Karen Witemeyer

by Stealing the Preacher

  His gaze held no malice, and his smile seemed genuine enough, but she sensed a layer of iron beneath his words.

  “You ain’t going nowhere, preacher man.” Her father moved to her side, his gun less than a foot from Mr. Archer’s chest. “Not until my Jo gets what she wants from you.”

  Joanna’s eyes slid closed in mortification. What his Jo wanted right now was for the earth to open up and swallow her whole.

  4

  It appears I am at your disposal, Miss Robbins.” Crockett made little effort to hide his irritation, and only felt the tiniest twinge of guilt when his abductor’s daughter winced.

  What in heaven’s name did the girl want with a preacher, anyhow? Did she have some potential husband tied up inside the house waiting to be hitched? Poor wretch had probably been kidnapped, too. Gagged and chained to the stove, no doubt.

  Not that this woman would need chains to capture a man’s attention under normal circumstances. Her milky skin, soft eyes, and that mad riot of reddish-gold corkscrew curls that gave her a pixie-like appearance would see to that task. But with a train robber for a father and his gang having free rein on her ranch, circumstances were anything but normal.

  Part of him wished she was indeed the Joe he’d imagined. At least then he could fight his way free. Her being a woman complicated matters. And this ridiculous situation was complicated enough already.

  Joanna Robbins raised her head, her gaze meeting his for only an instant before skittering away to somewhere near his chin. “If Mr. Archer agrees to accompany me on a short stroll, I’d be happy to loan him a mount so he can ride into Deanville later this evening. From there he can arrange transportation to Caldwell and be on about his business.”

  The gun pointed at Crockett’s chest lowered a few inches as Silas turned to study his daughter. “That’s all you’re wanting, Jo? A stroll?”

  Crockett found it hard to believe, as well. Yet her voice rang with a quiet earnestness he couldn’t discount.

  Slowly she raised her chin. Her blue-gray eyes pleaded with him. “It’s not all I want, but it’s all I’m asking.”

  How was a man supposed to fight against that? Crockett sighed inwardly. To deny her request would be well within his rights. Yet even considering the notion left him feeling small and petty. No. He’d been called to a higher road, a narrower road.

  Besides, if taking a stroll with the gal satisfied her father and thereby gained him his freedom, it’d be worth the concession. He needed to get to a town as soon as possible and wire the elders in Brenham. They would have heard what had happened by now and were surely concerned. And while he wanted to allay their fears, what he really wanted was to allay his own by rescheduling his audition. The elders had communicated their wish to have a decision made and a permanent minister installed as soon as possible. Today’s delay, no matter how outrageous the circumstances, would not do him any favors.

  “I’d be pleased to escort you wherever you wish to go.” Crockett sketched a brief bow, then fit his hat to his head and offered her his arm.

  Joanna’s lashes dipped over her eyes and pink stained her cheeks, but she only hesitated a moment before sliding her fingers into the crook of his arm. A tiny smile wavered upon her lips. “Thank you.”

  She swiveled to face her father next. “We’ll just walk down to the churchyard and back, Daddy. We won’t be long.”

  “You won’t be alone, either,” Silas groused. “I plan to keep my eye on you.” He spoke to his daughter, but Crockett had no doubt where the implied threat was aimed.

  “No.” The solidity of the single word brought Crockett’s head around to the woman he’d thought docile. “I need privacy for my conversation with the parson. The churchyard is visible from the dormer windows in the attic. You can watch us from there if you feel you must. You can even use your spyglass. But we walk alone.”

  Silas took hold of Joanna’s free arm and tugged her away from Crockett. “I don’t like it, Jo. He’s a stranger.”

  “You’re the one who brought him here, Daddy.”

  Crockett hid a grin. Joanna might not wield a Colt .45 like her father did, but her marksmanship was flawless nonetheless. The old man looked as if he’d swallowed a prickly pear.

  “He’s a preacher,” she reminded her father as she gently yet firmly extricated herself from his hold. “I’ll be fine.”

