The Preacher's Lady Read online

  Fine, that was overdramatic, but he had.

  Plus shamelessly lied to her.

  His voice softened to one she had heard in her dreams on endless nights. “Hello, Elly.” Their eyes met and her knees turned to tree sap.

  Flustered, she whirled back to concentrate on the shelves that now swam before her eyes. He’d heard her crude remark. And his cocky grin told her he’d not only heard, but that the insult rolled off like water from a duck’s back.

  When her gaze focused on the coffee, a sun-bronzed arm reached around her, chose a brand, and dropped the tin into her basket. “Easier on the stomach,” he said. He moved on, straightened a tin of baking powder, and walked toward the harness section in the back of the store. Thank goodness he had not chosen a public encounter to scold her for her careless words.

  And now she couldn’t find her voice. His presence had rendered her speechless, which wasn’t easy to do.

  When she approached the clerk with her items, she realized Adele had quietly excused herself and left, the coward. Elly was alone to face the man she’d sworn never to speak to again.

  But she needn’t have worried. Bo lingered in the back of the store, so she hurriedly paid for her purchases and trotted out of the store. Releasing a sigh, she crossed the street and walked the short distance home, glancing over her shoulder to be sure she wasn’t followed.

  Bo was back. She’d stoked a healthy hatred of the man only to turn to mush at the sight of him. Hating someone wasn’t quite as easy as she’d imagined.

  A groan escaped when she spotted a young woman trying to wave her down. Rosie Meadows. Not only was her name difficult to say without grinning, the young woman was quickly becoming a pest. Seven years ago she was a darling little girl who liked to tag along, but today she was a fourteen-year-old who was quite certain that Elly lived a fairy-tale existence. Though Bo had been gone all these years, Rosie still expected him to ride back someday and swoop Elly up into his arms. And then the two star-crossed lovers would live happily ever after. Elly had tried to explain a hundred times that she and Bo were no more, but Rosie wouldn’t believe it. Her head was filled with girlish expectations, and like it or not, Elly and Bo’s love was the town legend.

  Surely, Rosie stated with a sigh of finality, a love like theirs would never “wither away on the vine.”

  Reversing her steps, Ella headed the opposite direction, but she wasn’t surprised when the maneuver failed to deter young Rosie. The young girl hurried to catch up. “Have you seen him yet?”

  “Seen whom?”

  “Him. Bo! He’s back.”

  “Really?” Elly picked up her pace.

  “Are you serious? Bo’s back.” Rosie reached to halt Elly’s steps. “What’s wrong with you?”

  “Wrong? There’s nothing wrong. I need to get home and fix Pa’s dinner.” Elly gently released the girl’s grasp. “Isn’t it your dinner time?”

  “Who can think about food at a time like this? Love is in the air!”

  More like rotten apples. Elly kept her pace.

  “Elly Sullivan, I don’t know what to think of you. How can you be so calm and collected when the boy you’ve loved forever has finally come home?” She fell into step and trailed Elly across the street. “Well, I suppose I can understand your reaction. He’s returned so suddenly—you’ll surely have a chance to catch up at the church social. It’s the last of the season, you know. Everyone will be there—simply everyone. Quint has already asked if I’d take a long walk with him—you know, it’s so fascinating that you and Bo fell in love at such an early age, and Quint and I—well, I’m fourteen and he’s fifteen but the minute we’re old enough we’re getting married—”

  Elly listened as the young woman prattled on, sowing impossible dreams like handfuls of wildflowers. At the tender age of fourteen, everything seemed possible.

  Stepping on the back stoop, Elly turned and smiled. “So nice to see you, Rosie. Give my regards to your folks.”

  Rosie paused, her cheeks red with exertion. “You really haven’t seen Bo?”

  “I really haven’t.”

  The girl’s eyes narrowed. “Have you broken up? You and Bo? The two people in this whole wide world who truly love each other?”

  “Yes, we have.”

  She gave a heated stomp. “When?”

  “Actually, Rosie, Bo didn’t tell me when. Now hurry along. Your mother needs you in the kitchen.”

