The Blessed
Page 36
“I can’t marry yet. Not for at least a year.”
“You married Reverend Palmer before his wife was dead a year.” He pushed the words at her.
“But that didn’t make it right. A person can learn from past wrongs.”
“All right. Then make me a sacred promise that you will marry me next May.”
She didn’t want to open her eyes and look at him. She didn’t want to answer him. Dear Father in heaven, help me. She was so intent on her prayer she didn’t hear Rachel come out on the porch followed by Sadie Rose. She didn’t even hear the horse riding straight off the road across the yard to the porch. She did want to be loved. But not by the man holding her hands.
Rachel eased over beside her and laid her head on Lacey’s shoulder. Perhaps that was the Lord’s answer. Rachel. His blessing to her. Perhaps being the preacher’s wife was her payment in return. Miss Mona’s words echoed in her mind from some lesson learned long ago in the past. My dear child, there is no payment great enough to buy us the Lord’s blessings. His grace is a free gift if we only reach for it. Remember your Scripture. “Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God.”
She was opening her eyes to refuse the man in the gentlest way possible when she heard her name. “Lacey.”
She knew the voice at once, but even after her eyes flew open and she was staring at him still astride his horse she wasn’t sure he was really there. An answer to those prayers she’d been unable to voice.
Isaac’s heart jumped up in his throat when he saw the little man kneeling so close in front of Lacey on the porch. He was afraid he was too late. Afraid she had already given her heart to another. Another preacher.
He almost rode past without stopping. There was no need upsetting her world or opening his heart to more pain than was already there, but then he remembered how the preacher had lied to him about knowing Lacey. With intent to send him on a fool’s errand. He turned his horse’s head into the yard.
Her eyes were closed tight as she listened to the man but nothing about her face or her rigid posture suggested happiness. The child came over to lean against Lacey and still she kept her eyes closed. Another woman, older than Lacey, came out the door and watched him ride his horse right up to her porch but without any indication of surprise. Instead it was as if she’d been expecting him and now was glad to see him there.
When Isaac spoke Lacey’s name, the little preacher spun around on his knees to glare at him.
Isaac kept his eyes on Lacey’s face. “You don’t have to promise him anything.”
Lacey gently pulled her hands away from the preacher and eased to the side away from him to stand up and look back at Isaac. “And I have not,” she said clearly. “It is good to see you, Isaac.”
“And you still here in Ebenezer instead of Paducah.” He shot a look over at the preacher.
“Paducah?” She sounded puzzled.
“Reverend Holman told me that was where you might be.”
The little man clambered to his feet and said stoutly, “I never said she was. I said she had family there. Not once did I lie. Not once.”
“There are many ways to lie,” she said softly. “To ourselves may be the worst way of all.”
“I’ve never done that either,” the preacher said.
She looked away from Isaac, then to the other man. “You did if you thought I could ever love you. It wasn’t a lie I was prepared to live. Not again.”
“Well.” The man sounded irate over her words. “You won’t find me on my knees asking you again. I’ll leave you to your just deserts.”
Lacey hardly seemed to notice the man’s jabbering as he picked up his hat and stomped down the steps off the porch.
The woman at the door called out to him. “Good day, Reverend. You come back now, you hear. Harold will be glad to see you anytime.”
Nobody spoke again until the man was out of sight on his horse. There was a feeling of communication on the porch that didn’t seem to need words. Isaac got down off his horse and tied the reins to the porch post. Then he climbed up to stand beside Lacey. She reached out and took his hand as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
“Sadie Rose, this is Isaac,” she said as she glanced over at the other woman. “Isaac Kingston. He tried to keep Preacher Palmer from falling off the Shaker house, but he couldn’t.” She looked back at Isaac.
“May the Lord have mercy on his soul,” Isaac said. “That’s the last thing he said. Right before he jerked his arm away from me. He feared he was going to make me fall too. I didn’t turn him loose.”
“I know you didn’t,” Lacey said. “It wasn’t you or me. He had torments we knew nothing about.” She put her arm around Rachel and pulled her close for a moment.
The woman she’d called Sadie Rose stepped across the porch to take Rachel’s hand and lead her back in the house. “Let’s go find your Maddie doll. I think she may need a new dress.”
The little girl started away and then turned back to grab Isaac’s waist in a quick hug. “Thank you for trying to save my papa.”
Lacey watched her follow the woman into the house. “I’ve never seen her do anything like that before.” She turned her eyes back to Isaac. “But it is thanks I give you as well.”
“I saw his grave. Reuben says you sow dandelion seeds on it of a purpose.”
Lacey laughed. A good sound that was better than the Shakers’ voices when they said the angels were singing through them. “It’s a bother to him, but he’s patient with me,” she said. “We could sit on the porch, but that wouldn’t get the basket of clothes I deserted out back on the line. If you want, we can talk while I work.”
He followed her around the house. “It looks some like rain.”
“But look there.” She pointed up toward the sky. “There’s a bit of blue. The sunshine may sneak through it. Or if it rains, the clothes will get another rinsing.”
