The Consequence of Secrets - Part Four: A Priest Romance (4 page)

With my collar in my hand, I sit on the bench of the courthouse cell, running the stiff white symbol of my status between my fingers. The last time I did this it had Emma’s blood on it. I’d fought to save her then, and I can only hope that my outburst in the courtroom was enough to help save her now. I feel like I keep fighting in the face of various obstacles, and I wonder if it’s His way of testing my resilience – my strength. Is He trying to make me prove my worth? Is he making it hard so I understand why she’s so important? Or am I reading too much into this? Is Emma right, and I’ve believed in nothing all along?

I tilt my head back, resting it upon the cool concrete wall, grey and miserable, horribly uncomfortable, and I let out a sigh before looking upward and having a private conversation with my boss.

“I’m not going to lie to you, Lord, because you already know my heart, you know I love her and that my path now runs alongside hers. I think that’s where you’ve been guiding me, but I have to tell you that this, this trial, has really tested my faith and made me question your plan. She doesn’t deserve to be imprisoned for pulling that trigger, and if she hadn’t been seen with the gun in her hand then I would have claimed to have shot him myself. I’d do anything to keep her safe, and I’ll keep fighting for her no matter what comes out of this trial, but I have to tell you, father, if she goes to jail over Gabe’s death, my relationship with you is over. I’m not trying to strike a deal with you. I’m not trying to force your will. But, I’ve always been taught that God is love – God is forgiveness. And I can’t love a God who would allow man’s laws to punish a woman who’s suffered as she has.”

The metal door at the end of the corridor opens, and I cross myself and whisper the end of my prayer as I hear footsteps approach. The bailiff stops at my cell and, in his deep rumble of a voice, addresses me. “Judge Preston would like to see you, Father Daniels,” he says, unlocking the door to my cell.

“Have they given the verdict? Is she free?”

“They’re still deliberating,” he says.

“How did the trial go? Do you think they’re likely to hand down a not guilty verdict?”

“I really can’t comment.”

“Am I being let go?”

“You ask a lot of questions, Father.” He holds out his hand, showing me where I need to go. “This way.”

As the jury files into the jury box, I think I stop breathing. They’ve reached a verdict. Those twelve people, none of who know me, have decided upon my fate. The room seems to shift, and I feel a little lightheaded. I watch the judge’s mouth move, and the head of the jury stands and nods, handing a piece of paper to the bailiff. I can’t hear anything but the beating of my heart as it pumps blood through my veins. My chest burns. I look around for Braden, panicked that he may still be locked up for contempt. I don’t even know what the punishment for contempt is. I wish he was here with me. Just so I could look at him. This may be the last time I can see him. My chest tightens, screaming for me to breathe. I have to force myself to inhale.

Exhale.

Inhale.

My lawyer touches my arm, snapping me out of my frozen state. Suddenly, the room is a rush of noise and I look at him, dumbfounded. “Stand up,” he whispers, so I do.

The sound of my heart takes over again, and I force myself calm, trying to listen as the judge asks the foreman to give their verdict.

Inhale.

Exhale.

“Against the charges of manslaughter, we find the defendant, Ms. Emma Williams,” there’s a pause. Inhale.
Please God.
Exhale. Inhale. “Not guilty of all charges.”

My breath releases in a rush as people in the courtroom let out a cheer. I turn to the sound, my hand shaking violently as I cover my mouth, smiling, shocked. I’m free. My eyes meet Jules’s and she mouths that she loves me, holding her hands out to me to show me she’d hug me if she could. I begin to cry and shake and slowly the world begins to feel normal again.

“Congratulations,” my lawyer says, and I nod, thanking him for his work as I look around, hoping to find Braden somewhere in the crowd. He’s not there.

The judge claps the gavel against the sound block and calls  quiet to the room. “You’re free to go Ms. Williams,” she says with a smile, and I nod, placing my hands against my heated cheeks as I cry and smile. I’m free. I’m free.

Outside the courtroom, I hear the cheer as the verdict is delivered and I say a silent prayer to thank the heavens for setting her free. I want so much to be in there, but the Judge asked that I remain outside after my outburst the day before. She issued me with a fine, set me free and told me that she didn’t believe that Emma and I weren’t in a relationship. “Not that it matters,” she said to me privately. “I think you did the right thing by saving her from that man.”

I’d looked at her and nodded. “Let’s just hope the jury agrees,” I replied, before thanking her and leaving her chambers. After that, I stood outside the courtroom, watching the session from the outside monitors, rejoicing the moment the foreman said those two perfect words – not guilty.

Finally, Emma was free.

