Her directions proved excellent, which boded well for her efficiency.

Bishop Realty was in an old house right off Main Street. As I entered the reception area, a door to the right opened, and a tall, husky blond woman emerged. She was wearing a cheap navy blue suit and a white blouse.

“The Lord be with you,” I said promptly.

“Miss Teagarden?” she said cautiously, after a glance at my ring finger. Naturally, I’d left my huge engagement ring in a zippered pouch in my purse. It hardly fit my new image.

“I do have a few places to show you this morning,” Mary Anne Bishop said, still obviously feeling her way with me. “I hope you like one of them. We look forward to having your group settle in our area. It is a church, I understand?” She waved me into her office and we sat down.

“We’re a small pacifist religious group,” I said with equal caution, wondering about tax exemptions and other hitches connected with claiming to be an actual church. “We like privacy, and we’re not rich,” I continued. “That’s why we want a farm a fair way out of town, one that we can fix up.”

“And you want at least-what-sixty acres?” asked Mrs. Bishop.

“Oh, at least. Or more. It would depend,” I said vaguely. I had no idea how big the Bartell/Flocken farm was.

“Excuse me for asking, but I was wondering why your group was interested in this part of Ohio. You seem southern, and there is so much farming land available down there…”

“God told us to come here,” I said.

“Oh,” Mrs. Bishop said blankly. She shrugged her broad shoulders and assumed her Selling Smile. “Well, let’s go find that place that’s just right for you. We’ll go in my Bronco, since we’re looking at farms.”

So for a whole morning I drove around in rural Ohio with Mary Anne Bishop, looking at fields and fences and run-down farmhouses, thinking about how cold and isolated some of these farms would be in winter, how the land would look covered with snow. It made me shiver to imagine it.