Sixty Nine (Payne Brothers Romance Book 4)

by Sosie Frost

  Hadn’t I taught them anything? “Because I can’t.”

  “Why the fuck not?”

  I let the profanity slide—bigger issues at hand. “I’m not the only one who remembers the F4 tornado, right?”

  Marius swore. “For Christ’s sake, V. You’ve blamed everything on that tornado.”

  I didn’t blame anything on the tornado. I’d learned more about myself, my faith, and the whole damned church because of the tornado.

  And if they couldn’t see it…

  “So, you thought you’d lie to me?” I asked. “You lied to get me here. You respect me and all of Christianity so little, you thought you could guilt me into performing the ceremony?”

  My brothers never turned down a fight. It was Cassi who tried to make the peace.

  “Varius, it’s not that we don’t respect you—it’s that we do,” she said. “You belong in the church. It’s time you come back.”

  “And how am I supposed to do that?” My voice rose. Didn’t matter. Only one soul in the church might have given me the answers I needed, and I didn’t deserve her sympathy. “I lost my faith, Cas. It’s done. It’s over. I can’t perform a ceremony this important if I don’t believe in it myself.”

  Quint hummed. “You could…fake it till you make it?”

  I wasn’t a minister anymore, and I wasn’t even a good man, but that last thing I wanted to do was jeopardize my nephew’s soul.

  “You think I would disrespect the people of this church, their faith, my nephew’s connection with God, to fake something this important?”

  Cassi sighed. “You have to recover at some point. You can’t live this way forever.”

  Julian frowned. “Can’t live this way at all.”

  That darkness was no secret to the family. “I’m here now, aren’t I?”

  Her voice lowered. “For how much longer?”

  Christ only knew, and he’d stopped answering me long ago.

  From across the church, Glory hopped onto a pew and called to Cassi. “Is he gonna do it or what?”

  Cassi shrugged.

  Glory checked her watch. “I’ll call a twenty-minute break.”

  One of the Carols began to sway a bit more violently. A chunk of plaster fell from the ceiling.

  “Maybe…” The eldest Carol glanced upwards, nervously. “Maybe we should come down.”

  Glory winced. “I didn’t want to worry you guys. You…can’t come down.

  “What?”

  “The wires are stuck.”

  “What?”

  “Don’t panic. I’ve called the fire department—”

  All three Carols tensed. “Which fire department?”

  “Does it matter?”

  The chapel erupted into chaos. Glory spun, confused, but the battle blasted through the church. The feud between the volunteer chiefs was as heated as the house fire that had schismed their department.

  Cassi took my hand. “Varius, please. We’re your family. Just talk to us.”

  How? Even if I’d wanted to bare what remained of my soul, every Christmas song in existence blared from the chapel’s speakers, harpists, French horns, and even the armpit of an apostle.

  Not that it’d matter. I had nothing to say. Nothing left to give. No explanation, guidance, or answer for what had happened. That part of my life had died. It’d been buried with the dead of that day, and nothing would resurrect it.

  Nothing except…

  Glory dropped a makeshift manger and rushed to the stage, catching an adorable toddler with candy cane leggings, a little puff ball for a bun, and aspirations to climb and destroy every ornament on the Christmas tree.

  “No, no…” She earned the little girl’s smile. “What did I tell you about climbing that tree?”

  The music swelled, and Glory hurried to the light panel on the opposite wall. She struck the switches, and the chapel plunged into darkness.

  At least, until a disco ball cast down from the ceiling and shimmered glittery light onto the crucifix.

  And I’d had enough.

  Enough of the family. Enough of the memories. Enough of the pain.

  And enough of the most ridiculous Christmas pageant to infect its cheer upon Butterpond.

  I whistled between my fingers, silencing the chapel. The flashy strobes and glittering lights wound around the pews.

  I pointed to the disco ball. “What is that?”

  Glory always anticipated a fight. The woman got her kicks from a challenge.

  I should have known better than to question her.

