Page 82 of Swamp Kings 1

“It was, and I just thought… well there are so many of us and I asked to be put last on the list and I was. Only I didn’t realize it was the short list, the first of the sisters that came for that purpose.”

“Well, there’s two hundred other available nuns, surely one can take your place for at least a little while?”

“Oh…no,” she said, shaking her head. “They’re all terrified and I wouldn’t dream of asking that.”

“But so are you.”

She looked right at him, not understanding the meaning of his interrogation. “Of course I’m nervous about it, who wouldn’t be? That’s not why I got at the end of the line, it was to have as much freedom as I could before returning to being restricted in the things I would prefer doing, like helping the lost and downtrodden and-and people who are hurting and in need of Christ. My vocation,” she finished breathless. “I can’t exactly do that if I’m stuck being a wife who has to consider the needs of her husband.” She let out a gasp at hearing herself. Why he was smiling.

He leaned his head toward her. “So, youdon’twant to marry a soldier.”

Her stomach tensed more somehow. “I just made it very clear to you that I in fact do want to—”

“Basically, do what the soldiers are doing? Helping people?”

Her mouth hung open as annoyance pricked her stiff spine. “I am committed,” she said with a finality. “And that trumps all else.”

He was nodding and smiling—rudely nodding and smiling. “You don’t have to marry a soldier,” he informed, baffling her.

“I just told you I do, I am committed.”

“You’re committed to your vocation, and you don’t need to marry a soldier to do that and in fact you just said it’d be better without marrying a soldier.”

She hit exasperation with that one. “Well, you can say it fifty times in fifty ways Mr. Spar, and I will still say I am committed to this cause that I agreed to.”

He turned a little, putting his arm behind her on the top of the swing. “Look, you want out of it? I can get you out. I’ll tell them you’re not ready, you need some time. They’ll find other females to mate their soldiers to.”

“Unbelievable,” she marveled lightly, facing fully forward. “I think you are being deliberately obtuse, and I don’t feel the need to repeat myself because you’ve decided to treat my words like a… fool’s babbling.”

“I’m not saying don’teverdo it, I’m saying give yourself the time you want to do what you just told me you wanted to do. Hell, they can borrow a swamp woman to fill your place, we’ve got a whole list of them, and from what I’ve personally learned, some will marry for just about any reason.”

His logic and her frustration created a word pile up on her tongue that rendered her a huff-sputtering mute.

“I’m just trying to help,” he added lightly, his tone making her wonder about that.

“And why would you? Is it my spiritual teaching that has you clamoring for more time? I don’t see why this is a concern for you.”

He regarded her with a glance and grin. “Clamoring,” he muttered, fully amused. “I’m not makin’ racket about it.”

“I think you are.”

He swung the swing slowly with his legs, which she of course noticed were massive.

“Call it habit,” he confessed on a light sigh.

“To concern yourself with other people’s personal affairs?”

“Yep. Hatch leaders often have to get in the muck of things. I just hate to see people forced into something they don’t need to be in.”

“The only person forcing me is me.”

“I see that.”

“And what is so wrong with me sticking to my commitments?”

“Ah, lil’ sis,” he lamented. “It ain’t your sticking power that’s the problem, it’s the commitment you’re wasting it on.”

She sat there, truly dumbfounded, and without a doubt her face mirrored it. Then there was thelil’sispart that played its own stupid game on her frayed nerves. She turned toward him then ran into his green gaze, sending her in immediate retreat far far from it. She needed to do things with her body and was stuck holding the mug and her holy maturity facade which was now cracked to kingdom come. “It’s not that simple,” she finally blurted, the only thing that matched the chaos in her mind.

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