Mortal Sin (18 page)

The photos were amazing.

Rio had used a variety of backgrounds, working with both color and black-and-white film, and the proofs absolutely blew her away. He spread them out on the glass-topped coffee table and Kit gazed at them in awe, wondering who was this blond bombshell who stared back at her with such bold, brassy haughtiness. The poses, the lighting effects, the costume changes—for that’s how she thought of the numerous outfits she wore—made her look like a different person, somebody cool and mysterious, provocative and seductive.

“The camera doesn’t lie,” Rio told her, reaching out to straighten one of the proofs so it lined up neatly with the others. “A good photographer can reach inside and pull out the real person hidden behind the mask they show the world. It’s not the pictures that’re sexy, it’s you.”

“Me?” It flattered her beyond belief that he thought so, even if she couldn’t really see it herself.

“Look at those eyes, kitten. What do you see there?”

She studied her facial expressions, her body language, the silent message her eyes telegraphed to the camera lens.
Here I am, baby. Try me. If you dare
.

“Solid gold,” he said. “The camera loves you. I have to tell you, it doesn’t happen very often. But some people are born to be in front of a camera, and you’re one of them. You’re going places, Princess. Bigger and better places than you could ever imagine. With that face and that body, and the power that radiates from inside you—there’s no way you can miss.”

“But—” Excitement sizzled through her, made her heart do flip-flops. “How?”

“We start by taking more pictures. A little edgier, a little wilder. We color outside the lines a little. That’s the way to get noticed. You have to take risks. You have to have something nobody else has. And you do, babe. You have the makings of a goddess.”

“A goddess,” she echoed skeptically. “Yeah, right.”

“I’m serious. Pretty women are a dime a dozen. But the goddesses stand out. They’re the women that men look at and go, ‘whoa!’ Marilyn Monroe. Sophia Loren. Audrey Hepburn.”

The names were vaguely familiar, but she couldn’t have picked any of them out of a lineup, “Or,” he said smoothly, reading the uncertainty on her face, “how about Madonna? Britney? J-Lo? You recognize those names, don’t you?” He reached out to toy with a strand of her hair. “I can take you to the same place they’re at. You and me, babe. You let me guide your career, and I’ll take you all the way to the stars.”

While she stared at him in disbelief, he turned his attention back to the proofs. “Of course,” he said, “you have to start small.”

“Whatever it takes,” she said. “I’ll do anything.”

He put a hand behind her head, cupped the nape of her neck beneath her hair. Leaning toward her, he said softly, “You know I’m crazy about you, kitten.”

Her hands, busy straightening the stack of photos, stilled. Without looking at him, she whispered, “I know.”

Beneath her hair, he stroked her scalp with the pad of his thumb, sending a thrill shooting through her. “Then you know I’d do anything for you. Anything at all.”

“Would you?”

“Anything, baby. That’s how much you mean to me. I’ve never felt this way about anybody before. All I can think about is you. Looking after you. Taking care of you. Making you happy.”

She turned to speak, found his face only inches from hers. Those seductive blue eyes studied her face while his thumb moved in lazy circles behind her ear. She studied his eyes, his full lips, the way the light glinted off his gold earring.

“That’s why,” he said, lowering his eyes, “it pains me so much to have to tell you this.”

Her heart began a slow pounding. “What?”

“I heard something yesterday.” His thumb continued its steady seduction, slipped around to her collarbone. “I’m sorry, baby, but I thought you should know.” He raised his eyes back up to hers. “It’s your aunt. She’s stopped looking for you.”

For an instant, time stopped. She took a deep breath and tried to absorb the significance of his words. So it was true. She’d been right all along. Aunt Sarah hadn’t wanted her.

It was stupid, because she hadn’t been all that fond of Sarah anyway, and she’d been miserable living in that decrepit little house in Revere. Yet she felt as though she’d been kicked in the stomach. It shouldn’t have hurt, but it did.

He must have recognized the stunned look on her face, for he drew her into his arms and cradled her against his chest. “I’m so sorry, baby,” he said. “I’m so sorry she didn’t care enough about you to keep looking for you. But you have me now, and I’ll take care of you.” As she fought the tears that fell in spite of the hard shell she’d built around her heart, he rocked her like an infant. “It’s okay,” he said. “Go ahead and cry. You’ll feel better afterward.”

“I don’t care,” she said, viciously swiping at a tear. “I don’t give a damn about her.”