  Elly pushed the door open with her back and left Rosie with a mystified expression. How did you tell a young girl with a head full of dreams to not count on any single one coming true?

  Her arms ached under the weight of her purchases as Elly entered the kitchen. The old dwelling had housed Sullivans for generations. The one-story rock house meandered, creating crooks and crannies, enlarging its footprint as each generation added on rooms and service porches.

  Various pieces of farm equipment sat poised in the yard, waiting to be utilized when the harvest reached full swing. Bogs stretched across ten acres of Sullivan land. The Garretts presently owned the biggest cranberry operation, twenty prime acres. The Sullivans were their closest rivals.

  When the screen door slammed behind Elly, her pa, Holt Sullivan, glanced up from reading the newspaper. He’d been scribbling figures in his journal, most likely the prices for bushels of cranberries.

  “Elly? Are your pants on fire, girl?”

  “No.” She stalked across the kitchen floor, carrying the bulky parcels of goods, and headed for the pantry. Young, foolish girls falling in love, thinking their emotions would last forever, thinking promises made during moonlit walks would actually be fulfilled. Nothing but silly speculations fed by spirited boys who had no intention of keeping their promises.

  “Elly?”

  She was in no mood for Pa’s teasing. How many times had she reminded him to adjust the spring on the screen door? Honestly, nothing got done around here with Ma gone. Pa would never let a heartbeat skip before doing what Ma asked of him. But now, seasons would change before he got around to mundane chores.

  Despite his reticence for mending doors and such, Elly adored the man. He still sported a headful of wavy hair, clearly the contributor of Elly’s richly colored locks. Even in his middle years, his back stood erect to support broad shoulders. He’d worked hard to build the farm, and he wore the evidence of his toil in his muscled form.

  Pa’s gaze dropped to the newspaper. “What’s for dinner?”

  The prices must be good, if he was thinking ahead to dinner and not remembering the chops she’d burned the day before. “Ham and gravy.”

  He glanced up, disappointment weighing his features. “But it’s Wednesday.”

  Since she could remember, Ma had made beans and cornbread for dinner Wednesdays. She’d thought Papa would appreciate a change. Evidently, he liked the rigid menu. “Beans and cornbread, then,” she said with resignation.

  His voice lightened. “Got a letter from Ma today.”

  Elly glanced up as she poured the flour into a chipped crock. It had been weeks since Ma had left to tend her aunt when a summer cold had turned into pneumonia. Elly rested her hands on the bundle. “How is Aunt Milly? Will Ma be home soon?”

  “Aunt Milly is coming along. Your ma has a way with healing. She says Milly will be up and around in no time.” A touch of relief colored his tone.

  “That’s good.” Elly missed Ma and she was sure Pa missed her even more. Since Uncle George passed, Aunt Milly had needed Ma’s help often. Her mother had answered the call to go to Minnesota yet again, assuring Elly and her father she would be back before they missed her.

  Well, that hadn’t happened and harvest was upon them. She had missed Ma since the first day, and no end was in sight. With her around, the old house smelled of warm bread and fresh pies. These days it smelled of neglect and burnt toast, even though Elly was trying her hardest to stay ahead of the workload.

  What she missed most of all was Ma’s hand smoothing her hair when the two
hugged goodnight. Irene stood nearly six feet tall and managed to make a home, bake pies, cakes, and bread, plus working long hours in the bogs right alongside Pa. This was the dream of a happy marriage and motherhood Elly held in her heart.

  Theirs was the marriage she should have had with Bo Garrett.

  Stoking the dying embers, she slid the iron plate into place and moved the bean pot to the front of the cookstove.

  Her father glanced up from his ciphering. “I hear Bo’s back. Hope to see the boy in church Sunday.”

  Bo. Even in her own house she couldn’t find peace from that name. After all these years, his name stung like a wasp, but even she couldn’t say why. Yes, he’d broken her heart by not coming back. And she loathed the thought of him striking off to see a small part of the world before he settled down. He wouldn’t be gone long, he’d said. Just a while.

  Seven years?

  She didn’t know his meaning of a while, but hers was entirely different.

