Chapter 17
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
N eil and Abby had offered all of them a place to sleep, but it was a small house, and Vera liked having her own space. Because it was late when they returned and they were both tired, Vera had invited Rev into her bed, him in his cotton boxers and her in a silky nightgown that clung to her curves and was translucent enough to kindle heat in his gaze. But as she rested in his arms, the two of them merely held one another, engaging in quiet pillow talk. Some topics were more serious than others.
“You don't seem to have hang-ups about me being Wiccan,” she noted, “even though I’m sure more people in your congregation than Witford or Tisha would find it objectionable.”
Her infuser lamp emitted a vanilla scent in the room and cast tiny dots of light along the wall. He gazed at them, one arm behind his head, one around her.
“Teena Joy told me that my heart was pure, and to trust my heart, that God would never lead me astray. He led me to you.”
“To convert me?” She’d never gotten that sense, but she would ask, to know what to expect if Witford or Tisha put that kind of pressure on him.
“No.” He looked down at her and touched her chin. “To serve you. Love you. Belong to you. Protect you.” She closed her eyes as his words sunk into her, took root. “I hear it in my head, another song ready to be sung, only a song with my whole body.”
He hummed it, what was in his heart. “Let me serve you. Give me a name to call you…”
“Mistress, Rev,” she whispered. “You can always call me Mistress.”
You can also call me yours.
“Do you believe Tisha, that I can corrupt your soul, change it? Make it less godly, more worldly, where you think less about praising the Divine and more about reward on earth, instead of heaven?
He hummed another few notes, then subsided. “If God give us that full table I talked about, a well-lived life is our thanks and praise to Him, too. Earthly joys have their place. Maybe everything life offers, all the choices we make, how we help, love, fail and succeed…how we grow from all that, that’s another way we praise him.”
He shifted so he leaned over her, his head a silhouette above her. “No, Veracity. I don’t think you corrupt my soul. I think you make it stronger. I been in a hard place this week. God and praying have helped, but so has knowing I have you, your care…your…”
She gazed up at him. “You can say it. Because it’s true.”
“Your love,” he said. “Thank you, Mistress.”
She slid a finger along his waistband, a mute demand. He removed the cotton boxers, his hands finding her under her silken nightgown, pushing up the fabric as she guided him over her to settle between her legs, press himself between them. He brought his mouth to hers, a long, swimming kiss, full of everything they both needed. When they came together, it was such an easy coupling, an easy rhythm. They fell into that rising and falling breath together with the same effortless coordination, everything anticipated and accepted, offered and given.
She arched her back and he helped her take off the nightgown, so they were skin to skin, moving together as he went deeper, thrusting, her heels coming up to lock over his buttocks, her hands latched on his shoulders.
They rocked together. He’d learned from her, so that rocking went on and on and on until at long last, she whispered “now,” and they rode that strong river current to a climax that left them shuddering and boneless in one another’s arms, no need to move or doubt the Universe’s plan in bringing them together.
As they drove to Tiger’s the next morning, Rev told Vera he’d agreed to do another gig or two with Sy and Trey.
“Their lead singer called in and said he’ll be back soon, but they have a couple commitments they’d like to keep before then.”
“Good. Sy says the club owner where you performed the other night is interested in having you come back. Do you think you’d do that, if they play there again?”
“If they need me and I can make it work with my job and the church, sure. I like helping out.” He shrugged, his fingers coiled over the Aston Martin’s open window frame as he turned his face toward the wind. “But I’m not interested in becoming a rock star.”
“Well, that’s disappointing. I had a whole fantasy going. You, shirtless, in leather pants, hugging up to a mic. Your muscles gleaming with sweat, hand reaching out to the crowd but your eyes looking for me…”
A slow smile slid across his face. She continued. “I see all those young groupies in the audience, trying to catch your attention by screaming their love for you, wearing their tight shirts and short skirts. Maybe throwing some underwear onto the stage.”
He blinked. “Maybe I been working at a school too long. I be thinking, what would their daddies think?”
“I think most fathers abdicate the teen years to the mothers, to save the lives of young men and reduce the chances of early onset gray.”
The grin deepened. “You’d be a good mother, Veracity. No nonsense, patient. You want kids?”
She sucked in a breath. Rev immediately reached out to touch her hand. “Mistress?”
“Yes, I’m fine.” She didn’t say anything for a few miles. He waited her out, but kept his hand near hers, knuckles brushing her wrist where she gripped the gear shift.
