120 Mph (5 page)

Christian’s brow furrowed. He didn’t say
anything right away. Perhaps the man was stewing on the information supplied
him. When he did answer it was not what Sara expected from a Reverend’s mouth.

“I don’t know what I did to piss you
off, but Damnit, Sara! Really? You’re going to throw Godly condemnation into
the lot before nine a.m.?”

A quick check to her initial reaction
and usual explosion of temper, Sara held her fury in as best she could. Her
lips, however, had a mind of their own and told the good Reverend exactly what
the brain wanted to say.

“I would love to throw of whole lot else
at you, Reverend Mohr. . . but as you can see, I’m not in the mood.”

“Well, neither am I in any mood to hear
it,” he rudely determined.

Sara turned her head to escape such blatant
scrutiny. “I should just get you the bowl. I think that would be best.”

“What I think,” he started, stopping
when he most likely thought better on what her response would be.

“You think what?” she prodded, poking
the angry bear.

That bear answered fast. “It really doesn’t
matter what I think.”

“Oh! But I am quite certain that it
does,” she declared. A command for argument set in the tone of her voice.

He looked her square in the eyes perhaps
to give her fair warning he was not a man who would back down.

“Fine, you asked for it. Will you have
dinner with me, Ms. Ruby, and say yes before I come to my senses and change my
mind about you?”

Apparently, not enough of a warning had
been made. Sara dropped her empty coffee cup. The ceramic shattered into a
million pieces onto her apartment floor.

Without pause, Christian reached out his
hand, grabbed her upper arm, and pulled her body toward his. He’d meant only to
protect her bared feet from stepping on the sharp chips. Unfortunately, the gentlemanly
action caused Sara to fall into his embrace and her hands to land directly on
his shirtfront.

With ragged breathing, and those indrawn
breaths of the most exquisite cologne a man could chose to wear, she whispered
out, “I . . . am . . . Oh, God!”

She couldn’t finish the sentence as his
brows arched.

She tried in vain to push away, but he
held firm his grasp on her upper arm until certain she was clear of the
dangerous pieces.

“I am so sorry, Reverend,” she finally
found tongue for.

Sara meant the impact of her hands to
his chest. She was not sorry, however, for her body’s response to that impact. And
he didn’t look as though he’d wanted it to happen, either.

Regrettably, his next statement did not
ease her conscience any more than asking her to dinner had.  “If you won’t offer
me coffee, will you at least have dinner with me?” As added incentive to her
saying yes, he threw in the devilish charm of deep dimples as bait.

How could any sane woman say ‘no’ to
deep dimples?

Yet no one ever said Sara was sane.

“Ah, no. I don’t feel having dinner with
you would be right for either of us.”

“Why would having dinner with me not be
right?” he construed.

Sara had to look away to gather her
thoughts. How could she put it delicately to this man? That he wouldn’t take
literally, or use against her in some way, as every man alive has over the
years.

“God and I are a little mad at each
other right now, Reverend Mohr.” There. That should certainly do the trick to
get the Reverend to leave—with his bowl and his saintly security still intact.

It didn’t work this way, however. In
fact, it backfired right in her face.

“God is not asking you to dinner, Sara.
I am. Let Him find his own date.”

“Um, yes, um . . . well . . .”

Okay. Plan B was now called for, because
plan A certainly fell flat on its face. Unfortunately, Plan B drifted pitifully
to the wayside the moment Sara knew the good Reverend was not going to play
fair.

He confirmed it by saying, “You need to
eat, as much as I do. It will be in a well-lighted area. And I will promise you
there will be no harps, no incense, not a single angels’ wing tucked under the
shirt.” He was teasing her and unfortunately it was working.

“What about a halo?” she asked, giving Mr.
Mohr his just dues until she ran out of the opportunities.

His face became a stoic mask of
determination and sincerity, the very worst kind to show her, while she so
vulnerable for human companionship and having the worst week of her life.

“It’s in the shop getting polished.”

Sara’s brow rose. “My, you do get
yourself pretty swiftly out of the gate, don’t you?” A patient tongue was not
her forte`.

Without pause he grinned. “Only when there’s
a need I am on my best behavior.”

“And this is one of those times
considered as best behavior?”

Reverend Mohr flared his nostrils and
slowly let go of her arm. “Well?” He completely avoided her question, asking
his own.

“Well, what?”

