the Lord would want you to do.”

Race shook his head slightly. “Actually, when the name first
came in, I thought of you immediately. I probably would have asked you to do it
then if I didn’t know you were already paired up with four people.”

“Dad, I can do it. Especially if you think I should. If you
think it’s meant for me.” She tried to keep the hope out of her voice. All of
her siblings except Shawn, who would probably never get married, had found
God’s plan for them and, at the same time, found a lifetime love.

It was her fondest hope.

She thought she’d had it with her high school sweetheart.

Thoughts of Alex turned the excited shiver in her stomach
into something which felt more like congealed gravy.

Thoughts of Alex didn’t hurt anymore, but they made her sad.

Because she viewed him as a big mistake.

And wished she wouldn’t have wasted so much time on him when
she was younger. Maybe she’d missed God’s plan and God’s big love story for her
because she’d been focused on the wrong guy—because she’d definitely been
focused on Alex.

Or maybe Alex had been right for her, and he just hadn’t
been strong enough to stand up to his parents and say so.

But she didn’t want a man who wasn’t respectful to his
parents, and she admired him in an odd kind of way for listening to them.

Still, it was hard not to think of what might have been.

Her dad didn’t answer for a moment, and she gave him time.
He’d warned her from the beginning that Alex probably wasn’t right for her. Not
in so many words, but anytime she’d gone to him for advice, his advice would
have turned her away from Alex.

To her shame, she hadn’t usually listened and hadn’t gone to
him as much as she probably should have anyway.

Her dad breathed deeply and straightened the pen in front of
him that was already straight before looking up at her. “This was a little
different. And I think there’s potential on both ends for things to go badly,
so while I know that you have never had a problem obeying the rules, I’m going
to remind you. It is imperative that you not use your real name and that you
not ask for theirs.”

She nodded. She’d not broken any of the pen pal program’s
rules, and she didn’t plan to.

“It’s also important that you don’t give too many
identifying details about your life.”

He smiled, the love he felt for her reaching deep inside and
swirling around her chest. From the very beginning, she’d never had a doubt about
how Race and Penny felt about her. It was amazing that they loved her no matter
how stupid she was. How many dumb mistakes she made. And how often she messed
up and didn’t listen.

After the debacle with Alex, she couldn’t imagine her dad
giving her advice that she didn’t follow.

“I suppose I’m a little overprotective of you, because not
only are you my daughter, but you’re the youngest. I know you’re all grown up
now, able to support yourself, and you don’t need your old dad anymore…”

“I need you, Dad. Don’t ever say that I don’t. I would have
avoided a lot of heartache in my life if I would have listened to you.”

“Water under the bridge.” He shook his head and reached his
hand out across the desk. She put hers in it easily. Race and Penny had never
hesitated to hug them or touch them, and she appreciated it. It was part of
what made her feel loved.

“Regardless. Your advice means everything to me. Whatever
you say, I’ll do it to the best of my ability.”

“Thank you. I know you will. You were such an easy child to
raise. And you’ve grown into such a wonderful woman. But I don’t want to see
you hurt. And…” He looked down at the name in front of him. “I think this
person is vulnerable too. I know you would never do anything to harm them on
purpose, and I don’t think that most people would look at this person and see
how fragile they are, but I just want you both to be careful. At least for a
year. If you’re still writing after that time, I think it would be safe to say
you could probably open up a little more.”

He said the last slowly, like he hadn’t quite thought it
through. His eyes were on the calendar, and Journee’s eyes landed there too.

February seventh.

The rest of the world would be celebrating Valentine’s Day
tomorrow, but not in Mistletoe, Arkansas. For them, it was Christmas year-round.

“I don’t have a problem with that, Dad. No identifying
details, and no names, and no real address, until we’ve been writing for a
year.”

She looked down, running her finger over the picture frame on
her dad’s desk that held the first picture of their family that had ever been
taken. Race and Penny stood behind them with Ethan, whom they’d never adopted
but had lived with them for a while, with Journee and her five siblings in
front.

A hodgepodge of people maybe, but she loved that picture,
because it represented a new beginning. She thought her birth parents would
smile at where their children had landed and what God had done for them.

