~~~~~~~
"Good morning," he said as he dismounted.
"What are you doing out riding?" she asked,
leaning on the hoe. “Seems to me you promised to take it easy for a few days.”
"It’s been a few days. A few days too many," he
said, taking the hoe from her and kissing her soundly on the lips. "And
this is day one in the new plan," he told her as he walked her back to the
cabin.
"New plan?"
"I’ve thought this through. You had a lot of reasons
why we shouldn’t be together.”
“Well, obviously I’ve thought better of that as we are
together,” she reminded him, putting her arms around his waist and pulling him
to a stop.
“Yes, but you haven’t set a date to marry me. Today we start
on one of those questions that you say are going to stand between us. We work
our way through those things and," he kissed her nose, "in a week or
less, we can start making wedding plans."
She shook her head. "I can't believe you. Things can't
be worked out that fast.”
“Sure they can. We take them one a day. Are there more than
seven doubts?"
“I never counted them
up, but I don’t see how we can really dispose of these kind of things in any
set number of days."
“Don’t you believe your god created this earth in six days?”
He started her walking again.
“The Bible says so.”
“You think your obstacles are bigger than creating an
earth.”
She giggled. “Well, maybe not, but you are definitely not a
god.”
“I’ll give you that. How about though you give my plan a
chance, and if it fails, we move onto plan two.”
"There’s a second plan?" she asked as he pushed
her up the steps.
"Yeah, but you don't get to find out what it is unless
the first one fails--which it won’t."
"You are pretty confident,” she said with amusement.
“All right, how do we begin?"
"I’ll finish hoeing your garden while you pack us a
picnic lunch; then we go for a ride into the hills."
"You shouldn’t be riding far."
"I won't. We'll just head up the river a ways, find a
big pool and picnic there."
"What happens then?" she asked, with a smile.
"I ply you with all the reasons we should get married
right away, and you argue with me about everything that stands between us.
Then... Well, I guess you'll have to wait to see what happens then."
"It sounds risky."
"It will be. I promise,” he said, heading back to
finish that hoeing.
“Don’t cut off any of my herbs,” she warned.
He grinned. “Not a chance. Uh what does that one look like
that you put in that herbal tea you fed me last week?”
“Adam!” she remonstrated.
“Just joking.”
