One of the little girls stuck her tongue out at Laurant and then waved to her. Laurant retaliated in kind and smiled as the child dissolved into a fit of giggles.
Four blocks ahead, in the midst of the rubble, sat Our Lady of Mercy Church. Twin pillars, painted white, stood as sentinels guarding the neighborhood. Mercy looked worn out from her duty. She was in desperate need of repair. Cracked paint peeled at the top of the pillars and the side of the church, and warped, rotting boards curled along the foundation. Laurant wondered how old the church was and pictured her all spruced up again. From the ornate carvings along the roofline and the stonework in front, Laurant knew she had once been magnificent. She could be again, with a little care and money. But would Mercy ever be renovated to her former glory, or, as was the horrid fashion these days, would she be ignored until it was too late and then torn down?
A black wrought iron fence at least eight feet high surrounded the property on all sides. Inside the barrier was a large recently tarred parking lot and a whitewashed, stone house adjacent to the church. Laurant assumed this was the rectory and drove through the open gates, parking her car next to a black sedan.
She had just gotten out and was locking the door when she noticed the police car. It was parked in the rectory’s driveway but was practically obstructed from view by the leafy branches of an old sycamore. Why were the police there? Probably more vandalism, she guessed, as Tommy had told her that the problems in the neighborhood had escalated in the last month. He thought it was due to the fact that the kids were out of school and there weren’t any jobs or organized activities to keep them occupied, but Monsignor McKindry believed that the increased violence and desecration was gang related.
Laurant headed for the church. The doors were open, and she could hear organ music and voices raised in song. She was halfway across the parking lot when the music stopped. Seconds later people came pouring out. Some of the women were using the church bulletin to fan themselves, and several men were mopping the sweat from their brows with their handkerchiefs. Then Monsignor McKindry, looking as cool as a cucumber despite being dressed in long flowing robes, joined the crowd. Laurant had never met the monsignor, but she recognized him all the same from Tommy’s description. The priest had shocking white hair and deep creases in his face. He was tall, and so thin as to appear sick. But, according to her brother, Monsignor ate like a lineman and was in the best of health, considering his advanced age.
His congregation obviously loved him. He had a smile and a kind word for every man and woman who stopped to speak to him, and he called each of them by his or her first name-impressive considering the number. The children adored him too. They surrounded him, tugging on his robes to get his undivided attention.
Laurant moved to the side of the steps in the shade of the building, waiting for Monsignor to finish his duties. Hopefully, after he had changed out of his vestments, he would walk over to the rectory with her while she questioned him in private about Tommy. Her brother tried to shield her from unpleasant news, so much so that she had learned not to trust him when he told her anything about his medical condition. From what Tommy had told her about Monsignor, she knew that, although the older priest was kind and compassionate, he was also honest to a fault. It was her hope that he wouldn’t sugar-coat the truth if Tommy were no longer in remission.
Her brother worried about her worrying about him. It was ridiculous, the games they played. Because he was older and because there were just the two of them in the family now, Tommy tried to shoulder too much on his own. Admittedly, she had needed his guidance when she was a little girl, but she wasn’t a little girl anymore, and Tommy needed to stop shielding her.
She happened to glance over at the rectory just as the front door opened and a policeman with a rather noticeable potbelly came out on the porch. He was followed by a taller, younger man. She watched as the two shook hands and the policeman headed for his car.
The stranger on the porch captured her full attention, and she blatantly stared at him. Impeccably dressed in a tailored white shirt, navy blue blazer, and khaki pants, he looked like he had just stepped off the cover of GQ Yet he wasn’t what she would call drop-dead gorgeous, or even handsome, at least not in the usual sense, and perhaps that was what appealed to her. She’d done a little bit of modeling for an Italian designer during her summer break from boarding school, before Tommy had found out and put a stop to it, but in those two and a half months she had worked with a fair number of pretty males. The man on the porch could never be called pretty. He was too rugged and earthy for such a label. And very, very sexy.
There was an aura of authority about him, as if he were used to getting his way. She stared at the sharp angle of his jaw, the hard line of his mouth. He could be dangerous, she thought, yet she couldn’t define what it was about him that made her feel that way.
The stranger had an interesting face and a complexion that was unfashionably tanned. Interesting indeed.
One of Mother Superior’s constant warnings rang like an alarm bell inside her head. Beware of wolves wearing sheep’s clothing. They’ll steal your virtue every time.
This man didn’t look like he ever had to steal anything. She imagined women flocked to him and that he took only what was freely offered. He was something else all right. She let out a little sigh then, feeling guilty about having such thoughts just a few feet away from the holy church. Mother Mary Madelyne was probably right about her. She was going to go to hell in a handbag if she didn’t learn to control her sinful imagination.
The stranger must have sensed her staring at him because he suddenly turned and looked directly at her. Embarrassed at being caught in the act of gawking at him, she was about to turn away when the front door opened, and Tommy came outside. Laurant was overjoyed to see him there, and not in a hospital bed as she had feared.
Dressed in his long black cassock and white Roman collar, he looked pale to her-and worried. She started weaving her way through the crowd.
Tommy and the stranger he was talking to presented a striking picture. Both were tall and dark-haired, but Tommy bore the Irish complexion with his ruddy cheeks and generous sprinkling of freckles across the bridge of his nose. Unlike her, when he accidentally stayed out in the sun too long, he didn’t tan; he burned. He had an adorable dimple-at least she thought it was adorable-in his right cheek, and his boyish good looks had earned him the amusing nickname "Father What-a-Waste" from all the college and high school girls.
There certainly wasn’t anything boyish about the man standing next to her brother. He kept watching her make her way toward the porch as he listened to Tommy and occasionally nodded agreement.
He finally interrupted her brother when he tilted his head toward her. Tommy turned, spotted her, and shouted her name. Taking the stairs two at a time, his black robe flapping about his ankles, he raced to intercept her with a look of acute relief on his face.