The Rebel and His Bride

Gregory Talbott looked around at the hundreds of students that packed the university commons. The attendance at the Food for Kids rally was better than he’d expected. The other students were enthusiastic and vocal, and he figured the media would show up anytime. He hoped they would get their message across. And maybe while the newspaper and television coverage was going on, he could get in a little free press about the antivivisection demonstration he was planning that weekend at the biology labs.

There were just so many things in the world that needed changing. He intended to tackle them all someday, even though there was hardly enough time in a day to do what he needed to do. Like eat, he thought as his stomach reminded him he hadn’t fed it since last night. He spotted a hotdog vendor at the outer edges of the crowd and headed that
way. Gregory reached the cart at the same time as a pretty coed with curly pecan-brown hair, a beautiful face, and a slim figure.

“Hey, I only got one wiener left.” The vendor held up a shriveled frankfurter.

Even though his stomach growled in protest, Gregory smiled at the woman and offered the hot dog to her. She smiled in return and shook her head, and he thought he’d never seen anything as gorgeous as her smile. It was warm and sunny and crawled right inside him. Yeah, there were a lot of things in the world that needed to be changed, but he wouldn’t change that smile for anything.

“Are you sure you won’t take it?” he asked.

“No thanks,” she said. “You got here a couple of seconds before I did.”

Her voice. God, her voice. It was a voice to spin dreams around, a voice that could turn a guy inside out. A voice he wanted to take to a movie Friday night. He turned to the vendor. “I’ll take it.” He looked back at the woman. “What do you like on your hot dogs? I like catsup.”

“I usually take everything.”

“Put everything on it,” he said to the vendor, though he never took his eyes off the woman. “I’m Gregory Talbott.”

“I’m Annabelle Pace. Do your friends call you Greg?”

“They usually call me Talbott. You, however, can call me anything you want.”

“I heard you speak at the rally. You’re very good.”

“Thanks. Wanna bite?” He held up the hot dog.

“I don’t bite strange wieners.” She grimaced. “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded.”

Gregory grinned. “I know how you meant it. Does this mean you only bite wieners you know?”

She batted her lashes at him. “I’m sweet and innocent and won’t even step on ants on a sidewalk. I don’t bite anything.”

“Pity. I was hoping.”

She rolled her eyes. “Gimme that hot dog.”

He held it up to her mouth. She took a bite, but managed to nip the end of his finger in the process. “Ow! You did bite me.”

“So I lied. I do bite on occasion.”

“God, I love strong women. Go out with me, huh?”

“So, Preach, what’s the cause of the week this week?”

Gregory Talbott stiffened at the all-too-familiar voice. It was the last voice he expected to hear in his church office on a Saturday morning. He hadn’t heard it for nine years, but he hadn’t forgotten its sweet red velvet texture.

No, he hadn’t forgotten the slightest nuance, he thought as he felt the tendrils of past desire pull at him. It took an effort, but he managed to turn his head toward her and say coolly, “Hello, Annabelle. Long time no see.”

“It has been a long time, hasn’t it, Gregory? Or should I say Reverend Talbott?”

“Gregory’s fine.” He’d known she’d show up in White Creek sooner or later; after all, she had family here. He wondered briefly if she’d ever told
them about her relationship with him. Somehow he didn’t think so.

He made himself look at her, really look at her. Long time or not, she hadn’t changed much. She looked almost the same as she did when she was nineteen. Or better. Nine years later she still had tousled chestnut curls, only now they were softer and burnished with little streaks of sun-shot gold. She was still slim, but her figure had lost the almost angular slenderness of a girl and had taken on the softer, riper curves of a woman. Her hazel eyes showed the biggest change. The dark gold depths that had once sparkled with eager innocence shone instead with disconcerting maturity.

“When Gran told me you’d taken the church here,” she said, “I thought it was a joke. I didn’t see how you’d find time to tend a flock between Save the Whale meetings.” She perched on the edge of the polished oak desk that had graced the church offices since before World War II. The movement showed off her long gold-tanned legs and slender ankles. It put her breasts right at his eye level.

Gregory moved his gaze up to her chin and gave a weak smile. “What brings you back to White Creek? Did you come because of your grandmother’s broken arm?”

She absently ran her finger around the edge of the desk. “I came mostly for that, but I’d have come anyway for Daisy Jones’s engagement party in a few weeks.”

That drew Gregory’s attention away from Annabelle for a moment and he shook his head. It was Daisy’s third engagement that year—and it was only June. “You didn’t come for the other two.”

“The other two didn’t last long enough for anyone to worry about an engagement party.”

“So,” he began, hoping he sounded only casually interested, “how long are you going to be in White Creek?”

“I don’t know. I’m going to stay with Gran until the cast comes off. After that, I’m not sure.”

