She probably didn’t have to be so devious. She could, she supposed, just have Cruz drive her somewhere and leave her. But was that really possible? If she spent more time with him, touched him, probably kissed him again, would she be able to let him go? Even now she was having second thoughts.
No . . . this was best.
“I just need to use the bathroom,” she said.
“Me too.”
“There’s only one,” she said. “Unisex.”
“Ladies first.” He drained his beer. “I’ll pay up.” He climbed to his feet, and as he did, she stood on her tiptoes and slipped one arm around his waist, her fingers sliding into the pocket of his jacket as she kissed him lightly on the lips.
“Thank you, Cruz,” she said, seeing that he was stunned. Her fingers discovered his key ring. She closed it in her fist, then stepped away from him and hurried down the hall.
He stared after her as she pushed open the door to the restroom.
Don’t let him search for his keys, oh, please.
Heart hammering in her ears, she used the toilet, washed, and was out of the restroom just as Cruz was leaving bills on the table. Her throat was dry, her palms wet, and she felt as if she were drowning in her own perfidy.
Oh, Holy Mother, help me.
As she left the restroom, she met him in the hallway. His eyes were dark, flashing.
He knows!
Her knees nearly buckled.
To her surprise, he grabbed her and dragged her against him, pulling her tight, her body fitting to his. “I hope you know what you’re doing,” he said, breathing hard against her lips, “because I sure as hell don’t.” Before she could pull away, he kissed her. Hard. Passion seething between them. She felt the brush of his whiskers and tasted the hint of beer and cigarettes.
The fever running hot in his blood seemed to seep into hers.
I want you,
she thought wildly.
She sagged against him for a crazy instant, felt a moment’s regret, and opened her mouth as he tasted her. The world seemed to melt away, the sounds of the diner disappearing over the thudding of her heart, the desire thundering through her blood.
No, no, no!
But she didn’t stop. Couldn’t.
When he finally lifted his head and stared into her eyes, his were hot. Intense. Her skin was throbbing, tingling.
His voice was ragged as he said, “It’s not a sin if you renounce your vows,” he said.
“I . . . I haven’t taken the final ones.”
“Lucia, think about it.”
Her heart cracked, and she wondered for a moment if she’d ever stopped loving him. For years she’d told herself her fascination with the man was a schoolgirl crush.
Now . . .?
But loving him would be an act of supreme idiocy.
Swallowing hard, feeling guilty as sin, knowing she was using him like the kind of women she abhorred, she said, “I will, Cruz,” and though she meant it, that she would consider renouncing her vows, had already decided, in fact, she knew she couldn’t, wouldn’t, consider his underlying question. There was no future for the two of them. She knew it now; he’d know it in a few minutes.
He let her go and walked into the bathroom.
Lucia didn’t wait an instant. She grabbed her backpack, put it over her shoulders, and pushed her way out the back door, past the busboy who was emptying the trash from a smaller can to the large bins near the parking lot. The smell of old coffee grounds, rotting vegetables, and bad fish soiled the air.
Lucia barely noticed as she jogged across the lot and told herself she could do this. She could steal a motorcycle; she could ride it without skidding into a ditch or hitting another vehicle.
It’s just like riding a bike—once you learn, you never forget!
Or so her cousin, Juan, had once insisted.
Oh, Holy Father, she hoped that just once Juan knew what he was talking about!
She was already fumbling with the keys as she reached the Harley. Her heart was pounding crazily, her hands sweating so badly that she nearly dropped the key ring.
Come on, come on,
she told herself. It had been years since she’d driven a motorcycle, and then it had been her cousin’s little Honda, half the power of Cruz’s beast of a machine.
Adrenaline screaming through her veins, she threw her leg over the seat, started the bike, and took off. The Harley growled, tires chirping and laying rubber as it streaked forward.
Cruz’s helmet flew off the handle bars to bounce behind her across the asphalt of the parking lot.