She picked up a boy’s shirt and a couple of clothespins.
“Brother Asa told me the Shakers came up with those.” Isaac pointed at the clothespin. “He said they’re always inventing something to make work easier.”
She looked at the clothespin a minute and then pushed it down over the shirt and the line. “So have you left them?”
“Two weeks ago. I promised Brother Asa I’d stay through the hot weather.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. It seemed the right thing to do at the time.”
She picked up another shirt and Isaac reached down to hand her a clothespin.
“But what I really wanted to do was come after you.”
“Why?” She kept her eyes fastened on the shirt she was pinning to the line. “You hardly know me.”
“I know you here.” He put one hand over his heart and reached with his other hand to wrap his fingers around her wrist. “Where it matters.”
“What about your first wife?” She let him turn her to look at him.
“I loved her, Lacey. But now I’m ready to love another. You.” He watched her face. “Do you think you might someday love me back? When you get to know me better.”
“I know you already, Isaac.” Her voice was barely above a whisper. She put her free hand over her heart. “I know you here.”
He gently tugged her closer to him and put his finger under her chin to lift her face up toward him. “I want to kiss you, Lacey. I want to kiss you so much.”
In answer she moved her face closer to his. He dropped his head down to cover her lips with his. The joy in that kiss tingled down to his very toes. Then at the very moment he pulled away to gaze down into her beautiful brown eyes, the sun broke through the clouds and bathed them in light like a blessing from above. He raised his face toward the sunlight and laughed. Then he picked her up and swung her around the way he had in the woods after the calf was born.
“Will you marry me, Lacey Palmer?” he asked.
She laughed too and then said, “I will, Isaac Kingston.”
“When? Today?”
“No, not today. But when the first dandelions bloom in the spring and it’s time to do the dandelion dance.”
He looked at her, a little puzzled. “Is that a dance the Shakers taught you?”
“Not at all. It’s a family thing passed from mother to child.”
“Will you teach me?”
“I don’t have to. You already know it. I think we just did it. A dance of joy.”
“I love you, Lacey Palmer.”
She smiled at him. “Then dance with me again.”
And he did.
Acknowledgments
I’ve been writing down stories nearly all my life. Some of those stories spew up out of that mysterious well of imagination in a great rush, while others have to be dipped out one cup of words at a time. Lacey’s story was some of both. I met Lacey while writing my last Shaker book, The Seeker. I had planned to make her a colorful side character to add to Charlotte’s story, but Lacey stared me right in the face and said, “But what about my story?” So with encouragement from my editor, Lonnie Hull DuPont, I decided to write down Lacey’s story.
I’m forever grateful to Lonnie for her support and help. I thank the whole team at Revell and Baker who play a part in making each of my books the best it can be, from the eye-catching covers to inviting back copy and everything in between. But they don’t stop there. They keep working to get my story in front of you, the reader.
I thank my agent, Wendy Lawton for her business savvy and friendship as well as the way she’s always ready to help me look to the future and imagine the stories I have yet to tell.
I can never thank my family enough for their love and support. And for understanding that when a deadline is looming, a writer can go a little bonkers. And of course, I’m forever grateful to the Lord for putting this will to write inside me and for giving me stories to tell.
Last but never least, I thank each and every one of you who picks up one of my books to read. We have a partnership—you and I. The story that springs up out of my imagination never comes truly to life until you invite my characters into your hearts and minds. Thank you for reading Lacey’s story.
Song Credits
Page 215—“Come Mother’s Sons and Daughters” (Song recorded by Henry DeWitt, 1837, Manuscript Hymnals)
Page 215—“Holy Order” (Manuscript Hymnals, 1839)
Page 216—“Sweep, Sweep and Cleanse Your Floor” (New Lebanon Hymnal, 1839)
Page 224—Untitled Song (Watervliet, prior to 1838)
Page 226—“Shake off the Flesh” (Manuscript Hymnals, 1808–1858; source and exact date unknown)
Page 340—“Vision Song” (Henry DeWitt’s New Lebanon Hymnal, 1837)
Page 354—“Dismission of the Devil” (“Warring” song; Manuscript Hymnals)
Page 357—“O San-nisk-a-na” (Vision Song; New Lebanon, 1838; Henry DeWitt manuscript)
Ann H. Gabhart and her husband live on a farm just over the hill from where she grew up in central Kentucky. She’s active in her country church, and her husband sings bass in a Southern Gospel quartet. Ann is the author of over twenty novels for adults and young adults. Her first inspirational novel, The Scent of Lilacs, was one of Booklist’s top ten inspirational novels of 2006. Her novel The Outsider was a finalist for the 2009 Christian Book Awards in the fiction category.
Visit Ann’s website at www.annhgabhart.com.
Also by Ann H. Gabhart
* * *
The Outsider
The Believer
The Seeker
The Blessed
———
Angel Sister
———
The Scent of Lilacs
Orchard of Hope
Summer of Joy
Website: www.revellbooks.com/signup
Twitter: RevellBooks
Facebook: Revell