Lynette accepted her excuse without comment. "Can you believe that they gave Josiah Coke the treasurer post? They don't even know if he's a thief or anything."
Regina smiled; the irony of Lynette being concerned that this guy Josiah was a thief was not lost on her. She said out loud, "It seems like these folks are not as medieval and boring as I thought."
"Boring no. Medieval yes." Lynette grunted. "I am sure that even the pastor and the first lady have interesting lives. They are people, you know. Everybody has something to hide, except me." Lynette shrugged. "I didn't hide the fact that I was taking the oranges to sell. I didn't lie but all of these secret keepers condemned me for it."
She breathed out after that last statement and then leaned back in her chair, a scowl on her face.
Regina's ears perked up after her last statement. The pastor? Ashley's holy husband. Why hadn't she thought to look into him before?
Maybe because she had found only good things when she had investigated Brandon, Ashley's first husband, a couple of years ago. She didn't want to waste her time with this minister of the gospel.
He should be even squeakier clean than Brandon. The thought was nauseating for her. Squeaky clean was so...so boring.
"Where are you staying?" Lynette leaned forward again.
Regina shrugged. She had not thought that far ahead. She didn't know if she could stay an hour more in the country much less a day.
"My aunt is renting out her house for the next couple of years," Lynette continued, "short term rentals only, though. Fully furnished and you have maid service, me."
She pointed to herself and grinned. "I don't have a job now so you'll get the best cleaning service available and I cook too, I cook really well. Maybe that's what I am going to do now that I am jobless. Cook and sell to school children."
"I'll think about it," Regina whispered to her.
"If you want peace and quiet up here is the place for it." Lynette put on her most persuasive voice.
Regina nodded and then focused on the front of the church again. During the whispered conversation with Lynette the young lady had screeched out a song and was now finished singing.
Ashley got up to speak. She was in a demure pale blue skirt suit that highlighted how trim and in shape she was. She was smiling when she started speaking. Even from the back Regina could see the happiness on her face.
"Brothers and Sisters, today the speaker is none other than our beloved pastor, Pastor Ruel Dennison, a man of God, a truly good husband and provider. I ask for your undivided attention as he puts God's word before you."
The church people said Amen.
Ashley glanced toward the back before taking her seat and her eyes widened.
Regina gleefully observed that she stumbled. Ashley had a dazed expression on her face as she took her seat. She closed her eyes and again looked at the back row where Regina was sitting.
A look of horror crossed her face and Regina could see her swallowing in what looked like panic—or was it fear?
She couldn't resist giving a brief hello wave to Ashley, and then blew her a kiss.
Ashley closed her eyes again and Regina saw that even when her husband started speaking, she didn't open them.
You can't shut me out, Ashley. She looked at Ashley, knowing that a wide smile was on her face. No way, I am back and you are coming back to Kingston with me.
She made a mental note to call King; she needed a dossier on everyone on this church board, including the pastor. Lyn might be a disgruntled church sister caught in the midst of stealing but she had just whetted Regina's appetite to investigate this church board.
It was good to come armed with information when she approached Ashley in the not–too-distant future. And maybe, just maybe, it would be worth a stay here in this place if the findings proved to be interesting enough.
Chapter Two
No. Ashley heard a ringing in her ears as she sat down. No. No. No. Not Regina.
Her heart was pounding hard in her chest, as if it wanted to escape the confines of her body.
She had closed her eyes in fear because surely she was hallucinating. When she opened them and looked around the platform where her husband had stood up to speak she saw that Regina was still there.
She closed her eyes and looked again. Yes, she was still there, a knowing smirk on her face, a typical Regina expression. A shaft of sunlight illuminated her as if she was on a stage and most of her upper arm tattoos and her piercings were highlighted in sharp relief.
Ruel was bound to see her. Ashley closed her eyes again. She had only just gotten around to telling him about Regina.
He had taken the other things she had done in stride, her marriage her divorce, the deception with Brandon. He had moved past that and asked her to marry him anyway. She had been reluctant to tell him about her time with Regina but in the spirit of absolute transparency that they had between them she couldn't hide it anymore and she had only just told him last week.
Surprisingly, he hadn't been as understanding about that time in her life as she thought he would be. He had been fine about adultery, he had understood about her less than motherly ways but he had actually looked angry and spoken to her harshly after her hasty confession about Regina.
That was very unlike him. Ruel was the epitome of gentleness and understanding; she could tell him anything.
Ashley wondered now if he sometimes wished he hadn't married her and gotten exposed to the sordid life she had lived. He was in many ways an idealist, and innocent. She had way more experience about life than he did.
At forty he hadn't veered off the straight and narrow much. He had gotten married to Rosalie Miller right after college. They had a child together, a daughter they named Jorja.
They had even gone on missionary work together all over the globe. They were the ideal Christian family. To hear Ruel tell it, they had been perfect, two peas in one harmonious pod until Rosalie died in a car accident a year and one month ago while they were on vacation in the States.
