LITMIR.BIZ

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that a faint heart never achieved anything. “I think I’d like to see your photographs.”

      “Terrific.” He nodded with satisfaction. “I’ve shot some of the most stunning faces in the business. And believe me, very few of them can hold a candle to you.”

      Exchanging a look with his brother over the top of her head, he led Tessa back into the house.

      * * *

      The next time Molly woke, she found another familiar face sitting in the chair beside the bed.

      “You realize, of course, that you scared us all to death,” the elderly nun, who was the closest thing Molly had to a mother, scolded.

      “Next time I’m raped and beaten, I’ll try to be more discreet about it.”

      A frown furrowed the forehead that, when Molly had first met her, had been covered by a starched wimple. “This isn’t a joking matter.”

      “On that we’re in full agreement.” Molly scooted up in bed, wincing at the pain in her hips. Obviously Reece had cut back on his orders for drugs. “How’s Lena?”

      “Your sister’s going to be fine.” The nun fingered her rosary beads absently. “Thanks to her husband. The man appears to be a rock.”

      “He is that.”

      “Father Murphy said a mass for you this morning,” Sister Benvenuto announced. “And the congregation is praying for you. As are all the members of the order, of course.”

      “Tell everyone I appreciate their prayers.” Molly glanced around the room. “It looks as if someone threw a hand grenade into the middle of the Rose Parade.”

      “You have a great many friends. The red and white carnations in that plastic Santa Claus vase are from Thomas. I have every suspicion that he stole them from a supermarket.”

      Molly figured Sister Benvenuto was undoubtedly correct in her assumption. “It’s the thought that counts.”

      The older woman shook her head. “You’re too easy on him. With the proper motivation he could return to the work he was called to do.”

      “If God can’t provide the impetus, I’m not about to try.” Molly sighed as she thought about Thomas. “Besides, if he hadn’t given up the priesthood, he wouldn’t have been there to help me.”

      “I suppose we’ll just have to write it off as another case of the Lord working in mysterious ways.” The older woman’s gaze sharpened as she studied Molly. “I was afraid we were going to lose you.”

      “There was a moment I thought that, too.”

      Molly knew the nun was not talking about her leaving the order, something they’d discussed on more than one occasion. Each time Molly had dared to profess doubts about a true vocation, Sister Benvenuto had assured her that such thoughts were not only normal, but expected. That such reflection would ultimately make her even more committed to her religious calling.

      “It’s going to be difficult to deal with,” the nun predicted. “But you’ve always been strong, Molly. And with God’s help, you’ll survive this test of faith just as you’ve survived every other trial in your life.”

      Although she didn’t believe that God would have deliberately caused her to be brutally attacked, to test her as he had Job, Molly saw no point in arguing. Even during her teens, when she’d been an angry young girl, rebelling against the myriad rules the sisters who ran the Good Shepherd Home for Girls had expected her to obey without question, Molly had admired the nun’s seemingly unwavering faith. So unlike her own, which always seemed to question everything.

      “What would I ever have done without you?”

      “God only knows. Although there’s always the possibility you could have ended up on the street, like those poor girls I pass every day,” the no-nonsense nun said briskly.

      “Being sent to Good Shepherd was the best thing that ever happened to me.” What at first had seemed to be punishment, had in the end proven a blessing. The home for girls had been a sanctuary, the first Molly had ever experienced. “I wish Lena could have had the same security.”

      Molly had often thought it ironic that Lena, who’d tried so desperately to fit in, was the one who’d suffered the most by being constantly shuffled from foster home to foster home.

      “Lena is going to have to learn that true strength comes from within,” Sister Benvenuto said sagely.

      Unable to argue with that, Molly was grateful for Yolanda’s interruption.

      “I vant to suck your blood,” she said in a ghoulish voice. The sight of the gag store fangs gleaming white and red in the nurse’s dark face made Molly laugh. When you worked in a world where the bizarre and horrific were commonplace, sometimes laughter truly was the best medicine. And the only way to stay sane.

      “This is the first in the series of HIV tests, isn’t it?”

      “Now, aren’t you a clever girl. Anybody’d think you were a health-care professional, or something.” Yolanda took the fangs out of her wide mouth, put them in her pocket and pulled out a rubber tourniquet. “Hold out your arm.”

      Molly did as instructed.

      “Lordy,” Yolanda complained, shaking her head as she studied Molly’s freckled arm. “You call those veins? Those are purely pitiful, girl.” She wrapped the tourniquet around Molly’s upper arm.

      “Lucky thing you’re in the hands of an expert. Health services tried sending up one of their lab vampires, but I cut him off at the pass. They tend to spatter the stuff all over, and with that pale white skin, I figured you didn’t have any blood to spare.”

      When she took a needle out of another pocket and uncapped it, Sister Benvenuto rose. “I believe it’s time I let you get some rest, dear.”

      Molly didn’t blame the nun for escaping. Hating having blood drawn even more than she disliked drawing it, Molly would have left if she could.

      “I’ll return during visiting hours,” Sister Benvenuto assured her. “Sister Joseph is making those fudge brownies you used to enjoy. She’s making enough to bribe the medical staff into giving you preferential treatment.”

      “As if anyone would have to bribe us to take care of our own,” Yolanda muttered after the older nun had left the room.

      “She means well.”

      “I suppose so. Although she reminds me an awful lot of that harridan who used to rap my knuckles whenever she caught me chewing gum at Sacred Heart Academy.”

      The needle slipped into the vein as smoothly as a hot knife through butter. Although accustomed to the sight of blood, seeing her own filling the cylinder was an entirely different matter.

      “All done.” Yolanda capped the cylinder and released the tourniquet. “I have to ask you if you do IV drugs.”

      “You know I don’t.”

      “Just following procedure. So, how about safe sex?”

      Molly laughed at that, but the sound held no humor. “Before or after Christmas Eve?”

      “Point taken. I’ll have the lab rush this and either Reece or I will let you know as soon as the results come in. You’ve got three more of these over the next nine months. When you test negative on the third one, you’ll be home free.”

      “Thank you for saying when and not if.”

      “Positive thinking is a powerful thing. Sister Crack-the-Whip who just left might call it praying, and existentialists might call it meditating, but the way I see it, it’s all the same thing.”

      Although she knew Sister Benvenuto would probably have her down on her knees saying an Act of Contrition and countless rosaries for such heresy, Molly decided she’d be willing to pray to God,

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