Page 13 of Hotter 'N Hell

My gaze was right back on her. She shifted in her seat, and the hem of her sundress inched up just a touch more.

Stop looking!

“I grew up with a boy. He was the only boyfriend I’d ever had. We were just”—she paused—“something that was expected, I guess. I never considered a life without him in it. Then…justlike that…he was gone. We had been talking one minute, and the next, he was on the ground”—she dropped her eyes to her hands, which, I realized, were gripped together tightly. Her shoulders rose and fell as she took a deep breath—“bleeding out. And I watched the life leave him.”

There was no trace of the bitterness she’d had when she told me this story. Only the pain. The hurt. He had betrayed her, but she had loved him. And lost him in a violent way.

“Oh God,” Mary whispered.

“Bless her,” Agnes said softly.

It was my time to say something. Speak up. Give words of wisdom. God’s promises. But Saylor’s grief had sucked the oxygen from the room, or maybe it was just me who had been affected so intensely.

“It stays with you.” Daniel Clifton, the youngest of the men here—except for me—spoke up. “Seeing someone you love fade away. One minute, you have the world before you, and the next, you’re left in it with a void instead.” He swallowed hard, causing his Adam’s apple to bob in his neck.

Daniel was on the shy side, but when he shared, it was always profound. I was thankful he had chosen tonight to talk. Since I couldn’t manage to think of the right thing to say. Everything I thought of felt weak. Not enough.

Yes, I had survived loss. The love of my life had been taken from me. But when I held her hand and she took her last breath, I had her love. I had known her love. It had been pure. There was no taint left behind to mark it.

Saylor didn’t have that. She had been left sliced open, shattered. Battling her pain and her grief.

“I was driving,” Daniel told Saylor.

We all knew his story already. This was for her. Why we had this group. So others could find they weren’t alone in their grief. That someone wanted to listen.

“It was late on Halloween night. We had gone to a midnight viewing ofDraculaat the cinema in town. After, Belle was dancing in the passenger seat to a Taylor Swift song and laughing because she knew I’d rather listen to anything else.” A sad smile touched his face. “That was the last time I saw her smile. Her voice singing along with the lyrics were the last words I heard her say.”

I glanced at Saylor to see her expression looked pained. As if she felt his sorrow. She lifted a hand and ducked her head as she tried to hide the fact that she was wiping a tear before it had time to roll down her cheek.

“A drunk driver ran a red light. Hit my car, going over a hundred miles an hour. On the passenger side. And as I lay there, pinned inside, unable to move, I saw the blank void in Belle’s eyes, where so much life had been. When you see that, you’re never the same. A body without the soul.”

Saylor quickly caught another tear. Was she crying for Daniel or for herself? Maybe both.

“We were engaged. We’d already had our wedding shower,” he added, then stopped, taking a deep, unsteady breath. “That was sixteen months ago. And time makes it easier to wake up, face a new day. But it doesn’t fill what was taken from you. At least, it hasn’t for me.”

Saylor sniffled and gave him a small, shaky smile.

“I didn’t mean to take over. I just thought…well, it helped me when I started coming—to know others had lived through what I had. That I wasn’t alone with my grief.”

She nodded. “It does.”

His shoulders relaxed, and although he was grieving, the way his eyes took in the sight of her reminded me that I wasn’t the only man to be affected by her. She had that certain thing that made it hard to look away. Men would watch her wherever she went. They would flirt with her, want her. And they were all freeto pursue her.

I was not.

I was a priest, and tomorrow was the first day of Holy Week. The most important week of the year for a priest, leading into Eastertide. The oil that had been used to anoint my hands when I was ordained was meant to set me apart from the ways of the world. To keep me worthy for my sacred duties. My life was not my own.

Five

Saylor

It had taken me two hours to get dressed and convince myself that I wanted to go to Mass that next day. I had changed my dress five times. The amount of time I had taken to curl my hair had been ridiculous.

Not that any of it had mattered because I didn’t think Father Jude had glanced my way one single time that day. I hadn’t even gotten a brief flick of his eyes in my direction. No recognition in the slightest that I had come to Mass.

Among the palm branches—which we all had carried, including me, since Mary had shoved one into my hands—I had barely caught a glimpse of him as he led the crowd outside in a line into the church as they waved their branches. Mary had pressed her lips together to keep from giggling every time our eyes met.

Then, Father Jude had stood up on the stage or platform, altar—hell, I didn’t know what they called it—wearing a red robe. Heread from the Bible, and then he had begun reciting lines about Jesus’s arrest, stopping to allow the congregation to repeat it. This happened until they got to the part about Jesus’s death. It was all so bizarre.

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