The Pastor’s Jezebel Lover Read online

  She stiffened when she realized what she’d allowed to happen. He was a man of God, not her lover, and yet here they stood in a position only a man and a woman deeply in love would stand.

  She started to move back, to escape from the warmth of his embrace, however much it pained her to leave the safety of his arms.

  “I’m sorry, father,” she breathed as she retreated from the circle of his arms, from the warmth of his body so close to hers, the firmness and the comfort. “I don’t know what came over me. I-I-I should never…”

  He felt a pang of sorrow when she broke the spell. He’d felt something of the comfort she was experiencing rub off on him, and the warmth of another human body close to his seemed to melt something deep inside him, something hard and unyielding, and when she pulled away, it felt like a physical reprimand to his inadequacy to comfort and be comforted by her, this woman who’d stepped into his life out of nowhere…

  He held up his hands in a gesture of reassurance. “It’s fine. I won’t hurt you or take advantage of you.”

  She looked embarrassed, deeply so, and he felt regret for springing himself on her like this. Perhaps he shouldn’t have held her. Perhaps he should merely have placed a hand on her shoulder.

  As it was, he couldn’t take back what had happened, nor did he want to. If anything, he wanted more of it. More of… her.

  Inadvertently, his gaze dropped to her chest, to the breasts that lay beneath her sweater. He’d heard the stories about her. How she’d supposedly seduced a doctor at Saint-Luke’s, a married man to boot, with the allure of her outrageous breasts. How she displayed those God-given assets and used them to seduce men and tear them away from the bosom of their families.

  He hadn’t believed a word of those rumors. Not after he’d met her in the flesh. Eileen simply wasn’t that woman. She did have a gorgeous body, that much was true. Her large chest tapered off to a thin waist and seductive hips, long shapely legs completing the picture of perfection.

  Then he reminded himself this wasn’t the way to comfort a lost soul, and he pulled himself together.

  “Eileen—may I call you Eileen? We all need a shoulder to cry on from time to time, and I merely offered mine today because I felt your need. It’s as simple as that.”

  She nodded, wiping at her eyes, and laughed. “I actually came in here to tell you I’m quitting the choir, but now I’m having second thoughts.”

  His brows rose questioningly. He had a very expressive face, Eileen thought, and an easy smile. And when he did smile, his eyes lit up. Contrary to what she thought, Father Ramon was not such a bad man after all. Though he should stand up to those harridans on the choir, and not let them bully him into subjecting younger, prettier women to fire and brimstone speeches about the inappropriateness of their dress.

  She meant to tell him as much, but then he smiled again, and she lost her train of thought.

  “And why would you quit? You just started to sing, and such a lovely voice you have too.”

  “You think so?”

  “Of course. We need fresh blood in the choir. You may have noticed the average age of the participants is alarmingly high. Pretty soon, we won’t have a choir left.”

  “Those old ladies will survive anyone,” she opined. “You and I included.”

  He laughed, and she loved the sound of it. It did much to dispel the embarrassment she was still feeling about their close embrace and her breaking down in his arms just now. “You know?” she suddenly blurted out. “You’re not as bad as I thought, Father Ramon.”

  His brows knitted at this, and she grinned when she saw how she’d made an impression on him. He snapped his fingers. “It’s the speech I gave you last week, isn’t it?”

  “That, and the fact that you never seem to smile during rehearsals. Today especially, you seemed so far away that I thought…” Her voice trailed off when his face took on an expression of upset, his eyes growing dark and desperate once again. She slung a hand before her mouth. “I’m sorry. I-I shouldn’t have said that.”

  He reached out and took her hand in his, then, seeming to regret this, released it again. “Stop apologizing, Eileen. Nothing you say could ever be wrong. You say what you mean, and it’s quite refreshing, to be honest.”

  “People always say I should think before I speak,” she agreed. “Usually they’re not too nice about it either.”

