The Saint: The Original Sinners Book 5 (18 page)

“Look,” she said, once more addressing the nobody in the chair, “I know he’s a good priest. Fuck 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. God damn, is he pretty. I mean...You damn.”

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 bullshit, right? We Catholics want to be special, want to be different. God 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 shellfish or having poly-blend fibers. Seriously? What’s Your problem with spandex?”

She raised her hands in surrender.

“I know, I know. It’s not You. This was our baggage and we put Your name on it and we blamed You. Our bad. Søren said to treat the Bible not as a work of history or a science textbook and to treat it instead like Communion. Communion is a spiritual meal, not a physical meal. So the Bible’s the same thing—it feeds our soul. It’s not a how-to manual.”

Eleanor realized she’d gotten off topic. She’d never talked to a chair before and rather enjoyed having a captive audience. She should do this more often. Maybe she’d stick a real person in the chair next time. She could gag him and get the same sort of undivided attention.

“So to my point, God. I have one. I love Søren. I love him, and I’m in love with him. I love everything about him, even the stuff I don’t know about him. He’s proved to me that he’s a good person no matter what it is that he’s scared to tell me. I don’t care if he’s a wolf. He says I’m not a sheep, which is either a compliment or a threat. Both, probably.”

As soon as she said “both” she knew that was the right answer.

“In Hebrews...I think. I think it’s Hebrews, it says that ‘faith is the assurance of things hoped for, a conviction of things not seen.’ Something like that. So I’m saying now that I have faith in Søren. And he has faith in You. It’s the best I can give You right now so I hope it’s enough. I know he has secrets, stuff he’s not ready or willing to tell me. It’s okay. I still believe in him. He believed in me, so the least I can do is return the favor, right?”

Eleanor took another deep breath as she came to the conclusion of her rambling, barely coherent prayer.

“So here’s the deal. I promise that if You let me have him, even in a small way, if You let us be together like we want to be...” She decided to not go into excruciating detail about exactly how she wanted to be with him. Surely God, if He existed, was well aware of the sexual fantasies she entertained on a nightly basis about Søren. “If You do that, let us be together, then I promise You I will never let him leave the priesthood for me. I don’t need to get married. I don’t need to have kids. I don’t even need him. But please, God, let us be together.”

The words hurt coming out. And because they hurt she knew she meant them.

In her mind she wore a wedding dress—white and made of silk—and held two pairs of baby shoes in the palm of her hand. She kissed the toes of the tiny shoes and sat them gently inside a large wooden trunk. Then she took off the wedding dress and carefully folded it, laying it over the baby shoes. She closed the trunk and locked it with a key. With all her might she tossed the key into the sky, flinging it a thousand miles away so it landed into the center of the ocean and sunk into the black waters of night. And on the off chance someone found that key and brought it back to her, she doused the trunk with gasoline, struck a match, set it on fire and watched it burn.

The tears came in silent waves as inside the privacy of her own mind, she burned her dreams to ashes. What would rise from those ashes she didn’t know—she only knew something would be born from them, something she’d never seen before.

A new dream. A better dream.

A wind rustled the ashes at her feet. She opened her eyes and stared again at the empty chair.

“Deal?” she asked God. “Let’s shake on it.”

She held out her hand as a whistle blasted and a train barreled past her house, shaking the walls, the floors, the ceilings, everything to the very foundation.

Eleanor glanced at the clock—3:26 a.m. She stared at the clock in confusion. For seventeen years that train had rattled by the house at the same time every time—12:59, 6:16, 3:38, and 7:02. Never in all the years she’d lived in this house had the train rattled by this late at night.

Never once. Never ever.

Turning back to the chair she lowered her hand.

“Okay, then,” she said. “It’s a deal.”

19

Eleanor

FOR THE THIRD
time in two hours, Eleanor refilled her bucket with cold water and poured in a cup of wood soap. She lugged the heavy bucket back to the sanctuary and sat it on the floor next to the center section of pews. For the past three weeks, she’d been washing the woodwork in the church in an attempt to pay Sacred Heart back for her legal fees. Maybe her dad was right. Turning tricks would be much a much easier way to make money.