Ashley got married to Ruel two months after Rosalie's death; it was far too close to his first wife's death in her opinion but Ruel had insisted that he loved her, warts and all. Loved her enough not to wait through a reasonable grieving period.
Had Ashley known that he was a recent widower she would have waited. As it was, she still had a niggling doubt that they had gotten married too soon and that she was the rebound wife.
Ruel did not know what he was getting himself into; she was no Rosalie. But Ashley had sworn to God that in her next relationship she was going to come clean and tell all. She had not spared Ruel any details as to exactly what she was to Regina and what they used to do.
And now...he was only just getting around to digesting that piece of information about her when Regina popped into her life once more. Regina always showed up in her life like a bad penny to cause havoc and trouble.
She gritted her teeth angrily and tried to concentrate on the sermon but she felt a sense of injustice so strong she had to clamp her hands on the chair not to get up and walk down the short aisle of the church, reach for Regina and shake her and shout, "Why can't you just leave me alone? I have moved on! I have changed. I am not the Ashley you knew! You parasitic, evil beast!"
Her husband's voice penetrated her feverish thoughts. He was passionately preaching about doing the will of God.
"Sin has its consequences," he said in his smooth voice. "Some consequences are immediate; some take a while to work themselves out. Look at David. After his little stunt with Uriah's wife, the baby they had died and the prophet said that the sword would never depart from his house. Even if you ask for forgiveness, some things will come back to haunt you. The safest thing to do is to not sin in the first place. Fortunately, God is merciful, but we must not forget that he is also a judge and he will bring every deed into judgment with every secret thing, whether it be good or evil…great or small."
He was going to be doing one of his hard messages today. She t
ensed herself for it. She usually enjoyed his preaching but now she feared that this sermon would hit closer to home than usual.
Regina was here.
Her past transgression was sitting in church with a smirk on her face. This did not bode well for her. She could feel it. After five years of relative peace and safety, her greatest mistake was back.
Regina worried her. She was not known to keep her tongue. The effect that her evil tongue could have on Ruel's ministry could be catastrophic.
Primrose Hill was where he partially grew up; like so many young people he had left the place to find greener pastures. After Rosalie's death he had asked to be assigned here and the higher-ups in the church had obliged him.
When she had moved to Primrose Hill after marrying Ruel the people had accepted her at face value. They had been happy that their new pastor remarried and again found happiness.
Primrose Hill people were old school, most of them farmers. The district was small, with a population of about two hundred and dwindling. The young people usually left as soon as they graduated high school. The people of Primrose liked things the way they were, uncluttered and simple.
The most exciting thing to happen to the community in recent memory was the opening of the new community center by the Kincaids. Nothing much happened here and Primrose residents liked it that way.
Ashley looked out at the congregation again, a sense of foreboding gripping her. Maybe the next exciting thing to happen at Primrose Hill would be the public humiliation of the pastor's wife.
Ashley Dennison's Former Lesbian Lover Visits Church. She could see the shock and horror on the faces of the saints as they digested that scandalous information in her mind’s eye and it made her shudder with humiliation.
Regina's eyes connected with hers as if she knew what she was thinking. Ashley closed her eyes briefly and tried hard to focus on anything but her feeling of impending doom.
When she opened her eyes again and looked in the back row she saw that Regina was gone.
She breathed a sigh of relief but then she wondered, Gone for how long?
****
The Kincaids invited Ashley and Ruel to lunch after church and they were in the car alone, heading farther into the hills where the Kincaids’ house, Ashford Manor, was located.
Ruel was sweaty so he took off his jacket and hung it at the back of the car seat. He looked over at Ashley.
"You look a little off. What's wrong?"
"Nothing we can't wait until tomorrow to talk about." Ashley smiled at him reassuringly, though she was feeling far from the calm, collected person she was projecting.
"If you say so." Ruel turned on his Gaithers Homecoming CD and started to sing along to Jerusalem.
He had a lovely singing voice and Ashley looked over at him smiled. He was always in a good mood after a sermon. He had told her once that preaching was his calling; he couldn't imagine doing anything else.
"It was a good sermon," she said out loud. "I liked it."
He glanced over at her and smiled. His teeth looked extremely white against his dark skin.
He was handsome, no doubt about that. Tall, dark, with a narrow, straight face. When he was serious he looked refined, like a school teacher or something. When he smiled his whole face smiled. His deep brown, almost black eyes smiled too.
He had kindly eyes. It was the first thing she noticed about him a year and a half ago when they first met. That and the fact that he was good looking.
"What?" He raised his eyebrows after the song finished. "You haven't shifted your eyes from me since we left church."
"Just thinking about the first time I saw you." Ashley grinned. "You preached the sermon 'If The Son Has Made You Free'. And I sat there fanning myself and thinking good Lord, he is fine.
"What a lustful church sister." Ruel grinned. "The first time I saw you, I thought, Lord please let her be single. You were in the lunch line at the convention and I was about to turn away because no woman as fine as you would not be taken. Just then I heard a church sister declare, ‘Sis Ashley, the singles’ convention is next week. You are coming, right?’ So I stalked you the whole day until I got a chance to say hi."
