Authors: Jevenna Willow
There was only acceptance to what lay
ahead and deliverance from sins, if God willing.
Chapter
Five
Sara stared at the window. Her trapped
thoughts caught on watching a droplet of water connect with another before
sliding down the pane as a whole. The pouring rain only made things worse. The
sound it made had her unsettled; afraid of what might come her way tomorrow,
and of what she might have to be dealt with when not ready for any more trouble.
Sara was fearful of what she could not
control. Falling rain was one of those uncontrollable things. Rain could wash
away what one wanted to stay hidden; easily uncovered the truth by truly
violent nature or even deadlier calm. Rain, in fact, could kill.
Sara stared at the window for a few
seconds more, then pulled her sight from it. Her attention slipped over to the
bowl. Seven dollars and fifty cents of pure Hell stared back at her from across
the room. Seven dollars and fifty cents of a past she had to let go and
forget—soon.
Yet, how was this even possible? She certainly
couldn’t go out searching through pouring rain, in hopes to locate a certain
Mr. Mohr, when she had a convertible the top no longer worked. Her car parked
in the underground garage and only drivable on sunny days until fixed.
And the phone company
accidentally
disconnected her line late yesterday afternoon so she couldn’t exactly all him.
This disconnection done by the man who ran the local branch . . . and, who’d
been a regular at the club. After a few minutes arguing the inexcusable fact
out with the man’s secretary, by way of pay phone in the back of the grocery
store, and a few choice adjectives to get her point across, Sara had gotten his
secretary to admit her boss might have made a mistake, and first thing Monday
morning she would certainly look into it.
Mistake, her ass! He’d done it on
purpose. They were all doing odd little things to Sara . . . on purpose.
Undelivered mail, removed antennae from the roof of her car, cut cable lines
from her apartment, a flat tire, a huge ten mile detour on a road she’d driven
to work every day for the past eight years—and no construction equipment on
sight.
However, none had ever made her second
guess her every move as a mere stranger had; namely, the words and deeds of one
well-connected Reverend Mohr.
Mohr, Sara was afraid of. Not by
profession, or what he might have caught in an unguarded reaction from her, but
by the way he was connected to, well, you know . . . the Big Kahuna up in the
sky; the big
Numero Uno
, who Sara was more than simply mad at for all of
twenty-five years.
She rose from her couch and walked
straight for the bowl, picking it up in hand; turned it over and looked at the
crack once more. It did not seem as bad a crack when inside the apartment as it
had when out in the open and held under natural sky. It was too bad she didn’t
own this piece. It would have fit her collection perfectly. She could’ve easily
hid the crack by way of cunning display. If anyone ever asked to see it more
closely, she could tell him or her it was too delicate to remove from the shelf.
Yet, it was not as though she had tons
of people in and out of her apartment, checking out her antiques with a
microscope. Sara wasn’t so great at keeping friends once made. Foster Care
fucked that up for her.
Drawing in a deep breath, she set the
bowl on the table near the door. Tomorrow morning, bright and early, she was
going to take it to the man . . . if ever it stopped raining.
Besides, there was no sense in catching her
death of cold while searching for a man she’d met only once, just to give him
his bowl back. Moreover, it was not as though the bowl was going to get up off
that table and walk out her door. She could wait.
Sara was getting good at waiting.
Allowing the bowl to torment her from
the table, she slipped off her shoes and headed back to her couch. She tucked
her feet under her blanket and settled down to start on her book. She would’ve
preferred a Friday night all-you-can-eat fish fry down at Rachel’s café, but
with the way things now stood between her and the occupants of Preacher’s Bend,
Sara was better off staying home and reading a book. She didn’t have the
strength to fight off those who hated her.
The more it rained, the more she read.
The more she read, the more tired she
became.
A full hour later, Sara drifted off to
sleep. Okay. Perhaps choosing a paranormal instead of a steamy romance, and one
with far too many vampires sucking the blood out of far too many foolish girls,
should have warned her any attention level would have diminished quickly. The
book fell out of her hands onto the floor. She never heard the disturbing sound.
Nor had she noticed that when it fell most of its pages ripped out of the seam.
Wrath from the librarian a given.
Sara’s week had been long, and her
afternoon into evening even longer. And, as expected, an alarm that was
supposed to wake her up in time for supper never did.
Sara remained on her couch, blanket over
her legs, until the following morning.
With a huge crick in the neck, blinding
sunlight hitting her square in the face, she forcibly raised her incredibly
sore body from the couch and struggled to walk toward her kitchen area. Coffee
was the only real cure for falling asleep on the most uncomfortable piece of
furniture imaginable.
She couldn’t simply toss the damn thing
out of the apartment. Her couch cost her eight hundred dollars at an Estate
Sale. For eight hundred dollars spent, it had to make it through at least five
years of use. Yard sales were not the only thing she was a fanatic about. Sara
loved a good Estate Sale too. The table by the door came from one. As did her
dresser inside her bedroom, her lamps, and the huge trunk set in the middle of
the living area she used as a coffee table and mini-storage shed.
Everything she had was hers, and that’s
all that mattered.
About to pour a cup of vanilla laced
coffee from her automatic brew, Sara jumped at the sound of the doorbell. Her
sight moved hurriedly to the wall clock. Eight a.m.? Who in their right mind
would dare bother an individual on the only Saturday they had off in nearly two
full years?
She grudgingly meandered toward her
door, empty coffee cup in hand, same clothes on that she had on the day
before—and checked the visitor through the peephole.
All she could see through the tiny glass
was a man’s back. Sara would recognize his leather jacket even in the dark. Her
groan was uncontained by what her eyes became witness to.
