Page 95 of At Her Will

She sent a text to Cyn and Mavis, giving them their status, then she held that large hand with both of hers, occasionally brushing her lips over his chapped knuckles as he dozed. When his chest hitched, either from pain or something else, she moved her palm to his heart.

His eyes opened, confirming pain. Terrible, overwhelming, and not physical. It reminded her of his expression in thegarden, before he knew she was there. His plaintive cry to the heavens. “I know,” she whispered.

“Mrs. Cuddy was a good woman. She had two kids, one in college, one about to graduate high school. Her husband and her been planning what to do with retirement, though she say she worried about kids not having enough teachers with good sense to teach them. I saw her. Folded over her desk like she was taking a nap, only in her own blood.”

The phone screen went through Vera’s head. She put her hand on his face, knowing her own reflected his anguish.

“And those two kids in bad shape… One got shot in the stomach. They say he’ll be having a lot of problems, and infection… God might take him anyway.”

He shook his head. “All that, but the worst of them all is Craig, because his soul is so sick. If he ever heal enough to know what he done, he’ll wish he was dead. I could feel him thinking about it, some part of him knowing. Thinking it would be better if he just go ahead and turn that gun on himself. God help me, I’m not sure if he not right, the hard road ahead of him.”

He lifted pain-filled eyes to her. “But then I think of what you said about reincarnation. He’d have to face the same things all over again that he didn’t figure out in this life. Wouldn’t he?”

“Yes. Suicide just puts it off.”

“That’s a hard thing.”

“Yes.” Their hands were in a knot on his chest, and she wanted to give him something for the pain he was feeling. He already knew so many of the things that could bring comfort in times like these, but the reinforcement from somewhere other than his own suffering heart might help.

“What would you tell Craig, if he realizes what he did?”

Rev’s eyes shadowed. “God’s love don’t falter,” he said slowly. “Even when we do the worst things possible. He’ll require justice, redemption and penance, but He never stops loving.”

“The ultimate tough love parent.”

“Yeah. Don’t give no quarter, but don’t leave you, neither.” Rev didn’t quite manage the smile. “You was having a bad day. I sorry. I made it worse.”

Surprise shot through her. “How in the name of all that’s holy can you know that?”

He treated her to his appealing lopsided smile. “I can just tell, Mistress. What happened? I don’t want to think of the other for a while. I’ll be praying on it a lot, but right now, it hurting my chest and making them bullet wounds burn.”

She told him about Henrietta and Wade’s issue, no names. He watched her as she ran through it. When she was done, he waited a beat. Then spoke. “What else?”

At her look, he added, “That’s your job. You know how to handle it. It give you weight on your shoulders, but you strong. You can handle weight. What I feeling from you on that…it like this bullet. Just something that happened on your way to fix a problem. But the other thing you haven’t told me about, that’s like the way I feel about Craig, Mrs. Cuddy and the kids. Something you don’t know no way to fix or make better, that just hurts.”

“I don’t feel like talking about it right now.”

“Okay. I just lie here and think about how bad I feel. No distractions.”

She narrowed her gaze. “How about I pinch you really hard somewhere thatwillbe distracting? There’s a term called topping from the bottom, where a sub tries to get his Mistress to do what he wants.”

He sobered. “I not trying to do nothing like that. I teasing you, Mistress.”

“I know. My sense of humor has taken a battering today.” She sighed. “Fine. My sister called me. My father had a heart attack.”

Rev pushed up on his elbows. “You don’t need to be here, looking after me. Where they got him at?”

“It was ten months ago. He’s okay, but he can’t work. Palma called to guilt me into giving them money.”

He sat back, gazed at her. Then he opened his arms.

She lay down against him. She did it gingerly and stayed in the chair, only her upper body in his hold, but when he guided her head to his chest, and tightened his embrace, she could feel his desire to hold her close. Take her weight.

She laid her hand on that bandaged spot on his side. She thought about what would have happened if that bullet or the other had been closer to places that would have taken him from her.

He’d wait for her to tell him more, and wouldn’t push further. By holding her, he was letting her know she wasn’t alone with it.

“I’m giving it to them, of course,” she said. “They need it. But it dredges it all back up again. My family, my ex-husband, Donovan, they all wanted me to be someone I’m not. For my family, it was being their kind of Christian. For my husband, it was some of that, but we were just the wrong fit, and he wanted to give my soul a lobotomy to fix it.

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