Chapter 4 #2
Does it grab my heart again how she names the flowers and comments on the families buried together? Yeah. Because I can’t bear to think of her lying alone under blue hydrangeas for eternity.
By the time we emerge on Church Street, cars are queued for the preschool dropoff, and Ms. Davis, our director, stands on the sidewalk with worry written across her brow.
“What’s wrong?” I approach her with Wren on my heels.
“I’m down an assistant in the infant room.”
“Again?”
“It’s that stomach bug,” she answers. “It’s going through everyone, and I need one staff per five infants, and we have two for twelve.”
“I’ll do it,” Wren chirps. “I’m CPR trained. Even did a Red Cross babysitting class years back.”
Ms. Davis darts her eyes from me to Wren. I make the introductions, but she’s too stressed to question Wren’s origin. She just worries, “Thank you, dear. You’re sweet to offer, but I need licensed providers.”
Wren’s shoulders fall, and we have a line of parents in their cars looking pissed off. Childcare is the biggest source of revenue for the church, and I wouldn’t wish angry moms on hell’s demons.
“Just for today, let her help,” I suggest. “I can vouch for her until we can find someone by tomorrow.”
Playfully, Ms. Davis backhands my arm. “You and the rules, Pastor Rutledge. You sure do like to bend them.”
I wink. “Just as long as we don’t break God’s rules, we’re good.”
I leave Wren in the capable hands of Ms. Davis while I assist the teachers with the older kids as they settle into their rooms for the day.
Then, I duck into the chapel and meet with our Music Director. We review the run-of-show for my Sunday sermon while I tune my guitar and practice a few songs before heading to my office to answer emails.
While drafting my sermon, I’m tempted to check on Wren, but it would insult her. She’s an adult. She’s made it this far on her own. But how?
ONE
Outside
It’s Axel’s text. We use numbers on phones, not names. I walk outside to find him and Nash, number two, leaning against the iron fence outside the chapel.
Axel smirks. “Heard you have a new roommate.”
Nash mirrors him. “Heard she only wanted you.”
I scowl. “And you heard she’s nineteen and won’t tell us how she wound up in Palm Beach. But she says it’s not safe for her to go home, wherever that is, and I want to know who the fuck kidnapped her.”
I’m getting aggravated. I know my family and I can protect Wren from anyone.
Anyone, except the one in our family who’s the most vicious man I know, and why did he point me in the direction of Wren?
“There’s a golf tournament in Hilton Head in three months,” I tell them. “Somehow, it’s connected to Palm Beach.”
“What’s your source?”
Axel always asks. He’s a lawyer. He’s also my brother, who trusts me, though he shouldn’t. He’s the reason for the broken heart on my face, the brother I betrayed.
This wicked game I play with our father is eating my soul alive.
“A parishioner,” I answer. “She has a sister in Hilton Head, cleaning rental properties, and that’s how they’re running the girls. Through men, staying in rentals, under the guise of golf tournaments.”
It’s not a total lie. I did get that intel last month, but now, thanks to the Devil, I know they’re connected.
“Claude Owen Turner the Third.” Nash nods. “Hilton Head was his ring until he was busted along with that piece-of-shit Senator Gentry Evans, and now Turner’s son has taken over. The Queen told me she heard about him through a source at the club.”
The Queen is our mother, Nadine Faye.
The club is the exclusive sex club she owns north of town.
And we, her sons, the kings, honor her by hunting down men like our father.
“So, Turner and Palm Beach are connected,” Axel adds it up. “Alright. We took out Palm Beach; Turner’s next.”
Dear God, I feel a murderous rage. Mix our father with sex traffickers touching my Iron Angel, and no living being with a pulse is safe near me.
I seethe, “I want to know how Wren got caught in their net.”
“Wren?” The smile on Axel’s face is rare. “What a pretty name for a hot woman.”
“You hear how he says it, too?” Nash elbows him. “I hear wedding bells.”
I swear, these fuckers timed that. The bell on my church’s chapel chimes eleven times while their shit-eating grins eat up every strike.
“No,” I snarl once it’s done. “That was my soul being eternally damned for the way I can’t stop thinking about her.”
Nash huffs, “We’re already damned. Might as well get what you want before you go to hell.”
His hypocrisy amuses me. “Will you be taking your advice, Mr. Allen?”
Nash’s face falls. We all know he’s in love with Vale, his daughter’s best friend, but he won’t lay a hand on her. It’s been years, and Vale’s almost thirty, and Nash still lusts for her from afar.
“Besides,” I add. “I just met her.”
“Yeah, and in ten minutes, you sacrificed a finger for her,” Axel corrects. “Sometimes it happens that way. You meet a woman and in an instant you know she’s your future queen.”
Your queen.
His certainty speaks to me.
Each brother must find one; that’s our tradition. Axel tried, but his first queen betrayed him. She left him.
While me? I used to believe I’d find my queen, but my father found me first. So, I made a deal with him, and now I don’t deserve a queen. Especially one too innocent to claim.
No, Wren deserves to be safe.
I give Axel the intel I have on her. “Search child services in Tennessee for the past eighteen years. Find her records. Check the Pigeon Forge area.” Axel looks confused. “Just do it. She sort of mentioned Dolly Parton, and I have a hunch.”
“And you.” I turn to Nash. “Look into this Turner fucker in Hilton Head. Check everyone who played in the Palm Beach tournament to see if any trace back to Tennessee.”
“And you,” Axel slaps my back, “look in the fucking mirror, because I’ve never seen you this worried for a woman.”
Nash slaps my back, too. “You mean … we’ve never seen him falling in love with his future queen.”
My glare shifts between them. “Do not regard him as an enemy, but warn him as a brother that—”
“And he’s quoting scripture.” Axel pulls away, laughing, “I’m out.”
“See ya.” Nash laughs, turning away, too.
For the rest of the day, my thoughts are swimming. My confusion deepens. I’m searching for an answer to what it means as I work my way toward the preschool building, ready to help with pick-up.
But I’m stopped in my tracks at the sight on the sidewalk, standing in the dappled sunlight, under an oak draped in Spanish moss.
Wren Chapel.
Holding a swaddled infant in her arms.
In an instant, I’m convinced Axel was right—you know your queen, your wife, when you see her.
The light flooding my dark heart is like none I’ve ever felt. This is stuff prayers beg for, and it can’t be real.
It can’t be this simple.
Easily, Wren chats with Ms. Davis. Naturally, she bounces, soothing the baby. Quickly, she must feel me staring as she turns my way … and smiles.
Jesus, Jesus.
Okay, you’re convinced she’s the one, but I’m not.