LITMIR.BIZ

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the familiar smoky scent. She thought of the book of Revelation and how in it the prayers of the church rise before God in the form of incense. She said her own silent prayer and released it like smoke into the sky.

      “I’m afraid you’ve missed Saturday morning Mass,” a voice as familiar as her own said.

      Nora turned around and found Søren with a pewter pitcher refilling the fount of holy water at the entrance to the sanctuary.

      “But we celebrate Vigil mass at five o’clock this evening if you’d like to come back.”

      “Søren, you are ubiquitous.” Nora came to him. He set the empty pitcher aside.

      “I prefer the term omnipresent,” he said.

      “You would.”

      Nora didn’t bother attempting to fake a smile for him. She knew him, knew he would see right through it. She waited and let Søren study her. His knowing eyes on her face felt as intimate as a touch.

      “You look tired, little one,” he said.

      “I am tired.”

      “Tell me.”

      “I have such a great gift for ruining things. It even impresses me sometimes.”

      “Self-pity does not become you,” he chastised her in the same tone he used to silence unruly children in the hallways. “And while you have a gift for creating chaos, I have never known you to be willfully destructive. Now, what is this about?”

      Nora gave him the faintest of smiles.

      “I finished the book.”

      “I had no doubt you would.”

      “Zach even signed the contract. Then we celebrated.”

      “Of that I have no doubt, either,” Søren said with a wry smile. “So why is there so much sadness in your eyes?”

      “I met Zach’s wife today.”

      “Ah, the once and future Mrs. Easton. What did you think of her?”

      “I think he’ll go back to her.”

      Søren nodded. “That was inevitable.”

      Nora swallowed. “And last night meant nothing.”

      “I’m sure your night together meant a great deal to him. More than you may ever know. The same wind that blows us off course can turn and carry us home.”

      “She is his home. I could see that in her eyes. She’s perfect, Søren.”

      “Perfect for him perhaps. To me, Eleanor, it is you who is flawless.”

      Nora’s heart beat heavy in her chest. Søren’s love never ceased to humble her.

      “I’m as flawed as it gets.”

      “You are human. And that is the better part of your beauty. But you always knew your editor longed for his wife more than anything. This can’t be a surprise to you. What else?”

      Nora was afraid he’d ask her that. But Søren had been her father confessor for eighteen years. Now she needed his absolution more than ever.

      “Last Sunday…Wesley and I almost made love.”

      “You have been busy, haven’t you? Why only ‘almost’?”

      “He stopped first, and then I stopped it all. Søren…” she said in a hoarse half whisper, “I broke the rule—I think I harmed him.”

      “Little one.” Søren cupped the side of her face. “I’m so sorry.”

      “I have to make him go, don’t I?”

      “For his own good, yes. That, I’m afraid, was inevitable, as well.”

      Nora nodded, feeling none of the anger she usually experienced when Søren proved himself insufferably right as he always did.

      Søren laid two fingers on her temple. He traced the line of her face from her forehead to her lips.

      “You always knew Zachary loved his wife. Yes?”

      “Yes.” She remembered the ghost of Grace that haunted his eyes from the day they met. “I knew…at the back of my mind, the back of my heart.”

      “Where you love Wesley, yes?”

      “Yes.”

      “And me?” he asked, his voice soft and earnest in that way it so rarely was with her these days. “Where do you love me?”

      Nora did not hesitate before answering. She closed her eyes and whispered, “Everywhere else.”

      Søren looked at her as if he’d already known that would be her answer, as if for all eternity it would be her answer. Perhaps it would, she thought.

      “Come to my office,” Søren said. “We can talk about it.”

      Nora smiled. “Your office. I remember when you’d make me cocoa and help me with my math homework on that bench right outside your office.”

      “I always knew when you were working on your math homework. The litany of profanities echoing through the halls was always an excellent indicator. Shall we? I’ll see what’s in the cupboard.”

      He held out his hand and Nora reached into her pocket. She laid her collar on his waiting palm.

      “I didn’t come here for the cocoa.” Nora met his eyes. For perhaps only the second time in eighteen years, she saw she’d surprised him.

      Søren said nothing, merely closed his fingers around her collar. She’d seen those same fingers wrapped around his rosary a thousand times. He held her collar with the same love, the same devotion, the same grim determination to make heaven bend to his ear.

      Without a word, Søren turned on his heel.

      Nora followed him through the sanctuary and through door after door. A final door opened to a shadowy tree-shrouded pathway that led from the church to the rectory. How many times had she furtively stolen from the church to his home? A million times, she thought. A million was still not enough.

      Secluded by a copse of old-world elms and oaks, Søren’s rectory stood graceful and quiet in the sheltered sanctuary created by the trees. A small two-story Gothic cottage, it afforded him both beauty and privacy—two very precious commodities.

      Nora waited in submissive silence as Søren built a fire in the living-room fireplace. Glancing around, Nora saw the secret signs of their long association: the Bösendorfer piano she’d given him as a gift last December 21 for his forty-sixth birthday, the tassel of an embroidered bookmark she’d made for him at church camp the summer she turned sixteen peeking out from a volume of John Donne poetry, a lock on the bottom door of a cabinet under one of the bookcases. Only she and he knew what he kept behind that lock. And on the fireplace mantel were ten slight scratches in the wood left by her desperate fingernails on a night he had shown her no mercy. She knew she might add another ten there tonight.

      Søren came to her and gazed down at her face. She kept her eyes respectfully lowered. It had been the first submissive act he’d taught her.

      “Why are you here?” he asked.

      “To give myself to you, sir.”

      “You wish to be mine again?”

      “Yes.”

      “Completely?”

      “And utterly, sir,” she said. “Without conditions or constraints.” The words came so easily to her she knew they must be true. Coming back felt as easy as falling, as simple as death.

      “You weren’t mine last night, were you?” Søren demanded and Nora blushed.

      “No, sir,” she whispered.

      “You were with

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