The Pastor’s Wife Read online

  Praise for the uplifting novels of ReShonda Tate Billingsley

  I KNOW I’VE BEEN CHANGED

  #1 Dallas Morning News bestseller

  “Grabs you from the first page and never lets go…. Bravo!”

  —Victoria Christopher Murray

  “An excellent novel with a moral lesson to boot.”

  —Zane, New York Times bestselling author

  “This emotionally charged novel will not easily be forgotten.”

  —Romantic Times (4½ stars, Gold Medal, Top Pick)

  “A compelling, heartfelt story.”

  —Booklist

  LET THE CHURCH SAY AMEN

  #1 Essence bestseller and Dallas Morning News bestseller

  One of Library Journal’s Best Christian Books for 2004

  “Billingsley infuses her text with just the right dose of humor to balance the novel’s serious events…. Will appeal to fans of Michele Andrea Bowen’s Second Sunday and Pat G’Orge-Walker’s Sister Betty! God’s Calling You, Again!”

  —Library Journal (starred review)

  “Her community of very human saints will win readers over with their humor and verve.”

  —Booklist

  “Amen to Let the Church Say Amen…. [A] well-written novel.”

  —Indianapolis Recorder

  “Emotionally compelling…. Full of palpable joy, grief, and soulful characters.”

  —Jacksonville Free Press (FL)

  Also by ReShonda Tate Billingsley

  Everybody Say Amen

  I Know I’ve Been Changed

  Let the Church Say Amen

  My Brother’s Keeper

  Have a Little Faith

  (with Jacquelin Thomas, J. D. Mason, and Sandra Kitt)

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2007 by ReShonda Tate Billingsley

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Pocket Books Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

  POCKET and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Billingsley, ReShonda Tate.

  The pastor’s wife / by ReShonda Tate Billingsley.—1st Pocket Books trade pbk. ed.

  p. cm.

  1. African American clergy—Fiction. 2. Love stories. gsafd I. Title.

  PS3602.I445P37 2007

  813'.6—dc22

  2007033850

  ISBN-13: 978-1-4165-5445-5

  ISBN-10: 1-4165-5445-9

  Visit us on the World Wide Web:

  http://www.SimonSays.com

  For Myles Julian Joseph

  Acknowledgments

  Here I am, on book number nine, and to the part of writing I’ve been dreading—the acknowledgments. These dang things have caused more drama than the actual stories in my books. (My cousin just started back speaking to me after I left her name out of the previous books and nobody at her church believed we’re related.) Oh, and don’t let me forget ______ (insert name here—you know who you are), who raked me over the coals for days because so-and-so’s name came before hers/his.

  So having said that, here are my acknowledgments this go-round…

  Thank you, God.

  Thank you, everybody else.

  There, that ought to cover everyone.

  Until the next book, enjoy.

  ReShonda

  the pastor’s wife

  prologue

  1993

  Terrance couldn’t get inside fast enough. He rammed his key in the lock, opened the door, and raced in the house. After slamming the front door closed, he leaned against it and tried to catch his breath.

  It was the first time he’d been able to think straight in the last fifteen minutes.

  “Boy, what have you gotten yourself into now?”

  Terrance looked up to see his great-aunt Eva towering over him, the usual disappointed look across her face. Her head was adorned with pink hair rollers, and her canary yellow bathrobe was tightly tied with a blue sash. “And don’t even fix your lips to lie to me.” She wagged her finger in his face. “You sweating like a runaway slave, all out of breath.” She stepped closer, narrowed her eyes at him, then wiggled her nose. “Terrance Deshaun Ellis, have you been drinking?”

  Terrance immediately tried to get his story together. “Naw, Auntie. Why you trippin’?”

  Eva scooted her large frame closer to him and sniffed. “You have been drinking.” She swung her left arm and hit him on the side of the head. “You smell like a moonshine factory!”

