Part 28 (1/2)

”I want to be his best friend.” She grinned broadly at Kingsley's retreating back.

”Don't let your guard down yet. He's not finished,” S0ren said.

S0ren was right. At the door Kingsley turned on his boot heel and strode back to her. He looked down into her eyes. A moment before he'd worn the air of a das.h.i.+ng rogue like something out of a romance novel. No more. Now he seemed dangerously sober to her.

”A word of warning.” Kingsley looked at her and only her. ”Your shepherd is a wolf. You will learn that eventually and you will learn it the way I learned it.”

”How?”

”The hard way.”

”Kingsley, that's enough.” S0ren wasn't joking anymore. Neither was Kingsley.

”Tell her what you are, mon ami,” Kingsley said to S0ren, his eyes never leaving her face.

”You've either had too much to drink tonight, or not enough.”

Kingsley smiled broadly, but Eleanor saw no amus.e.m.e.nt in his eyes.

”Never enough.” He bowed his head at her, turned on his heel again and left the room, this time without whistling. As he walked away she heard the sound of his military-style boots echoing off the floor.

S0ren exhaled as if he'd been holding his breath for the entire exchange.

”Eleanor, allow me to finish apologizing-”

”What did he mean my shepherd is a wolf?” She turned her eyes to S0ren. He didn't blink, blush, laugh or demure. But he didn't answer the question, either.

”The wolf eats the sheep,” she said. ”Should we, the sheep of Sacred Heart, be scared of you?”

”No.”

”No?”

”I only eat other wolves.”

”That's a comfort, I guess.”

”It shouldn't be,” he said.

”Why not?”

S0ren gave her a look so dangerously hungry she'd almost describe it as wolfish.

”Because, my Little One, you aren't a sheep.”

After that, S0ren bid her the most perfunctory of goodbyes. She didn't blame him for leaving so abruptly. If that Kingsley person were in her house, she wouldn't want to leave him unsupervised, either. No telling what, or whom, he would get into. So that was the brother of S0ren's dead wife? She had to sit down again while the reality of S0ren's revelations sunk in. It didn't matter really, did it? Didn't matter that he'd been married once twelve years ago? No, it didn't. The dead wife was a dead issue. Buried. Gone. Eleanor shoved her out of her mind and resolved never to think of her again.

But Kingsley-now, he interested her. S0ren had admitted to jealousy over her and that Lachlan guy getting to third base. But Kingsley had stood six inches in front of her and joked about beating her, raping her, f.u.c.king her, losing his watch inside her, which she didn't even understand.... Oh, f.u.c.k. Yes, she did.

Ow.

Kingsley had eye-f.u.c.ked her, word-f.u.c.ked her, teased and taunted her, and all the while S0ren had stood by doing nothing except trying not to laugh.

And what had Kingsley meant when he called S0ren a wolf? What had S0ren meant when he admitted to being one? Too many questions. Not enough answers.

Eleanor finished cleaning up. It didn't take long, as Diane and James had a small wedding with fewer than a hundred guests. They couldn't afford much more than that, but neither of them seemed to mind. They'd both smiled so much today Eleanor's cheeks had sympathy pains. It had caused some controversy when S0ren had hired twenty-five-year-old Diane. She was black, for starters, and Wakefield was a lily-white town. Black and very pretty, which also raised eyebrows. Even more shocking, she'd been divorced. A divorced woman working for a Catholic priest. S0ren had helped her get her first marriage annulled so she and James could marry in the church.

If only all priests were as rational and open-minded as S0ren. Never once in his year and a half at Sacred Heart had she heard him give a homily condemning h.o.m.os.e.xuality, premarital s.e.x or abortion. Instead he focused his attention on social justice issues-feeding the hungry, helping the needy, visiting the sick and the dying and those in prison. He was a good priest, the best priest. No matter what his secrets, no matter that he desired her as much as she desired him, he was still the best priest on earth.

A little after 3:00 a.m. Eleanor finally made it home. Mom had no doubt been in bed asleep for hours. Alone in her room, Eleanor stripped out of her shoes and jeans. In her T-s.h.i.+rt and panties she sat on her bed, the radio tuned to the cla.s.sical station. She wanted to sleep, needed to sleep, but her mind wouldn't let her. She wanted to talk to someone, but there was no one to talk to. No one but G.o.d. Might as well give it a go.

