The Preacher's Bride. Laurie Kingery
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Her Deepest Secret
When her little brother died, Faith Bennett lost her trust in God. She’s kept this secret from the good people of Simpson Creek, yet she can’t deceive Gil Chadwick. She’ll be Gil’s friend, but without a faith to match his, she can never be the handsome new preacher’s bride.
Though Gil cherishes Faith’s friendship, he wants a wife. And in kind, upright Faith, he’s convinced he’s found her. The secret heartaches of his past fade as he watches her nurse his father. When danger finds her, he’ll risk everything to save her. For where there’s Faith, there’s love...and the promise of a new beginning together.
“Papa wrote me about the beginnings of the Spinsters’ Club while I was away at seminary,” Gil said.
“Did you think we sounded like a band of brazen hussies, advertising for marriage-minded bachelors?” Faith asked, almost afraid of the answer. But she saw a twinkle in his eye that reassured her.
“Not at all,” he said. “You sounded like a plucky lot. I was only worried all the young ladies of the hill country would get the same idea and there’d be no one left for me when I finished seminary.”
“Ah, now, where was your faith, Reverend Gil?” she teased. “Didn’t you believe that the Lord would provide?”
“I’m only surprised you haven’t made one of those matches, Miss Faith,” he said. “I’d have thought those bachelors would have snatched you up when the group first started,” he said.
He smiled at her, and she felt the jolt of it all the way through her heart.
LAURIE KINGERY
makes her home in central Ohio, where she is a “Texan-in-exile.” Formerly writing as Laurie Grant for the Harlequin Historical line and other publishers, she is the author of eighteen previous books and the 1994 winner of a Readers’ Choice Award in the Short Historical category. She has also been nominated for Best First Medieval and Career Achievement in Western Historical Romance by RT Book Reviews. When not writing her historicals, she loves to travel, read, participate on Facebook and Shoutlife and write her blog on www.lauriekingery.com.
The Preacher’s Bride
Laurie Kingery
Jesus said unto him, If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth. And straightway the father of the child cried out, and said with tears, Lord, I believe, help thou mine unbelief.
—Mark 9:23, 24
In memory of Tango, the dog of my heart
And as always, to Tom
Contents
Chapter One
Simpson Creek, Texas, April 1868
I must be the most misnamed person in this whole town, maybe in the whole state of Texas, Faith Bennett thought, staring into the cool green water of Simpson Creek. Her parents had confidently given her that name, never guessing that by the time their daughter grew up, she would not believe in God.
It was a secret Faith shared with no one, not her parents, her neighbors and certainly not her friends in the Simpson Creek Spinsters’ Club, of which she was a loyal member. She couldn’t imagine what any of them would say if they knew. Her parents wouldn’t know what to do about such a declaration if Faith ever made it. Her mother would worry and fret about her, and she didn’t want that. Her friends in the Spinsters’ Club wouldn’t shun her, she thought. But they might not be so comfortable around her anymore, and they might wonder why she attended church every Sunday morning, just as they did.
A logical person would question why she enjoyed being in church. Attending church on Sunday mornings was just what one did in this small hill-country town, she mused, and everywhere else in Texas. Faith found tradition comforting—singing the familiar hymns and listening to Reverend Chadwick preach. Even though she’d long since stopped believing in the God the preacher spoke about, she always found something uplifting in the sermons, which reinforced her belief in goodness and treating her fellow man with fairness and love.
So she continued to come here each Sunday morning, yet kept her secret—her name was Faith, but she didn’t have any.
She only hoped that if and when she made a match—through the Spinsters’ Club or however else it came about—the man she came to love would not mind that she was not a woman of faith. Somewhere there had to be a man who felt like she did, or if he was religious, wouldn’t mind that she wasn’t. The fact that she was a good, honest person was the most important thing, wasn’t it?
It was probably time she joined her parents inside the sanctuary a few yards away.
“Miss Faith?” someone said behind her, and she whirled around, shading her eyes against