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ARCHED IN THE living room door, for a brief moment, Father Matthew hesitated. The room was under the magic charm of Christmas. Next to the fireplace where wood crackled, and flames curled and swayed, stood a tall fir decked with twinkling lights, tinsel, and ornaments. Garland hung from the mantel along with five stockings, one for each member of the household—including Bear. The lingering scent of burning maple and fir came at him.
With a cheerful rush, Bear leaped at Father Matthew. “I’ve missed you too little guy,” he said, kneeling to let Bear lick his face.
The sound of his voice had Francesca shifting her eyes to him. For a long silent moment, their eyes held. His pulse jumped as the emotions he’d desperately tried to suppress in the past weeks stormed through him like a gale wind. Reckless thoughts, he’d locked away of pulling her into him, running his fingers through her hair, and kissing her arose in him all at once.
Father Matthew thought of leaving, but Francesca’s pale face, her shadowed eyes, and Mrs. Scott’s words “you need to protect her” circling his head wouldn’t allow him.
Father Matthew stuffed his hands in his pockets. As warm as the room was, his hands were damp. Sensing his presence, Francesca swirled, met his gaze. Her smile made his heart stutter. What was she doing to him?
“May I come in?”
Francesca nodded. “He’s missed you,” she said when Bear hopped onto the sofa to sprawl himself over his lap.
Understanding Francesca’s veiled meaning Father Matthew said, “I’ve missed him too.”
As much as Father Matthew had tried to shake the thoughts of Francesca flooding his mind, not a day went by when her face hadn’t flashed in his mind. Francesca was his first thought when he opened his eyes in the morning and his last before sleep. He’d tried to disengage from those feelings, but like a drug, Francesca took hold of him, controlled him, made him weak, defenseless. Francesca had Father Matthew doubting himself, questioning his entire belief system—and she was winning. It was why he’d distanced himself from her.
Francesca moved him in ways he’d never expected emotionally, romantically, and sexually. New emotions he didn’t know how to deal with. He’d prayed, asked for guidance and forgiveness from Him, but she was too deep in him, and not even He could help him now.
Being as close as he was to Francesca, Father Matthew’s emotions were surfacing again, working their way through him, raising doubts and questions he had no answers for. Holding on to his own control, Father Matthew fought the thought of taking her in his arms and crushing his mouth to hers coming over him.
“Can I get you a drink?” Francesca crossed to the bar, poured herself a glass of wine.
“Beer, please.” Father Matthew waited until she walked back the uncapped bottle. “I was in court on your final day.”
“I know.” Francesca handed Father Matthew the bottle. “I saw you.”
“I was very proud of you. In awe, really, of the way you spoke and addressed Mrs. Tremblay. You saved Mr. Mulligan’s reputation and saved him from spending the rest of his life in prison.”
“I had help. I had a great team, and you. Because of you, I went through with the case.” At the patio doors, Francesca looked over the snow-covered terrace. She could see Bear’s paw prints coming and going from when she’d let him out earlier in the day. “For a moment, just before I started questioning Dr. Sampson, I thought of throwing the case. Then I saw you hiding away in the corner, and I gained the courage to push on.”
“I didn’t think you saw me, but knowing that I’m glad you did.” Father Matthew took a long swig of his beer.
“Your white clerical collar was hard to miss.” Francesca crossed to the sofa, and with her came the scent of her lilac soap and musky shampoo. It was heady and intoxicating. Father Matthew’s breath caught. What was this woman doing to him? “Did Mrs. Scott ask you to come to see me?”
“She’s worried about you.”
“And you’re here to protect me?” Francesca picked up her drink, swirled, drank.
“She told me what your private investigator uncovered.” Father Matthew watched Francesca take another good gulp of wine.
“She shouldn’t have, and you needn’t worry about me.”
“I am.”
Brown eyes from under winged brows gazed at him. “Out of guilt or concern.”
Anger sprang hot in Francesca’s words, but Father Matthew brushed over it. “I’m sorry I didn’t come sooner, but I...”
“You don’t owe me an apology. You don’t owe me anything.” Francesca’s mouth clamped in a thin line.
“I do need to apologize. I let you down.”
Francesca laughed bitterly. “You’re not the first, and you won’t be the last.”
Father Matthew’s hand whipped up to snag her hand when she started to rise. “I know you’re upset, but I want to explain.”
Francesca jerked back, but he tightened his grip. “Let go of me.”
He could let Francesca’s hand go, but he didn’t. The glints of memory that unexpectedly came at him made him feel as if he’d touched his past. The nagging feeling of familiarity was rearing its head again and making him feel as if this wasn’t the first time he’d held Francesca’s hand.
Contemplatively, Father Matthew sensed this wasn’t the first time he ached to kiss Francesca, or the thought to hold her in his arms assailed him. At that moment, the same rush of need hit him like a wrecking ball. The panic came fast, pressing down on his chest like a giant boulder. Father Matthew chastised himself for allowing the unfitting thoughts to fill him.
He’d made vows, sworn his allegiance to God. A devout man of the cloth wasn’t meant to harbor feelings for a woman, Father Matthew screamed in his head. But he was harboring feelings, and Francesca’s hold on him was making him cast aside the vows he’d made for her.
