120 Mph (17 page)

Chapter
Nineteen

Christian was so angry, he didn’t know
whether to laugh, cry, or punch someone in the face. Since he wasn’t the macho-male,
‘Me Caveman!’ type, prone for violence by use of fists, he sat in his car shaking
from limb to limb instead.

Ten long minutes of stewing in near rage,
he knew he had to make the next move. But where did one start? He just quit his
job. More importantly, he quit God. He might as well quit the living while so
entrenched in despair that nothing else could possibly matter.

Yet Christian found the courage to start
the vehicle. Once out of the church parking lot, his journey did not take him
home. No. He couldn’t go back there yet. Ghosts and mistakes haunted him every
hour upon the hour inside that particular dwelling.

Christian drove until nearly out of
gas—vehicle and human. Refueling both, he put pedal to the metal and kept
driving. West was as good of place to lose himself. And this was exactly how he
felt. So damn lost, well beyond the blinding light of despair. Without Sara,
he’d been floundering for five agonizing long months, not knowing really what
to do or who he was. Going through the motions, but not feeling their worth. A
fish out of water, Christian, more than anyone, knew God was pissed at him. Chief
Berken was pissed. And now Mrs. Thorn was angrier than he’d ever seen the
woman. And that was saying a lot. She was old, with a lot of years stored up to
share her anger.

As soon as the rest of Preacher’s Bend
heard of what he’d done, he’d have an entire town pissed at him, as well. If
not hate him altogether.

All he wanted was distance, because
closeness was mocking him to where life held no real meaningful purpose.

Two hundred miles later, Christian would
never be able to tell another exactly what possessed him to find the curve of
the accident. He could only say he’d been pulled there by a very familiar force.
He parked his car on the graveled shoulder, but didn’t cut the engine.

Christian sat in the vehicle, staring
out the windshield. The tree she’d hit was no longer. Someone must have cut it
down. Perhaps it died, same as Beale that fateful day.

He slammed his fist against the steering
wheel. Coming here hadn’t helped at all. In fact, it did the exact opposite. All
he could think about was what the chief and his deputies would be doing in the
near future; search his home as though he a common criminal hiding someone evil
under his care. It was Sara who’d done something wrong, something unforgivable,
not him.

If only he hadn’t thrown her out that
night . . .

No one, no matter how terrible the
circumstances should have to feel the pain of being cast aside like yesterday’s
trash.

He dragged in a deep breath, then set
the gearshift out of ‘park’ into ‘drive’. He had nothing now. No job, no real friends,
likely not even a home when all said and done. He would have to start over.

Three hours later and another couple
hundred miles driven, Christian was too tired to go on. He found a small motel aside
the road. Procuring one of the rooms, he chose to spend the night while sorting
out his life come morning.

As he was just about to shove the key in
the lock, out of the corner of his eye he caught a very familiar form.

Oh, hell no! Really? Now? When so drained
of his ability to care?

Nevertheless, it was her. Long blonde
hair, slender frame, bright blue eyes . . . Well, he couldn’t see the eyes from
this distance, but knew their color from memory.

His breath caught up in the back of his throat.
Why, after so many months, would he still feel the same impact upon seeing her?
Why did it have to hurt so much?

He stuffed the room key into his pocket
and started walking her way. She didn’t see him, ducked into her room and shut
the door before he had the chance to speak.

Nervous as a school boy, Christian’s
hand hovered near her door. He could hear moving about inside the room. Each of
the rooms came with a kitchenette. She was likely making herself something to
eat. She’d been carrying a small paper bag—probably groceries—and it was damn
near dinner time.

His indrawn breath held, he gave the
door a light tap. A few minutes passed before anything happened. Then, the
small curtain at the window parted, slipping back into place heartbeats later.

She’d seen him. It was now up to Sara to
let him in.

Instead, the words, “What the hell do
you want?” came through the wood. Harsh, crisp, and not at all filled with any of
the warmth he’d once known from this woman.

Christian leaned his forehead to her
door, speaking through the wood. “Can we please talk?”

“No.”

“Sara, please? I have to talk to you.”

“Go away. And go to hell while you’re at
it.”

His breath lodged in his throat. “I
can’t go away.”

“Well, I don’t want to talk to you.
Ever.”

“I don’t have anywhere else to go.”

Agonizing seconds ticked by. Then the sound
of the lock clicking registered, and Sara opened the door.

Mutiny clearly on her face, Christian
thought she looked good enough to eat in spite of her obvious hatred of him.

“Can I come in?” he asked again.

Sara closed her eyes. The words, “No,
you can’t. I have nothing to say to you. Can’t you understand that?” seemed
almost painful to her.

“Sara.”

She was about to slam the door in his
face, but Christian put his foot across the jamb to make certain this did not
happen.

“Why are you doing this to me?” she
asked crisply. “You told me to leave . . . and now you’re following me? Don’t
you have a flock to save from damnation, sins to forgive, others to throw out
of your life when it suits your mood?”

Christian shook his head. “I wasn’t
following you. I took a long drive, got tired, and found myself pulling into
the parking lot. As God is my witness, Sara, I did not follow you. Nor did I
search for you. I just happened to come upon you. Perhaps a sign from . . .”

She quickly held up her hand to force
these words back down his throat.

“Don’t you dare say finding me was a
sign from God. He and I are still not speaking.”

Christian tried giving her an easy
smile, hoping to draw hers out, because whenever she smiled, it lit up his
heart and right now he needed that kind of light more than life-giving air. But
her glare said it all.

“Get your damn foot out of my door jamb,
Reverend Mohr.”