  Terrance ducked out of the way before his aunt could deliver another blow. “Go on with that, Aunt Eva!”

  “I swear to God, you gonna drive your grandma to an early grave!” Eva barked. “It’s Christmas Eve and you got her worried to death because your little narrow behind is out running the streets doing God only knows what. Thinking you grown.”

  “I’m almost grown,” Terrance mumbled, rubbing his temple. His head was pounding, his vision was blurred, and he was still sweating bullets over what had just happened.

  “Fifteen is far from grown!” Eva took a deep breath, trying to calm herself down. She shook her head as sadness began to frame her pear-shaped face. “Terrance, when are you going to stop causing so much trouble?”

  Terrance closed his eyes and groaned. He was not in the mood for a lecture—again. His three great-aunts lectured him nonstop, chastising him for “breaking his grandmother’s heart.”

  “We done got you out of jail twice, been up to your school more times than we can count cuz you always fighting. I pray round the clock, and you still won’t do right.” Eva sighed. “You won’t go to church. You won’t listen. I just don’t know what to do about you. My sister is out there right now, roaming the streets at three in the morning looking for your tail. I told her, we just need to turn you loose, because the devil has a hold on you.”

  Terrance desperately wanted to ask his aunt if they could finish this conversation another time. It’s not like he didn’t know it by heart anyway. His grandmother and her three sisters had raised him since his mother died when he was just two years old. And he’d been more than a handful for them.

  He definitely didn’t feel like hearing a lecture right now because his mind kept replaying the past fifteen minutes. How had he ended up behind the wheel of a stolen car? Everything was a big blur. He remembered hanging out with his boys. He remembered the drinks—all of the drinks. Then, the next thing he recalled was the sirens and his ditching the car two streets over and running for his life.

  Luckily, Terrance didn’t have to listen to much more because the doorbell rang, and he decided to use that as an opportunity to escape upstairs to his room.

  “I’m not through with you, boy!” Eva called out when she noticed him dart toward the stairs. “This is probably your grandmother, poor thing. Probably locked herself out. I know she’s tired…”

  Terrance let her voice trail off as he made his way upstairs. He had just taken off his shirt and was getting ready to plop down across his bed when he heard his aunt scream, “Nooooo!”

  He immediately raced back down the stairs. Eva was leaning against the doorframe; two sheriff’s deputies were trying to hold her up. Terrance froze. They’d come for him. They’d figured out what had happened and had come to take him to jail. This would be his third arrest and he was sure to do some real jail time.

  Terrance was ju
st about to make a run for it when he saw Eva drop to her knees and scream, “She can’t be dead, she just can’t. No, Lord, no!”

  Terrance suddenly forgot all about his own troubles. “Wh…who’s dead?” he asked as he slowly walked toward his aunt. He had a sickening feeling in the pit of his stomach. Eva looked up at him, tears blanketing her face. That in itself told Terrance something was seriously wrong because Aunt Eva was a hard-nosed woman who didn’t even shed a tear when her husband of twenty years walked out on her.

  “Who’s dead?” Terrance repeated.

  Eva pulled herself up off the floor. “Oh, Terrance.” She held out her arms as she walked toward him. “It’s Essie. Your grandmother was in a horrible car accident. They said she’s dead!” Eva pulled Terrance into her chest and sobbed.

  Terrance’s body began to shake as Eva’s words set in. He broke free from his aunt. “No, no, no.” Terrance continued to shake his head in denial as Eva struggled to pull herself together.

  “Ma’am, is there anyone we can call for you?” the sheriff’s deputy asked.

  “My sisters. I’ve got to call Mamie and Dorothy Mae,” Eva muttered as she walked around the living room in a daze, looking for the phone.

  “Why you comin’ up in here with this?” Terrance said to the deputies, his voice shaky. “My grandma ain’t dead. She’s just out looking for me. She’ll be right back.”

  “I’m sorry, sir,” the other deputy said. “She hit a tree. She was killed on impact.”

