Page 40 of A Cowboy's Convenient Marriage

“You don’t do any of that anymore?” he asked, and she realized that he was truly interested. He wanted to learn about her. The thought made her feel warm and almost scoff at her scared, maybe he doesn’t like me feelings that she had at the beginning of the meal. She was glad she pushed them aside and did not allow them to bother her.

“No. The brother that had goats actually had a whole group of customers in town where he delivered goat milk and that type of thing. But once we moved to North Dakota, we didn’t bring the goats with us, and I haven’t had goat milk in years.”

The waitress came, and offered them dessert. They looked at each other. Then they grinned. “Why not?” Cash said. They each picked one, and agreed that they would share.

The meal turned out much better than Ada had anticipated since it started with a call from Cash’s ex-fiancé. She was glad she hadn’t allowed her feelings to overcome her common sense.

Chapter 16

Cash leaned back, hisstomach feeling like it was going to burst. It was a happy feeling. He enjoyed his first meal with his new wife, and...it was really hard to believe he was married.

He’d almost put Abby’s phone call out of his head. Abby was... Different than Ada. More cultured, less apt to laugh. More self-aware. Ada had a natural disregard for pretense that he found charming. But, in his old church, with the huge amount of congregants that they had, someone like Abby would probably have been a better choice, since she was able to rub shoulders with the highbrow folks who put their check in the offering plate every Sunday and kept the church going.

He didn’t like the idea that he catered to those people, and he definitely did not do that in his sermons. But, the fact of the matter was, in order for the church to continue its ministry, it needed people to donate to fund the cause. He wondered sometimes if maybe he had gotten too deep in debt. The Bible warned about that, and he had never liked borrowing money, but they had been growing so fast, they needed a place for everyone to meet. He felt like he didn’t have a choice, and the board had agreed. But maybe they should have tried to think of other options. Perhaps two or three services on Sunday morning, or a service on Saturday evening, or perhaps they could have rented a place until they had the room they needed. Or, they could have built something that wasn’t quite so expensive, or extravagant, since they built a community center along with their new auditorium.

Regardless, it was done, but having a woman like Ada beside him, who was so conscious of frugality, would have been a wise move on his part. Still, he felt like he had been doing what God had been leading, and second-guessing himself never led to any good.

Ada had just said something funny, and he was laughing as his phone rang.

He wished he would have turned it off when he hung up with Abby, and was tempted to just ignore it.

“Go ahead. You can get it,” Ada said, waving her hand.

It was another number from the Virginia area code. It was not Abby though. He did know that. This time, he was not going to answer on speakerphone. That had been beyond awkward.

He swiped, giving his wife a smile, as she looked at the small amount of cheesecake left on her plate, but shook her head, and pushed her plate back.

“Hello?” he said. Wishing that he had his old phone and wasn’t answering blind. He really didn’t know who in the world this could be.

“Cash.” It was John.

“John,” he said, surprised. And then, the idea that Abby just called him and now John... Something must be up.

He still hadn’t figured out how he felt about Abby’s phone call. He was married, and she was too late, he definitely wasn’t doing anything to get her back. He wasn’t giving up Ada. But, if she had called them yesterday? What would he have done? He wasn’t sure. He really wasn’t. He thought he dodged a bullet with Abby, but the idea of having her beside him and trying to take his church back was very tempting.

“I suppose you’ve heard by now that Zoe has recanted her story. She admitted that she lied, and has publicly apologized. She actually asked if she could go to the front of the church on Sunday, and apologize to the entire congregation.”

---