  Her fist plunked onto her hip. “That is the highlight of Act One.”

  “Acts are in the Bible, not in Butterpond’s pageant.”

  “Not this year,” she said. “We need the disco ball for Satan’s number.”

  A quiet pounding throbbed in my temples. “You put Satan in the Christmas play?”

  “Is that a problem?”

  “Only theologically.”

  Glory gestured to the back pews where a rather sheepish looking Mr. Booker struggled to adjust a pair of skin-tight bell-bottoms.

  “Disco Inferno,” she said. “Frankly, there are too many angels in Act One. We needed something spicy to push the momentum forward.”

  “And you chose Satan?”

  Glory’s eyebrow arched. I’d earned that devilish glance before, and usually it drove me to my knees. Pretty sure I’d have to stay there this time, if only to cast a prayer for this production.

  “Don’t like it?” she asked. “You’re more than welcome to take over, preacher.”

  The chapel quieted. I did not. That was my first mistake.

  The second was meeting Glory’s gaze and losing myself and my mind in her dark eyes, the chiseled edge of her cheek so perfectly highlighted by her hair, swept into a tight bun. Her lips pouted. Kissable. Plump.

  What the hell was I doing here?

  And why didn’t I just leave?

  “I’ll give you some free advice,” I said, dodging another cracked bit of plaster tumbling from the wires suspending the Carols in the air. “If your pageant requires safety harnesses, you’re doing it wrong.”

  “They signed a waiver!”

  “And what about them?” I watched the scene staging behind her. Three volunteers crowded around a plastic Virgin Mary, stolen from the outdoor manger. Her paint had faded, but a stage hand doodled a smile on her face with a bit of lipstick. “What scene are they setting?”

  “The Annunciation,” Glory said.

  At least it was a story from scripture and not Lord of the Rings, unlike the Orcs decorating the tree.

  “And…what are they wearing?”

  As much as I admired the sweaters embedded with LEDs, jingle bells, and buttons from every junk drawer in all of Butterpond, I’d always assumed angels wore halos, not hand-me-downs.

  Glory didn’t bat an eye. “Those are ugly Christmas sweaters. It’s ironic.”

  And it set my teeth on edge. The entirety of the chapel shifted in uncomfortable silence that my newborn nephew broke with a hungry cry.

  “So, you sacrificed thousands of years of tradition for…irony?” I asked.

  “Well, the traditional costumes you had in storage were old, moth-eaten, and not entirely flame-retardant, which is a rather surprising requirement for this town’s production.” Glory crossed her arms. “Do you plan on critiquing my entire pageant now, or are you gonna dunk that kid?”

  I turned as Micah approached, bouncing the baby with wide eyes. “Maybe just a little splash, V?” Her voice strained. “Maybe it’ll help him sleep. We could all use some sleep…”

  Enough blasphemy had been done for the day. Cassi took my hand.

  “V, you used to love doing baptisms,” she said.

  Sure. When the average age of Butterpond was seventy, a birth was nothing short of miraculous.

  The entire congregation silenced. Even Glory waited, a scowl darkening her perfect features.

  “I don’t know what you expected�
��” The words shadowed with a grief none of them could understand. A grief I didn’t wish upon any in the town, church, or my family. “I can’t baptize your son. I left the church. I’m not a minister.”

  “Then what are you?” Julian asked the question I’d struggled to answer for a year. “We sure as hell don’t know.”

  I pointed to the scenery stacked against the stage. “Apparently, I’m the only one here that realizes they haven’t painted Jerusalem on that wall.”

  Glory held a hand up. A teenager with a paintbrush stopped mid-step, more afraid of her than the drips of turquoise staining the carpet and his shoes.

  Her jaw clenched. “If that’s not Jerusalem…what did we just spend all afternoon painting?”

  “Tatooine.”

  Quint shot out of the pew. “Wait, was Luke Skywalker in the Bible?”

  If I’d told him yes, he might’ve read it for once in his life. Instead I shook my head. “Call Miley. Get him to do the christening. I’m done.”

