“No matter what profession a person is in, it’s impossible to please everybody,” she said pragmatically. “Just ask Luke Hall how folks have been treating him since he stopped carrying five different brands of corn flakes because he was running out of shelf space.”
“But old Luke has the hide of an elephant,” Richard observed. “Something tells me you don’t.”
She shot him a troubled look, as if she hadn’t expected him to be able to read her so easily. “How’d we get on this, anyway?” she demanded, sounding flustered. “I came down here to haul you back to Sunday dinner. I don’t know about you, but I’m starved. A rousing sermon always makes me hungry.”
Richard recognized a lost cause. Anna Louise wasn’t about to go back to the house alone and face Maisey’s wrath. “Let’s go,” he agreed, getting to his feet in one lithe movement. He struck off ahead of her, then turned back. His gaze pinned on hers, he said quietly, “Give ‘em a run for their money, Anna Louise. That’s what the folks around here deserve.”
He caught a glimpse of her startled expression before he picked up his pace and moved on.
* * *
Over Maisey’s crisp, fried chicken, buttery mashed potatoes and gravy, green beans and apple cobbler, it took everything in him to keep his eyes on his plate and his thoughts in line. It had to be some sort of divine test. Why was it man’s perverse nature to desire what he couldn’t have?
He couldn’t for the life of him reconcile what Anna Louise did for a living with the observant young woman who kept them laughing at her outrageous stories about Luke Hall down at the general store in town and his lazy trio of good-for-nothing sons. Naturally, Anna Louise seemed to think those boys had the potential to be saints, particularly young Jeremy, who, at eighteen, was already making plans to be married. Richard could have told her stories about those three hellions, but he didn’t. No point in disillusioning her, if she couldn’t see what was plain as day. Jeremy was the instigator of most of their mischief. Jeremy married? Richard couldn’t picture it. Nine times out of ten, a boy who got married at eighteen hadn’t been able to think of any other way to persuade his girl into bed. Maybe parsons had to turn a blind eye to facts like that.
Right on through dessert, Richard kept waiting for Anna Louise to offer to save his sorry soul, but either she didn’t feel it was worth saving or she was storing up the offer for another occasion. He was almost disappointed not to have the chance to tell her what she could do with her plans for his eternal salvation.
* * *
Anna Louise honestly didn’t know what to make of Richard Walton. She’d heard about Maisey Walton’s grandson, the renegade journalist who defied death by chasing stories into places no other journalist would dare to go. He was every bit as bitter and cynical as she would expect a man to be after witnessing the atrocities he had seen.
And yet she knew that no grandson of Maisey’s could grow up without being instilled with her values and generosity of spirit. She wondered what it would take to wipe that jaded look from his eyes and restore the sense of joy he must have felt as a child growing up in this beautiful, serene place.
At least Richard hadn’t turned out to be one of those people who thought she didn’t belong behind the pulpit. Her very own pastor back in Tennessee didn’t hold with women preaching, even though she’d been encouraged to attend Sunday school and take part in youth leadership activities. It seemed a line had been drawn at the front of the church and she wasn’t allowed to step over it.
Fortunately her parents had understood her calling and had encouraged her to follow her chosen path, no matter how difficult it might be. Some of her own cousins, however, had been appalled and had wasted no opportunity to tell her so. As for the men in her classes at seminary, most of them had felt it their duty to show her that she didn’t belong. It was amazing how selective they could be in their reading of Scripture, picking only passages which seemed to disapprove of women in the pulpit. She had quietly gone about the business of proving them wrong, by becoming better educated, a better preacher and a more tolerant person than any of them. She also had her own Bible passages to counter all their claims.
Being asked by the congregation to become the full-time pastor of the church here in Kiley had been the sweetest, most satisfying moment of her life. It had made all of the years of struggling, all the tests of faith worthwhile.
Clearly, though, Richard Walton had been taken aback to discover her profession. There had been an unmistakable difference between the way he’d treated her the day they’d met and the way he’d acted during dinner. On that first day he had reacted to her and she to him, their responses as natural as could be between two people whose hormones were intact.
Now, though, there was a distance, a caution that hadn’t been there before. It wasn’t the first time she’d experienced such a reaction. Some men seemed to fear eternal damnation if they dared even to ask her out. Up until now she had always been able to shrug it off, partly because she’d had her career to keep her occupied. It was challenge enough without adding romance to her life.
Quicker than the blink of an eye, Richard Walton had changed that. For the first time in her life, she thought she knew the real meaning of temptation. She had
