by Abby Knox
Doing Him Good
Abby Knox
Copyright © 2019 by Abby Knox
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.
Edited by Aquila Editing
Proofread by Red Pen Princess
Cover Designer: Mayhem Cover Creations
This book is dedicated to any clerical collar-wearing character on television or in movies who gave me funny feelings as a young lady. Especially Richard Chamberlain in The Thornbirds. Or, as my father called it while my mom and I watched it, “The Horny Birds.”
Contents
Doing Him Good
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Epilogue
About the Author
Also by Abby Knox
An excerpt from Queen Bee
Doing Him Good
What happens when a repressed single preacher finally snaps? Well, if your name is Boone, you might land your ass in jail for stealing and rehoming mistreated dogs. When the church sends him to time out to think about what he’s done, he instead has something way less wholesome on his mind. Boone intends to spend every waking — and sleeping — moment with the tempting Delilah, the woman he first meets on his way out the door of his church for the very last time. After a week of sowing his long overdue wild oats with the girl of his dreams, Boone has a decision to make: will he beg forgiveness or pursue happiness? Uhm, I think we all know the answer to that!
Contents may also include:
An appearance by Boone’s younger sister Molly, from Fencing Her In
Two adorably awkward virgins
A fight at the roller derby
A commemorative tattoo
And Molly’s famous peach cobbler to help the parentals calm down about everything.
Chapter One
Boone
Everything good falls apart eventually.
This time, I’m the one who kicked the stone that started this particular avalanche.
As I stand on this stage, I’m surrounded by a few thousand confused faces. Several dozen judgmental faces. Even a few hurt faces. I know I’ll never get over those. But they deserve better. Better than me.
I can’t be their preacher anymore. Truth be told, I don’t want to. Never wanted to. When the elders of one of the newer mega-churches in the Dallas suburbs heard about me asked me to take the reins just a few months ago, I thought I had no right to question it. I had unwittingly made a name for myself serving the homeless and harassing local politicians on their behalf. I was wary of taking on such a huge congregation, but I’d been groomed for this. My momma and Daddy were so proud. But now, I don’t know if I believe a single thing that led me to where I am today.
I showed up on this Sunday morning to face the backlash and endure a question-and-answer session about what I’ve done. Seems a bit barbaric to me now, but I never questioned these kinds of rituals until about a week ago.
One young male congregant I recognize as Joe from the praise team stands and approaches the mic stand that’s been set up in the aisle between the rows of stadium seats. “I just have one question, Pastor Boone. Why did you do it?”
The crowd murmurs and nods, echoing the young man’s inquiry. My Texas-sized flock, with all of its sinners, addicts, PTA moms, bikers, teachers, nurses, ranchers, CEOs, tech geeks, old money, new money, came here today with one question. The one question on each member’s mind is a question they already know the answer to.
Last week, these same faces smiled at me, shouted “amen” and nodded their heads. Today, they look at me like I’m the devil himself.
Amazing what can happen in a single week.
I stand up straight and open my mouth to answer, even though my guts wish someone would release a trap door beneath me.
“Well, I—” My voice hitches when my eyes land on a new face in the crowd, a face so pretty I feel punched in the gut. The kind of face that has the ability to shift my whole mindset. Her electric blue eyes study me through thick-framed glasses. Streaks of bright purple accent her thick, wavy black hair, and something silvery glints above her glasses. An eyebrow piercing, maybe.
But wait, I was just about to answer a question. What was the question? Oh yeah, that’s right. Why did I do what I did? Why did I commit vandalism, trespassing, breaking and entering, theft. It’s my own personal judgment day and yet I’m standing up here checking out a girl.
Can anyone blame me, really? Here I am, a 30-something virgin because of everything I’ve ever been taught, not to mention my employment contract, which forbids me to have sex before marriage. I’m wound up so tight that neither the sensation of my own hand nor any contraband sex toy can calm me down for longer than a few hours.
Get it together, man.
“I’m so sorry, Joe,” I say, addressing the young man by his name. I know the name of every person in this building, except the woman with the black and purple hair and electric blue eyes, and the sight of her is making it hard to focus on the topic at hand. “But wouldn’t you have done the same thing?”
More murmurs. Louder ones. Angrier ones.
“I … I have here,” Joe says, unfolding a stack of papers and pushing up his glasses. I feel for him; Joe’s a good man. It must be difficult, confronting the evildoer in his midst. “I have a copy of the police report. It … it says here you shot out a streetlight, trespassed on private property, vandalized private property, and stole… It says you stole a pit bull.”
I rub the palm of my hand across the top of my short-cropped hair. “Seems you have all the answers, you don’t need me here,” I say. More grumbling.