When S0ren had been taking her through the Spiritual Exercises, he'd taught her a specifically Jesuit way of praying. S0ren said most people couldn't concentrate during silent prayer. The mind wandered here and there. Speaking prayers out loud helped with the focus. But Jesuits didn't stop there. One technique, S0ren told her, involved standing before an image of G.o.d or Christ and speaking the prayer aloud to it. Some Jesuits even sat empty chairs in front of them and spoke to the chair as if G.o.d sat there.

”And this really helps them get through to G.o.d?” Eleanor had asked with more than the usual level of skepticism.

”No. It helps G.o.d get through to us. To quote my grandfather's namesake, S0ren Kierkegaard, 'Prayer does not change G.o.d, but it changes him who prays.' All these tricks and techniques are for our benefit, not G.o.d's. G.o.d's a parent. Call Him, send Him a letter, go to His house, it doesn't matter how you reach out to Him, He wants to hear from His children.”

Tonight Eleanor wanted to hear from G.o.d. She didn't expect an answer, but those few minutes she'd spent in S0ren's arms had been like a gift. The embrace, the words of comfort, they'd come from nowhere. She hadn't asked for them or expected them. When given a gift, she'd been taught to say thank you. She didn't know who to thank for the gift of comfort she'd received today so she thought she'd give thanking G.o.d a try. She put a chair in the middle of her room and sat on the edge of her bed staring at it.

”I feel like an idiot,” she said to the empty room.

The empty room didn't answer.

”Something's not right here. S0ren's getting drunk tonight with the second-hottest guy on the planet, and I'm home alone praying. I think we accidentally switched our to-do lists.”

Still silence.

”Tough crowd,” she said and pulled a pillow over her lap, squeezing it for comfort.

She considered giving up and cras.h.i.+ng, but her heart hadn't stopped racing since the moment she'd stepped foot onto that rose-petalstrewn carpet today. And today, after a year of ignoring each other to the point of pain, she and S0ren had finally had a real conversation. She'd been living with a question mark for a year now wondering what, if anything, would happen with S0ren. And tonight with a hug and a few words he'd proved himself worthy of her devotion again. She couldn't loiter in limbo anymore. She had to make a decision.

”Look,” she said, once more addressing the n.o.body in the chair, ”I know he's a good priest. f.u.c.k that, he's an amazing priest. Have you seen how many people show up at church now? It's like twice as many as when Father Greg was here. And you and I both know it's not just because he's pretty. Although he is pretty. G.o.d d.a.m.n, is he pretty. I mean ... You d.a.m.n.”

She glanced up at the ceiling. ”Sorry,” she mouthed.

”Anyway, thank You for tonight.”

She took a deep breath.

”So he says You want him to be a priest. He says he didn't really feel like himself until he became a priest. I can't ask him to give that up. Not for me or anyone else. I can't. I won't.” She felt immediately better once she'd made that part of her decision. She loved him and he was a priest. She wouldn't ask him to change for her. What if it was the priest in him who cared for her? If he left the priesthood for her, maybe he wouldn't care about her anymore?

”About the priesthood thing ... be straight with me here. Celibacy? You and I both know it's made-up bulls.h.i.+t, right? We Catholics want to be special, want to be different. G.o.d forbid we're too much like Protestants with their married pastors. The entire church harps constantly on how important the Catholic family is, Catholic marriage, Catholic babies and then we don't let our own priests have Catholic marriages, Catholic families? We're making it up. There's nothing in the Bible about this, right? I've read it. You've seen me.” She held up the red leather Bible. For the past year she'd immersed herself in the Bible, reading from it every night. She zoned out through a lot of the begetting, but she'd more or less conquered a big chunk of the Old Testament and had worked her way through all the Gospels.

”Jesus didn't say anything about how people shouldn't get married or why it's better to be celibate. Yeah, there's a lot of stuff in there about not fornicating, but there's also a lot of stuff in there about not eating sh.e.l.lfish or having poly-blend fibers. Seriously? What's Your problem with spandex?”

She raised her hands in surrender.