Divine (21 page)

This will he easy,
Mary thought.
I'll get him to my room, and we can show each other about love, and then I'll stay with Nigel Townsend for the rest of my life.

Her plan was a simple one, and she tried several times to get Nigel to go along with it. She would find him alone in his office. "Nigel, my room's so dark. Could you come sit with me until I fall asleep?"

"You don't need me, Mary." He would smile but never even get up from his desk. "God's already in your room. Talk to Him."

She'd leave, dejected, her cheeks hot from rejection. Then she'd find another way to try again the next day. But Nigel was never interested. The only thing he wanted from her was her attendance at one of his classes. "Jesus wants to show you real love, Mary. Class starts at seven. I'll be looking for you."

Mary couldn't understand Nigel. No other man had ever turned down her advances. Back in juvenile detention, whenever she wanted to feel loved, she had only to suggest the idea to a fellow inmate or a deliveryman or even—two different times—to an instructor. They were always drawn by her, unable to say no. "You're a temptress, Mary Madison," one man told her. "No man could say no to your beauty."

It was a power Mary enjoyed, but it fell flat on Nigel. And since he wasn't interested in her, she wouldn't consider attending his classes.

Of course that wasn't what she told him. "I'm too tired," she'd say. Or "I'm not feeling good today."

But each time Nigel asked she was a little more interested. Maybe if she sat in his classroom, making eye contact with him the entire time, he would change his mind about her. Maybe he would be captivated by her the way nearly every other man had always been. Then he would see how good she was at loving, and he would be powerless to do anything but take her as his own. They would marry, and she would become one of those women she saw walking down the streets every now and then. A woman with a clean look and nice clothes and a handsome husband on her arm.

Yes, maybe she would go to one of his classes, and everything would change.

At the end of the day on her third Monday at the center, Mary looked at the clock. Five-twenty. Ten more minutes and she was done. Another folder and another, and then she heard someone outside the front-office door.

It swung open and there was Nigel, filling the doorway, taking her breath. "Mary . . . class starts at seven . . . upstairs."

She gave him a once-over and then found his eyes. "Okay." She angled her head, batting her eyelashes the way her mama used to when she wanted something from a man. "Maybe."

"Maybe, huh?" He crossed his arms and smiled at her. "That's better than no."

She pictured herself sitting in Nigel's classroom, trying to make eyes at him, trying to convince him to come to her room, all while he was talking about God. A sick feeling came over her, and she shrugged. "Or maybe not." She looked away, stood, and pushed her chair in. Nigel would never love her if she interrupted his precious class time.

Normally he would ask her to come to class and then be on his way. This time he stayed. He leaned his shoulder against the doorframe. "You don't need to be afraid."

"I'm not." A smile forced the corners of her mouth a little higher. Afraid? Was that why she couldn't stomach the thought of attending his class? A class on the greatest love of all? She smoothed the wrinkles out of her worn T-shirt. Again she couldn't look at his eyes. "It's just... I'm tired." She looked up for a moment. "So maybe, okay?"

"Mary . . ." Nigel's voice felt gentle on the rough edges of her heart. "I already know. A class on God's love scares you to death."

She stuck out her chin. Didn't he see how she felt about him? that her hesitation had nothing to do with God's love? It had to do with her own love—the love she felt for him. She steadied her nerves. "Maybe the idea bores me."

The tough-girl image was an act, but it was one she knew well. It helped cover up whatever she was really feeling inside. She straightened the papers on the desk and stepped out from behind it. Nigel didn't deserve her sarcasm. "I'm sorry." The conversation was making her feel even sicker.

"Love is waiting for you. God's love." This time Nigel's voice was a caress, but not the type of caress she was used to. Not the type she wanted from Nigel. Still it soothed something deep inside her.

"Ah, Nigel." She came to him where he stood in the doorway, and for the first time she let herself get absolutely lost in his eyes, those brilliant eyes so full of light and hope. "Don't you understand?" Her attraction toward him crystallized. What would it be like to meet the needs of a man like Nigel Townsend? "I don't want to love God." She took a step closer, her eyes locked on his. "I want to love you."

"No, Mary." His tone was kind, but it was stronger than cement. "That's not the love I'm talking about."

"Please, Nigel . . ." She lowered her voice, making it breathy, sensual. "Give up on the God part."

"I can't." He looked through the walls that surrounded her heart and into the last remaining tender places inside her. "God won't give up on you. I won't either."

She was only a few feet from him now, and a chill ran down her body. Maybe he did have feelings for her, deeper feelings. A man who wouldn't give up on her? Wasn't that the sort of love she'd been looking for all her life?

She took another step closer—almost touching now. This must be why she'd been brought to the New Life Center. So she could find love with the beautiful man standing before her. "Don't you need anything besides God?" She brushed her knuckles tenderly against his cheek. Forget the class. They could go to her room and she would show him the sort of love she understood. Maybe then he would stop talking about God. The idea danced in the daylight of the moment.

But he remained stone still, with no response to her touch. "Come to class." He drew back. "Then you'll understand real love."

"Teach me about love, and I'll teach you. We don't need a classroom or a Bible." She moved closer again and let her fingers skim lightly over his muscled arm. "1 know a better way."

Nigel took her hand gently from his arm and lowered it back to her side. "You're confused." He stepped back, his eyes never leaving hers. "I want to show you. But love isn't what you've known." He smiled, and in his smile there wasn't even a hint of anything weak or compromising, no proof that he was attracted to her the way other men were. Instead he had the look of a father—the way she always imagined a father might look at her.

But she didn't want a father in Nigel.

