Suddenly Married Read Free

believe he could accomplish his goal if he attacked everything the way he’d sunk his teeth into that nasty matter at Pinnacle.
    She watched his children carefully. The boy, blond, blue eyed, was the spitting image of his father. Would he be tall and muscular someday? With a thick burnished mustache and a barrel chest?
    Dara turned her attention to Noah Lucas’s daughter. His wife must have been a dark-haired, dark-eyed, delicate beauty, if her little girl was any indicator.
    What must it be like, Dara wondered, growing up without a mother? She’d been twenty-seven when her own mother had died two years ago, and still Dara missed the maternal love that had flowed steadily and easily from parent to child. But to be so small, so young and vulnerable, when death stole a beloved parent…Dara’s heart ached for these two motherless children.
    They sat side by side, front and center, and folded their hands on the desktops. They were by far the bestdressed, most well-behaved children in the classroom. But there was something about them that gave Dara an uneasy feeling. Was it their tight-lipped, somber-eyed expressions? Or the way they stared straight ahead, as silent as little statues? Looks as though a serious nature runs in the family, she thought, frowning as she recalled their father’s grim, taut posture.
    “Okay, kids,” she called, clapping to get the class’s attention. “Let’s settle down and get to work.”
    “Where’s Mrs. King?” Marie wanted to know.
    Dara smiled as a moment of warm wishfulness fluttered inside her. If only someone could be making this announcement about me.…“Mrs. King’s baby was born last Sunday afternoon.”
    “After Sunday school?”
    “That’s right. She went straight to the hospital from here.”
    “Is she all right?” Lisa asked.
    “She’s fine, just fine,” Dara assured her.
    “Boy or girl?” Pete demanded, grinning mischievously. “A boy, I hope—we already got too many girls in this town!”
    The boys snickered and the girls groaned in responseto his commentary, while Dara smiled fondly. “I hate to disappoint you, Pete, but the baby is a girl.”
    Tina raised her hand. “Have they named her yet?”
    “As a matter of fact, they’re going to call her Sarah. Sarah Naomi King.”
    “Yuck,” Pete grumped. “What’d they go an’ give her such a sissy name for?”
    “Hush,” Tina scolded, frowning. “Sarah isn’t a sissy name. It’s beautiful.” One hand on her hip, she bobbed her head back and forth. “It’s from the Bible,” she singsonged, “isn’t it, Miss Mackenzie?”
    “That’s right.…Now, can anyone tell me anything about the biblical Sarah?”
    “She was Isaac’s mother,” Bobby Lucas volunteered.
    “But before she was Sarah,” his elder sister injected, “her name was Sarai.”
    “What did she go and change her name for,” Pete teased, “if it was so beautiful? ”
    “Because,” Angie said, lifting her chin, “God told her husband to change it.”
    She seemed so pleased and proud to possess knowledge the other children did not have. Was the behavior something her father had encouraged? Or had his straitlaced personality sent Angie the message that this demeanor was required if she hoped to gain his approval?
    “Everyone said Abraham was too old and feeble to have more children,” the girl continued, “but he believed he could, and because of his faith, God gave him a child,” Dara reported in a somber, quiet voice.
    These were not ordinary children, Dara decided. Did Bobby play with trucks? Did Angie and her dollies have tea parties? Did they splash in their tub, dunk cookies in their milk and make snow angels? Somethingtold her they did not. Dara could almost picture them sitting inside, noses burrowed in the pages of some edifying book, peeking up only now and again to watch the fun going on outside.
    Of course youngsters should pray and read the Word, she acknowledged. They should respect their elders and do their