"Eva, is that you, dear?" Her father's voice lifted up through the soft confines of the house as she and Mr. Jefferson slipped in the back door, the smell of chocolate chip cookies lingering all around them from Eva's earlier baking festival. She moved through the kitchen, picking up the plate and offering her father's friend a treat. He smiled and took two, biting into one and groaning at the delicious chocolate as it swept across his senses.
"Yes, Father. Mr. Jefferson is here to see you as well." She went to the fridge to pour him a glass of milk, handing it to him as he stretched out his hand and smiled at the lovely young girl.
"You really should enter these in the county fair, Eva. They are by far the best cookies this side of the Mississippi, girl." He took a deep drink of the milk, his gaze kind and focused on Eva's lovely face. Her father walked around the corner and laughed at Jerry's love of sweets and the truth in his comments to his little girl.
He wrapped an arm around his daughter and kissed the top of her head, his eyes on Jerry. "She is much like her mother in her ability to bake like a vixen. I don't even believe its holy because it leads me to sin all the time."
Eva pulled away and pushed at his arm, a pretty smile on her lovely pink lips. "Daddy... what a horrible thing to say." She left the two men to their duties for the afternoon, a quick change into something more warm and a bit comfortable and she found herself snuggled into a thick blue blanket and sitting on the large window seal in her room, looking out over the backyard. Snow swept through the air and danced as if putting on a show just for her, the book on her lap one that she'd been trying to get into forever but just couldn't seem to stay intuned with it. Her father beckoned her to study more the character of who God was and yet she yearned for a love story filled with good and evil where love and forever prevailed with a blissful kiss at the end.
She left her theology book on the window and moved to kneel before her own bookshelf as she carefully pulled out a few appropriate books to find a love story tucked into the back of the shelf, a smile on her face. She put everything back in place as cleanliness was next to Godliness, moving back to her perching station and opening the book that she'd read so many times before. The hero in the story strong and handsome and the girl seemingly plain and incapable of winning the love of the prince. She took her time savoring every word, two simple words uttered to her father as the afternoon and pressed into night and the night into almost morning.
"Good night, my love. Please make sure you rest up for church tomorrow, yes?" He stopped at her door, his heart aching at the sight of her so perfect and yet still alone. It was truly his fault and yet he knew not how to correct the error of his ways in needing her beside him to keep his life sane.
She simply turned her head and smiled, "Night, Father..."
He laughed and let her be, knowing that whether she slept or not that she would be by his side the next morning to greet those that actually graced the steps of the church. Years before there wasn't a seat to be stolen, but things had changed drastically over the last few years and he found himself praying for most of the seats to be filled only to find the same small handful of people. Lately even those committed few were starting to stray.
He looked at himself in the mirror as he undressed, his prayer simple and yet apropos. "Father, save us as only you can. Guide and direct my steps and keep my child save from the darkness that lingers outside of our door. Amen."