The rejection stung the same as if he'd reached out and slapped her. She wasn't desirable to him, and in a rush the reasons were obvious. She was trash. Nigel would want a pure woman. In the glow of his light, Mary suddenly felt so dirty she wondered if she had an odor about her. She broke eye contact and stepped around him. "I'm going to my room."

As she walked past him she could feel Nigel turn toward her, hear his voice like a physical touch against her skin. "I'll be expecting you, Mary." He turned then, walked back to his office, and shut the door.

Mary took a step toward his office. What was he doing in there? Was he trembling the way she was? Was he regretting his decision not to follow her to her room? Maybe he was thinking about it, convincing himself that she was right.

She took quiet steps down the hallway until she reached his office. The other residents at the center were serving dinner in the cafeteria, so the hall was empty. She heard his voice, too soft to understand. Maybe he was talking out loud, telling himself he was a fool for turning her down.

"Please, Nigel ... I'm here waiting for you." She whispered the words to the closed door. Then she pressed her ear against it so she could hear what he was saying.

"Lord . . . she's a lost girl, barely more than a child . . ."

Something cold and steel-like shot through Mary's heart. He wasn't struggling with whether he should come to her. He was talking to his God. She forced herself to listen.

"She's longing for love the only way she understands it, Father. Through the power of eroticism and seduction."

Shame blew its hot breath on Mary's face. What a fool she'd made of herself. He had seen through her all the while, and the embarrassment almost sent her padding back to her room. But there was something intriguing about a man like Nigel talking to his God about her. It made her feel strangely important.

"She's beautiful, God. ... I know better than to spend time alone with her. Help her see me in a different light. Help her hear me about true love, Your love, Lord."

Mary wasn't sure how to feel. Nigel thought she was beautiful, and for that she found a moment of private rejoicing. But even so, he had no interest in her. Not the way she'd hoped. She blinked back tears and kept listening.

"I see Mary's soul, the soul that lies gasping for breath so deep inside her." He paused, his voice more anxious than before. "Help me reach her, Lord. Help me know why You've brought her into my life." Another pause. "She is Your daughter, God, and she is so lost. I want to show her the truth.

Please . . . bring her to class tonight. Show me how I can reach her and help me . . . help me be wise."

Mary's heart sank. No, Nigel was never going to love her the way she loved him. She had been right before. He wanted only her attendance in his precious class. Nothing more. When Nigel fell in love, it would be with an untainted woman, someone who shared his faith. Someone like her was nothing more than a temptation to do evil.

Nigel was still praying. "God?" His voice became more of an anguished cry. "What do You want from me? Why Mary . . . why a temptress here at the mission? And how come I keep hearing You tell me that she's the one, the reason I'm here?"

Mary pressed her ear closer to the door. Nigel believed she was the reason he was here at the mission? The possibility gave her a sense of wonder and hope. Maybe something would work out between them after all.

Nigel sighed loud and long. "For now I will keep praying daily, my face to the ground. Until You show me what You're going to do in the life of Mary Madison. Thank You, Father, because You are faithful. All my answers will come to me . . . in Your time. In Jesus' name, amen."

Mary scurried away from the door and darted back down the hallway. She was out of sight when she heard Nigel's office door open, heard him step out and walk the opposite direction toward the room where dinner was being served.

Nigel was wrong about her. God wasn't trying to do something in her life. That wasn't the reason Nigel was drawn to her. He was drawn to her because she loved him. And in some frightening place in his heart, Nigel loved her too. Otherwise he wouldn't spend so much time praying for her. Now all she had to do was convince him.

When the burning pain of Nigel's rejection wore off some, Mary sat up in bed and looked at the red numbers glowing from the clock beside her. It was ten after seven. Ten minutes into the two-hour class where Nigel would tell a roomful of street people and drug addicts about the greatest love of all.

What he
thought
was the greatest love.

She gritted her teeth and flipped the covers off. Fine. It was too hot to sleep anyway. She could go and be late, sit in the back of the class, and try to understand Nigel better. Maybe if she heard him talk about Jesus the way she'd heard him pray, she'd get a better take on how to reach him. Because she had to reach him. She thought about him every night and woke up every morning with him on her mind.

There had to be a way.

Her clothing was still limited, but she'd picked up a bag of jeans and shorts and pretty shirts, things donated to the mission. She slipped into a pair of cutoffs and positioned herself in front of the cracked mirror propped up against one wall of her room. She smiled. No question, she was beautiful. More so than ever. Her legs were long and toned, her waist narrow. If these shorts didn't get Nigel's attention, nothing would. Next she found a tight red T-shirt that showed off her figure and made her long blonde curls stand out.

Makeup was something she'd worn daily back in Jimbo's basement, but not much since. Still, she kept a few items in her bag, and now she scrounged around looking for lipstick. She found it and after she'd applied it, she rubbed her fingers into the roots of her hair, making it fuller, more alluring.

She looked in the mirror once more. There. Nigel would be begging for a visit to her room by the time the night was finished. Yes, he had turned her down for the last time. She took nothing with her as she headed through the building to the west end, where the classrooms were.

The sound of Nigel's deep, rich voice filled the hallway, and she felt drawn to him as she followed it. When she reached his classroom, she stopped for a moment in the doorway. It took several seconds for her heart to decide whether it would beat again.

He was walking across the front, his presence filling the place. As much as she wanted him to notice her, she had the strongest desire to be invisible, to watch him and study him.  What was it about the man that drew her so? He turned his back to the class and wrote something on the board.

Mary used that moment to slip in and sit behind a couple of taller men. Maybe Nigel wouldn't see her right away, and she could watch him, listen to him. Learn enough about him so she could find a way into his heart. She watched his back, the way it formed a
V
from his shoulders to his waist, the way his shoulder muscles flexed as he wrote. He finished and stepped aside. Only then did she see what he'd written.