REBEL SAINT

by Leigh, Adriane

  I was perched in the attic of the rectory of St. Michael’s, dozens of boxes of holiness stacked along the walls. I flipped the lid on the box, my mind pulling me from the present into a wildly aroused fantasy where Father Bastien’s hands trailed across my body, causing a riot of raw sensation to surge…

  My mind shifted when my gaze focused on the Polaroid that sat atop the pile of old photos I’d uncovered.

  A dark smattering of five-o’clock shadow, broad shoulders, and softly defined lips curved into the slightest smile.

  If I didn’t know better, it looked like it could be Bastien, only a decade or more before, in what looked like Cuba, sweeping fields of green as far as the landscape spanned.

  I flipped the photo in my hand, searching for a name or a date, and found neither. I set the photo aside, digging deeper into the box and finding more photos of what looked like Bastien at seminary, black cassock and snow-white collar kissing his throat.

  Digging down deeper, I found more albums, a quick perusal revealing what looked to be older pictures of a family, warm cocoa skin and striking dark eyes that resonated in just the same way as someone else I knew.

  This must be Bastien’s box of family things.

  I thought of him now, probably sitting diligently behind the office desk downstairs, accounting papers strewn across the top. He was the hardest working and most determined man I’d ever known. When he wasn’t writing liturgies or catechisms or studying passages that might appeal to his flock, he was doing his best to get the business side of things at St. Michael’s in better shape than it had been.

  Apparently, Father Martin, the priest who’d come before, hadn’t kept up with paperwork as he was supposed to, leaving a stack of documents dating back years that hadn’t been properly filed.

  I ran a fingertip along the edge of the faded photo, a faint smile trailing my lips as I thought of a younger Bastien, tight rebel smile pulling at the corners of his lips as he learned to devote his life to something far bigger than himself. Noble to the core. I didn’t know how he did it, my independent streak running far too deep to allow me to commit to anything much beyond an upcoming semester of classes.

  And even that hadn’t been working out so well lately.

  I shuddered, memories rolling back to the moment the dean of the department had informed me that cutbacks meant the annual scholarship awarded to lower-income students who excelled within their chosen field would be cut.

  Cut.

  My scholarship cut.

  My education pulled out from under me.

  My future extinguished.

  I hadn’t cried on the walk back to my tiny apartment, the one I definitely would not be able to afford to pay for without the quarterly check that should have been coming next month.

  The one that would no longer be dropped in the mail for me.

  I’d refused to cry.

  I’d just pushed forward and began packing up the few things in my apartment that very night. Luckily, I’d managed to save up enough of my scholarship money over the semesters to buy a cheap car, one that got me only where I needed to go and did not provide a warm or comfortable place to sleep. One night in the car at a rest area was as close as I’d come to homelessness, just the thought of that time sending a chill through every vein.

  A tremor of fear had run through me when I thought of staying at a local shelter. I’d tried, but the line of downturned faces, wool blankets wrapped around their shoulders as a light snow fell, was a visible reminder of all the broken souls in need of a roof over their heads and warm food.

  The second and third shelters were at capacity.

  The fourth worse and without running water.

  With so many of my options snatched away, I’d made a single call that night that changed my destiny.

  Reality shaking my senses, I rifled through a few more pictures, coming across a stash from the church’s more recent past, my eyes watering only a little when I thought of all the time this old building had stood in as my home.

  A familiar flash of polka-dotted purple high tops caught my eye, and I pulled a photo out of the box that featured me and Father Martin, the man who’d been here all the years I’d grown up. His heavy hand draped across my shoulder blades, my pastel dress turned bright white in the spring sun.

  Even then, the weathered planes of his gentle face warmed something deep inside.

  At that age, I’d never much resonated with the idea of the Father and the Son, but the sense of the Holy Spirit—some inherent godliness that thrived like a living, breathing soul in the world around us—that feeling connected me to this holy space. And Father Martin was the father I’d never had, even if I had only seen him a few times a week. His calming source of wisdom and patience was like a beacon to a child with an erratic parent at home.