“I know you don’t, babe. Fuck her. Fuck all of ‘em. Your aunt, your father, your stepmother. You don’t need them any-way. You have me. From now on, it’ll be just you and me. Together forever.”

She clung to him as he kissed her forehead, her cheek, the pulse beating so rapidly in her throat. When his mouth covered hers in a kiss that was warm and sweet and reassuring, she returned it with desperate fervor.

“I love you, Kit,” he whispered against her lips. “Nobody could ever love you the way I do.”

“I love you, too,” she said. “Don’t ever leave me. Please.”

“Never,” he promised. “I will never, ever leave you.”

When he lowered her to the couch, when he tugged her shirt from her jeans and began to unbutton it, one tiny, translucent button at a time, she let him. When he sank down on top of her and settled between her thighs, she let him, because he loved her, when nobody else ever had. He loved her, and that was all that mattered. He loved her, and from now on, it was going to be just the two of them.

Together.

Forever.

“The damnable thing is. I know Adrienne’s right. I can’t spend all my time sitting home, waiting for Kit to walk through that door. There aren’t any guarantees. I could spend the rest of my life waiting.”

A gust of wind caught at a strand of Sarah’s hair and whipped it around her face. She reached up and tucked it behind her ear. The sea, tinted a steely gray by the overcast sky, rose and fell with a muffled roar, washing in crisp white foam that teased and taunted before it rolled away and folded back into itself. She wasn’t quite sure whose crazy idea this had been; it had simply sprung up between them somewhere between Medford and Revere. After her car had been towed to a repair shop, she’d made a brief pit stop at home to change clothes. Now, here they were, two lunatics walking the beach on a blustery spring afternoon that had lost its warmth hours ago, simply because neither of them had anywhere else to be.

Beside her, the priest bent and pried a shell from the hard-packed sand. “Life,” he said, straightening, “has to go on. Sometimes terrible things happen in our lives, but we still have to keep going. Otherwise, you might as well just fold up your tent and wait to die.” He drew back his arm and skimmed the shell over the water. It disappeared into the glittering waves.

“I’m not giving up on her.”

“I wouldn’t expect you to. You’re not the kind of woman who gives up.”

“I keep forgetting you have a life, too. You’ve done so much for me already, I don’t expect—”

“I made a commitment,” he said. “I’m in this for the duration. No matter how long it takes.”

“And you always honor your commitments.”

“I always try to. It isn’t necessarily the same thing.”

What she’d said was true; she did keep forgetting he had a life that didn’t revolve around finding Kit. At first, he’d been no more to her than a means to an end. But somewhere along the way, he’d turned into a full-blooded, fully fleshed man, a man she found far more attractive than she should have, considering the circumstances. A man whose life, aside from the hours he spent with her, was a complete mystery.

“What do you do?” she said. “When you’re not pouring water over the heads of unsuspecting children?”

“You mean besides sitting around in my robes, uttering pithy and sagacious pronouncements, like the Dalai Lama?”

“You’re making fun of me. I’m serious. Give me an example of a typical day in the life of Father Clancy Donovan.”

He tucked his hands into his pockets. “There is no typical day. I do a lot of pastoral counseling. People come to me for help if their marriage is in trouble, or their children, or their bank account. We talk, we pray, I try to give them advice that’ll do them good without violating Church canon. I meet with couples for prewedding counseling. I spend a significant amount of time putting out fires. Whatever issues fall into my lap, I deal with. I supervise Melissa, my secretary, and Dave Murphy, the church sexton. I attend meetings at the Archdiocese office and I sit on endless committees. Church committees, community committees, the local neighborhood association. I head the church youth organization, and I coach basketball for inner-city boys with too much time on their hands. I visit shut-ins and hospitalized parishioners. I volunteer a few hours a week at a soup kitchen downtown. Oh, and of course I’m chief administrator for Donovan House.”

“Stop! My head’s spinning. What do you do with your overabundance of spare time?”

When he smiled, his entire face radiated warmth. “I play racquetball twice a week with Conor Rafferty. Watch a lot of boring cable TV. And I mooch as many meals as possible from my parishioners. I’m a dreadful cook.”

“How do you survive? If I had a schedule like that, I’d collapse from exhaustion. How do you get through the day?”

“Prayer and cinnamon candy. In roughly equal amounts.”

“Prayer,” she said thoughtfully. “So you really believe in this God stuff.”

“Of course. Don’t you?”

