Free Promises Reveal by Sarah McCarty Page A

all.”
    His eyebrow rose. “So there’s hope.”
    She remembered Pearl’s smile. “Maybe.”
    He came up behind her. The hairs on her arms rose as awareness flashed between them. She jumped when his fingers closed around her shoulder. He turned her slowly. “Evelyn Washington, are you fretting? Over a mere man of God?”
    She had two choices. Avoid looking at him and appear a coward, or meet his gaze and hope what she felt inside didn’t show. She opted for the latter. “But you’re not a mere preacher, are you?”
    She was glad she’d chosen the latter. Otherwise, she might have missed the betraying flicker of his lashes and fallen for his smooth reply: “I’m whatever you want me to be tonight.”
    “What I would like you to be is considerate.”
    “Meaning?”
    Stepping back, she motioned to the distance between them. “This isn’t a real wedding, Brad.” Before he could correct her, she placed her hand on his chest. “I mean we’re not in love . . .”
    He took off his hat and put it on the table behind her. It landed with a soft plop. He didn’t step back. “You still dreaming of an annulment?”
    The question wafted across her cheek. Against her palms, she could feel his heartbeat. “Honestly? I don’t know what I’m doing.”
    He lifted the cloth covering the basket and inspected the contents over her shoulder. “Being married to me doesn’t have to be a prison.”
    “You’re a preacher!”
    As he drew back just far enough to see her face, his too long hair fell across his forehead, giving him that rakish look that had the ladies sighing during sermons. “You keep trotting that out like it’s some kind of talisman.”
    “I was thinking it was more along the lines of a curse.”
    He fingered the lace on the collar of her dress before he smoothed it flat. “A lot of things can imprison a person, Evie. A lot of them a hell of a lot worse than toeing a few lines to ease peoples’ sensibilities.”
    “Not for a woman.”
    She said that like it was true. Brad dropped the cover back on the basket. A hundred examples of “worse” leapt to his tongue. Looking into Evie’s eyes, he swallowed them back. She was entitled to her beliefs. And he was entitled to preserve her innocence. At least the innocence that kept her naïve of just how cruel the world could be to some.
    He let his gaze wander down over the full curves of her breasts, the narrowness of her waist. The heavy skirts blocked his view of the rest but he had a fair imagination that filled in a very pleasing picture.
    “Tell me, Evie. Are you a virgin?”
    Her eyes narrowed. “Are you?”
    Memories flashed through his head. Women he’d known, some of them in laughter, some in misery. All of them as unsatisfying as trying to get drunk on watered-down whiskey. “Not by a long shot.”
    “Then don’t be asking me whether I am if you’re not.”
    It was just a short trip from her shoulder to her chin. His hand traversed the distance in the span of a breath. The silk of her dark blue dress wasn’t nearly as soft as her skin. “Being your husband gives me certain rights.”
    Her chin jerked in his hand. “None that you aren’t willing to give me.”
    He didn’t let go. She didn’t back down, just narrowed her eyes further and dared him. He’d always been a sucker for a dare.
    “That sounds fair enough.”
    Her eyes narrowed further. “What exactly does that mean?”
    She was right to be suspicious. He stroked his thumb over the tight line of her lips. By morning her lips would be soft and swollen, compliant rather than defiant. By morning he’d have her seduced into a better frame of mind. He’d done it many times before, with many women before. His thumb paused midway through the second pass. He’d never seduced a wife . . . and never his own. “That I’m agreeable to a fair exchange in the bedroom.”
    “That wasn’t what I was talking about.”
    He figured that. She was too busy worrying. “Are you saying you