“Dinner with a witty, charming woman
seated opposite me? Or another frozen tray of unrecognizable goo I have to gag
down?”

“And who, exactly, would this charming,
witty woman be?” she asked, checking her growing smile.

“Well,” he started, giving it deeper thought.
“I guess if Harriet Thorn is still mad at me, I will then have to settle for
you.”

His words raised sudden curiosity in
Sara. Curiosity she should have known better than to state as an actual
question.

“Why would old lady Thorn be mad at you?
You did, after all, give her your rather hard-earned seven dollars and fifty
cents.” She then gave him a strange look that added more to it, before saying,
“Is it possible Reverend Mohr made an old lady mad?”

The twinkle in his eye should’ve been
warning enough for Sara, same as his quick wit, but unfortunately, that twinkle
became fuel to an already growing fire between the two.

“Harriet Thorn is the reason I have a
freezer full of frozen dinners,” he declared, sounding irritated.

“Then I take it you can’t cook?” she
asked.

A second later, Sara felt the awful
taste of her foot in the mouth, sweetened from the pile of shit she’d been
stuck in for the better part of three days.

“As a matter of fact,” the Reverend
conceded to, “I can’t cook. Now do you feel sorry for me, enough to have dinner
with a man who can actually burn water?”

Sara took a deep breath, looked him in
the eyes, and said by way of shrugged shoulders, “Sure. Why not? After all, you
promised no halos, harps, or angel’s wings. And if you only burn water . . .
and not walk on it . . . I should be able to survive a simple dinner with you.”

Christian’s huge grin came out
unchecked. “Great. I’ll pick you up, say around seven o’clock.” He was about to
walk away, then thought better of it and added, “And, I will make certain
wherever I take you to, they serve Deviled eggs and hide any potential Angel’s
Food Cake. How’s that sound?”

An uncharacteristic spurt of energy had
her saying, “Sounds great, if you can pull off the task.”

Christian’s smile fell. A half-second
later, for which neither could explain—nor even wanted any explanation
made—Reverend Mohr stepped forward, pulled Sara toward him . . . and he kissed
her full on the mouth.

Chapter
Six

Sara Ruby melted into Christian’s kiss.
She dove headfirst into his kiss. She wrapped her hands around his neck and
pulled her mouth closer to his kiss. Unfortunately, once Christian realized
what he was doing, he pushed her away as if the hands were caught in wildfire
and a strong breeze set at his back.

Guilt filled him from crown to toe as Sara’s
fists fell to her sides, and her eyes glared liquid fire at his face.

“Oh . . . God!” was all he could say.

The shame of what he’d done hit him as quick
as lightning, and was just as painful.

Sara then ripped into his hide mere seconds
later. “You told me God would have nothing to do with this, Reverend.”

God might not want to have anything to
do with Christian wanting to kiss Sara, but the devil sure as Hell had a hand
in it. Surely only the devil was in control of a man kissing a woman who feared
him as much as she did. This was Sara Ruby.
Thee
Sara Ruby—Preacher’s Bend’s
bad girl of the moment.

“I shouldn’t have done that,” he rasped
out, clearing his throat against the sudden desire to kiss her again.

Sara turned her head to prevent any
further contact. When her face came back to his view, only then did he see the
effort she was making toward keeping her tears at bay.

She looked to be struggling against
everything she was ever told a Reverend should behave as. Well, Damnit! He was
not the saintly, shit doesn’t stink man she thought him to be. He had his
flaws. Many flaws; and those flaws too cumbersome for one man to carry alone on
most days, and certainly more than could be fit into a small leather-bound
journal kept in a locked desk drawer.

Christian would need at least fifty
journals for all his flaws. But if Sara Ruby was going to call the kettle
black, perhaps she should take a good long look in the mirror before making
judgment on what just happened.

Her tongue sliding over her bottom lip
didn’t help the growing problem between them, either. All this did was made him
want to ravish her mouth again, searching deeper for her scarred soul; fix what
needed fixing.

Christian had to work hard to get past
what he’d done to Sara’s mouth, let alone conjure up the strength to ignore the
slide of such a dangerous tongue over her incredibly soft lips. Good Lord! He
was only human. He could not make it past both.

“I will apologize to you again, if it
makes any difference for what is done.”

When she didn’t smile or even start a
major retort, he added, “But I have to be honest with you. I wanted to kiss you
since the moment we bumped asses on Harriet’s front lawn, and until a kiss
happened between us, we would’ve been stuck wondering when it was going to
happen—not
if
it was ever going to happen.”