“I had a plan. I’d have one and adopt two, when he or she was about three years old. Out of diapers but starting to need siblings.”
“How old would the adopted siblings be?” he asked.
“I’d look at six or seven years old for one, nine or ten for the other. But I’d likely just let the adoption counselor tell me who most needed a home and see if my reaction to their story tells me that’s who belongs with me. Who my found family is, like Ros and the rest are.”
She took a more leveling breath. “How about you? Do you want children?”
“Yes,” he said simply. “But if all I’m given are my schoolkids, I’d be all right with that. I’ve thought about having a kid of my own, though, plenty of times. I like the feel of it. Maybe a son, and we’d both dote on his momma. Drive her a little crazy.”
“Probably drive her a lot crazy.”
His fingers tightened on hers. “Why did it hurt you, me asking?”
“It didn’t hurt, not exactly. Guess I never expected a man to ask me that. Not the way you just did. Most men stay away from the topic until the woman brings it up, even deep into the relationship. You asked like the answer mattered. And you liked my response.” She sent him a half smile. “Which thrilled and terrified me at the same time.”
“I don’t know where the Lord is going to take us, Veracity. But if He take us down that road together, I feel nothing but right about it, no matter how soon it seems.”
She thought of the other four members of their group. With the exception of Skye and Tiger, their men had come into their lives and, in a remarkably short time, each woman had known. And the group usually knew before the woman herself had believed in it.
She recalled the glances at dinner, the way each of them had been getting to know Rev. As if they knew they were talking to a man who would become one of them.
Who might be father to the children she’d always wanted.
Her phone buzzed. After glancing at it, Vera dipped her head toward him. “I need to take this one. It will make you smile.”
He gave her a curious look as she had her hands-free pick up the call. “Hey, Jasmine. I have you on speaker with a friend of mine, Rev. Are you calling to give me good news?”
“I so am,” came the effusive reply. “Only you might want to hang up on me. Joss and I finally decided on a date. We want to do it at the next full moon King Tide, at that park we picked out.”
Vera calculated the date and blinked. “That’s soon.”
“We’re going to keep it simple, but please tell me you’re available. We honestly will change it if you aren’t, because you’re who we want to handfast us.”
“I can do it.” Vera suppressed a laugh as a squeal came through the phone.
“I’m so happy.”
“I’m happy for you. The first time I introduced you, I knew you two were meant for one another.”
"May God bless your union and your love," Rev said.
“Thank you. Wow, you have a great voice.” Jasmine’s voice dropped to a dramatic whisper. “Vera, are you hanging out with a Christian?"
Rev blinked as Vera laughed. “Yes. I'm living dangerously. Maybe he’ll come to the ceremony, and you’ll get to meet him.”
“I’d love that. Consider yourself invited, Rev. Oh, that’s my mom calling. I just left her the message about the date, and she’ll be freaking out.”
“Okay, go talk to her. We’ll touch base next week on what ritual elements you want. Tell Joss congratulations. Blessings on both of you.”
When she disconnected the call, Rev put his hand on hers again, and gripped it. “You marry people?”
“Yes. Some Wiccans call it handfasting.”
She told him more about Jasmine and Joss. Jasmine was a gardener, and Joss a passionate fresh food cook.
They’d met at a Beltane festival. Joss had been helping with the after-ritual refreshments, and Jasmine came with her friends. Their fingers brushed when he handed over the cup of mead and a napkin full of crescent-shaped almond cookies. He admitted he gave her one extra. That had been the start of it.
“Joss is very shy, and as you could probably tell, Jasmine is like one of her garden flowers. She turns her face up to the sun and soaks it all in. He sat with her after the refreshments were passed out, and they talked about his favorite vegetables and herb seasonings. She arranged for him to visit her garden at the community college. She teaches botany there, and he cooks for a vegan restaurant in NOLA. We can go there sometime, unless you have an objection to a meatless meal.”
“I tend to eat what’s placed in front of me and be thankful for it.” He touched her hand. “Your blood family. I don’t want to pry too much, but will you tell me more about why you had to leave them?”
Even with him, it took effort not to withdraw, physically and mentally, from the question. “If you’ll tell me why you need to know.”
“Witford tried to find out more about it. Said your family shunned you. I don’t need you to say another word about it to me,” he said, tightening his hand on hers when he saw the anger in her face. “But I not asking because of that. I asking because I want to know how to share that hurt. Help you with it when it comes upon you the way it does.”
She’d worked on this wound in her soul, knowing it did no good to deprive it of oxygen. Maybe because of that, and because of Rev himself, she knew she could believe him, and finally talk to him about it.
