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“This was the church that the plantation owner built for his family and his slaves. ” When Tyler’s gaze ran over the deep wood paneling, the vaulted ceiling, his approval of the workmanship was reflected in his gaze. “I’d planned to donate it to the community nearby when we finished restoring it. It seems a shame for it not to be used by the living, but sometimes it feels like those long-ago spirits are still here. I imagine them attending on Sunday, finding answers to their various worries, comfort for things that seemed unsolvable. Coming to find tranquility. ”
“Like us. ” She moved into the main worship area where there were a dozen wooden pews lined up in two columns facing the front altar. Above it was a beautiful round stained glass window depicting a dove taking flight. The bird clutched a red rose with bright green leaves in her beak and a circle of cobalt blue framed the diamond-etched glass. Below, embedded in the wood floor of the raised altar area, was a wooden cross. A minister?
?s pulpit was located just to the left with a small table for candles waiting to be lit. Since a handful of them already were, she wondered if Tyler had come here earlier. Three phrases were embroidered on the linen tablecloth.
In memory. In prayer. In comfort.
“You restored this for your wife. To honor your love for her. ” When he looked unsure of her reaction, Marguerite rose on her toes and brushed his lips with her own, tasting the rain between them, the heat of the storm. “Tyler,” she murmured softly, “you are such an idiot. ”
A light flashed in her eye that Tyler would have recognized as teasing in any other woman, but he’d never seen her do it before. Not with him.
“A man devoted and faithful to his wife, who cared for her to the very end, even after she left him. ” She shook her head, her lips pursed. “And I find myself with such a horrible man. Stalking me, by his own admission. ”
Holding on to his hands, she leaned back from him on her bare heels. Swayed back and forth, the prominent display of her nipples as arousing as her sudden mischief.
“I can’t think why so many women would find a man like you invaluable. It’s probably just pity,” she decided. “A man with so few brain cells needs a woman to watch out for him. ”
Tyler shook his head, smiling despite himself. She squeezed his hands. “Did she get a chance to come here?’
He nodded. “When we first came in here, she did a dance, an impromptu ballet up the aisle, along the pews. ” He remembered it with warmth. “She loved to dance. Used it to express her every mood the way the rest of us use our voices or our faces. She brought her whole body into it. That day was a dance of joy, of reverence. You reminded me of her a little, just now. Out there. Your spontaneity. ” Seeing he was flustering her, he changed the subject. “You seem to enjoy the peace in here. I guess I expected you might have some issues, some anger with God. ” Marguerite shrugged. “I’m not sure I believe in the idea of a deity that micromanages our lives. ”
She considered the cross. “In almost every country I’ve visited, there are pictures of a Goddess specific to that culture. Mother, lover, friend. Many different faces. The first time I looked out over a tea plantation, it was an overcast day, but it was so incredibly awesome, beautiful. It filled my heart. At that very moment, the sun came out. ” Her gaze shifted to him. “It felt like She saw it through my eyes, felt how amazed I was by it and that made Her smile.
“I feel sometimes the same way when I’m being a Mistress, like I understand it all without words. The way you do when you’re in a church like this and it all gets quiet.
Everything gets so clear in my head, so peaceful. I’m part of Her at that moment, as it was always intended and everything makes sense. I can see and feel inside my submissive’s soul, know what he best needs, give him that.
“You can think all sorts of nonsense when you’re crazy. ” Her lips curved a little. “I guess what I’m saying is that God or Goddess, They have a plan. I believe that. There’s too much wonder for there not to be. Just because I don’t understand it doesn’t mean it’s not there. I have to believe my mother and brother are somewhere, happy. ” She added the last, softly. “And so that keeps me from hating. So you finished it after she died?”
Here in this place, he couldn’t evade a question from her. Not with the spell she had just woven, the sacred presence she’d invited to fill the air between them. “Yes. It took a little longer, because I took over doing a lot of the work myself. When I…there was a time things didn’t make sense to me. ”
“When you came back from Panama. ”
He shook his head. “I’d fire that woman if I knew how to operate a vacuum. ”
“Maybe she thinks you should be as honest with me as you’re demanding that I be with you. Or do you think I can’t take it?” She arched a brow.
He lifted a shoulder, moved down the aisle toward the wooden cross hung there.
Marguerite followed, trailing her fingers over the silken wood of the pews, watching him. When they got to the cross, Tyler lifted his fingers, pressed them into a gouge in the wood. “I did that, when I came back. ”
She stepped up next to him, pressing her shoulder to his, and put her fingers in the same spot. It looked to have been caused by a tool, perhaps a chisel. “While you were working in here?”
“Yes. I’m not a great craftsman, but I wanted to… I needed to do something. And the more I hammered and sanded in here, the more the silence… It’s as you said, God is in the silence. And sometimes it’s hard to be in the same room with Him.
“After I did it, I brought the local minister here, showed it to him and asked him if there was a way he could bless it, purify it. I felt like I’d somehow desecrated it. He told me, ‘The cross is supposed to bear pain and sorrow, betrayal and anger, so that it may help you forgive yourself. ’”
Marguerite felt the emotions emanating from him. The strain of keeping the rest under careful control was evident from the tension in his face, his shoulders. He was trying to give her more of himself, just as she’d asked, but now she didn’t know if that had been a wise request. She was already too absorbed in him already.
“I was raised Baptist,” he said, his fingers remaining just below the gouge, his attention on it. “I was taught that you’re always a child and God is the father. That we’re weak, unable to help ourselves if we’re bad. That there are so many things out of our control we just have to do good where we can and leave the rest up to Him. When I did this, I was reacting as a child would, angry because the parent had let me down.
And then as I sat here, quietly spent, the teachings went away and there was only Presence. ” His gaze flicked to her. “Somewhat like you described. And I knew that I was an adult, responsible for my actions, as responsible for protecting the weak and innocent and for fighting evil as He is. And while there’s so much wisdom that I don’t know, I know that evil doesn’t happen for a cosmic reason, a ‘balance of good’ bullshit.
Evil happens because it can, because circumstances allow it to take place. And you build your own sanctuary against it to keep yourself sane, to keep yourself fighting it. ” He turned to face her fully then, his amber eyes bathed in the colored light of the stained glass. When he reached out, threaded fingers through her hair and watched it ripple across his knuckles like pale wheat, she couldn’t move. She was held still by all the memories she felt pulsing from him, intertwining with her own. “Sometimes, I think it’s like a fable,” he said. “One powerful god released all the evil things on the world.
Another god, a god of light, could not undo what the other god had done, but he could give us something to make life worth living. So he gave us love.
“I’m working on it. ” He met her gaze. “Working on sharing with you. But I’ve been places where there are too many dead and I helped increase the body count. Each of those lives meant something to someone. And to the person themselves. But whatever lies beyond… You’ve helped me remember why it’s worth fighting. Living. Even when the lines get so confusing you think you’re losing your mind. ” She reached up, touched him at last. “I need you, Tyler. More than I’ve ever let myself need anything. I’m so messed up at times, but I look at you and everything eases. ”