“Hey!” A man’s voice followed her, and she looked over her shoulder to see Cruz, feet planted shoulder-width apart, backlit by the diner, a tall, broad-shouldered, and far-too-sexy man. As if it finally hit him that she was actually taking off and leaving him, he started forward at a dead run, all the while yelling her name.
Too late.
Lucia lowered her head as the engine whined. She shifted, and the bike hit a pothole in the parking lot, shimmied, then straightened as she reached the street. She slowed slightly, then gunned it.
Hang in there. You can do this,
she told herself, but sent up a quick prayer, just in case God was listening.
The headlamp burned bright as the thick Louisiana night rushed by, the wind catching her braid so that it streamed behind her like a long black snake.
She roared past a park and told herself to obey the traffic laws, to not push the speed limit and risk being pulled over. Not until she reached the freeway. Then she could let the Harley out, run it through its gears, and ride, as her cousin would say, “hell-bent for leather.”
She rounded a corner, sweeping through an amber light as she headed northwest.
Was it her imagination, or did she hear the hiss of sibilant laughter over the roar of the Harley’s big engine?
Heart in her throat, she closed her mind to the images of a dying nun, her throat rimmed in blood as she lay over a bed of glinting metal, the blood dripping onto her tattered gown, her face blurred beneath the veil.
“Psssst!”
“Leave me alone!” she cried to the rising wind. She saw the signs for the freeway and stepped on the gas to leave New Orleans and Cruz Montoya behind forever.
S
o I slept with my husband,
Valerie thought.
So what?
No big deal, right?
Then why did it feel massive? As if Val’s life had shifted on its axis?
Oh, for the love of God, she was starting to sound like some starry-eyed heroine in a chick flick.
Stop it,
she told herself, and rolled over.
Slade was lying on his stomach, arms folded under his squashed pillow, his head twisted in her direction. The sheets were tangled and bunched over his buttocks. He slept soundly, snoring softly, his face relaxed, his tanned skin in contrast to the white sheets. A shock of hair fell over his eyes, and dark lashes rested against his cheeks. Her heart filled at the sight of him as it had so long ago. She stared at the width of his shoulders and the slope of his spine, all taut muscles covered with smooth, golden skin.
Why had she been resisting him so long?
What was wrong with falling in love with her own husband?
Especially one she felt now had been vindicated, falsely accused by yours truly.
With a sleepy groan, he rolled onto his back, his entire torso exposed, his erection evident.
“Gettin’ an eyeful?” he asked in a voice rough with slumber.
“You’re awake?” she said, and couldn’t help the heat that washed up the back of her neck.
His smile slowly stretched from one side of his beard-darkened jaw to the other. “Like what you see?”
“You’re incorrigible.”
“I love it when you talk dirty to me.” He rolled off the bed and, as stark naked as she, wrapped his arms around her and pressed his mouth to hers.
“Oh, for the love of—”
Still kissing her, he walked her backward into the small bathroom, reached into the shower, and before it warmed, pushed her through the tiny opening and under the bracing spray. She squealed, with him laughing, and as the water temperature heated, so did she, her blood pounding as his hand moved across her slick skin. Using a bar of soap, he washed her, kissed her, and pinned her against the tiles where he lifted her onto his thick erection, sliding her easily onto him as the water cascaded over them.
She blinked against the spray and gasped at the depth of his penetration, the breath squeezed from her lungs, her breasts flattened and soapy.
“Oh . . . oh . . . oh, God, Slade,” she cried as the first wave of orgasm crashed over her. Convulsing, sputtering, feeling spasm after spasm of release, she clung to him, arms wrapped around his neck, legs surrounding his hips as he thrust upward, his breathing as rapid as her own, her back sliding against the wet tile. Melting inside, she dug her fingers into his shoulders.
Again he plunged deep into her.
And again.
And again.
Until she closed her eyes and let out a deep-throated sound she didn’t recognize as her own voice.
“Oh, God,” he ground out, then shuddered a release, his head thrown back, the cords of his neck distended as he came inside her, stiffening, every muscle in his body contracting.
For several seconds the water washed over them, and slowly their breathing slowed. She was eye level with him, staring deep into his smokey gaze, watching drops drizzle from his hair and off the tip of his nose.
