Page 10 of Love is Strange
“And your lover?”
She pursed her lips, a dark expression infiltrating her pleasing features. “He’d left the village months before that. To finish his studies in Florence.”
“So he doesn’t know about her?” I gestured with my chin to the other room, where her wee babe slumbered.
“Oh, he knows.” A jaded smile made her look far older than she was. She set her empty cup in the cradle of its saucer, her gaze penetrating mine. “Knowing and caring are two very different things.”
I nodded. “What made you choose to come to Galway of all places?”
“You chose Galway,” she shot back at me.
“Galway chose me,” I corrected her. “I’d have happily been stationed at a country church somewhere far warmer.”
Her eyes danced as the sun came out from behind the clouds and cast her in warm light. “It’s a stop along my journey. I plan to earn enough for passage to America.”
“With a face like yours, that shouldn’t take you long.” It simply slipped out, and I felt myself blushing up to the roots of my hair.
“I’m told you can be anything you wish to be there…” Her gaze lifted from her scone to me and probed me so thoroughly I felt a bit violated. My smile went into hiding, but that didn’t deter her appraisal. She licked her lips nervously. “I should be getting back before I’m missed.”
Eve hurried out of the room to her baby’s side, then hovered over her for a couple of minutes as if rooted to the spot. Instead of scooping her up, she simply kissed her tiny forehead. Lip quivering, Eve seemed to gather her wits, and lifting her chin, she turned to me and met my eyes with determination.
“So you’ll take her? Find her a mother and father who will do right by her?”
Red-faced, I nodded. “I’ll take her.”
“You will?” She visibly relaxed, beaming at me.
“There’s a couple in my congregation. They’ve been trying to start a family for a couple of years now. She’ll be the miracle they’ve been waiting for.”
Eve flung herself into my arms, her grip on me fierce. Her mouth found mine, kissing me unabashedly on the lips. I didn’t fight her, in fact, I held her close…her soft curves salve for my aching soul. Her tongue dipped into my mouth, ever so slightly, and frankly, I enjoyed it far more than was decent, imagining very, very bad things. She pulled away far too soon, as if remembering herself and who I was. “Sorry, Padre. You’re sure they’ll be good to her?”
“They’re lovely people.” The truth was, just the previous week, the wife had confessed to having impure thoughts. She was ready to find another source for the potent sperm she desperately needed. It was no coincidence that the husband had confessed a week prior to regularly losing his temper with her. My intervention on Eve’s behalf seemed a practical way to kill three birds with one stone.
“Thank you, Padre.” Eve’s husky voice and hooded eyes made promises I had no business acknowledging, yet I filed away for a rainy day. “I will not forget this kindness.”
“It’s my pleasure,” I confessed, hoping I didn’t look or sound as eager as I felt.
“Thank you.” She rushed for the door, and I got the distinct impression she wanted to leave before she could change her mind.
“Eve.”
“Yes?” Her jaw tightened, and her shoulders squared, as if bracing for me to add conditions.
I leaned casually on the nearby sofa, nodding at the baby. “Does she have a name?”
Eve softened, eyes on the wood planks at her feet. “Mary.”
“Like the Holy Mother.”Or the whore whom Christ befriended?
She nodded, her dark eyes shining with pride. “I can hope, can’t I? That she turns out far better than me?”
“…hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts…” I replied, and our gazes entwined in a tango, sending tingles rippling through me. “Book of Romans.”
Eve closed the distance between us, folding herself into me. Her embrace was fierce, and far too enjoyable. Her head rested against my chest, and nothing—not my confirmation, not my vows—had ever felt quite so right. I closed my eyes and savored the feel of her, the smell of her.
She pulled back so that she could look me in the eye. “God has poured love into my heart for you, Henry. You’ve saved my Mary, not once but twice now. In turn, you’ve saved me. And I am forever in your debt. If there is anything I can do to repay you …”
“There’s no need,” I insisted, but my mind was already weaving stories. Images flickered before my glassy eyes. Her straddling me in a pew…her pinned underneath me in my bed…
