Total pages in book: 91
Estimated words: 86841 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 434(@200wpm)___ 347(@250wpm)___ 289(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 86841 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 434(@200wpm)___ 347(@250wpm)___ 289(@300wpm)
Since it was late, I decided to knock instead of using my key to walk inside and startle her. I waited for a moment, then heard the lock unbolt.
“What part of I need another hour—” She stopped midsentence when the door was fully opened and her eyes met mine. “Father Jude. Sorry. I thought you were…my cousin.”
I held up the plate. “You missed tonight’s dinner. It was catered by Papitos. I brought you some. You haven’t left, and I thought you might be hungry.”
She stepped back. “Um, come in. I mean, if you want to.”
I wanted to. God help me because of how bad I wanted to.
I stepped inside, and the scent of lavender hit me. That was new. Yesterday, it had smelled clean, but more citrusy. This was welcoming.
“I didn’t know the group had catered meals. I thought everyone took turns, bringing food,” she said.
“It was Sibby’s night. She bought a catered meal from Papitos and put it on her own serving platters, then claimed she’d made it. We all knew though,” I replied, closing the door behind me.
She took the plate from me and peeled back the foil to look underneath. “The tacos. She seriously tried to pass Papitos tacos off as her own?” Saylor asked incredulously.
I nodded. “Yep.”
Saylor picked up one of their homemade chips. “Lying to a priest at a church event,” she drawled with a shake of her head before popping it into her mouth.
Her plump lips were bare, but it didn’t matter. She didn’t need gloss or lipstick to make them tempting. I was jealous of a chip. Jerking my gaze off her mouth, I walked farther inside to see what all she’d done since I had last been here.
“Thanks for feeding me. I’m starving.”
I kept myself from looking back at her by scanning the room. Five new shoe racks stood against the back wall. There were shelves along the far right, and over by the kids corner, there was a small table with chairs, along with a bucketful of crayons, a stack of coloring books, a basket with blocks and another with Legos. Behind that was a short bookshelf, full of children’s books.
“You set up a place for kids to play while their adult shops,” I said in awe at all the things she had thought of and made happen.
“We haven’t had any kids in yet, but when we do, we are ready for them. My mom never gets rid of anything, and that was all in our attic from my childhood.”
I stuck my hands in the front pockets of my jeans and turned to look at her, sitting on a stool she’d pulled up to a table in the unused portion of the space. It was what I wanted to do anyway. Take her in. See her smile. Watch her mouth when she chewed.
“You’re amazing, Saylor Rice.” There, I’d said it. At least I hadn’t called her Dimples.
Her cheeks pinkened, and she grinned, making the dimples pop. She ducked her head and picked up a taco from the plate. “I wouldn’t go that far. It’s just that I enjoy doing things like this. Gives me a purpose.”
Any other female on the planet with this one’s beauty would believe her purpose was to be worshipped and adored. How was it that Saylor Rice hadn’t grown up to be self-absorbed?
“You’re the most puzzling contradiction I’ve ever come across.” I said the words before I thought them through.
The taco in her hand stopped midway from the plate to her mouth. Her head tilted slightly as she stared at me. “Perhaps you should elaborate,” she said, lowering her hand and placing the taco back down instead of taking a bite.
I could stand in front of a congregation and speak with no issue. But females? Gorgeous, stunning females like this one? I was not so good with them. I’d not dated and flirted. There had been very little conversing with women who didn’t go by Sister, who weren’t thirty years older than me, who weren’t devout Catholics, or who I wasn’t related to. I was realizing I might suck at it.
Delana and I had fallen in love young. From the moment I’d met her my freshman year of high school, I’d known she was the one I would love. And I did. I’d loved her hard.
Saylor was waiting on me to say something.
“That was one of those things I should have said in my head instead of blurting it out,” I replied. “Talking to beautiful women isn’t my strong suit. I apologize.”
There was a flicker in her eyes of something that didn’t need to be there, but I wanted to see it again.
“What about me is a puzzling contradiction?”
She was going to make me explain that. She was determined. Another trait that I liked about her. If I hadn’t found her that first day in the sanctuary and witnessed the vulnerability in her eyes, the lost look, I wouldn’t have known she had any weaknesses at all.