“Faith should guide your life. I don’t believe religion should dictate it. There needs to be room for questions, growth. It’s a marriage, where you and your faith bond with a respect for individuality and free will. People can choose different religious paths. My family didn’t feel that way about it. It was a painful road, and it ended with them telling me I couldn’t be part of the family anymore.”
“I hope they weren’t that cruel about it.”
“No.” They were worse. She didn’t have to say it, though. She expected it was vibrating off of her.
“You know the saying about not burning your bridges? I realized a bridge only leads to one side or the other. When they burned that bridge, I could see the water again. And I thought, if we all get into the water at some point, maybe somewhere downstream, we reach a together point again. But that’s not up to me. It’s up to the current, and where it takes us.”
She drew a breath. “I constructed a bridge out of twigs, burned it in my cauldron and then scattered the ashes in the Mississippi. Watched it flow away.” At his raised brow, she explained. “It’s similar magic. A small version to replicate your bigger intent.”
She gave a half laugh. “Cyn would say what it boils down to is, ‘I kicked that shit to the curb and got on with living my life.’ I guess that’s true, too.”
His gaze was thoughtful. “What are you thinking?” she asked.
“I thinking about Witford and Tisha.” He pressed his lips together. “There’s something bad wrong between us, Veracity. I gave it to God to fix, because the answer to it isn’t before me, but it’s getting worse.”
“What makes you think that?”
“The silence,” he said soberly. “They talking, they mouths moving, saying the things we normally talk about, but there’s this big silence behind it. I don’t know what to do about it. It like they hiding in a room and not showing me what’s going on there. I’ve never had that happen with us. When you talk about your family, the pain I feel from you, it’s what I feeling…” His eyes darkened. “I’m worried.”
She turned onto Tiger and Skye’s long and winding private driveway, but stopped to let the engine idle, so she could give him her full attention. “I’m so sorry. I wish I could help, especially since I’m the problem.”
“No,” he told her with gentle authority, reaching out to touch her mouth. “You not. The problem is in our hearts. We haven’t figured out how to understand one another on this. It will come.”
She slid her arms around his shoulders, held him to her, felt the strength of his hands at her waist as he took the comfort and gave her back some of the same. That closed circle that could reassure, that could provide an emotional fortress when needed against the battering of the world.
When they eased back from one another and she resumed driving, he glanced around him. “Tiger and Skye got some good land out here.”
“Yes, about twenty-five acres. Skye’s kept her loft in the Industrial District because it’s closer to work, so often they’ll stay there during the week and come out here on the weekends.”
“Abby and Neil do something like that, don’t they?”
“Somewhat. Abby stays at her house in the Garden District when he’s down range, but when he’s home, she usually works from his place. He’s made sure she has the wi-fi she needs, which he says is the greatest sacrifice he’s made in their relationship. Though she says he’s not sorry he can get better reception for his favorite sports channels and history documentaries.”
Rev smiled. “Was it hard, making room for the men in your family of women?”
“Not as much as we expected. They expanded that family, and each relationship brought out different traits in each woman. As close as we are as friends, those qualities weren’t always accessible or as noticeable before they fell in love. You see it most significantly in Cyn, but really, it’s happened for all of them.”
“Does it bother you, that they found that first?”
She glanced at him. “I apologize, Mistress,” he said, but she shook her head.
“No. You pay attention to how I feel about things. I would have been surprised if you’d missed that.”
“It one thing to notice. Another to confront you with it.”
She looked at their clasped hands. “It feels less difficult to talk about these days. But yes, it did bother me. I recognized it for what it was, though. I didn’t let it make me desperate, or willing to settle. There were plenty of nights I felt the bite of that loneliness, of flying by myself while they glided along next to me in pairs, but we were still in the same flock. How about you? Have you felt lonely, Rev?”
“Yes.” He gave her the same honesty, not willing to let her fly alone with her own experience. His brown eyes showed hints of gold as they turned upon her. “Maybe I didn’t ask myself the same questions you did, because all my life I been told whatever happened to me, or didn’t happen to me, was because that was how God wanted it, and I never was alone as long as I had Him. But I think God know, as much as we need Him, we need a helpmeet, someone who recognize our heart, and let us walk our earthly path together.”
They pulled up to Tiger and Skye’s compound, which included a long brick house and outbuildings, like the barn garage for his at-home motorcycle and vehicle work. A concrete pad with a pavilion covering it created a generous outdoor space, complete with grill, wet bar and comfortable furniture. The track for vehicle testing was beyond it.
