She faced the chairman. “I’d like to stay.”
Pastor Baskins rose to his feet. “If she stays in this room, I will leave.”
“Oh, sit down, Harlan,” Orville snapped. “We all know how you’re voting, so what’s the point of hiding?”
After a bit more squabbling, they agreed to allow her to stay. They also insisted on a secret ballot, rather than a show of hands. When the chairman had all of the slips of paper, he began reading them off one by one.
“For approval,” he said. “For approval.”
Anna Louise’s spirits began to lift. Then there were three consecutive votes against her. And another for.
In the end, the vote was nine to five in favor of allowing her to remain the pastor of the church in Kiley.
Tears clogged her throat. She could feel Richard’s hand, warm and reassuring on her shoulder.
“Thank you,” she said, her voice choked with emotion. Only then did she allow herself to admit exactly how terrified she had been that she might lose. Never once had she considered what she might do if that had happened.
“Thank you, gentlemen,” she said one more time, then turned her gaze on Richard and tucked her arm through his. “Let’s go plan a wedding.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Richard Walton and Anna Louise Perkins were married the last Saturday in April in the white clapboard church where Anna Louise was now the officially approved pastor. Huge straw baskets of daffodils, tulips and forsythia had been gathered for decoration. Sunlight streamed through the single stained-glass window above the altar.
The whole town turned out for the celebration. The nine pastors—out of fourteen from three counties—who’d voted to allow Anna Louise to remain on had been invited to conduct the wedding ceremony, each of them offering a prayer while one read the vows.
Best of all, Maisey, who had stubbornly rallied one more time, was there to see her grandson wed to a young woman she already loved as if she’d always been a part of her family. She’d spent the whole morning fussing over his suit and tie, until he was ready to scream. Then he recalled how terribly sad this day might have been if she hadn’t lived to see it.
He had stilled her hands and kissed her forehead. “I love you, Grandmother.”
“I know that, Richard. I always have. No woman could have asked for a finer grandson.” A smile had spread across her face. “And now I’ll have the prettiest granddaughter in the county, too. See to it you get busy on giving me some great-grandbabies right away.”
“I’ll do my best,” he had promised.
Now he turned from his place in front of the altar and caught a glimpse of Maisey standing in the front pew, her posture erect, her face serene. She winked at him. Grinning, he winked back.
Then Mabel Hartley, decked out in a splashy print dress and, no doubt, another of her valiant girdles, struck the first chord of “The Wedding March.” Instantly all of Richard’s attention was riveted on the back of the church.
Anna Louise’s sisters, all of them lovely, but not one a match for his beautiful bride, were serving as the bridesmaids. When all three sisters reached the front of the church, there was a faint hesitation in the music and then Anna Louise and her father stood framed in the doorway. Richard’s breath caught in his throat at the sight of her in her simple, knee-length dress with her bouquet of apple blossoms. He couldn’t help smiling at the memory of the first time he had set eyes on her in Maisey’s orchard. She looked every bit as tempting now.
But after today, she would no longer be out of his reach. She would be his. He still couldn’t quite believe his good fortune.
Anna Louise’s vows were simple and heartfelt. And then it was Richard’s turn. For a man who had built a career on weaving words into pictures, he had struggled for days to write these. Never had he found an assignment more difficult. Never had one mattered so much.
He looked into her upturned face and for a moment he forgot everything he had written. Then, at last, he remembered.
“Anna Louise, you have brought sunlight into my life where before there was only darkness. You have given me love and faith, strength and hope, four of the greatest gifts any human being can ever bestow on another. I hope that what I am able to give you in return is even half as meaningful.”
He looked into brown eyes that glistened with unshed tears. “I give you my love, my devotion and my commitment for all the days of our life. I will be guided by your faith. I will be strengthened by your love. I will share your hope for a better world for all mankind and I will work in my own way to make that happen. I promise to love, honor and cherish you always.”
When the pastor pronounced them man and wife, Anna Louise whispered, “I love you,” just as his mouth touched hers. His whole body trembled.
At Maisey’s suggestion the reception was held under the flowering apple trees in the Walton orchard. Picnic tables were laden with fried chicken, pork barbecue, potato salad, coleslaw and baked beans. A three-tiered wedding cake sat amid a dozen or more pies—mostly apple, baked with the last of last season’s crop.
When everyone had been served, Anna Louise stood. “Let us pray.” As heads bowed, she went on. “Thank you, our Heavenly Father, for letting us share this special day with family and friends. Thank you for all the blessings you have bestowed on us. Thank you for bringing into my life a man with a vision of the world as a better place and the courage to try to make that happen. With your guidance, perhaps all of us in Kiley will find our own ways to make his vision a reality. Thank you for our sense of community, which grows stronger each day, and