Her first thought was to pretend she
simply hadn’t heard the doorbell. It was a lazy rain-soaked Saturday in Preacher’s
Bend. But, he would probably ring it again, and she would have to pretend
twice; perhaps thrice; and he didn’t seem the type to give up and leave well
enough alone.
Likely, the godly-soaked jerk would
cross the hall and tell the woman opposite Sara that she had his bowl and had
only come to claim it.
Sara could have sworn the note the old
woman gave her had read eight p.m. Perhaps she’d mistaken the wording and he’d
meant for it to be eight a.m.
Well, mistaken or not, Sara had this
man’s possession and he was at her door. Without thought, she opened the wooden
panel to one peacock arrogant, dangerously gorgeous Reverend Christian Mohr. The
moment he turned around she truly wished she had pretended she’d been asleep.
Chippendale
was just too damn hot to handle so early in the morning.
There was not a flaw on the man, not a
hair on the head out of place, or a whisker unshaven as far as the eye could
tell. He even smelled great. Strong male mingled with expensive leather and equally
expensive aftershave. God! The best two smells on a man—ever.
Sara deeply envied anyone who could look
so damn good so early in the morning. She’d had a rather vivid nightmare about this,
two hours ago, and most of it about this man.
“I see you found me,” she snapped. Once
the words said, she bit down on her tongue to prevent any more from exiting so
foolishly, as well, rudely.
What did he expect? She could be civil
without her morning coffee?
His smile turned to dangerous, the
production of it creating the largest dimples Sara had ever witnessed. His tone
of voice, smooth honey, became the icing on a rather desirable cake. Add a
little whipped topping and cherry to that pile and life would be damn near
perfect.
“Yes. I did,” he admitted. “But then . .
. you knew that I would.”
Sara thought herself crazy by
overanalyzing everything and reading too much into it, but she had to ask, else
it would have driven her crazy. “Do you always do this?”
His brow rose, the words to come next.
“Do what?”
“Put a person on edge from the moment
you open your mouth?” she reconfirmed, albeit, as cautiously as should be warranted,
as a crocked tip to his mouth made him even more handsome than before.
“Sorry?” he asked.
Sara shook her head. As said, her mouth
was way ahead of her brain and the brain barely functioning without its morning
coffee. “No. Not this time, Mr. Mohr.”
“Reverend,” he interjected.
“Excuse me?”
“It’s actually Reverend Mohr,” he
assured flatly, as though having to say it was an actual chore before eight
a.m.
“Yes, well . . .
Reverend
Mohr.”
Sara took a huge step back, allowing the man ample room for his glowing ego to
arise.
Perhaps, as well, allow the Reverend
added space he would need for all that saintly glow to reach out and save the
world.
“You don’t like me very much, do you?”
he suddenly asked.
Sara located her stalled thoughts swiftly
by this rather inquisitive statement. Her eyes widened and she told him, “I
don’t even know you, for me to put any real thought to if I like you—or not.”
His dimples dug deeper on her hasty
response.
“Yet you have my bowl,” he recklessly
construed.
Sara took a deep breath, tempered her
emotions, and stated, “That wasn’t my fault . . . now was it?”
She felt the man’s gaze slide across her
frumpy attire, move to her empty coffee cup, and then re-glue to her terribly
creased clothing of yesterday; and all of this done as if by touch.
Sara shivered.
Jeans, gray Army sweatshirt, and a faked
smile was all she had on. Well, at least the jeans and the Army sweatshirt were
par for the course. Her smile, however, was temporarily not her own on the
account of one reason and one reason only. Mr. Mohr.
No. Excuse that.
Reverend
Mohr.
“No, it is not your fault. However, may
I come in so I can claim it back?” he suddenly asked.
Sara shook her head. “I don’t think you
coming into my apartment as such a great idea, Reverend.”
“You have something against my being
here?”
Sara shook her head. “No. It’s not that.
. .”
“Then against giving a dying man a cup
of coffee?”
Sara’s brows rose in sharp contrast.
“Are you,” she asked. Christ! He was using every weapon he could grasp onto to
get her to let him inside her apartment? Trouble was one of them worked on her.
“Dying?” He shook his head. “No. It’s
just I haven’t had my morning coffee. The coffee pot is broken. And same as all
others, I do need caffeine to function properly.”
“Can’t you just go out and buy another
pot?” she ruled sharply. Seconds later, she appalled this had sounded so mean.
“I would have if there hadn’t been a
shortage of coffee makers in town and nearly every one of them sold.”
“Is that so?” Sara asked, wondering if
he was telling her the truth or simply making things up as he went along.
Still, a tiny urge to smile caught her by surprise. As a Church Man, surely he would
not be so bold as to lie right to her face?
“I’m afraid this is the honest to God
truth, Ms. Ruby.” The words echoed to her thoughts.
Unrestrained by her own lack of
caffeine, Sara smarted, “And Lord knows a church man would never lie, unless
for a really good cause.”
This seemed to check the Reverend
tenfold. He took a step back and actually glared at her face.
This glare, however, dissipated as the
words, “Do you think we could somehow start over, Ms. Ruby?” came out of his
mouth.
Before any applicable response could be made,
and before God could strike her dead for being so snippy, more were added to
it. “It does seem to me—perhaps not to you, but surely to me—that you and I
have gotten off on the wrong foot.”
Sara’s sigh was heavily felt out of her
chest, equal to lack of proper brain function. “Do you mean by the fact that
every time I feel the need to run and never look back, you seem to pull me into
the folds of sinful wrath and godly condemnation?”
Her tone was tart, brittle, and so truly
unnecessary so damn early in the morning. Lack of sleep . . . and well, a whole
let else lacking fueled this fire.