Free Stealing the Preacher by Karen Witemeyer Page A

pang of disappointment that shot through her at his words. He’d gone out of his way to give her a precious gift. The least she could do was show some appreciation.
    Manufacturing a smile, she did her best to beam it up at him. “But how did you know I would be here?” she asked. “I usually conduct my Sunday devotions in my parlor at home.”
    Brother Archer glanced sheepishly at the floor, where a piece of rope lay huddled in the corner. “I’d intended to ring the bell as a call to worship, but the pull cord appears to have rotted.” He brushed his hands together as if ridding them of leftover fibers. “I was fixin’ to saddle up and ride to your place when your singing drew me to the front of the church. I’m sure Sunflower appreciates the reprieve.”
    Hearing her mare’s name emerge from such masculine lips struck Joanna as quite ridiculous, and she found herself fighting down a giggle. Crockett Archer seemed the type to ride a steed named Hercules or Samson, not an animal named after the yellow blossoms that cover Texas fields in autumn. But since she’d been the one to offer him a horse, she hadn’t felt right about assigning him one of her father’s mounts. Therefore, she’d lent him her palomino. The mare was sturdy and strong and had enough fire in her to keep even a man like Crockett Archer on his toes.
    “I didn’t see her when I arrived.” If she had, she never would have burst into song. Although, she had to admit, she’d rather enjoyed it when the parson had joined his voice to hers. It almost made her embarrassment worth it. Almost.
    “I tied her up around back. Here . . .” He took her arm and led her down the center aisle. “I cleaned off the first few rows at the front. I wasn’t sure where you usually sat.”
    “Third row on the left,” she said as she surveyed the chapel.The man had been busy. A broom stood propped against the edge of a windowsill on the far wall next to a pile of leaves, dirt, and something that looked like a nest. She prayed it was from a bird and not one of God’s furrier little creatures.
    Suddenly the quiet of the building registered. Her footsteps echoed loudly in her ears as she made her way down the aisle. The utter emptiness of the place soaked into her bones and left them cold. Abandoned. Like the pew she used to share with her mother.
    Brother Archer handed her into the pew, and Joanna sidled along the edge of the bench and took her seat, bracing herself for the loneliness that would strike the moment he left her to take his place at the podium.
    But the parson didn’t leave. Instead he folded his tall frame into the pew beside her. Her coldness vanished.
    “When my brothers and I worshiped together at home,” he said, reaching over the back of the pew in front of them to collect a slender book, “Neill led the songs. As the youngest, his voice was the last to change.”
    Joanna smiled, imaging a younger version of Crockett Archer, his adolescent voice cracking while his big brothers looked on.
    “When it did finally lower, it didn’t deepen as far as the rest of ours did. As the only Archer who could sing a decent tenor, he got stuck with the job.”
    “Does he mind?”
    “Neill? Nah. He’s always had a hankerin’ for music. Took to playing Pa’s fiddle when he was about half grown. Made such a screeching racket, Travis banished him to the barn. But now folks actually pay him to play for their shindigs.” Brother Archer shook his head as if such a thing was hard to believe, but an unmistakable gleam of pride shone in his dark eyes. “It gives him a reason to get off the ranch every now and again, which is probably a good thing.”

    The parson settled back into the pew, his shoulder brushing hers so slightly she doubted he was even aware of the contact, despite the fact that she found it hard to be aware of anything else.
    “I found a couple of these behind the pulpit.” He rubbed the cover of the hymnal he’d retrieved against his