The Preacher's Wife

by Brandi Boddie

  People spoke their approval, while others clapped theirs. It went on for a full minute. Marissa stood when people began to rise on their feet. Rowe had his church. He established himself.

  He caught her eye as she broke into a wide smile. His mouth moved, but she couldn’t hear over the applause. He stepped down from the pulpit. “Would you come to the front of the church, Marissa?”

  She stalled, meeting the sea of faces as the townsfolk swerved around to look at her. Rebecca gave her skirt bustle a push. “Go on. Go to your groom.”

  She slipped out of the pew and came down the left side of the aisle. On her way she passed people she had known throughout her life, and some she met in recent years, those who were friendly and those who didn’t care much for her. All of them witnessed her take Rowe’s extended hand.

  “I love you,” he said. “Do you think they believe I’m sincere?”

  She mouthed the words beneath a round of applause. “I think so.”

  Epilogue

  BY THE POWER invested in me, I now pronounce you husband and wife. Rowe, you may kiss your bride.”

  Marissa’s heart radiated with joy at the Claywalk minister’s words. She gazed into Rowe’s smiling face before her eyes closed for his kiss.

  The guests applauded. Zachary and Rebecca Arthur, the Charltons, and a good portion of the church congregation were all there to congratulate them.

  The church was decorated in white and dark rose, Marissa’s favorite color. Handmade silk roses, a wedding gift from Linda, draped the first several rows of pews and the bridal bouquet. Marissa looked radiant in her gown of white, with square neck edged in lace. The skirt fanned out and trailed behind her.

  Dusty came up to Marissa during the reception and swept her into an unexpected squeeze, planting a big kiss on her mouth. “Tradition, Reverend,” he joked to Rowe before he could protest.

  “Just as long as you keep that tradition to one.” He clapped the cowboy on the back heartily.

  Dusty sputtered from the force of the contact. He grinned as he regained his merry composure. “Well, Mrs. Winford, how does it feel to trade your garters in for lace?”

  Marissa glanced up at Rowe admiringly, proud to carry his name. “I won’t know until my husband takes one from my leg and you catch it, Dusty.”

  Dusty frantically waved both hands in front of him. “Nope, that’s alright. I have no intentions of gettin’ hitched anytime soon.”

  “It’s really not up to you,” Rowe teased. “Besides, if you keep pestering Miss Charlton for a dance, you may find yourself at the aisle soon.”

  Dusty ran a hand through his sandy-colored, careless hair. “I wouldn’t practice reading the marital rites if I were you.”

  When the time came for the bridal toss, Timothy Lyle caught Marissa’s garter and Linda Walsh the bridal bouquet.

  Marissa watched Dusty stroll over to Sophie as she returned to her table. She heard him speak to the girl. “Looks like you and I won’t be getting hitched until after the liveryman and the dressmaker.”

  Sophie cast him a proud look with her wide eyes. “I’m sure it didn’t take a flower toss to tell you that.”

  “For all your changed ways, Miss Sophie, you still turn those pretty thorns up at me.”

  “I should say, Mr. Sterling, I am on my best behavior toward you because of this auspicious occasion. I’ll ask you to do the same.”

  He gave her a wink. “One day you’ll see, Miss Sophie. One day.”

  Marissa chuckled and turned away. One day, indeed. She had a feeling that her dear friend Dusty had turned prophet.

  The reception went on into the evening, when the newly married couple thanked their guests and said their goodbyes. Rowe took Marissa to her new home by the lake. The moon shone on the calm water that night, illuminating it like a mirror of highly polished lustrous silver.

  “Welcome home, Mrs. Winford.” Rowe carried her across the threshold of the cabin and up the stairs to their bedroom.

  “Look at this.” Marissa was pleasantly surprised when she saw the room furnished with polished, gleaming woods, plush blankets, and a scattering of rose buds upon the bed. He set her down upon the thick mattress.

  “My heart,” he whispered, running his hands through her pinned hair until it spilled over her shoulders and down her back. “I’ve waited for this.”

  She brought his fingers to her lips. “I can stay in your house forever now.”

  He kissed her mouth. “As far as I’m concerned, you will never leave.”

  He dimmed the oil lamp on the table.

  COMING IN FALL 2014 FROM

  BRANDI BODDIE

  BOOK 2, BRIDES OF ASSURANCE

  A WINDSWEPT PROMISE

  Chapter 1

  Assurance, Kansas, April 1871

  SOPHIE, YOUR JAMBALAYA’S burning!”

  As her younger brother David called, Sophie Charlton dashed out of her bedroom and ran down the stairs into the kitchen. A pot gurgled on the stove, brown bubbles spilling out from under the lid. She grabbed a towel from the table and hoisted the pot by its side handles away from the hot surface. Her brother simply stood by the stove and watched.

  “David, why did you let the flame get too hot underneath?” She opened the firebox door and inspected the kindling as it burned to ash.

  “Ma said not to touch the food. It’s for the Founders’ Day Festival.”

  “It wouldn’t have been for anything if you had let it burn. This is supposed to go into my prize-winning food basket.”

  “I called you to come downstairs, didn’t I?” He gave her a matter-of-fact look.

  “At the very last moment.” Sophie shut the door to the stove and went to the pot of jambalaya. Stock trickled down into the grooves of the table. Steam rushed out as she lifted the lid.

  “Is it bad?” David craned his neck to see.

  “No, the stock boiled a bit too high, but I think it’ll still be alright.” She grabbed a long-handled spoon and prodded the mixture of sausage, peppers, and tomatoes. “Next time you see it boiling over, take it off the stove. Don’t call me all the way from upstairs.”

