sure she was quite as thrilled to be paired with a man whose cologne made her weak in the knees and whose too-long, wavy hair attracted her in the weirdest of ways.
“You want to go first or you want me to?”
“I think I want to get it over with.” Kylie read through her verse and smiled. It fit her life perfectly. She looked at Ryan. “You ready?”
“Whenever you are.”
Kylie shifted in her chair. “Okay. You already know I’m Kylie. My verse is Proverbs 21:21. ‘He who pursues righteousness and love finds life, prosperity and honor.’ ”
“That’s a great verse.”
“Yes, and it’s perfect for me to share. I think I’ve told you I was raised in a large family, eight kids to be exact.”
Ryan’s eyes bulged. “You’re kidding.”
“Not kidding. We were pretty poor most of the time. My dad was a coal miner. He and Mama grew up in eastern Kentucky, and for the first few years of their marriage, Daddy worked in Pike County. By the time Mama was pregnant with me, times were pretty rough. He was offered a job in Otwell, and they’ve lived there ever since. Still, if you know anything about coal mining, you’d know life is feast or famine, and with ten mouths to feed, it was often famine.”
“But what a blessing. You never lacked a playmate.”
Kylie laughed. “That’s true. I also never enjoyed some peace and quiet or the ability to have a few personal items that no one messed with, but as a kid I wanted both!”
“I bet it was hard to keep your siblings out of your stuff.”
“Definitely. Anyway, even as a small girl I knew God wanted me to pursue more than the life I led.” She uncrossed her legs and rested her elbows on her knees. “Two of my sisters have already married coal miners, and life is hard for them. Well, now I’m about to graduate from college. I plan to get a good job and marry a man with a steady income. I will pursue righteousness for the love of my family. I’ll be able to help them.”
Ryan’s brows furrowed into a deep frown. “I don’t understand how you’re getting ‘be rich and marry rich’ from that verse.”
“Don’t you see—the verse says ‘He who pursues righteousness and love’—I’m getting my degree to get a good job. It’s a righteous pursuit for the love of my family.” Kylie read the rest of her verse. “ ‘Finds life, prosperity and honor.’ God will give me prosperity, because my pursuit is to help my family.”
“So, your family resents the coal mining business?”
“Well, no.”
“Then they hate the poverty that goes up and down with it?”
Kylie remembered the many times her mother had made a game out of the unusual concoctions of dinner menus, like beans and corn bread with a side order of pancakes. As kids, they’d loved to guess what their mom would conjure up. “Well, not really.”
“So, is your pursuit really from God?”
How dare he challenge her walk with the Lord! Ryan Watkins hardly knew a thing about her. He had no idea what her life had been like. He obviously had family willing and ready to let him mooch off them. She was not and would never again be a charity case. God gave her a capable mind and two capable hands with which to provide work—hard work. She could hardly wait to help her family, to buy food during the down times, and to buy clothes for her siblings and nephews. “Yes, my pursuit is definitely from God.”
❧
“Kylie, I really like him.”
“Robin, you don’t even know him.”
Ryan didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but the two were only a few feet away from him. He twisted in his chair in an attempt not to listen.
“But I feel an instant connection,” Robin responded.
“You always move too fast. You don’t think things through. What do you know about him?”
“He’s a Christian. A youth minister, in fact. He has a small son.”
Kylie gasped, and Ryan couldn’t help but pay attention now. “He has a child?”
“It’s not like that. Tyler’s wife died from leukemia when