Something New (31 page)

Something in the way Rodrigo mentioned his home stirred Abby’s blood and made her mouth go dry. “I have never seen your mystery house, Rodrigo. You keep it very private.”

“You can see it tonight, if you want,” Rodrigo responded. “I can make you both dinner.” His hand joined Braden’s on Abby’s waist. “We can spend the night there too.” He glanced at Braden and held on him for a moment before coming back to Abby. “If you both want to.”

Abby couldn’t believe how ridiculously fast her heart raced. “Really?”

The intensity in Rodrigo’s black stare only increased. “Yep.”

“Damn, Santiago.” Braden pushed off from the car and turned away to adjust a visible bulge forming in his jeans. “Apparently there are things other than seeing you naked and hearing you say
shit
that make me hot.”

Abby’s skin warmed under the exchange. “Amen to that.”

“Wait till you see it.” Rodrigo’s gaze went from Abby to Braden, and the smile that accompanied it was downright full of sinful pride. “It’ll have you wet and you hard without my ever having to say a word.”

“Stop talking about it, then,” Braden said as he moved back to the driver’s side and climbed in behind the wheel. “I don’t want to walk into a church with an erection.”

Abby kept mum. Nobody had to know Rodrigo’s invitation to spend time in his home had already made her very, very damp.

* * *

Sitting a dozen rows back in the church, Abby found herself sinking into the peace and safety this building used to envelop her in as a little girl. The sunlight streaming in through the myriad of stained-glass windows cast colorful shadows on the hardwood flooring and pews. Abby could remember sitting in this place with her father, trying to catch the different colors on the back of her hand, and her mother whispering at them to pay attention to Father Jim. Her mother always smiled over Abby’s head at her father when she said it, though, so Abby knew her mom wasn’t truly upset.

After service, Abby sometimes ran around with the other kids in the grassy area behind the church. Most times, though, when her shyness overwhelmed her, Abby would stick to either her mom or dad and navigate the after-church socializing that happened between the adults. Even that left her warm and comforted inside. She rarely understood what the big people were actually saying; Abby had just liked listening to all the laughter and seeing the hugs and slaps on the back and occasional group cheer. Most of the time, Sundays were the best days because her father didn’t have to go to work and her mother didn’t have some charity duty that Abby couldn’t attend with her. They all stayed together. From the moment Abby crawled out of bed and they all ate breakfast, until her eyes were so droopy her dad would scoop her off her mom’s lap and carry her to bed, they spent it as a family.

Then they died, and it all went away.

As Abby sat here now, frustrated that she couldn’t find a single person in this place who would say anything more than that her mother was a fine Christian woman and her dad a hardworking provider and family man, Abby wondered when she’d stopped believing in church and God. Then she wondered if her parents were up in heaven sad and disappointed that she’d let go of her faith.

Maybe I was tired of hanging on after it let go of me.

Hearing the cynicism in her thoughts now, Abby knew what her parents would say:
Faith didn’t let go of you, baby, nor did God. People did. We’re all imperfect, and you have to learn to forgive.

Rustling sounds and the
squeak
of wood tickled Abby’s ears, making her open her eyes. Father Jim now sat in the pew in front of her. He had his body shifted sideways so that he could look back at her.

“Your detective friend is persistent,” he said. “If you’d like to question me in the same relentless manner, let me know so that I can rehydrate myself first.”

Abby looked over her shoulder and found Braden sitting next to Rodrigo at the back of the church. He wore his best poker face, but Abby had started to learn how to read the subtle lines that formed around his mouth and the unblinking, alpha, straight-ahead stare that said he wanted to tear something apart. She knew without a doubt he had not succeeded with his questioning of the church’s employees or Father Jim.

That leaves one final shot with me.

Bringing her attention back to the priest, Abby asked, “Would it matter if I changed my approach with you?”

The father settled his elbow on the back of the pew and rested the side of his face against his palm. “My answers would be the same, no matter how you frame your questions. I am not your enemy.” Father Jim’s voice gentled in a way that grated all Abby’s exposed nerves. “I want to help.”

