Abel walked back to the porch, and he and Emily watched as Stone slowly navigated his truck down the bumpy gravel driveway. The twins headed for the barn, taking their chicks and their chatter with them. Abel felt like a coiled spring, as if he was about to jump straight out of his skin. He couldn’t look at Emily, but he was aware of exactly where she stood beside him.
“Pastor Stone wants me to help them get the church coffee shop established,” Emily told him, “but don’t worry. If I decide to do it, it’s only part-time. I’ll be home in plenty of time to cook supper, so I can keep up our end of the deal. And the twins can go to the summer day care program the church is running for free since I’d be a church employee.”
She obviously expected him to say something. “Sounds like something you’d be good at.” He didn’t like the idea, he realized. Not only would it mean Emily would be spending a good chunk of time away from the farm, but she’d be seeing a lot more of Jacob Stone into the bargain. He liked Stone well enough, but women flocked to him like bees to honeysuckle. Abel didn’t much like the idea of the preacher and Emily working together.
Emily was gazing over the fields thoughtfully. “It almost sounds too good to be true. It kind of worries me.”
Everything worried Emily. Abel let a few uncomfortable seconds of silence pass. “Green beans need picking,” he said finally. “I’d best get on that.”
“Could it wait a few minutes? I think maybe we need to talk.” He felt her hand reach out and touch his arm, and he jumped. This woman had every nerve he owned on edge.
“Abel, would you look at me, please?”
He raised his eyes to meet hers. The hopeful look he’d seen on her face a few moments ago had faded. Now her gray-green eyes looked troubled and tired, and the hurt he saw lurking there flopped his heart right over.
“I owe you an explanation.” She swallowed and tilted her chin upward, and something about that familiar, brave little gesture pushed him right back over the edge he was teetering on.
This was Emily. Nothing else mattered much. “You don’t have to explain anything to me.”
“I think maybe I do. Pastor Stone said you’ve been standing up for me all over town.” She swallowed, and he saw a suspicious shimmer in her eyes. “You’re probably regretting that right about now.”
“Nope.” He realized the truth of it as he spoke. He reached out and took both her small hands in his. “I’d do it again. I will do it again if I hear any more of this foolishness.”
“What they’re saying about me is true. Lois may have her own reasons for broadcasting it all over, but I’m responsible for what I did. And I did do it, Abel.”
He nodded. “I heard you. And I won’t deny that it threw me for a minute, but I’ll tell you why it did. Whoever you were back then, you’re not that person anymore. The Emily I know would no more take something that didn’t belong to her than I would. God’s seen to that. So whatever happened in the past doesn’t matter.” He was speaking to himself as much as he was speaking to her. Maybe the preacher had a point.
“It means a lot to me that you think that way.” Emily swallowed hard. As he watched, a single tear streaked down her face, and she reached up to scrub it away impatiently with the back of her hand.
The tear did it, that and the tiny quiver of her lips. It was that combination that pushed him past whatever reserve he had left where Emily Elliott was concerned. He stopped thinking, leaned over and covered her soft mouth gently with his own.
He kept the kiss simple, then drew back slowly, gauging her reaction. She looked stunned. Whatever she’d been expecting him to do, it hadn’t been that.
He couldn’t say the thought of kissing her had never crossed his mind before, but he was pretty sure it was a new idea for her.
As far as he was concerned, though, it was perfect. As he looked down into her face, he felt a flood of possessiveness wash over him. He’d never wanted anything as much as he wanted this, all of it, this woman, her twins, this brambly old farm. This was every hope he’d ever had wrapped up in one sweet package.
“Abel.” Emily’s voice came out a little uneven, and his lips quirked up. He’d flustered her. He kind of liked that.
“Mmm?”
“I think...” Emily started, then stopped.
He raised his eyebrows at her and waited. She swallowed, moistened her lips and tried again.
“I think you should go pick those green beans now.” She nodded firmly and retreated into the house, letting the screen door flap shut behind her with a loud bang.
* * *
On Sunday Emily sat nervously in her pew as Pastor Stone welcomed visitors and went through a lengthy list of announcements. Only he and Emily knew that the special testimony listed in the church bulletin would be hers.
Even Abel didn’t know. He was sitting next to Phoebe, and she was grateful for her daughter’s squirmy little body between them. Ever since that kiss on the front porch, she’d been keeping her distance. So far she’d been successful. Abel hadn’t made any effort to close the gap, but there was something in his face that told her that sooner or later he would.
She wasn’t entirely sure how she felt about that. Not that the kiss hadn’t thrilled her all the way to her toes. It definitely had. The problem was she wasn’t sure how she felt about that, either.
The woman in front of her coughed, bringing Emily abruptly back to the present. She couldn’t believe she was sitting here in church thinking about kissing Abel. She felt a blush stain her cheeks, and she darted an uneasy look in his direction. He caught her eye, and the corner of his mouth twitched as if he knew exactly what she was thinking. As if maybe he was thinking something along the same lines himself.
That didn’t help. Emily quickly looked back down at the paper bulletin in her hands. It was trembling slightly, and she didn’t know if that was because she was going to get up and speak in front of this whole congregation in about two minutes or because she couldn’t decide if she wanted the man sitting between her twins to kiss her again or not.