The most devastatingly blue eyes any
woman could ever possess pinned him to his spot. However, the words to follow
turned his blood cold. “Are you done?”

“Done with what?” he dared speak.

Done kissing you?
Probably not . . . No. Most likely he’d never get enough of kissing her.

“Done with thinking your shit doesn’t
stink like everyone else’s, Reverend.”

He could not help the sudden flare of his
nostrils over this particular news. “My shit . . .”

The rest never made it out of his mouth.
Sara stepped forward, grabbed his face with both hands, and set her lips firmly
against his; set his world to spin within his next taken breath. She pulled
back only long enough to steal the remaining air from his lungs probably out of
spite.

“What was that for?” A mere whisper had
become the volume to his latest question.

“That . . .” she reasoned, holding back
her smile. “—was for asking me to dinner. And this . . .”

This time, her hands set to his chest as
her mouth pressed against his lips. Another quick kiss, slightly better than
the last, but for all intent and purposes a real page-turner. “—is for the bowl
you are now going to leave in my possession.”

“Bowl? What bowl?” he teased.

Sara’s eyes turned toward the glassware.

“Oh! You mean the bowl that I bought for
you from Mrs. Thorn’s yard sale . . . and one you quite foolishly thought I
wanted as my own.”

Her unguarded smile came quick. “Yes.
That bowl, Reverend Mohr.”

“It’s all yours, my dear.”

The moment was completely ruined when
her brow rose, as if she knew he’d say this in order to save face. She then gave
a light tap with her palm to his chest to settle the deal. “I knew you would
finally admit aloud the bowl was mine.”

“And?”

Her blue eyes widened. “And?” she asked,
pulling her head back.

“And I can pick you up at seven?”

A slow nod of her head, Sara backed
away—stepping directly onto the shards of her shattered coffee mug.

“Fuck! I meant . . . Christ! Oh, God, I
meant . . . Bloody Hell!” Her sharp cries were loud enough to wake the dead.

She grabbed the first thing she could to
steady herself from falling, and then able to raise her foot in order to remove
the sharp pieces stuck into the bottom of it. Her hand hit his upper arm and
she held on for dear life, her nails sinking into his skin.

His first and only thought was to move
forward and pick her up in his arms, taking her out of harms’ way. This heroic
action only made his day much worse. The instant she was in his arms, sanity
became a lost cause for him . . . mostly, a lost cause for any man. His mouth
found hers and he dared himself not to remove it until discovering every one of
her deepest, darkest secrets.

This dare did not last long. Sara Ruby
had many secrets, and all of them were quite reachable by mere willful tongue
and shameful lust building toward cataclysmic.

Christian drove home an undying need by
playing cat and mouse inside her mouth. When fully conquering his demons, he eased
his head back, slowly, and looked her square in the eyes.

His voice was an unrecognizable rasp as
he muttered, “I have a really bad feeling I should apologize for this latest kiss,
as well.”

Sara’s snort was sweet and reassuring to
a man filled with far too many doubts about what transpired, when knowing
better of the consequences.

“If you think you must,” she reckoned.

“Oh, I don’t think, Sara. I know I have
to.”

“Well, then apologize . . . so you can kiss
me again.”

Her tone, her actions, her boldness of
hands around his neck showed a dying man very little mercy.

“No,” he said firmly. “I do believe I
will just skip the need for any apology and simply kiss you again.” And again,
and again, and again, until he perfected the art of kissing . . . or until one
of them turns blue in the face.

A full ten minutes later
sort of
perfect
, Christian placed Sara on her feet and out of harm’s way. He set her
down near the couch and away from the mug disaster. As her eyes rose and she
seemed unable to speak, he spoke for her.

“I will take my leave of you now.” When
nothing came from her sweetly tempting mouth to contradict this, Christian
added more. “And I will pick you up at seven this evening.”

A nod of her head was his only answer.

All of a sudden, he asked, “Are you all
right?”

Sara shook her head, remaining mum.

“Do you still have something stuck in
your foot?” He was about to bend down to take a look, but her hand rose to his
shoulder stopping the quest. As their eyes met, Sara shook her head again.

So, there was nothing wrong with her
foot? Well, there was a near
ton of wrong
inside him. All of that wrong
. . . created by mortal man filled with mortal thoughts and dire sins caused by
the female to his male.

