Page 17 of A Cowboy's Convenient Marriage

“Yes,” Cash said, without elaborating any more.

Ezra kind of understood what he meant. Up until Ezra’s parents had died, Ezra had felt the same way. His life had been magical. His childhood was amazing, his parents were the best, he’d been training to take over the ranch or at least go into partnership with his dad. His dad had wanted all of the siblings to feel welcome and free to stay and was willing to expand in whatever direction they all needed to go in order to have a place where they could work and earn their living.

And then, his parents’ death had been the big thing that had made his life stop feeling like it was blessed beyond words and had made him wonder if God even loved him. How fickle his faith was. It wavered big time in that fiery trial, but he had emerged stronger in faith and more grounded in his relationship with God than ever.

“Are you going to tell me about this trial that you endured?”

“I’m still enduring it. And yes. You couldn’t give your permission without knowing.” Cash took a breath, as though it was difficult for him, and Ezra braced himself.

Chapter 7

Cash did not want totalk about Zoe and everything that happened at his church back in Virginia. But since he knew he didn’t have a choice, he wanted to tell it in the best way possible. Maybe fast, so Ezra would not have a chance to form opinions that would be difficult to change.

But then, he figured the best way to tell it was just to state the facts.

“I grew up and lived all of my life in Virginia. A beautiful state, beautiful country, and like I said, God blessed me beyond words. I did well in school, I did well in Bible school, and I became a pastor at a young age.”

“Wow.”

Ezra didn’t say anything more. Cash nodded, because sometimes kids fresh out of Bible college couldn’t find a church to hire them.

“But then I started my own church. I did that at a young age as well, and I’ve been there for more than ten years. God built it from nothing, literally nothing, to a regular weekly attendance of two thousand people.” He paused. “I’d like to take the credit for it, but it was all God.”

Ezra nodded, as though he understood that God got the credit.

“I was very careful. I put a lot of guards up around myself so I would not fall into temptation and so that I would avoid any appearance of evil.”

“Those things are biblical.” Again, Ezra nodded in agreement.

“I got engaged at Christmastime last year.” It was so cliché. He had done all the cliché things. “I was supposed to get married a month and a half ago. But two weeks before the wedding, one of the girls that attended the Christian school our church sponsors came to my office, crying. She came running in, slamming the door behind her, and sobbed in my office for an hour.

“Of course, I always had either the door open or someone else in the office with me when I had a girl in there. I never met with girls alone. It was my policy. But this girl was so distraught, she was so upset, and she had been struggling, that I let my standard slip just one time.”

He paused, trying to figure out where to go from there.

“She was having issues, and she did not like my advice. I showed her from the Bible what she needed to do, and it made her angry. She quit crying, but I didn’t comfort her; I upset her more.”

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