This was all so complicated. Emily felt a rush of longing for her tough, straightforward Atlanta life. Since she’d come to Goosefeather Farm, everything felt twisted and hard to figure out. It wasn’t just the farming thing, either, although she sure wasn’t getting much better in that department. It was even more than her confusion about Abel.
Here in Pine Valley, the past she desperately wanted to put behind her kept looping around and jostling the present. Now the future had started whispering promises that she couldn’t bring herself to believe. Happily-ever-afters just weren’t that easy to come by. She’d learned that the hard way. She rubbed at her eyes and sighed. This whole situation made her tired.
Pastor Stone’s tone changed, and Emily refocused her attention on the service. He’d finished the announcements and was addressing his congregation.
“You all know that now and again we make time for special testimonies, and you’ll see in the bulletin that we have one of those scheduled this morning. I’ve invited Miss Emily Elliott to speak to us. Emily is the granddaughter of our beloved Mrs. Sadie Elliott, and if you don’t know her already, you soon will because she’s agreed to help us get our new coffee shop off the ground. Since she’s going to be working for the church part-time, I thought it would be beneficial for all of us to hear her story. Emily?”
Jacob Stone offered her an encouraging smile, and Emily stood up, feeling her knees shaking like jelly as she began to sidle her way down the pew to the aisle. As she passed Abel, he reached out with one hand and caught her arm.
Startled, she glanced down at him. His face was set and drawn, and his eyes bored into hers. Abel spoke quietly and intensely. “I don’t know what Stone’s talked you into, Emily, but listen to me. You do not have to do this.”
She felt heat flare into her pale cheeks, and she lift
ed her chin. “Yes, Abel, I think I do.” On legs that suddenly seemed sturdier, she made her way up to the pulpit.
As Emily looked out into the church, some of her nervousness returned. The pews were packed. Well, maybe it was better this way. She’d tell everybody at once and get it over with.
“A lot of you have been hearing stories about me having some dishonesty in my past, maybe even criminal behavior. I’m here to tell you that the things you’ve been hearing, in part at least, are true.”
Her eyes skimmed over the congregation, picking out faces. There were her children looking innocently interested. They knew her stories, and there would be no surprises for them today, thank goodness. Abel was not looking at her but was looking down at the hands he had clenched in his lap. She saw Jack Lifsey from the feed store, but he wouldn’t meet her eyes, either. Bailey Quinn, her ponytail twisted into a sophisticated looking knot, shifted in her pew uneasily, but she threw Emily a friendly smile. Way in the back Lois Gordon sat in the corner of her pew. Her disapproving features looked like they were set in granite.
“Six years ago because of some foolish decisions I made, I found myself in one of the most difficult situations imaginable. I was an unmarried, pregnant teenager alone in Atlanta. I was running away from home, from God and from myself.” Emily kept her fingers clamped on the polished wood of the podium. She recounted her downward spiral as concisely as she could, forcing herself not to make excuses for her behavior, which had included increasing bouts of shoplifting.
“At the time I didn’t see what I was doing as wrong, although it obviously was. I was angry at the world because someone I trusted had disappointed me.” She saw Lois Gordon shift irritably in her seat, but Emily tilted her chin up a notch and continued. “Being mad at the world was easier than being mad at myself. I thought other people owed me the things I needed, so when I could, I took them.
“One day I decided to shoplift at a pharmacy. I chose a little mom-and-pop-type store because I knew they wouldn’t have the high-tech surveillance equipment that the chain stores always had.”
Emily took a deep, shaky breath. “I was several months pregnant by then. I had started worrying that my baby wouldn’t be healthy because I was eating only junk foods, so for the first time I decided to shoplift something that wasn’t strictly just for me. I decided to steal some prenatal vitamins. That turned out to be both the worst and the best decision I’d ever made...because I got caught.”
Abel had looked up from his hands, and his eyes were on her face, his expression unreadable. Emily’s eyes found his, and as she continued she felt as if she were telling her story to him alone. “I’d never been arrested before, and I was terrified and angry and just an all-around hot mess. But that’s when things started to change. The owner of the pharmacy, Mr. Arlowe, was a Christian, and the fact that I was trying to steal vitamins for my baby got his attention.”
With her eyes fixed on Abel’s face, Emily talked about how Mr. Arlowe had shown up in court and had petitioned the judge to remand her into a Christian home for single mothers. She described how the elderly man and his wife had visited her there, bringing her flowers and little items for the babies, and how this help coming in her darkest hour had finally opened her heart so that faith and hope came rushing in.
“So, I have to tell you that the stories you’ve been hearing about me are probably mostly true.” She pulled her gaze away from Abel’s face and looked back at the rest of the congregation. “I’m not asking you to trust me. You don’t really know me, and I understand better than most that trust should be earned. I just want you to know that my story doesn’t end back there in my darkest days. I want you to understand that if you or somebody you love is in a dark place like I was, your story doesn’t have to end there, either.”
She offered them a brief smile and then began to make her way back to her pew. A noise caught her attention, and when she glanced up she saw Abel. He was standing and clapping, his jaw set like a rock.
