Just a Kiss: The Bradfords, Book 5 (18 page)

The moment she’d made a decision that would have reflected negatively on him as a spiritual leader, her father had cut her loose. He’d decided that washing his hands of her was better than having the community see her rebellions and mistakes happening right under his roof where he should have been able to inspire her compliance.

She’d left for college and rejected her father and his teachings—as far as the town of Grover and the congregation of his church had known. It had hurt to realize that people she’d known her entire life—like Mr. Edwards who had lived across the street from them, Mrs. Cotner who had been her Girl Scout leader, Mrs. Palmer who had owned the beauty shop and had done her hair for prom—would so easily turn their backs. But the news of her falling out with her father had spread quickly, and she was ostracized by people she’d always trusted to be kind and sincere and caring. Instead of reaching out and trying to bring her back into the fold, they’d followed her father and written her off.

After that she had most definitely rejected his teachings, realizing they were complete bullshit. But that wasn’t why she’d left. She’d left because her father had thrown her out after she confessed to marrying Kevin outside of the church, without her father’s blessing or knowledge. Not to mention the lying, the running away and the consummating-the-marriage-when-it-wasn’t-a-real-marriage thing.

Of course, her rebellions and mistakes once she left home made running off to get married look like nothing. But those, too, weren’t things she was willing to share with Pastor Bryan, good sense of humor or not.

“I want Kevin,” she finally said to Bryan. “I’ve never stopped loving him and I want this to work. I’ll come back to church if that’s what I have to do. But my heart is in my relationship with Kevin, not my relationship with the church.”

Bryan sat watching her for a long moment, then unfolded his hands and took a deep breath. “Are you going to tell Kevin that too?”

Now
that
was a good question. If she told him her feelings about church, would it shut down their relationship before it could really get started, before Kevin could see what they could have together? “I’m going to take this all one day at a time,” she finally said honestly.

Bryan seemed to be searching for words.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, with a frown.

“I… Can you give me and God a chance before you start talking Kevin into staying in bed with you Sunday mornings instead, okay?” Bryan finally asked. “Kevin has obviously found something good in church.”

She narrowed her eyes at the minister. “I’d take that as a compliment about my ability to be important to him if you weren’t basically saying that you’re afraid I’m going to be a bad influence on him.”

Bryan looked pained. “I don’t want him to have to choose.”

Eve thought about that. “Between us, you mean?”

“Between two things he wants and needs—you and church.”

She swallowed hard. “I won’t make him choose.” She wasn’t entirely sure she’d win that competition anyway. “I’m not really into causing spiritual strife in others.”

Bryan didn’t smile. “I think God’s giving you a second chance with Kevin. Maybe you should give Him a second chance too.”

“Oh, guilt and coercion from a minister,” she said, ignoring the tightness in her chest his words caused. “Who would have expected that?”

“Just as you’re determined to get Kevin back in your life by any means possible, I’m determined to get you back in the church.”

She shook her head. “Fine. I’ll come to church on Sunday. But the sermon better be good. I intend to sit in the back row and hold up a score card at the end.”

“Can’t wait to see what you think.” Bryan looked satisfied.

She felt restless. Eve got to her feet. “I underestimated you, Padre.”

“It’s the gentle kindness I exude. Throws people off.”

“Oh, you’re exuding something all right.”

Bryan chuckled. “Is that any way to talk to a man of God?”

“Evidently.” Eve grinned as she headed for the door. “But you might want to keep your distance. The chance of smiting probably just went up.”

Eve watched Kevin and Dooley back out of the driveway and head for Omaha. Then she turned and faced the front door with trepidation. On the other side was the ten-year-old boy she was supposed to positively influence.

Staying out here would be a lot easier.

She was exhausted. She’d stayed here, snuggling and talking with Kevin after the couch make out session until well past midnight. They hadn’t talked about anything too serious. He’d told her about the Youth Center where he and his friends volunteered, the three older ladies they helped out, about Dooley and his family and then about all of his friends and their wives and fiancées.

Hearing about his life, how full it was, how many people he had loving him, made her ache. She’d missed so much.
They’d
missed so much. She wanted to know the people who were important to him, see the Youth Center and the hospital where he worked.

Eve made herself breathe. He was here now. She had him for six months. She intended to make the most of that time.

Which brought her thoughts to the other reason for her lack of sleep. She’d lain awake in bed thinking about her talk with Bryan. She was sure the minister would be thrilled to hear that. But he’d dug at some old wounds and now the ache there was hard to ignore.

If church was important to Kevin, she’d go back. But was that really the right way or reason to go back?

He’d done it for her. She couldn’t forget that. He’d come to church to impress her father and win her over. So, could she show up so she could be close to him? The answer to that was an easy yes. No matter how uncomfortable she was in that pew, it was nothing compared to the pain of living without Kevin again.

The heat between them was almost enough to make her sign up for a few committees while she was there.

That wasn’t enough, of course, but…it almost was. She pressed her hands to her cheeks, feeling them heat as she remembered the night before. Wow. She couldn’t believe she’d done what she’d done right in front of him. It was too fast. It had been their
first night
back together. But thinking of it now made her bones feel like they were melting. He had barely touched her and her orgasm had been surprisingly intense. For that alone she’d crawl across the desert on hands and knees.

Or go to church.

She sighed.

She was going to start tonight.

