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I shook my head. I liked Liam. Considered him a friend even, after getting to know each other a little while we volunteered at the shelter. But I didn’t have it in me today to share that a gorgeous stripper who reminded me of my high school sweetheart had probably broken her knuckles on my nose. Nobody had the energy for that story at eight in the morning. “Another time. See you next week?”
“I’ll be here.”
We both got in our cars, his flashy and shiny, mine much more modest. I drove from Saint View back to Providence, the buildings getting bigger and more expensive with every passing street. Outside my windows, teenagers walked to school in expensive Edgely Academy uniforms with blazers, their tuition probably enough to feed a small third world country. Gardeners worked at pruning trees and bushes for people too busy or self-important to do it themselves. An open garage door showed off several motorbikes and a boat.
There was so much wealth and privilege in this town it was sickening. How these people could come and go from their million-dollar houses when mere minutes away a town suffered in poverty was beyond me.
Didn’t they care?
Didn’t they feel the responsibility to help, the way I did? I’d had selflessness drilled into me for the past few years, since I’d become a priest, but it had been the easiest part for me. Helping– protecting—came naturally to me. As naturally as breathing.
At the church, I parked my car in my usual spot. Another car stopped at the same time I did, a sleek red convertible with personalized plates reading KAT WOW.
Steal it.
The intrusive thought held on.
Dump the plates and switch them out for a less obvious set.
I knew a guy who would take care of it for me. Who’d split the cash fifty-fifty.
That money would be life-changing for Tammie and her boys.
I got out of the car slowly, eyeing the convertible with its dark tinted windows and mag wheels, before I came to my senses. “It’s broad daylight, Zeph, and there’s a ton of people around. Stop being an idiot,” I mumbled to myself.
Now wasn’t the time or the place.
But later…
I dragged my soup-spattered T-shirt off and used it to wipe at a splodge of dried tomato soup on my arm.
The slam of a door had me turning back in that direction.
And then doing a double take.
Her.
The woman emerged from a second car I hadn’t noticed behind the convertible, but I would have recognized her shock of reddish-golden hair anywhere.
She glanced over my face, but then looked to my chest, and then dipped her eyes to my stomach. Her gaze slowed to crawling pace, wandering over every tattoo that inked my skin.
If it had been anyone else, I would have instantly turned away and covered up.
But not her.
A shot of heat burst through me, fiery hot and unexpected, though after our encounter hours earlier, maybe I should have been prepared for the way my body reacted to hers.
It took everything in me to put on my black shirt, button it up, and slip on the white priest collar that marked me as a member of the clergy.
Her eyes widened, a blush popping up on her cheeks before she turned away.
“Father Zepherin…oh my gosh, what happened to your face?”
I dragged my gaze away from the pretty redhead in an old tracksuit and Ugg boots, to her taller friend in a flowing dress. The woman was familiar. Katherine, her name was, though I might have forgotten it if the Kat on her license plate hadn’t been a helpful reminder. She was at my sermons regularly, but I had a lot of parishioners, and it wasn’t easy to remember every single one of them.
I approached the woman, careful not to look at her shorter friend for fear my face would give away every thought I’d had about her in the last few hours. In the cold hard light of day, I was sure every inch of my attraction to her was written all over my expression. “Nothing exciting. I do some boxing. Not well, clearly.”
Lyric snorted back a laugh. “Understatement, much? You got your behind handed to you, judging by those bruises.”
