Chapter 20
CHAPTER 20
“E xcuse us, please. You’re in our way.”
Nola took a step back, her friendly smile faltering when the two women gave her and her sign a frosty look before continuing into the community center.
Not that she could blame them. She stared at the sign she held. She had chosen one that said, “Repent, sinners!” in big red letters. In her mind, it was the least offensive choice of the signs her father had piled in the back of his SUV for the protesters to choose from. She couldn’t force herself to pick up the signs reading ‘homosexuality is a sin’ or ‘whores burn in hell.’ Not when she didn’t believe either to be true.
“You okay, Nola?” Josephine asked. She was around Nola’s age, with short blonde hair and a passion for God and diamond painting kits.
“Fine,” Nola said. She glanced around for her father or Abraham, but they were both at the far end of the protest group. She and Josephine had drifted away from their fellow protesters, but she still lowered her voice. “I don’t want to be here. Protesting against people trying to help innocent animals isn’t right, Josephine.”
“I understand, but how they’re helping animals is a sin, Nola,” Josephine said earnestly. “They’re promoting sex before marriage and encouraging the sin of homosexuality.”
“Going on a date doesn’t mean it ends in sex,” Nola said.
“That isn’t what our fathers say,” Josephine said. “Sinners who don’t know God’s love and how important it is to stay pure before marriage are having sex on dates all the time.”
Nola didn’t reply. Familiar guilt crept into her, and she didn’t dare look toward Abraham again for fear the truth of what she did with him on a regular basis would be written all over her face for Josephine to see.
Not so regular anymore, Nola. Abraham no longer finds you attractive. He doesn’t even know you have a tattoo yet because he’s avoiding being intimate with you.
That wasn’t true. Abraham was just very busy lately. She hardly saw him at all anymore. He was either working, helping her father with church matters, or spending his free time with the men’s prayer group. She missed him, but she understood the importance of his faith to him.
Do you miss him, though?
“Nola, what are you doing?”
She turned and smiled at Abraham, who had left her father to join them. “Hi!”
“What are you doing?” he repeated. “You’ve been standing here like a lump for the last five minutes, and I saw you let those two women pass you without saying anything to them.”
“What was I supposed to say?” she asked.
He sighed, impatience creeping into his voice. “I don’t have time for your nonsense today, Nola. This protest is important to both me and your father.”
She kept the smile on her face with sheer willpower. “Sorry. I’ll do better.”
“Thank you,” he said.
She hesitated before setting down her sign and sliding her arms around his waist. He stiffened and glanced behind him before breaking her hold and stepping back. “You know how I feel about public displays of affection, Nola. It’s especially inappropriate here.”
“I haven’t seen you for two days, and I’ve missed you.” She gave him a teasing smile. “Plus, I’m cold, and you’re a pretty handsome heater.”
The compliment didn’t mollify him. “You knew it would be cold tonight. Why aren’t you wearing a hat and scarf?”
“I forgot them,” she said.
He tucked his scarf a little closer to his throat. “Well, consider this God’s punishment for being forgetful.”
“Right,” she said.
He looked pointedly at her sign, and she picked it up again, earning her a strained smile of satisfaction. When he turned to leave, she caught his hand. “Stay here with me?”
“I can’t,” he said. “Your father needs me.”
He walked away, and Nola turned to face Josephine. The young woman smiled at her. “You’re so lucky to have Abraham as a boyfriend.”
“I am,” Nola said, hoping her smile didn’t look as unnatural as it felt. More cars were pulling into the community center parking lot, and she studied the nearly two dozen church members holding signs at the edge of the parking lot, staring with blatant hostility at the people trying to enter the community hall.
Was this really God’s love? It didn’t feel like it to her, although lately, nothing at the church she’d grown up in felt like God’s love. And if it was, then she didn’t want anything to do with that God.
“I hope I find someone as godly and perfect as Abraham someday,” Josephine said with a soft sigh.
Nola hunched her shoulders, trying to warm both her neck and her ears. It was a dismal way to spend a Friday evening, and she really wished she hadn’t forgotten her hat and scarf. It was just getting colder and darker, and she’d probably have frostbite by the time her father let them leave.
“Come on, Josephine,” Nola said. “We should join the others.”
She took a step back and made a startled yelp when her foot slipped on some ice beneath the snow. She dropped her sign and tried to catch her balance, but her foot was still sliding, and she was definitely about to fall on her ass. Her body tensed, preparing itself for a hard impact that never arrived.