  I sifted through a few more photos, catching sight of a church picnic—Fourth of July, from the look of the decorations—Father Martin surrounded by a table full of laughing guests. Family.

  St. Michael’s had always been my family.

  In fact, if I thought back hard enough, I thought I could remember that very picnic, or at least one just like it.

  Fourth of July had been on a Saturday that year, and while the smell of barbecue and burgers filled the air, my stomach was rumbling away on the battered old couch at home.

  I glanced up at the clock, my eight-year-old mind struggling to remember how to read the numbers.

  It must have been past dinnertime, my anger at not being fed all day while Mom sat upstairs in her bedroom, door locked and giggling furiously on the phone with some unknown man, finally reaching its boiling point.

  I shot out of the small living room and took off down the block, headed for a place I often found myself on the weekends when my tummy was rumbling and Mom seemed none the wiser of my presence.

  Following the smell of outdoor grills, I’d walked the few blocks to St. Michael’s on fevered steps, heading straight for the picnic table of food, burgers and hot dogs and pasta salads and delicious Jell-O concoctions. One of the elderly women behind the table smiled deeply, passing me a paper plate which I loaded so heavy, it’d nearly collapsed under its own weight.

  I’d gorged myself more than I ever had, and she’d only piled the potato salad higher when I’d returned for a second round. Father Martin had found his way to me again that day, stopping to sit beside me, shoulder to shoulder for a few minutes.

  My belly full, smile crawling over my face, I remembered hearing the first pop of fireworks starting and leaning my tired head on Father Martin’s shoulder, eyes fluttering closed just when the loud shrieks of a madwoman woke me from the newfound peace.

  “Tressa!” my mother shrilled again, her Puerto Rican accent more pronounced when it was thick with anger.

  “I’d better go,” I mumbled, shuffling away from Father and into the arms of my trembling mother.

  She gripped my shoulders tightly, forcing me into her body and seething into my ear, “Why do you do this to me, bomboncita? I tell you not to come here. Over and over, I tell you. When will you listen?”

  “I was hungry,” I whispered, shame coating my cheeks in crimson.

  Father Martin’s soft hand landed on my mother’s shoulder then, his warm voice flowing through me, calming me just like his presence always did. “St. Michael’s welcomes all of God’s lambs.”

  “She’s not God’s lamb. She’s not yours either. She’s my daughter.” My mother’s anger caused her to tighten her hold on me with every passing word she spoke. I nearly winced under the pressure before she spun, catching my hand in hers, and dragging me home, fresh dew coating my bare feet.

  I picked the gravel out from my toes when I got home, tummy full and a sense of peace enveloping my tiny body for the first time in too long. Even then, my mother’s fury was worth the full belly and sense of contentment it’d brought me.

  Tears pushed at my eyelids, and I wiped them away, forcing a sense of gratitude through my body as I rememb
ered all the times after that St. Michael’s had been there for me. Maybe I could even ask Bastien if there was a way to find out where Father Martin had gone after he’d left Philadelphia. Or if he was even still alive. I briefly thought of sending him a letter, thanking him for his always welcoming presence.

  It was the countless moments like those that peppered my childhood and gave me the desire to help kids and families in need, some small way of giving back. The fact that I’d found myself in a church doing it was a twist I wouldn’t have predicted, but being around the deep sense of spirituality felt comforting.

  Felt like something I’d been missing.

  A flash of inspiration hit me then, the desire to organize some events to bring more of the community back to the doorsteps of St. Michael’s. A grin lit my face as I grabbed a stack of a few photos and the album containing the pictures of Bastien at seminary and sped down the creaky steps. I reached the bottom and collided with Bastien’s stone chest, ten times more fortified than the walls of Jericho, and just as unconquerable.

  I nearly lost my breath, choking on my tongue for a moment as all thoughts tumbled out of my head in his presence.

