Saving Sins (Forbidden Erotic Romance) (2 page)

Inexplicable panic welled in her, and she shook her head.
"No! I mean, no. No, it's okay. I'm okay."

The corners of his mouth quirked up. "Tara." He
shook his head, and the way he said her name made her warm down to her toes.
"Always putting on the brave face."

She blushed and backed away. “It's all right,” she said,
this time far calmer. “I'll be fine.”

He studied her solemnly for a moment, then reached into his
pocket and pulled out a rosary in silver and black onyx. Holding it out to her,
he said, "Here. Wear this. It will help you."

Tara shifted, feeling awkward. This was the only part of
their relationship that had been at odds with one another. "You know I'm
not Catholic," she said. Or Protestant, or Jewish, or anything at all.
She'd seen too much. She wanted to believe like Father Michael did, like her
foster family did, but she just couldn't.

There were places that you couldn't come back from. Not
entirely. Every once in a while she felt a cold dark shadow pass across her
soul, and she knew she hadn't really escaped her past. The things she'd done.
The things that had been thrust upon her.

"It doesn't matter," Michael said. "I want
you to have it. Maybe think of it as a good luck charm. You
do
believe
in luck, right?"

She frowned, but then a twinkle in his eye gave him away. He
was teasing her.

"Father Michael!" she exclaimed. "You are
trying to get a rise out of me!" Reaching out, she plucked the rosary from
the air between them. "But how is it lucky?"

He shrugged. "I'm giving it to you and telling you it's
for luck. Are you so rich in luck that you can afford to turn it down?"

No
, she thought. She certainly wasn't. She lifted the
rosary and looped it around her neck, pulling her thick blonde hair out from beneath
it as it settled over her throat. "There," she said. "Happy
now?"

"I am," he said. "Let's go load up the van,
and then we'll go. You can tell me all about what's going on with you on the
way."

*

Twenty minutes later they had loaded trays of hot sandwiches
into the van and two giant samovars of hot water for making tea. In the back
seat were stacks of condoms and even clean needles for the girls chasing their
next dope fix, which was all of them. Tara studiously ignored the pile of
needles. She didn't need that shit any more. She had a life, built away from
all the sadness and anger of her childhood. She didn't need to shoot up to feel
good or escape. She was happy where she was.

Together she and Father Michael drove out into the cold,
dark Baltimore night. It was early December, but when Tara had met Father
Michael, it had been summer. He wasn't one of those Christmas-only guys. He
worked all the time, trying to help the girls on the street. That was his
mission, he had told her. How he had found out it was his mission, she didn't
know, but he'd lived in Baltimore all his life. He'd probably just seen a need
and gone to fill it. She may not have been religious, but Tara could respect
that.

"Tell me about your classes," Father Michael said
as they turned onto the road leading into the heart of drug and prostitute
country.

"Well..." Tara probed her brain for something
interesting to say as shabby buildings passed them by. "They're not too
hard, I don't think."

"Not hard?" he said. "Then why are you taking
them?"

She shot him a look, but his mouth was quirked. He was
teasing her again and she rolled her eyes. "Because I enjoy them. The
class I'm doing this for—Urban Sociology—is really fascinating. I did a paper
on homeless women and got an A. The professor asked me if she could copy my
paper and use it as an example for later classes." She was proud of that.
"Honestly, I think it's easy because I'm good at it and enjoy it, not
because it's not difficult."

"I know what you mean," Father Michael said.
"When we're working hard at something we love, it's rarely work."

"Exactly." Tara smiled. When she'd been eighteen
and penniless, she hadn't loved anything she did, whether it was stealing
copper wire or begging for change. When the family who took her in had asked
her to assist in the family business, she'd reluctantly agreed if only because
she felt so indebted to them, but she'd found that she enjoyed the work. No
heavy lifting, mostly answering phones and filing papers. No getting up in
stranger's faces. No giving furtive handjobs for a fix. No puking in alleyways.