As she washed the wood on her hands and knees, she let herself fantasize about her future. Søren had ordered her to apply to five colleges and she had. Now she couldn’t stop dreaming of a life at NYU. She’d been in love with the Village and the NYU buildings since she’d first seen them as a little girl walking through the city with her grandparents. Still she knew it was a waste of a dream. She had good grades but not good enough to get a scholarship. Student loans would only cover a fraction of what she’d need to pay for NYU. Maybe she could find a hot dean or something and trade her body for tuition money.

Eleanor couldn’t believe how hot it was in the sanctuary. Sweat beaded on her forehead and spilled onto the floor. She’d already soaked through her shirt.

For another hour she washed the pews until she could hardly see straight. Her mascara burned her eyes. What the hell was going on?

Eleanor dragged herself off the floor and stretched her back. She shouldn’t be this hot. She’d changed into a sleeveless T-shirt, her cutoff denim shorts, and other than a pair of kneepads, she didn’t have anything else on except for sneakers. She walked over to the wall and squatted down by the vent. Boiling hot air poured from it into the sanctuary.

That wasn’t good. Was the heat broken? She stepped out into the foyer and found the heating controls. Someone had jacked up the temperature to ninety degrees. Ninety. Fucking. Degrees.

Her priest was a dead man.

She stalked down the hall to Søren’s office. Luckily they were alone in the church this fine Thursday evening so she could kill him without anyone trying to stop her.

She found him in his office sipping from a dainty teacup.

“Are you some kind of sadist?” she demanded.

He made a notation onto a piece of paper.

“Yes.”

“You turned the heat up in the sanctuary?”

“I didn’t want you getting chilly.”

“You turned it up to ninety.”

Søren looked up from his notes.

“Did I? My apologies.”

“That was the least sincere apology in the history of the universe.”

“Possibly.”

“I’m working my ass off in the sanctuary scrubbing two hundreds years of farts off the pews and you’re sitting in your seventy-degree office drinking tea and writing homilies. It’s hot as Satan’s balls in there, and I’m sweating like a whore in church. Do you have anything to say to that?”

Eleanor crossed her arms over her chest and stared daggers into the office.

Søren looked her up and down before turning his attention back to his Bible.

“I like the kneepads.”

“I hate you.”

“Forty-two,” he said, as he pulled a file folder from his desk drawer.

“Forty-two what?”

“I’ve been keeping track of how many times you’ve declared your hatred of me. That was forty-two.” He opened the file folder and scanned something inside. “No, forty-three.”

He make a tick mark on the page.

“Forty-four. I hate you. Why the fuck did you turn the heat up to ninety?”

“You stole five cars. Instead of going into prison or juvenile detention, you endured nothing more than volunteer work. Now that you are paying back your legal fees, which were not inconsiderable, perhaps you need to suffer more in your service. It’s good for the soul.”

“Suffering is good for the soul? You’re sitting in your cute little office drinking your gross-ass tea that smells like bacon—”

“It’s Lapsang souchong.”

“It’s disgusting. You’re drinking disgusting tea and writing homilies in your room-temperature office while I’m dying in there. I don’t see you suffering.”

“I have suffered. My suffering has ended.”

“Did you find Jesus?”

“No, I found you.” Søren closed his file folder and slipped it back into the drawer. He sipped his tea again, sat the cup down and returned to his work.

Eleanor pressed her hand into her fluttering stomach.

“How would you feel if I stood on top of your desk and screamed my head off?” she asked.

“To be perfectly honest, I’m surprised you haven’t done it already.”

To be perfectly honest, it surprised her, too.

“Now that I’ve suffered, can I turn the heat back down to a low boil? More first circle of hell than eighth circle?”

“If you insist. But while cleaning the pews, I want you to think about your sins.”

“I will. Especially the ones I plan on committing with you someday.”

“Good girl.”

