by Janet Dailey
“Mom is your alarm clock,” she reminded him. “She would have gotten you up in plenty of time.”
A horn honked an impatient summons from the driveway. Her father glanced in the direction of the sound. “Your mother hates to be late. What shall I tell her?” he asked. “Will you be coming later on?”
“The service will be half over by the time I could make it there.” Abbie shook her head to indicate she wouldn’t be attending church that morning. “You’ll have to convey my apologies to Reverend Augustus and assure him that I’ll be at the afternoon tea.”
“I think I’ll let your mother have that pleasure.” He began moving away from the door to the white-painted staircase. “See you after church.”
With no reason for haste, Abbie took her time in the shower while coffee perked in the kitchen. The warm spray awakened her senses and eliminated the last traces of sleep and she stepped out of the shower feeling refreshed and invigorated. With a towel wrapped around her wet hair, she donned the yellow cotton robe again and ventured into the kitchen area of the apartment.
A counter bar separated the kitchen area from the rest of the room. Although there was a small wooden table and chairs, Abbie usually ate most of her meals at the counter, using the table only when she had friends over for a meal.
It was too close to dinnertime for breakfast, so Abbie settled for a glass of orange juice and a cup of freshly perked coffee, sitting on a tall, rattan-backed stool at the counter-bar. By the time she had drunk a second cup, the towel had absorbed most of the moisture from her hair. It took only a few minutes to finish drying it with the blow dryer. Its natural-bodied thickness assumed a casually loose and free style that curled softly about her neck. Choosing a dress to wear that would be both suitable for the minister’s farewell party and comfortable in the July heat was relatively easy, because she had so few choices. Abbie picked out a sundress designed with classic simplicity, a white material with small, navy-blue polka dots. Its neckline was modest, while the close-fitting bodice flattered the thrusting curves of her breasts. A wide leather belt in navy-blue accented her slender waist, with the skirt flaring out to near fullness. Abbie had a pair of navy-blue sandals with stacked, wooden heels to complete the outfit. She had a three-banded bracelet and matching hooped earrings to wear with it for the finishing touch, but Reverend Augustus frowned on jewelry. After debating silently with herself for several minutes, Abbie wore them anyway.
The only clock with the right time was in the kitchen. It warned her that it was nearly time for church to be let out. She crossed the driveway to the house. Unlike Abbie, her parents had never acquired the habit of locking their doors. In this small community, there had never been any reason to worry about it.
Her mother was a terribly organized person. All the preparations for Sunday dinner were completed, from the meat and vegetables baking in the oven to the relish tray and salad sitting in the refrigerator. Abbie went ahead and put the latter on the table, already covered with their best linen tablecloth, china and silverware. There was even a bouquet of freshly cut flowers adorning the center.
When she heard her parents’ car turn into the driveway, Abbie tied an apron around her waist and took the roaster from the oven. She was forking the tender roast onto the meat platter when her parents walked in the back door. Abbie sent a smile in their direction.
“How was the service?” she asked brightly, already warned by the disapproving glint in her mother’s eye that she was still upset with her for missing church.
“Reverend Augustus gave an excellent farewell sermon. You should have been there, Abbie,” her mother stated. Her tone held more disappointment than anger.
“She means it was brief,” her father inserted in a teasing fashion. “For once he didn’t rant and rave until he was drowned out by growling stomachs.”
Her mother took another apron from the drawer and tied it around her middle to help Abbie dish up the food. “His sermon was quite poignant.”
“Maudlin,” her father declared with a wink at Abbie.
“He did wander a bit,” her mother admitted. “But I thought it was just all the more touching.”
Abbie turned to her father, going off the subject for an instant. “Are you going to carve the roast?” At his nod, she laid the carving knife and fork across the meat platter. “What is the new minister like?”
“Old Augustus got so choked up with sentimentality he forgot to introduce him.” Her father laughed. “I guess he was sitting in one of the front pews but the church was so crowded I never got a look at him. I had the impression that the reverend didn’t totally approve of his replacement though.”
