The Redhead and the Preacher: A Loveswept Historical Romance

by Sandra Chastain

  Lexie gave up on savoring the moment. She walked her recalcitrant bike through a wide, slow turn and pushed it back toward Angry Tom.

  “You ready?” She strapped on her helmet.

  He put his on, too, and threw a leg over his bike.

  “Let’s go.”

  Ten minutes later, with a flapping sound that only ever meant one thing, the most exciting journey of her life ground to a halt.

  She had a fiat. Day One of the TransAm, and she had a freaking fiat. She pulled over.

  “Sorry, I must have picked up some glass on the beach. You can go ahead, I’ll catch up later.”

  He didn’t say a word, just got off his bike and put down the kickstand. Any serious cyclist would’ve stripped that—too much extra weight. Who had a kickstand? Come to think of it, who had a bike that looked like Tom’s? It appeared to have been through several wars, in no way resembling the slick, expensive machines people usually rode when they toured. His clothes were all wrong, too. She’d been expecting someone in bike shorts and a jersey, maybe a neon-yellow raincoat to ward off the mist, and here he was wearing a faded black Nirvana T-shirt and cargo shorts.

  And then there was the hotness thing, which she needed to find a way to stop noticing. She’d just have to focus on his personality. That ought to do the trick.

  While she unhooked the trailer and flipped her bike over to balance on the seat, he stood there staring at her, making her as nervous as a virgin in the backseat of a prom limo. It actually helped a little that he was a complete asshole. She could handle assholes. As a high school English teacher, she dealt with them on a daily basis.

  She pulled off her front wheel, uncomfortably aware of Tom’s eyes on her. This was a test, then. At least she knew she could pass it. She’d changed a lot of flats over the years. Stripping the damaged tube from the tire, she inspected it but couldn’t find a puncture. A thorough scan of the tire itself finally yielded the culprit—a small protruding shard of glass.

  It was when she started rummaging around in her tail bag for a new tube that she started to get a sinking feeling in her stomach. Because this wasn’t the bike she’d been planning to bring on the trip. She’d changed her mind at the eleventh hour and switched to the Salsa, which offered fewer hand positions but was more comfortable than her designated touring bike. She’d packed the tail bag weeks ago, though, which meant she’d brought the wrong size tubes. Which meant she couldn’t change the tire.

  Which meant she was going to look like a fool in front of Tom before they’d even managed to ride two miles.

  “Bad news. I, uh, I have the wrong tubes. I need two-niner tubes, and I don’t have them, so I can’t change the flat. But listen, you go ahead, and I’ll find a bike shop. And after it opens”—in three or four hours—“I’ll buy another tube and meet up with you this afternoon.”

  “Or you could patch it.”

  Another catastrophic failure of planning. Lexie hadn’t brought a patch kit. She’d carefully considered whether she needed one and had concluded that since she was going to be carrying plenty of extra tubes, it didn’t make sense to tote a patch kit as well. Also, there was the fact that she’d never patched a tire before. The whole process had always struck her as rather arcane, and she hadn’t seen any reason to bother learning how to do it. Tubes were cheap, after all.

  “I don’t know how,” she admitted, knowing he would frown and glare at her, and that he would be justified.

  He did frown and glare at her. But then he took the tube from her and started looking for the puncture.

  “I already did that.”

  Tom ignored her. He used his hand pump to put some air in the tube, then stuck it next to his ear and turned it slowly, listening for the hiss of escaping air. Two full revolutions later, he put a little more air in the tube. And then he stuck out his tongue and licked it.

  “What are you doing?”

  He didn’t answer her, just kept running the tip of his tongue slowly along the rubber tube and staring at her with those intense dark eyes. And God help her, it turned her on.

  She felt her cheeks heat up and looked away, mortified. Almost thirty years old, and she was getting off on the sight of a guy licking a tube. A hot guy licking a tube, but still. She obviously needed to get out more.