“Did Lute Simpson get rid of that motorcycle?”

“After the wreck he and Gran had, he said he wouldn’t get back on it if you paid him. He’s back driving his pickup.”

Gregory nodded and searched for something else to say. “Ah, so what are you doing these days?” He wanted to wince at how lame that sounded, but he couldn’t think of anything more dramatic. He could enthrall a Sunday-morning congregation, or so he’d been told, but he could only think of the most mundane comments right now—anything to keep from blurting out what was really on his mind. How could she sit there and look so calm and cool? He felt distinctly frayed around the edges.

“I’m teaching,” she answered. “I’ve taught in Raleigh for the past couple of years, but I’ll be teaching this fall at a middle school in Norfolk. Now that Mom and Dad are retiring to Florida to
be near my brother and his wife, I want to be closer to Gran.”

“Well, family ties are important.” Great, he thought, here came the clichés and platitudes. They could always discuss the weather and everybody’s health—looks like rain and how’s your aunt Gladys’s gallbladder? Maybe he’d just shut up and let her think he’d grown more stupid instead of opening his mouth and proving it.

“Well, I expect I’ll see you Sunday,” she said, hopping down from the desk. She gave an airy wave of her hand and a toss of her head that set her glossy curls bouncing.

“Yeah, Sunday.” Gregory watched her walk away. She still had the same boyishly free, long-legged stride that had always captivated him, the sway of her hips accentuated by the snug cutoff jeans she wore.

Seeing her after all these years was like a kick in the stomach—sharp pain followed by an odd breathlessness. She’d been his first serious relationship. At the time he’d thought they’d be together forever. They hadn’t made it through his senior year in college.

He almost hoped she wouldn’t come to church tomorrow. If he felt this tongue-tied after just five minutes with her, he’d be lucky if he could remember his own name, much less the opening lines to his sermon.

He’d be luckier still if he could keep from grabbing her and shaking out of her the answer to
the question that had burned through him all these years.

“Why did you leave me, Annabelle? Why did you leave me?”

“Did you find Daisy at the church?” Virgie Pace, Annabelle’s grandmother, looked up from mending her favorite leather jacket as Annabelle entered her house.

“No.” Annabelle tossed her purse on the Parsons table in the foyer. Parsons table, she thought with disgust. She couldn’t get away from reminders of Gregory.

“I was sure she’d be there,” Virgie said. “Why, she said just this morning she was going to check out the—” She stopped, focusing on Annabelle’s face. “You certainly look ruffled about something, dear. You ran into the good reverend, didn’t you?”

Annabelle sighed and brushed a kiss across the top of her grandmother’s bright orange hair. “Oh, I ran into him, all right. I darn near bulldozed over him.”

“What happened, honey?” Virgie frowned down at her knee, where she’d accidentally sewn her leather jacket to her jeans. “Darn this cast, anyway.”

Annabelle squatted in front of her grandmother. “You just hold still and let me snip the threads.”

“What happened between you and the preacher?”

Annabelle sighed. “I jumped down his throat first thing. Self-defense, I suppose. Right now he’s probably praying I’ll catch the next bus out of here.”

“You know I’ve always hoped that you would manage to put that part of your past behind you. Greg’s a good preacher, honey. The best.”

A sardonic smile twisted Annabelle’s lips just as bitterness twisted her words. “I never doubted that he would be. He’d give it his all—just like he gave his innumerable causes his all. He always gave everything his all—except me. I only got the leftovers.”

She clipped the last thread in silence, then told her grandmother she was going to lie down for a while. In her bedroom, she shut the door and flopped down on the bed, hoping the quaintly furnished room would work its magic. She and her cousin Danielle had shared this same bed as children when they’d spent summers here. They’d bounced on the feather mattress, hung their hair ribbons from the brass headboard, and lain on that bed many a night, making girlish wishes and watching the moonlight stream in through the windows.

Now Danni was happily married, expecting twins, sharing a veterinary practice with her husband, Sebastian, and spending two or three weeks each summer doing the traveling she’d always
dreamed of. All of her wishes had come true. And Annabelle? Annabelle was hung up on a nine-year-old romance that had gone wrong. Still, she had always felt White Creek and this house were a haven from the rest of the world. She used to come here whenever life overwhelmed her or she had a problem she needed to think through.

Yes, this house had always been a cure for what ailed her. Until Gregory Talbott had accepted the position as minister of the Baptist church six years earlier. She’d only been back once since then, and that had been for Danni and Sebastian’s wedding five years ago. Luckily Gregory had been out of town the week of the wedding—an old friend of Sebastian’s had officiated at the ceremony—and Annabelle had made darn sure she left the day he was due back.

Out of all the churches in the United States, why had he picked this one? She felt an unreasoning surge of anger at him for invading her turf. This was
her
special place. He had no right to be here!