“But not at the expense of my mother’s memory,” she fired back at him quickly.

“That is a trick question, Abigail.” Father Jim might as well have said
ah-ah-ah
and wagged his finger. “You really have been spending time with Detective Crenshaw. He’s rubbing off on you.”

“You have no idea,” she muttered under her breath.

“Pardon?”

“Nothing.”
Here goes nothing
. “I’ve thought about it some more anyway, and I think my dad might have been cheating on my mom just as hard as my mom was on him.” Abby spread her arms against the back of the pew and tapped her fingers in a lackadaisical beat against the wood. “Just a couple of Christian cheaters living a big old marriage lie.”

That got Father Jim pushing out of his casual position. “Don’t say that.” Professional distance slipped from his tone. “Don’t sully your parents’ image. It would sadden them, and it’s beneath you.”

“Beneath me?” Abby shoved forward to the edge of the seat and dropped her voice to a hiss. “Suddenly you know me again? You suddenly think we have such a connection between us? You presume to know my mind and heart and believe you can use guilt on me?”

“Your parents loved you. That. Is. All. That. Matters.” The priest thumped his fingertips into the pew with each word. “They would have wanted you to have a good, fulfilling life. Nothing else—”

“You mean like they did?” Abby cut down the father’s pandering lecture. “Where my mom was cheating, but hey, my dad was probably neglecting her with his fishing and hunting trips, so he probably deserved it. But then again, my mother probably came to you and confessed her sins every week, and you told her to say some Hail Marys, so that absolved her, so everything is good in the eyes of God for another week. Right?” She felt her mouth twist with judgment but couldn’t halt the oncoming crash. “Is a life like that what you think would make them proud of me,
Father
?”

“Look at what this investigation is doing to you, Abigail. You’re destroying every good memory you had of your parents. You don’t want to do that. You’ll be lesser for it.” Ruddy coloring pulled to the surface of Father Jim’s face, and he scratched his fingers through his blond hair, mussing the clean style. “Come to Mass this Sunday. Come let the people who knew them tell you what good members of this church community they were. Let them tell you stories that will remind you how much they loved you.” He took a deep, visible breath, and when he spoke again, he once more sounded and looked like a kindly, sympathetic priest. “Come spend time in this house and let God help you begin to heal.”

I want to smack that perfection off his face.

“You want me to come to your church again?” Abby licked her lips as dryness took over her mouth. She could barely keep herself tied to her seat.

“Yes.”

“Can my friends come with me?” she asked, as a full realization that this man would never tell her anything substantive about her parents sank in and pushed her core past its tipping point.

He looked past her shoulder to where Rodrigo and Braden sat. “Of course.”

Abby looked over her shoulder too. She found Braden and Rodrigo still waiting for her, patiently, as she knew they would be, and everything calmed and settled in place for her.

I couldn’t hide them for the world.

Abby came back to Father Jim, and the new warmth inside her absorbed much of the rancid tone from her voice. “Are Detective Crenshaw and Mr. Santiago welcome if you know I share a bed with them, and you know I care about them more than I ever thought possible to care about any one person, let alone two? Are they welcome if you know they care about me, as well as about each other, and we’re somehow making it work as a couple or a threesome or whatever you want to label it? Am I welcome now”—Abby jabbed her breast as she looked around at all the familiar nooks and crannies in this church and wished for the comfort it once offered her—“after what I’ve just told you?”

Only the slightest flare in Father Jim’s eyes betrayed any sense of surprise. “I would not turn you away, Abigail, but I would counsel you that such a relationship is not healthy for your well-being, nor is it part of God’s best plan for you.”

“Because I’m with both of them at the same time?” Abby asked. “Or because they’re both fucking each other too?”

The priest’s sigh sounded like that of a parent tired of scolding a child who would not learn. “If you’re trying to shock me into a response that you think will make you feel better or if you’re lying because you’re angry that I won’t tell you what you want to hear about your mother, I won’t succumb to such tactics.”

Rejection, frustration, anger, and hurt added to a growing knot in Abby’s stomach that she feared might overtake her if she sat with this man for one more minute.

