“Stop trying to change the subject!” He laughed. “But if you must know, I already did. I’ve done a lot of talking this week. My father, Jenny’s mother, Bishop Avery. It’s been a week full of confession.”
“Did Jenny tell?” Emily asked, eyes wide. She hadn’t seen him much this week at all, had been afraid the night they’d spent together was just a dream. He’d promised he would talk to her, would meet her here today, that he had something he wanted to talk about, and she was sure this was it, that he was going to end things between them, and had steeled herself for it.
This-Father Mark on his knees in front of her with an engagement ring-was the last thing she’d expected.
He nodded in agreement. “Jenny did tell.”
“But she didn’t have any proof.” Emily smirked. Eve had managed to get her hands on Jenny’s cell phone and had deleted the offending photographs.
He shrugged. “It didn’t matter. I’d already made my decision.”
“So then why did Jenny go home?”
“If you must know, someone told her mother she was a lesbian.” He sighed. “Apparently, they emailed her parents some incriminating photographs.”
Emily thought of Eve stealing Jenny’s camera. What else had been on there, she wondered?
“So Jenny decided to go home?”
Father Mark shook his head. “No, her mother withdrew her from school. She just couldn’t accept her daughter’s sexual orientation.”
“Isn’t it a sin, according to the church?”
“I suppose,” he agreed slowly. “But why should anyone be punished because of who they love?”
She blinked away the tears coming to her eyes. “They shouldn’t.”
“It was just another reason that made my decision to leave the church easier,” he confessed. “And then there’s the matter of my being in love with you.”
“Oh Father Mark…”
“It’s just Mark, Emily. Just Mark.” He smiled, pinning her with that green-eyed gaze of his. “I’m just a man-a man who is completely, desperately in love with you. And if you didn’t notice, I’m still down here on my knees, asking you to marry me.”
“Oh Mark…” she whispered.
“Will you?”
“Yes!”
She threw her arms around his neck, tumbling them both to the floor. The ring box snapped shut and went flying as she kissed him and they rolled, laughing, around on the floor in front of the saints and Jesus and his mother, Mary, and she knew it was probably a sin, but she didn’t care. And she was pretty sure God didn’t either. She couldn’t stop kissing him, she couldn’t help loving him, and repeating the answer that had always been hidden in her heart, over and over and over again, punctuated by kisses.
“Yes! Yes! Yesyesyesyesyes!”