“Well, he certainly does seem protective of you,” Faith says.
Myka laughs. “You could say that. Just a little.”
I decide I need to make my presence known. I take an intentionally loud step and make my way up the deck.
15The Welcome
Myka
Ihear the step, and I know Rev well enough to know he can move silently when he wants, so that step was on purpose. Letting me know he’s here. Which means he heard at least some of our conversation.
He appears at the back door, footsteps again silent on the deck. Totally made that noise on purpose.
He slides in the back door, his eyes on me. I can totally read him, now, because his expression is his usual careful mask of hardness, but I can see through it. He heard, and he’s feeling things. I’m not skilled enough yet in reading the nuances of expression in his eyes, in the set of his mouth, but I can see the feelings are there.
I lean into Ana, hug her. “I love you. I’m going to bed.”
She hugs me back. “Night, honey.”
I stand up and bend in to hug Mom. “Night, Mama. Love you. Thanks for everything today.”
She doesn’t quite let me go. “You’re making up one of the bunks for Rev?”
I pull away and laugh, kiss her forehead. “No, Mom. I’m not. For one thing, I’m not putting a grown man in the cousin room, which is full of sleeping kids. Furthermore, I’m a grown woman and I’m going to have my boyfriend in my bed with me.” I kiss her forehead again. “I love you. I respect your beliefs. If it’s that big of a deal to you, we’ll get a room up at Margie’s.”
Margie’s being the B&B up near town, owned by Mom’s lifelong best friend.
Mom sighs unhappily. “I’ve already given in and allowed Junie and Mal to have their men with them. And I suppose there’s no difference between engaged and dating in the eyes of the Lord—a sin is a sin.” She pats my cheek. “Go on. I’d rather be wrong and have all my kids under my roof when I can.”
“See you in the morning.” I straighten and take Rev’s hand, lead him toward the front stairs.
“Rev?” Mom’s voice pulls us around; Rev looks at her. “Thank you for protecting my little girl, today. It’s been nice getting to know you.”
Rev clearly has no clue what to say in response. He jerks his chin up. “Don’t tolerate a man touchin’ a woman in anger, Faith. ‘Specially not someone I care about.” He offers her an actual smile, a small one, but from Rev it’s huge. “Good to meet you, Mrs. Donovan. Thank you for your hospitality.” He looks to my sister. “Ana.”
Ana waves at him. “Rev.”
I lead him upstairs, then, down the hall to the right, to the end. Our rooms are always the same, Angus on the far left, in descending order by age to the right.
I pull Rev into my room and lock the door behind us—someone, at some point, brought our bags from the car and left them just inside. As always, my room is mostly how I left it when I moved out, after my senior year. It’s like a time-warp, with my DC Talk, Third Day, Newsboys, and Point of Grace posters on the walls, all my journals on my desk under the dormer window opposite the door. The journals are sandwiched between ceramic horse-head book stands—eight of them, all black-and-white composition books. My collection of gel pens near the journals, in the Michael W. Smith concert mug. The queen bed, the biggest that’ll fit in this room—and almost entirely filling it—on the left, centered on the wall, covered by the handmade quilts Grammy makes all of her grand- and great-grandchildren. Beside it, a nightstand, on which is a cute little fake Tiffany lamp, and a Bose iPhone dock alarm clock, which was cutting edge and super impressive back then. Closet to the right, with a small en suite bathroom—just big enough for a toilet, shower stall, and vanity. You have to go all the way in and nearly get into the shower to close the door so you can get to the toilet, but when there were six of us kids all living here, having your own bathroom, no matter how small, was peak luxury.
Rev takes it all in, then looks at me. “I’d have stayed in the bunk room. Slept rougher than that, by a lot. Don’t want to disrespect your parents.”
I kiss his knuckles. “I know, sweetheart. I’m just being selfish, and we’re all pretty much over their old-fashioned rules about that stuff. Well, mostly. Ana still gets kind of hung up on it. When Angus was dating Callie, they couldn’t even go on dates alone. Callie had to stay in the basement when she stayed over. Things have loosened a lot since then, as evidenced by the fact that Kellan and Mal are at this very moment probably going at it in the basement, and Mom knows it.”
He smirks. “They snuck off into the woods to fuck, earlier in the day.”
I raise my eyebrows. “They did?”
He nods. “Mmm-hmmm. Saw ‘em go in, saw ‘em come out, and Mallory’s skirt was all twisted. Juniper caught her before they made it inside and fixed it.”
I laugh. “Figures. Mal is the rebellious one. Junie plays the good girl, but she’s thick as thieves with Mal, always running interference for her.”
“Kellan is a quiet one,” he remarks.
I nod. “I don’t know him very well, honestly. He loves her, treats her well, he’s respectful of my parents, but he’s super quiet.” I lean into him, gaze up at him, into his deep dark eyes. “But honestly, Rev, I don’t really want to talk about my family just this minute.”
He lifts an eyebrow, catching my tone, and his eyes heat. “No?”
