The Preacher's Bride (Brides of Simpson Creek)

by Laurie Kingery

  “Well, I’d best be going,” he said, grabbing his well-worn black leather Bible. “I’ll see you and Papa after church.”

  She found the old preacher sitting up in his wheelchair in the parlor, staring out at the church next door with an expression that could only be described as frustrated.

  Her heart went out to him. She wanted to be at church, too, watching and listening to Gil’s voice as he preached. “I know you want to be there, Reverend,” she said. She knew it would not help to remind Gil’s father that he had lain at death’s door so recently and his condition was still frail. “And you will be, soon, especially if we do everything we can now to get you back into fighting trim. Let me help you exercise your hand and arm, and then we’ll work on your words, all right?”

  He nodded, his gaze still focused on the church where folks were starting to arrive.

  She would have her work cut out for her to provide encouragement and therapy for the old preacher and prepare Sunday dinner by the time the worship service was finished—even considering that Gil would be among the last to leave the church. Perhaps she could combine tasks by coaching Reverend Chadwick on his speech while she prepared the meal.

  She would stay until after dinner, when the old preacher would probably take a nap. If that happened, would Gil ask to escort her home? A polite gesture because she lived only a short distance from the church down Fannin Street. But would they keep walking past her house, past the school...

  Would this be the day she would have to expose herself as a nonbeliever to Gil, and end the regard for her that she saw in his eyes?

  Chapter Seven

  Gil was guiltily aware that his mind was only half on his preaching that morning, too eager to finish the service so he could go home and see Faith. If the opportunity presented itself, he wanted to do what he’d been unable to do after the wedding yesterday, and begin their courtship.

  After stumbling a second time over a passage of Scripture he’d been quoting, he mentally reined himself in. I’m sorry, Lord. Help me to keep my mind on Your service and Your people, not just Faith, while I am in Your house. Then he added to himself, This must be why ministers should be married—so they won’t be distracted all the time.

  Then he could concentrate more easily, even afterward when it seemed each and every one of his congregation felt the need to engage him in conversation. Of course he wanted to speak to Mrs. Henderson, even though the mourning-clad widow would have stolen meekly past him, and inquire about how she and her son were doing in the wake of Mr. Henderson’s death. He was pleased to see a number of the Spinsters’ Club ladies approached her after that and included her in their conversation.

  Finally the last church members left the churchyard, and Gil was free at last to cross the lawn between the church and the parsonage.

  A savory aroma greeted his nose as he opened the door. His father sat in his wheelchair at the table, and Faith was just carrying a pot of chicken and dumplings toward it from the stove.

  “H-h’lo, s-son,” his father said, and looked very pleased with himself.

  “Hello, Papa, Miss Faith.” His throat suddenly felt very thick with thankfulness.

  “We practiced that for a long time this morning,” Faith told him. “I think he’s really making progress.”

  Gil had to agree.

  She filled Gil’s glass with lemonade. He took a grateful sip, parched after a morning of using his voice. It was soothingly cool. She must have stored the pitcher in the root cellar until just a few minutes ago.

  The food was as delicious as it looked. Faith asked him all about the church service as she helped his father cut up his chicken. Gil guessed she was asking the questions she thought Reverend Chadwick would want the answers to—how many people had attended, if someone had expressed any special need for prayer, if anyone was reported ill and so forth. How perceptive she was!

  As he answered Faith’s questions, he saw his father listening attentively. From time to time the older man would make a halting attempt to make a comment of his own. His speech was still mostly garbled, but Faith seemed able to decipher what he was trying to say even better than Gil could.

  The old man was drowsy after the big meal, so Gil helped him lie down in his room for a nap. He returned to the kitchen to find Faith already doing the dishes.

  “You didn’t have to do those,” he said, picking up a towel to dry them.

  She smiled at him. “Nonsense. It’ll take only a few minutes. I wouldn’t dream of making a mess in the kitchen, then leaving it for someone else to clean up.”

  He was glad she had lingered, for it gave him the perfect opportunity.

  “Faith, may I call on you tonight?”

  Gil saw a flash of something trouble the green in her eyes before she shuttered them with her lashes. Could it be she was concerned about his father being alone?

  “Papa goes to bed even before the chickens these days,” he told her. “I think it would be all right for me to leave him for a short time, with your home so close to the parsonage,” he told her, but the shadow didn’t leave her eyes.

  Faith took a deep breath, scrubbing hard for a moment on the pot in which the dumplings had cooked. Then she laid it aside and dried her hands on her apron.

  “Gil, there...there’s something you need to know. About m-me,” she began, turning away from him and gazing out the window that overlooked the church.

  His heart skipped a beat and he felt a stirring of apprehension slither down his spine. What was she about to confess? An unsavory past? Surely not. Integrity radiated from her. No, a past mistake was something he would have to tell her about at some point, not the other way around.

  She wasn’t about to say she held some affection for someone else, was she?

  “You can tell me anything, Faith, you know that.” His voice sounded a lot more steady than he felt.

  She looked over her shoulder for a long moment, studying him, then turned back to gaze out the window again.