Boy, oh boy, are they going to be unhappy when they find out the other thing I did. The thing I did with the money from the pastor’s discretionary fund, to which they forgot to freeze my access when I started causing trouble.
My eyes dart around, taking it all in. So this is what an early mid-life crisis looks like.
The young lady with the black and purple hair is neither laughing nor scowling. She’s studying me. The soft curve of her burgundy-stained lips, striking against her peachy skin, calms my spiraling mind. I don’t even know her, but today she’s my soft place to land.
Who is she? She’s not a member of this church. Nobody has ever shown up to a service wearing a Reverend Horton Heat t-shirt, and certainly not one with the sleeves and the crew neckline cut out by hand. The remaining flimsy material of her shirt is stretched tight over a pair of really fun-looking knockers.
I might be a trespasser and a thief, but I damn sure make it a point to know every name and every face of my congregation. I would never have missed someone that damn sexy and interesting.
“The church elders would like to put you on administrative leave for one week until you decide you are remorseful and ready to ask forgiveness for what you’ve done,” says Leslie, president of th
e church council of elders.
I nod and clasp my hands together. “That’s fine, ma’am. But I ain’t sorry. I can’t believe anyone else here would not have wanted to do the same thing, seeing a sad, underfed animal tied to a tree in someone’s yard. If you disagree, then I don’t know what I’m even doing here—what any of us are doing here. Might as well pack my bags.”
The blue eyes go wide. Finally, a reaction from the unknown woman. Her pierced eyebrow arches at me in surprise. Or is it interest? She turns her head briefly to speak to the elderly woman next to her, Louisa. President of the quilting bee. How does she know Louisa?
But I don’t have time to focus on that question, because another person from the congregation starts questioning me. My top lip sweats when I recognize the person behind the mic as the same woman who calls to complain about something once a week. Karen with the “I’d like to speak to the manager” haircut, here we go.
“Pastor Boone,” she says, “I just don’t understand why you would let your emotions take over and make yourself a legal liability for your flock.”
I shift my weight from one foot to the other. “I didn’t think of it like that in the moment. I just saw something wrong and I acted on my conscience, is all.”
Karen replies, “But it wasn’t exactly an impulse. You did it five different times in one week. Just hopped fences and took what didn’t belong to you. Seems to me it was pretty calculated. That’s my problem. Do you see yourself some kind of vigilante or something? Not to mention, you could easily have been shot.”
I find the electric blue eyes again, and I feel a new strength to speak up more strongly. “Karen, life is too short to wait for someone else to do the right thing. I can’t just walk away when I see something like that. And frankly I’m disappointed that all of you are more upset that I broke the law than about the way some people treat their animals.”
Everything turns to subdued pandemonium.
Fuck it. That’s what my sister Molly would say if I dared to tell her about my current predicament.
Something mischievous in the blue-eyed woman’s expression reminds me of my sister. Not in a creepy way. We are a country family, but not that country. A smirk tugs at my lips because I blame my sister for starting me down this path. She and her shenanigans flipped a switch somewhere and made me start to question everything I believed in.
I hold up my hands in surrender. “Look, I’ll make it easy for y’all.”
Now would be a good time for life to imitate an internet GIF, so I could do some kind of badass mic drop. Except in real life, mics are really expensive. Instead of making a cool-guy exit, I am forced to subject everyone to a super-awkward moment while I remove my Britney headset and unclip the little box from the back of my shirt, then hand off the bundle of equipment to a sound technician.
Next, I make a beeline down the center aisle of the stadium, straight to the row with the lady with the electric-blue eyes. I’m thankful she’s sitting right on the aisle. Either it will make our exit smooth, or, if she rejects me, I can escape quickly. Her hair falls wild and thick around her face, tempting me to bury my fingers in it. Her parted lips bewitch me so thoroughly, the feeling inside me borders on need.
She shoots up to her feet when I stop next to her, her expression makes it seem like she’s shocked at her own behavior. Now that I’m closer, I can see her thighs are decorated with tattoos of red roses, skulls, snakes and hearts that peek out from under a pair of old-fashioned polka dot shorts. She looks like something out of a pinup calendar. She’s fun, innocence and sin all wrapped up together in one curvy little package.
I would ask God to help me hide this boner but there’s no hope of that. Besides, if there is a God, he probably has more important things on his docket than my obvious horniness.
I nearly lose my final shred of cool when I notice she has a painted-on beauty mark under her left eye. Everything about her is so…so not like the girls with whom the elders have been trying to set me up. No disrespect to those nice, so-called suitable women, but not a single one of them had my heart kicking like a mule in my chest.
