Page 50 of Royal Games (The Royals of Monterra)

“You’re right,” she said, her fingers tapping away. I hoped she was getting rid of his contact information and not texting him more. “Every time I do this I get to wake up the next morning to a transcript of shame.”

“In your defense, though,” Whitney added, “technically you didn’t drunk text him. Peach schnapps did.”

“Maybe he should take it as a compliment. He was the only person you could think of when your brain wasn’t working.” Part of me wished Rafe had heard this. So that I could show him a real-life example of the kind of woman who would lose her shoe at midnight.

Pastor Dave approached and asked if he could speak to me. Whitney and Nicole told me goodbye. Nicole planned on going to the diner to get some dinner, while Whitney was going home. She had cut back on her hours ever since Rafe had given Christopher a job. I told them I’d see them later, and walked with the pastor back to his office.

Was this about the postcard? I wasn’t ready to talk about that.

“What’s going on?” I asked as we sat down at his desk. With his silver hair, lined face, and happy blue eyes, he’d always made me think of a beardless Santa Claus. He even usually smelled of peppermint candy, which I’d always associated with Santa.

“I was about to ask you the same question,” he said. “It seems like something has been weighing on your mind. Is there anything you’d like to talk about?”

He was probably the only person in town who hadn’t watched the show, and he wasn’t one for gossip. What with it being a sin and all.

Had Aunt Sylvia put him up to this? It was like when she wanted me to go on the show. She was so determined, so fixated on that goal that I couldn’t say anything to dissuade her. And now she seemed just as determined to repair my relationship with Rafe. I wouldn’t put it past her to enlist a man of the cloth in her efforts. She probably figured she’d win if she could claim she had God on her side.

But Pastor Dave had been a big help to me when I was younger. Maybe he would have some good insight for me now. “What do you do when you can’t trust someone because they hurt you in the past?”

“That’s a really good question,” he said.

Usually when somebody says “that’s a really good question” you can be sure it’s a lot better question than the answer you’re going to get back.

But Pastor Dave was awesome at good answers. “There’s a whole list I could give you, but it boils down to some simple concepts. Forgiveness and trusting in yourself.”

“That’s it?” I had expected something more profound.

“The best stuff is the most basic. The man that you—we are talking about that young man out there, correct?”

I hoped my face hadn’t gone too bright of a red. I nodded.

“It doesn’t matter what he does. You can’t control him or get a guarantee out of him. The person you have to trust is yourself. Trust that you can make wise decisions.” He had his hands folded together on his desk, so sincere and earnest.

“I’m not sure I know how to trust anyone anymore,” I admitted.

He leaned back in his chair. “That’s not true. You trust people all the time every day. Your entire life is filled up with little acts of trust. You trust the drivers around you to drive safely. You trust your customers to pay you when you bring them the bill. You trust your employer to give you a paycheck. You trust your committee members to do the things they promised to do.”

That was certainly a different way of looking at it, but it didn’t feel the same. “He lied to me.”

“Everybody lies. Even pastors. The only person who didn’t ever lie was Jesus. Nobody is perfect, and you can’t ask them to be. If you ask him to earn your trust, you’re asking him to never make a mistake. To never hurt you, and to never upset you. That’s not realistic, even for people who don’t have baggage and are blissfully in love. Like I said in the beginning, if you can forgive, and if you can trust in yourself to work through the issues, then it will all work out.”

My first instinct was to say that he didn’t know what he was talking about, but he’d been married to his wife for over forty years. Maybe he knew a little bit more about it than I did. “I’m not sure I do trust in myself. Or that I can work through it if he hurts me again.”

“You have to realize that trust isn’t about never again experiencing a negative emotion. It’s about knowing that you are strong enough to deal with whatever comes your way. In my line of work, we also tend to call that faith.”

He made it sound so easy. Like I could just let Rafe explain why he did what he did, and then get over it and move on. Have faith in him and faith in us that we could work through everything together.

But was that what I wanted? “I don’t want to be hurt again. I’m so tired of being hurt. I just want to be ...” I searched for the word, and it popped into my head. “Safe. I want to be safe.”

“In trying to keep yourself safe, all you’ve accomplished is keeping yourself lonely. Let me give you this piece of advice. When you expect someone to mess up, when you put them under a microscope and wait for them to hurt you, they always will. You’ll see betrayals even when there aren’t any.”

The pastor folded his hands together. “You’re a clever, kind, strong girl. I know you can figure it out.”

I gave him a fake smile, my head swimming in thoughts. Could it really be that easy? Did I want it to be that way? I said I wanted Rafe to leave me alone, but I found myself looking for him. Turning toward him whenever I heard his voice. Missing him when we weren’t together. I had spent a long time denying it to myself because I thought our obstacles were insurmountable. What if they weren’t?

He stood up, and I did too. He thanked me for all the work that I was doing for the new roof, but I hardly heard him because Rafe was waiting for me at the back of the church by the doors. My heart did a little skip when I saw him.

“Just remember, nothing in life is guaranteed. Well, except computers and robots. And would you rather be in a relationship with a robot or a flawed human being?”

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