I could be a steward of God by her side. I could be the shepherd and the wolf—and maybe even a husband.
“Penny for your thoughts, Padre?” Tressa’s soothing Spanish lulled me.
“Been saving that in your back pocket, huh?” I traced the pad of my thumb down the center of her bare breastbone, goose bumps erupting in a riot.
Dawn split over the mountains, filtering light through the window and creating a halo effect around her head. I closed my eyes a beat, saving this moment to memory.
“You know I have. Now spill it, Father,” she giggled in English, rolling herself onto my hips, straddling me with her hair falling in a curtain around both of us. She was mystery and mysticism and white-hot magic, and she was solely responsible for showing me how to believe again.
“I was just thinking about faith and how you make me question all of it.” I caught her lips in a slow kiss.
She moaned, hips working softly as her hands trailed up to cup my face. “The Jesuits didn’t warn you about faithless girls with daddy issues tempting you to the dark side?”
I kissed her again, landing a soft smack on her behind as I did. “You’re far from faithless, sweet dove. Your faith just looks different from mine. Faith carried you here, across an ocean, back into my arms. Faith walked along with you when you stood strong against the injustice you hate so much. When you stumbled, when you triumphed, when you loved, and when you worked to help others.” I traced the fine features of her face with my warm gaze. “Love is an act of faith, and we do it better together.”
My lips swallowed any chance of a reply in the well of love she overflowed with. Everything about what transpired between us felt right, even if the timing wasn’t. We’d weathered many seasons apart, grown and rooted to ourselves in deeper and more profound ways, and that seemed to be the very thing to make all the difference.
Her hips hit just the right angle, and she slipped me fully inside of her. “You wanna know what I believe?”
My hands tangled up in her hair, lips trailing down the line of her neck as we rocked together. “Always.”
“It’s not as fancy as what you said, but the one common thread that runs through all major religions is compassion, so…I choose that.” She nipped my ear, taunting and teasing with perfect precision. “Compassion is my religion, Father.”
My hands melded to her body, already warmed by heat and the morning light. “Good answer, sweet dove.” My lips hovered over hers. “I love you with far greater depth and breadth than I knew was possible.”
Her hands cupping my neck, our foreheads pressed together, she murmured, “I love you, Bastien, so much.”
EPILOGUE
Tressa
My fingers worked feverishly over the keys, composing a final email to another set of volunteers in Portugal who were set to start a mission next week. Someone had canceled unexpectedly, so I’d taken it upon myself to browse the wait list to handpick a replacement. Bastien had had the incredible idea of pairing our charity with the one Cruz, his nephew, had started:A Rose Blooms in Brooklyn.While our focuses differed, we found ways to help each other as we both grew with the goal of helping as many people as we could. It turns out Bastien had been a life-changing force of good in Rose’s life when he’d visited Cruz in Brooklyn the summer before his return to Cuba. That was just one of the things I loved most about Bastien—when the darkness came, he never let it phase him, only pulled out his flashlight and went to work brightening the world with his special brand of love. The man had a gift and he’d touched so many with it.
It was no surprise he was such an incredible dad to our kids.
I pressed a hand to my back and stretched, sunlight flooding in through the wide, expansive windows and lighting up the hand-painted Spanish tile under my feet.
I wiggled my toes, feet too swollen for just about anything other than bare feet at this stage.
Pregnancy.
God’s last laugh for women everywhere.
I rubbed at my belly, standing to take in the view. The window overlooked a bold ocean cliff that erupted from the landscape after untold volcanic landslides left steep debris fields in its wake. Verdant green and dark rock and the azure ocean beyond dominated my vision. When Bastien had said his Spanish ancestors had come through the Canary Islands, I hadn’t thought that one day I’d find myself here, a woman on a mission to heal the forgotten people in the farthest reaches of the world.
I traced the ancient stone of the chapel we now called home with my fingertips, gratitude filling all the chambers of my heart. The old, battered copy ofThe Alchemistfrom the man on the bus that day held pride of place on the tiny shelf beside the window.
I smiled, incredulous that a decade later, this book could have such an effect on both Bastien’s and my life. That our sons would read it, that the quiet wisdom contained within its covers would bring us here, across the world to the land where the story unfolded. Epic inspiration sprinkled on so few pages.
We’d moved to the Canary Islands just over a year ago, right into the tiny little church Bastien suspected his own ancestor had once offered communion at. To say it was a full circle moment for him to walk through these narrow hallways was an understatement. The way his eyes lit up at the sheer, holy ancientness of it filled me up in a way I hadn’t expected. Watching Bastien follow his bliss fueled mine.
And with the fact that our youngest son would be born here, an emotion unlike anything else filled me entirely. Ms. Carmelita’s Santería fertility tea had worked miracles.
While my husband devoted his entire life to his family and others, in his free time, Bastien had begun researching his own ancestry, convinced that he came from an ancient line of holy people, maybe even dating back to The Knights Templar and the Holy Crusades. I loved that when he threw himself into something, he went there all the way. We’d already spent countless weekends hiking the mountains around our new home, searching for clues of former spiritual rituals or buildings or artifacts. The boys thought of it as some sort of modern treasure hunt, and seeing them engaged with the world their people came from lent entirely new meaning to the feeling of wholeness.
Searching for Bastien’s ancestors filled up my husband in a way nothing else could.
Bringing our kids along for the journey, biological and adopted, brought him to life in a new way. Watching him discover his past was a gift for me to witness, along with growing our newest little addition.