Still, Race hesitated, and she felt she needed to say
something. “Dad, if you don’t think that this is something I should do, don’t
give it to me.”

He was silent for a bit, although the air around them was
alive. Sounds of children from the daycare playing on the playground outside
came muffled through the window, and ladies’ laughter from the Bible study down
the hall seemed to seep under the door.

That was one of her favorite things about the church. She
could go into the sanctuary and just feel the stillness and peace of God, and
she could walk out of the sanctuary and feel the life and breath of the saints
who made up the church.

It was just a building, but it always felt alive to her.
Always gave her peace. Comfort. And hope.

Finally, Race shifted and swallowed. “No. I actually know
this is something you should do.” Concern overshadowed every other emotion on
his face. “I want to protect you. I know your heart was already broken, and
love can be hard sometimes. Not that I’m expecting you to fall in love with
this person.”

He tapped the paper on the desk. “Not romantic love. But
even friends can break your heart. I just can’t help but think that even though
I know this is what you’re supposed to do, there’s going to be tears ahead. As
a father, I don’t want that. Still, I know that sometimes it’s the hard times
in our life where we grow the most. It’s what God uses to bring us closer to Him
and to make us into the people that he wants us to be. I can definitely look
back over my own life and see that as a stark reality. The hardest times of my
life ended up being the best times for me. It’s just…they’re so hard to walk
through. But I think even more than that, it’s hard to watch people we love
walk through them. If you love someone, their pain is yours. So, if I’m
hesitating, maybe it’s about my own heart as much as it’s about yours.”

Journee smiled at that. Her dad wasn’t more concerned about
himself than her, but he was also a humble man, and he wouldn’t boast. “I love that
you care about me. And I know I am a dreamer. I know I have a tendency to make
really bad decisions, but I think I’m doing better, and I’m also stronger than
what I get credit for. I might be the youngest, but I am grown up.”

She didn’t really mind the tendency of everyone in her
family to treat her like she was still a child. In some ways, she kinda felt
like she was.

She had made some foolish choices. Although, at least for
the way some people thought, she’d made a wise decision in completing her four-year
nursing degree, but she’d passed up a lot more lucrative opportunities in order
to come back to her hometown and settle down. She had no desire to leave her
family and friends in the town she grew up in.

None.

“I know you do.”

At that, Race pushed back away from the desk and came
around. Journee stood, and he embraced her, the strength of his arms and the
scent of his aftershave familiar and beloved, comforting, making her feel safe
like she always did when Race hugged her. She knew he’d protect her with
everything he had, but she also knew she was an adult and had to be responsible
for her own decisions and her own life.

He squeezed her for a bit and pulled away first. “Here’s the
address. It’s a man. He’s not retired. And, like all of the other pen pal
recipients in our program, he’s in the hospital. He hasn’t been in quite as long
as most of the others, only a couple of weeks, but because of the nature of his
job, people who care about him know that being in the hospital is psychologically
excruciating for him. They felt that giving him a pen pal—someone like you,”
Race said with a smile, “is what he needs to get himself back to where he needs
to be in order to do his job to the best of his ability.”

“Are you saying he’s depressed?” She tilted her head, having
had some experience with depression in her schooling. Also, Alex had been going
to be a psychologist.

“I don’t think he’s there. Yet. I do think it’s a distinct
possibility, especially if he doesn’t get better.” Race’s words were slightly
hesitant, like he didn’t want to say too much.

Journee nodded. She didn’t need to know all the details. She
had a good imagination, and she could fill them in with whatever she wanted. She
could have a conversation with herself. Or with a reluctant man who needed to
be encouraged. Of course, she had been worried she came on too strong with her
other pen pals. Maybe she should start slowly.

“I’ll do my best, Dad.”

“I knew you would, Journee. I love you.” He squeezed her
again before letting go.

She fingered the paper as she walked out of his office.
Somehow, the idea of this pen pal, and writing to this man, stirred threads of
excitement that she hadn’t had when her dad had handed her the addresses to the
other people.

She had a feeling…this man was going to be different.