The Preacher's Bride

“I suppose so,” he said. “I hope I can find a way to make it traditional and fresh at the same time, however.”

Just having a preacher other than his father conducting the service would make it fresh enough for the people of Simpson Creek, she thought.

“I think the world of Miss Caroline and Jack,” he went on. “I want to do my part to make their wedding day special for them.”

“I’m sure you will. But...it doesn’t bother you?” she asked at last, giving way to curiosity.

He didn’t pretend he didn’t know what she meant. “Because I kept company with Miss Caroline for a little while, back during the winter? No, not really,” he said. “I’m happy that she and Jack were able to resolve the things that were keeping them apart. God showed me Caroline was for Jack, not me. And the more I’m around the two of them, the more convinced I am of that.”

“God...showed you,” she said, hoping her doubt didn’t show. “How does that...happen? To you, I mean,” she added quickly, not wanting to reveal that she never prayed anymore, and had never experienced God showing her anything.

He speared a couple of green beans with his fork as he considered her question, and nothing on his face revealed that he found her question unusual. “I prayed about it, of course, but He doesn’t always answer out loud. It was more of a feeling, here,” he said, flattening his hand over the center of his chest. “And sometimes He shows us by the way events work out. That’s what happened in this case. Jack finally declared his true feelings, and now he and Miss Caroline are about to get married.” He looked more carefully at her. “You didn’t think I was hiding a broken heart, did you?”

His direct question gaze flustered her. “No...I—I’m... Perhaps I shouldn’t have asked you that. It’s none of my business after all.” She pretended great interest in a mockingbird which had just landed on the lantana bush outside the kitchen window.

“I didn’t mind, Miss Faith,” he said. “Not at all. I think it’s good for believers to talk about how they feel God’s leading, because He has different ways of leading different people.”

But I’m not a believer, she thought.

“Miss Caroline and I really hadn’t progressed beyond friendship,” he told her. “I would never let my feelings grow to the point where my heart would be wounded without seeking His guidance on the matter.”

If that was true, she felt better. For if there was a God who cared about His faithful followers, He’d never let Gil fall in love with a woman like her—one who did not believe as he did.

“I wish I’d grown up in Simpson Creek,” he said then. “It’s a good place. Good land, good people.”

Reverend Chadwick had become pastor here during the war years, while his son was in college. Gil had served in the army after graduating, then been wounded only a few months before the war’s end. He’d gone straight into the seminary after he’d recovered.

“I’m glad you like our town,” she said, wondering where this was leading. “If you had been raised here, you might have been the only single man who returned to Simpson Creek after Appomattox.”

“Or one of those who didn’t live to come back,” he said soberly, his eyes thoughtful. “Which is why you ladies started the Spinsters’ Club, isn’t it—the lack of unmarried men? Papa wrote me about the beginnings of the Spinsters’ Club while I was away at seminary.”

“Did you think we sounded like a band of brazen hussies, advertising for marriage-minded bachelors?” she asked, almost afraid of the answer. But she saw a twinkle in his eye that reassured her.

“Not at all,” he said. “You sounded like a plucky lot. I was only worried all the young ladies of the hill country would get the same idea and there’d be no one left for me when I finished seminary.”

“Ah, now, where was your faith, Reverend Gil?” she teased. “Didn’t you believe that the Lord would provide?”

He smiled at her, and she felt the jolt of it all the way through her heart.

“I’m only surprised you haven’t made one of those matches, Miss Faith,” he said. “I’d have thought those bachelors would have snatched you up when the group first started,” he said.

This bantering tone was new from him. She shrugged and looked away to hide her confusion. “So far it hasn’t happened... I haven’t felt ‘led’ to any of the gentlemen who’ve answered our advertisements so far, either.”

“Maybe for a reason.”

The sentence hung in the air, heavy with meaning. Oh, dear, what did he mean by that? What was she to say?

Just then a loud, urgent rapping at the front door startled both of them. Faith dropped her fork. Gil jumped up from the table, nearly oversetting his chair.

“Who can that be?” he wondered aloud. Faith followed him as he headed down the hall toward the sound.

* * *

Billy Henderson stood on the doorstep, his face tearstained, his eyes swollen. “Pastor Gil, you gotta come quick! My ma got a letter just now, and she’s terrible upset. She won’t tell me what it’s about or let me see it. She just sits on the sofa and sobs.”

“I’ll come,” he said quickly, remembering that Billy Henderson’s father had been sent to prison after assaulting Caroline Wallace at her schoolhouse. He’d been in on the conspiracy to kidnap Jack Collier’s twins which had taken place at the same time. His imprisonment had left his wife and son alone in Simpson Creek, fearful of the time Henderson would be released, for he’d also been a brutal husband and father. Daisy Henderson and her son had been planning to move away from Simpson Creek in hope that her husband wouldn’t be able to find them, but they hadn’t left yet.

He turned back to Faith. “Will you and Papa be all right?” he asked. He hated to have to leave on the very first day his father was home, and still in such frail condition, but one of the congregation needed him now, too.

“We’ll be fine, Gil. Go ahead,” she said. “Dr. Walker’s right across the street if I need help.”

“Bless you, Faith,” he said, as he dashed down the steps after Billy Joe. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

He found Mrs. Henderson just as Billy Joe had described her, weeping on a horsehair sofa and clutching a damp handkerchief. A crumpled sheet of paper lay in her lap.

“Ma, I brung the rev’rend,” Billy Joe said, speaking loudly over his mother’s sobs.

She looked up and blinked at Gil as if she’d never seen him before.

“I’m Pastor Gil, Reverend Chadwick’s son,” he reminded her gently. He wasn’t sure if he’d seen her at church since the day of the assault and kidnapping in March. Folks said she kept mostly to herself these days, shamed by her husband’s despicable actions.

“Oh. Yes, of c-course,” she said. “S-somehow I was expecting to see your father...forgot about what happened to him...”

He brought a chair close to the sofa and lowered himself into it. “That’s all right,” he said. “Your son said you were upset by the arrival of a letter. He’s pretty worried about you, so he came and got me. Is there some way I can help?”

“I just couldn’t tell him!” she wailed. “Here, read it!” She yanked the letter off her lap and extended it to him with a shaking hand.

Gil unfolded the rumpled paper, aware of Billy Joe watching him, his eyes troubled, his gaze darting between Gil and his mother. Gil bent his head and read the letter to himself:

* * *

Dear Mrs. Henderson,

I regret to inform you that your husband, William J. Henderson, was killed in an altercation between himself and another prisoner yesterday. He died instantly after being stabbed in the chest. We are shipping his body home to you for burial, and it should arrive at the same time as this letter.

Yours truly,

Emerson Fogle, Prison Administrator

* * *

Gil looked up at Daisy Henderson, who had covered her eyes with her sodden handkerchief. Muffled sobs still escaped from her shaking body.

Compassion welled up within Gil. The man had beaten her for years, and abused his son for as long as he had lived, yet she still sorrowed for her husband, Gil thought. She had been William Henderson’s faithful wife, despite the way he had treated her.

“Mrs. Henderson,” he said gently, “is it your wish that I tell your son what the letter says?”

She nodded, raising red-rimmed, tear-drenched eyes to him and then her son.