Holly Jolly Heresy (Aster Bay #4.5)

Chapter 1

Chapter one

It is a truth universally acknowledged that high school teachers are in need of a good hiding place the day before Christmas break. Even if that Christmas break might be their last.

For Caleb West, there was no better hiding place than the confessional booth in St. Anthony High School’s chapel.

The final Mass of the term had ended hours before and even the most faithful students in the small Rhode Island school had long since abandoned the space.

In a few hours, the halls of the school would be empty, too, as students, bundled against the harsh New England wind, left for two weeks of break.

But Caleb couldn’t wait a few hours to read the email waiting for him on his laptop.

The notification had startled him as he’d finished lecturing in his last sophomore religion class for the term.

He’d been unable to stop thinking about it ever since, his hands shaking as he’d methodically erased the whiteboard and closed down his classroom for the term.

True, he could have read the message on his phone, but this wasn’t a phone email. This was a big screen email. An email that required time to read properly, carefully, and the space to let the words rattle around in his brain uninterrupted.

Caleb moved through the aisles hung with swags of itchy fake greenery and slipped into the priest’s side of the confessional booth.

He closed the door softly behind him, gripped his laptop tightly in his free hand, and sat on the hard bench.

The familiar smell of old wood and incense did little to calm his racing pulse.

Dear Father West,

I understand the predicament you face. Indeed, many priests at one time or another question their vocation.

I have attached the paperwork you requested, but I once again urge you to consider a transfer to a different parish rather than pursuing laicization.

A new assignment could allow for a fresh start, away from this crisis of conscience, as you’ve called it.

Surely the inconvenience of relocating is worth the spiritual guidance you could provide a new community.

I urge you to seek counsel from your confessor, and we can discuss the matter further after Christmas...

Caleb slammed his laptop closed and let his head drop back against the wooden wall behind him.

He should have known it wouldn’t be that easy—not that leaving the priesthood would be easy, but he wasn’t sure staying was possible either.

A new parish could be the answer, far from his friends and family, far from his hometown of Aster Bay.

Far from her.

Molly Proulx.

The prettiest temptation he’d ever run across in his twenty-five years as a priest. The one temptation he wasn’t sure he could resist for much longer.

But maybe this was a sign. As it was, he’d struggled to even type out the request to the Diocese.

He’d been in counseling with the Bishop and his confessor for months now, but that hadn’t made it any easier to admit he didn’t just want a new assignment—he wanted a new life.

But maybe the Bishop had a point. Besides, what would he even do if he wasn’t a priest?

He scrubbed his hand over his face, breathing out the guilt twining itself around his bones and breathing in the deep, rich scent of the frankincense and myrrh from the morning’s Mass.

This would be an ideal time to pray, to ask God for guidance, for strength to forget about the high school English teacher invading his every thought—but no words came.

Just as no words had come to him for weeks now.

Because you don’t want to pray. You don’t want to remove the temptation from your thoughts.

Reassignment would be the easiest solution.

He’d go somewhere far away and forget all about Molly Proulx and the maddening way she challenged him and her whiskey-colored eyes.

Maybe then he wouldn’t be questioning everything he thought he knew about the Church, about himself.

Maybe then the doubts that kept him awake well past midnight each night would finally let him be.

From the other side of the confessional booth, a creak cut through Caleb’s existential crisis as the door opened and someone slid inside.

The door closed behind them with a soft snick.

He held his breath as Molly’s soft sigh filled the space, the spicy citrus scent curling under his nose as though he’d summoned her with his thoughts. Cinnamon and bergamot.

Shuffling on the other side, his view obscured by the screen between their booths, and then the click of Tupperware opening, the unmistakable crunch of chewing.

Caleb pressed his lips together, suppressing a smile.

Perhaps he wasn’t the only one who had discovered the virtues of hiding in a confessional.

“Ms. Proulx?” he asked softly.

She yelped in surprise, the sharp sound followed by a muttered curse and more shuffling. “Father West? What are you doing here?”

“Are you really asking what a priest is doing in a confessional?” He grinned despite himself.

“Shit—I mean, sorry, Father, are you…holding office hours or something?”

“Office hours?” he snorted.

“Or whatever it’s called when you hang out in there and wait for people to come tell you their sins.”

“It’s called confession.”

“I didn’t mean to interrupt. I was looking for a place to eat where Mr. Day couldn’t commandeer my lunch break.”

More shuffling, as though she was gathering her things to leave. But Caleb couldn’t very well send her back out there to contend with the overzealous principal. She should be able to eat her salad in peace.

“You’re not interrupting. Stay.”

“You’re sure?”

“I’m sure.”

A few moments of silence, the muffled sounds of her eating. Then, “This is weird.”

“Why?”

“Because I can’t see you. You’re just…listening to me eat?”

Caleb slid back the screen separating their booths, revealing the woman on the other side.

Molly wore a white turtleneck sweater, the knit material hugging her ample curves and wrapping around her throat, her chestnut hair loose around her shoulders.