  Joanna moved to Crockett’s side and reclaimed his arm. “Shall we?” Her smile was all for show. He could tell by the tremble of her fingers against his coat sleeve and the way her gaze flitted between his eyes and his left ear.

  He deliberately waited to respond until her eyes flickered back to his. Then he winked, feeling more himself than he had in hours.

  Her brows arched and her eyes widened. Then the edge of her mouth twitched with the beginnings of a genuine grin.

  The stress he’d carried since being forced off the train fell from Crockett’s shoulders, and he found himself answering her grin with one of his own. “Lead the way, Miss Robbins.”

  “You got yer knife?” Silas barked out from behind them.

  Joanna sighed but twisted her neck to answer. “Yes, sir.”

  Crockett glanced over his shoulder, as well, and was immediately gutted by a glare that promised dire consequences should any harm befall the lady at his side.

  “She knows how to use a blade, Parson.” Silas retrieved his own knife from the sheath attached to his gun belt and ran his thumb along the sharpened edge. “Taught her myself. You might wanna keep that in mind during your stroll.”

  “A comforting notion, indeed,” Crockett quipped, “seeing as how I’m without a weapon. I’ll be sure to let her take charge of our defense should we come across any bandits.”

  Silas glowered at his barb, but Crockett ignored it. Joanna Robbins could probably handle a variety of weapons with a skill that would put most men to shame, but Crockett’s gut told him she wasn’t the type to use them unless forced.

  And the more he watched Silas interact with his daughter, the more certain Crockett became that the man was more bluster than bite. In fact, he reminded him a lot of his brother Travis. Oh, if push came to shove, he would strike and strike hard. Until then, however, he’d just growl out the meanest warnings he could think of.

  “I’ll be watching, preacher man.” With a flick of his wrist, Silas flung his knife. The tip of the blade stabbed the earth a mere inch from Crockett’s boot.

  Crockett’s pulse ricocheted in his neck, but he resisted the urge to jump back. Raising his gaze from the hilt of the knife to Silas’s face, Crockett watched victory flare in his adversary’s eyes. Perhaps the old dog had teeth after all.

  “And Joanna,” Silas said with a point of his finger, “if you’re not back in an hour, I’m comin’ to fetch you, private matter or not. Understand me?”

  “Yes, Daddy.”

  Apparently the pixie had challenged the dragon enough for one day.

  Feeling as if she were trapped in an hourglass with sand threatening to bury her if she didn’t get all her words out in time, Joanna blurted out her desires the moment they reached the road and were safely out of her father’s hearing.

  “I prayed for a preacher to come.”

  Mr. Archer’s stride stuttered a bit, but he recovered quickly. “Why do you need one?”

  She tugged her hand from his arm and focused on the ground in front of her as they walked. Touching him was a distraction she could ill afford at that moment. And though his voice sounded kind and politely curious, she suddenly felt very young and foolish. Why was it that thoughts and plans always made more sense when confined to one’s mind than when they exited one’s mouth?

  “To save my father’s soul.”

  The crunch of the parson’s footfalls ceased. Joanna plodded on, however, sure he would snap out of his stupor momentarily. Besides, it was easier to keep moving than to look at whatever shocked expression surely lined his face.

  “He’s a good-hearted man.” She rushed t
o add, “Truly,” before he could dispute the point. “My father might not open himself up to many, but when he does, he gives his all. You should have seen the way he loved my mother. She softened him, he said. Made him laugh. Made him a better man. I tend to think he was always a good man; he just needed someone to believe in him. Losing her nearly broke him.”

  They passed beneath the shadow of a large oak, and Joanna fought down the sadness that stirred at the thought of her mother. “He made a point to stay strong for me. For his men. For our ranch. He’s not one to let down the people who depend on him.”

  “Yet he holds up trains.” Brother Archer’s long legs caught him up to her quickly.