  When she glanced back at him, he had his patch kit open and was using the sandpaper to rough up the rubber. Apparently he’d found the leak. With his tongue. Jesus.

  Thank goodness sex was already off the table. Considering how hot she was for her ride buddy right now, the fictitious Mr. Marshall might turn out to be a blessing. The catastrophe of her last failed relationship had made her more than a little wary of climbing into bed with the wrong guys, and Tom Geiger couldn’t have been more wrong if he’d tried.

  Though he was patching her tire for her.

  Tom smeared on some glue, applied the patch, and handed her the tube.

  “Hold that on there for five minutes. Then you can put it back together and pump it up.”

  “Thanks.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  She couldn’t think of anything else to say, so she just pressed on the patch and waited, deeply uncomfortable. So far, her grand adventure was not turning out remotely like she’d imagined it would. So far, it kind of sucked.

  He pulled the water bottle off his bike and took a drink, swished, spat. “Next time, you lick the tube,” he said. “It tastes fucking awful.”

  Lexie laughed. Risking a glance at Tom out of the corner of her eye, she caught him smiling at her—and nearly fell over.

  A broad grin had transformed those fine lips, erasing every trace of Angry Tom and replacing him with a Tom she hadn’t met yet. But she wanted to. Oh, man, she wanted to. He had an amazing, engaging smile. His eyes seemed to sparkle with his amusement, and deep laugh lines appeared at the corners. There was a dimple in his chin she hadn’t noticed before. His teeth were bright white against his dark skin. This Tom was utterly delicious.

  Miracle of miracles, he also looked like a lot of fun.

  They stood there like that, smiling at one another for just a few seconds longer than was called for, before Tom frowned slightly and turned away to put his water bottle back in the cage.

  Lexie let out a breath she hadn’t even known she’d been holding. Maybe he wouldn’t be so bad.

  Read on for an excerpt from Bethany Campbell’s See How They Run

  ONE

  “You can set your watch by him,” one of the teachers had said.

  That’s exactly what the twins did every weekday afternoon on the playground. The boys were eight and very handsome. They had dark hair and blue-gray eyes fringed with black lashes. They wore identical military watches, large and unbreakable.

  Each day when the tall old gentleman appeared, rounding the corner, the boys’ eyes glittered with interest. They would look first at their watches, then at each other. The watches should say 2:07, and if they did not, the twins adjusted them, because the old man always appeared at 2:07.

  The old man carried himself with great dignity and walked with a silver-headed cane. His white hair was expertly barbered, his jaw always cleanly shaven. It was winter, so he wore an expensive overcoat of dark gray, a white muffler, a black fedora, and black leather gloves.

  He came from the direction of the really expensive brownstones, and that’s where Laura imagined he lived. She recognized his shoes as Guccis, six hundred dollars a pair. This meant that each shoe had cost exactly twice as much as her winter coat. She smiled wryly whenever she thought of that.

  The boys counted the number of steps that took the elderly gentleman down the block past the school. On the average, it was 339. On the one-hundred-first step, he reached the edge of the schoolyard with its high wrought-iron fence.

  The twins clung to the black bars of the fence like two solemn monkeys, staring at him and counting with all their concentration.

  Every day the old gentleman gazed straight ahead, his face unreada
ble, as he passed them. Yet he always acknowledged the boys. He would raise his hand and tip his black hat, ever so slightly, as he reached the place they stood, grasping the fence.

  “Good afternoon,” the old gentleman would mutter, without making eye contact. “Good afternoon.”

  Perhaps, Laura thought with amusement, it was his habit to repeat himself, or perhaps he meant to give a separate and equal greeting to each twin.

  The boys did not smile, and kept their faces as dignified as his. They hated wearing hats, so had none, but touched their fingertips to their foreheads in a return salute. “Good afternoon,” they would chorus back, mimicking his tone. “Good afternoon.”

  Then, at approximately his one-hundred-twenty-fifth step, the old gentleman would turn his face slightly, his dark eyes meeting Laura’s hazel ones. Although he was nearly seventy, he was still a handsome man, and he knew it, she could tell. He’d nod at her and touch the brim of his hat. She’d smile and nod back.