The thought weighing on his conscience like lead, Father Matthew said, “I haven’t come to see you because I can’t trust myself around you. I’ve been grappling with my conscience since the night I was tempted to kiss you. You have me questioning my life, testing my faith. I’ve spent many nights wide awake in bed thinking of you, feeling shame, and guilt that I was. Even now, holding your hand, you set off sensations in me I haven’t experienced before—or maybe I have.” He took a deep breath, then another. “It’s all confusing. I have so many thoughts rushing at me, and it all feels chaotic in my head. And you add another layer to that chaos.” He slid fingers over the nape of his neck. “I don’t mean that in a bad way. I ... I never told you, but I have no memory of my life before the war.”
Francesca felt the clutch in her belly. He was opening up just as Lily said he would. She did her best to tuck the excited nerves away. “I’m sorry. How far back before the war?” Francesca asked, hopeful.
Father Matthew went on to tell Francesca about being left for dead and being rescued by two sisters who tried to nurse him back to health. He told her of the sisters turning to Father Pio for help when they realized how serious his injuries were. “It’s how I ended up at the monastery. If it weren’t for them, I wouldn’t be here today.”
There was a fist around her heart, squeezing tight at the idea of him lying on a pile of rubble, surrounded by dead bodies, gasping for breath, not knowing whether it was his last.
“Father Pio and the brothers nursed me to health, gave me a home at the monastery when I had no memory of who I was or where home was. It’s why I decided to devote my life to the church, and now you have me questioning everything.”
“I’m sorry. I never meant to unsettle your life.”
“It’s not just my thoughts of you that have me questioning everything. I’ve listened to you tell me about your friend Tommy. Each time you’ve mentioned him, it’s triggered something in me, but as deep as I’ve reached, no memories surfaced.” Contemplatively, Father Matthew stroked a sleeping Bear. “You mentioned he was in Europe.”
“He fought with the First Canadian Infantry Division,” Francesca said, telling him what little she’d uncovered during her years of searching for him.
“Did he...?”
“He was reported MIA,” Francesca finished, anticipating his thought. “They’ve never found his body.”
“Where was he fighting when he went missing?”
“Sicily, at the base of Mount Aetna. It took me five years to find that out.”
His heart lodged in his throat. “It’s where I was found. It’s where I did my convalescing and where I called home until I came here.” Father Matthew let that sink in for a moment then turned to Francesca. “You persevered for five years?”
“I did.”
“And you found him, didn’t you? But he was lost and damaged like many of the soldiers that returned home from the war.”
Francesca tilted her head to look into the eyes of the man she’d lost. There were tears in her eyes and so much sadness. She eyed her wedding ring, rolled it on her finger along with the mounting wave of regret. “I found him too late. I’d already married James when I did. Had I found him sooner, lost or not, I wouldn’t have married James,” she said in between sobs.
Father Matthew felt something inside of him break. He raised a hand to her wet cheeks, and she leaned her face into it to fill herself with his touch. It was as warm and as gentle as she remembered.
Their faces inches from one another, he held Francesca’s gaze. “Am I Tommy?”
That he asked made Francesca’s heart ache. “Yes,” she said, and for a long while, watched him struggle as he dug deep into his memories.
“All you’ve been telling me about him, it’s my life.” When she nodded, Father Matthew shot to his feet in one fluid motion, almost knocking Bear off the sofa. Sorrowful eyes rolling to the window, he saw the bone-white moon that lent a silver wash to the land blanketed in snow stretching to the grove of majestic trees. Father Matthew sensed there was something in those shadows that had meaning, but he couldn’t figure out what. “I don’t remember anything. I have no memory of you or anything about my life. I see things, and they feel familiar, but no matter how hard I try to remember, I come up blank.”
“What happened over there?”
“I don’t know.” Father Matthew dug out his wallet, pulled the letter. “It’s the only thing I have left from my past.”
Francesca took the letter, wrinkled and brittle, from years of handling. The bottom half was missing. When she read it, her throat constricted, and big silent tears coursed down her face. “I wrote this to you.”
“What’s my full name?” He sat beside her.
“Thomas Scott. Everyone called you Tommy.”
“Scott? Is Mrs. Scott related to me?”
“She’s your mother, step-mother,” Francesca told him about his father and of his passing. As she spoke, his eyes welled up in tears. “He was a wonderful, kind, and loving man. He was very proud of you and loved you to bits.”
“Goddamn war. It’s taken so much from me.” Tommy’s voice cracked with anger and emotion, and Francesca felt the flutter of guilt and panic in her throat.
In time she’d have to tell Tommy she was the reason he’d enlisted. She was the reason he’d gone overseas to a foreign country and gambled with his life. How was she to explain to him she was the reason his father died a broken heart? She was the reason for his memory loss, for who he was today—or who he wasn’t. How was she to justify everything that had happened to him was because of her?
Tommy had always protected her, always defended her, and all she’d done was to cause him pain. Had she been stronger, she would have stood up to her father and not allow Peter’s arrogance to mark Tommy’s life, and hers, in the worst possible way. When Francesca thought how different Tommy’s life would be if her father had been a better person, she couldn’t help but hate him.
