Page 21 of Almost Priest

“Don’t or can’t?”

“Both. I mean I used to, but I haven’t in over a decade so I guess I can’t anymore. How long were you in Ireland?”

Again with the rapid change of topic—Samantha Dougherty sure liked to keep her secrets to herself. The mention of water seemed to terrify her and he was trying to help her enjoy the evening, so he let it go.

“A little over a year. I put in for my candidacy before I left. Mail didn’t always get to us promptly in Dublin. Once I received the news I’d been accepted at Saint Peter’s I began to wrap up things in Ireland and prepare to return to the States.

“I started seminary when I was twenty-five and earned my graduate degree in social work. I came home in February for my transitional diaconate. I’m expected to take at least six months to a year to make my final decision. I decided when I was a boy so when my six months are up on August 1st I’ll be taking my orders. What’s your favorite novel? Mine’sThe Catcher and the Rye.”

“Wow, I guess your mind really is made up. Um, I’d have to say J.M. Barrie’sPeter Pan.”

“Really?Peter Pan.Well that’s one you don’t hear too often. Why?”

“Why not? It’s brilliant.”

He frowned. “Isn’t it a children’s book? I guess I assumed an English teacher would—”

“Have more sophisticated tastes?” she offered. “Well, I assumed a soon to be priest wouldn’t drink or praise a novel written about teenage lunacy and prostitution.”

“Touché.”

“Besides, I assure you,Peter Panis more than a children’s novel. It’s perhaps one of the most honest depictions of human relationships I’ve ever read.”

“How so?”

“Well, take Peter. He’s an amalgam of every man I’ve ever met. He wants a mother, yet doesn’t want to answer to one. He wants a wife, but also wants her to mother him. He’s so in love with himself and his need to have fun, he sometimes loses track of years while having it. It’s a constant cognitive battle, the lure of adulthood and the freedom of youth. And then there are the women in his life, each one clawing for a piece of him, yet none of them really understanding a bit of what’s beneath the surface. And in the end, because he’s too preoccupied with irrelevant titles and meaningless achievements, he’ll let it all slip away, because he’s afraid of what matters most, letting himself truly love. If ever someone truly understood the male psyche, the part that never grows up, it was J.M. Barrie.”

Colin was floored. Samantha would obviously be a phenomenal teacher. He could easily see her taking a group of adolescents and showing them how to love literature. Rather than lie and claim a stuffy classic was her favorite, she admitted to loving a children’s novel yet found such depth in the tale where a child would most likely read an adventure without realizing the moral.

As she spoke her eyes lit up. She seemed to find a spark of passion in everything. He swallowed and asked what he knew he shouldn’t.

“Are you Wendy?”

She blinked and crinkled her brow. “Excuse me?”

“Are you Wendy? Are you in love with him? The boy who loves himself enough to let life pass by without ever truly risking his own heart. Are you willing to settle for superficial perfection just to pretend at happiness, knowing it may never have depth or be real?”

Her smile faltered. Her lashes fell over her eyes and her fingers toyed with a napkin on the bar. A puff of humorless laughter passed her lips. “You’re talking about Braydon.”

“I am.”

She turned and looked over her shoulder at the man in question. Braydon was sitting at a table with the others. Jennifer Miller was hanging on his side as they all laughed over something Finn said.

“I suppose I am Wendy in a way. My Pan’s certainly overlooked me for an evening of fun and adventure. I suppose that makes her Tinkerbelle.”

She turned and faced Colin. “The difference is, Colin, I don’t give my heart easily to anyone. I’m not a naive little girl flying off to a fantasy. I know what’s between Braydon and me, and it isn’t love. I see him for exactly who he is. He’s my friend, but little more. I won’t give my heart to a man that’ll never give his back.”

How true her words were. He could see nothing but sincerity in her eyes as she spoke. She was not emotionally invested in his brother. She wasn’t hiding the fact either. Braydon, the fool, just wasn’t looking. Perhaps she didn’t want to address the situation until her time there was done. But was she speaking only of Braydon?

He coveted this woman. He wanted to be the one to make her laugh, wanted to see her eyes light up the first time she saw the falls, watch her run a million home runs, and fall in love with his parents’ love story every time she heard it.

He wanted to give her a love story, but he couldn’t.

She was meant for a good man who was available to love her with every piece of his honor, while Colin was meant for something else entirely.

For the first time in his almost thirty-years he suffered the disturbing sense of doubt. How had it happened? This slip of a woman without a speck of makeup on her face and a faded Villanova sweatshirt made him feel things he’d never felt before.

He was coveting his brother’s girlfriend. Whether Braydon was aware his connection with Samantha lacked depth or not, it wasn’t Colin’s place to be thinking of her in that way.

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