The words, “There is nothing wrong with
my foot, Christian,” made things far more complicated because her tone of voice
had caught him by surprise. For one brief second it sounded as though Sara was
about to seduce him without due cause right inside the living room. She looked
lost in thought. Her eyes were all glassy. Her smile was hovering a speck below
the surface, creasing the corners of her mouth, but her body language stated
quite clearly she wanted him to kiss her again, in the worst way possible.

If he’d done so, Christian wouldn’t have
stopped. Therefore, it was time for him to leave. Time for a horny man to be
the smart, dutiful, respectful Lutheran minister of humble Preacher’s Bend, as
this particular woman had thought him to be.

He took a huge step away from her. “I’ll
see myself out.”

He turned and could feel her eyes on his
back as she watched him go. She didn’t try to stop him and he almost wished that
she had.

****

Sara Ruby wanted to punch God in the
face for sending Christian Mohr to her door. She wanted to give the Big Kahuna
a darn good nosebleed by way of a perfectly aimed left hook, and make
Him
understand exactly how angry she was for complicating her life in this way.

According to Harriet Thorn, this was all
God’s fault.

Christian Mohr was not to be hers, no
matter what Harriet Thorn thoughts were, to a certain degree. Couldn’t God
understand that, as well? Couldn’t
He
, just once, listen to what Sara
Ruby thought?

Mohr was too attentive and far too
trusting. She would only break such a trusting heart, crushing it to dust.

Once the good Reverend found out the
truth about her, his heart would be more than crushed.

A deep, regretful shudder ran down her
spine all the way to her toes, then coming back up to hit her right between the
eyes. Those eyes welled quickly and the damn that held back the flow broke.

How could she do it? How could she
pretend she knew nothing, and had done nothing, when all he had to do was kiss
her and she somehow forgot everything; even her name.

This town hated her. There were days
when even Sara hated herself. But Christian would hate her for all of eternity
if she told him she was the real cause of his wife’s death.

Sara buried her face into her hands and
her tears fell swift and hard. Seconds later, the sobbing started, and then the
guilt came in violent rushing waves. Shame followed on the heels of that quilt.

Eight years . . . and it finally came
down to the dragon faced head-on and no sword in hand? Sara’s past was catching
her by the heels to drag her down to knees and palms. Grief forced out her
tears, but as she raised her face out of her hands, this grief dissipated. She
dried her eyes with the back of her hand, sniffed her troubles away, and went
about cleaning up the mess at her front door. She would go to dinner with the
man, pretend her past was not what it was, and then he would drive her home.

But then what? He would certainly expect
a kiss. Furthermore, she wouldn’t be able to argue her way out of not doing it again—kissing
or seeing. He was a man, and mere man would want compensation for an out of
pocket expenditure; an easily eighty to one hundred dollar dinner for a few
laps around the necking block. Almost all the men she’d ever known or dared ask
her out, expected compensation of sorts for a meal and his time.

But this was Reverend Mohr, her thoughts
stuck upon. Under normal circumstances, when a Reverend asks a woman to dinner,
a thank you and handshake should suffice—if this even normal. Sara wasn’t so
sure anymore. She never personally met or kissed a minister before. She never
had thoughts of wanting to undress one, either. And yet, she’d done both.

Christ! She nearly did the nasty with
the man! Well, not nearly . . . but Sara had certainly put tremendous thought
toward it; pictured in her head his naked form, taut and ready, while his
tongue battled with hers, and her brain stuck on exactly how much time she
would have to waste removing his shirt and pants, and for him to remove her
sweatshirt and jeans. Ten seconds tops! Give or take a few of those seconds for
the slide of the tongue over the exposing of the flesh and the coherent brain
waylaid to get the job done.

Dear Lord! She needed to have her head
examined. Just because a minister kissed her first, and had asked her to
dinner, did not mean he was going to have sex with her!

Just because he bought her a bowl that
was over one hundred years old . . . did not mean he was going to have sex with
her!

Just because—Dear God, if he walked
through her door within the next two seconds, she would take him by the hand, head
straight to her bedroom, rip off his clothes, and jump him even if under
protest . . . does not mean he is going to have sex with her!

Then why the bloody hell did Sara want
to have sex with him, if he not with her?

She was a fool. That’s why. Any more thoughts
like this, and it would only be a matter of time before she was burned at the
stake.