Free The Scent of Lilacs by Ann H. Gabhart Page B

probably just somebody who knows I’m a preacher and needs to talk. Or somebody who’s lost and needs a ride home.”
    “Carrying candles in their pocket?”
    “People carry all kinds of things in their pockets. Or pocketbooks. Who knows? Aunt Love might be able to pull a candle out of her purse.”
    “No candles,” Aunt Love said. “Matches, but no candles.”
    Paws hit against Jocie’s door, and Zeb stuck his nose to her window. Jocie pushed open the door and let Zeb lick her face. For some reason her heart was banging around inside her. And it didn’t have anything to do with the dog. It was whoever was on the porch. In spite of what her father said, it wasn’t normal.Something was up. The dog prayer had been answered. The father getting a call to a church prayer was being answered. Maybe God had just decided this was the week to answer all the Brooke family prayers.
    People from California probably carried candles in their pockets. Jocie had seen pictures on TV of teenagers in wild clothes with candles everywhere. Hippies. Not something you’d find in Hollyhill. Here you might find birthday cake candles and candles for when a storm knocked the electricity out. Nothing anybody would carry in a pocket, but who knew what people in California carried around with them.
    Jocie rubbed Zeb’s head and gave him the bone. He plopped right down in the middle of the driveway to start chewing on it. Jocie trailed after her father and Aunt Love to the porch.
    The person on the porch stood up, and the wicker chair rocked back and forth. The candle flame flickered and went out in the slight draft. The candle hadn’t given off much light, but the night suddenly seemed intensely dark in spite of the bright glitter of millions of stars above their heads. The moon was in hiding. Somewhere far away an owl hooted, and chills shot up Jocie’s back. She moved closer to her father and touched the back of his shirt. She held her breath and waited. It seemed as if the night was doing the same. She couldn’t even hear Zeb chewing now.
    Her father stopped at the bottom of the steps as if they were the visitors and the person on the porch the homebody. “Can we help you some way?” he asked.
    The person on the porch stepped closer to the edge of the porch above them. The woman’s voice was timid, almost afraid. “Hi, Daddy. I’m home.”
    Jocie’s breath exploded out of her. “It is her. It’s Tabitha!” she shouted. She pushed past her father and Aunt Love to run up the steps and grab her sister.
    “You can’t be Jocie,” Tabitha said as she held Jocie out away from her. It was still too dark to see faces. “You’re so tall.”
    Together they turned to look at their father, who was still standing in the same spot. Beside him, Aunt Love was clutching her chest and quoting Scripture. “O give thanks unto the L ORD ; for he is good: for his mercy endureth for ever.”
    “Say something, Daddy,” they both said at practically the same instant. And then Tabitha went on, “You are glad to see me, aren’t you, Daddy?”

    David stared at the two girls, his two girls, looking down at him from the porch and felt as if someone had sucker punched him. One as familiar as his own hand, the other strange and unknown. He struggled for breath to answer Tabitha. How could it be possible that this tall, slim young woman peering through the dark at him could be Tabitha? He had carried the thirteen-year-old Tabitha in his heart all these years without letting her grow, as if he could stop time and not miss any of her life. Now here she was in front of him, years of her life totally lost to him, and he couldn’t say a word.
    “He can’t talk. I’ve never seen Daddy not able to talk.” Jocie tugged Tabitha down the porch steps toward David.
    “Praise God,” David finally said as he put his arms around Jocie and Tabitha and fought back the tears that threatened to render him speechless again. “I can’t believe you’re actually