She pulled her shawl tighter around her shoulders and got to her feet. Stalling at the end of the pew, she looked at Father Jim, and for the first time, pity went through her. “I guess I accept now that you’re never going to tell me anything about my parents. For whatever twistedly noble reason, I get that you’d rather let their killer remain free than tarnish their memory. What you don’t understand is that I haven’t stopped loving them.” She determinedly blinked moisture from her eyes. “Nothing you could have told me would have changed that. I love them, simple as that. The thing is, though”—one look to the back of the church, to her men, filled Abby’s voice with strength again—“I love those guys back there too, and I don’t want to sit in a building with a man at the helm who won’t embrace how much they cherish and want to take care of me. I’ve never felt more loved by anyone than I do by them.”

Father Jim stood with his hands clasped behind his back, his chin unwavering. His black clothing and white collar, which used to fill Abby with such gladness, felt like nothing so much as a steel-enforced wall keeping her out today.

“You have nothing more to say?” Abby asked, her arms crossed around her middle. “Like with my parents, I suppose you wouldn’t dare lower yourself to speak badly of my relationship, but your silence speaks volumes.” She looked down, caught her fractured reflection in the hammered silver dome of one of her favorite ring designs, and the memory of her mother reminded Abby why she was here. “We’re going to find my parents’ killer with or without your help. It would have been nice if you could have found it in your heart to make the task a little easier.” Abby matched his unblinking stare with one of her own. “I know you know who it was, Father.” Her voice dropped to a scratch as memories and loss overtook her. “One day I will too.”

Abby managed to perform a quarter turn and start walking with her head high and eyes dry, but the pressure burned, and she started leaking tears not two steps down the center aisle. She picked up the pace and dropped her head as she ran, cursing herself for letting Father Jim get to her and for his putting a damper on the warm glow she’d been feeling before he sat down and opened his mouth.

Running out of the church with Braden and Rodrigo hot on her heels asking what was wrong, Abby slammed straight into another person with a
thunk.

Abby looked up into Lorene Jones’s eyes.

“Oh, hello, dear.” Lorene’s wrinkled skin glowed with the warmth of the sunny February day. “I was just coming to talk to Father Jim about you.”

Every hair on Abby’s body shot on end. “Were you?”

“Yes.” As she circled Abby, Lorene squeezed Abby’s hand, her eyes beaming with excitement. “I talked with Bill and the kids, and we would all like to invite you for dinner. I was hoping the father would like to join us. He is so pleased to have you back in our lives as well.”

The priest’s cool disdain of a moment ago doused any momentary pleasure at hearing Lorene’s invitation. “Father Jim’s pleasure at having me back is conditional,” Abby shared. “He won’t want to sit at your table with me if I bring Braden and Rodrigo.” She reached back, found hands waiting for her, and linked herself up to warm, sure holds. “And I won’t come without them.”

Lorene looked down at Abby’s fingers entwined with two different men’s, then to the church, and glanced to Abby, her face now pale. “What do you mean? I don’t understand.”

“I just explained to the father that these two men are more than friends,” Abby stated, pushed to stand up with the men who had, without recognition, been standing up for her since before this investigation or a sexual relationship had ever begun. “We’re intimate together. They are more important to me than any other souls on this earth, and if they are not welcome in this church, or anywhere, for that matter, with me, then I will not leave them behind like some dirty secret and attend alone.”

“What?” A frown pulled bracket lines around Lorene’s mouth and across her brow. “Do you mean… Oh.” Her voice dropped. “Oh. I don’t think… How…” Finally, Lorene’s face drained of the rest of its color. “Oh dear.”

She understands now.

As had happened inside the church with the priest, Lorene went silent.

The punch struck harder in the gut than Abby had anticipated, and it caused her to flinch. “You go have your talk with Father Jim and get back to me. If you decide not to…” She couldn’t quite make herself say she would understand. Abby pulled away from Rodrigo and Braden. She needed to shield herself from Lorene’s intruder eyes as the tears started leaking again. “Anyway, that’s your choice.” She didn’t wait for Rodrigo and Braden as she took off for the car.