“Oh?” Abbie gave him a curious look. “Why?”
“I don’t know.” He admitted his uncertainty. “It was something in his tone of voice when he talked about the church having young blood in its ministry.”
“I’m sure that he only meant to imply that the new minister and his family were young people,” Alice Scott insisted. “It was merely an oversight that he forgot to introduce the new reverend to the congregation.”
“Oversight or not, if Reverend Augustus disapproves of him, I think I’ll like him,” her father stated.
“You really should show more forbearance, Drew,” her mother admonished as she passed him the platter of meat. “Take this into the dining room.”
The tea was set for four o’clock in the church basement. Since it was Alice Scott’s ladies’ club that was giving it for the retiring minister, she had to be there early to help get everything set up. Somehow, Abbie and her father were persuaded to offer their assistance in setting up the rows of folding chairs and the long serving tables.
Abbie was busy setting out the trays of fancy-cut sandwiches when the guests of honor, Reverend Augustus and his wife, arrived in the company of a dozen or so of their closest friends in the church. With the napkins and silverware still to be laid out in a fanning display, Abbie hadn’t the time to leave her work to greet them and managed only a brief glance in their direction. After their arrival, people seemed to flood into the large room. Abbie hurried to finish before someone approached the refreshment table.
She was still holding a handful of spoons when she heard footsteps behind her. There was no quick way to arrange so many, so she continued to place them one by one and hoped the person would be patient for a minute or two longer.
“Well, hello, Miss Scott,” a man’s voice greeted her with warm pleasure. The familiarity of it seemed to tingle through her as her lips parted in a silent breath of delight.
Abbie was so taken by surprise when she recognized the voice of the man, Seth Talbot, who had stopped to help her yesterday, that she didn’t even wonder what he was doing at the tea. She swung around to face him.
“Hello, Mr. Talbot.” At first her gaze went no farther than his magnetically blue eyes. They seemed sexier than she remembered, so blue against his darkly bronzed features.
Just what drew her attention to his attire, Abbie couldn’t have said, because dumb shock set in immediately afterward. She couldn’t seem to tear her gaze away from the narrow strip of a white collar that circled his neck, the symbolic garb of an ordained minister.
“Did you get a new hose for Mabel?” he asked.
Abbie heard him but her vocal chords were frozen. All she could do was nod, but his question did succeed in lifting her rounded gaze to his face. Looking at his ruggedly handsome face and darkly gold hair made it seem all the more incredible. There was nothing benign about his countenance, nothing to lead a person to suspect he was a man of God. There was too much virility, too much hard masculinity, too much that suggested male passions.
Something flickered over his expression. “Is something wrong?”
“Yes. No. That is …” She stumbled over the words, realizing how rudely she had been gaping at him. Finally, honesty won out. “I never guessed that you were a minister. You don’t look like one.”
“I see.” The corner of his mouth deepened with amusemen
t, attractive lines fanning out from the corners of his eyes.
“I meant… yesterday, on the road, you didn’t look like one.” She was making a terrible mess of the explanation. “It’s obvious by what you’re wearing today that you are but…” Abbie paused to gather her scattered wits. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?” he challenged lightly. “It was a natural reaction. I hadn’t realized that you lived in Eureka Springs, or I would have mentioned my transfer to this church.”
“But…” As her mind played back their previous day’s meeting, Abbie discovered that she hadn’t mentioned that she lived here. “… I guess I didn’t tell you.”
“I’m glad you’re a member of my new congregation.” That tantalizing half-smile seemed permanently affixed to his mouth. “I was beginning to think no one under forty belonged to this church.”
There was so much potent male charm in that look, Abbie had to glance at his collar to remind herself of his profession. It would be so easy to forget.
“With summer and all, a lot of the members my age have other plans,” she said tactfully, rather than criticizing the outgoing pastor for not doing more to encourage the attendance of younger members.
