Rexanne Becnel Read Online Free PDF Page B

whether the man was traveling east or west.

3
    A BBY’S MIND SIMPLY WOULD not stay focused on Reverend Harrison’s sermon.
    “… with us in our hour of greatest need. Most especially,” he added, his voice dropping from its thundering roll to an imploring whisper. “Most especially address the needs of our sister in the faith, Rebecca Godwin, who was attacked so cruelly yesterday.”
    All around her, people nodded and leaned forward, clutching the prayer books they kept so well protected in waterproof caskets in their wagons. Her father sat beside her, concentrating on his prayers. But he must have noted her lack of focus, for he gave her a sharp but unobtrusive nudge.
    Abby immediately bowed her head and concentrated on her own prayer book. How could she be so absent-minded when tragedy lay all around them? Graves along the trail. Rumors abounding that cholera had broken out ahead of them. And now a young girl on their wagon train had been attacked. Had someone not come along and frightened the thug away, who knows what the villain might have done to the twelve-year-old girl.
    But despite her best intentions at prayer, Abby’s mind was completely uncooperative. The same inappropriate thought kept surfacing. Was the man from yesterday attending services also?
    She managed to restrain herself from peering over her shoulder to see. As always her father had insisted on arriving early for Sunday-morning services and had seated them just below the pulpit.
    Not that it was much of a pulpit. Reverend Harrison stood behind an upended crate, his Bible and notes laid out on a bedsheet that had been draped over the rough wood. The capricious wind constantly ruffled the pages of his book, and twice he’d lost his place. Yet all things considered, Abby thought today’s place of worship the finest sort of church to be found. God’s sweeping blue heavens above them; His living green carpet beneath their feet. The sweetest of His music—a mockingbird’s trill—to serenade them.
    Abby smiled to herself, forgetting for a moment the reverend, the tribulations of the trail, and even yesterday’s stranger. How lovely this land was, green and rolling, with more varieties of birds than she’d ever seen. And yet Oregon was said to be even finer. Lush. Fertile. At times like these she truly relished the journey they’d so precipitously undertaken.
    “… exhort you to embrace your fellow travelers, your brothers and sisters. See to them and their needs, for they are the children of your Father, and His love will descend on you a hundredfold.”
    Abby joined in singing the final hymn, though an uncomfortable blush stained her cheeks when she recognized the selection. It was “Holy, Holy, Holy,” her favorite hymn. She’d revealed as much to Reverend Harrison just the other day, and the fact that he had selected it for this morning’s service, and moreover was staring straight at her as he sang, was not in the least lost on her.
    She made a point, during the milling pleasantries after the services, to dodge both her father and the reverend. She was simply not in the mood. Not that it would do much good, she knew. Her father undoubtedly would invite the reverend to share the midday meal with them. At this rate he would soon have her washing the man’s clothes! All the wifely chores and none of the—
    Her mind veered away from that thought. What was her perverse fascination these days with the dealings between husbands and wives? She frowned, and hurried away from the gathering, struggling to bury her untoward feelings in the comforting rote of prayer.
    “Our Father who art in heaven …”
    She hadn’t gone even half the way toward their camp when all at once the oddest shiver coursed down her spine. She paused in her purposeful departure from the Sunday meeting, and it was then she spied him. He stood beside a small canvas tent, currying his horse. But he was staring straight at her.
    At once all the inappropriate feelings she