  She snuck a peek at him. His furrowed brow spoke more of a man wrestling to make sense of a contradiction than of one handing down tacit disapproval. Thanking the Lord for small miracles, she continued her explanation.

  “He’s been an honest rancher for sixteen years.” Joanna kicked at a pebble in the road in front of her, her hackles rising in her father’s defense. “In his younger days he might have robbed a few stagecoaches and a handful of trains, but he’s reformed.”

  “Begging your pardon, miss,” the parson interrupted her. The laughter she heard in his voice rankled. “But the man I met today held a carload of rail passengers at gunpoint and abducted one of them. He doesn’t seem all that reformed to me.”

  Joanna spun to face him, words coiling inside her like a nest of baby rattlers. “Can’t you see that he only did what he did out of love?” Her hand slashed the air. “I don’t condone his methods, but his motives were pure. He had no idea what I wanted with a preacher. If he did, he likely never would have fetched you. All he knew was that I missed my mama. Since she and I always attended services together, he must’ve hoped that having a preacher at hand would ease my grief a little. That’s what drove him. Not some twisted need to terrorize people.”

  Mr. Archer said nothing. He simply stared at her as if she were an oddity in a curiosity shop. Maybe that’s what she was. Heaven knew that’s how she felt most days. Odd Joanna Robbins. The girl who’d rather hide away in her father’s loft with her paints than attend a barn dance. The one who never knew what to say or how to fit in. Whose skin was too pale, freckles too plentiful, and eyes too colorless to ever catch a beau. Hair that resembled copper wire fresh from the spool, its coils springing every which way no matter how many pins she scraped against her scalp.

  Some of the starch went out of her. What did she expect? That this stranger whom her father had held at gunpoint and dragged all over creation would be moved by her impassioned plea? The man was only walking with her as a means to an end. He wanted his freedom, and she was the price he was being forced to pay. Man of God he might be, but he was still a man—one who had every right to resent her and her family.

  Joanna turned from him and set off through the trees. Thankfully, he followed. She could hear his boots crunching the dry grass and dead twigs behind her. The usual route between her house and the church took about twenty minutes, and while she lived closer to the building than any of her neighbors, today the distance stretched too far. Cutting across the open field would save them about five minutes. With her father no doubt counting down each tick of the clock until he could storm out to fetch her, five minutes might prove crucial.

  Soon the back of the old church came into view. A door at the rear led to the previous parson’s personal quarters, which he’d built onto the building so as not to be a burden to the area families who felt obligated to take him into their already overcrowded homes.

  Hackberry trees lined the sides of the weathered clapboard structure, their small, dark purple fruit littering the ground. Joanna tromped past them and rounded the corner to the steepled front entrance.

  Whether Mr. Crockett Archer was a direct answer to her prayers or just some unfortunate fellow her father happened to kidnap, he was here, and she wasn’t about to pass up the opportunity she’d been given.

  She waited until her companion emerged from around the corner, then gestured to the decaying building. “Do you see this church, Mr. Archer?”

  The long-legged stranger propped a boot on one of the front steps and pressed his forearm into his thigh. He made a great show of examining the old structure, tilting his head back to take in the very tip of the spire. “Yes, ma’am. I do.”

  Joanna inhaled a fortifying breath, braced her hand against the balustrade, and set her chin. “I want to bring it back to life.”

  5

  Bring it back to life?” Crockett echoed, pretty sure his strolling partner was talking about more than slapping on a new coat of paint but wanting to hear the details from her. He’d stopped making assumptions when it came to the Robbins clan.

  “Yes.” Joanna stared him down as if expecting him to laugh, but Crockett felt no such compulsion. What he felt was a burgeoning curiosity.

  Unless he’d missed his guess, Miss Joanna Robbins possessed the soul of a missionary. How that had come to be when she’d been raised by an outlaw and his gang, Crockett couldn’t fathom. Yet he sensed her passion. Respected it. He’d not belittle her dream.

  Crockett straightened his stance and angled his head toward her. “I’m listening.”

