Page 7 of Intimately Faithful

Either put up or shut up.

She lifted her chin, felt the sting of his unwavering glance, full of pity, no doubt, as she stroked the back of the little girl’s head, quieting her and comforting herself.

“He’s where he deserves to be. Dead in the ground, rotting in hell, I hope.” She announced to the man of faith.

And not an ounce of remorse did she feel for wishing ill on a person, in a church of all places.

TWO

“It was a damn inconvenience he was owned by a redheaded nuisance.” – Danny

Nothing but bone-melting fulfilment slid through Danny’s otherwise in good working order veins for the last minutes while he tried to breathe right.

It was a bloody inconvenience that his body was waking up from a deep sleep.

There mine is.

My long ago girl. There she is.

He hadn’t fully accepted how much of a daze he’d walked through his days, until the very moment his past life pulled the floor out from under his feet.

Lust. Denial. Anger.

They whipped through his mind on a tight loop causing him a typhoon of confusion and joy, co-mingling for control.

Sucking him down into a place he no longer held a key to visit.

It was once their place.

A place impenetrable to the outside world.

A place he thought would be theirs forever.

To keep his hands from reaching out andkeepingher, he stuffed both of those traitorous limbs down into the depths of his front pockets and he rocked on his heels. Waiting for her to talk.

Lack of patience had never hindered him before.

But then all rules fucked off when it concerned Aoife Flanagan.

Always had, and he suspected always would.

His eyes strayed down to her feet and he noticed a crimson stain on the back of her heel. Frowning, he straightened to his height, stepped forward and saw how she flinched.

It halted Danny immediately.

“You’re bleeding?”

“Ah, yeah. Just my foot, it’s fine. A blister, I think.”

He couldn’t damn well hold a conversation while she was bleeding to death in front of him. Without a word he strode off into the back room and returned not a minute later holding his medi-kit. It was just an old biscuit tin he kept bandages and ointment inside. One of the Sunday school kids were always hurting themselves while they played on the jungle gym he’d custom built for them out back.

“May I take a look?”

“It’s fine, really.” She insisted.

“Let me see, Aoife.”

He went down to his haunches and waited for her to turn her leg slightly. The blood was worse up close, and he winced as he carefully slipped off the tennis shoe that had seen better days. It came off easily, alerting him to the fact that the shoes were too damn big for her.