  “I shouldn’t worry too much about what other people think, Eileen,” he said softly. “From where I’m standing? You’re probably better off without them or their approval anyway.”

  They stared at each other for a beat, a mutual understanding creating a bond that hadn’t been there before but now miraculously linked them in ways they couldn’t yet comprehend.

  “We’re two of a kind, you and me,” Ramon continued, trying to put into words a consideration that had just occurred to him. “Perhaps we should…” He wanted to say they should get to know each other a little better, but was afraid to scare her off with this direct approach. “… continue this conversation over dinner sometime.”

  Her lips quirked up into a smile. “Are you asking me out on a date, Father Ramon?”

  “I…” Then he thought the hell with it, and decided to speak his mind. He inclined his head, holding out his hand. “Yes. Yes, I am. Eileen Stoker, would you like to go out on a date with me?”

  “I didn’t even know priests dated,” she murmured, taking his hand and enjoying the feel of his flexible, strong fingers enveloping hers. She knew this was probably a sin and she would burn for it in hell, or at least in the dark corners of town, where the gossipmongers lived and plied their vicious trade, but she wanted so much to get to know this interesting man a little better, that before her common sense could intervene, she said, “Yes, why not? Perhaps you could give me some pointers on vocal technique.”

  “I would be delighted to,” he replied, swinging their hands gently between them, to emphasize the innocence of their newly formed bond.

  “Mrs Cooper keeps telling me how horrible my voice is, so I reckon I need all the help I can get.”

  “Fuck Mrs Cooper and the horse she rode in on,” he suddenly growled, and when Eileen laughed merrily, he thought he’d never heard a lovelier sound.

  Chapter 4

  “Erin! Erin, come down here right away!”

  The girl rolled her eyes at the inopportune intrusion, and heaved an exasperated groan. “What now?” she groaned, and dropped the homework she’d been making. For once in her life, could Mom just simply let her be?

  She stormed out of her room, and yelled, “I’m busy!”

  As if stung, her mother appeared at the foot of the stairs, fury in her eyes. “If you don’t come downstairs right this second, I’m coming up there and I’m dragging you down. Is that understood?”

  Instead of rolling her eyes again, Erin meekly said, “I’m coming.”

  When Mom was in this kind of mood, she better behave and not talk back, she knew, or else she was liable to give her a good whooping.

  So she descended the stairs, reluctantly, and feared the worst. What did she do now? she wondered. She couldn’t even begin to imagine.

  Arriving downstairs, Mom stood awaiting her with her fists planted on her hips, eyes shooting fire.

  “Father Ramon was here just now. What’s all this about you throwing rocks through the church windows?”

  Erin’s frown now matched her mom’s. “Huh? What church windows? I didn’t do nothing of the kind.”

  Mom directed a pointed look at the ceiling. “Erin MacKenzie. You and your little friend were spotted by one of the women coming out of the church. You were throwing rocks at the church windows until you hit one and it broke.”

  “Mom, I really didn’t—”

  Mom took her by the elbow and shook her, going for berserk now. “He brought me a piece of window, Erin. One of them colored ones? Said they’re extremely expensive and I’ll be damned if I’m gonna pay for them either.”

  She st
abbed her in the chest with a bony finger. “You’re going over there right now to apologize, and you better pray he’s in a better mood than he was just now. And you’re going to tell him you’ll pay for those windows you destroyed. To the last cent and then some, you hear?”

  “But, Mom!”

  Mom raised her hand as if to give her a good smack in the face and Erin cringed. “Not one more word out of you! And you better get a move on. You don’t want to keep the father waiting.”

  Erin slumped, realizing there was no way to get out of this predicament. “What about Suzie?”

  Her mom helped her into her jacket with angry jerks, shoving her arms in the sleeves then jerking up her collar and tying her scarf so tightly around her neck she seemed to be of a mind to strangle her with it. “What about Suzie?”

  “Will she be there as well?”