  “Everything okay?” Bastien’s broad hands spread the width of my shoulders, consuming me with the need to feel him closer.

  I shook my head, confused thoughts shuffling through a broken playlist as I searched for something appropriate to say as I dropped my burden on the desk.

  “Tressa?” He ducked, melted-chocolate eyes catching mine and hanging there.

  Suspended.

  “Yeah?”

  He sucked in a quick breath, that same rebel grin from the picture cocking one side of his mouth. “Lost your thought?”

  I squeezed my eyes closed, attempting to force the influence of him out of my mind. “Lost my sanity is more like it.”

  He breathed a chuckle, hand grazing down the dip of my spine before landing at my back and urging me at his side. “Find the Holy Grail up in the attic?”

  My palms tingled as I suddenly remembered the photos I’d come barreling down the stairs to show him. “A few, actually.”

  Bastien’s hand pressed at my back, fingertips dipping lower at my waist and sending tingles in a spray of directions.

  “Oh?” A genuine smile lit his cheeks, and my stupid, love-sick heart flip-flopped.

  “Some pictures of summer events at St. Michael’s got me thinking. Why don’t we add some winter activities too?”

  He nodded, eyes shifting from the desk, his stack of paperwork neatly aligned at one corner, my spray of random photos, smiling faces, and Father Martin covering everything else.

  “If Lucy is willing to take over a little more with the younger kids, I can work on planning a few things, check the schedule?”

  He nodded as if forcing his attention on the photos, even though his hand still hovered at my back, butterflies continuing to batter the cage of my chest.

  “And I found this.” I slid the old album onto the polished wood, flipping it open, a half-smiling, younger Bastien leaping off the page.

  His eyes darkened for a moment, bottom lip cut with his top incisor before he pushed the album closed and shoved it into the desk drawer. “Haven’t seen that in a long time.”

  “I almost didn’t recognize you.” I probed.

  “I was a different person.”

  “You look…” I struggled for the right word.

  “Younger?” He looked away, his desire to avoid this conversation coating his features.

  “Happier, I was going to say.”

  “You mistake happiness for rebellion.”

  Fading evening light streaked across the room and highlighted the hard muscle under his black clerical shirt. He pushed the thumb of his right hand to his lips, losing himself in thought before he finally said, “My dreams back then were more about changing the system and less about conforming.”

  “I wouldn’t call you a conformist now,” I said, watching as he stalked back across the room, darkness slicing his irises, eating up the energy and causing my own chest to rise and fall with intense feeling.

  “You wouldn’t?” He nudged closer, one hand falling at my waist, the pad of his thumb brushing under the hem of my shirt and connecting with the soft skin of my abdomen.

  I gulped a breath, feeling his touch fully between my legs.

  “Not in the least.”

  His broad chest made contact with mine, fire erupting in the once hollow space that’d existed between us. As if sensing my willingness to be so close to him, he swept the rest of his fingers under the hem of my shirt, grazing my skin and setting fire to each nerve.

  “Some days, I forget the beliefs I stand for, the reason that…drives me.” He edged closer, lips sliding against the shell of my ear, his breath bathing my skin in arousal. I shuddered between my legs, willing the stubborn need thrumming its way through my body to subside so I could form a single thought beyond the way he made me feel with his hands on me.

  His broad, sun-bronzed hands covering mine. The rugged cut of his chiseled jaw, tiny laugh lines crinkling the skin at his temples, the way he undressed me with his eyes, cutting to the core of me. Everything about him was aged like a fine whiskey, wisdom steeped with experience, an intoxicating mix. The decade or so of years that separated us never felt more real than right now.

  “The pressure is nearly unbearable for any red-blooded human.”

  “How…” I gulped, the points of my nipples cutting against the fabric of my shirt, his gaze holding mine suspended with painful precision. “How do you overcome?”

