Preacher's Daughter - Flora Ferrari Page 0,19

out from behind the trees and take a short spell up the road to double-check she’s not gonna overheat again before I turn back and pull up out front of the old plantation house.

I see some movement in the kitchen window, and once I get closer to the front door, I realize I didn’t exactly plan my re-entry too well.

I locked it behind me, wanting to make sure Faith was safe and sound but didn’t figure out how I could get back in if she were asleep.

It looks like she’s up though, and I half-hope she’s making us something else to eat.

I’m famished again, and even hungrier for her.

Pushing the bell, I wait for her to open the door, but nothing. I ring again and then again.

Getting worried now, I knock loudly.

“Faith?” I call out, taking a step back to see if I can see her on the upper floor, but the door swings open and in a moment, she’s in my arms again.

“Hey! I was jus-”

Her hand across my face shocks me a little, and I can see at once that she’s not in a joking mood.

She starts to cry again, beating on my chest and calling me every name under the sun.

Names I’m surprised a Preacher’s daughter even knows, let alone how to use with such force.

Finally, I grab both her wrists, and trying to calm her down, I guide her inside and lean against the door to close it.

“Alright,” I tell her, “What’s wrong Faith, what’s happened?”

“You! You’re what’s happened. I woke up and thought you’d left. I thought you’d gone for good… I was so scared… I got so…” her face is against my chest now, tears streaming from her eyes and all I can do is hold her, making soft sounds and just holding her while I feel like the biggest asshole that ever walked the earth.

“I was just fixing the truck, baby,” I tell her. “I didn’t wake you because you looked so peaceful, happy.”

“Why’d you really come back?” she spits. “Forget something?” her eyes move to the lounge room, the suitcase under the table in plain sight from where we’re standing.

Furrowing my brow, I remind her, “I didn’t leave in the first place, Faith. I was across the road fixing my truck.”

But I can see that once she’s wound up like this, just like the weather, she’ll have to blow herself out.

I can only do the best I can, be here for her until she calms down.

But boy, she really is wound up.

I wonder what happened since I went out.

She has another round of words for me before she starts to calm down a little.

“Why are you all covered in grease?” she asks. “You smell like oil and gasoline.”

Trying not to roll my eyes, I calmly re-tell her how I was across the road, fixing my truck. I hadn’t left, only gone over to repair the truck and put some gas in it.

The change in her is instant.

“So, you didn’t leave me?”

“No,” I say calmly. “I left the house, but only to fix my truck.”

For the tenth time, Faith, I didn’t leave you!

“Faith, what happened, tell me,” I ask her again in a more commanding tone.

“It’s my Dad, he’s coming back. He said… The sheriff…”

She starts to sob again, wringing her hands as she starts to pace.

“Faith, you’re not making any sense, what the hell happened?” I demand from her, gripping her by the elbows, almost shouting at her now.

“They’re coming for you… they’ll find you and they’ll take you away...” she says softly, her voice trailing off as her eyes move past me, staring blankly at the case in the lounge room.

She looks alright, but I’m wondering if something happened, maybe she fell or has something wrong with her I don’t know about yet.

Either way, we’ll get through it, Faith. I promise.

Taking a different tactic, I move us both into the kitchen and sit her down, getting her a glass of water I sit opposite her, quiet for a while until I ask her slowly but firmly to tell me what she means.

“What’s in that case?” she asks me, point-blank.

I swallow hard, not knowing why she’d even ask. I thought it was just a plain old suitcase.

Unless she looked inside.

Can’t. I have the key right here.

I thumb the key in my jeans, I still have something going right.

“Is that what this is all about?” I ask her, worried how or even why she’d be so concerned about the case.

“What’s in it, Noah?”