Eleanor started to turn around, but Søren said her name.

“Yes, your blondness. What?”

“Did you mail off all your applications?”

“I did as ordered, Your Majesty.”

“Are you going to tell me where you applied?”

“University of None Ya. University of Mind Your Own. University of Not-tellin’. Big Secret College. And St. Stay-out-of-it Technical College.”

“Interesting choices.”

“The University of Not-tellin’ is my safety school.”

“Is there any particular reason you’re being so secretive?”

“You got me out of going to prison. You have secret ninjas everywhere who get stuff done for you. I don’t want you making phone calls on my behalf trying to pull strings for me.”

“I would never do such a thing.”

“Liar.”

Eleanor loitered in his doorway for the sole purpose of cooling off in the draft. That and staring at Søren, who’d actually stepped foot into Sacred Heart tonight without his collar on. Dual purpose, then.

“Eleanor?”

“What?”

“You’re staring at me.”

“You’re gorgeous. Of course I’m staring. How’s the dissertation going?”

“Can’t we discuss more pleasant topics? Like my summers spent in leper colonies?”

“Big baby.”

“Go back to work.”

“Yes, Father Stearns.”

“I’d prefer you didn’t call me that,” he said.

“How about Mother Stearns?”

“How about
sir?
”

He raised an eyebrow at her. Eleanor’s stomach tightened in a surprisingly pleasant way.

“Yes, sir,” she whispered.

Søren gave her a look that set her fingers to tingling.

“Good girl. Now shoo. I don’t have time for distractions today—even pleasant ones.”

She left him in his office and headed toward the sanctuary. A shadow flickered at the end of the hallway, a shadow in the shape of a person. Had someone been here the whole time listening to her and Søren? In a panic Eleanor raced through the conversation in her mind. Did they say anything that could get them into trouble? Søren flirtatiously complimented her on her kneepads. That wasn’t good but could be explained away as sarcasm. She told him his Lapsang souchong was disgusting, which it was. No one could argue with that. Oh, fuck. She’d asked him why he no longer suffered.
Because I found you....

Fuck.

Eleanor half walked, half ran down the hall toward the shadow. But when she reached the end, she saw no one and nothing. Being in love with a priest had made her paranoid. Who would give a damn about her enough to follow her around anyway? No one.

She thought about telling Søren she’d seen a shadow if only for the excuse to talk to him again. Through his office door, she heard his phone ring, heard him answer it. He spoke too quietly for her to make out the words, however, so she returned to the sanctuary.

Eleanor opened the doors and put the stoppers down in the hope that cooler air would start to circulate.

She found her bucket again and got on her knees as she dipped the rag into the pine-scented water. She’d only done about two square feet of cleaning when she heard footsteps echoing off the floor. Søren had apparently not tortured her enough for the day. Fine. Round two.

“If you come in here I’m going to make you clean,” she said, glaring at him. She expected a smile or a laugh but no. Søren wore the strangest expression on his face.

He sat down in the pew behind her and gazed upon the crucifix behind the altar.

“Søren?” Eleanor knelt backward on the pew in front of him. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong. My father is dead.”

Eleanor’s hands went numb.

“Oh, my God. What happened?”

Søren shook his head. “I don’t know. My sister Elizabeth is coming here tonight to talk.”

“Are you okay?” She wanted to take his hand but although he sat only inches from her, he seemed too far away to reach.

“I am...” He paused for a long time. “I am
ashamed
of how happy I am that man is dead.”

Eleanor didn’t know what to say so she said the only thing she hadn’t said to him yet.

“I love you.”

Søren tore his gaze from the crucifix to her.

“Thank you,” he said. “I needed to hear that.”

Thank you? Better than “no, you don’t,” but not quite as good as “I love you, too.” Still, she was glad she’d said something right for once.

“There is a visitation Saturday, the funeral on Sunday. You’ll come with me, won’t you?”

“I’ll come with you?” she repeated, not sure she’d heard him correctly.

“Can you? Please?”

