Page 9

Ridiculous.

This is exactly why I don’t go to church.

Organ music blasts through the one-room building, and everyone turns to the front, pulling red-bound hymnals from the pews in front of them.

I grab Emberly’s arm and drag her into the closest open seats. Just my luck, we’re two pews behind Chad Tucker. Although, I suppose it is lucky, considering he’s the reason I’m here in the first place. Blackmailer.

“Crown him with many crowns…” Everyone sings in unison, and the person behind me is hitting all the wrong notes.

“I don’t think he saw you.” Emberly sings the words in tune to the descending notes of the hymn.

I look over my shoulder to see who all is staring at me. Of course, Betty Pepper gives me a smug look. It makes my stomach turn.

“Who are you looking at?” Emberly says right in my ear, making me jump.

“Nobody!” I say too loud.

The people in front of us give us a glance, and my eyes lock with Chad’s. His lips curl in that cocky grin, and it’s like a lightning strike straight between my legs.

Damn, he looks even hotter in a gray suit. The one-room sanctuary isn’t well-air conditioned, and it’s stuffy. I pull one of those little accordion fans out of the pew in front of me and wave at my face.

The song changes to surveying the wondrous cross, and I survey Chad’s wondrous backside. I decide God is okay with this since he created Chad’s wondrous backside.

“You can say hello after the service,” Emberly sings.

She’s been pushing me to date Chad since he appeared at Robbie Cole’s side last year. I keep telling her it won’t work. It’s a match made in screaming, coming to blows, nearly killing each other hell. Chad Tucker and I are like night and day.

The song ends, and we take our seats. My uncle rises to the podium above us, and I swear, a light flickers in his eye when he sees me. I’m ready to stand up in the pew in front of everybody and announce, Chad Tucker made me be here!

They’d all think I was possessed by the devil, but at least they’d stop looking at me like I’ve finally seen the “error of my ways.”

Silence falls over the room, and I brace myself for the start of the sermon. I’ve hated this since I was a little girl.

“Idolatry!” My uncle’s voice is so loud the windows rattle.

An old man in front of us snorts and wakes up, and I drop my chin, pinching my nose so I don’t laugh. “Sex and idolatry are the workings of the flesh, and in the last days they will grow stronger and stronger amongst the children of men…”

Uncle Bob continues blasting about how lustful and depraved we all are then he moves on to the Ten Commandments and putting God first in all things.

My eyes drift across the room to Emberly’s mom. Marjorie Warren is the richest lady in town and possibly the most powerful. Her father was one of the founders of Oceanside Village and the first city councilman.

Emberly rejected all of that, choosing to restore the empty space above her bakery shop on Main Street and live there instead of in her family’s mansion in the garden district. She had Coco out of wedlock—everyone’s words but mine—and she’s been working hard to be financially independent ever since.

We are a match made in best-friends heaven, and we’ve been tight since pre-kindergarten. I catch half the blame when Emberly steps off the straight and narrow. If she weren’t hanging around with that bad influence Tabitha Green…

As if Emberly has no mind of her own. It’s the kind of thinking that drives me crazy.

My own mother ran away from this town when I was just a baby. She left me with Uncle Bob and never looked back. While I don’t blame her for wanting to get out of here, it kind of stings she never at least sent for me or called or anything.

Emberly wouldn’t ditch Coco like that. Hell, I wouldn’t ditch Coco like that. I guess that’s why Emberly made me her godmother.

I try to trust people in spite of my “troubled childhood,” but at times I still feel like everybody’s just in it for themselves.

“…and you shall be saved,” my uncle ends ominously. “Let us pray and beg the Father to expose our hidden sins and save us from ourselves.”

My eyes roll involuntarily. Scanning the room, everyone is either pale or slightly green, and I can’t resist.

“That’s what I call church,” I mutter, leaning forward.