Jacquelin Thomas - The Pastor's Woman

Barbara followed him. “Now, my niece…she’s a real nice girl. But I have to tell you that she’s not looking for a boyfriend. Marnie wants a husband. She’s ready to settle down and have a lot of pretty babies.”

“I’ll keep her in my prayers,” Wade stated.

“I appreciate you remembering her in your prayers, Pastor, but I’d like for you to meet her. I’ll make sure I introduce you to Marnie. I’m telling you, she’s a nice girl. Just needs to be married.”

Wade didn’t miss the not-so-subtle hint but chose not to comment on it. When the time was right, God would bring into his life the woman he was meant to marry.

Until then, Wade had to run in the other direction whenever Barbara and the other women threw their daughters in his direction.

Pearl was so exhausted, she could barely think straight. Not even a shower woke her up.

Paige was in the living room watching television when she walked out. “Hey, girl,” she greeted. “You look like you need to go back to bed.”

“Don’t tempt me,” she moaned. “My manager just called. I’m going in early today, picking up another shift.”

“You can’t work all those hours at Milton’s and then do your singing gigs. Just thinking about it makes me tired, too.”

“Hopefully, I won’t have to do this much longer. I pray I’ll get a record deal from the demo tapes I sent out.”

“You will,” Paige assured her. “I believe it.”

Pearl stretched out on the sofa. “Lord, give me strength.”

“Why don’t you just stay home today?”

“I need the money, Paige.”

“But if you’d let us—”

Pearl cut her off. “I’ve told you a thousand times that I appreciate you and my sisters for wanting to help, but this is something I need to do for myself.”

As if on cue, her sister Ruby called.

Glancing over at the clock, Pearl answered saying, “Why are you calling here so early? It’s not even eight-thirty.”

She laughed when her oldest sister responded, “I know you aren’t still in bed.”

“I should still be, though. I stayed up late working on a song.”

Ruby was the pragmatist of all the Lockhart sisters. Since their mother’s death five years ago, she’d been thrown into the role of the matriarch and constantly harped on the importance of family.

Even now, she was calling just to check on Pearl. If Ruby didn’t hear from her siblings every couple of days, she began calling around.

“Did you watch the game last night?” Pearl asked, although she already knew the answer. Ruby wasn’t into sports the way she was. Neither was Amber; she just liked going to the games in hopes of meeting someone. Since D’marcus was a co-owner of the Chargers franchise, Opal would go with them from time to time.

“No. I didn’t get a chance to see it. I had some work to do.”

Before ending the call, Pearl made plans to have lunch with her sister soon. She loved Ruby, but was growing tired of her pushing Pearl to go back to college like Opal and finish up her degree.

It had been her mother’s deepest wish that they all get college degrees, but that wasn’t where Pearl’s heart lay. She wanted to sing.

Singing had always been her dream and Pearl was not about to give up on the true desire of her heart.

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