Søren sounded so humble with his quiet “please” that she would have handed him her own heart if he’d asked for it.

“I will. Yes. Definitely.”

“Good. We’ll leave tomorrow evening once you’re out of school. Kingsley can send a car. Pack for two nights.”

“Where are we going?”

“New Hampshire, to my father’s house.”

“That’s not going to seem sort of suspicious? A priest bringing a date to the funeral?”

“My youngest sister is about your age. I’m sure she’ll come. You can stay with her.”

“Sure. Of course.” Eleanor’s head spun. She and Søren were going away to New Hampshire for the entire weekend. He wanted her to meet his little sister and attend his father’s funeral with him. When she woke up this morning she hadn’t suspected her entire life would change by the end of the day. Apparently God didn’t like to give out any warnings on that sort of thing.

“You can go home. You need to pack. And I need to make some phone calls.”

“Can I do anything for you? Help with anything?”

“You help me by existing. And I promise, I’m fine. In some shock, but I assure you, this is good news.”

If anyone else had heard him call his father’s death “good news” they might have balked. But Eleanor wouldn’t mind if her own father fell off the face of the earth. She could hardly blame Søren.

“So what do we do?”

“Come by the rectory tomorrow. We’ll leave from there.”

“You mean I’m allowed in the rectory tomorrow?”

“Eleanor, the reason I made you stay away from me for so long is so you could grow up and be ready for the things I need to tell you. Are you ready now?”

“I’ve been ready for you since the day we met.”

Søren took her hand in his and pressed the back of it first to his heart and then to his naked throat, before kissing her knuckles.

A man had died.

She smiled all the way home.

Eleanor packed that night as ordered. She’d been to a few funerals in her day. Grandparents, one random great-uncle she didn’t remember. She’d gone with Jordan to her aunt’s funeral. But this was different. She had no right, no business going to Søren’s father’s funeral. She couldn’t begin to think of a single rational way to explain her presence at her priest’s dad’s house. She would have to get creative.

First of all, she had to think of a way to explain her absence to her mother. Easy enough. One phone call to her friend Jordan took care of it. She told her mother she’d be accompanying Jordan on her college visits this weekend. Done.

As for everyone else? She’d have to wing it.

School dragged by the next day. She couldn’t think about anything but the prospect of being in a car for four straight hours with Søren. In a car for four straight hours? Eleanor stopped drinking water at noon. Last thing she wanted to do was interrupt Søren to tell him she had to pee.

She stopped at her house after school and picked up her duffel bag. She left her mother a note reminding her she’d be gone all weekend. Hopefully she’d be able to use a phone at the house in New Hampshire to call her mother on Saturday night. As long as she checked in once during the weekend, her mother wouldn’t get suspicious. Then again, it wasn’t like her mother gave a damn what she did anymore.

As she neared the church Eleanor realized it might raise a few eyebrows if someone saw her trekking over to the rectory, overnight bag slung across her back. She walked around the block and found a path to the rectory through a back driveway. She’d have to remember this trick. If life proceeded as she wanted it to, this wouldn’t be her last time sneaking over to Søren’s.

Outside the house she paused. To knock or not to knock... While she debated those choices, she studied the house. She’d always loved the rectory at Sacred Heart. A beautiful Gothic cottage, the rectory had been around even longer than the church. She’d heard the church had practically arm-wrestled with the original owners to get the land and the house. She didn’t blame them. As a little girl she’d thought of the house as magical, enchanted. It looked like the houses in her fairy-tale books—the steeply pitched roof, the gable dormer windows, the stone chimney, the cobblestone path, the trees that encircled it, hiding it from prying eyes.

It still enchanted her now, although for different reasons. No longer did she see the two-story cottage as something from a fairy tale. It had taken on much more potent significance. Søren lived in this house. He ate here, drank here, dressed here, bathed here and slept here. Someday, she knew, she would sleep here, too.

She knocked on the door.

Søren opened it without a word. He didn’t speak to her, because he had a phone held to his ear.