She stopped halfway to her seat, stunned. One by one several other people stood and joined in the applause. Emily gave the congregation a bewildered glance and then offered them all another grateful smile as she hurried over to the relative anonymity of her seat.
As she sidled past Abel, he reached out and took her forearm again, but this time his grip was gentle.
“You were right,” he said under his breath. “You did need to do that.”
Emily gave him a quick nod and hurriedly sat down next to Phoebe, who smiled up at her. “They liked you, Mama,” she said in a stage whisper before holding up the bulletin she’d been scribbling on. “Look. I drawed a bird!”
“Thank you, Emily.” Pastor Stone had reclaimed his pulpit, and he was beaming out over his congregation. “It’s not often we have a standing ovation in church. That’s unfortunate because we have a lot to clap about around here. Now, if you’ll turn to page three hundred in your hymnal—”
“This,” came a ringing voice from the back of the church, “is a disgrace. Jacob Stone, you have made a mockery out of this church service. And I, for one, will not tolerate it without speaking up.”
Chapter Nine
Lois Gordon was standing up in the back of the church, and even from this distance, Abel could tell that the plump woman was shaking like a leaf in a thunderstorm.
“You had the gall to lecture me when all I was doing was protecting the businesses of this community, and then you turn around and give this criminal a job working for the church?”
“Miss Lois, this isn’t the time.” Stone spoke firmly from his pulpit, but the elderly lady wasn’t about to let him get a word in edgewise.
“I can’t think of a better one! Particularly if you still expect me to foot the bulk of the bill for the new fellowship hall.” A murmur rippled through the congregation, and one of Lois’s friends reached up a tentative hand to touch her elbow. Lois shrugged it off. “No, I’m not sitting down. I’ve had enough of this nonsense. But you—” the old lady turned her baleful gaze from the pastor to the people in the pews “—you have no more sense than to applaud such foolishness! For shame! If my husband were still alive and a deacon of this church, he’d never stand for this!”
She was most likely right about that. Abel figured Dr. Gordon would have shut this down in a wink. He and those like him were one reason Abel had steered clear of church for as long as he had.
“Let’s go, Emily,” Abel said quietly. He began to gather up the children’s crayons and papers that were scattered over the pew. The wide-eyed twins helped him, darting uneasy glances toward the back of the sanctuary.
“No.” Emily was sitting bolt upright in her seat. Those two telltale spots were burning high on her cheekbones, but the rest of her face was as white as paper. She kept her eyes fixed straight ahead. “I’m seeing this through.”
Meanwhile, Lois Gordon’s voice was growing louder and shriller. “You are ruining this church, Jacob Stone! First you waste our good money on that ridiculous coffee shop, and then you hire her to run it. If that’s good stewardship of church funds, I’m a gardenia! That girl is a loose woman with a criminal history, and she has no business coming in the door of this church, much less working for it!”
“Miss Lois, I believe you’ve said just about enough,” Jack Lifsey spoke up from his pew, and several other churchgoers nodded in agreement. “We’re supposed to be Christians here.”
“I’ll let you know when I’ve said enough,” the old lady retorted. “If the likes of Emily Elliott can get up and speak in this sanctuary, I certainly can!”
Stone had a quick aside with the music minister, who hurried to the pulpit as Stone started down the aisle. From the set of the preacher’s mouth, Abel figured he was planning to pry Lois Gordon out of her pew or die trying. Either way, Abel wanted Emily and the twins a safe distance away.
“Let’s step outsi
de, Emily. If you’re set on staying till the end of service, we can come back in after Stone gets all this under control.” If Stone could, which seemed unlikely at the moment. Abel watched as Lois snatched her arm away from the minister’s gentle hand and refused to budge.
The murmuring in the pews increased. Nobody was paying much attention to the music minister’s attempt to start the hymn. They were too focused on the drama unfolding at the back of the church, and they looked from Lois and the pastor back to Emily, whispering.
“Emily?” Abel prodded.
“No, I’m not leaving.”
He saw Emily’s neck pulse as she swallowed hard.
“But I’d really appreciate it if you’d take the children out for me. Please.”
He opened his mouth to argue, but then Emily looked over at him. She was pale and shaking, but there was a determination in her eyes that made his protest stall in his throat.
“Please, Abel,” she repeated quietly. “I can handle this.”
He hesitated a minute, but he could see that she’d dug in her heels. Reluctantly he gave in, got up and shepherded the children out, cutting a wide berth around Lois, who was now surrounded by a wary circle of people, all trying to persuade her to leave the sanctuary. They didn’t seem to be making much headway, because the old lady was well beyond the point of reason. It looked like somebody was going to have to pick her up and carry her out of the church. Abel was about ready to volunteer for the job himself, and he knew a thorny holly bush out on the front lawn of the church that would make the perfect dropping-off point.
He looked back at Emily, who gave her confused children a little wave and smiled brightly at them. Reassured, the twins went willingly through the door, but Abel lingered for a second. Emily’s smile had been big, but it looked thin. He hated leaving her there sitting alone in this mess, but as usual that was exactly what she wanted him to do.
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