Her long eyelashes flutter from behind her lenses as her eyes roam over me. When those blues land on my chest and travel up my neck, to my mouth and finally my eyes, she licks her lips. Her cheeks pink. She looks up at me with her lips slightly parted, like she isn’t sure who’s supposed to speak first.
“Hi,” I say, holding out my hand. “I’m Boone.”
She stifles a laugh. When my hand closes around hers and squeezes, her cheeks go all the way red. She squeezes back.
“Delilah.”
Shit. I know how that story goes, and it didn’t end well for Samson. Should I take that as a red flag? The palpitating muscle in my chest—not to mention the “muscle” inside my jeans—does not care.
“Nice to meet you, Delilah. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’m fixin’ to get the fuck outta here. You comin’?”
Chapter Two
Delilah
I want to say yes to him. To a total stranger. Well, not a total stranger; he’s the pastor at my grandmother’s church. My Oma must know him.
For the past thirty minutes, while I sat there watching these people torment him over something I didn’t think was that big of a deal, he kept glancing in my direction. The whole time, I wasn’t sure if he was actually looking at me or somebody behind me. But now, inches away from him, it’s pretty clear. He’s coveting me like the crispy end of a barbecue brisket.
Why would a man who looks like a taller, hotter, younger Henry Rollins—smoldering eyes, hard muscles and chiseled lines, a prominent, ultra-masculine brow—study me like I’m some kind of prize?
Who cares why, my inner voice finally convinces me. Go for it. What have you got to lose?
My inner voice is right. I have nothing to lose by basking in this man’s gaze and taking him up on his offer. This is my lucky day. After all, it’s amazing I didn’t get struck by lightning just walking into this place.
“Yes,” I squeak out before my mind questions it again.
A surprised smile widens his bad boy grin. “Yeah? For real?”
Then I remember. “I mean, I would, but I’m here with my Oma.”
That gorgeous smile fades, but he’s not hurt—not in the butthurt, offended kind of way some guys are when they get turned down. “Oh. OK.” He turns his gaze to my elderly Oma, sitting next to my empty seat. He nods to her respectfully and says, “Ma’am.”
Of course he does. He was raised right, most likely. He can’t just be perfect to look at and have a voice so low I can feel it vibrating under my skin. Boy howdy, do old-fashioned manners crank my engines.
That’s when I feel someone tugging at my shorts and I look over. It’s Oma. “Go!” she says. “I’ll take your car home.”
“I…uh…are you sure, Oma? They took away your license…”
She’s lost her patience with me now. “Hush your tattling mouth. I was driving that thing before your mother was born. Go on now and git!”
I gape at my mouthy Oma.
Truthfully, I’m more shocked at what I’m about to do.
I only came here this morning out of morbid curiosity and because neither my mother nor my brothers wanted to take Oma to church. None of them actively enjoy going, but usually they humor the matriarch of the family. This morning at our weekly family breakfast at Mom’s house, though, they all said there was no way they were ever coming back here.
“That boy has finally lost his marbles,” said my brother Buck with half a buttermilk biscuit stuffed in his mouth, staring down at the opened Sunday edition of the Dallas Morning News.
My brother Ricky scoffed. “Just like those child movie stars. You knew that was going to turn out bad in the end.”
My mother was indifferent, sipping her tea and scrolling through social media. “Says here he was shooting his shotgun all over town. I ain’t taking my momma anywhere near that lunatic ever again.”
I glanced
at the newspaper, and the pastor’s mugshot did something to me. Something in his face told me my mom didn’t have all the facts. No way that man was driving around with a real-life loaded gun. He’s a stranger to me, but I just didn’t believe it. I read the article and chimed in, “No, it says here it was a BB gun and he just shot out one streetlight.”
My mom snorted, not taking her eyes off her tablet. “That’s so much better.”
I sipped my coffee and walked over to where Oma was sitting at the window, listening to her Southern gospel choir on the radio. I nudged her gently. “I’ll take you, Oma.”
She looked up at me and smiled. “Thank you, dear. I knew you’d come around. We’re gonna find you a nice single fella today.”
I blushed and rolled my eyes. “Oma.”
My mother finally looked up. “Dressed like that?”
I glanced down at my concert tee-shirt and shorts. “What’s wrong with this? I am a grown-ass woman, after all.”
My older brothers were busy fighting over what was left of the sausage gravy. Mom shook her head at all of us and went back to her screen.
“Can I go like this, Oma? Or, I could go back to my apartment and look for a dress.”
Oma put down her knitting and waved me off. “Don’t listen to these heathen folks. You got the goods; you should show them off while you can.”
My Oma is not the most traditional church granny I’ve ever met.
So, after a little bit of a struggle getting her fragile frame into the old Galaxie, I drove Oma to church. I was curious to see that badass vigilante pastor for myself.