  The look on the deputy’s face told Terrance this wasn’t some cruel joke. Suddenly, every bad thing he’d recently done flashed through his mind, including the last fifteen minutes. “Oh, my God. This is all my fault!” Terrance dropped to his knees and buried his head in his hands. Tears began to fall as he recalled his grandmother’s last words to him that afternoon.

  “Son, I’m praying that the Lord will change your troubled ways,” she’d said when she caught him going through her purse. “I love you and I’m never gonna give up on you.”

  Terrance had blown her off, silently cursing that she’d caught him before he could get some money. What he wouldn’t do now to turn back time.

  chapter 1

  “Boy, you sho’ can preach!” Chester Edwards let out a hearty laugh as he slammed his oversize palm on Terrance’s back.

  Even though he stood a good four inches taller than Chester’s small, five-feet-eight frame, Terrance had to catch himself from falling over. He forced a smile and nodded at Chester. “Thank you, Brother Edwards. I try my best.”

  “Hmph, try? My handsome nephew just got a natural talent,” Eva said as she brushed a piece of lint off Terrance’s robe. She smiled, admiring his strong features, his smooth, coffee brown skin and cheekbones that could cut glass.

  Mamie walked to the other side of Terrance and draped her arm through his. “And what else would you expect, Chester, when he was raised by four of the most wonderful women in the world?”

  Terrance blushed. His aunts were so proud of him now. After his grandmother’s death, they had stepped up their mothering roles. He’d worked hard to turn his life around. He had stood at his grandmother’s funeral and promised God that he would make his grandmother proud.

  Terrance dumped his friends, buckled down in school, and shocked everyone when on the one-year anniversary of Essie’s death he said he wanted to give his life to God. He went on to college at Clark Atlanta University, then seminary school at Arkansas Baptist College. Not too long after moving back to Houston, he became pastor of Lily Grove Missionary Baptist Church.

  Terrance couldn’t help the warm feeling that filled his heart when he thought of how happy his grandmother would be to see him as a preacher, of all things, especially at Lily Grove, the church he’d grown up in.

  Chester let out a grunt, bringing Terrance out of his thoughts. “It’s a wonder that boy know how to do anything the way y’all old hens are fawning over him all the time like he’s the Second Coming.” Chester quickly looked at Terrance. “No disrespect, Pastor.”

  “None taken, Brother Edwards.” Terrance chuckled. Both men stopped talking as a tall, older woman in a short, tiger-print miniskirt and satin-fringed shawl sauntered out of the sanctuary.

  “Afternoon, Pastor,” she said, trying to sound sexy. “That was a wonderful sermon you preached today.”

  “Thank you, Sister Florence.” Terrance turned to the beautiful, young woman standing behind her. “Sister Savannah, did you enjoy the service today?”

  Savannah nodded. “I did.”

  “Then why did you sleep through half of it?” Florence cackled as she tossed the strands from her honey blond wig out of her face.

  Savannah looked uncomfortable, but quickly replied, “Grandma, you know I was not asleep.”

  “I don’t know nothing but what I saw, and I saw your eyes closed.”

  Terrance smiled. “I’m sure Sister Savannah was just deep in prayer.”

  Savannah returned his smile. “That’s exactly what I was doing, Pastor.” Her eyes lit up as she looked him up and down.

  Florence looked at her granddaughter strangely. “Girl, are you openly flirtin’ with the pastor?” She laughed. “Please. Tell her, Reverend. As if she stood a snowball’s chance of being with a man like you.” Florence continued laughing, ignoring the hurt look across Savannah’s face. “Come on here, gal. I done told you ’bout them pipe dreams. Like Reverend Ellis would even be caught dead with somebody like you,” she mumbled as she made her way down the steps.

  Savannah couldn’t mask the hurt as she looked at Terrance. She seemed like she wanted to say something, but just clutched her purse tighter and took off after her grandmother.