Rev exited the Aston Martin, came around and opened Vera’s door for her. He hadn’t expanded on what he’d said, made it personal, but she knew that was what they were becoming for one another. Helpmeet. She could try to protect herself by denying it, but with him, that insecurity seemed to be disappearing, carried down the river with the ashes of that bridge she’d created.
Tiger had helpfully left the truck they were going to use parked on the track. When they reached it, Rev opening the passenger door for her, she turned, curving her hand around his nape and pressing herself against him. He was ready for her, circling her waist and bringing her closer with one arm. Lifting her foot, she slid it around his calf, her other hand dropping to his ass to knead for the pure pleasure of it. His cock hardened against her, as if merely waiting for her to require that from him.
Ready to serve her, just as he said.
His hand flexed on her waist. “I want to touch you like you touching me,” he whispered against her mouth.
“Not right now,” she said, sensually cruel. “I like that you told me. But all I want is to enjoy you, kiss you, grip your beautiful ass and know that you’re waiting for my command to do more of what I want.”
Then she took his mouth again. He wasn’t passive, his mouth telling her of his hunger, teasing her lips, her tongue, stroking and pulling stronger desires from her. Wanting her to give him that order, willing to wait, but also wanting to let her know how worthwhile he could make it if she decided she wanted to deliver that command sooner.
He pressed his forehead against hers as she broke the kiss. “Good thing we starting here instead of in traffic,” he said.
“Safe driving practices are important,” she said solemnly. “That’s your first lesson.” As she drew away from him and caught his amused but exasperated reaction, she shot him a wicked grin. “Slap my ass the way you’re thinking about and you will pay dearly,” she informed him.
His laugh warmed areas already heated, but it was the kind of warmth that settled it, a promise that the pleasure would be ready to revisit later, and the way they spent the time in between would be worth the wait.
He had to adjust himself to make the fit of his jeans a little less constricting as he got into the driver’s seat, a pleasant thing to watch. She leaned over and stroked him, cupped him as he spread his thighs, anticipating her desires.
“Since you’ve ridden in plenty of vehicles, I assume you’ve paid some attention to how it’s done,” she said. “Why did you never get a license?”
She took more pleasure in his effort to answer her, but he knew what she expected. His voice, though hoarse, was coherent. “Never seemed to have a need. Trolley and bus get me where I want to go.”
“So why do you want to learn to drive? Other than to give me some relief on hypothetical road trips?” She sat back against her seat, her shoulder against it, her legs crossed, knee up near the console. She’d worn a flirty blue and green paisley skirt, its wide waist band decorated with dark buttons. Her breasts were hard to ignore, clad in a short-sleeved blue top with a scoop neck. But after his gaze slid from there and down to her legs, the return trip brought him back to her kissed lips and luminous eyes.
“You want to show me, and anything you can teach me, that let me be with you, I like that.”
“That’s a very good answer. Let’s get started.” As she went through the basics, she learned how much he’d absorbed from watching others. When she at last told him to start the vehicle, he leaned over, gripped her seat belt and drew it across her body. His fingers brushed her hip as he latched it. The truck was an older one, without the nanny beeping if the seatbelt wasn’t on, but that didn’t matter to Rev. Keeping her safe did.
With a whimsical smile, she leaned over and did the same to him, sliding her fingers over his chest, tangling briefly with the chain for the silver cross. She lingered at his hip as she clicked the belt in place, and discovered he was carrying chewing gum in his pocket.
“Bubble gum?”
“For the kids,” he told her. “And sometimes for Beau. You can have a piece if you want.”
She smiled and replaced the package. “Start the truck.”
He proceeded carefully, listening to her instruction as he made several circuits of Tiger’s test track, showing a decent grasp of driving skills.
“Tiger said you can come out anytime and practice,” she told him. “It’s an old truck and he leaves the keys under the mat. It’s usually parked next to the barn.”
“He don’t worry someone going to steal it?”
“Not a big issue out here. Plus, even without his outlaw biker history, anyone who sees the man is going to think twice about pissing him off. And then there’s Skye. With her tech skills, she could ruin someone’s credit, put them on an FBI watch list and worst of all, empty their music playlists and cancel their social media accounts.”
He chuckled. “Best not to mess with a Mistress’s man.”
“You got it. Like Cyn says, ‘I’m the only one allowed to beat or psychologically torture you.’ Let’s do a few more rounds here, then we’ll test out some of the back roads around Tiger’s property.”