“Maybe you can help me persuade some of them to include Sunday-morning church service in their plans,” Reverend Seth Talbot suggested.
All her impulses were to leap on the suggestion, but Abbie seriously questioned whether she was motivated by a desire to help the church or wanted to accept because she was physically attracted to him. She strongly suspected it was the latter. All her responses to him at the moment were purely feminine.
“I’m afraid I’m not a very active church member myself… Reverend.” Abbie had trouble getting his professional title out. It seemed at such odds with his compelling manhood. She was conscious of the little vein pulsing in her neck.
If he noticed her hesitancy in addressing him, he tactfully ignored it. “Then I’ll have to make you my first sheep to win back to the fold.” His smile deepened with a heady force.
Abbie lowered her gaze to resist his undeniable appeal. Charisma, that’s what it is, she told herself. He would attract anybody’s attention—not just hers.
“Abbie, are you finished yet?” Her mother’s voice broke into their conversation.
She turned with a guilty start, just as if she were a little girl again getting caught red-handed doing something naughty. It was an expression her mother recognized and it narrowed her gaze. There were still a half-dozen spoons in Abbie’s hand. She glanced quickly at them, her task forgotten until that moment. “I’m almost done,” she told her mother.
But Alice Scott’s attention had already strayed to the man standing next to Abbie. Her eyes widened slightly at the black frock and white collar.
“I don’t believe we’ve met.” Seth took the initiative to correct that. “I’m Reverend Talbot, your new pastor.”
“I’m sorry.” Abbie realized she had forgotten her manners. “This is my mother, Alice Scott.”
“I noticed the resemblance,” he said, directing that warm, male smile at her mother. “It’s easy to see that your daughter inherited her looks from you, Mrs. Scott.”
The remark could have sounded so polite and commonplace, a meaningless response, but the way he said it seemed sincere, a glowing compliment. Abbie was a little astounded at the way her mother seemed to blossom under his spell, shedding years and acquiring a youthful beauty. Just for a minute, she was irritated with her mother.
“My father is here somewhere,” Abbie informed Seth and glanced around the room in search of him. “But I don’t see him this minute.” The remark was offered in an unconscious attempt to remind her mother that she was married.
“My husband has been looking forward to meeting you, Reverend Talbot,” her mother explained, then inquired, “Is your family here?”
Abbie was suddenly crushed by the idea that Seth already had a wife and children. Seth. She was thinking of him by his first name. That had to stop.
“My family?” An eyebrow quirked, then straightened to its normal line. “You mean my wife? I’m one of the rare ones, Mrs. Scott, an unmarried minister.”
“You’re a bachelor?” Her mother’s tone of voice made it a question, as if she needed more confirmation of his single status.
“Yes.” His straightforward answer didn’t leave any room for doubts, and Abbie felt a tremble of relief. It was bad enough being so strongly attracted to a minister. It would have been worse if he were married on top of it.
“I wasn’t trying to pry, Reverend Talbot,” her mother assured him. “But as you said, it is unusual.”
“I guess I’m something of a bad boy.” He included Abbie in his sweeping glance. “I should be busy choosing a proper minister’s wife, but I prefer to wait until I can find the right woman for me—not my job.”
“I suspect you are unorthodox in a number of different ways,” Abbie murmured, remembering the way he had been dressed the previous day, and the racy sports car he’d been driving.
“So I’ve been told.” There was a wicked light dancing in his eyes. It seemed totally inappropriate for a man of God. There was more than a trace of rebel in him, Abbie realized.
“What do you do when someone tells you that?” she asked.
“I pray on it.” Then he addressed himself to her mother. “My way of doing things is sometimes regarded as unconventional, but it doesn’t necessarily make it wrong.” He seemed to be quietly warning her that his methods wouldn’t be the same as those of their previous pastor.
