All for a Song Read Online Free PDF Page B

say.”
    Never had she imagined such a promise, but it compelled her to ask for another.
    “Anything,” he said, the sincerity in his eyes leaving no room for doubt.
    “You have to let me get away sometimes. To myself, up here alone.”
    “On one condition.”
    She waited, silent.
    “If you go off, you’ll always come back.”
    “I might run late sometimes.”
    He stood and walked toward her, took the guitar from her arms, and brought her to stand. With her bare feet on the smooth stone, she stood nose-to-nose with him, and all of God’s creation disappeared from view. Nothing but his eyes, clear and blue like bits of sky. She touched her hands to his broad shoulders, then held them to his face. His skin was smooth and warm, not unlike the rock beneath her, and when she kissed him, his lips brushed hers soft as a breeze.
    This, she knew, would be enough.

    Later, in the quiet of the night, Dorothy Lynn sat next to Brent again, folded into the crook of his arm, her feet tucked up beneath her as he coaxed a gentle motion out of the ancient, creaking front porch swing.
    “No turning back.” She felt his words rumbling through his chest. “The banns have been read, so to speak.”
    “What do you mean, ‘banns’?”
    “It’s an old marriage tradition. It’s never been practiced in this country, but in England, a couple has to announce their intention to get married at least a month before the wedding. That gives people enough time to declare an impediment. To raise an objection, if they have any.”
    “We had a weddin’ here once, and when Pa asked if there was anyone gathered who knew why the two shouldn’t get married, a woman stood up in the back of the church and declared that the groom had been in her bed just the week before.”
    He pulled away and looked down at her. “You’re making that up.”
    Dorothy Lynn crossed her heart. “And I’m thinkin’ that you might be the only person in town who doesn’t know the story, or who I’m talkin’ about.”
    “Tell me.”
    “Never. You face them every week, knowin’ them as the fine Christian couple they are. It would be sinful for me to tarnish their reputation in your eyes. Don’t you tempt me into gossip.”
    “You’re already knee-deep in gossip.”
    “It ain’t gossip without a name. It’s just a parable.”
    “And just what is the spiritual truth to be gleaned from this ‘parable’?”
    “What would you say it is?”
    He’d stopped the motion of the swing but started it up again. “That depends on which woman is now part of that fine Christian couple. If he married the bride at the altar, the truth of the story is that the person we are willing to commit our lives to takes precedence over any lustful temptation.”
    “And if he chose the other?”
    “Then I suppose we need to see that, in some cases, the heart can follow the body, and it can be a graver mistake to pledge to love and honor somebody you simply don’t love at all. It makes the whole marriage a lie.”
    “So you’re sayin’ both are true, equally?”
    “I suppose. So, who did he choose, this busy groom?”
    Dorothy Lynn rose up to her knees beside him, turned, and took his face in her hands. “It’s not fair to say he chose , exactly. But I tell you, he married the woman he loved.”
    Then she kissed him, willing to let her lips rest on the surface of his but putting forth no protest when his arms drew her close. She did not pull away until Ma’s voice, carrying clear from thekitchen, asked the world at large if someone could lift down the good baking dish from the top shelf.
    “A hint?”
    “Hurry back,” Dorothy Lynn said, peeling herself away.
    When he came back, she’d restored her pulse and her hair and her dress to an unmussed state.
    “So, tell me,” Dorothy Lynn said, stretching herself so there’d be no room for him on the swing, lest they fall into coveting the activities good Christian morals disallowed, “what kind of objections do them people