He laughed, really laughed, then.
A laugh that I felt down to the tips of my warm toes despite every nerve in my body resisting.
“So, tell me, has the new pope updated his views on Darwin yet?”
Amusement swam in his eyes, his focus wandering across my face for long moments.
Father Bastien did that often.
Letting his eyes linger while his thoughts ran away.
I’d give untold stashes of money to be inside his head then, wading through all those saintly thoughts.
But were they?
Saintly?
I didn’t know why Father Bastien fascinated me so much. Maybe it was just his age, the first man I’d seen in a clerical collar who was within roughly ten years of my own. It definitely wasn’t the way his corded muscles stretched the dark fabric of his shirt, or that custom he had of looking you in the eye, listening intently, compelling you to divulge your greatest sins.
Well, I wouldn’t know about that last part.
I hadn’t been brave enough to enter a confessional with Father Bastien. In fact, my status as a lapsed Catholic was something of a running joke between us.
It was weird, the life I’d found myself in, knee-deep in the traditions of a religion I no longer believed in.
“My—the pope’s—innermost thoughts on things like evolution and the Big Bang might surprise you.” He picked up the small prayer missal that sat on the end table, bathed in dim yellow light.
“And?” I breathed as he uncapped a small vial of holy oil, dampening the pad of his finger before indicating to me, a familiar gesture from my childhood, one I hadn’t thought about until that moment.
“Surely my first anointing from the new priest must have some special merit.”
“Maybe.” His eyes glinted with dark mischief as he started the time-honored ritual. “You really want to peel that onion?”
“You know I do.”
“Rebel.” The thick accent on hisrvibrated down to my toes as he swept the blessed oil across my forehead.
His fingers on my skin set off sparks of desire inside me like the grand finale at a Fourth of July show.
“Saint,” I whispered under my breath, accusatory.
His grin cracked even further, another layer of the armor he carried every day falling away.
“I wish more people could see you like this.”
“This?” He stepped closer.
“Funny.”
He grinned, stark-white teeth cutting the warm pink flesh of his lips. “Throwin’ another log on that fire, Tressa?”
I bit back a lie, knowing he wasn’t talking about the fire at all, rather my relentless jabs at the core of his very life’s vocation.
“Just waitin’ for you to take the bait one of these days.”
“I knew you were.” He took two steps closer, shoulder grazing mine before he leaned into my ear and said, “I’ve made it my goal to withhold the very thing you want most.”
My heart thundered inside my chest as he and his heavenly bubble of radiant warmth moved away, heading to the kitchen where he quietly tipped the lid on a pot bubbling away thanks to the gas-powered stove.
That was the other bonus of the rectory. My house was much older, in need of countless updates, the electric stove being one of them.
“Dare it be?” Bastien’s smile deepened. “Tressa speechless?”
I snagged my bottom lip between my teeth, still begging my heart to quiet its righteous rebellion against the loneliness consuming my chest.
“This time, Castaneda. This. Time. But it would be a grave mistake to get used to it.”
