Page 5 of West Bound
“There were other sins too,” I try to explain.
“Are you still working with him in the archives?” Aria twirls a leaf of basil between her thumb and forefinger, no doubt plotting how she might get me out of my situation.
“I don’t know. He might not want my help now.” I bury my face in my hands and groan. “I can’t believe I didn’t realize it was him. I was so focused on doing what was right and getting this guilty feeling off my chest that I just made a bigger mess.”
“Don’t get too in your head. Maybe he found it endearing, and he’ll let you do some extra credit in the archives to get back in good graces,” Aria counters, and both Tamara and I snap ourheads in her direction, eyebrows raised. “Oh wow. Okay. I did not mean it like that, and now I’m seeing why you have dirtier minds than me.”
“Impossible.” Tamara rolls her eyes. She’s the best of us for sure. I might wear a better mask than Aria does, but I fear that if Tamara knew any of my real thoughts, she’d be dousing me in holy water on the daily.
“Mädln!” Sister Maria Teresa shouts from across the garden. She calls us girls like we aren’t all in our twenties. I suppose compared to her seven decades toiling away on this earth, we still seem like children in comparison. “Wir müssen Abendessen machen! Schnell!”
“And onward to the next chore we go.” Aria moans, gathering the basil and her gardening gloves. I help clean up the small harvest by picking some of the peppers and tomatoes, filling another basket before I follow them inside.
Maybe I can stay in the kitchen all night tonight instead of having to serve tables. I don't love sweating over the stove, but piping the whipped cream on the cakes and making the schnapps-spiked vanilla sauce that the convent restaurant is famous for wouldn’t be the end of the world. It would give me a few more hours of reprieve from seeing him in person.
But it still wouldn’t stop the way I’d spend half the night back in my room, doing my best not to think of him, and having him appear unbidden anyway. Sometimes, I remember him debating the complexities of reliquary records while pushing his glasses up his nose and flashing me a bright grin. Other times, I imagine a future that doesn’t exist. One where he sweeps me off this island, onto the one across the lake, and we dance the night away in the half-finished palace’s mirror room under the light of a thousand candles. At least in my head, there’s a world where there’s a happy ending and not the reality I’ve chosen for myself or the one fate dealt me back home.
THREE
Levi
“Oh my fucking god!”A whiskey-rich laugh echoes from the other side of the line as I explain the day’s events to my older brother, Grant.
I’m wandering on the far edge of the lake, a good distance from the convent’s walls along the shoreline, where I have a clear line of sight to make sure no one has followed me out here. Not that anyone would. They’re all convinced I am who I say I am, to the point I start to wonder myself until I get a dose of reality through the phone again.
“Fucking hell. It’s funny, but I don’t know if it’sthatfunny.” I curse as I pick up a rock to skip across the lake as the sun sets. I miss the lake back home. The falls that pour into the river that leads to its basin. The feel of the Colorado sun on my face and the sight of ponderosa pines and aspens rising out of the red rocks and scrub brush. The memory is such a contrast to the hint of Alpine chill here and the broad linden trees and edelweiss. They’re beautiful in their own right, but they aren’t home.
Speaking of beauty, this lake is breathtaking when you’re alone. It’s so much quieter out here at this hour when the sailboats and the kayaks have gone home for the day, the tourists are tucked in their beds, and the wildlife has simmered to a dull hum as they nestle down for the night. I took a walk once after dinner with Zephyrine, and I hadn’t known where to put my eyes, on her or the sunset. I could see why the convent was built here. Why the king was designing a castle to rival Versailles on its shores.
My brother’s renewed laughter knocks me out of my daydream.
“Oh. I’m not sure there’s anything funnier than that. You as a priest taking confessions from nuns?” He cracks up again, and I hear the distant tinkle of a woman’s laughter in the background. I suspect it’s my future sister-in-law, and he confirms it a moment later. “Even Dakota can’t stop laughing.”
“Laugh it up. Both of you. Real funny when you’re not the one sweating it out in a tiny box trying to remember whatever the hell we learned at St. Martin’s when we were kids.”
“I’m sorry. I just… Did anyone confess to anything spectacularly devious?” he muses, no doubt rattling ice around in his lowball glass.
I can see him now, like he’s right in front of me, leaning back in his worn leather chair behind his massive oak desk in the offices above the Avarice. Grinning at the way I’m being forced to play a man of the cloth in these austere conditions halfway around the world while he runs the floors of the casino from the safety of his cushy executive suite.
When I’m not moonlighting as a priest, I co-own a luxury casino resort in Purgatory Falls, Colorado with him. It’s a small mountain town that my family has run behind the scenes for decades from our home at Bull Rush Ranch. My youngest brother owns the ranch and inn now with his once-and-futurewife, and my oldest brother and I have taken over the largest family business outside of it. Ours turns a much bigger profit than the ranch could ever hope to, thanks to a never-ending supply of lust and greed, but they’re both formidable family businesses.
“I couldn’t tell you if they did. Confessions are private.” I play the reverential role assigned to me on this mission.
“Oh fuck. You have been there too long.” He groans, and I hear the squeak of his chair as he sits up straight again.
“I just want a decent fucking burrito, smothered in green chili. I would give my soul for one right now. That and an endless supply of cold ice water. I don’t know what the fuck these people have against good Mexican food and water that doesn’t fizz,” I grumble. The food here is good. The little cakes Zephyrine makes are even better. But it doesn’t stop the rumble in my gut that can only be sated with familiar flavors and a glass of ice-cold water from the mountain runoff.
“At least you get to enjoy the beer.” Grant attempts to remind me of the benefits of being here. There’s one particular upside I’ve enjoyed more than I should, and I wonder if she’s been using her rosary all day to atone for her part in it.
“Fair.” I launch another rock across the water, but it dips below the surface after three mediocre skips.
“Did you get any more research done in the archives? The stuff Charlotte wanted?” His tone turns more serious, and we shift back to the business at hand.
“Not today. I was practically snatched out of my bed by Sister Maria Teresa, politely instructing me I would take the English confessors today. She’s a fucking battle-ax. I don’t know how these women deal with her every day. A lifetime of it. Can you fucking imagine? I could barely handle dad telling us what to do as kids.” I scoff.
“I don’t think they have much of a choice. Isn’t that the whole deal with them when they take their vows? Something-something poverty and obedience and all that?” My brother sighs on the other end of the line, and I can hear him filling a whiskey glass, the slow trickle of the pour, the click and roll as the cap slips back into place. Just another thing I miss. There’s plenty of good liquor around here, more than enough. But I miss the taste of home at this point, regardless of how irrational it is.
I have to focus on priorities. I can do my job from here, and what I’m doing right now is worth ten times what I could be doing in an office at the Avarice. Besides, it’s not like I have someone waiting for me. My brothers are both engaged. Grant runs our empire, and the other plays professional football when he’s not running the family ranch. My sister’s marriage might be on the rocks, but she has a wildly successful career as an archaeology professor and a teenage daughter that’s smart as hell. Then there’s me.