“You’re incredible,” he said, and she laughed.
“Uh, you did all the work.”
“My pleasure, ma’am.”
“I told you that aw-shucks, country-boy charm doesn’t work with me.”
He laughed then, still holding her, still inside her. “No? God, I’d love to see what happens when something does work. I might just have a heart attack!”
“I hope not. Think of all the fun we’d be missing.” She kissed him soundly on the mouth then, the shower still spraying them, then disentangled herself and grabbed a towel. “What a difference a few days make.” She was thinking of earlier in the week when an intruder had been in her home as she’d stood under the shower’s spray.
“Hey!” He grabbed her arm. “About last night—”
“Pretty damned great, right?” she teased.
He didn’t smile. “Yeah, it was. But before. You had a nightmare . . .”
“The same one I’ve had for years. I had it as a child, and for a long time it was gone . . . then . . .” She thought for a moment and didn’t want to dwell too deeply on the monsters of her subconscious. “It’s returned.”
“Since when?” he asked, and she didn’t have to think too hard.
“Since I came back to New Orleans,” she admitted, but didn’t add,
Since I left you back in Bad Luck.
“You want to talk about it?”
“No.” She was certain of that. Thinking of the dream would only shatter the peace of mind they’d found together, ruin it all. “Maybe later.”
“Seriously?”
“Yes.” She looked straight into his eyes, where drips of water were still starring his lashes. “In time.” She slipped out of his grip and steadfastly shoved all thoughts of the nightmare from her mind.
Once she’d toweled off and thrown on her robe, she started coffee and let an anxious Bo out as the warm Louisiana sun began to warm the day. Lights were on in the main house, and birds were already chattering, though traffic was sluggish, as it was the weekend.
Slade, dressed only in low-slung jeans, walked into the kitchen. “You could get lucky today,” he said with a wink.
“I thought I already did.”
“That was me. But I could take you out to breakfast. What about beignets down by the river? I’d even spring for some fancy coffee drink—you know, the kind those people in the Northwest are so nuts about.”
“A latte?”
“Or whatever.”
“Sure, but first I have a few duties here. Let me help Freya and then we’ll—”
Her cell phone rang and she picked it up. She didn’t recognize the number on the caller ID but answered anyway. “Hello?” she said as Bo whined to be let in and the coffeemaker gurgled.
Nothing.
“Hello?”
Her heart froze.
“Is anyone there?”
“You’re nexxxxxxt,” the snakelike voice hissed. “And there is no essssscape.”
As the sun crested the eastern sky and fingers of gray light slipped through the streets and alleys of New Orleans, Montoya found his brother outside. Cruz was seated on the back stoop, Hershey lying at his feet, his battered motorcycle helmet at his side, a cigarette burning, unsmoked between his fingers.
To top things off, Cruz smelled like a brewery.
The motorcycle was conspicuously missing, probably lost in an all-night poker game.
“Trouble?” Montoya asked as Hershey climbed to his feet and nudged his leg for a pet.
“Nothin’ I haven’t faced before.” Cruz looked up and sighed. “Boy, did I fuck up,” he said.
“Want to talk about it?”
“Hell, no!”
Montoya sat on the stoop beside him and waited. Cruz crushed his cigarette under the heel of his boot; then reluctantly, pissed as hell at himself, he told his brother about his night.
Sister Charity was beside herself.
Two nuns missing this morning?
Two?
She swept down the hallway, the skirts of her habit rustling, her rosary beads clacking, her hem brushing across the floor.
Oh, Holy Mother, be with me.
They had searched the grounds and the rooms, but nowhere could she find Sister Lucia and Sister Louise.
Where could they be?
Worry ate at her, causing her stomach to burn with acid and her mind to travel to dark places inhabited by Lucifer himself.
Don’t go there,
she silently reprimanded herself as she walked through Sister Lucia’s room one last time. It was empty, all her earthly possessions gone, the bed neatly made.
