Page 2 of Hotter 'N Hell
Get away from me, Satan.
But she’d lit a candle. She’d come in here for a reason. And it was my job—my calling—to help her.
“Wait.” The word came out, and I inwardly winced.
This is a bad idea, Jude. She needs to go find another priest to help her. One who is old enough not to care that she looks like one of those girls dancing on the bar at Coyote Ugly.
I’d only been there once, but it was memorable.
When she stopped and looked back at me, her hair floated slightly off her back with the motion. “Yeah?” The sultry tone to her voice was natural.
God, seriously? One thing. You could have given her at least one flaw. A big one. Something to even out all the others you blessed her with.
“Why did you light a candle?” I asked, taking a few more strides in her direction.
She lifted one of her shoulders. “I don’t know. I’m not sure I even understand what it is for.”
Okay, so she wasn’t Catholic.
“If you aren’t Catholic, what brought you here?”
I was probing. She had me curious, and, yes, I wanted to help her.
She shook her head and let out a short, breathy laugh, but it held no humor. It masked pain. She was hurting and covering it up well. Or I’d missed it because I was so focused on her extraordinary face.
“I think I lit it for me,” she said. “I don’t know anymore.”
Eyes like hers shouldn’t look so lost and broken. I preferred when they had sparkled with amusement that I was the priest. What I saw in them now made my chest ache.
“You can light it for anyone. But did you pray? That’s what it’s for. A petition to the Lord or a saint for intercession on your behalf.” I didn’t want to get too complicated and bore her with the entire reasoning behind it.
Her eyes shifted to the votive stand. “That’s the thing. I don’t know what to pray. I’m not sure if I even believe in God. This is the second time I’ve been inside a church in my life. I just…well,nothing else seems to work. I figured I’d give the God thing a go.”
The heaviness behind her words were what made me say what I did next.
“Listen, I have two hours before men’s Bible study. Why don’t we sit here and you can talk? I might have some wisdom to share. It is my job.”
Her eyes did a quick take of my jeans and boots again, and she almost smiled. “How old are you?” she asked me.
“Twenty-nine.”
“They let you be a priest at twenty-nine?” she asked, sounding shocked.
“They will let you at twenty-five if you’ve received your degree and other requirements. I was twenty-seven, however, when I finished my internship at a parish in Fort Worth and was assigned this one.”
She licked her lips, then pressed them together. I shouldn’t be looking at her mouth, but it was extremely difficult not to. Another reason letting her leave would have been the best choice.
“Okay,” she replied and walked over to take a seat at the end of a pew. “Since you’re an elder in the priesthood at the ripe ole age of twenty-nine, I suppose I can talk. Might help. It’s either this or go get drunk and show up at a wedding when I’d rather eat glass than attend it.”
This could not be about heartbreak. There was no straight male on this planet who would have dumped her for another woman. Not possible. But then maybe that was it. He wasn’t straight. She’d been in love, and he was gay and hadn’t come out of the closet until it was too late and her heart was involved.
I sat down in the pew in front of her, sitting sideways and bending my knee so that I could face her. Resting an arm along the back of the seat, I told myself this would be fine. She was in need of guidance, and I could do that.
She gave me a small smile, and I noticed the slightest gap between her two front teeth. You’d have to be close to her to see it, but it was there. An imperfection that only seemed to make her more appealing.
Try again, God. That one ain’t working.
“I hate a dead man,” she said, then let out a long breath. “It’s been ten months since I watched the boy I’d loved for most of my life get shot and killed and eight months since I found out he’d left behind a pregnant girl that he’d been cheating on me with.”