  “He’s got the hots for you,” Herschel, one of the other teachers, had once said.

  “Rich, old—and with the hots for me?” Laura had replied with a rueful smile. “I should be so lucky.”

  But the elderly gentleman’s glance almost did seem to convey sexual interest, and she admired him for harboring youthful thoughts, even felt a certain affection for him, although they’d never spoken.

  She was still young—twenty-eight—and knew she was fairly attractive, but New York was full of women who were younger and far more beautiful. She didn’t care; she wasn’t hunting for another husband. She’d had one, and he had been more than enough.

  Her only vanity was her richly colored auburn hair, which was thick and waving; she wore it long. She used little makeup and let her freckles show. She always had freckles, even in winter.

  This afternoon, the wind was cold and brisk, so she’d used her plaid muffler as a scarf, covering her ears and tying it under her chin. She stood a few yards from the twins, watching them, her hands deep in her pockets. Behind her came the shouts of other children playing.

  The gray sky had started to spit needles of sleet. Laura would be grateful to see the old gentleman round the corner, for that meant recess was almost half over, and soon she would be back in the warmth of the classroom.

  The twins, as usual, clutched the fence rails, ignoring the other children, watching for the man. Their winter jackets and gloves were alike in all but color. As usual, Trace wore blue and Rickie red. The boys were so identical that many people could tell them apart only by this color coding. They seemed even to breathe in unison, their breath rising in synchronized plumes toward the sky.

  Their hands tightened on the fence when they saw the man coming. The air was so cold that his ears were red and his usually controlled face looked almost pained. His white muffler was wound around his neck, and his coat collar was turned up. He seemed to exhale smoke as he walked, as if he were an elderly and benign dragon.

  Perhaps because of the cold, he walked a bit more swiftly than usual, and Trace frowned, trying to keep count of the man’s steps. When the old man passed the boys, he lifted his hat, just barely.

  “Good afternoon,” he said, not looking at them, striding on. “Good afternoon.”

  They saluted stiffly, their eyes following him. “Good afternoon,” they echoed. “Good afternoon.”

  He kept moving briskly. One of the other children, Janine, ran up to Laura, asking for help in retying her shoe. “Of course,” Laura said, putting her hand on the girl’s shoulder. But she waited, first, to exchange her usual silent greeting with the old gentleman.

  His dark eyes met hers. He raised his gloved hand to his hat. He nodded.

  Then a long staccato burst of noise split the winter air, and the side of the old gentleman’s face exploded into blood. His remaining eye rolled upward, his shattered jaw fell, as if to cry out, but no sound emerged.

  Blood blossomed on his chest like red carnations sprouting in full bloom, and blood spurted from his legs, which danced, sinking beneath him. He lurched like a broken puppet toward the street and fell in a ruined heap. His wounds steamed like little mouths exhaling into the cold.

  The children screamed, the teachers on the playground screamed, pedestrians screamed, and one woman with a Lord & Taylor shopping bag sat on the sidewalk, screaming as blood poured down her face.

  Laura moved on sheer instinct. She wrestled Janine to the ground before the old gentleman hit the sidewalk, and she held her there, her body thrown over the girl’s. Shooting, Laura thought in horror, ducking her head, somebody’s shooting at us.

  A bullet ricocheted shrilly off the pavement of the playground, and one of the children—William, perhaps?—screamed even more loudly.

  Her face hidden, she heard Herschel’s agonized cry. “He’s hit! He’s hit!”

  Then the shooting stopped and she heard the squeal of tires. Without the shots, the air seemed to ring with silence—except for the screams, of course, but they hardly registered on Laura’s consciousness any longer.

  “He’s hit! He’s hit!” Herschel’s voice was broken. She looked over her shoulder, biting her lip. Herschel knelt above William, who flailed and writhed, holding his arm.