“Are you going to slam it in my face?”

Sara blew a single wayward hair out of
her eye. “I was going to unlock the chain and let you in, but push it some
more, and I might change my mind into slamming it in your face, or better yet,
bruising my knuckles against your arrogant nose.”

Christian stepped back; Sara undid the
chain, and she reopened the door for him to step over the threshold.

He checked his grin upon seeing her
uncurling fists.

A hastily darted glance forward, Sara’s
motel room looked as though she’d been here for the entire five months. A
waitress uniform hung on a hanger from the bathroom door. There was garbage
piled up in the wastebasket and overflowing on the worn carpet. The bed wasn’t
made. Pennies, nickels and dimes had been sorted into small piles on a table set
in the corner, along with a pile of ones and fives. Probably tip money from her
customers.

She’d been heating up a microwave dinner
when he’d first knocked. It sat on the table near the money, plastic still
covering the part that was supposedly the meat.

She motioned him to a chair at the small
table.

Christian chose the bed instead. He was
too damn exhausted to sit on an uncomfortable wooden motel chair. But the
instant his ass hit the mattress all of Hell’s gates opened up to let him into
their fold. Sara was far too beautiful to ignore. He stood, moved to her, and
wrapped his arms around her waist.

She put up the walls of defense by
placing her hands to his chest. This would give her the leverage to push him
away—if she wanted to. She didn’t do it.

Unable to stop his actions, or react to them,
Christian lowered his head and set his mouth to hers. He tested the
shark-infested waters before diving full in with his tongue.

Sara didn’t groin him, so he made the
next move, parting her lips wider and searching deeper for that one thing
they’d once had.

She moaned into his mouth, then gave him
the expected push, backing away.

“Why are you doing this to me?” she
whispered.

Christian flared his nostrils. He would
have to say it fast, get it all out in the open, or keep most of what was stuck
inside his head from coming out, and then hate himself for the rest of his life
for staying mute.

“The second I told you to leave my entire
world crumbled. I have never felt so much pain watching you go, as I had within
that one single moment when you walked off my front porch. If I could change
the past, I would. If I could see into the future, I would let you know exactly
what it will be and how great it might be. But I can’t stop wanting you . . . and
every time you’re even near me this want grows by damaging seconds until it
chokes the breath from my lungs.”

Sara lowered her eyes. Her smile was
quick. “I can see that want quite clearly, Reverend.”

“Damnit, Sara!”

Her gaze rose. “No. Damn you. I was fine
with you hating me. I was quite used to being cast aside.”

Christian openly groaned. “Well, I
wasn’t fine with it.”

“So where does this leave us now?”

He ran a hand through his hair, hoping
it would settle his thoughts. Nothing worked. His thoughts could not be settled
within one lousy day, or even one very sinful night.

He sat down on the bed again, hoping
she’d join him.

This time, Sara accepted his presence,
knowing he wasn’t going to leave her room without a fight.

God, she smelled as good as the first
blooms opening in early May. Lilacs, if not mistaken. Perhaps hyacinth the
sweetened scent that would be his downfall out of Grace.

He set his palm to her thigh. She did not
remove his hand, or balk at where he’d put it.

Her face turned to his and Christian
could no longer stop time. His hands went to her cheeks, he pulled her head
then her mouth to his, and he left nothing behind in one, violently demanding
kiss.

The next words that formed inside he
whispered against her velvety soft lips. “I so badly need to make love you,
Sara.”

“Now?”

Christian chuckled. “Yes, now. Why not
now? Have you got something better to do right now?”

“But we . . . we haven’t even seen each
other for—” She couldn’t finish the rest.

Besides, he wasn’t going to let her say
it. He wasn’t going to let Sara even think it. He wasn’t going to allow her to stop
him this time. This was what they both needed, what they’d both wanted five long
months ago, and what had to be done now.

He could not walk away from her. He
could not pretend Sara did not exist—as he had for five months.

While he’d sat inside his car on that
deadly curve, and saw with his own two eyes the possibilities of why it
happened, against how it must have happened, he’d been quite able to see the
tragedy as if only yesterday. A blind curve anyone could have had an accident
at, if rain in the equation and disaster almost always inevitable due to the
circumstances of what he knew of Sara’s past done only hours before.

Neither Beale nor Sara would have seen
the other coming.

Then, to add the rest of Sara’s torrid story
on top all that? She’d almost been raped by her foster father . . .

Christian dropped his hands from her
face to lower both to her arms, choking back the horror binding him from
telling her he’d went to the accident before finding himself here.

Sara didn’t stop his actions. She gave
him an easy smile—permission, if it was—and Christian was going to take this
permission with a grain of salt.

In exquisite slow motion, Sara stood,
moved in front of him, making him guess at what she wanted. He watched,
mesmerized, as she reached down, grabbed the hem of her sweatshirt and pulled
it over her head. Not a damn thing, not one stitch of material was on her flesh
under the thick sweatshirt.

Sara stood in front of a dying man, her
pale, sweetly-scented skin for his eyes only. She then stepped forward and
straddled his legs, sitting directly on his lap, placing pressure against his massive
hard-on.

Christian’s hands wound around her back,
holding onto her. With only slight force, she pushed him back onto the bed, and
he fell quite willingly there.  His shaking hands slipped to her hips as Sara
undid the buttons on his shirt, each one removed from their eyelets in delicate,
slow motion. She was biting her lower lip but her eyes never left his. On the
last button, he helped the removal of his cotton shirt off his shoulders,
falling backwards onto the bed again.