“I’m sure we all have some adjustments to make,” her mother conceded smoothly, but there appeared to be reluctant admiration in her look. “I guess we can start out by being thankful that you don’t have long hair and a beard.”
“You mean like Jesus,” he murmured.
Her mother breathed in sharply, then smiled. “You have me there, Reverend Talbot.”
“I prefer to have you at church on Sunday mornings,” he replied with a silent laugh that slashed grooves in his lean cheeks.
“Our family will be there,” her mother promised as her glance strayed beyond him. “Abbie, you’d better finish putting those spoons out. We want to start serving.” She seemed to suddenly remember her initial purpose in coming to the refreshment table.
“Excuse me, ladies.” He inclined his bronze head in their direction and withdrew.
As Abbie watched him walk away to mingle with the growing crowd, she tried not to notice how becoming he looked in black, and the way the cut of his suit showed off the tapering width of his chest and shoulders. It seemed wrong to be observing those things about him.
“Abbie.” Her mother’s prompting voice pulled her gaze from his compelling male figure. “Put the spoons out.”
“I will.” Then she asked, “What do you think of him?”
There was a long pause while her mother’s gaze traveled across the room to where he was standing. “I haven’t made up my mind,” she answered finally.
People were starting to drift toward the refreshment table as Abbie laid the last few spoons out. She helped herself to two cups of coffee from the urn and went in search of her father. One of the cups was for him and the other for herself. Like a magnet, her gaze was drawn to Seth. She forced it to move onward until she spied her father in the far corner of the room, talking to one of his fishing buddies.
It wasn’t easy to work her way through the throng of people, carrying two cups of hot coffee, but she made it. Engrossed in his conversation, her father looked startled when she extended the cup within range of his vision. He glanced up.
“Is that for me?” he asked.
“I thought you might have talked yourself dry with all your fish tales,” Abbie said.
“There are fish tales and there are fish tails, get it?” His friend, Ben Cooper, chuckled at his own pun.
Abbie groaned in mock dismay at the poor humor. Ben Cooper had his insurance office next door to her father’s la
w offices, so he was a frequent visitor, dropping in regularly for coffee.
“I’d offer you this cup of coffee, Ben, but it’s black and I know you prefer yours drowned in milk,” she explained.
“That’s all right. I’ll get my own.” He hitched the waistband of his suit pants higher around his middle as he stood up. “Save my chair for me, will you, Abbie?”
“Sure.” She obligingly sat in it when he moved out of the way.
“That Ben is a character,” her father murmured with a shake of his head.
“Mmmm.” Abbie made an agreeing sound as she took a sip of coffee from her cup. Her gaze wandered idly over the crowd of people and stopped when it found Seth Talbot. She felt again that quiver of purely sexual reaction to his rough good looks.
“Penny for your thoughts?” Her father tipped his head curiously at her. “Who are you staring at?”
“Our new pastor,” she admitted, and this time managed to keep her poise. “Have you met him yet?”
“No. Which one is he?” He turned to survey the crowd.
“That tall man over there, talking to Mrs. Smith.” Abbie pointed him out with one finger, not wanting to be too obvious.
“Him?” There was vague surprise. “He doesn’t look like a minister.”
Laughter bubbled in her throat. “That’s what I said, too,” she admitted. “Unfortunately, I was talking to him at the time.”
“That isn’t like you,” he said, smiling along with her. “You’re usually more tactful.”
“Everyone’s entitled to stick their foot in their mouth once in a while.” Abbie shrugged. “Besides, he’s the motorist I told you about—the one who patched up Mabel so I could make it into town. He drives a sports car. And he was dressed in cutoffs and a T-shirt. Believe me, he didn’t look like a minister then, either.”
“No wonder you were surprised,” he agreed, and turned his attention back to the more immediate subject of their conversation. “What does his wife look like?”
“He’s a bachelor.” Abbie pretended not to hear the soft whistle of surprise from her father as she took another sip of coffee. But it was difficult to ignore him when he turned a speculating look on her.