“What are you doing?”
“Taking them.” He takes a step back just as I lunge for them.
“For what?”
“Payment for lying again.” He leans in and turns the water higher, the press of his body closer to mine, forcing me to take a step back this time.
“What are you going to do with them?” I call after him as he walks away.
“I have a few ideas.” He snatches his glasses off the ledge and puts them back on while still keeping his body and eyes turned away from me. “You better start showering. I need one too before that hot water runs out.”
I pull my jaw off the floor and turn to look for soap, finding a small bar sitting near the handle of the faucet. He was right. I needed to hurry up. Focus on the task at hand. That would get my mind off the fact that I’m standing stark naked just a few feet away from him.
I glance around and notice that there’s a small alcove with towels and bathrobes. I tilt my head as I start to soap up. It was odd, along with the tiny but high-end kitchen and the fancy bed and other furnishings inside. I know I've been out of Colorado for a long time, but I can’t remember rustic cabins belonging to lone men like him being quite this well-equipped. Something is off.
“Why does this place have all this stuff? The robes and outdoor shower? I thought this was your cabin?” I ask as I lather up my hair. The soap smells fresh and crisp like apples, and I notice the words Purgatory Falls Inn are imprinted on the surface as I run it down over my body.
“It was my cabin. Then I moved back into town, and my sister-in-law asked if she could turn it into a remote honeymoon suite as part of her bed and breakfast. Told her to knock herself out,” he explains. I try to imagine this man with an innkeeper for a sister-in-law. The wholesome vision of all of them gathering for holidays and celebrating family birthdays flashes through my mind, and I try to reconcile it with the man I know. The priest and then the outlaw. So far, I like all the versions of him against my better judgment.
“So you kidnapped me and brought me to a honeymoon suite?” I muse.
“Why? Worried it’s going to ruin your reputation back at the convent?”
“Very funny.” I rinse the soap out of my hair, and it splatters to the floor. “I just thought it all seemed a little much for a place out in the middle of the woods. I imagine it's expensive.”
“Not everyone wants to be doing penance on stone floors and scratchy sheets.” He mocks my tiny room in the convent. It might not be much, but it was home, and I’d been happy there. As happy as I’d been in my adult life anyway.
“You’re right. Some would rather have luxury than a clear conscience.” I’m thinking of my father and my husband, but the barb hits him as well.
“My conscience is clear. There's nothing I’ve done that I would take back. In fact, the only regrets I have are times when I wish I could have done more. Is your conscience clear?”
I nibble my lower lip out of nervous habit. I have to remember who I’m dealing with, however soft he might seem at times. He’s the kind of man who has a brand on his chest, a team of men to help him hold someone hostage, and access to private jets and rich men with murderous intent. I have to assume he’s every bit as dangerous as the men in my family. I turn away to finish soaping up the rest of my body before I start to rinse off as I catalog my own conscience.
I’ve made more than a few mistakes. Done a couple of things I wish I could take back. I have some that haunt me. Vices that I wish I could overcome and yet seem to be chained to no matter how hard I try. Things that make me question if I’m really cut out to be the selfless person I need to be to serve with my sisters if I somehow manage to get an annulment. Past wrongs that I don’t know if I can ever atone for.
“Sounds like a no.” He interrupts the inventory I’m taking.
I glance back over my shoulder, watching as he leans against the wall that surrounds the shower. The low light of the settingsun casts him in shadow, and I can’t help but notice every lean line of his body. The way the T-shirt clings to him and how broad his shoulders are.
He feels like a test—heisa test—of my morals, my priorities, the very fiber of my being. Of just how low I’m willing to sink to turn the tables in my favor. I could give him more than I am right now. I could put the full weight of everything I know into his hands and maybe, if my husband doesn’t kill us, have a chance at a new life. The thought of that future taunts me. But it would mean putting everything I’ve been working toward at risk. There’s no telling what sort of retaliation Corey or my father might take.
Besides, nothing about revenge aligns with who I’m supposed to be now. The person I thought I’d become when I surrendered to the rules of the convent and vowed to become one of them. Chastity, poverty, obedience. I’m trying my best to repeat them like a mantra, to hold tight to what I know I should do.
But I didn’t have this temptation standing right in front of me. A man who’s offering me the chance to do more than hide out in the mountains on a distant continent. A real chance at justice. Or revenge. Depending on which side of the coin you looked at. I don’t need the abbess standing here to know what she would say.
“If you don’t say something soon, I’m gonna turn around to make sure you didn’t disappear,” he warns.
“I’m here. I’m just… praying.”
“Praying?” He scoffs in surprise. “For what?”
“Clarity.”
“Clarity about what?” He pries.
“What the right thing to do is. If I should help you. What keeps my conscience clean.”
“That’s a waste of your time. There’s always something we could have done better. Less selfish. More thoughtful. Less greedy. Trying to keep your conscience clean is a fool’s errand.”
