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the preacher’s roof.
    In a separate bed yet for a while. There wouldn’t be any way the women could know that, but at least Lacey had managed to finagle that promise out of Preacher Palmer. How long she could hold him to it, she didn’t know. Folks thought preachers were something special with spiritual fortitude that overcame normal lusts, but Lacey had been in the preacher’s house long enough to know he was a man like any other. Maybe worse than some, because of the way folks thought the Lord spoke through him like that gave him extra privileges.
    While Miss Mona lived, Lacey had been able to scoot away from that bothersome look that came in his eyes at times. Early on she’d learned to hide behind Miss Mona, who understood the temptations that could beleaguer a man, even a man of God. Miss Mona was as good a person as Lacey was ever likely to meet this side of heaven, and she did admit to loving Preacher Palmer beyond reason, but she didn’t close her eyes to the fact that he wasn’t as saintly as some imagined him to be. No man other than Jesus Christ was ever perfect, she told Lacey.
    “Look at King David,” she’d said once. “That man wrote psalms that so overflow with love for the Lord that we’re still reading and storing his words in our hearts today. And the Bible says David was a man after the Lord’s own heart. Imagine that. And yet he was brought low by lust.”
    The word “lust” seemed to sit uncomfortable on Miss Mona’s tongue. Her cheeks burned red, but she didn’t change the word. And while she never once mentioned Preacher Palmer when she was talking about King David’s falling to temptation, she did make sure Lacey knew to take a bath where no wrong eyes could see.
    Now wrong eyes were poking clear through her, and Lacey felt like she was tiptoeing along the edge of a crevice that might spring open wider and swallow her whole. But she’d always had good balance. Never once tumbled off the stepping-stones in the creek back in the woods where she and Junie used to play before their mama died. And what had she been doing but balancing ever since? Keeping out of Widow Jackson’s way. Protecting Junie. Staying away from Preacher Palmer’s eyes while seeing to Miss Mona.
    There was always some kind of balancing to do in life. Standing there with the matrimony words pounding into her ears was no different. Preacher Palmer was on one side with a frown that could summon up storm clouds, and Rachel was on the other side with enough sunshine to make whatever storm Lacey had to run through worth getting soaked down with trials of the spirit.
    And though Miss Mona had moved on up to heaven, she had still somehow come through to help Lacey balance things out. At least that was how it had seemed to Lacey the night she and Preacher Palmer sat at the kitchen table to come to their agreement while Rachel settled into sleep in the upstairs room.
    “Deacon Crutcher has brought to my attention that there’s some talk in the church,” Preacher Palmer pronounced after he told Lacey to sit down across from him.
    No more than two days had passed since Sadie Rose had shown up on their doorstep with her sugar cookies, rag doll, and busybody advice. It appeared the woman was not willing to leave the issue of the decency of the preacher’s living arrangements solely in Lacey’s hands.
    The preacher’s eyes narrowed on Lacey as he waited for her to say something, but she made out like she didn’t have the first idea of what he was talking about as she looked down and began rubbing a spot of flour off her apron.
    When the silence dragged on too long, she finally murmured, “There’s always talk in the church.”
    That was God’s own truth. Three people got together under the Lord’s roof, and two of them would be talking about the other one not doing something proper. Before Miss Mona died, Lacey hadn’t been to church services for a good while. Miss Mona had lacked the strength for the walk to the