Preacher's In-Name-Only Wife Page 19
Love made a woman complete.
“What about your photography?” he asked.
Answers will not come in faraway places, but inside yourself. “Oh, you’ll still have to put up with a camera decorating me like a three-pound necklace. I’ve an idea for a book, and I’ve got plenty of fabulous subjects right here. The best subject of all is you, though. I love you, Dan Lucas.”
He cupped her face in his hands, kissed her in front of God and the whole church.
Laughter, tears and applause roared through the church, but neither Amy or Dan paid it any mind. They had eyes only for each other.
“Well, now,” Ozzie said, passing an extra handkerchief to Lloyd Brewer, who sat beside him. “Guess old Ben Marshall knew what he was about after all, you bet.” He raised his eyes heavenward, figuring he ought to give a little credit to the Man upstairs as well.
You done a good job once again. You bet. Course, it never hurts to have a willing committee down here on the ground to lend a hand in the matchmaking. You bet.
And as the preacher’s wife continued to kiss her husband, well beyond what was acceptable in polite company, not a person thought to object, and there wasn’t a dry eye in the bunch, either.
Epilogue
April—one year later
It was nearly one o’clock in the afternoon, mountain time. The tiny newsroom in Shotgun Ridge was packed to the rafters.
At three o’clock, eastern time, the Pulitzer board would gather to make their announcement from Columbia University’s World Room.
Amy rested her hand on her pregnant stomach, noted that Dan was watching her like a hawk—or rather a nervous expectant father. She was a week past her due date. Kelly Hammond said that was normal for first babies.
Amy believed that the tiny boy in her womb knew exactly what he was waiting for—what his mother, as well as the whole town, was waiting for.
Shayna, at seventeen months, was walking now—streaking, actually. The child was happy, full of sass and vinegar, and moved faster than a six-legged jackrabbit.
“Sit down,” Dan said, his tone worried. He started to go after Shayna, but Mildred Bagley snagged the little girl.
“I can’t sit. I’m as nervous as a pig in a packing house.” She rubbed her extended stomach. “Probably look like one, too.”
“You’re beautiful,” he said, putting his hand over hers, over their second child. “And you’re perfect. No matter what happens today.”
She smiled at him. “I know. I have everything I could ever want.”
With Joe Little Coyote’s permission, she’d written a feature article on him, about a medicine man who’d lost his will to live and found it again, not in healing, but in rescuing a child from a burning home. She’d portrayed the community spirit of this small town as they’d pulled together to help out families in need.
The article had run in the Shotgun Ridge Gazette, along with two photographs, the first one she’d taken as he sat alone on the porch, staring out of empty eyes that had given up on life, and the other of him kneeling in the rubble of ashes, hands bandaged, the nearly intact stuffed animal lying among the blackened ruins.
The instant she’d developed the photos, she’d known they were special, powerful, told a story all their own.
She could have submitted the piece to a larger, syndicated paper with a much wider audience, but she’d decided that if by some chance her work could compete with the thousands of others who would no doubt enter, she wanted her town and these people recognized as well.
This was her home.
Her true dream.
Mort Haines, the editor of the small-town paper, had been touched, and eager to accept Amy and all of Amy’s work.
“Here we go,” Mort said, huddled around the ticker, and Amy felt a wave of nausea swamp her. Perspiration dampened her palms, trickled between her breasts. Her internal thermostat was off since the pregnancy, and nerves made it go totally haywire. She’d been battling this ever since they’d found out she was a finalist.
“Amy, get over here,” Ozzie Peyton shouted.
She shook her head wildly, pulled back when Dan started to herd her through the crowd. “I can’t watch.”
As the wire service sheet rolled out, Mort began reading off the Pulitzer Prize categories, the names of the winners and two finalists.
A finalist would be good, she told herself. It was recognition.
She squeezed Dan’s hand so hard her knuckles ached. There were twenty-one awards out of well over two thousand entries.
The wait was agonizing.
“For a distinguished example of feature photography in black-and-white, or color…Amy Lucas!” Mort shouted.
Amy’s heart leaped right into her mouth. Dan picked her up, huge belly and all, and swung her around as a roaring cheer resounded in the tiny newsroom. Opal Bagley, normally the reserved one of the sisters, kissed Henry Jenkins full on the lips.
“Congratulations, sweetheart. You did it.”
Her eyes widened, the prize forgotten as warmth trickled down her legs.
“Um, Dan?”
“Yes, sweetheart?”
“Is there a doctor in the house?”
“Sure, Chance and Kelly are…” His words trailed off, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “The baby?”
“I hope so. If not, I’ve wet my pants in all the excitement.”
Her feet had hardly touched the ground before he scooped her up in his arms again, this time cradling her like a fragile piece of china about to shatter.
“Clear the way, everybody. Chance, get over here. You, too, Kelly. We’re having a baby.”
You’d think nobody else in the room had ever experienced such a joy. He was a nervous wreck. She had to smile.
“Dan?”
“What?”
“I can walk.”
He seemed to realize he was overreacting a bit. He laughed. “Yeah, but you know how I like to show off my manly muscles.”
She raised a brow. “Those manly muscles are partly responsible for me being in this condition. You were just too hard to resist.”
He laughed. “Have a care for telling our personal business in a room full of big ears. You’re the preacher’s wife.”
“That I am. And proud of it.”
He gazed down at her. “And I’m proud of you. Congratulations, sweetheart. I wanted to be the man standing by your side when you won this award. I got my wish.”
“And I got mine. And the man.”
ISBN: 978-1-4603-6818-3
PREACHER’S IN-NAME-ONLY WIFE
Copyright © 2002 by Melinda Neff.
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*Tall, Dark & Irresistible
†Bachelors of Shotgun Ridge
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