The Preacher's Bride

Gil didn’t have to guess at the message—Pray about it.

* * *

“Cup,” Faith repeated patiently, sitting by the preacher’s bedside and pointing to the object he had been drinking tea from, with her help, a little while ago.

“K—kkkk—” he repeated, managing the hard consonant but not the rest of the word. “K-k-kkk,” he said again, then fisted his left hand and pounded it in the mattress, his face furrowing in frustration.

“You’re doing better, Reverend,” Faith assured him. “Remember, only days ago you couldn’t say even that much. If you keep working on it, I just know your speech will come back in time. Perhaps you’ll even be preaching to us again one day.”

He gave a skeptical snort, then a look which said, plain as day, I don’t believe it, but you’re sweet to try to make me think so.

Faith couldn’t help chuckling aloud. “They say when you’re feeling ornery it’s a sign of recovery,” she said, and he flashed his crooked smile.

She heard the door open, and a moment later Caroline appeared. “Your son conducted a very comforting graveside service, Reverend,” she said as she entered the room. “The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, I suppose.”

Pride twinkled from the old man’s eyes, but he made a gesture that showed he wanted to hear more.

“Mrs. Henderson and Billy Joe are doing as well as could be expected,” Caroline went on. “I think it helped her to have others there to support her, thanks to Faith getting the word out.”

Reverend Chadwick reached a gnarled hand out and patted Faith’s arm, clearly commending her.

“It was the least I could do,” Faith assured him, warmed by his regard.

“Gil’s escorting Mrs. Henderson and Billy Joe back home, but he said to tell you both he’d be back soon,” Caroline said. “Thanks for making it possible for me to attend, Faith. I know Billy Joe appreciated it. You can go home, now that I’m back. You must have other things to do. Unless you wanted to see Reverend Gil?” she added, when Faith remained seated.

“Oh...oh, no, I didn’t...guess I was woolgathering,” she said, hoping Caroline hadn’t noticed the heat she felt blooming in her cheeks. She didn’t want the bride-to-be, or anyone else, to guess she had any special feeling for Gil Chadwick—a feeling she must continue to conceal.

“Yes, of course,” she said, jumping to her feet. “I have neglected my chores at home lately... Now, be sure to go slow when you give the reverend his dinner—maybe some more applesauce and the mashed beans, with sips of water in between. And you’ll need to exercise his limbs this afternoon, and have Gil get him up in his wheelchair—”

Caroline waved a hand. “You went over all that this morning,” she reminded Faith, chuckling. “I can handle this. Now shoo!”

Faith hastened home, forcing herself not to look down the street when she left the parsonage to see if Gil was coming.

* * *

By the time Saturday arrived, Gil’s father’s condition had improved so much that he was spending much of the day out of bed and in his wheelchair. Even though he still couldn’t speak intelligibly, and his right hand remained useless in his lap, he seemed in all other ways much improved, so much so that Dr. Walker agreed with Gil that his father could come to the wedding.

“Just for the ceremony and an hour or so at the reception afterward, but I’ll be there, and I’ll have his nurse for the day take him home sooner if I judge he’s getting too tired,” the doctor told Gil. “Even happy events can be fatiguing, of course.”

“You hear that, Papa? You can go, but don’t you dare try to get up and dance with the bride,” Gil said, grinning at his father.

His father pointed at himself. “G-g-good,” he said. The word was slurred and indistinct, but recognizable nonetheless.

Gil whooped with triumph and swooped his arms around his father in an exuberant hug. “You’re saying you’ll be good? Oh, Papa, God is good, too!”

* * *

Anyone passing through Simpson Creek Saturday afternoon must have thought it a ghost town, for everyone was at the church. George Detwiler had even closed the saloon for the day.

The wedding procession had to be delayed while the entire congregation, including the bride and groom, greeted Reverend Chadwick in his wheelchair, but no one seemed to mind. Now, as Sarah began playing the “Wedding March,” Louisa Wheeler parked the old preacher next to her by the last pew and slid in next to Faith, who was sitting with her parents.

“Don’t they look wonderful?” Louisa whispered, indicating the bride and groom standing in front of Gil at the front of the church, flanked by Jack Collier’s twin daughters.