  The defiance in her eyes softened, as did her posture. She loosened her grip on the balustrade and used it as a pivot to swing herself toward the chapel steps. After climbing three, she smoothed her navy blue skirt beneath her and took a seat on one of the slightly warped boards that had once been a proper stair.

  Joanna nibbled the edge of her bottom lip and turned her attention to the sky, as if searching for a place to start. While he waited for her to find the words she sought, Crockett claimed the bottom step, braced his back against the rails, and stretched his legs across the width of the stairs.

  “My mother was a godly woman who believed her life’s foremost duty lay in leading the members of her family to Christ.” His companion’s quiet voice drew Crockett’s head around. Joanna’s gaze no longer peered into the heavens but rested firmly upon her lap, where her palms lay open like a book that held a story only her eyes could see.

  “When she died last year, that responsibility fell to me.” A quiver vibrated her breath as she paused to inhale. “I’m afraid I’m not up to the task.”

  An urge to debate that point shot through Crockett, startling him with its vehemence. Why he should feel the need to defend her against her own self-criticism, he couldn’t imagine. He’d just met the girl, knew next to nothing about her. However, the burden she carried was palpable, to the point of nearly being visible upon her slender shoulders. Her capabilities or lack thereof were not the issue at the moment. Her weary spirit was begging for someone to lighten her load—if only for a few minutes. God had placed him here to be that someone. Crockett held his tongue and waited for Joanna to continue. He’d take on as much as he could for as long as he could, and when he left, if God was merciful, he’d take it with him.

  “She begged me not to give up on Daddy. To keep sowing seeds and praying that the Lord would lead them to fertile ground so they could take root.” Joanna gave a tiny sniff and jerked her chin skyward again, blinking against the afternoon sunlight. Or an unwanted tear. “I’ve tried. Lord knows how I’ve tried. But I don’t have Mama’s patience. And without her to lean on, the discouragement grows too heavy.”

  Finally her eyes met his. “I need help, Mr. Archer. I need a preacher to bring this old church back to life. One who can inspire a community to revive its dormant faith and reach past the barricades erected around a stubborn ex-outlaw’s heart to save the bruised soul within.”

  Pieces of the sermon he’d prepared for the church in Brenham rose unbidden in Crockett’s mind. His fiery call to evangelism. His encouragement to seek out lost souls from among those close to home. To testify with actions as well as words. How no soul is beyond the reach of grace. Crockett raised a hand and rubbed away the prickle at the base of his neck.

  “I understand yo
u have another commitment, so I will not ask you to take on this mission,” Joanna said. “But surely you know other ministers—men who might be interested in such a position. All I ask is that you pass on word of our need. And if you see fit, make a recommendation.”

  “A recommendation?” Crockett sputtered before he could stop himself.

  Joanna stiffened, her shoulders squaring off as she thrust out her chin. “And why not? Our pasture may be small, but our sheep are just as worthy of a shepherd as any other. Or are you the type to condemn an entire community for the mistake of one man?”

  “Mistake? It’s not like what happened to me was an accident, Miss Robbins. Your father plotted his actions in advance, and as far as I can tell, feels not one speck of remorse.”

  “Because his motives were pure!”

  Crockett held his hands up in conciliation. “Fine. I’ll concede that his actions were driven by his desire to please his daughter, but that doesn’t make them acceptable. How can I honestly recommend a position here to a colleague? The only men I’ve met out here are train robbers and kidnappers.”

  “‘They that are whole have no need of the physician, but they that are sick,’” Joanna recited.

  The words of Christ pierced Crockett’s heart and deflated his defenses. “‘I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.’” The remainder of the quote fell from his lips and lashed his conscience like a whip. “Forgive me, Miss Robbins. You’re right, of course. I can recommend. With caution, certainly, but with sincerity, too.”

  And if the Lord was leading him in the direction Crockett believed, there just might be a young minister who would be grateful for an alternative position once the elders in Brenham made their decision. He’d be sure to mention the possibility to him.