The door to the courtroom opens and a flood of people exit. So many were in there, waiting and watching to see what happened to the wealthy woman who shot her husband. Emma’s trial had had quite the press coverage and now that she was being released, there was a crowd of photographers and journalists waiting on the courthouse steps.

I move to the side, watching the spectators file out, watching and waiting until I see her, holding my breath in anticipation.

“She’s free,” a familiar voice says from beside me, it’s detective Waters. “For once, the system worked.”

I glance over at him, meeting his eyes as he watches the animation discussion about the case as the room clears out. “It’s a shame it didn’t protect her before it got to this,” I comment, watching him as he solemnly nods.

“You and me both, Father. You and me both.” Then he holds out his hand to shake mine. “I hope we never meet again,” he offers, and I know he means that in a nice way.

“If we do, let it be under better circumstances,” I reply, shaking his hand before he turns and disappears into the crowd.

I press my lips into a smile, glad this ordeal is over and turn back to the courtroom door. There, walking with her arm linked with her sister’s is the love of my life. Our eyes meet. The world stops turning. A grin spreads itself across her face and she runs to me. I catch her in my arms and spin her around before hugging her tightly and bringing my mouth to hers, kissing her deeply as my cleric’s collar falls to the ground.

Today is the first day of the rest of my life. It’s such a cliché, but as I flop back on the bed in the hotel room, I can’t stop feeling as though I’ve woken from some sort of horrible nightmare. Leaving the courthouse wasn’t the easiest thing I’ve ever done. Braden and I had been seen kissing and there was a bit of a media shit storm on the stairs outside.

We probably should have waited but neither of us wanted to hold on to any secrets or lies for a moment longer than we had to. Gabe is dead, and while I should probably feel some sort of remorse for ending his life, I don’t. I can’t. For years, I thought the solution to leaving him would be for me to die. I’d always thought that he’d be the one to kill me – how can I possibly feel bad for the way things turned out? I’m glad he’s gone. The world is most definitely a better place without him in it.

“How are you feeling?” Braden asks, lying down beside me, taking my hand in his, his beautiful face turned to mine.

I smile, even though there are tears in my eyes. I’m a bundle of emotion as I turn to meet his eyes and reach my hand out to touch his face. “Free. Alive,” I respond. “Happy. Scared.”

“Scared?”

I nod. “I’m afraid this is all a little too good to be true.” I roll onto my side and place my hand against his chest. “I’m afraid that this is the dream and the nightmare I think I’ve woken up from is my reality.”

He reaches over and runs his fingers through my hair until he reaches my shoulder and gently rubs his hand up and down my arm. “This is real, Emma. You and I are real. This is what we were fighting for. You and me, together. Now, we can go anywhere and do anything we want – I need a new job, but that’s OK, I want to start again with you. I want our life to be the way it always should have been.”

I look into his deep blue eyes, so full of love, and it causes my heart to swell in my chest. “What’s going to happen to you now?”

“With the church?” he asks, and I nod. “They’ll excommunicate me.”

“You can’t just hand in your resignation or something?”

Taking my hand in his, he brings my fingers to his lips and presses a kiss to my knuckles. “It’s not that simple. I can resign in a way, but to do so means I have to go through a process where I admit that becoming a priest was the wrong path for me, and I have to guarantee that I won’t have any dealings with the church and that I’ll move far away from any place where I was known as a priest.”

“I wouldn’t mind if we had to move. In fact, I think we should leave here. There’s too many horrible memories in Newport.”

“I will go wherever you are in this world, Emma, but the one thing I won’t do is claim that I followed the wrong path, because I didn’t. I followed the path God set out for me, and it led me to you. As far as I’m concerned, the church’s rules are the only thing that’s wrong here. If God called me to priesthood then led me to you, I can’t see why he’d want me cast out for loving the very woman He sent me to; that doesn’t seem right to me.”

“Do you really think it was God that brought us together? Because I prayed, Braden, even though I didn’t believe anymore, I prayed for help because I felt so lost. Praying was just so ingrained in me that every time he beat me, every time I wanted it to end, I’d close my eyes and beg for Him to somehow set me free and when He didn’t, I was so angry with myself for praying. I was so angry with myself for having hope. How did you keep on believing when everything was being taken from us?” My voice has become a whisper, and my eyes are swimming with tears as I think about how lost I’ve felt over the years and how hopeless I felt sitting in that jail cell – so alone, so afraid.

Braden’s eyes shine as well as he slides his hand around my waist and pulls me closer to him, our bodies aligned and pressed together. He stares into my eyes, his gaze shifting between them as if he’s somehow trying to read me or perhaps he’s trying to understand himself.