Francesca laid a hand on Tommy’s arm. “I’m so sorry, Tommy, for all the pain in your life. More than that, I’m sorry you had to go through it alone.”
Steadier now, Tommy turned to her, met her gaze. There was love in her eyes, so much love—for him. “I know you love Tommy, but I’m not the Tommy you knew anymore, and I’m not sure if he’s ever coming back.”
Francesca’s eyes swam when she lifted them to his face. Who lived behind those eyes? “I know.”
“Mrs. Scott said earlier today that whatever happens, it’s God’s will that it was probably His plan for me all along. She says it was Him who steered me to you. We can’t change what’s happened, and we have to accept those events changed us forever. Even if my memory was to return, we’re not the same people we were all those years ago.”
“I know.”
“The only thing I’m certain about, and God forgive me, is that,” he framed her face, slowly combing her hair back with his fingers, “I’ve fallen in love with you all over again.”
Nothing had ever felt so good or so perfect and taking Tommy’s hand, Francesca laid it on her heart. “My heart has always been yours. I never stopped loving you,” she said, resting her brow against his. “I’ve missed you, Tommy.”
He lifted his hand to cover the one resting on his heart and felt the bond, the connection, the absolute rightness he’d felt each time he’d been with her in the past weeks. This time, however, being this close, linking fingers with hers felt magical, and his heart filled with a wonderful peace.
“If this is how wonderful it felt when we were together all those years ago, I’ve missed you too.”
“It did feel this wonderful, and it will again.”
Tommy nuzzled to her hair, breathed her scent in as he’d dreamed of doing for days. “I know it will.”
“The first time you kissed me was under the pouring rain. Grant it, it was after I threw a few potted plants at you.”
“I always figured you were a spirited woman. Did you get me?”
Francesca’s lips ripe with a smile she ran a finger over the tiny scar on his forehead. “I caused it.”
“I always wondered where it came from.” The only thought circling his head now was the sweet longing to kiss her. “I know it’s so very wrong. You’re a married woman, and I’m a man of the cloth, but right now, all I want to do is kiss you.” The shy, sweet smile that played in Tommy’s eyes made Francesca’s insides liquefy. She felt like the seventeen-year-old girl getting a taste of love for the first time.
“Then kiss me.”
“I, umm, haven’t had much practice with umm, kissing a woman.”
“It’s like riding a bicycle. It’ll come to you.” Francesca lifted her mouth to his.
Tommy’s breath caught in a gasp of shock when Francesca moved in closer, letting her lips hover so close to tasting. He wanted, needed the taste of her in him. Intuitively, Tommy wrapped his hands around Francesca’s waist and leaning in, brushed his lips to hers. Tommy kissed her slowly, ever so tenderly, as dreamily as she remembered.
His kiss filled Francesca’s heart with the love she’d wanted for so long. Tommy kindled the long-dormant fire in Francesca, and she floated in the glorious sensation, the feeling she hadn’t felt in a long, long time. He was still the man she’d fallen headlong in love with since forever.
“How was that?”
Francesca swallowed. Hard. “I think we need to try again.”
Tommy brushed the hair from her face, gazed into her eyes. “I think you’re right.”
And with that, Tommy’s mouth was on Francesca’s again. Clinging to her mouth, the kiss grew longer, deeper, more passionate when her mouth became more demanding. Feeling the quick intake of her breath, the tremble of her body Francesca shocked his system, in the best way possible.
When Francesca bit lightly on Tommy’s bottom lip, he wanted to devour. Tommy’s breath shuddered when Francesca parted his lips with her wet tongue and, in one instant, became intimate with his. The sharp, taste of her flooded through him and roused the best possible feelings in him. Like a geyser coming to life, Tommy’s emotions burst from their long slumber.
Tommy matched Francesca’s urgency, her need, and want. He was drowning in her. Something was frightening and exciting in the emotions Francesca unleashed in him, in the way she made his nerves tangle and twist.
“Father Pio is not going to be well pleased with me,” Tommy said, resting his forehead on hers.
“I’m sorry I’ve disrupted your life as much as I have.”
“I’m not.” Tommy brushed a finger up and down Francesca’s cheek. It scared him to think he needed her as much as the oxygen he breathed. “No one has made me feel as complete or as alive as you do.”
A yawn from Bear had them both turning to him. They watched Bear rise from his slumber, stretch, shake himself and walk to the French doors where he looked over with a chop-chop-I-need-to-be-walked-out stare.
Tommy’s eyes lit with laughter. “Well, we’ve been told.”
“I’ll take him out. I don’t like him roaming around by himself when he goes out this late. His name may be Bear, but he’s a pussy cat when he comes face to face with a coyote or a raccoon.”
“I’ll take him, and when I come back, you’re going to tell me all about my past.”
“All right.” Francesca handed him the lead. “I’ll light a fire and make us some hot chocolate.”
Tommy touched her lips with his. “I’ll rush back.”
Sometimes, fate hands you the death you deserve.
—M.L. Lexi
