Page 4 of A Cowboy's Convenient Marriage

“The girl?” She was more concerned about the girl who was lying? And not concerned about what her fiancé was going through right now?

Somehow, Abby’s lack of support hurt far worse than John’s. He understood John’s position. But Abby had pledged her life to him. She’d said yes to his proposal and agreed that they would be together through everything. This was part of everything. And yet, it was the first hard test of their relationship, and she was going to bail?

“Is that really what you want? Is that what you believe?” he finally said. He couldn’t find the words to defend himself. The idea that they had talked ad nauseam about how afraid he was this would happen. About all the parameters that he’d put into place so that it wouldn’t happen. How she knew exactly where he was at all times. She knew that Zoe had to be lying about everything. All she had to do was check up on her story. There couldn’t be more than that one time where they had been alone with the door closed. And that had been a mistake on his part, true, but any other times could be shown to be obvious lies.

“Cash. Don’t make this any harder than what it already is for me. Don’t you think that my heart is breaking?” She blinked, but there weren’t any tears in her eyes. In fact, it was almost like she was already planning her next move. And for the first time, he wondered if Abby had perhaps not been completely honest with him. Maybe she was angling to marry a prominent and successful pastor because of her own ambitions.

He could hardly believe that. Not his sweet Abby. But as he looked at her face, the idea sat there, hard and acidic in his chest. She didn’t love him. She just wanted to be a pastor’s wife, which she had never denied. But why not pick the most successful pastor in the state? She would have a ready built ministry on his arm.

“So I suppose you’re going to call the wedding off?” he asked, his voice devoid of emotion.

“I already did it. I’ve canceled everything. What do you think I’ve been doing for the last two hours?”

Her hair and makeup were perfect, and her eyes were clear. It didn’t look like she’d been sitting around, brokenhearted, crying as she undid what she had hoped to be a lifetime union.

“I’ll let you know if any of the deposits come back, although honestly, I feel like I should keep some of that money. I’ve certainly earned it, considering that your reputation is in shreds, and you and I are linked irrevocably.”

When she talked about the deposits coming back, his eyes automatically dropped to her ring. He was still paying for it. She had seemed like the kind of girl who deserved a massive stone and an extraordinarily expensive ring. He couldn’t have her wearing something tiny on her finger that would make it look like he couldn’t afford to give her the very best. After all, it might reflect poorly on the church. Abby mentioned all that in passing a few weeks before he popped the question. He’d taken the small ring he’d already bought back and took out a loan for the one that...was no longer on her finger.

Her eyes followed his, and she said, “The engagement ring is mine to keep. You gave it to me.”

He didn’t say anything. She wouldn’t have kept it if she had said no to his proposal, right? So now that she was no longer going to marry him, shouldn’t the ring go back to him?

He wasn’t sure what the protocol was in these situations. He hadn’t expected to ever have to know. The idea that he was even thinking about this was disappointing in the very worst sense of the word.

Disappointed didn’t come close to describing how he felt.

“I’m sorry, Abby,” he finally said, although he didn’t know what he was apologizing for. It was more for himself, that he was sorry he wasted time with her, not seeing who she truly was. Although, that wasn’t fair. She really was a true Christian and a good person. Of course she was going to break up with a fiancé who was messing around with a young teenager. The problem was the idea that she wouldn’t even give him the benefit of the doubt. She wouldn’t let him explain or defend himself. And she didn’t come to his defense either. It made him feel like she never really knew him to begin with, and maybe that was what he was sorry for.

“I’m sure you are. You should have thought of that before you closed the door and had sex with a sixteen-year-old.” She spit the words out, and as Cash turned, he saw three ladies standing in the aisle behind him. No doubt they’d overheard Abby’s last words. No doubt they’d seen him not defend himself. No doubt they assumed he was as guilty as his fiancée assumed he was. After all, if his fiancée didn’t see anything worthwhile in him, how could he expect these ladies to?

“Excuse me, ladies,” he said, the words coming automatically to his lips. They backed up like he had the bubonic plague and was getting ready to breathe on them.

It felt like running away, but he couldn’t stay in this town. He would be shocked if anyone would even hire him, so he wouldn’t be able to earn a living, let alone be a pastor like he knew he had been called to be.

In fact, maybe he’d been wrong about that. Maybe God hadn’t called him to be a pastor at all. Maybe he’d misunderstood. Maybe this was God’s way of getting him out of the pastorate. Maybe he really was as bad as everyone assumed. He had thought he had an upright, upstanding reputation in town, but obviously, at the first hint of any impropriety, everyone, including his best friend and his fiancée, believed the absolute worst of him. So maybe his reputation, and his character, weren’t as spotless as what he thought.

He moved through the path the women had created for him, like Moses parting the Red Sea, and walked out of the store, back out into the Virginia heat.

North Dakota was probably far enough. It wasn’t where he wanted to be, it wouldn’t be doing what he wanted to do, but God had obviously taken what he was and what he wanted and turned it inside out. There was no chance he would be pastoring anytime soon.

Lord, I don’t understand why You’re doing this to me. I don’t know where I went wrong. What I did. But right now—it’s hard to even think this way—I don’t believe anything happens to me without being allowed by You.

He thought of Job. Of the trials that poor man had gone through, with no idea of the celestial conversation that happened about him. Maybe God had such a conversation with Satan about Cash? Had God said, “Look at my man Cash, how he follows me no matter what?” And Satan would have laughed and said, “Of course he does, because he’s not had anything hard happen to him his entire life.” The hardest thing he’d had to do was to be abstinent before his marriage. Which held a special kind of irony, considering that he was being accused of having sex with a sixteen-year-old, when he hadn’t even been intimate with his own fiancée or any other woman for that matter.

Is this Your idea of a sense of humor?

He knew from experience that God really did have a sense of humor, but this seemed a little bit...much.

He couldn’t quite laugh about it. His whole world had come crashing down and everything that he had known and loved was going to be gone. Taken from him, and all over a bunch of lies.

He took a deep breath. He wanted to go home, hit something, destroy something, but he felt the best thing to do would be to think about what needed to be done and then take steps to do it.

First, he was going to the cell phone store to buy his own cell phone, with a data plan or whatever he needed in order to be able to use it anywhere in the US, and he would have to make sure that he could use it west of the Mississippi, because the idea that that was where he was heading was strong, almost unshakable.

Then he would check with the realtor about putting his house up for sale. He and Abby had gone back and forth about whether they should move into his house, or whether they should purchase a house for themselves. He had been all about wanting to keep the house he had. She had been more about buying a new one that she could make her own. One closer to the church, is what she said. Although his house was only five minutes away. Regardless, he’d already been in talks with a realtor. He had been going to surprise Abby with it as a wedding gift, that they would go home shopping.

He would get his realtor to put the house on the market immediately. All the things inside would convey. He would pack his clothes, and he could be in North Dakota by next week this time.

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