His gaze lingered on her mouth, the sheen of oil on her lips from her salad dressing as she ate.

It took some effort for him to look away. “Better?”

“Better.” She settled against the side of the confessional, turning her body towards him as she poked around in the plastic container before spearing a cherry tomato and popping the red orb into her mouth. “So, Father, if you’re not hearing confessions, what are you doing?”

“I am also hiding from Mr. Day.”

She laughed, the sound bouncing off the wood so foreign in this space it made him laugh as well. “I know why he’s after me, but why’s he after you?”

Caleb sighed. It was no secret that he and the principal of St. Anthony High butted heads regularly.

Bruce Day was a “letter of the law” kind of guy, and Caleb.

..wasn’t. Especially when it came to caring for the students.

And while Caleb might be the spiritual leader of the school, Bruce was the disciplinarian, a role he seemed bound and determined to wield like his very own fiery sword, leading the teenagers in their care to the path of righteousness through fear and punishment if necessary.

Caleb was more of a “the greatest of these is love” kind of leader, something Bruce saw as eminently distasteful and untrustworthy.

Mostly Caleb just stayed out of Bruce’s way.

“He’s decided he needs to balance the secularity of our drama department by adding more religious pageants into the school calendar.” Caleb could barely keep the disdain from his voice.

“More pageants? Do we do any pageants right now?”

“None. Which is apparently the problem. He was not satisfied by my answer that the students at St. Catherine’s Elementary do enough pageants for both schools.”

Another laugh, this one tinkling and light, tinged with their shared annoyance over the principal’s fanaticism. It felt like a victory, that laugh.

“Wouldn’t that fall under religious education?” she asked.

“If only. Then I could overrule him. He’s decided it’s an extracurricular club, and when I tried to argue against it for budgetary reasons, he countered that he’s already secured all the costumes we could ever need from a Catholic school in Maine that closed down at the end of last year.

I’m heading there tomorrow to pick them up. ”

“He’s not going himself?”

Caleb shot her a wry look. “That’s exactly why I’m hiding. After he badgered me until I agreed to make the trip, he added that he’d be happy to go with me. Apparently, the pastor in Maine said we’d need at least two people to pack everything up. Bruce called it a pilgrimage.”

“The two of you trapped together in a car for that long? One of you isn’t coming back alive.”

“Don’t I know it. If someone else wanted to come, I could get him to stand down.”

She hummed thoughtfully as she speared another tomato.

“I was going to ask Hannah to go since she knows about costumes, and honestly the theater department will probably end up stuck leading these pageants eventually anyway, but I don’t know her well yet...”

“I’ll go.”

Caleb’s heart stopped, every muscle in his body tensing. “You want to go to Maine with me?”

She shrugged, her eyes trained on her salad as she turned over the lettuce with her fork, digging for croutons and cucumbers.

“Sure. Jo’s using our apartment for a photo shoot tomorrow so I can’t stay home.

And I’ve been helping Hannah with costumes since last year, so maybe I could be helpful.

It beats hiding out at a coffee shop all day. ”

His palms itched and the back of his neck tingled with awareness. Lead us not into temptation... “It’ll be a long day. Three and a half hours each way.”

“I don’t mind.” She glanced up at him, her brows drawn together and uncertainty flashing in her eyes. “Unless you don’t want me to come. I didn’t mean to—”

“No, of course, I’d love for you to come.” He swallowed hard, his pulse racing and heat washing over him. “Great idea.” It’s a terrible idea.

She smiled as though she only half believed him. “Can I be the one to tell Bruce?”

“If you really want to.”

“That zealot is making me swap Macbeth for Romeo and Juliet because he doesn’t like the ‘unsex me’ scene.

Between that and the way he’s been treating Alex…

” She cut herself off, pressing her lips together, and snapped the lid on her Tupperware before sliding it back into the padded lunch bag at her feet.

Caleb wanted to ask what she meant about Alex. The quiet senior mostly kept to himself, and Caleb couldn’t imagine a scenario that would have put the honor roll student at odds with the principal.

“This is the only chance I’m going to have to take something away from Bruce,” Molly said.

“You’re a petty, evil genius.”

Molly dipped her head in acknowledgment, her lips curling up in a grin that matched his own.

They stared at each other for a moment through the opening between the booths, grinning like fools, and Caleb’s heart thudded painfully in his chest, straining against his ribcage.

The shrill ring of the school bell sounded, signaling the end of the lunch period and pulling him back to reality.

“I better get back to my classroom.” Molly reached for her lunch bag. “Tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow. Meet me at the church at nine?”

“See you then.” She got to her feet and paused with her hand on the door to the confessional, almost as though she had something else to say, but thought better of it. Instead, she dipped her head again, her soft smile turning almost sad. “Father West.”

His own smile fell, and when he said her name, it was more like a prayer than any words he’d said in weeks. “Ms. Proulx.”