Marrying Minister Right. Annie Jones

so that man’s choking and gasping was actually my fault?” Michael looked down, first at his tattered shirt then at the soda-soaked carpet and shook his head. “And the bell ringing? Am I accountable for that, too?”

      “Well, if you’d gotten back with the drinks sooner…” She made a face. “Of course, now we don’t have any drinks at all.” She heaved a sigh. “Anyway, I figured somebody needed to know that that Paisley guy had hit the road so I rang the bells because I knew you’d come. You always come when there’s something that needs to be done, Uncle Michael. Even if what needs to be done is yelling at me! Especially if it’s yelling at me!”

      Michael froze, his head still down, and chided himself for not putting it all together more quickly. What Avery had done, knowingly putting herself at risk of getting in trouble to help someone else, was, in its own odd way, a selfless act. Hardly the kind of thing the kid would have done just a few weeks ago. “Wow, Avery.”

      “Wow, that was good, or wow, that was dumb?” she asked, her nose crinkled.

      Before he could answer that, Heather stepped up and pitched in, righting the old vacuum as she gave Avery a nod of approval and said, “I think what you did was pretty ingenious.”

      “Hear that, Uncle Michael?” The kid puffed out her chest and hooked her thumb in her overall strap again. “I’m a genius! Guess it runs in the family, huh?”

      “Actually?” He stuck his fingers through the big hole torn in his loaner T-shirt and wriggled them. “I reacted kind of like a dope. Maybe genius is the kind of thing that skips a generation.”

      “Like athletic ability?” Heather gave him a friendly nudge in the back before she turned her attention on Avery. “Your uncle never could get out of the way of anything. Not even a slow, high-arching softball thrown by a ten-year-old. He was clearly out of his league with this piece of sophisticated machinery.”

      “That was then.” Michael pushed the vacuum against the wall then turned to face the pair so happy to give him good-natured grief. “This is—”

      “Now let me get this straight.” Avery waved her hand to cut Michael off and focused her whole bright expression on Heather. “You knew Uncle Michael when…Hey! Are you her?”

      “Her? Her, who?” Heather put her hands on her hips and planted herself between Avery and Michael. “Should I know what you’re talking about? Or rather, who you’re talking about?”

      “The girl.” Avery said it in a way that only a young teen could. In a world-weary, acerbic tone, implying that it was so obvious she was embarrassed at having to articulate it even in this small way for him.

      “That’s enough, Avery.” Mortified, Michael nabbed his niece gently but firmly by the arm and spun her around to point her toward the stairs that led to the basement. “Why don’t you go make lunch, as I asked before?”

      “The more you try to get me out of the way, the more you might as well blast it from the bell tower yourself.” Avery did not budge. “This is the girl.”

      Had he always been this conspicuous in his love for Heather? Suddenly he wondered if she had known all along and secretly felt sorry for him. Maybe that was why she had stayed away. Maybe that was why she seemed so reluctant to hang around now.