Once again, Rev handled himself well for that step, though he pulled off when faster vehicles came up behind him. He didn’t get flustered, but he was attentive and cautious in the way new drivers were.
“How does it feel?” she asked when they took a break on a shoulder.
“Good. I like learning things that can help someone else. When I first started working with Beau, I wanted to learn all the stuff he knew, which made him sure they brought me in to take his job. But I just wanted to pull my weight so he could count on me. Once he figured that out, we got on fine. Every budget cycle, if it a tight year, I tell Miss Mavis if they have to cut our staff, then it should be me. I won’t let them do that to him, and I always got my job at the church.”
His jaw set. “Beau wasn’t too sure about you either, said some of the things Witford and Tisha did, only Beau’s reasons for telling me were different. He was more worried about how it affect me as a man.”
She narrowed her gaze. “What things?”
“I don’t want to get old Beau in trouble. He was just worried about me.”
“Are you refusing to tell me?”
“No. Just protecting him.” He gave her a rueful smile. “What you’d expect. Why some fancy, beautiful woman might be interested in someone like me.”
He spoke casually, but she could see Beau had managed to plant a doubt or two, and they’d taken root. Shallow ones though, easy to pluck out if addressed early. As she did now.
“Rev, I respect you as an equal. You submitting to me, me being your Mistress, that’s a decision made from both sides. I am attracted to you. No, let me correct that. I am fiercely attracted to you, and it’s not just your beautiful body, wonderful mouth and that limitless desire to submit you carry. It’s the whole man, everything I’m learning about you.”
She leaned in to slide her fingers under the collar of his shirt, stroking heated skin. “So, at the risk of offending Beau or anyone else acting out of true concern for you—which I appreciate—if they’re suggesting you’re some boy toy I’ll tire of because of our different economic or educational circumstances, they’re feeding you garbage and can fuck the hell off. I’ll drive that garbage out of your mind, like Jesus and those money lenders. I have no problem using a whip to do it.”
The comparison startled then amused him, but she saw the doubts he’d harbored give way to belief, allowing him to move from there to need. The need to feel the weight of a control that strong, reinforced with the kind of pain she’d shown him could open him up to dormant feelings only recently come to life. But they’d been there from the first time he’d gotten on his knees before the Virgin Mary.
“I apologize, Mistress. You’re right. I letting things come between us that don’t belong there.”
“Yes. But that’s why you told me about them, which is the right thing to do. That’s how we take care of them. Together, and by trusting me with what’s happening in your head.”
She sat back. “Drive us back to Tiger’s. We’ll go get some lunch.”
When he stopped the truck by the barn, he turned off the ignition and slid his hands along the wheel, a marveling look on his expression.
“When he was young, Witford and his friends liked to drive fast, like young people do. Some time I might do the same, just to see what it like to be the driver when doing that.” He shot her a glance. “I sound like a kid.”
“But you’re not. Not at all.”
His gaze swept over her. “I thank the Lord for that.”
When they were back in her car, she twisted toward him. “I’d like to see the home where you grew up, before your mother died.”
He didn’t seem bothered by the request. “It ain’t much to look at. The neighborhood is pretty run down. I don’t have the exact address, but I know the name of the street, if you want to put it in your navigation screen there.”
She complied. As she turned onto the highway that would bring them back into NOLA’s city limits, Rev had his own question for her. A startling one.
“Do you ever wish you back with your ex-husband?”
“Lord and Lady, no.” She jerked the wheel when she looked toward him, and Rev’s hand was immediately overlapping hers, helping her to steady it.
His expression eased at her forceful response, though he looked like he regretted asking. It had upset her, but she realized she wanted him to know.
“It's hard, even when it's your choice and even when it's already been over well before you make that decision. But I mourned the loss of the‘wished for marriage’ more than the actual one. There are so many could-have-beens and dreams that die with the relationship.”
“It is a death,” Rev said soberly. “And you had to grieve. You ever see him?”
“No. Donovan moved out of the area a long time ago. He won’t be back. I check his social media now and again, but we haven’t spoken in years. He got married, had a couple kids, and lives in DC. We were planning to have some, but I made excuses for us to hold off. Something felt wrong, and I’m grateful we never had any. I wish him joy in his current marriage, and hope they’re more compatible than we were.”
“Did he…submit to you?”
“Some. But he liked submission as play acting, to spice up the relationship. Which was fine, but it runs far deeper for me than he wanted to go.”
“That feeling, that wanting to surrender to a Mistress, was always just waiting inside me,” he said. “Least it feels that way. Was it the same for you?”