  “She better be there. Father Ramon came from the Parsleys before he stopped off here.” She shook her head. “Erin, Erin. Why do you always have to go and get into trouble, huh? Can you tell me that?”

  Erin merely shrugged morosely. Going out in this freezing cold, and that to apologize to that stupid priest when she could be inside where it was warm and dry? She hated that foul man, she really did. Why couldn’t he pick on someone his own size?

  “We were just playing, Mom, We didn’t mean to— Ouch!”

  Her mom had suddenly jerked her around by the arm and shook her vehemently. “And always lying about it, too! That’s the worst of it!”

  “I wasn’t lying!” she said, trying to free her arm from Mom’s vise-like grip.

  “You’re lying right now!”

  “It was just a game. We never thought that rock would reach so high!”

  “Who destroyed that window, you or Suzie Parsley? Tell me the truth now.”

  Erin, now close to tears, quietly replied, “We both did. We threw on three, and when the window broke, we ran away. We didn’t think no one saw us either.”

  Mom relented, and let go of her arm. “Well, one of those nosy old women did, as they do everything that goes on around here.”

  “Stupid old cows,” murmured Erin, then fearfully looked up at her mother but was surprised when a flicker of a smile trembled on her lips.

  “Well, they may be stupid old cows, but they have eyes in the backs of their heads. So next time you decide to pull a stunt like that? You better watch your back first.”

  Erin frowned. Was her mother giving her advice how to break church windows and get away with it too?

  Then Mom seemed to realize she was giving mixed messages, a big no-no in educational handbooks, so she stiffened again, and threw her daughter a stern gaze. “All I’m saying is that you can’t go around destroying other people’s property. How would you like it if Tommy or Jack came round here and broke your bedroom window, huh? And you had to sleep in the cold all night?”

  She smirked. “Tommy or Jack wouldn’t dare. They’d know I’d beat the crap out of them.”

  Mom shook her head and heaved a deep sigh. “Sometimes I think you got switched at birth, Erin MacKenzie. Where all this violence and aggression comes from I really don’t know. You sure as heck don’t have it from my side of the family.”

  Erin braced herself for a speech about her no good father but fortunately Mom seemed more eager to get her to Father Ramon on time than vent her frustration over her husband. She gave her daughter a light shove in the direction of the door.

  “Now shoot. Father Ramon is waiting for you. What will you tell him?”

  “I’ll tell him I didn’t do it on purpose and—”

  Mom brought her face close to hers, her eyes cold and hard. “What will you tell him?”

  Quietly, Erin corrected, “I’ll tell him I’m very sorry and I’ll pay for all the damages.”

  Mom gave a curt nod. “Straight to church and back. No hanging around with Suzie this time.”

  “Yes, Mom.”

  She stomped to the door, picked up her hat and gloves from the hallway dresser, and stepped into the freezing cold.

  After heaving another long sigh, she finally set foot for the church, hoping Father Ramon would let her off easy, and tell her she didn’t really have to pay for the windows.

  She liked the young priest, as did most everyone in town, but on this particular morning she wished she’d never ever laid eyes on him. His predecessor, Father Brown, had been far more prone to forgive and forget, but this guy? She had the distinct impression he would give her and Suzie a really hard time indeed.

  And if she was truly honest with herself, she was even a little bit afraid of him.

  People in town said he was a strange man who had done strange things in the past. There were even rumors he’d once killed a man.

  Secretly she hoped he’d practice the age-old principle of turning the other cheek, and let her and Suzie off easy, but somewhere deep in her heart, she feared that he wouldn’t.

  She just hoped he wouldn’t change her into a monster or something, as punishment for her crimes. Though if she really were a monster, she could come back to haunt Mrs Cooper and Mrs Burke and all those other old hags who made life miserable in the small town of Brookridge.

  Resigned, she trudged through the thick blanket of snow on her way to church, and was glad when she finally spotted the soaring spire in the distance, shooting out from the houses.

  Chapter 5

  Erin arrived at the church just in time to see her friend Suzie come walking up from the other direction.

