“That’s my confession. I didn’t want to, didn’t mean to, but when you were talking about your mother, I figured out who you were.”
Of course. He had said his sister was a doctor. He wanted to slap his forehead, but instead, he turned slowly around.
He had just recognized the voice.
It was Nelly.
And yes, his eyes confirmed what his brain had just figured out. Nelly Bushnell stood in front of him, wearing the Secret Saint cape that had become familiar and beloved to him, only the hood was down, and her hair reflected a muted version of the moonlight above.
“Nelly,” he said, felt her name curl off his tongue, and it all made sense now. He wasn’t falling in love with two different people. He wasn’t unable to keep from falling in love with every person that he worked with. It was the same person. No wonder he felt torn. No wonder he felt drawn to both of them.
“You,” he said, when she said nothing, waiting, probably to see his reaction. She’d already figured it out and had her reaction.
“What do you think of working with me? Was it a surprise?” he finally asked, wishing that she had explained to him how she felt, how it had changed things between them, if it had at all.
“I was really, really surprised. And I resisted at first, because we had agreed that we weren’t even going to try, and I wanted to honor that, but there was just no way I couldn’t keep my brain from making that connection once you talked about your sister being a doctor. I mean, the only doctor in town is Dr. Terry.”
“I know. An amateur mistake, I guess,” he said, a little bit of humor entering his tone. He was adjusting to this idea.
“I wasn’t terribly upset about it. In fact, I had started to develop a different opinion of you from working with you with the children’s program, and after that, and?—”
“That’s why you defended me.”
“No. I didn’t know you were the Secret Saint when I first started defending you. I just… I’ve known you from before we even went to school. I knew that wasn’t something you would ever, ever, ever do. Pastor Connelly is wrong about that.”
“Yeah. He is.”
“And then, when I did realize your identity, I knew that you weren’t going to be altruistic by night and steal money from the church by day. It didn’t even make any sense. But of course, I couldn’t say that to the pastor.”
“No. You couldn’t.” Wow, it had been Nelly all along. And she had defended him before she even knew he was a Secret Saint. That made his heart swell, and he almost put his hand over his chest because the feeling was so odd.
“I haven’t known for very long. I honestly wasn’t sure what to do with the information. We had decided that we weren’t going to try to figure each other out, but we hadn’t decided what we were going to do if one of us did figure it out. And I finally decided that if it were me—if you knew, and I didn’t—I would want you to tell me. So the only thing I could do once I figured that out was to tell you. You know?”
“Wow. That makes a lot of sense, and I appreciate your honesty. Not everyone is like that.”
“It’s the way I wanted to be treated. And…I felt like it was fair. You know?”
She seemed like she was a little uncertain, and he wanted to ease her mind. After all, it had taken a certain amount of bravery in order for her to put her hood down and walk toward him.
“Nelly.” He laughed, huffing out a breath that was half laugh, half amazement, shaking his head at his own stupidity. “I should have figured it out. Of course. It all makes sense now.”
“You’re not upset? I know I’m not your favorite person.” She sighed. “You’ve been kind to me at church, but I figured that might just be because of the children and working with them. After all, you can’t just do what you want when there are other people involved. And you’ve been very mature about it.”
“Well, you’re right. We had to get along, we couldn’t indulge the way we felt with no thought to how that would affect everyone else.You know, sucking it up for the greater good.” She laughed a little, and it made him smile. “I like it when you laugh.”
She didn’t say anything, but he could almost see her brows going up and her eyes widening.
He swallowed, realizing his throat was rather dry and he was all of a sudden nervous.
“Is this going to change anything?” he asked. He really wanted it to, but at the same time, he only wanted the changes to bring them closer together. He didn’t want things to change so that she decided to quit being a Secret Saint or distance herself from him.
“It doesn’t have to.” She paused and then said, almost as though she were afraid of his answer, “Unless you want it to.”
“No!” he said almost too quickly. And it wasn’t quite true, but he didn’t know how to explain why it wasn’t. Because he did want it to change. He wanted… He wanted her to love him the way he loved her, but a person couldn’t control that. They couldn’t make someone else feel something that they didn’t.
But he couldn’t quite get up the nerve to ask her if she might ever be able to feel for him the way he felt for her.
Maybe he could just give it a little bit of time and see if she responded to him and any overtures that he might make.