No shooting up.

Tara rubbed a hand over her face and concentrated on the
buildings passing them by. The atmosphere inside the van was thick, but not
uncomfortable, and she held her hands out and let the hot air of the heater
flow over her stiff fingers and up the thick sleeves of her coat.
"Anyway," she said, because she realized neither of them had spoken
for several minutes, "I really love it. I'm thinking of going into social
work, so... here I am."

"That's a tough line of work," Father Michael said
neutrally.

"You do it," she said.

"I am called."

"Well, I think I should."

"Oh?" She stole a peek at him, but his face was
neutral.

"Yeah. I mean... I got out. I should be able to help
other people, right? You can't pull the ladder up behind you. That's not
fair."

"It's less that and more that the work... it's
crushing." His voice sounded strangled in the small space of the van.
"So many people, and you can only help a little bit. It's very rare to be
able to save someone from that life."

Tara swallowed. "You saved me," she said quietly.

Father Michael was silent for a long moment.
"Perhaps," he said. "Here, Carrollton Ridge. I have a pretty
good rapport with the girls here. It'll ease us into tonight's work."

Nodding, Tara stared at the dashboard and tried to steady
her heart. Her hands felt weak and useless at the ends of her arms. She was
back.

*

Carrollton Ridge. You cold pick up a streetwalker here any
time of day, any day of the week. It and Pigtown were ground zero for sex work.
Blocks of run-down rowhouses glared down at cracked, potholed streets, and
people got shot with regularity. It was just the way life was here. When she'd
run away from home, she'd ended up here. It was dirty and disgusting, but
honestly? It had been better on the streets and in the flophouses than back at
home.

Her first night squatting in an abandoned house, she knew
would never have to go back home again. She could always crash on a mattress
somewhere. If she had to, she could always turn a trick.

No. No, you don't
have
to. Not any more. You don't
have to live like that no more.

Tara swallowed around a lump in her throat. She'd been
through years of therapy, but it was a lot different, talking things out with a
headshrinker, than coming back to your old stomping grounds, hoping to drag
another girl kicking and screaming out of the underworld.

All that was long ago. You're a different person now.

And it was true. Mostly.

Next to her, Father Michael popped his door open, and together
they slid out of the van and into the frigid night air.

Opening the back doors of the van, Michael reached in and
grabbed a heavy brass bell. Tara smiled.

Hefting the heavy weight over his head, he began to ring it.
"Food!" he yelled. "Blankets! Tea! It's Father Michael!"

A gaggle of girls a block down began to move toward them,
and Tara held her breath. When he'd come through her section of town the very
first time, he'd picked her up in his car. The second time she'd seen him, he
had the van setup, but the bell was new.

She hung back, just around the corner, against the
cracked brick of an abandoned rowhouse. The do-gooder priest was back, handing
out shit to any girl who wanted something.

He was an idiot. Half these girls could afford that shit on
the money they made in a night. They didn't necessarily spend that money on
blankets and shit, but who cared about that? Dope kept you warm, and so did
clients. Whiskey did it, too. She had her own bottle stowed away in the
flophouse, hidden under some junk. She was pretty sure no one was going to
steal it. Besides, who needed blankets in August?

Dumbass
, she thought.

"God keep you," she heard him say to Kairi, one
of the girls Tara had started to get to know. Kairi was sweet, but only when
she wasn't high. When she was chasing her fix, or strung out, she was a totally
different person entirely, full of drama and crazy shit. The last thing Tara
wanted in her life was more drama. She had enough to deal with.

Kairi blew the priest a kiss and Tara felt a shot of
jealousy. But he didn't react, merely turned to the next girl. Ladonna.
"What do you need tonight, my child?"

Tara turned away and walked in the opposite direction.
She didn't need anyone calling her
child
. She'd been child enough for
one life. She was a woman now. She was on her own. She was going to survive.
And if she didn't... well, it wouldn't be so bad.