  “That’s a doggone shame the way that woman does that child,” Chester said as he watched them walk down the sidewalk.

  “I guess we just invisible? She didn’t even acknowledge us and we’re standing right next to you,” Eva snapped to Terrance. She turned up her nose. “And look at her.” Florence had stopped and was wiggling to pull down her skirt, which had risen up her thighs. “What is that woman, sixty-five? And still trying to dress like she’s twenty-one?”

  Mamie echoed her sister’s disgust. “She’s looking like a broke-down Eartha Kitt. And got the nerve to think she’s still sexy. Hussy. I don’t know why she even bother coming to church. Like she even knows God.”

  “How do you know what’s in her heart?” Terrance admonished.

  “Whatever,” Mamie said, blowing his question off. “What self-respecting, decent Christian woman, especially someone her age, comes to church in a tiger-print miniskirt?”

  “I don’t know,” Chester replied, licking his lips as he watched Florence walk down the street. “I think she is nice-looking, and that body, Lord, have mercy.”

  “Don’t you have to get home and feed your chickens, Chester?” Dorothy Mae snapped, her face suddenly becoming flush with anger.

  “Pigeons. I got pigeons!” he snapped back.

  “They’re all the same,” Dorothy Mae nonchalantly replied.

  “They is not! You ever heard of Kentucky Fried Pigeon?” Chester stomped down the steps of Lily Grove. Dorothy Mae had hit a sore spot.

  “And if you ever need to communicate with somebody and yo’ telephone don’t work, don’t come asking to use my pigeons!” he called out as he stomped off.

  “I promise you ain’t got to ever worry about that!” Dorothy Mae yelled after him.

  “Now, Dorothy Mae, why you agitating Chester like that?” Eva said, a smile forming across her wrinkle-free face. Eva was almost seventy, but could easily pass for fifty. Years of a careful regime of Dove soap and water had proved to be good to her.

  “Cuz ever since he dumped her, she got to give him a hard time,” Mamie cackled, her hefty frame jiggling as she teased her petite sister.

  “He didn’t dump me,” Dorothy Mae protested. “It was the other way around and you know it. After Ernest died, God rest his soul, I couldn’t keep Chester
from sniffing around me. He wanted me, not the other way around.”

  “Excuse me, ladies, but as much as I would love to hear you all stand around and go at it all afternoon, I need to get going. Brother Edwards was the last one out of the church, I believe, and I, umm, I have some business I need to take care of.”

  All three pairs of eyes focused on Terrance. He got a temporary reprieve when his secretary, Raquel Mason, stuck her head out the sanctuary door.

  “Pastor, I’ve wrapped everything up,” she said, smiling when she saw the three women. “Hello, ladies.” They all smiled back as they spoke.

  “Will you be needing anything else?” Raquel asked.

  “No, thank you,” Terrance responded.

  “Okay, I have to get home and fix dinner for Dolan.”

  “When are you gonna get that fiancé of yours to come to church?” Terrance asked.

  “When hell freezes over,” Mamie mumbled. Eva pushed her arm to get her to shut up.

  Raquel either didn’t hear her or chose to ignore her. “I’m working on it, Pastor. But you know how it is.”

  Terrance didn’t press the issue because he knew that it was a sore spot with his faithful secretary. It hurt his heart to see the pain in her eyes when she talked about the man she was set to marry in less than five months. But she would never really open up to Terrance about it, so there wasn’t much he could do.

  “Well, you all have a blessed day. I parked out back.” Raquel waved as she walked back inside the church.

  She had barely closed the door when Eva turned back to her nephew. “Now, back to you. What kind of business do you have on a Sunday afternoon other than dinner with us?” Eva was trying not to let her attitude show.

  Terrance normally spent Sunday afternoons having dinner and visiting with his aunts. It had broken Eva’s heart that he’d gotten his own place when he moved back to Houston. The only thing that soothed her was that it wasn’t far from her.