Ashley smiled wistfully. "And the rest was history. Who could have predicted that I would end up here, though?"
She looked outside the window at the farmlands on both sides of the road. She could remember her first visit to Primrose Hill. She had been shocked at the remoteness of the place and the fact that it was so rural. After the shock had worn off she begun to appreciate it.
The air was so clean and even though they were going through a drought it was relatively green. At this time of the year, the trees were heavy with fruit, especially mangos. She always thought that Primrose Hill should be called Mango Hill. There were so many variety of mangos. The air smelled heavily of the ripe fruit in the summer.
Besides the fact that Primrose Hill had its own kind of rustic charm, she would have gone wherever Ruel went. She realized that she had changed that much. She would follow wherever his ministry took him.
She hadn't even minded that she had to give up her precious clothing store. She had sold it without feeling a tinge of regret. The fresh country air, the true connection with a community, living for others and not just herself had been a welcome change to her usual routine and she liked it. She even liked her job as part-time business teacher at the high school.
Regina's face flashed before her and she grimaced. Regina's presence here was going to mean trouble. She could feel it but she didn't want to dwell on that right now. It was like having a perfect day and then watching as rain clouds form along the horizon.
The farmlands petered out into smaller lots and then houses appeared along the road. On this section of Primrose Hill the houses were newer and the gardens were pretty with their colorful bougainvillea plants climbing the fences.
Quite a few returning residents had come back to their community and built some large houses. Ashley and Ruel lived in one of them, a lovely five-bedroom house which was too large for just the two of them but was willed to Ruel by an uncle who had intended it for his retirement home but had died before getting the chance to even see it.
They passed Honey Allen's house. She had the prettiest yard in the neighborhood. Even in drought conditions her lawn was almost electric green and her flowers were healthy and blooming. The daffodils and African daisies were blooming side by side in a riot of colors.
Ruel slowed down without her asking so that she could enjoy the view.
"Gorgeous," Ruel murmured. "Honey has a serious green thumb. It is a gift, really. I think so."
"And Oliver to help her and the water from Conroy's fish farm," Ashley murmured, straining her neck to see the garden. She was almost feeling sorry that they had passed the visual beauty of Honey Allen's yard.
A few houses later, they passed their house, which was really unremarkable from the road. The lawn looked more brown than green and even their bougainvillea trees looked scraggly. Honey's yard put hers to shame, by far.
The Kincaids’ giant mansion was at the end of the road. There were no other houses after that, just a grove or two of mango trees and acres of orange trees which were slowly dying because of a citrus disease.
Owen and Norma always had a crowd over for lunch after church. They were a wealthy couple and quite generous with it.
Ruel drove up to the house, which didn't look like much in terms of architecture. It was just a sprawling square white building but nobody who came up here thought about the architecture of the house.
Ashley got out of the car and looked out over the almost three hundred and sixty degree view of farmlands and rivers sparkling in the distance.
Ruel laughed when he saw her thunderstruck expression. "The view never gets old, does it?"
"No." Ashley shook her head. "Seriously, it doesn't and I have been here for close to eleven months now. Maybe in another year or so I will be just as blasé about it as you all seem to be."
<
br /> Ruel pulled her closer to him and pointed to a sliver of water far off in the distance. "That is Milk River Bath."
"I can barely see it." Ashley laughed. "I thought Owen had said it was that way." She spun around and pointed in the opposite direction.
"Owen has always had directional problems," Ruel said jokingly. "I say it is that way."
"Ah, Pastor Ruel," Owen came from his vehicle grinning. "That same old geography debate again."
He helped Norma out of the car and she came out smiling.
Ashley admired them. They were a handsome couple. Owen was tall and big. Not muscular, just large. He was fighting a losing battle with a paunch. He had level eyebrows which looked like they always needed a trimming, a hawkish nose, and a mouth that was always on the verge of smiling.
They called him the gentle giant at church. Whenever they did a reenactment of David and Goliath he would play the part of the giant. But no one took him seriously. He wasn't a scary enough Goliath, especially when he wriggled those bushy eyebrows.
Norma was tall, too, and slim. Her figure hadn't gone the way of Owen’s. At first glance Norma looked cold and haughty.
Maybe it was her aquiline nose and her plucked eyebrows which gave her the expression of haughtiness and the fact that she always wore her hair in a tight chignon that highlighting her cheekbones. She made no attempt to soften her features.
She looked like a disapproving headmistress ninety percent of the time, but she was really a very nice person.
Owen and Norma were the first to welcome Ashley when she arrived in the district eleven months ago. Norma had been especially warm and whatever Norma did, the rest of the church sisters followed meekly.
Norma Kincaid had more influence than anyone at Primrose Hill. People deferred to her without even realizing it, and that included her, Ashley admitted to herself. She had found herself like everyone else, just accepting that Norma knew best.
Norma was not the typical genteel country lady. She spent quite a bit of time overseas and she was effortlessly sophisticated. Ashley knew when someone was faking sophistication and this lady was not. Even now, standing beside Owen in her intricately embroidered dress, she oozed class.
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