The Small Town Preacher's Fake - Lucy McConnell Page 0,12

not be so nervous if Seth wasn’t fidgeting. He said Mr. White’s name as if talking about the head of a university or something. She had this mental picture of a gray-haired man with a regal bearing and a stern countenance.

She clutched her arms close to her chest and then, realizing she looked nervous, dropped them quickly to her side. Meeting the church board was harder than she’d anticipated. Seth looked devilishly handsome in a suit and a skinny tie. When he’d walked into the kitchen this morning, her stomach had soared on the wings of angels.

Not devilishly handsome—pastors don’t look that good. Or they shouldn’t. Hers did.

Oh man, she was so going to the underworld. The thoughts running through her head were not at all chapel worthy. She’d promised a platonic marriage, but her thoughts kept straying to how easy it would be to wrap herself up in him.

Desire was a normal part of being a woman, but she’d not experienced it at this level until Seth. Truly, when Maisie had asked if she could live platonically forever, she hadn’t thought it would be a problem. It was quickly becoming one.

When Seth had asked her if she’d ever been in love, she’d almost blurted out that she had. But then she’d started thinking about who she’d been with Owen as opposed to who she was with Seth, and she got all discombobulated. Love at first sight wasn’t possible, yet she’d felt more alive weeding the flower beds with her new husband than she had in her entire relationship with Owen.

What did that say about her understanding of love? And what did that say about her that she’d stayed with a man she might not have loved and even considered marrying him?

All of that had flashed through her head as if heaven had opened a window and dumped a bucket of revelation. She’d been so tired, she’d fallen asleep before she’d had a chance to think it all through.

And then Seth had walked out of his room looking like a magazine cover model, and she hadn’t been able to catch her breath since. Pastors should not be hot. They were supposed to be older men with kind eyes and wrinkles and bald spots, men who didn’t make women think of candlelight and romantic dinners and dancing in the kitchen cheek to cheek.

A Cadillac pulled into the pockmarked parking lot.

“Here we go,” Seth muttered under his breath.

Evie elbowed him gently. “Relax. We mowed the lawn—he owes you at least one paycheck for that,” she joked.

He grunted, but the stress lines in his forehead eased.

“You beat me here,” said the man she assumed was Mr. White. He had a wide smile on his face, and his hair slicked like a car salesman’s—not the sleazy kind that wanted to sell you a lemon, but the kind that wanted to see you in a Pontiac. He shook hands with Seth, who introduced her as his w-w-wife. He gave her a wide-eyed, silent apology.

She pretended not to notice his stutter and ignored his apology. He’d done more than his fair share of apologizing last night for things that were outside of his control. They were both new at this whole marriage thing, but they’d get better at it. It wasn’t like they were pretending to be married. They’d signed papers and said “I do.” He was her legally wedded husband. No need to stutter over the title.

“Mrs. Powell, it’s good to meet you. I’m Mr. White, head of the church board.”

Okay, hearing Mrs. Powell was strange. She gave Seth a whole lot more credit for making it through the introductions with the little grace he had. If she’d had to say her own name, she would have forgotten she was a Powell now. She pumped Mr. White’s arm. “It’s nice to meet you.”

She pulled her hand away and smiled as sincerely as possible, which she realized made the cords in her neck stand out. She dropped the grin. She was trying too hard and knew it. One of the Powells standing here needed to get a grip.

“I’m mighty glad to meet you,” he said. “I can’t lie, I wasn’t keen on the idea of a single pastor.”

“Not when he’s this good-looking.” Evie waved like a game show beauty over Seth before hearing her own words.

He turned red.

“Stop.” She lightly slapped his chest. “You’re handsome and you know it.” She sang the last sentence like a rapper.

The laughter in his eyes threatened to bubble over, and