Page 2 of Holly Jolly Heresy
“You’re sure?”
“I’m sure.”
A few moments of silence, the muffled sounds of her eating. Then, “This is weird.”
“Why?”
“Because I can’t see you. You’re just…listening to me eat?”
Caleb slid back the screen separating their booths, revealing the woman on the other side. Molly wore a white turtleneck sweater, the knit material hugging her ample curves and wrapping around her throat, her chestnut hair loose around her shoulders. His gaze lingered on her mouth, the sheen of oil on her lips from her salad dressing as she ate.
It took some effort for him to look away. “Better?”
“Better.” She settled against the side of the confessional, turning her body towards him as she poked around in the plastic container before spearing a cherry tomato and popping the red orb into her mouth. “So, Father, if you’re not hearing confessions, what are you doing?”
“I am also hiding from Mr. Day.”
She laughed, the sound bouncing off the wood so foreign in this space it made him laugh as well. “I know why he’s after me, but why’s he after you?”
Caleb sighed. It was no secret that he and the principal of St. Anthony High butted heads regularly. Bruce Day was a “letter of the law” kind of guy, and Caleb...wasn’t. Especially when it came to caring for the students. And while Caleb might be the spiritual leader of the school, Bruce was the disciplinarian, a role he seemed bound and determined to wield like his very own fiery sword, leading the teenagers in their care to the path of righteousness through fear and punishment if necessary. Caleb was more of a “the greatest of these is love” kind of leader, something Bruce saw as eminently distasteful and untrustworthy. Mostly Caleb just stayed out of Bruce’s way.
“He’s decided he needs to balance the secularity of our drama department by adding more religious pageants into the school calendar.” Caleb could barely keep the disdain from his voice.
“More pageants? Do we doanypageants right now?”
“None. Which is apparently the problem. He was not satisfied by my answer that the students at St. Catherine’s Elementary do enough pageants for both schools.”
Another laugh, this one tinkling and light, tinged with their shared annoyance over the principal’s fanaticism. It felt like a victory, that laugh.
“Wouldn’t that fall under religious education?” she asked.
“If only. Then I could overrule him. He’s decided it’s an extracurricular club, and when I tried to argue against it for budgetary reasons, he countered that he’s already secured all the costumes we could ever need from a Catholic school in Maine that closed down at the end of last year. I’m heading there tomorrow to pick them up.”
“He’s not going himself?”
Caleb shot her a wry look. “That’s exactly why I’m hiding. After he badgered me until I agreed to make the trip, he added that he’d be happy to go with me. Apparently, the pastor in Maine said we’d need at least two people to pack everything up. Bruce called it a pilgrimage.”
“The two of you trapped together in a car for that long? One of you isn’t coming back alive.”
“Don’t I know it. If someone else wanted to come, I could get him to stand down.”
She hummed thoughtfully as she speared another tomato.
“I was going to ask Hannah to go since she knows about costumes, and honestly the theater department will probably end up stuck leading these pageants eventually anyway, but I don’t know her well yet...”
“I’ll go.”
Caleb’s heart stopped, every muscle in his body tensing. “You want to go to Maine with me?”
She shrugged, her eyes trained on her salad as she turned over the lettuce with her fork, digging for croutons and cucumbers. “Sure. Jo’s using our apartment for a photo shoot tomorrow so I can’t stay home. And I’ve been helping Hannah with costumes since last year, so maybe I could be helpful. It beats hiding out at a coffee shop all day.”
His palms itched and the back of his neck tingled with awareness.Lead us not into temptation... “It’ll be a long day. Three and a half hours each way.”
“I don’t mind.” She glanced up at him, her brows drawn together and uncertainty flashing in her eyes. “Unless you don’t want me to come. I didn’t mean to—”
“No, of course, I’d love for you to come.” He swallowed hard, his pulse racing and heat washing over him. “Great idea.”It’s a terrible idea.
She smiled as though she only half believed him. “Can I be the one to tell Bruce?”
