Page 1 of Divine Temptations

Preacher Man

Chapter One

Ethan

God help me, I was lying to myself the minute I crossed the Meadowgrove city limit. If I thought I was here to help people instead of escaping the gossip and threats I’d experienced at my last posting, I was kidding myself.

The town looked like something off a damn postcard. Sweet little shops with hand-painted signs, hanging flower baskets drooping from every lamppost, a courthouse with an actual clock tower in the middle of the square. All of it bathed in golden light like Jesus had curated it himself for maximum southern charm.

I hated it immediately.

My car wheezed like an old man climbing stairs as I coasted to a stop near a drugstore that still had a sign boasting “Soda Fountain Inside!”—as if that were a selling point in the year of our Lord whatever. The AC in my car had given up somewhere outside Nashville, and now every inch of my shirt was clinging to me.

I wiped my face with the hem of the same T-shirt I’d slept in the night before and pulled out my phone to double-check where I was supposed to meet the deacon who’d hired me. Brother Thomas. Right. Meadowgrove Pharmacy, 3 PM.

I was two minutes late, but that felt fitting. I hadn’t been on time to a church function since before I stopped believing the Holy Spirit wasn’t just something we made up to keep the tambourine section busy.

The town was quiet. Too quiet. Like I’d stepped into a life-size snow globe with all the pieces frozen in place. Something about it made my skin itch. I’d grown up in places like this. God-fearing, gossip-loving, morality-policing little towns where you either fit in or you disappeared. And I’d done both.

I spotted a man in a dark suit standing stiffly in the drugstore’s doorway. Deacon uniform. Tie too tight, smile too wide. That had to be Brother Thomas. He waved when he saw me, and I braced myself.

“Ethan Carter?” he asked as I stepped out into the heat. His handshake was firm, but weirdly dry, like he’d been waiting in a freezer instead of the July sun. “You made it. Praise God.”

“Praise Him,” I echoed automatically, though it came out like someone who’d stubbed a toe.

“You find the place all right?”

“GPS doesn’t believe it exists, but yeah. I got here.”

Brother Thomas smiled, and it was the kind of smile that said “We’re glad you’re here,” but also maybe “We hope you don’t ask too many questions.” A smile I’d seen too many times in church basements and prayer circles and Sunday potlucks where people were a little too excited to mention how “we don’t get many new folks ‘round here.”

He stepped aside to let me in, and the bell above the pharmacy door jingled.

“Meadowgrove’s a good place,” he said as we walked inside. “Small, but strong in faith. We’ve been praying for someone to lead us.”

That word—lead—made my stomach twist. I was supposed to be here as a guest preacher. Just a few weeks. Maybe a few months. Not a messiah.

I smiled anyway. That’s what I was good at. Smiling, nodding, pretending the spiritual scaffolding hadn’t already collapsed inside me. A few sermons, a few hallelujahs, and I’d be gone.

Except nothing’s ever that simple. Not when you’re trying to outrun a scandal. Not when you’re trying to forget what, or who, you left behind.

Brother Thomas hadn’t so much as glanced toward the lunch counter. Which surprised me. Usually, when churches invited a new preacher, especially one they weren’t paying much, there was a little more hospitality. A coffee, maybe a stale cookie from the prayer group leftovers. At the very least, a question like “You eaten yet, son?” But Thomas was all business.

“We need to move quickly,” he said, already heading toward the door. “Long day, and I’ve still got the prayer circle at six.”

I blinked. “Oh. Uh. Sure.”

I watched him stride out onto the sidewalk, already digging in his pocket for keys, leaving me in a rush of awkward silence and air that smelled like bleach and peanut brittle.

“Well, he’s a ray of sunshine,” said a voice behind me, scratchy with cigarettes and sass.

I turned and found the woman behind the lunch counter giving me a look that split the difference between amused and unimpressed. She looked to be in her seventies, hair like a helmet of pink-tinged curls, lipstick that matched the cherries in the countertop sundae display. She wore a soda jerk apron over a floral blouse and was tapping her fake nails against the counter like a jazz drummer on a slow night.

“Can I get a cheeseburger and a Coke to go?” I asked, offering a polite smile.

“Sure, hon.” She moved like she’d done this a million times, but she kept glancing at the front window. “Thomas isn’t stayin’ long enough to eat, huh?”

I shrugged. “Guess not.”