Page 40 of Hotter 'N Hell

“Sorry. My bad,” I replied.

She took the last bite of her loaf, then stacked her papers together. “Okay. How are we making these bags?” she asked.

I bit down on my inner lip to keep from breaking into a grin. I’d thawed her some. Friday, I was going to come with a box of hot,fresh doughnuts. She’d better watch out; I’d have her calling me bestie by the end of the month. Okay, that was a little hopeful and highly doubtful, but she was gonna like me.

When Wednesday rolled around and Father Jude had yet to stop by, I knew he was avoiding me. Which was fine. I was a harlot. I had led him down the path of sin. Blah, blah, blah. He hadn’t even seen my vagina.

Since we were closed today and I was here alone, I’d decided to bring my Bluetooth speaker and listen to music while I worked on unboxing and putting out the first donation of panties and bras I had received from Underneath It All. The other two had said I’d get theirs by tomorrow.

Singing along to “You Look Like You Love Me” while taking price tags off bras put me in a decent mood until someone touched my arm and I dropped the scissors and screamed.

“Saylor, it’s me!” Father Jude shouted over the music, which might have been too loud.

I placed a hand on my racing heart. “Computer, turn music off!” I called out.

“Come on!” he ordered.

Still holding my arm, he began pulling me behind him as his much longer legs took off toward…I had no idea where.

“Let go of me!” I tried to jerk free, remembering I was mad at him.

“Stop it! Did you not hear the sirens?” he barked, then swung open the small closet, where we had paper products and some odds and ends inside. He went inside and began forcing me to come with him.

“What?”

“There are two tornadoes on the ground, less than a mile fromhere. The sirens have been going off for the past ten minutes.”

Tornadoes!

I rushed inside the tiny space, and he slammed the door closed behind me.

“Why didn’t my phone go off? Or you could have called me.”

He sighed. There wasn’t any light in here, and I was glad. I didn’t want to see him.

“I did. By the third try, I was racing out the door to get down here to you. My guess is, your phone did go off, but the volume level of that music you were playing would have drowned out a nuclear missile.”

“Oh,” I replied.

My heart was hammering so hard that I could hear it. I didn’t like storms. I didn’t like thunder. But tornadoes? Those terrified me.

“You good?” he asked.

I was shaking. No, I was not okay. I wanted my daddy. Right now.

I shook my head and realized he couldn’t see me.

“I don’t like tornadoes,” I whispered as if the tornado might hear me and come after me.

His hand touched my upper arm. I knew he could feel my terror even if he couldn’t see it. “Hey, Dimples. It’s fine. We are safe in here. The building is brick. We are away from all windows and doors.”

My panic attack took a brief pause. Had he just called me Dimples?

“Come here.” He said the two words as if he wished he didn’t have to, but had no choice. Then, his arms wrapped around me from behind, and he pulled me back to his chest.

“You don’t have to touch me.” I tried to sound pissed, but my voice cracked. I sounded like I was about to cry because I was.

His arms tightened. That did help some.

---