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“You don’t belong here,” she stated. “I have never laid eyes on you in my life, and I’ve known the minister’s family for over ten years. I’m going to go get Officer Randal to escort you out. You shouldn’t have been in a room alone with a young girl, and language such as yours is not accepted in these walls.”
I wanted to groan and cover my face. I didn’t know this man, but Tabitha was embarrassing me anyway. Being connected to her was just another one of the things to add to why my life had been hell. Bad luck had struck on the day I was born when my entrance into this world had killed my mom, and it never stopped.
“Damn, I sure hope you try,” the man replied with amusement in his voice rather than anger.
I lifted my gaze up to look at him now that the light was illuminating his face. Although I immediately wished I hadn’t. I hadn’t expected him to look like that. Sure, I had noticed the defined angles of his features in the darkness, but good Lord, that man looked like sin. I swallowed hard and thought about praying for forgiveness, then remembered I wasn’t praying anymore. I had given up my belief in God when I got the call that Hayes was dead.
He didn’t look back at me though, and I found myself relieved. I wasn’t sure I could handle seeing his eyes. Not if the rest of him looked like that.
“Trinity, now.” Tabitha’s voice was sharp and clearly near hysterics.
She wasn’t used to being spoken to that way. I, however, would pay money for this to continue.
Hayes wouldn’t want this though, and I knew it. He had wanted me to try and find peace with my stepmom. I stood up and walked over to her, not looking at the stranger, for fear I’d see disappointment in his eyes. He didn’t take orders. He was his own person, and he’d just witnessed how weak I was.
Tabitha grabbed my bare arm so hard that her nails bit into my skin. I winced, but said nothing as I went with her out of the room. Perhaps if she squeezed hard enough, it would hurt bad enough that I could go into the sanctuary with tears in my eyes. Because they would want me crying. They would want to see me completely broken and devastated.
What none of them understood was, I had been broken and devastated so many times in my life that it took more than the death of someone I cared deeply for to make me cry. Tears didn’t come for me anymore. I was twisted inside. Hayes had seen something else in me that I wanted. I truly wanted to be the girl he had thought I was.
Unfortunately, I never had been. There was a darkness in me that I couldn’t flush out. It wouldn’t go away. It called to me and made me think things. Terrible, sinful things. It was no wonder God had never once answered one of my prayers. Hayes had been the only break I’d ever gotten, and God had only allowed me to have that for six months before snatching it away too.
“You are a disgrace,” Tabitha said through her teeth as she dragged me toward the entrance of the church.
I didn’t argue with her because I probably was. She stopped when she saw Officer Randal and dropped her death grip on my arm.
“Officer,” she said in her fake voice. The one she used here at church and in town. The one that made everyone think she was a God-fearing, churchgoing woman who loved the Lord. “There is a man here who doesn’t belong. He went into the prayer room, where Trinity was trying to be alone to grieve. The profanity out of his mouth and disregard for the house of the Lord were awful. You need to get that man out of here. I fear he is dangerous.”
It took every ounce of self-control I had not to roll my eyes. She sounded ridiculous.
“What man? Did you get a name?” Randal asked with concern in his tone.
She opened her mouth, then shut it again. Neither of us knew his name, but even if I had, I wouldn’t have shared it with her. I was a fantastic liar. Her gaze swung to me, and I shrugged. Then, I saw her eyes narrow, as if she thought I was lying, but she wouldn’t treat me bad in front of witnesses that mattered. The man in the prayer room did not matter to her.
“There!” She pointed, and I turned my head to see him walking down toward the sanctuary.
His dark hair was cut short, and I could see from here that his eyes were a lighter color. Not boring brown, like mine. I wasn’t sure though since he wasn’t looking at me. His entire body seemed to flex with each move he made. I wondered if he was one of those built guys that had muscles all over. Hayes’s body had been that of a runner’s, and had been nothing like this man’s.
“Oh,” Randal replied, and his tone dropped. “I’m, uh, sorry, Mrs. Bennett. Uh, I can’t ask him to leave.”
I studied Officer Randal as he shifted on his feet nervously. The large Adam’s apple in his throat bobbed.
“Who is he? Surely, Reverend Darren and his family do not know this man,” Tabitha said, sounding close to losing her cool.
She rarely lost a battle. If she didn’t get the massive, good-looking man kicked out of the church, she’d have lost in her eyes, and that would not sit well with her.
Randal ran a hand over his slightly balding head. “He, uh, does indeed know the family,” Officer Randal said. “That’s Huck Kingston, Hayes’s older brother.”
Two
Huck
Tugging on the damn neck of the button-up shirt I had worn for Hayes’s sake, I felt like I was suffocating. “I hope you’re watching this shit show,” I whispered under my breath.
I wasn’t sure what I believed about the afterlife, but if we did have souls and my little brother was here, watching his funeral, then I was going to at least have on a damn suit coat and button-up. I drew the line there. My jeans and boots weren’t going anywhere. Hayes would understand that.
I stood at the back of the church, watching people come in and speak to my mother’s parents up front. They had seen me walk in, but neither of them would approach me. I’d made my choice years ago, and although the old man preached about forgiveness and acceptance, he’d never been able to give that to my father. Judgment was clear in his gaze when his eyes met mine. He saw my father when he looked at me. I fucking saw my father every time I looked in a mirror, and I was proud of it. Creed Kingston had been a hell of a man. Loyal, honest, and proud.
My jaw clenched as I thought of the things he’d said to Hayes and me about my father the day he came to take us away from the only life we’d known.
