Donovan’s Angel Read Online Free PDF Page B

braid
that she let hang over one shoulder.
    “But I guess one little picnic can’t hurt.”
She stepped into a pair of red tennis shoes and whirled to face the
cat. “This is absolutely, positively the last time that I see Paul
Donovan,” she told him. The cat switched his tail and jumped off
the windowsill.
    “That kiss last night should never have
happened. I don’t care how good it felt, it’s just not right. Can
you imagine me with a minister? I’d smother to death in boredom.”
Obviously bored himself, the cat padded across the room and out the
door. “A big help you are,” Martie called after him.
    Still mumbling to herself, she gathered the
clothes off the floor and hung them back in the closet. She’d half
a mind not to go, but that would be cowardly. And she was not a
coward. She might as well get this behind her and then forget about
the preacher. She shook the indigo shirt vigorously and shoved it
into the closet. Yessir, that’s exactly what she would do.
    She banged her bedroom door shut and bounded
down the stairs singing, “I’m just a gal who can’t say no.”
    “I certainly hope not.” The Reverend Paul
Donovan looked up at her and smiled. “The door was open. As a
matter of fact, the cat let me in.”
    Martie clutched the railing with one hand and
tried to remember that she was already in the process of forgetting
this devastating man.
    “He hates strangers,” she said.
    With a haughty switch of his tail and a
baleful glare at his mistress, Aristocat stalked across the
spacious hallway and wrapped himself around Paul’s legs in a
shameful display of adoration.
    Martie watched her cat with amazement.
    “Judas cat,” she scolded, laughing.
    “Why don’t you introduce us? Then we won’t be
strangers.”
    Martie descended the stairway and peeled her
cat from around his legs. “Aristocat, meet the Reverend Paul
Donovan.”
    He solemnly shook the cat’s paw. “You can
call me Paul.”
    Aristocat acknowledged the greeting by
purring loudly.
    “First my dog makes me a thief, and now my
cat makes me a liar.” Martie set her cat in the hallway and gave
him a playful shove. “Scat, you shameless old reprobate.”
    Martie and Paul loaded her picnic basket into
his steady brown Ford, then laughed all the way to the church
grounds.
    o0o
    The red brick Faith Church with its white
Corinthian columns sat in a grove of trees beside a winding gravel
road. Many of the picnickers had already gathered, and festive
sounds of laughter and excited chatter filled the air. The sun cast
heated rays on the browning patches of grass, and several people
had already abandoned their sweaters.
    Heads swiveled in their direction when Paul
helped Martie from his car. The buzz of conversation ceased for a
moment, then started back with renewed vigor as they made their way
across the picnic grounds. In her red outfit, Martie stood out like
a cardinal at a convention of sparrows.
    Paul stopped along the way to make
introductions, and a curious crowd of children tagged along behind
them. She turned to smile at the children and instantly became
their heroine. They gazed with round-eyed adoration at her
beautiful face and hung on every musical word that flowed from her
lips.
    “I think you’ve made some new friends,” Paul
observed, nodding with satisfaction from Martie to the
children.
    “I hope so. I’ve always loved children. We
understand each other.”
    He laughed. “I don’t doubt that. There are a
few trees around here if you and your new friends want to
climb.”
    “Don’t think for a minute that I wouldn’t if
I wanted to.”
    He held up his hands in mock surrender. “Not
even for a second.”
    A handsome young couple leading a chubby,
curly haired two-year-old between them stopped beside Paul and
Martie. Paul introduced them as Bob and Jolene Taylor and their
son, Mark.
    Bob took Martie’s hand between his. “I’m so
glad to see the Reverend enjoying the company of a beautiful
woman,” he said