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“No man enjoys looking at a beautiful woman more than I do. I’ve known and dated many women both at home and abroad. Some of those relationships were intimate.”
He’d lived with someone for a whole year… Did she know the real Jarod at all?
“But marriage never entered my mind. It seems my parents’ battle-scarred marriage did more damage to me than I realized, putting me off the institution that had locked the two people I loved in mortal combat.
“Later on when the time came for me to take the vow of celibacy, it hardly made a ripple on the surface of my consciousness. The carnal side of my nature had already been indulged to my satisfaction. I’d been fed.
“For me, the most important vow I took was the private one I made to myself, knowing it would be my greatest challenge. I vowed to help make a difference in the lives of other people since I hadn’t been able to fix my own parents’ problems.”
He paused to study her for a breathless moment. “Yet eight years later, I found out that wasn’t my greatest challenge. Upon a first meeting with you, it took all of one second to feel the force of physical attraction again.
“When you and Brenda walked in my office, I took one look at you and my heart literally stopped for a moment. By the time you left, I felt an ache that has never gone away. I battled with my feelings after I let you go and I realized the thing had happened my mentors had warned me about when I thought I knew it all.”
“Don’t say any more!” she cried.
“I have to finish this, Sydney.”
She wanted to run away, but there was no place to hide.
“I remember the precise moment in seminary that I mocked Father McQueen inwardly when his subject for the day was ‘the temptation of the flesh.’”
Sydney shuddered.
“The older priest’s choice of words sounded as if he’d lifted them straight out of Victor Hugo’s Hunchback of Notre Dame. But I stopped mocking Father McQueen’s words from the moment I met you, Sydney.
“With the chemistry so overpowering between us, I realized your feelings for me were equally profound.”
They were.
“Over the weeks and months you were in Cannon, I tried to fight my desire for you, but no battle was ever won. Ours was a love that had caught on fire. Incredibly, that ache never went away.
“If remaining in pain was my punishment, then it became too much to bear. My ministry began to suffer even though the parishioners might not have been aware of my turmoil.
“But I didn’t fool everyone. My friend Rick Olsen knew something was wrong. Sometimes I caught him looking at me with a solemn, even pained expression. I had reached the zenith of my agony and couldn’t remain in that state any longer.”
Sydney nodded. She’d thought she could forget by leaving Cannon the moment her teaching contract was up. But it had been a horrendous fifteen months since she’d left.
“Your little trip to Cannon the other day proves we’re still burning for each other,” he said the words she’d been afraid to say. “Every moment after you left, I struggled to get back my joie de vivre. But it didn’t happen. Each day became increasingly more impossible to get through.
“The need to see you was so acute, I felt ill. It was a sickness of body and spirit. For the first time in my life I’d fallen in love with a woman. Yet because of my vows, I couldn’t do anything about it. I struggled with that pain, Sydney, but now I have left the past behind me, for a future with you.”
Sydney understood that feeling better than anyone else.
“After Christmas the thoughts I’d been entertaining to leave the priesthood wouldn’t let me alone. Certain things happened I could no longer ignore.”
“What things?” She was so caught up in his confession, she couldn’t stop herself.
He bowed his head. “Before the Holidays, the Church sent funds for me to purchase a repossessed house from the bank at a good price. It would serve as the new rectory. I wanted the extra space to be put to good use, so I invited my newly married deacon to move in and occupy the top floor.
“One morning about two months ago I let myself in the house through a side entrance. It was so quiet inside, I assumed I was the only one there.
“I walked back to my suite of rooms on the main floor for some brochures I’d left in my study by accident. When I found them, I made my way down the hall to the kitchen for a cup of coffee. I’d decided I could use one before I returned to the office for the rest of the afternoon.
“The door was ajar, so I had no advance warning of what I would see through the aperture. The sight of Rick and his wife Kay in a passionate clinch by the fridge trapped the air in my lungs.
“I turned away, but not before I saw Rick’s hands roam over her body and heard her moan of pleasure.”
Sydney bit her lip so hard, it drew blood.