It was Wednesday night, which meant they had youth activities tonight at church. She was taking Drew, kind of as a practice run for them both. It would actually accomplish two things—one, it was something to do with Drew. She hadn’t spent an evening one-on-one with a ten-year-old boy in…ever. So it would fill time and it would count toward that good-influence-thing that was so important to Kevin. Plus, it was like easing into a cold swimming pool instead of diving right in. Church for an hour tonight would ease both of them into it and would make showing up with Kevin on Sunday easier. It would also give the church regulars a chance to see her and get their squealing out of the way.

She took a fortifying breath as she opened the front door. She owed Kevin this trip to church. It was important to him, so she’d do it, by God. No pun intended. Maybe it would help make up for how stupid she’d been last night saying that if Kevin talked dirty she would never have been able to leave him. That had been
stupid
.

But it had resulted in that possessive look on his face.

She trembled as ribbons of heat curled down her spine. Not that she’d ever want to hurt his feelings, but that reaction made being completely contrite difficult.

Of course, contrite was difficult for her to pull off anyway.

The moment she stepped into the kitchen, she heard, “Do we have to go tonight?”

Drew was working on his math worksheet at the island. And apparently feeling whiny.

She felt a little whiny about it too.

“Yeah, we have to go tonight.”

“Why?”

“Because it will be fun.”

Drew raised an eyebrow, clearly doubtful.

“It will make Kevin happy.”

“Why?”

“Because he has fun when he’s at church and wants us to have fun there too.”

“I don’t care if he’s happy,” Drew said sullenly.

“You should. He’s a great guy who’s being really good to both of us.”

“Why?”

Eve put a hand on her hip. “Knock it off with the three-year-old impersonation. You’re better than that.”

She was too. It was only an hour out of her life. Once a week. It would be fine.

“What’s it even about?” Drew groused.

“It’s a youth group. Kids your age getting together to play games and stuff.”

He rolled his eyes. “Why?”

She rolled her eyes right back at him. “It’s to make it more fun to learn about stuff.”

“I’ve been able to read since I was four. I can learn anything I want to from books.”

The kid had a point. “Have you read anything about God?”

“Not really.”

“So you don’t really know anything.”

“Get me a book and I’ll learn all about it,” he offered.

She crossed to the bookcase in the living room and scanned the shelves. Nothing. She had several texts at her house, including a book of Children’s Bible Stories and the Bible itself in at least three formats. “You’re out of luck for tonight, but I can work on that.”

“So I have to go,” he said, clearly quite put upon.

“We both have to go.” She slid up onto the stool across from him.

He stared at his math book but she noticed he had his worksheet done.

She tapped her fingernails against the island. He tapped his pencil against the book.

Tap, tap, tap.

It was just the two of them. No math to work on. They’d already eaten. They didn’t have the same taste in reading material.

Maybe church wasn’t the
worst
way to spend the evening.

“You ever heard of Noah?” she asked.

“Yeah.”

She tipped her head, trying to see his eyes. “You have?”

“The guy with the big boat and all the animals, right?”

She smiled. “The ark, yeah.”

“I saw that movie.
Evan Almighty
. At Matthew’s.”

Hmmm… Learning about the Bible from Morgan Freeman wasn’t all bad. “Then if they do ark trivia tonight, you’ll have a chance.”

“Could we stay here and watch movies instead?”

“You know, between
Ben Hur
,
The Ten Commandments
and
Passion of the Christ
, we could cover a lot of highlights,” she said. Then she wrinkled her nose. “Of course, I don’t know if any of those are exactly appropriate for a ten-year-old. We could get some Veggie Tales, though. Oh, and that one about Moses…
The Prince of Egypt
. I like that one too.”

“Veggie Tales?” Drew asked, looking at her like she was nuts.

“Animated Bible stories. The characters are all vegetables. That talk. And sing.”

Yeah, that didn’t sound nuts at all.

“Wow, vegetables that talk
and
sing.”

“Yep.” She shrugged. She hadn’t invented them and it was a big business, so she wasn’t going to make fun. “They’re pretty funny. They do silly songs about water buffalo and cheeseburgers and hairbrushes.”

“Gee, you can’t get that at church,” Drew said dryly.

Eve thought it was interesting that a ten-year-old could be dry. “How do you know you can’t get that at church? As far as you know they sing about cheeseburgers every week.”

“I figure more people would go to church if that was true.”

She grinned. The kid was going to keep her on her toes. “If you watch Veggie Tales with me, I’ll watch whatever you want. How’s that?”

“Sounds good. I’ll make the popcorn.”

“Nice try. Church tonight. Movies another time.” But it wasn’t a
bad
idea.

It was an even better idea an hour later when they were in the midst of the youth group Bible trivia.

“Ruth,” she whispered to Drew. But he didn’t even make a move toward the buzzer.

“Ruth!” someone called out.

Eve frowned at Drew, then leaned in closer to him. “Look, I’m stuck here too. Let’s at least walk out with a big bottle of soda.” Apparently the prize budget for Bible trivia wasn’t huge.

“Fine.” He sighed.

Jordan, the youth group leader, read, “Name Jesus’s cousin who lived in the desert and ate locusts.”

Drew looked at her and rolled his eyes. She covered her grin with her hand and whispered, “John the Baptist.”

Drew buzzed and answered the question. And the next six. In the end, they’d won four liters of soda.

“Well, now you know something about the Bible, you’ve stepped foot in a real church and you have Mountain Dew. How do you feel?” she asked.

Drew looked up at her. “I could be three chapters ahead in my book by now.” But he slipped his hand into hers.