Free The Peculiar Miracles of Antoinette Martin: A Novel by Stephanie Knipper Page B

her back turned, she knew that voice. Her heart raced and her cheeks flushed. She looked up as Seth Hastings stepped out of the truck, his unruly brown hair already streaked with summer gold.
    Seth wasn’t handsome. His cheekbones were too sharp, and his forehead too broad. His dark eyes were framed by thick brows, and he was almost too tall. As a child it had made him look awkward. But now, as Lily studied him, she saw that he had grown into his body.
    She flashed to an image of him at seventeen, lanky in a teenage boy way, supporting his weight on his arms as he rose above her. Despite the crisp breeze, her whole body flushed. She had no idea he was in town.
    “Lily?” He frowned, looking surprised to see her.
    Years ago, talking to Seth had been as natural as breathing. Now, seeing him made her mute, and she started counting. She was on six when he leaned in and hugged her. His arms were stiff, and the hug seemed more out of obligation than anything else, but without thinking she gripped him tightly. His hair still smelled like strawberries and summer.
    “Sorry,” he said. He pulled away and ran his hands through his hair. “I didn’t mean to—”
    She wanted to look away but couldn’t. His hair was longer now. It brushed his shoulders, curling up around the edges. The look softened him, lessening the air of seriousness he had as a boy.
    “It’s like time stopped,” he whispered, “and you’re still seventeen.”
    His comment caught her off guard, and she laughed. “You know how to flatter someone, don’t you?” She was thirty years old. Her hair might still be long and brown, her eyes might still be moss green, but when she looked in the mirror, there were tiny lines around her mouth and a melancholy look in her eyes that hadn’t been there when she was younger.
    Seth tilted his head. “No,” he said. “You’re the same. But why are you at the market instead of the house?” He seemed to have recovered from the initial surprise of seeing her, and he took a step back, putting some distance between them.
    That’s when Lily noticed the Eden Farms’ logo—a nodding lily—on his truck door. The same thing was on his green T-shirt. “You’re wearing an Eden Farms’ shirt,” she said, shock coloring her voice.
    “Rose didn’t tell you?”
    She shook her head. “I didn’t even know you were in town.” She had been so startled at seeing him again that until now she hadn’t wondered why he was here. “Shouldn’t you be heading up a church or off saving the world?”
    “Yeah. That didn’t work out so well.” He shrugged and pulled his hand through his hair again. She recognized the gesture. He was nervous. “Round peg in a square hole and all. They didn’t take my questioning the tenets of the faith as well as you did. I should have been sure of God’s existence before entering seminary instead of hoping seminary would prove his existence to me.” One corner of his mouth quirked up.
    “Did it?” Lily asked.
    He shook his head. “I didn’t figure that out until after I came home and bought into Eden Farms. Spending time with Antoinette helped me realize that he exists, even when I can’t feel his presence.
    “It’s funny, I used to think my messed-up life was proof that God didn’t exist. But when I finally found him, it was because of a little girl whose life was more broken than mine had ever been.” He shrugged and smiled.
    A familiar anxiety prickled along Lily’s spine as he spoke of Antoinette. “She sounds special,” she said, resisting the urge to count.
    “She is,” he said. “Between Antoinette and working on the farm, I feel . . . settled. Like I’m where I’m supposed to be.”
    Lily had signed over her share of Eden Farms to Rose years ago and no longer had a say in what happened there. So why did it feel like a betrayal to know someone outside of the family owned part of it?
    An even worse feeling arose. Why hadn’t Seth called her when he left seminary?