For the Love of God Read Online Free PDF Page A

early to help get everything set up. Somehow, Abbie and her father were persuaded to offer their assistance in setting up the rows of folding chairs and the long serving tables.
    Abbie was busy setting out the trays of fancy-cut sandwiches when the guests of honor, Reverend Augustus and his wife, arrived in the company of a dozen or so of their closest friends in the church. With the napkins and silverware still to be laid out in a fanning display, Abbie hadn’t the time to leave her work to greet them and managed only a brief glance in their direction. After their arrival, people seemed to flood into the large room. Abbie hurried to finish before someone approached the refreshment table.
    She was still holding a handful of spoons when she heard footsteps behind her. There was no quick way to arrange so many, so she continued to place them one by one and hoped the person would be patient for a minute or two longer.
    “Well, hello, Miss Scott,” a man’s voice greeted her with warm pleasure. The familiarity of it seemed to tingle through her as her lips parted in a silent breath of delight.
    Abbie was so taken by surprise when she recognized the voice of the man, Seth Talbot, who had stopped to help her yesterday, that she didn’t even wonder what he was doing at the tea. She swung around to face him.
    “Hello, Mr. Talbot.” At first her gaze went no farther than his magnetically blue eyes. They seemed sexier than she remembered, so blue against his darkly bronzed features.
    Just what drew her attention to his attire, Abbie couldn’t have said, because dumb shock set in immediately afterward. She couldn’t seem to tear her gaze away from the narrow strip of a white collar that circled his neck, the symbolic garb of an ordained minister.
    “Did you get a new hose for Mabel?” he asked.
    Abbie heard him but her vocal chords were frozen. All she could do was nod, but his question did succeed in lifting her rounded gaze to his face. Looking at his ruggedly handsome face and darkly gold hair made it seem all the more incredible. There was nothing benign about his countenance, nothing to lead a person to suspect he was a man of God. There was too much virility, too much hard masculinity, too much that suggested male passions.
    Something flickered over his expression. “Is something wrong?”
    “Yes. No. That is …” She stumbled over the words, realizing how rudely she had been gaping at him. Finally, honesty won out. “I never guessed that you were a minister. You don’t look like one.”
    “I see.” The corner of his mouth deepened with amusement, attractive lines fanning out from the corners of his eyes.
    “I meant… yesterday, on the road, you didn’tlook like one.” She was making a terrible mess of the explanation. “It’s obvious by what you’re wearing today that you are but…” Abbie paused to gather her scattered wits. “I’m sorry.”
    “For what?” he challenged lightly. “It was a natural reaction. I hadn’t realized that you lived in Eureka Springs, or I would have mentioned my transfer to this church.”
    “But…” As her mind played back their previous day’s meeting, Abbie discovered that she hadn’t mentioned that she lived here. “… I guess I didn’t tell you.”
    “I’m glad you’re a member of my new congregation.” That tantalizing half-smile seemed permanently affixed to his mouth. “I was beginning to think no one under forty belonged to this church.”
    There was so much potent male charm in that look, Abbie had to glance at his collar to remind herself of his profession. It would be so easy to forget.
    “With summer and all, a lot of the members my age have other plans,” she said tactfully, rather than criticizing the outgoing pastor for not doing more to encourage the attendance of younger members.
    “Maybe you can help me persuade some of them to include Sunday-morning church service in their plans,” Reverend Seth Talbot suggested.
    All her impulses