Page 58 of At Her Will

No one in the world would ever make a peach pie that matched Teena Joy’s. The memory added to the taste, but it alsomade his heart hurt. He’d celebrated her arrival in the arms of the Lord, because she’d want that, but the grief could still circle back. Veracity’s hand covered his as she leaned closer.

“A lot of people think this is only about sex.” She gestured to a Dom and sub near them. The sub wore a pair of jean shorts and a gold collar on her throat. Her breasts were exposed and nipples pierced, a chain between them strung with a gold infinity charm. “It can be. Nothing wrong with that, but it can also open up things that mean a great deal to us, make us vulnerable. And that makes us think of those we miss, who we’ve lost. You loved her.”

“I did. I do.”

Trey and Sy were involved in conversation, Trey sketching out music notes on a napkin. If it was deliberate, giving them privacy, Rev appreciated it.

“Mavis said she passed about a year ago.”

“Thirteen months and eight days.”

Veracity’s eyes held his. “That’s a major upheaval in your life. Mavis said you lived with her.”

“Yeah. I kept saying I should move out, but she’d say I wasn’t one of them kids who don’t earn his own way. She said the house was too big for her to rattle alone in it, so I said I’d stay, as long as I paid my share.”

A faint smile touched his lips. “She say, ‘we’ll be roommates, then, you and me,’ and shook my hand like we was just meeting for the first time. She was always teasing like that.” The humor curled tight around the next thought, sunk into it and disappeared. “Then she got sick, and wasn’t no question of it anymore. I took care of her, same as she took care of me for so long.”

“Did you wish to stay in the house, after she was gone?” Her lashes were dark and thick around her silver eyes.

“Didn’t give it much thought. Witford said she wanted the house sold and the proceeds to go to the church, and that wasfine by me. The house wasn’t the same without her in it, and a good family lives there now. Finding a place closer to the school worked out good.”

He had his forearm against the edge of the table, casting a shadow of his hand next to his plate. She drew a line around it with one fingertip. “That first day, the way you did this to the shadow of my arm, it was like I could feel your touch on my skin.”

She put her hand on the shadow, and he couldn’t deny the tingle he felt in his palm. She had that way about her, drawing energy and sending it toward him like a blown kiss. Like a flock of blown kisses, landing everywhere on him.

She put her elbow on the table and propped her chin on her hand. “Did you keep anything of hers?”

“Got all the memories she gave me. I have a picture of the two of us from when I was little, soon after my momma died. Yolanda, Witford’s wife, she also brought me this ring Teena Joy always wore. She told Witford I was to have it. Just a little gold band, don’t even fit my pinkie, but I keep it in a box with a few things. It’s all right, Mistress. Giving is how you receive. Possessions don’t mean much.”

At her surprised expression, he added, “You look like you think I should have been given more. Everything the Lord gives me, every day. That’s all I need.” He closed his hand over hers. “And tonight I feel squarely on His good side.”

He’d won a smile from her, but she had another question for him. “When I said you could stop a bull’s charge, that meant something to you.”

He should have known she was going to circle back to that. “You have a way of hitting a nail straight on the head without looking where the hammer going, Veracity.”

She pursed her full lips. “Does that mean you’ll tell me about it?”

“I won’t say no to something you want to hear. When I was fifteen, I was on a youth trip to a farm. Some of them boys wandered off. Our assistant pastor noticed and asked me to go fetch them. They was in the bull’s pasture, throwing rocks at him, trying to get him to charge.”

“Proving why teenagers have to have superhero guardian angels to survive the idiotic things their underdeveloped brains tell them to do,” Veracity said dryly. “Though Cyn tells me it’s good to hold onto some of that stupidity as an adult, to keep things interesting.”

“She full of life, that one.”

Vera chuckled. “She’s full of something. That’s what she’d say to you.”

“But you love her like a little sister.”

“I do. She drives me crazy, even as I want to hold her and tell her everything will always be okay, because she has us. And now Mick, which I think is why she finally halfway believes we won’t all be swallowed up in the ground tomorrow.”

“She had it tough before you all.”

“She did. Her childhood was a nightmare.”

He nodded. “It always the ones like porcupines that need a hug. They gotta draw blood to let you be kind to them.”

“I’m going to tell her you said that. Tell me the rest of your story.”

“One boy with them was smaller, not so fast. He was smart enough to know it, but they’d made fun of him, called him a chicken, until pride overrode his smarts. He got in the pasture with them. When they aggravated that bull enough he started in their direction, they shoved the boy down and took off. Maybe they didn’t mean for the next thing to happen, but when he tried to get up, he twisted his ankle.”

---