  Julian called after me. “V, you’re only hurting yourself.”

  No more than I’d already been hurt.

  I preferred the silence of the congregation to the questions, sympathies, and mournful cries that had plagued me since the storm. But a man never got used to walking away from his demons even if they hid in the holiest of places.

  The door clattered behind me only to squeal open once more. Not the ragged, worn sound of the original door to the church, but a newer, mostly unused creak. Must have installed it after the storm.

  New walls. New roof. New church.

  I was a new man, not a better one.

  Glory’s heels were impractical for the church, but I didn’t think the woman owned a pair of flats. And why would she? Someone as beautiful as her possessed such grace and poise she could dance around a stage or up the aisle of a church and enchant every type of man inside.

  “You want to tell me what the hell you’re doing?”

  Glory didn’t command me to stop, but her voice stilled my steps.

  I didn’t want to face her. See her. Think of her.

  Smell the vanilla scent of her hair.

  Imagine the heat from her chest.

  The beating of her heart.

  The church tormented me enough. Last thing I needed was my own soul tearing me apart.

  “You interrupt my rehearsal,” she said. “You cause a massive scene with more drama than I can wring out of my messiah. Then you insult every creative decision we’ve made.”

  She poked my chest, hoping for a response. She got the wrong one.

  The shock tingled through me and struck through her. Heat.

  Stinging, terrible heat.

  Her lips parted, but she drew a soft breath only to hiss it back at me. That was fine. I’d take her anger. Her passion. Anything she wanted.

  As long as it gave me a few precious moments to memorize how her lips pouted and her eyes danced.

  “A-and let me tell you some—something, Pastor V...”

  Her breath puffed in the cold air. The right and wrong thing to do would have been to take her in my arms and warm her chilled body.

  I shouldn’t have stepped forward.

  Glory stared up at me. A challenge?

  I might have kissed her then. Lost my mind and soul and tasted her rage for myself.

  Temptation was almost as enticing as sin. Almost.

  “The sweaters? The Carols? The set design?” she asked. “Those were the community’s ideas. Not mine. Not Miley’s. There almost wasn’t a Christmas pageant this year, but I needed this job, and so we made it work. Whatever the town wanted, they got. So, if you want to insult it, insult them.”

  Never.

  “Just me stepping into that church insults the people of this town,” I said.

  “Why?”

  “Because I left them.”

  She stiffened. “You left me too. Sorry about that?”

  “Yes.”

  She hadn’t expected my honesty. Then again, no man ever needed to lie to Glory. She knew just what they felt for her, what they wanted.

  And I’d been no better.

  Glory huffed, but she didn’t look away. Too brave for that. Too proud. “Well, don’t stay on my account this time. I survived it once. I’ll survive it again.”

  “I never meant to hurt you.”

  “And what about them?”

  The cast seemed too rough for her skin. Something painful. But she caught my glance and shuffled her arms, tucking the cast under her healthy wrist where I couldn’t see it as easily.

  “They need you, V. Are you going to help or not?”

  I studied the church that had once been my home. I expected it to hurt more, but a man could get his fill of pain and live to tell about it. Just wasn’t much of a life.

  “You have it under control,” I said. “I can’t do it.”

  She didn’t hesitate. “Then stay the hell away.”

  “From the church?”

  Her words stung. “And from me. I don’t know who you are, Varius Payne, but you aren’t the man I thought you were.”

  And nothing else needed to be said.

  No arguments from me. No explanations. No excuses.

  I escaped from the church with only one prayer—that I never saw the inside again.

  It wasn’t painful to lose faith in something more.

  But losing faith in myself? That hurt like Hell.

  5

  Varius

  What good was prayer when it never stopped me from thinking about her?

  Used to be only bad memories haunted my church. Now an angel lurked in the shadows, destroying the rest of my faith.

  Life wasn’t fair. Fortunately, that’s why people made casseroles.