  “Suzie!” she yelled happily, and when Suzie spotted her from across the street, she waved back, her pixie face scrunching up to see.

  Suzie didn’t see very well, and should be wearing her glasses all the time now, but stubborn little mule she was, she never took them anywhere, claiming they made her look like an owl, and a very horrible looking owl at that.

  “Erin!” yelled Suzie, and started darting across the street to meet her friend in front of the old church.

  Just then, Erin saw a car trundling down the road, its tires having a hard time maintaining their grip on the slippery surface. The streets had just been sprayed with a fresh coat of snow, and no matter how many times the town’s salt trucks got out, they couldn’t keep up with mother nature giving of its best at an abundance the small town had seldom seen in the recent past.

  As the car rolled down the street, it seemed to speed up, its engine roaring.

  Erin saw it happen in a flash, but even before the car hit her friend, she knew what was about to happen. It was like a bad dream, where you know something terrible is going to happen but you’re too stunned to stop it.

  “No, Suzie!” she squealed, but the girl disappeared beneath the fender as the car hit her squarely in the midriff. What surprised Erin even more than the sickening horror of the accident, was that the driver didn’t even seem to brake.

  Erin felt a terrible dread freeze her limbs for a moment, then she was on her feet and sprinting in the fresh snow toward her friend. She reached her in moments, and crouched down beside her limp body. Suzie had her eyes closed, and looked perfectly fine. No blood or other sign anything out of the ordinary had happened. In fact, it appeared she was just taking a little nap in the middle of the street, just because she could.

  She shook her friend, placing a hand on the girl’s chest, then jerked her hand back when a voice shouted in her rear.

  “Don’t touch her!”

  Looking up, she saw a woman racing to, accompanied by Father Ramon.

  Tears now flooded Erin’s cheeks as she brought her gloved hands to her face.

  “Suzie,” she sobbed.

  The woman knelt down beside her friend, and quickly and methodically started checking her. She seemed to know what she was doing, Erin thought, and stared down at the scene as if she wasn’t really there. As if she was in a dream, and all this wasn’t really happening.

  “You better call an ambulance,” murmured the woman to Father Ramon.

  Grim-faced, the pri
est stepped away from the road, and brought out his cell.

  “Who are you?” managed Erin through her sobs. “Is she going to be fine?”

  “I’m a nurse, honey,” spoke the woman, her fingers deftly examining Suzie’s limp body. “What your friend really needs right now is a doctor, and they will be here in just a moment.”

  “Will she be fine?” repeated Erin.

  Eileen looked into Erin’s face and saw the despair. Wondering how she’d break the news that her friend might not make it, she decided to give the young girl words of comfort instead.

  “There’s something you can do for your friend, honey—what’s your name, by the way?”

  “Erin. Erin MacKenzie. And this is Suzie Parsley. Tell me she’ll be fine, please, Miss? It’s all my fault. She saw me and started across the road. She didn’t see the car coming and…”

  The girl broke down in sobs once again, and Eileen put her arms around her.

  “Do you know how to pray, Erin, honey?”

  Erin nodded, and folded her hands together.

  “Pray to the good Lord that he may spare Suzie’s life, all right? Can you do that for me?”

  Erin nodded again, and squeezed her eyes tightly shut, scrunching up her face, then started whispering something unintelligible under her breath.

  Eileen didn’t risk moving Suzie, though her position in the middle of the street was fraught with danger. The car that had run her over had rolled to a stop against the curb, and blocked traffic, which was at least a good thing.

  Luckily there wasn’t much traffic now anyway, because of the weather. It had started snowing again, and white flakes fluttered down all around her, quickly covering the car’s tire tracks.

  She wondered briefly if the police wouldn’t have to take note of the tracks to determine culpability. As it was, both she and Ramon could bear witness, as could Erin.

  A strange calm had descended on the street along with the white falling from the sky, and suddenly she wondered what had happened to the driver of the culprit car.