The Priest (The Original Sinners #9) - Tiffany Reisz Page 0,119
until she said it, didn’t realize he was carrying that weight until she lifted it off and tossed it in the lake.
“I really do need to run,” she said.
“Yeah, of course. Thank you.”
“Bye, Cyrus. Hope you and Paulina are very happy together. I mean that.”
“Katherine?” he said fast, before she could hang up.
“Yes?”
“If you ever call me again with a case,” he said, “I’ll answer.”
Chapter Forty-Seven
When Nora checked her mail that afternoon and found another blank postcard, her stomach plummeted through the floor. Did S?ren leave her again? Then she saw the postmark—New Orleans. She flipped the card over. It was just a vintage postcard of the French Quarter, the sort you could pick up for a dollar from any old bookstore in town. The night he’d returned from his trip, he’d told her what his blank postcards meant. I love you. I miss you. This is where you can find me. The card was an invitation, asking her to come back into his life. He wouldn’t force his presence on her. He was waiting, just waiting for her to decide what came next for them.
Later that evening, Nora sent S?ren a text message to accept the invitation.
Warning, I have a housewarming gift for you, Nora told him. Three gifts actually.
S?ren answered, Gold, frankincense, and myrrh?
Even better. See you soon.
Nora stopped by The Good Witch one more time to pick up S?ren’s first housewarming gift, then drove over to his house. She found him in his music room at his piano, playing a song she vaguely knew but couldn’t name.
She came in and sat next to him on the piano bench. His hands stilled at the keys, but when she didn’t say anything, he began to play again. The sun was setting outside, the room growing darker. When he reached the end, he lifted his fingers from the keys and set his hands in his lap.
“Pretty,” she said. “What was that?”
“An old Welsh lullaby—‘All Through the Night.’” He sung the lines to her, softly:
Sleep my child and peace attend thee
All through the night
Guardian angels God will send thee
All through the night
He faced her the first time. “Grace used to sing it to Fionn to put him to sleep. She let me listen on the phone one night.” His brow furrowed. “Does that hurt you?”
“That you listened to the mother of your son sing to him? Of course it hurts. It breaks my heart because you only got to hear it over the phone and only once. Why do you ask?”
“I think I hurt you more in more ways than I know. No, I hurt you in more ways than I want to know.”
“I can take it.” She smiled—a wicked smile, but a brief one. It was all for show anyway. “Sometimes. And sometimes I can’t take it.”
“Miserere mei, Deus—secundum magnam misericordiam tuam. Et secundum multitudinem miserationum tuarum, dele iniquitatem meam.”
She laughed softly. “Are you trying to turn me on by speaking in Latin? If so, it’s working.”
He smiled, almost. “It’s known as the ‘neck verse,’” he said. “The first verses of Psalm 51 in Latin. In old Britain, clergy received less sentences for their crimes. Anyone accused of a crime could claim ‘benefit of the clergy.’ You would save your neck from a noose if you could recite to the courts that verse in Latin and thus prove you were in the clergy. Of course, many non-clergy members used it. Who wouldn’t?”
“Seems a little unfair. I doubt they’d believe a woman accused of murder was a member of the clergy even if she recited the whole Bible in Latin.”
In fact, they would have probably accused her of witchcraft.
“Massively unfair, but I’ll take any help I can get right now.”
“I’m not going to hang you. Or shoot you.”
“Or leave me?”
She kissed him. A gentle kiss at first, then deeper as S?ren took her face in his hands and kissed the breath from her body. Who needed air anyway? The kiss stilled like a storm and they sat there, foreheads resting together. S?ren found her hands and held them.
“I love you,” she said.
“Still?”
“Always. You are a wicked priest, but I’m a wicked woman. Let’s just accept we deserve each other.”
“I’m more than happy to accept that,” he said. She smiled up at him.
“Now, you tell me what you want first—your housewarming gifts or the bad news.”
“I’ll take the bad news.”
“Nope, you’re getting a gift first. I’ll go get her.”
“Then why even ask me?” he said as she went into the other room.