Laurie Kingery - The Preacher's Bride

Her Deepest Secret

When her little brother died, Faith Bennett lost her trust in God. She’s kept this secret from the good people of Simpson Creek, yet she can’t deceive Gil Chadwick. She’ll be Gil’s friend, but without a faith to match his, she can never be the handsome new preacher’s bride.

Though Gil cherishes Faith’s friendship, he wants a wife. And in kind, upright Faith, he’s convinced he’s found her. The secret heartaches of his past fade as he watches her nurse his father. When danger finds her, he’ll risk everything to save her. For where there’s Faith, there’s love...and the promise of a new beginning together.

“Papa wrote me about the beginnings of the Spinsters’ Club while I was away at seminary,” Gil said.

“Did you think we sounded like a band of brazen hussies, advertising for marriage-minded bachelors?” Faith 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?”

“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.

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

LAURIE KINGERY

makes her home in central Ohio, where she is a “Texan-in-exile.” Formerly writing as Laurie Grant for the Harlequin Historical line and other publishers, she is the author of eighteen previous books and the 1994 winner of a Readers’ Choice Award in the Short Historical category. She has also been nominated for Best First Medieval and Career Achievement in Western Historical Romance by RT Book Reviews. When not writing her historicals, she loves to travel, read, participate on Facebook and Shoutlife and write her blog on www.lauriekingery.com.

The Preacher’s Bride

Laurie Kingery

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Jesus said unto him, If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth. And straightway the father of the child cried out, and said with tears, Lord, I believe, help thou mine unbelief.

—Mark 9:23, 24

In memory of Tango, the dog of my heart

And as always, to Tom

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Dear Reader

Questions for Discussion

Excerpt

Chapter One

Simpson Creek, Texas, April 1868

I must be the most misnamed person in this whole town, maybe in the whole state of Texas, Faith Bennett thought, staring into the cool green water of Simpson Creek. Her parents had confidently given her that name, never guessing that by the time their daughter grew up, she would not believe in God.

It was a secret Faith shared with no one, not her parents, her neighbors and certainly not her friends in the Simpson Creek Spinsters’ Club, of which she was a loyal member. She couldn’t imagine what any of them would say if they knew. Her parents wouldn’t know what to do about such a declaration if Faith ever made it. Her mother would worry and fret about her, and she didn’t want that. Her friends in the Spinsters’ Club wouldn’t shun her, she thought. But they might not be so comfortable around her anymore, and they might wonder why she attended church every Sunday morning, just as they did.

A logical person would question why she enjoyed being in church. Attending church on Sunday mornings was just what one did in this small hill-country town, she mused, and everywhere else in Texas. Faith found tradition comforting—singing the familiar hymns and listening to Reverend Chadwick preach. Even though she’d long since stopped believing in the God the preacher spoke about, she always found something uplifting in the sermons, which reinforced her belief in goodness and treating her fellow man with fairness and love.

So she continued to come here each Sunday morning, yet kept her secret—her name was Faith, but she didn’t have any.

She only hoped that if and when she made a match—through the Spinsters’ Club or however else it came about—the man she came to love would not mind that she was not a woman of faith. Somewhere there had to be a man who felt like she did, or if he was religious, wouldn’t mind that she wasn’t. The fact that she was a good, honest person was the most important thing, wasn’t it?

It was probably time she joined her parents inside the sanctuary a few yards away.

“Miss Faith?” someone said behind her, and she whirled around, shading her eyes against the sunlight that filtered through the trees.

It was Gil Chadwick, the son of the preacher, and a fresh-from-seminary minister himself. Gil was staying with his father and sharing in his pastoral duties in preparation for being called to a church of his own soon.

“Good morning, Reverend Gil,” she said, smiling up at him. He had a scholarly looking face, and wore spectacles when he read, but was saved from being too austere by a mischievous cowlick that often popped up at the back of his head despite his attempts to tame it. Any young lady, herself included, would be proud to be seen with the handsome unmarried preacher. But she was not a suitable match for a man of the cloth.

He pushed back a stray lock of chestnut-brown hair that had fallen low over his brow. “I’m glad I saw you coming down to the creek. I hope I’m not intruding on your prayers,” he said.

Faith squelched the urge to laugh at the irony. “N-no, you weren’t.” She’d been thinking, certainly, but not praying. Instead of greeting her fellow worshipers before the worship service started, she’d felt the need for some quiet reflection. “It’s just...so hot inside this morning, even with this,” she said, lifting the ivory-handled fan she had brought with her, “I thought I’d spend a few moments in the shade first. Just looking at the water makes me feel cooler.”

“It is very warm for late April,” he agreed, running a finger beneath his stiff shirt collar. “Why, it’s so hot a farmer told me this morning his hens are laying hard-boiled eggs.” Humor twinkled in his hazel eyes.

She chuckled politely at the old joke, realizing he must feel the heat in his black frock coat and long-sleeved shirt almost as much as ladies did in their heavy layers of petticoats.

A silence broken only by the splash of some fish in the creek below stretched between them. She waited, but he seemed content just to gaze at her.

She heard the first few notes of “Stand Up, Stand Up for Jesus” waft toward them from an open window in the church. “Was there...was there something you wanted to say to me?” she prompted.

He blinked. “Oh, yes, of course, Miss Faith. I was merely wondering if—” He took a deep breath, as if gathering himself for a great leap, and went on, “If you might like to join me after church for dinner at the hotel.”

She stared at him. She could not say his asking her out was a total surprise. She’d thought he had his eye on her for a while now. His invitation was both the fulfillment of a dream and the one thing she must not agree to, and she wanted to accept almost more than she wanted her next breath. But having dinner with him today would be the first step in a courtship, and for Gil’s sake, she must not begin something she could not rightly continue.