Nothing Sacred

“What happened?”

He shrugged. “Not much. I wasn’t what she wanted.”

“I can’t believe that.”

A grin came, seemingly from nowhere, as he glanced at her. “Thank you.”

“So what about after that? Surely you dated?”

He’d hoped they were finished with this topic. He searched for a way to end the conversation, change it into something else. Anything else. Immediately.

“I was busy,” was all he came up with. Her timing couldn’t have been worse. This trip to Phoenix, her questions, were surrounding him with a dark energy he’d left behind—or so he’d thought—forever.

“You’re telling me you’ve never been with a woman?”

David grinned again. Painfully this time. Forcing himself to focus on the knowledge that he owed her nothing. Owed no one anything from his past. He’d atoned for his sins.

“Kind of a personal question, wouldn’t you say, Ms. Moore?”

“No more personal than the half-a-dozen times you’ve tried to climb into my soul, Preacher.” Her expression was completely serious. “Unless, of course, you want to tell me that it’s more intimate to connect with a person physically than spiritually.”

God, this woman could wrap him in knots. Now she wanted to get spiritual.

“Okay,” he said, deciding there was no harm in giving her an abridged version if it meant she’d leave it alone. “Yes, I’ve been with a woman. We didn’t really date. It’s more that we had a mutually satisfying relationship in the midst of pursuing the things that really mattered to us—our careers.” Whitney’s profession might not have been legal, but, still, it was a career. Her only career. And, in the years he’d known her, a very lucrative one.

“So what happened?”

Still twenty miles to Phoenix.

“I decided to enter the seminary.” Okay, there’d been a bit more to it than that. A crisis. The threat of jail. A conversation from an unexpected place that turned his entire life around—that showed him the potential in himself he’d never known was there.

“And she didn’t want to be a preacher’s wife?”

He almost laughed at the thought. But the image was too damned sad.

“I didn’t ask her.”

Ten miles passed. Ten miles for David to put the feelings, the memories, behind him. To work on keeping them behind him as he approached what lay ahead.

“Have you ever regretted the decision?”

He wanted to pretend not to know what she was talking about. To act as though he’d moved on, forgotten the thread of their conversation. His conscience wouldn’t let him.

There was a very fine line between not telling truths that didn’t have to be told, and lying. David was balancing very carefully.

“No.”

“So serving people, being a father figure to many is rewarding enough to compensate for never being a real father to children of your own?”

“Yes, I think so,” he answered with more ease. “But that’s not the only reward. I’ve been given a peace of heart and mind I never would have known in my other life.”

“You feel peaceful right now, Preacher?” she asked him. She’d turned her head. Was looking at him.

Slowly, David turned his own head to meet her gaze head-on. “Yes.”

But that didn’t mean he didn’t also feel other emotions.

Like dread.