Instead, two leather-clad arms slid around her and caught her neatly. Her back pressed against a hard chest, and she made an embarrassing grunt of surprise before staring up at the man who’d caught her.
Her eyes widened, her pulse went into overdrive, and her cold body immediately set itself on fire.
“You okay?” Nix’s deep voice sounded as tasty as honey to her.
She breathed deeply of his now familiar scent as she nodded dumbly. His big hands were clasped loosely around her hips, and she stared at the tattoos on them before staring up at his face again.
“I slipped on the ice,” she finally said.
She ignored her disappointment when he let go of her hips and stepped away. She turned to face him, her smile jittery and nervous. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
“It seems like you’re always, um, saving me.”
He just shrugged, and her pulse still thumping and bumping, she said, “What are you doing here?”
He glanced at the community center. “I’m participating in the fundraiser.”
“Oh. You’re um… you’re one of the bachelors?”
He nodded, and a gleeful little voice inside her said, “He’s single!”
So what? She wasn’t.
“That’s nice,” she said inanely. Why did she lose all of her brain cells when she was around Nix?
“Do you actually think so?” He glanced at her fallen sign, and she turned bright red as he studied the other protesters.
“Oh, I, uh…” She trailed off. What was she supposed to say? She was obviously here protesting the fundraiser, and nothing she said would change that.
Josephine joined them, smiling timidly at Nix. “Hello. I’m Josephine, and I’d love to talk to you about the healing grace of God’s love.”
“I’m an atheist,” Nix said, his gaze returning to Nola. “You look like you’re freezing.”
She smiled faintly. “At least I’m wearing a coat this time, right?”
His disapproving look did something to her insides that wasn’t exactly unpleasant. In fact, she was feeling a little tingly in the most inappropriate place.
“I forgot my hat and scarf, but I’m actually not that cold,” she lied.
“Your lips are blue,” he said. He unwound the scarf from his neck, and she stood in silent surprise as he wrapped it around hers. It was thick, delightfully soft, and warm.
“There,” he said gruffly. “You can keep the scarf.”
“You can’t keep giving me your clothes,” she said and then blushed at how incredibly improper her comment was. “I mean, your, uh, winter clothes, not your clothes , clothes.”
He grinned, and there went her stupid heart again, thumping away like she’d run a marathon and her crotch… well, she absolutely did not want to talk about what it was currently doing.
“Nola?” Abraham pushed past Nix and stood beside her, sliding a possessive arm around her shoulders.
Oh, now he was fine with public displays of affection?
She ignored her immediate urge to push Abraham’s arm away as he glared at Nix. “I saw you touching my girlfriend. You’re lucky I don’t have you arrested for assault.”
“Abraham!” Anger, an unfamiliar emotion at best, washed over Nola, and she gave into her urge and pushed away his arm. “Stop it. I slipped on the ice, and he caught me. He saved me from smashing my head on the pavement.”
Before Abraham could reply - oh, this was just perfect - her father arrived. His face was red, and he was already beginning to bleat like an angry goat.
Unkind, Nola!
“Get away from my daughter, you…” Her father’s eyes widened as recognition washed over his face. “You. I remember you. You were harassing my daughter while she ministered to the poor.”
“No, he wasn’t, Daddy,” Nola said. “He saved me from -”
“Nola, hush,” Abraham said.
She glared at Abraham as her father sneered at Nix. “Of course you would be here with the rest of the sinners. A man like you, covered in the devil’s marks, wouldn’t hesitate to participate in a whorish gathering like this.”
Her father studied the tattoos visible on Nix’s hands. “Do you think the devil will show mercy on you when you join him in hell? Do you believe defiling your body with tattoos will gain you his favour? Because I assure you, you will burn just like all the other sinners who mark their bodies as you have done.”
Nix’s gaze flickered to Nola’s hip. Just for a moment, but it was enough to make the blood drain from her face and her lips go numb. Oh God. He would tell her father about her tattoo, and she couldn’t blame him for it. Her father was being so rude, and finding out his daughter had a tattoo would be the only way to shut him up.
Of course, it would also cost her everything, but that wasn’t Nix’s problem, was it?
She stared wide-eyed at Nix and waited for him to destroy her life.
Instead of telling her father he’d tattooed her, Nix eyed the three of them a final time before giving her father a stiff smile. “Always a pleasure talking with you, Reverend.”
He walked away as every muscle in Nola’s body went limp with relief.