“I almost stopped believing,” he admits finally, his eyes darkening with a remembered pain.

“You did?”

He nods, tightening his grip around my waist. “While we were going through the trial and the DA was trying to make our relationship into some sordid motive for murder, I almost stopped believing. I couldn’t love a God who would show me a path then kick me down and stomp my face into the mud. That isn’t what I was taught to believe in. If He took you from me…” he pauses and shakes his head, my heart stutters because I had the same fear – what if it had all been for nothing? “I couldn’t believe if He allowed that.”

“What are we going to do now, Braden? Now that all the secrets and the lies are over? What if you don’t like who I am now that I’m not her?”

His brow furrows and he looks confused. “Not her?”

“The damsel in distress. When there’s nothing to protect me from, will you still feel the same for me?”

He pulls his head back slightly, looking surprised at my comment. “My love for you wasn’t about some holy mission, Emma. It runs deeper than the blood in my veins. It’s the oxygen that I breathe and the very life that beats within my heart. You are my other half, and had I met you on the street or kneeled at a pew, I would have fallen for you. If you were in a happy marriage, I still would have had the urge to lure you away – I still would have kissed you in the basement of the youth center, and made love to you on the couch in the office. You and I, no matter what the circumstances of our meeting, no matter the time or the place, we were meant to be together. I know it in my soul. We belong together, Emma. There’s nothing else that matters.”

“Braden,” I gasp, my heart full to bursting as I wrap my arms around his neck and press my mouth to his, savoring every sweet taste of his minty breath as his tongue slides against mine.

The kiss is sweet and slow, rejoining us after months apart. My body shakes against his, nervous, delirious, scared, and elated. I’ve wanted this moment so much. Thinking of Braden and a life together has been the only sliver of hope I’ve allowed myself, even in my darkest moment I still wanted him. My head spins. Dizzy.

“Make love to me,” I whisper against his lips, my hands moving between us, undoing the buttons of his shirt. I push it open, running my hands over his warm skin, the heat traveling through my palms and up my arms like small electrical impulses. I want to feel him pressed up against me, naked flesh on naked flesh, heat against heat. “I want you inside me.”

Dropping his shirt onto the floor, he shifts his weight so he’s above me, unbuttoning my blouse, revealing my creamy skin underneath. “I missed seeing you, feeling you,” he whispers, before pulling the cup of my bra to the side and leaning down, taking my nipple in his mouth. “Tasting you,” he adds, his fingers moving over my skin and causing it to burn delightedly beneath his touch. I want to be naked with him. An urgency builds inside me and I wriggle out of my blouse, my bra, and reach to open his pants.

“I need you now, Braden. I need you to fill me and make me see that this is real. I need to feel you moving inside me, loving me.”

He lets out a groan at my words, and it deepens as my hand reaches into his pants and wraps around his cock. I pump it with my fist, whispering about how much I need him as I chase his mouth with mine, kissing, sucking, our hands growing urgent as our clothing falls to the floor and he positions himself between my legs.

“I love you,” he says, his eyes locked with mine as my legs wrap around him and pull him into my core.

“I love you too,” I reply in a gasp as he pushes inside me, stretching and pulling as every nerve ending in my body sighs with relief then sets about tightening itself into a blissful coil, growing tighter and tighter with each thrust, with each rub against my clit.

We roll on the oversized bed, laughing and kissing. It feels so wonderful to be joined again. So amazing to do this without any fear hanging over our heads. I end up on top and I sit back, my hands on his chest as I rock my hips, looking down into his beautiful eyes as I control the depth of our reunion, taking him in as deep as I possibly can.

His hands move to my breasts, up to my shoulders, into my hair where they tighten and bring me toward him, our mouths joining as our hips rock and crash. I whimper, my insides becoming a pulsing being that wants to escape in a rush of energy that sets even my fingertips tingling. “Oh Braden,” I groan, coming around him, my core clenching at his girth as he rolls us again, continuing to thrust and kiss me, my orgasm continuing in muted tones until it builds again like a rising wave.

It comes fast and swift, exploding from my lower belly as he groans and spills himself inside me, his muscles quivering as he holds himself above me, his tongue sliding languidly against mine. I love the taste of him. I love the weight of his body on my own. I love the feel of his cock inside me, joining us at our most intimate point. I love this man, more than anything in this world. He is me and I am him, and when we’re joined, the whole world seems right.

My breathing hitches, and I wrap my arms around his neck, sliding my fingers in his hair, my legs around his waist, binding myself to him. “I love you so much, Braden. Don’t ever let me go.”

“Never,” he responds. “Never.”