  It wasn’t as though she hadn’t tried to forget him and his worthless promises. She’d courted almost every single man in the county, even a couple of widowers, but no one filled the empty hole in her heart. And now he was back. How would she ever face him? Surely he didn’t think that she had waited all these long years for him. He was smarter than that.

  If she were wise, she would accept Gideon Long’s marriage proposal and start a family. She wasn’t getting any younger. A couple of children underfoot would erase Bo’s memory, but she couldn’t marry for children alone. She wanted the kind of wildly exciting love that she and Bo once shared. In truth, she couldn’t fathom any man other than Bo to father her babies. And there roosted a perplexing problem.

  Elly Sullivan! Where is your respect? Your grit? He’s back. You saw him with your own eyes. March over to the Garrett place and ask where he’s been all these years. What happened to the declaration that he loved you forever? That he would be back shortly? There was a time you could talk about anything. Nothing was off-limits, and surely not your feelings for each other.

  She stiffened her back. She wouldn’t ask that man for so much as the time of day, especially when he’d turned into such a low-down deceiver.

  She stoked the flame under the bean pot, trying with all of her might to focus on dinner and not Bo Garrett. One hope remained. He would attend to whatever had brought him back to Berrytop and return to wherever he’d been all this time, and do so quickly.

  Pa tilted his chair back. “I been hearing the Reverend’s gonna preach on hell this week. That’s good. Folks need to hear more sermons on the subject.”

  Elly rolled her eyes. Papa was a good man. Why did he take such delight—practically wringing his hands in pleasure—in hearing that some people were bound to burn in an eternal fire? Yet she couldn’t get too upset with him. Pa only echoed what he heard every Sunday in church. Unfortunately, she heard it all too, and took no such delight in anyone’s impending doom.

  Not a single unsaved soul sat in Pastor Richardson’s pews on Sunday mornings. Just once she would like to hear encouraging words, like the stories Ma used to tell at bedtime of a God who suffered in His children’s stead. She spoke of a God born into this world to love, not to scare folks. Ma always said you could win more souls with honey than persimmons. The Reverend had Elly so confused about what she did believe and what she didn’t believe that she dreaded Sundays.

  “Yes, sir.” Her father’s chair hit the floor with a thud. “Someone needs to set a fire under these folks. They’re too lax.”

  “How so, Pa?” She knew the answer, but she never missed the chance to challenge him.

  “Because they go their ways ignoring God, never give Him a moment’s thought except when they get in a fix and need Him. Then He hears from them all right! Oh Lordy, Lordy, help me! I need your grace now!”

  “Which He unfailingly gives,” she murmured under her breath. “Now, Pa, what is that Scripture exactly? ‘Judge not, and ye shall not be judged’—something like that?”

  “What I’m sayin’ is different, smarty pants. The truth is as plain as the nose on your face. Some folks turn their backs on the good Lord until they need Him, and then if He doesn’t answer right away they say that proves He isn’t there.”

  He stood and folded his newspaper. “It so happens your pa sees things with his own eyes. Folks don’t make the slightest effort to attend services when the weather gets bad. They stay home and roast their toes before the fire like heathens.”

  “Even old Mrs. Snell?” Elly asked, expecting she’d caught him this time. No one in the county lived more saintly than Mrs. Snell. She’d been attending the sick and taking in orphans and visiting newcomers with baskets of home-baked goodness since long before the Reverend came to town. She even brought Pa’s favorite, cinnamon rolls, when he twisted his ankle two seasons ago. Many a time Edith Snell had shown up on a cold, snowy day to bring the Sullivans something fresh out of the oven.

  “Mrs. Snell can surely make it into town if she runs low on sugar. No siree, church attendance drops off if the weather isn’t fittin’. But we’re there. Preacher can always count on us.”

  Yes, her family was always in their pew. Through sickness, deplorable weather, and bone-biting weariness, the Sullivans were faithfully in church to hear the wrath of God meted out Sunday after Sunday. It seemed to Elly that no matter how hard she tried to live right, confess her sin, and accept God as her Savior, she balanced on the brink of damnation. Years ago, she had stopped trying to make sense of the fury. She now attended church services because Pa required her to do so, not because she expected any sort of encouragement or revelation. When the preacher yelled, turned red in the face, and spoke of a vengeful deity, she wrapped her hands around her stomach and mentally removed herself from the pew.