  The other children were crying as teachers tried to drag them back inside the safety of the school.

  Numbly Laura clutched the sobbing Janine closer to her chest. She forced herself to look at the old gentleman again. He lay motionless on the sidewalk in the welter of his blood.

  His beautiful overcoat is ruined, she thought illogically. And just as illogically, a line from Macbeth ran through her head: “Who’d have thought the old man to have so much blood in him?”

  So much blood.

  Then, with a shock, she realized that Trace and Rickie still hung onto the fence as if hypnotized, staring at the corpse. They alone of all the children were not crying or shrieking.

  They regarded the dead man, the dark pool of blood, the screaming wounded woman, with wooden faces. Their hands still gripped the fence bars, and a slow, thin stream of scarlet ran down Trace’s cheek, dropping to stain the bright blue of his coat.

  Oh, God, he’s shot, Laura thought in panic. She rose and stumbled to the boys although Janine screamed out for her to stay.

  Quickly she examined Trace’s cheek. It bled profusely, but he didn’t seem to notice. He acted irritated that she had pulled him away from the fence.

  Janine got to her feet and lurched toward Laura, hysterical. She grasped her around the waist and wouldn’t let go. “Shh, shh,” Laura told the girl, her voice shaking. “We’ll go inside. We’ll be fine inside.”

  Rickie, too, was annoyed to be pulled away from the fence rails and clung to them more tightly. “Shots,” he said. “Shots. The man got shooted on the hundred-and-twenty-ninth step.”

  “Yes, yes,” she said impatiently, wrenching him from the fence. She was terrified that whoever had opened fire would return and shoot again.

  She wrapped one arm around the bleeding Trace, the other around Rickie. Janine still hung onto her waist, wailing hysterically.

  In the distance, sirens shrilled. “The police are coming,” she told the children, struggling to herd them inside. “The police will be here, and we’ll be safe.”

  “The car come by,” Rickie said, frowning studiously. “The car shot. Hit the man.”

  Trace touched his own cheek, then regarded his bloodied glove impassively. He nodded. “The car shot. Hit the man.”

  A drive-by shooting. Here—in front of our own school, in front of these poor children, Laura thought. The world’s gone crazy. The world’s mad.

  Somehow, Laura maneuvered her little brood inside the school. Shelley Simmons, the speech therapist, had collapsed onto the hall floor and leaned against a wall, holding one of the younger children, his face hidden against her chest. Both wept uncontrollably.

  “I’ve called nine-one-one,” Mrs. Marcuse, the school’s director, said, struggling to exert control. “The pol
ice will be here. An ambulance will be here.” She held up her hands as if beseeching them for peace, but there was none.

  Jilly, the oldest student, crouched in a corner, hugging herself, her expression full of terror. She covered her eyes with her hands, as if she could block out what she had witnessed.

  Oh, my God, that they should see this—Laura thought, still in shock—that children should see such a thing.

  Fanny Mayberry, the cook, appeared, staring at the chaos without comprehension. Herschel had William’s thin body stretched on the floor, and was using his own jacket as a compress to stop the bleeding of the boy’s arm.

  “Fanny, take Janine,” Laura said, trying to thrust the clinging girl to the other woman. “There’s been a drive-by shooting. Trace is hurt, too.”

  “My Lord, my Lord,” Fanny said, folding Janine in her arms. “What a world! You come to Fanny, honey, you be fine.”

  Laura knelt before Trace. She snatched off her muffler and dabbed it against his cheek. “Does it hurt?” she asked.

  He ignored her question. He frowned at the door. “Car shot thirty times,” he said, jutting his lower lip out petulantly. “Hit the man nineteen. The man didn’t finish the walk. Got to finish the walk.”

  “He can’t finish his walk. Trace, look at me. Tell me if you’re hit any place else. Do you hurt anywhere else?”

  Stolid, he didn’t answer. He stared at the door instead, and Laura thought that maybe the wound in his cheek was only superficial. She kept her muffler pressed against it, willing her hand not to shake.