  “Well, it’s your dish. I ain’t the one trying to enter some silly town belle contest.”

  “It’s not silly.” Sophie glanced at her freshly laundered and starched yellow-striped dress to make sure no stock had spilled on it. A lady’s garments should always be pristine. “And ‘ain’t’ isn’t a word, David. You’re sixteen years old. How often must I tell you that?”

  “That I’m sixteen years old?”

  “No, that your grammar is—oh, never mind. I don’t have time for this. I have to get ready. Go outside and help Dusty with the wagon.” She left the pot to cool on the table’s surface next to the pie she baked earlier.

  “Dusty’s already done hitchin’ the horses up. See out the window.”

  Sophie viewed the family’s wagon and the team of horses waiting in front of the walkway on the warm April Saturday. The pair of bay geldings stared past the fence at the main road into town, black blinders strapped on their heads. Her father’s hired worker was nowhere to be seen. “Where is Dusty?”

  “Probably getting cleaned up. You should finish dressing too.”

  Stating the obvious. She hated how her brother thought that made him sound clever. “Do not touch that pot. I’ll be back down in a moment.”

  Sophie returned upstairs and passed her parents’ room, where she could hear her mother and father talking as they got ready for the festival. She grinned to hold back a squeal. Finally she was allowed to compete for the chance to be crowned Assurance’s town belle. Her mother thought she had been too young to compete in prior years, and last year her family wasn’t in town for the festival at all. This was Sophie’s chance.

  She walked into her bedroom where Linda, her best friend, waited to help with her hair and dress. “Did it burn?”

  “The jambalaya? No, but I hope it’ll still taste good. Men will bid on that basket.”

 
Linda rolled her eyes. “Sophie, you know most of those men are coming out to see you. They don’t care if you stick a brick in that basket with a saucer of hay.”

  “But the contestants’ names won’t be on the baskets to let them know which is which.”

  “I don’t think you have anything to worry about. Now, what ribbon do you want to lace your bonnet with, the yellow or the light blue?”

  Sophie chose the ribbon in Linda’s left hand. “The blue. We need to hurry. The judging starts in less than two hours.”

  Linda had her hair dressed and assembled with a bonnet within fifteen minutes. Sophie checked her reflection with the mirror on the vanity table and pinched her cheeks hard until her efforts were rewarded with two pink marks. “I have to pack the food.”

  “It can’t be cool already.” Linda fluffed Sophie’s bangs out from beneath her bonnet with a comb.

  “It’ll just have to cool on the way to town, then. Go get in the wagon. Mother and Daddy should already be out there. I’m coming.” Sophie picked up her skirt and ran on the tiptoes of her cream side-button boots.

  She followed mud prints from a pair of larger boots into the kitchen. “Dusty!”

  The cowhand stood over her pot of jambalaya, holding the lid in a dirt-stained hand. Bits of grass fell from his canvas shirt to land dangerously close to the rim. “Howdy, Miss Sophie.”

  “Dustin Sterling, you get your filthy face out of my jambalaya.” She marched up to him and snatched the lid from his hand. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  “The smell was real good drifting outside. I just wanted to know what you were makin’.” His Texas drawl remained calm and unhurried as he stood to his full six feet. Sophie gripped the lid tighter. How would it look on top of his head in place of that ever-present tan Stetson? If only she could reach that high.

  “You’re worse than David. I’m making this for the festival. And why aren’t you cleaned up? We have to leave in minutes.”

  “It won’t take long for me to scrub my face and change shirts. Is that food for lunch or supper?”

  “Neither. I’m entering my basket for bid as part of the town belle contest.”

  He looked over her with hazel eyes. “You sure make a pretty picture with that bonnet.”

  “Why, thank you.” The urge to put the lid on his head receded. “Hopefully the judges will think so too.”

  “Can anyone make a bid on the baskets?”

  Sophie pulled two bowls from the cupboard and a large porcelain jar. “Any man. Every lady in the contest will have one, but the baskets are unmarked. The winner gets the basket to take on a picnic with the lady who prepared it.”

  “So the winner won’t know who he gets to take on the picnic?”

  “That’s right.” Sophie scooped the still-steaming jambalaya out of the pot and ladled it into the jar, careful not to spill any of it on her dress. Dusty should know she didn’t have time to sit and visit with him. Why did he persist in trying his luck? Cowboys. So brash and overconfident. She sealed the jar with a cork.

  “I just might enter a bid, seein’ as how I know what will be in your basket.”

  She paused. “You wouldn’t.”

  His teeth shone white in his tanned face as he grinned.

  “Dusty, no. It’s my first time entering the contest. Don’t spoil it for me.”

  “How am I spoiling it for you? You should be happy you got at least one guaranteed bid on that—what did you say that rice and sausage was called?”

  “Jambalaya.”

  “Jambalaya,” he repeated in sing-song. “Smells almost like what the Chili Queens sell on the river down in San Antonio.”

  “Hmph.” Sophie hunted for a basket on a lower pantry shelf. The more nondescript a container, the less chance he’d have of distinguishing it from the others. “I’ll have you know this is a Creole recipe passed down in my family, not some street fare to peddle around on a cart. You wouldn’t like it anyway. I made it spicy.”

  “I’m gonna place a bid on that basket, anyhow.”

  She huffed. “Why? Picnic or no picnic, I don’t want you trying to court me. I told you before.”

  His dirt-caked boot heels made dull clicks on the floor as he went through the side entrance of the kitchen that led to the bunkhouse out back. “And I told you before. One day, Miss Sophie. You’ll come around.”

  “Not today or any day that my feet touch the green earth,” she called after him.

  He whistled a tune that carried across the field.