  The God who tempted her belief wasn’t mean or angry. He was faithful, meant what He said, would dole out punishment when necessary, and didn’t much care for folks who tried to step in and replace Him. Hers was the God Ma had told her about, who had died for her sins, and only by His grace would she ever step one foot in heaven. Not by her works. Not by her attendance in a building. Not by judging dear friends who took a Sunday off. Certainly only through shed blood would she enter the gates of heaven. Hers was a completely different God from the one the Reverend spat about.

  “What this town needs is a good revival.” Pa pounded the table with his fist. “That would set a few of these folks straight and jerk a knot in their tails.”

  Elly longed to change the direction of this conversation. “Do you want coffee or tea with dinner?”

  “Coffee’s fine. There’s still some in the pot.” He walked to the door and settled his hat on his head. “I’m headin’ over to invite Bo to Sunday services. No doubt he could use a good talking-to for all the heartache he’s caused Milt and Faye.” He paused and turned to look at her. “Have you seen him?”

  “Briefly.”

  “I guess… ” He shook his head. “Guess you and him are history.”

  “Correct.”

  “Well, he needs to be in church. Think I’ll go over and talk politics with Milt.”

  Closing her eyes, Ella whispered, “Don’t let Milt be home.” Every election year was a nightmare. If her father favored a candidate you could bet Milt wouldn’t. And this year’s candidates had started a small war between the men. Thank goodness November was in sight, and nobody would have to listen to the political bluster much longer.

  Elly fished a piece of salt pork out of the beans with a ladle and remembered something else. Obviously, Pa hadn’t heard of Bo’s new calling.

  Chapter 2

  Bo followed Jeremiah to the kitchen door of his parents’ home, where the child parted ways and ran toward the barn to find the kittens born during the night. The foreman’s son was a bit hard to keep up with.

  Bo pulled off his muddy boots before stepping into his mother’s kitchen. He found her hefting a pot of coffee from the stove.

  “Ma? What’s goi
ng on? I’m right in the middle of loading.”

  “Time for coffee, of course.”

  She carried the coffeepot to the table. Bo didn’t try to argue with her. He gathered the mugs and the cream and sugar Ma liked, not that he ever turned away anything sweet.

  Faye filled the mugs and returned the pot to the stove. “You’ve had a chance to watch your father work. How’s he holding up?”

  Bo shrugged. “He’s resting more, not so anyone would notice if they weren’t paying attention. I caught him leaning on his shovel. He seems to be stopping more often.” Bo considered her reaction if he told her everything, that he wasn’t the old Pa, that he sat more often, took more breaks, but he held up. She was worried enough about Pa’s health. “I’d say he’s the same ol’ Pa; just getting a little older.”

  “Have mercy. That man is going to be the death of me. Bo, we have to get him to slow down. His heart won’t take the strain. The doctor warned him about pushing too hard.”

  The two sat down at the scarred table. “He’ll be fine,” said Bo. “You know how stubborn he is. I don’t know why he feels the need for all this secrecy. If his heart’s failing, there’s no crime committed. And pride will send him to an early grave.”

  “Pride.” Faye wrapped her hands around the mug of coffee to warm them. “Yes, there’s a great deal of pride in him. I know he fights the notion, but there is. He would have my hide if he thought we were talking behind his back.” Water gathered in the corners of her eye. “I can’t bear the thought of losing him.”

  Losing one or both parents was inconceivable, but how many times in the past year had Bo stood at a graveside and comforted a grieving family? Far too many, and now it seemed the Grim Reaper had followed him home.

  Faye squeezed his hand. “Thank you for coming. You’re just what your father needs—good for his soul and good for his heart.”

  Guilt washed over Bo. “Ma. I meant to write more—”

  “But you never got around to it.” Her soft chuckle stirred boyhood memories. No one knew him better. And no one had more to forgive than Ma—with the exception of Elly. Ma never said so, but his years of absence and silence could not have been easy on her. He deeply regretted his reckless youth, and now Pa was sick.