  “I...I do not think you should court me,” she said. Then she added quickly, “Don’t get me wrong, I am more than happy to help you care for your father.”

  “Have I—have I done something to offend you, F—Miss Faith?” he said, retreating into formality when he really wanted to rush to her and apologize for anything he had done wrong.

  She whirled, looking as distressed as he felt. “No, of course not, Gil! To be honest, there’s nothing I’d like more than your calling on me this evening—or any other time, for that matter,” she assured him, wide-eyed, then looked away once again, as if fearing she’d said too much.

  “Then what could it possibly be, Faith?” he asked. “Please don’t be afraid to tell me.”

  “I think you should know that I...” Faith took another deep breath, as if the air had suddenly been sucked from the room. “I’m not a suitable lady for you, Gil.”

  He took an involuntary step toward her. “Why would you say such a thing? I think you’re eminently...suitable.” Such a cold, unfeeling word, suitable. It didn’t come close to expressing how right he felt she was. She was perfect for him. Wasn’t she?

  “No, no, I’m not,” she insisted. “I— This is hard for me to say, Gil, and I hope you will handle this information with discretion, for I’ve not told anyone else for good reason. It could...that is, I could well become an outcast, if it was known.”

  Gil felt a cold ball of dread in the pit of his stomach.

  “You may rely on my discretion, of course,” he said. “But if you’ve sinned in some way, you know as a Christian you need only to acknowledge your sin to God and pray for forgive—”

  “I don’t believe in God, Gil,” she said, interrupting him in a rush of words like water pouring through a breaking dam. “I have no faith. Ironic, isn’t it, considering my name?”

 
He stood stock-still, unable to believe what he had just heard. “Y-you don’t...believe?” He had never heard such an admission. Even outlaws he had counseled in jail cells believed in the Almighty, even if they chose not to obey Him. “But why?” he asked at last.

  Faith turned to face him now, her eyes blazing. “Why?” she repeated. “You think you can explain it away?” she demanded. “You think you can give me some kind of easy reason that a loving God could allow my brother to die of a rattlesnake bite despite the prayers of your father and the whole town? Your father is a good man, a man of prayer. So if he couldn’t save my brother with his prayers, and the whole town’s prayers didn’t matter a hill of beans, it must be because there is no God. Or if there is,” she said, her voice breaking at last, like a piece of thin window glass finally pushed with enough force to splinter, “He doesn’t care about the people He supposedly created.”

  He’d imagined she been going to tell him she was a fallen woman. This was so much worse. Faith didn’t believe in the God he served. She was right—as a preacher, he couldn’t marry a woman who didn’t share his faith. But his disappointment that she could not be his was the least of it. Faith was wandering in darkness, lost!

  She had carried this grief, this secret, inside her for years, he realized. “Did you never tell your parents about your doubts?” he wondered aloud. “Surely they could—”

  She whirled on him. “Oh, they never stopped believing,” she snapped. “I didn’t want them to wash my mouth out with soap for admitting such a shameful thing, or put it down to a passing whim brought on by grief. And then,” she said, her voice growing bitter, “I found my father alone on his knees, begging God out loud for another son to carry on his name, and his business—as if he had no child left who could help him, no daughter who needed to know she was loved, even if the Bennett name would die with her!” Angry tears slid down her cheeks now, tears she sought to dash away with her fingers. “But when no more children came, they didn’t stop believing.”

  For a moment he could only stare at her, aching for the hurt she had felt as a girl. Hurt she was still feeling. He didn’t know Robert Bennett, the editor of the Simpson Creek newspaper, very well, but how could he have failed his daughter so completely?

  “What did he say to you when he discovered you had heard him, Faith?” Could any loving father have failed to comfort a child when he realized what she had overheard, and mistakenly believed she wasn’t loved and valued?

  “He never knew,” Faith said, her tone wooden. “No mouse ever scurried away more quietly than I did that day.”

  “And your mother?”

  “I never told her what I heard,” she said.

  She hadn’t wanted to risk hearing that her mother felt the same way.

  Help me help her, Lord. Give me the right words. The words he chose next were of critical importance.

  * * *

  If her life depended on it, Faith could not have discerned what Gil was thinking. “I...I’ll understand if you’d prefer that I not care for your father anymore,” she said at last, when the silence stretched on too long for her to endure.

  “Faith, I don’t prefer any such thing,” Gil said then. There was sadness in his eyes, but his voice was as warm as ever. “I would like you continue helping with Papa—as your time permits, of course—for as long as you’re willing. I know he enjoys your company and appreciates what you’re doing for him. And so do I.”

  She let his words echo in her mind. She shouldn’t have been surprised that Gil would continue to be as kind as a man of the cloth should be. Not all of his congregation would be so understanding, though, nor would they have continued to let her nurse a family member once they knew she was a nonbeliever. Some might even call her a heathen.

  “Th-thank you,” she breathed. “I’d be glad to continue.”

  “And I can understand why such a tragic loss might undermine your belief in the Almighty,” Gil went on. “Many have found their faiths shaken, especially in recent times, after the war and the influenza epidemic.”

