Selena Kitt: Grace

“Ummm…” Clay shook his head to clear it, blinking at her. “I said… it sounds like your father and my mother would get along fabulously.”

She laughed. “We should introduce them.”

“Guess you’re ready to go?” He looked disappointed as she plucked her coat from the floor, shaking it off.

“It’s late.” She kissed him on the cheek, nudging him with her hip. “Have to get home to bed before Santa comes.”

Clay drove home slowly in the falling snow, taking twice as long to get her back home than it had taken them to get out into the country. Erica turned up the radio and sang along as Elvis begged her to be his teddy bear, the lingering scent of sex filling the enclosed vehicle.

“I have an idea,” Erica said as Clay pulled up into the alleyway behind the warehouse she called home. “How about you come to my house tomorrow… well, today. For Christmas dinner.”

She’d hatched her evil plan during the drive home, looking at the way a sort of sly, proud smile kept playing on Clay’s lips every time he glanced her way. Father Michael was supposed to come to Christmas dinner, and having Clay there would suit her purposes nicely. Besides, she really did like Clay. That part hadn’t been a lie.

“What time?” He put the car in park, letting the engine idle. “My mother wants to go to brunch at eleven, after we do gifts.”

“Perfect!” Erica smiled. “We won’t eat until five.”

“Are you sure your family will be okay with it?”

“Let me worry about that. You just come.”

He leaned over and kissed her, his lips soft and warm, and Erica slid her arms around his neck, kissing him back.

“Wow,” he breathed as they parted, looking into her eyes. “And here I thought I was going to show you something tonight.”

“You did.”

“But…” He cleared his throat. “I really didn’t expect… I mean…”

She pressed her lips to his ear, whispering, “Good girls don’t sneak out to meet boys in the middle of the night.”

He laughed. “So you’re a bad girl?”

“When I want to be.” She wiggled her eyebrows and he laughed again, sliding his hands down to her hips, pulling her closer.

“Do you think you might want to be again… soon?”

“Hang around and find out.” Erica smiled, sliding across the seat and opening the passenger side door.

He leaned over and called out, “I intend to!”

“Goodnight, Clay.”

“Night. See you in…” He glanced down at his watch. “About twelve hours…”

She shut the passenger side door, trudging through the snow-there was almost a foot on the ground already-glancing back to see Clay pulling out into the street. He waved to her and she waved back, smiling to herself.

She hadn’t really felt that Christmas spirit yet this year, not when they’d gone shopping for the Christmas tree, not stringing it with lights, not shopping for gifts, not even participating in midnight mass as the immaculate virgin-an irony that wasn’t lost on her. Something had been missing, even with Leah home, and it wasn’t just her best friend’s sorrow about her missing baby.

Erica was lonely. She’d fallen head over heels for a man she couldn’t have-and in spite of the nearly palpable attraction between them, Father Michael had made it clear nothing could ever happen-and she’d been spending all her time, in spite of that, thinking about him and wanting him and wishing it could be different. It left her exhausted and lonely, like constantly being in a crowded room and not recognizing a soul.

For the first time in a long time, she felt connected, really alive. After the surprise meteor shower and the spontaneous fireworks in Clay’s backseat, a white Christmas felt like a gift, and she twirled around, laughing and sticking out her tongue like they used to when they were little, trying to catch snowflakes.

After the disaster that was Christmas dinner, Leah just wanted to go to bed and sleep forever. She might have done just that-taken a handful of the sleeping pills the doctor had prescribed for her, and gone to sleep. Forever. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d considered it. But there was Rob, with that sad, helpless look in his eyes, stroking her hair, whispering how much he loved her, that it was going to be okay, and she wanted to believe him, even if she couldn’t, quite.

So for Rob, she hung on. She clung to him, desperate for contact, wanting him to erase her memory, to take her back to the time before, and he did his very best. Erica was gone with that new boy from St. Casimir, Clayton something, he whispered as he climbed into bed beside her. Father Patrick and Father Michael had left, and even Solie, who stayed to clean up after dinner, had gone home

They were alone-except for the ghost, who was always there, even when she wasn’t looking, waiting just beyond her senses, waiting to move through her like a knife through her chest.

“I’m sorry,” she said again, for the hundredth time, the millionth maybe, and he shook his head, kissing her quiet. She’d missed his kisses, his hands, the press of his thigh between hers. She didn’t understand how it happened, the whole falling-in-love thing, but she couldn’t deny it, even now, after his sweet, heartfelt proposal-had it just been that morning? It seemed eons ago-knowing she was his, and he, hers. She didn’t know the hows and whys, and she didn’t trust her head, where all the crazy-talk was happening.

The only thing she trusted, had always trusted, was her body. She’d been a dancer her whole life, and Leah experienced everything through her body first. Perhaps that’s why she had been so taken in by Rob, by her own body’s suddenly awakened response to what she and Erica had found under Mr. Nolan’s bed. This very loft bed, with the big mahogany desk underneath, and the hidden door Erica had discovered behind the tapestry. Leah could reach out and touch that tapestry right now-it stretched from floor to ceiling, a striking oriental pattern hiding secrets she never could have imagined.

The secret that had changed everything.

Leah was tired of secrets, tired of lies, tired of pretending so the neighbors and the church wouldn’t be offended by her impropriety. She had been sent away a pariah as an unwed mother, deemed too immoral and wicked to be seen in public, but her only crime had been falling in love. Yet they had dinner with the clergy while ten feet away, behind a locked door, was a collection of obscene material so extensive it would probably land them in jail if it was discovered-and the irony of all ironies was that the church officials knew about it. Not only knew about it but were somehow profiting from it. Leah was almost certain of it.

The weight of the hypocrisy threatened to bury her alive. And this man, the man she’d fallen for in spite of everything, was right in the middle of it, and although the lies and secrets were killing her, she was too afraid to uncover his secrets and expose him to the world. The truth was, she was too afraid of losing him. She’d lost so much already-not only her daughter, but the memory of a father who never existed, the mother who had betrayed her. Leah had nothing, no one, but Rob. And he loved her, wanted to marry her, had asked her to trust him.

And she did.

“Rob, please…” She met his kiss, her body responding instantly to him, as it always had. She’d been lost the moment he touched her the first time, was lost still in the shift of his hips and the way he whispered her name like a caress as he kissed his way down her throat. She wanted to be lost with him, to float away, never to be found. There was no man in the world who could make her feel the way he did, and she knew, even if he were to die tomorrow, she would never find a man who could complete her the way he did. She would walk around with a Robert Nolan shaped hole in her that no one could fill.