Sister Louise’s room, however, was just the opposite. It looked very inhabited, the impression on her mattress visible still, the sheets rumpled, the covers thrown off. But the bed was cold to the touch. Cold as death.
Charity’s heart constricted. Fear seeped into her soul, and even the corners of her eyes felt tight, as if pulled by imaginary strings.
Thankfully, she thought, no bodies had been found.
Maybe they left.
Together.
The difference in their rooms mere indications of their different personalities.
Perhaps fear had driven them away. And what part of that fear could she ascribe to herself, forever clucking after them like a mother hen or guarding over them like a hawk? Had she been kinder, wiser in her administration, more loving and less rigid, perhaps she wouldn’t be looking for them now.
Forgive me.
She’d spent the very early hours of the morning praying, searching and telling herself she was panicking for no reason, that the frantic drum of her heart was an overreaction; but now she was convinced. All her rules, the extra security, the new locks and police driving by St. Marguerite’s was to no avail.
She walked into her office and realized she’d received a message, one that came in, according to the recorder, a few minutes after five a.m., a time she was never at her desk.
Clicking the PLAY button, she heard a voice she recognized, one she’d prayed she would hear again.
“Reverend Mother, this is Lucia. Lucia Costa. I want you to know I’m fine. I left the order this morning, and I’m on my way to a new life. I realize you might not trust this message, that you might think I’m being coerced into leaving it, but please, trust me, I’m safe. May the Holy Mother’s grace be with you.”
Click.
The message was over.
Sister Charity sank into her chair and replayed the message twice, telling herself she didn’t hear a sound of distress in the girl’s voice, that Sister Lucia wasn’t lying.
Where had she gone?
Why didn’t she say?
Because she’s tired of your meddling.
Because she’s afraid.
Because she doesn’t want to be found.
Sister Charity bowed her head, felt all of her sixty-seven years, not old by any means, she’d told herself, but this morning she was weary. Her joints ached and she felt ancient, the relic she’d heard more than one novitiate call her. Not yet the dinosaur that Sister Irene thought she was.
She placed her elbows on the top of the desk, cast one quick glance at the picture of the Pope, and prayed to the Holy Father for guidance, for help. She was humbled. Afraid. Didn’t know what to do.
In her mind, she heard the voice of God.
Follow your heart, Charity, my child. You know the truth. You know what you must do. Be obedient yet vigilant, firm yet kind. Trust yourself and those around you. Believe in me and in my Son and in the Holy Spirit. Trust the Holy Trinity.
When she whispered a soft “amen,” she realized her eyes were filled with tears and that she’d been weeping in both sorrow and joy. Her cheeks were damp, salty drops falling onto the top of her desk.
She tried to pull herself together. Her grief would not overshadow her faith; her fear would not thwart her courage. She, as the handmaiden of God, would prevail.
Yet her hand was shaking when she reached for the phone and dialed St. Elsinore’s parish. Though it was barely seven, someone answered, probably due to the fact that tonight was the auction for which the parish of St. Elsinore’s had been planning for over a year.
When she was finally connected to Sister Georgia, Charity forced herself to murmur a few pleasantries she didn’t feel and imagined the mother superior at the orphanage without her wimple, veil, and habit. A modern woman was Sister Georgia, a nun with both feet securely set on the sod of the two-thousands, and yet, deep in her heart, she was as staid in her ways, as structured in her beliefs as was Charity.
She had to be.
They both learned their lessons from Sister Ignatia, together at St. Elsinore’s, as orphans. Both Georgia and Charity had grown up within the crumbling walls that were now, for the first time in nearly two hundred years, being emptied of their charges, eyed for possible demolition.
A travesty.
“So, what can I do for you?” Georgia asked after they got through trivialities.
“I want to speak to Father Thomas,” Charity said, girding her loins for battle. She and Georgia were like competitive siblings, always trying to outdo each other.
“He’s not in right now. But I’d be glad to give him a message.”
I just bet you would.
“Is he ever there?” Charity asked, unable to keep the bite from her words.
“He’s a busy man. The Lord’s work is never done.”