Free For the Love of God by Janet Dailey

times. You don’t have to wait for a Sadie Hawkins’ Day.”
    “Yes, Dad.” She smiled wryly, because there wasn’t anyone she was interested in asking—except Seth. She shook away that thought. The red light blinked on to indicate the coffee was done. “Coffee’s ready.”
    “I’ve just got time for a quick cup, then I have to get over to the courthouse,” he said with a quick glance at his watch.
    By the time her father left, Abbie had drunk her first cup of coffee and felt that at least her eyes were open. She poured a second cup and sat down at her desk to see what dictation had been left for her to type. The more she thought about her father’s suggestion, the more convinced she became that he was right. It was to the point where she was typing in her dreams.
    When she heard someone enter the office, Abbie tried to summon a suitably cheerful smile to greet him. But the “him” was Seth Talbot.Her hazel-green eyes widened in surprise, and she was suddenly very much awake.
    In the past three weeks, she’d only had occasional glimpses of him behind the wheel of his dark green sports car. But here he was—in the flesh—and her pulse started fluttering crazily. As Seth approached her desk, so tall and lean and flashing her that white smile, Abbie felt weak at the knees. The whiteness of his clergyman’s collar contrasted sharply with his darkly tanned neck, but her senses didn’t have any respect for his attire. They were all reacting to his raw manliness, his roughly chiseled features, and deeply blue eyes.
    “Hello, Reverend.” Abbie was amazed that she sounded so calm.
    “Good morning.” His eyes crinkled at the corners, partially concealing the intensity of his scanning gaze as it swept over her. “How are you?”
    “Fine.” She nodded. It seemed logical to assume it was her father he came to see, so Abbie explained. “I’m sorry but my father is out of the office just now. I expect him back around noon.”
    “I’m not here on a legal matter.” Seth corrected her thinking. “I came by to see you.” He said it so casually, yet her reaction was anything but. A heady kind of excitement tingled through her nerves, while a breathlessness attacked her lungs.
    “Oh?” She tipped her head to the side at an inquiring angle, her pale copper hair swinging free.
    “I haven’t seen you in church lately,” he said. “I thought I would stop to see if there was anything wrong.”
    “Ah.” Abbie nodded her head in bitter understanding. “The shepherd is out looking for the sheep that strayed from his flock, is that it?”
    There was a slight narrowing of his gaze at the bite in her voice. “Something like that, yes,” Seth admitted. “I miss having an honest critic in the congregation. If I say or do something you don’t like, I know you’ll tell me about it. You aren’t the type to flatter my ego.”
    But he was flattering hers by trying to make her believe it mattered to him whether she was there or not. Except that was his job, to persuade members to attend church regularly.
    “I’m sure you know how it is.” Abbie shrugged. “A person goes to bed on Saturday night with the best intentions but somehow doesn’t make it up in time for church the next day.” The wryness in her smile was caused by many things. “I warned you I wasn’t one of the truly faithful.”
    “And I warned you that I’d bring you back into the fold,” Seth reminded her with a crooked slant to his mouth.
    “So you did. Okay, I promise to be at church this Sunday. Is that good enough?” She didn’t want him to do any arm twisting. If she spent too much time in his company, she was afraid he might guess that she was no different from any of the other women in town, attracted to him as a man.
    “That was easy.” He appeared to regard her quick capitulation with a degree of curiosity.
    “‘Ask and ye shall receive,’” Abbie quoted.
    “That’s an offer I’m not going to turn down,” Seth replied as