  My fork scraped the bottom of a pan that had seen its share of church cookouts. Chicken and broccoli casserole. It was probably my favorite. A smattering of undiluted cream of chicken soup could make even the most overcooked chicken breast taste good. The gallon of mayo gluing it together helped too. Then again, the recipe hadn’t changed in fifty years.

  In times of crisis, Butterpond healed best with a casserole in hand. And, after this week’s confrontations, every oven in Butterpond was busy baking.

  Usually, the women’s society only made the stuffed cabbages for funerals. I had three trays. Wasn’t sure who had to die to stop the Jello salads, but two lime monstrosities were left on my doorstep. The chili came in crock pots, the potato salad in disposable bowls, and, between the containers of spaghetti pie and Swedish meatballs was the note detailing Glory’s abuses.

  Save us from the demon woman—She won’t let us use cue cards

  Why were they coming to me for help? Nothing would change my mind about returning to the church, not even a sheet cake the size of Texas that found a new home on our kitchen counter. I was done with the congregation, with faith, with everything. If Glory wanted the men to wear tights, Santa to be present at Jesus’s birth, and the Last Supper staged in a mock coffeehouse, so be it.

  I didn’t trust myself in the church.

  I didn’t trust myself near her.

  And so I picked the chicken from around the broccoli in the casserole and waited until my brother woke from his stupor.

  Tidus groaned from the couch. Finally getting up? I checked my watch. It’d been a harsh bender, and he’d been out for the last thirteen hours. My brother reeked of whiskey, hadn’t shaved for three days, and couldn’t focus his eyes, but he still surveyed the kitchen-turned-cafeteria and laughed.

  “What the hell did you do?” he asked.

  I offered him a bottle of water and pointed to the aspirin on the coffee table beside him. “Is that a rhetorical question, or do you want me to list all my sins?”

  “At this point, even you must have some skeletons in your closet.”

  “I’d make you proud.”

  “Payne men don’t make anyone proud.” Tidus chugged his water and slapped a handful of pills into his mouth. Blessed
was his liver, if he still had one. “Jules got you to babysit me?”

  “Asked me to check on you, so you didn’t choke on your own vomit.”

  “What good is life if you don’t take risks?”

  Tidus didn’t seem to care that he wasn’t in his own bed, had no idea what time it was, or that he suffered from the devil’s own hangover. But we all had our Sunday rituals. For me, it used to be sermons and hymns. Tidus usually preferred sex and drinking. To each his own.

  He joined me at the table, stealing a fork from an empty plate. He wiped the tines on his jeans and didn’t bother checking what dish was under the aluminum foil before spearing a chunk and inhaling the bite.

  “Rigatoni.” He chewed, paused, and then swallowed. “Maybe.”

  “Surprised you still have a sense of taste,” I said.

  “Working on that next.”

  I sighed. “It probably needs salt. All of Butterpond is on a low sodium kick.”

  Tidus grunted. “Only tequila needs salt.”

  “You always had a discriminating pallet.”

  “The best thing a man can do for himself is figure out that he’s a piece of shit early on.” He snorted. “Pride cometh before the fall, right, preacher?”

  I smirked. “That’s oddly profound.”

  “Shouldn’t be…you’re the one who told me that.”

  Tidus had Mom’s eyes. A shame he never saw the world the way she did.

  “And you believed me?” I asked.

  He took another bite. “Believe most of the things you tell me.”

  “Even now?”

  “Especially now.” He ignored his water and cracked open a new beer, sliding a second toward me. “What the hell do you have to lie about?”

  More than he realized. “If only I were a better influence.”

  Tidus grinned. “I’m my own influence.”

  “Find a better role model.”

  He laughed, though his voice never warmed. “How long are you supposed to watch me?”

  I helped myself to another spoonful of the casserole. “As long as it’s needed.”

  “I don’t need to be babysat.”

  “That’s what you said last time you blacked out.”

  “All I ask is that someone tosses me a towel if I crack my head open on the sidewalk.”