They reached a huge clump of seaweed, tossed ashore and abandoned by the fickle sea. By unspoken agreement, they turned and began retracing their steps. “To tell you the truth,” she said, “I’m not sure what I believe anymore. You probably think I’m headed straight to hell, don’t you?”

“It’s not my place to judge.”

“You’re not going to try to convert me?”

“I don’t believe people can be converted by coercion. I believe we all come to God in our own time, in our own way. When we’re ready.”

“Rather heretical of you, isn’t it, Father?”

“According to Bishop Halloran, I harbor a number of heretical beliefs. It doesn’t bother me in the least. The Church is my home, my family, my life. But I answer to just one master, and I listen when He talks to me.”

She raised her eyebrows. “God talks to you,” she said.

“All the time.”

“Tell me He doesn’t tap you on the shoulder and sing
Yankee Doodle
in your ear.”

It was the first time she’d ever heard him laugh. “He’s a little more subtle than that.”

“That’s a relief. I really like you. I’d hate to see you carted off to a rubber room somewhere. So how does God talk to you?”

He halted his footsteps and turned toward the water. “Look out there.”

She followed his gaze, out over the Atlantic, silver melding into gunmetal gray, deep and dark and endless. “It’s stunning,” he said, “the absolute enormity of it. It makes you realize how tiny and finite and powerless you are. When I look at the ocean, or the stars, whenever I see a glorious sunrise or a rainbow, I know it’s God’s voice, talking to me. I don’t hear it with my ears. I feel it, in here.” He lay a hand across his heart. “Faith,” he said. “Pure, undiluted faith. It’s the greatest power I’ll ever possess.”

“Is that why you became a priest?”

He tucked his hands into his pockets and they resumed walking. “I’ve actually given it a great deal of thought,” he said, “why we turn to God. Life is so difficult. There’s a great deal of beauty, but also a great deal of pain. From birth to death, our lives are rife with questions, unanswered and unanswerable. I believe that when the unanswerable becomes unbearable, we turn to God. For most of us, it’s the only way we can survive inexplicable tragedy. We don’t understand why terrible things happen, but when our faith tells us that only God is supposed to have the answers, not knowing becomes acceptable. We can allow God to carry the burden for us.”

“Interesting theory. Which leads to an obvious question. Did God create man, or did man create God?”

His smile was wry. “Trying to trip me up, are you? I’m a theologian. I’ll always tell you God created man, not the other way around. But—” He paused, grew reflective. “If you asked me if man created religion, I might give you a different answer. They’re not the same, you know. God is constant, unimpeachable, unquestionable. Religion is man’s way of trying to bridge the chasm between heaven and earth. We haven’t yet been fully successful, but our endeavors are admirable.”

“You’re right,” she said.

“About what?”

“You do harbor a number of heretical beliefs.” She studied his profile, the sharp line of his jaw, the chiseled lips, the slight upturn at the end of an otherwise flawlessly straight nose. “But you still didn’t answer my question about why you became a priest.”

“Yes, I did. You just weren’t listening closely enough. Tell me about your husbands.”

His abrupt change of subject jarred her for an instant. “My husbands?” She raised an eyebrow and chuckled. “Lord, sugar, you got all night?”

“We’ve talked about me. Now it’s your turn. I want to hear the story of your life.”

“Well, let’s see. I met my first husband, Earl Twilley, when I was eighteen. Young and foolish. Momma had just died, I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life, and Earl offered me the security I was missing. He was ten years older than me, and devilishly handsome. He was a wildcatter, worked for one of the big oil companies, and he dragged me off to West Texas and left me for months at a time in a drafty little single-wide trailer with nobody to talk to but an old bluetick hound.”

“Sounds pretty lonely for a young girl.”

“I just about went nuts. There wasn’t a soul I knew in Texas besides my husband. My whole family was still back in Bayou Rouillard, and they didn’t even have a phone. I wrote Daddy a letter every so often, but he wasn’t the letter-writing type. I finally got a job waitressing at a truck stop over in the next town. It was the kind of place where redneck truckers left big tips for the privilege of looking down the front of my blouse and grabbing my ass every chance they could get. I hated it, but I stayed because I was about to go crazy all by myself in that little trailer. At least at the truck stop I got to see other human beings. Whenever Earl came home, we had a grand old time together. But he’d always leave again, and I couldn’t take the solitude. One fine day, I was pouring coffee for a trucker who said he was headed to New Orleans. The Big Easy. I set down that coffee pot and took off my apron. Twenty minutes later, when his rig pulled out onto the highway, I was riding shotgun.”