  Faith waited, sure she knew what was coming. Gil would point out those who lost loved ones found comfort in their faith, even if they questioned the Lord’s caring for a while. And she would be expected to feel shame.

  But he didn’t.

  “You must have felt very alone since your brother’s death, Faith,” he said instead, “because you didn’t feel safe in telling anyone how you felt.”

  Faith’s jaw dropped in surprise. How could he know exactly how she felt? Her heart gave a painful squeeze. She hadn’t even realized herself how alone she’d felt until he had voiced it, or how much she had longed for someone with whom she could be genuine.

  “Yes,” she murmured, her throat choked with emotion. Now it would come—the question of why she attended church if she didn’t believe in the God who was spoken of there. But he didn’t ask, and when he didn’t, it left her floundering for what to say.

  “You see why you should choose someone else to court,” she said. “A good Christian lady who shares your beliefs. Perhaps you should look at some of the other ladies in the Spinsters’ Club.”

  His next remark neither agreed nor disagreed with what she had said.

  “Faith, it sounds like you’re in need of a friend,” Gil said. “A real friend, someone who accepts you, the real you,” he said. “I’d like to be that friend, if you’re willing.”

  “Why?” Did he see her as a charity case, someone to be helped, such as Daisy Henderson, perhaps? She didn’t want to be an object of his pity. Now that she had revealed her dreadful secret, would he try to pressure her into believing? She could not imagine Gil Chadwick acting like that, but wasn’t it his responsibility to try to convert the nonbelievers in their midst?

  He seemed surprised by the question. “Why? Because you have many admirable qualities, of course—compassion and dedication being only two of them.”

  She still felt wary. “What—what would it be like, our friendship?” she asked.

  He considered the question. “Well, friends spend time together, enjoying experiences and sharing their thoughts, do they not?” he said.

  He did not wish to shun her. Faith’s heart surged with the realization that Gil found admirable qualities in her and thought her worthy of friendship. But she must not be selfish, she told herself. She could not take very much of his time.

  “All right,” she said, “but it must not appear as courting. You must be seen as available to any lady who would make you the proper Christian wife.”

  “Faith, why don’t you let me and the Lord sort that out?” he suggested. “When He thinks it’s the right time, He’ll show me the woman to marry. Meanwhile, I want to assure you that what you tell me stays with me.”

  She wasn’t sure what to make of his reply, but she needed to be alone so she could ponder this conversation, to examine it from every angle.

  “All right, I accept,” she said. Then, before he could respond, she added, “I...I have to go,” and quickly ran out the back door.

  * * *

  He wasn’t getting anything done. After the second time Gil left the front of the church sanctuary to go stand at the front door on the chance that he might catch a glimpse of Faith out on some errand, he returned to the parsonage and told Maude Harkey, who was caring for his father that day, that he was leaving for a couple of hours.

  “Paying some calls?” she asked.

  “No, I thought perhaps I’d get an early start on next Sunday’s sermon,” he said. “Sometimes a change of scenery helps.” And he would do that, after he spent a good deal of time in prayer about Faith. He’d already lain awake for hours last night, seeking guidance on how best to help Faith believe again.

  “Give me five minutes and I’ll make you a sandwich to take with you, Reverend Gil,” Maude said. “My father always said a
man prays best when his stomach isn’t growling.”

  He smiled. “Your father was a wise man.”

  * * *

  The intense hue of April’s bluebonnets was faded now that May had come, but it had been replaced by a carpet of gold and red—gaillardia, Mexican hat, Indian blanket, coreopsis.

  “‘Not even Solomon in all his glory was arrayed like one of these,’” he quoted aloud from Scripture. They were even prettier than the Bible’s “lilies of the field,” he reckoned. He’d learned the names of the flowers at his mother’s knee, watching as she arranged bouquets for the table in a chipped crockery vase.

  The bay gelding that the livery kept for his use flicked his ears at Gil’s voice as he picked his way up the trail that wound into the hills. It had narrowed shortly after the horse had left the road and by this point was little more than a deer track at this point.

  His eyes caught a flash of movement to his right as a golden eagle dropped like a stone, talons outstretched to catch a young jackrabbit nibbling on a bit of clover. But luck was with the jackrabbit that day, and he sensed his danger, bounding into a cleft in a limestone outcropping just in time to frustrate the predator of his meal. The eagle screamed in frustration.

  I will put thee in the cleft of the rock and cover thee with My hand, it said in Exodus. But how could he help Faith see the Lord was her Rock, too?

  In the shadow cast by the rock outcropping, Gil spotted a cluster of older mesquite trees. The place promised shade and peace, the ideal place to pray. He dismounted, dropping the gelding’s reins to the ground. Well-trained, the horse would not wander far as he grazed amid the sparse grass. He thought about unsaddling the beast, but decided against it. He didn’t figure to be here that long, and he needed to be able to remount quickly if danger threatened—danger such as a wandering band of Comanches. There hadn’t been any reported sightings in San Saba County lately, but one never knew when they might reappear.