  Inches away, his dark jaw was faintly out of reach of my fingertips. A quiet shudder rolled through me when my hand acted on its own and slid over the expanse of muscle dividing his abdominals through the fine threads of his black shirt. Adrenaline swelled in my stomach like a tidal wave when his fingers dipped below the waistband of my pants and caressed my skin.

  “It would be wrong of you to assume I don’t sin, Tressa.” He rocked his hips closer, the ridge of his thick arousal pressing into my abdomen. My fingers trailed down the coarse fabric of his dark pants, my fingertips hovering at the cool leather of his belt, heart thumping in my ears as every fiber of my body begged to be just a few inches closer.

  Boom.

  Echoing footsteps drove us apart, his fingertips still dusting my wrist when the door swung open and a man in crimson vestments swallowed the tiny room.

  Oh fuck.

  Cardinal Lovello was standing across from me, eyes taking in Bastien and me, shoulder to shoulder behind a closed door.

  Did he register the flush on my cheeks? The shallow breaths and wild heart thundering in my ears?

  The cardinal’s gaze crawled up my torso with slow precision until he finally landed at my lips and spoke. “I hope my visit hasn’t inconvenienced you.”

  SEVEN

  Tressa

  Normally, I would have been irritated that the cardinal’s eyes still hadn’t found mine, but the way Bastien’s body had been crushed to mine just seconds earlier…

  The way his lips had ghosted my skin, leaving my body crying out for his touch…

  The fact that the cardinal was looking at every part of me except my gaze sent cold terror through my veins. When minutes before, my heart had thundered for Bastien’s touch, now it thundered for fear we’d been caught.

  Was the cardinal here because someone had seen something?

  Had we been reported?

  The memory of the bang outside the church doors the night I’d nearly succumbed in a pool of delirium under Bastien’s gaze filled my mind. We’d dismissed it as the wind, but perhaps it was someone. Someone who’d reported our inappropriate…Inappropriate what?

  Had we engaged in inappropriate behavior?

  “I’m glad you stopped by, actually. I’ve been putting together a report for a proposed budget shift over the next quarter, but looking at the history of the account, there’s some suspicious activity. I’ve got a few receipts her
e I’d like to show you. They’re all made out to the same person, a woman by the name of—”

  The cardinal swiped the small stack of yellowed receipts from Bastien’s hands, eyes cutting across the space to meet mine for an instant.

  Finally.

  I busted a weak smile.

  His ice-blue gaze hardened.

  “This sounds like a private matter.”

  Bastien’s helpful smile faltered before he crossed his arms and shook his head. “Tressa’s been doing some accounting for me. I trust her.”

  The cardinal’s lips creased into a thin line before he spoke. “I would encourage you to avoid any rabbit holes, Father Castaneda. Join me for a moment in the sacristy?”

  The cardinal pressed a hand at Bastien’s shoulder while stuffing the small bundle of papers into the deep pockets of his red robe.

  I pressed my lips together, wondering what information the papers held that’d brought that annoyed look on his face.

  Bastien opened the door then, gesturing the cardinal out into the narrow hallway, following him back down the way he’d come, while I remained in the office. Old photos were spread out on the desk, the small, neat stack of official church documents still sitting at the corner.

  I slid all of the photographs off the desk in one swoop, eyes lingering for extra beats on the paperwork.

  Father Martin scribbled at the end of each, his angled scratch barely legible among the lines of longhand. My fingers itched to grab one of the papers and dig deeper. The soft laugh lines in Father Martin’s smile came back to me as I thought over the countless afternoons that bled into evenings here at the church. The feeling that I loved most about it…that it was bustling with pure holiness.

  I knew what the opposite end of the spectrum looked like.

  I’d spent far too many nights home alone, grainy cartoons flickering on the television, eyes heavy with sleep as I snuggled with an afghan my grandmother had made, a decade’s worth of cigarette smoke lingering in the colorful fibers.

  I swallowed down the memory of one night waking up to a stranger leering down at me, whiskey burning up the air between us as I pulled the afghan around me tighter, the oil to power the furnace long empty.