She stops just outside the barn’s doorway facing the parsonage, and doesn’t see Josh.
Her heart sinks, she feels, to her toes.
Emma whimpers, audibly. Before she takes a step away back home, a voice booms from within the barn.
“Hey,” it says.
“Huh,” Emma responds, with wide eyes.
“Its me. I didn’t know if you was bluffing me or not,” says Josh, in gravelly baritone. “Guess not. Look at you. Look at you. So beautiful.”
“No,” Emma says. “I wasn't bluffing you. I’m here.”
“Yep,” Josh says. “I’m here too.”
"I see."
Emma turns toward his voice, looking inside the barn. She sees Josh’s silhouette leaning against a pillar in the middle. He is illuminated by the faint light of fast-fading dusk seeping in.
“I didn’t know if you were coming or not,” Emma says, with a slight hint of giggle.
She walks toward him, taking soft slow steps across the barn’s dirt floor that mixes with hay.
“I shouldn’t have,” Josh says. “Everybody knows you don’t mess with the preacher’s daughter. Your Daddy might put some kind of spell on me if he finds out.”
“I thought you weren’t afraid,” Emma says.
“I’m not afraid. But everybody knows. You don’t mess with the preacher’s daughter. And you especially don't fuck the preacher's daughter."
“Father doesn’t do spells,” Emma says. “He just prays. And maybe we won't fuck.”
“He might pray against me, then. And what do you mean, 'maybe we won't fuck'? You got me all worked up. My dick has been harder than a two-by-four since Monday.
"Can't do anything about it. It's like a pointer dog -- just looking for you."
Emma doesn’t respond.
“Why did you want me to come?” Josh asks.
“What do you mean?”
“Why did you want me to come here then if you don't want to fuck me?”
“Just to talk,” Emma says. “There’s nothing wrong with that, right? I enjoyed talking with you at the picnic. You talked to me. I talked back. I thought we could talk more here.”
“I didn’t come here to talk,” Josh says.
“No?” says Emma.
“No. You felt me rubbing your leg under the table, didn’t you? I know you did. You rubbed it back. You said you wanted to fuck. I almost lost my shit. I said I wanted to fuck you.
"I thought you wanted me. I wanted you. No, I want you. As in, present tense.”
“I…”
Emma is standing before Josh. He’s dressed in blue jeans and a dark t-shirt, so she can barely see his image in the nightfall. But she can smell his musk, a mix of summer sweat and dust that has fermented throughout the day to an alluring aroma.
Emma's breathing shortens, and her stomach starts contracts with each inhalation as she looks at Josh. She feels sweat beading just above her buttocks, in the small of her back. Her panties are dampening and her nipples are erect.
“I want to talk,” Emma says. “That’s all. I don’t do anything else.”
“You’ve never been with a man? Preacher’s daughter is a virgin?”
“No,” she says. “I mean yes.”
“You’re shitting me.”
“No.”
“C’mon, Emma. You never been with a man?”
“I kissed a boy once,” Emma says. “I kissed him, that’s all.
“I know it was wrong.”
“There’s nothing wrong with kissing, Emma,” Josh says. “Where in the Bible does it say that? God made man. God made woman. He made them fit together, like this (fitting his hands together). And it feels good. You should try it.
“What does your Daddy say about that?”
“Plenty,” Emma says. “He says it is wrong if you are not married. He says it is wrong to want it.”
“You don’t have to be married to kiss,” Josh says.
“No. The Bible doesn’t say kissing is wrong,” Emma says. “Unless…”
“Unless what?”
“Unless there’s lust,” Emma says. “It is wrong to lust.”
“Well,” Josh says. “Shit. That’s all I got to say. Shit. A lot of people done wrong then. I guess everybody lusts Emma.”
“But it’s wrong,” Emma says. “My father says it is wrong. The Bible says it is wrong.”
“Well, maybe we should just kiss then. But not lust.”
“That would be okay,” Emma says. "That's just what I was thinking anyway. We'll just kiss."
Josh can see Emma perfectly well in the darkness, as her dress and blonde locks illuminate in the moonlight seeping in the door and filling in behind her. The eyelets of lace around her neck and arms glow, and he glances at her summer-toned legs. They shine slightly like the structure beneath a lighthouse beacon.