“Strongly enough that it was part of why my family and I had to part ways. My faith is inseparable from what I want in a relationship with a man. While I didn’t feel an in-depth discussion of my sex life was necessary, they heard things, and found out what I liked.”
“And what’s that, Mistress?”
She gave him a sidelong glance, a feline smile. “A strong man, so well set with himself that he can submit beautifully to a dominant female. Or submit in a less than beautiful way. They both have their moments.”
They’d reached the part of town he’d given her, so their attention shifted to him directing her through the turns that brought them to the home he’d shared with his mother.
The square cinderblock structure with one solitary front window, covered with bars, looked like a casualty of Hurricane Katrina. Though it was probably too damaged inside to meet code, a realtor somewhere was sitting on the deed, hoping for a future where the area might get gentrified, and the small lot would make him or her money. But for now, it just looked like an abandoned building. With some notable exceptions.
The property had reasonably fresh exterior paint and the thatch of grass in front was mowed. A steel magnolia wreath was on the door, and shells were piled at the doorstep like a cairn.
“I go to the beach each year just before her death,” Rev said, looking at it. “Get some shells, add to it. The steel magnolia wreath, that’s the kind of flower she was, so it fit. I found it at a junk store, cleaned it up and painted it.”
“You keep up the house?”
“The outside, since the door locked, and the realtor don’t want anyone but him inside.”
Rev’s gaze rested on the wreath, his hands spread on his knees like uneasy spiders. “Teena Joy favored my momma. So growing up, sometimes when I’d look at her, it was like I could almost see her. I’d feel this need to reach out and touch Teena Joy’s face, as if I’m touching that memory, feeling my momma living there, under the skin.”
He glanced at Vera. “Like what I feel when I look at you. I'm seeing something I want so much, I want to reach through, inside you, and touch your soul. Just one touch would be enough, and I’d know it was eternal.”
He looked toward the door again. “I don’t remember her real good. Teena Joy was my momma in most my memories, but when I’m here, I feel her strongest.”
She touched his shoulder. “I’m sorry you lost her so young. And I’m sorry about Teena Joy. Even when it’s time for death to come, that doesn’t mean we’re ready for it.”
“No.” He turned toward her. “If you decide…if you want to try to reach out to your daddy, because of his health, I can be there for you.”
She drew her hand back. “I appreciate that, Rev. I’ve tried various ways to reconcile with them, but when I burned that symbolic bridge, I was done being rejected. I got the message and moved on, just as Cyn said. You ready for lunch?”
He gazed at her but nodded. She pulled away from the house. “Anywhere in particular you’d like to go?”
“I like breakfast for lunch.”
“Me too. Let’s go to Mother’s. They serve it all day.”
“Sounds good.”
It wasn’t far from his old home. She found a parking spot near Mother’s, but when they stopped, she didn’t immediately exit the car.
“I’ve been through countless rounds of guilt and pointless what-ifs, Rev,” she said. “I’ve accepted that sometimes it takes more than exerting my will to achieve a desired outcome.”
When they left her car and began to walk together, he slid his arm around her, his hand overlapping her hip. "You can exert your will where it's welcome. I'm very welcoming of it.”
Her tight lips eased into a smile. “Noted.”
They headed toward the diner’s open door. From the outside, the old brick building didn’t look like much, but the cooking smells wafting into the street could get the stomach rumbling.
“When someone not ready to let the Word in, you have to do what the Lord say,” Rev said abruptly. “You shake the dust off your feet and move on, but you've given them the message, the offered hand, and that don't go away. They can come get it when and if they ready. Till then you just keep your heart open. I think it maybe like that with your family.”
Vera pressed her lips together. "I had to shake the dust from my feet, but it didn’t leave my heart. And I still deal with so much anger over it. What do I do with that?”
“Forgive every day. Like Jesus say. Not seven times, but seven times seventy. His way of saying do it as long as it take.” He tilted his head to look down at her. “Want to come to service tomorrow? I'll sing a song you like. Just tell me which one and I'll put it in the lineup."
"Highway to Hell, AC/DC?"
He laughed out loud. It turned heads in their direction, because Goddess, laughing was just another form of singing, and his voice had that mesmerizing quality for both. "Tisha’s eyes would pop right out of her head."
“Will the Beatles scandalize her? How about 'Here Comes the Sun?' Do you normally take requests?"
"No, but if it's right, that song will come up." His hand tightened on her. “And I have a feeling it will be just right.”