Faith nodded, watching with misty eyes. There was no doubt the rancher who had finally won the schoolmarm’s heart was a very good-looking fellow. But a shaft of sunlight had found its way through a golden portion of the stained-glass cross window behind the preacher, and it illuminated Gil’s light brown hair as if he wore a halo.

Gil Chadwick was not for her, she reminded herself once again, but there was no harm in looking, was there?

She hadn’t realized she had sighed aloud until Louisa, misreading her reason for sighing, leaned over and whispered, “They must be so happy...the twins just adore Caroline, you know.”

Faith just nodded again, not wanting to miss any more of Gil’s resonant voice saying the old, traditional words of the marriage vows.

* * *

“I now pronounce you man and wife. You may kiss your bride.”

Gil took the opportunity to take a deep breath while the bride and groom kissed and everyone applauded. It was done. He had married his first couple, and had not stammered as he led the couple in the recital of their vows. His hands hadn’t shaken, despite his nervousness. He’d managed not to drop the ring, even though Jack Collier’s hands trembled when he’d handed it to him. He’d spoken about the wedding feast at Cana at which Jesus performed his first miracle, and had kept his sermon eloquent but to the point.

He looked over the heads of the new couple and the congregation to where his father sat in his wheelchair, and was gratified to see the old man beaming proudly at him, as if to say, “Well done.”

Then the attendees rose to their feet as the new husband and wife began their march back up the aisle as the music swelled again.

Next to his father, he spotted Louisa, his father’s nurse for the day, and then his gaze landed on Faith, sitting on Louisa’s other side, heart-stoppingly lovely in a dress the color of bluebonnets, and he looked no further.

He could have sworn she’d been looking at him until a second before his eyes had found her, but it was just as well that she no longer did. This way, he could feast on the sight of her as she watched the new husband and wife pass by.

Did she have any idea how pretty she was? His pulse quickened at the thought of spending time with her at the wedding reception. Now that it seemed clear his father was on the mend, Gil planned to make it clear to her and anyone who cared to notice that he was interested in her. Faith—what a perfect name for a future preacher’s wife!

* * *

“Did you notice how Reverend Gil was looking at you just a moment ago?” Faith’s mother remarked as they waited to congratulate the bridal couple. “I believe he’s sweet on you, dear.”

“Oh, I’m sure you’re imagining things, Mama,” Faith told her mother, hoping no one had heard her. Sometimes Lydia Bennett’s voice carried more than she meant it to, for she was slightly hard of hearing and didn’t realize how loudly she spoke.

“Time will tell,” her father said. “About time our young preacher found a wife and settled down. I don’t reckon he could do any better than our daughter.”

It was rare to hear her father express approval of her, yet his words made Faith wince inwardly. Just about anyone would be better for him than me.

Once in the social hall where the wedding reception was to be held, her parents drifted toward other older couples they were friends with and Faith joined a cluster of Spinsters’ Club ladies.

“How are you doing out on the ranch with your husband off on that cattle drive? I’m sure you must miss him dreadfully,” Faith said to Milly Brookfield, whose baby son, Nicholas, was being handed from lady to lady, much to his delight and theirs. Clearly he’d inherited much of his British father’s charm.

“I miss him every minute of the day,” Milly admitted. “But I’m doing all right. Little Nick keeps me busy.”

“I’ve begged her to come stay with us while Nick’s gone, but she got all of our father’s stubbornness,” her sister, Sarah, said. “I even suggested renting the Spencers’ house because it’s still standing empty just down the street, if she thinks it’d be too crowded at our house.”

“Nonsense,” Milly retorted. “What kind of ranch wife would I be if I stayed in town the whole time my husband’s away? Besides, I’ll have Jack and Caroline as my neighbors, as soon as they get back from their wedding trip,” she said, nodding toward the bridal couple, who were speaking to old Reverend Chadwick and Mrs. Detwiler nearby.

“Milly, I just can’t rest easy about your being out there so far away with only the cowhands who stayed behind, as loyal as they are,” Sarah said. “Why, anything could happen.”