That's what that priest didn't understand. There were
fates worse than death.

She'd lived them.

Girls gathered around the van, and Tara found herself
tongue-tied.

"Ooooh, Father, have you got a girlfriend?" one of
them asked. With hard eyes, they probed her, perused her. Sized her up. Old
shame and fear welled up in her, and Tara turned to the trays of food and
busied her hands, trying to look preoccupied.

"Oh, she's shy!" one of the other girls squealed.
"Come on, you can look at us. We ain't catchin'."

Mortified, Tara tried to decide what to do. She didn't want
them to think she thought she was too good for them. She wasn't. She was just
like them. Except not any more, was she?

"Be gentle with her," Father Michael said.
"It's her first night on this side of the equation."

It took a moment for them to catch on.
"Whaaaaaaaaat?" the first one said. "What's that supposed to
mean?"

"Means she was a street kid," a third one said.
"Come on, I'm hungry."

Biting her lip, Tara pulled the foil back from the trays and
selected a few sandwiches.

Next to her, she felt Father Michael lean into the back of
the van with her. "Don't worry," he whispered. "You know as well
as I do that they're harmless."

They weren't. They could wound just as effectively as any
knife. Every harsh word, every girl who ever got in her face and screamed her
down, they all came flooding back, knocking her over, pulling her under. Too
many memories. Too many things she'd done. She'd stolen. She'd kicked and bit
and scratched. She'd seen what you could do with a stiletto heel.

She wasn't any better than these girls. She was worse,
because now she was back, trying to pretend that what had happened to her could
happen to them. She'd been young. Most of these girls were in their twenties.
It was too late, she couldn't help them, there was nothing she could do, she
was a hypocrite, a terrible hypocrite...

Then his hand alighted on the small of her back and Tara
felt one roiling turmoil inside her still, while deep in her belly another
deep, hungry storm stirred.

No,
she thought.
That's not allowed. You aren't
allowed to feel this way. He's a priest.

But she couldn't deny what she felt. She'd felt it for years
and time and distance had not dimmed it. Glancing at him, her heart leaped.

Green eyes glittered at her. Compassionate. Kind. And
something else.

His rundown car, pulling up next to her again.

“Stalking me, Father?” she said. “And in broad daylight,
too.” The sun beat down. Unseasonably warm in September.

“Are you keeping safe?” he asked her from the depths of
his car.

She waved a hand at him. “Safe enough,” she said. She
almost asked him if he wanted to try her out, but she didn't. It seemed too
crude. She still hadn't worked up the courage to try selling herself again “How
about you?” she asked.

From the cool shadows inside his car, she saw his eyes
widen.

“I am fine,” he said after a moment.

She couldn't help but quirk a smile at him. “No one asks
how the shepherd is doing, do they?” she said.

He shook his head. “No. They don't.”

She leaned down, propping her arms on the door. “Well,
you can tell me,” she said, her voice low. “I keep secrets real good.”

In silence they studied each other. She noticed, for the
first time, that the muscles around his eyes were tight, that his jaw was
strong but tense. He kept a lot of things inside.

She wanted to let them out.

“Perhaps some other time,” he said at last.

She backed away, and he drove off into the ripples of the
hot, late summer afternoon.

His gaze was arresting, but she somehow summoned the
strength to yank her eyes away from his. Straightening, she plastered a smile
over her face, then turned and held the sandwiches out.

"'Bout time," the first girl said, snatching both
of them from her hands. "Hey, Father, I need some needles too."

“Of course,” Michael said. “I have some in the back seat.
Anyone who needs to trade needles with me, come around the side. Tara here will
help you with whatever else you need.

The thought of being left alone with these women sent a bolt
of fear through her and Tara tried to send him frantic ESP signals that she was
not ready, not ready at all.

His piercing green eyes pinned her again, and Tara froze
like a butterfly in amber. Then he gave her a nod and a wink and disappeared
around the corner of the van, and Tara was left alone to face her past by
herself.