Nothing Sacred

Hands folded across the waist of his light-blue, buttoned shirt, David said, “You think it’s odd to have found a way to live a happy and peaceful life?”

“You’re telling me you’re happy?”

“Yes.” His eyes didn’t waver. Martha had a split-second’s wish that they were rolling the camera right now. She wanted this on tape.

“So you like living alone?”

“I’m not alone.”

“Oh, yeah, you have your angels flying around all the time.”

She felt a tiny bit bad for the sarcasm in her voice, but sometimes this guy was just too hard to take. Martha knew all about faith and hope. She’d had plenty, once upon a time. And then she’d found out the meaning of “things unseen.”

“I do have spiritual companionship.” He nodded, his eyes still alight with that warmth.

“But what about family?” she asked. Despite everything she’d suffered in the past few years, she’d do it all again for the chance to have her brood. They were what made her life worth living, not angels and faith and long-forgott

en decisions.

“My parishioners are my family,” he told her. “I consider myself one of the luckiest guys around. Where most men have only one family, I get a hundred of them.”

“Sounds like a hell of a lot of work,” Martha muttered. And then, as usual, stole a red-faced glance upward, apologizing for her irreverence.

“It’s a lot of home-cooked meals,” he countered.

His calm assurance and good-natured response irritated her. And what irritated her even more was that she wasn’t proud of her original reaction. Was she so shallow that she begrudged someone inner peace simply because she hadn’t found it herself?

Or was it more than that? An intolerance for anything but complete honesty? An inability to accept pretty words that covered up the darker side of life?

Or was her irritation self-directed because she used to be naive enough to believe in those pretty words?

“So you can honestly tell me you’ve never longed for a wife of your own?” she asked him. “Never held a baby and wanted one with your own blood running through its veins?”

The question was far too personal. But her need to challenge him was too compelling to stop.

He didn’t move, didn’t drop his legs from their casual position. But his answer was longer in coming. And his knuckles, on hands that had been loosely clasped, were white.

“Never.”

Liar.

“So you like being alone in that house out back every night? You like waking up to the silence every morning?”

What in the hell was the matter with her?

“I didn’t say that.”

The words were so soft they carried their own peculiar kind of power. It resonated through her.

“But you don’t want a wife or family,” she said with equal softness.

He sat forward, elbows on his knees, staring downward. “No, I don’t.”

“Then what do you want?”

“To serve the people in my care. To teach them how to find the peace and happiness they all crave.” He paused, turned to look at her. “To be allowed to live my life in the way I choose—alone—without having to justify that decision to those who can’t understand.”

He was hiding something.