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realized he was still annoyed at his attraction to Elisa and concerned it might get in the way of his decision whether to hire her.
    She punched him lightly. “You like a woman with education and plenty of style.”
    “And you think those are the things that attracted me to you?”
    “What else do I have to offer besides sex, and somebody else could deliver that? I’m not good minister’s wife material. You know God and I have an understanding. I don’t pay Him much attention if He promises to return the favor. We get along, but we’re not bosom buddies.”
    “You’re a better person than you think you are.”
    “And that’s why you want to marry me? The strength of my character?”
    He didn’t have to answer. They had been engaged for almost four years, through better and worse times, the latter of which said enough about her character to impress him. She knew it.
    He returned to the subject of Elisa, hoping he could talk his way to a decision. “I’ve had four applicants for the sexton’s job, and we’re getting desperate. Two are men with questionable work histories. The other won’t take the job unless we raise the salary substantially. Then there’s Elisa, with good references and a willingness to work hard. She walked to the interview from her mobile home park, and that’s four, maybe even five, miles away. She’s determined.”
    “She lives in a trailer? ”
    He imagined Elisa’s home, even new, had not cost as much as the Viper Christine had borrowed so carelessly.
    He tried to tamp down a surge of annoyance. “She’s poor. So what? That means very little, Christine.”
    She wrinkled her nose and sniffed. “I smell a sermon coming on.”
    They had reached the front gate. He had installed a picket fence hoping it would keep Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego in check whenever they escaped through the front door. Shad and Shack, canine mixtures that probably included Irish wolfhound and St. Bernard, sailed over it with enthusiasm. Bed, a tiny rat terrier, simply stood at the gate and barked incessantly. Now there was a chain link dog run in the back for those rare moments when the dogs weren’t under his direct control.
    “No sermon,” he promised, “and end of subject.”
    “I don’t suppose you’ve replaced the dogs with something a shade more refined?”
    “Like a porcelain cocker spaniel?”
    “You know me so well.”
    “Not as well as I hope to again.”
    She nudged his hip with hers. “Abstinence makes the heart grow fonder?”
    He unlocked the front door. Their sex life, or lack of it, was no longer a subject of real debate. He was a heterosexual male with all the requisite urges. They had been lovers in the days when their wedding date was on the calendar and their invitations at the printer. But now that the date was long past and the invitations interred at a Georgia landfill, they no longer made love.
    When he didn’t respond she settled her hip firmly against his, brushing it back and forth. “I’m always ready and willing.”
    He closed his eyes, and for a moment, temptation was the only thing on his mind. His body responded exactly the way she had known it would. She was not as convinced of the need for abstinence as he was. “How can I talk to the youth group about controlling their budding sexuality if I’m not controlling my own?”
    “You’re an old-fashioned man.”
    “Who needs an old-fashioned commitment and a wedding date before he takes his woman to bed. And that’s pushing liberal as it is.”
    She moved away, and they were no longer touching. “Just for the record, I wasn’t intending to lecture your youth group about our sex life. Or lack of it.”
    It was time to change the subject. “Brace yourself.” He opened the door and stood in the opening to fend off his dogs. He thought they were relatively well-behaved for young, slobbering dogs. He loved the three of them unreservedly.
    “Nice dogs,” Christine told them, screwing up her face. “Nice pen