After dinner, Faith cleared the dishes. For some reason, even though her family had done their share of the work, clearing the table while the rest of them got to sit and relax and digest their meals always gave her a Cinderella complex. She stuck her tongue out at Frank as he made a point of leaning back in his chair and patting his full stomach when she picked up his dinner plate.

“Here, let me help with that.”

All conversation came to an abrupt stop at Father Michael’s offer. Faith used the moment of surprise to thwart her mother’s protest that guests didn’t help with the dishes. She gave him a grin hoping she didn’t resemble the cat that ate the canary too much, and shoved some dishes into his hands. “Thanks.”

“Faith!” Of course her mother couldn’t just let it go. “We do not make guests do cleanup duty. Father Michael, please, please, sit down. Faith can take care of the dishes.”

“Really, Mrs. Leary, I don’t mind. I’m afraid after that delicious meal, if I don’t move myself now, I may still be in that chair come next Thanksgiving.”

“And, Mom, I pay rent for an apartment across town. So if you want to get technical….”

Faith let the notion she was a guest in her mother’s home hang there and made a dash for the kitchen, her arms loaded with gravy and mashed potato smeared plates. She didn’t want to make too much of a point of being a guest because that would come back and bite her in the rear end. Like next time she was low on funds and decided her mother’s kitchen was a better option for grocery shopping than the market on the corner.

Father Michael wasn’t far behind Faith with his own stack of plates. As much as she appreciated the help, she knew her conscience wouldn’t allow her to go on without offering him an out.

Dang conscience. Who invented those anyway?

“Father Michael, you really don’t have to help. I know I passed you those plates awfully fast, but it was really more to….” Faith stopped, aware of what she was about to confess. And to a priest, no less. But really, who better to confess to?

“You wanted to see if you could get your mother’s head to do a complete three-sixty?” He offered her a wicked grin, and his words showed there was no need for her to finish her confession. “Don’t worry about it. Last Christmas I hid the baby Jesus from my mother’s nativity scene just for kicks.”

Faith let out a gasp before bursting into giggles. Father Michael wasn’t like any priest she’d met before. And since this was her mother’s third or fourth lap around this particular religion, she’d met quite a few.

“Oh, and please,” he added, “just Michael is fine.”

Faith smiled at “just Michael” for a few beats as her mind danced over exactly what she’d like to do with the handsome, smiling man in front of her if he really was just Michael. Then she caught herself mid-stare, wearing what was sure to be a dopey grin. She cleared her throat. “Umm, well, thanks. I appreciate the help.”

They finished clearing the table and stood companionably at the sink, rinsing dishes and cutlery and lining them up in the dishwasher. Faith kept waiting for her mother to hop up from the table and take the dishes from Michael, but after her initial protest, she seemed strangely okay with having the two of them take on cleanup duty.

“So, I guess it’s obvious what I do for a living,” Michael said. If Faith hadn’t known before dinner, the conversation they had over turkey and stuffing would have cleared it right up. Or, more like, the interrogation. Her grandmother was fascinated with the idea of turning water into wine and seemed to think Michael himself had the ability. “What do you do?”

Ah, the dreaded question. At heart she was a musician, but her gigs were few and far between these days, and to tell the truth, none of them paid enough to fit the bill of “making a living.” So while she wanted to blurt out that she was a singer and guitarist, for some reason she felt compelled to be completely honest with him.

“I’m a singer. I have a band I play with a few times a month. To make ends meet, I pick up odd jobs. Like right now I work for three elderly people who hired me to walk their dogs and run errands for them.”

When she looked at him from the corner of her eyes, he was nodding. He’d rolled up his sleeves and plunged his hands into the soapy water to scrub a pot. Didn’t seem fair that those sinewy muscles and the dark sprinkling of hair on his forearms belonged to a priest.

“Do you play any instruments?” he asked.

Faith loved that he jumped into a discussion about her music. Most people seemed to focus on the odd jobs part, often wondering out loud how a woman her age could make a living like that.

“I play a bunch.” She closed the dishwasher and punched the button to get it running before heading to the coffee maker. Since her yearlong stint as a barista at the local Starbucks, making coffee was one of the few domestic chores her mother entrusted her with. “Mainly the guitar, though. And I sing and write songs.”

“Wow. What kind of stuff do you play?”

A switch flipped inside Faith. She loved talking music. As she and Michael finished up the last of the pots and pans, she mentally jumped up and down as he talked knowledgeably about several of her favorite bands. The joy dimmed just a bit when again it popped into her head how perfect for her he seemed. Her earlier words to her brother came back to haunt her. He’s taken.

* * *

“Father Michael,” Grandma asked around a mouthful of chocolate cream pie, “how come you get time off on Thanksgiving? Shouldn’t you be feeding the homeless at some soup kitchen or something?”

“Mother, really.”

Faith shoveled a heaping forkful of pumpkin pie into her mouth to avoid snickering at her mother’s outrage.

“What?” Her grandmother demanded. “Isn’t that what most priests do on Thanksgiving?”

“She’s right.” Michael poured a hefty dollop of cream into his coffee. “Volunteering on Thanksgiving has become pretty common. Actually that’s why I’m not doing it this year.”

“Really?” Maddie’s voice came out just a tiny bit breathless. Faith wrinkled her nose as her sister leaned slightly closer to Michael and looked up at him through her lashes.

Michael looked down with a friendly smile. “Yes, we realized a few years ago we didn’t get much of a turnout when we served Thanksgiving dinner. There are enough churches and restaurants around the city serving dinner to the homeless or anyone who can’t afford a decent meal on Thanksgiving.”

“Oh, that’s so interesting.” Maddie leaned in and placed her hand on Michael’s sleeve.

What was going on here? Faith gritted her teeth and worked on convincing herself her sister was not flirting with a priest. Never mind that some of her own interactions with him had leaned in that direction.

“We also noticed we had more people than usual coming to the church’s soup kitchen and pantry the weekend after Thanksgiving and far fewer volunteers than we normally have. So we decided to close on Thanksgiving and recruit more volunteers for the weekend after.”

“What a wonderful idea,” Maddie said, again with the breathless voice.

Faith barely restrained herself from jumping over the table and stabbing her sister’s hand—still planted on Michael’s sleeve—with her fork.

“It is lovely,” Faith’s mom agreed. “We’ve often talked about volunteering on Thanksgiving.”

We have? Faith couldn’t imagine doing anything but what they were doing right now on Thanksgiving. Every Thanksgiving had been exactly the same as far back as she could remember. In fact, she’d bet good money her mother would become apoplectic at just the mention of doing anything else.

“Well, I know it’s too late to help on Thanksgiving Day,” Michael said, “but we’d be more than happy to have your help this weekend. We open early and stay open late all three days. We need help cooking and serving, cleaning, and making up boxes of donated groceries for families to take home.”

Faith kept her laughter to herself as she swung her head to see her mother’s reaction to being caught by her own words.

“That’s a wonderful idea. I think we should all plan on volunteering this weekend.”

“What?” Faith dropped her fork on her plate.

“We all have the weekend off,” her mother said. “We can be at the church to volunteer. It’ll be a lovely family activity.”

“I agree.” Maddie smiled up at Michael. “I’d love to help.”

“We could go for a few hours and help serve food, couldn’t we?” Faith’s grandfather hopped up from the table and went around to pat his wife’s hand. Then he slowly slid his fingers up along her arm. Her grandmother’s words of agreement were lost in a giggle as he began nibbling on her neck.

“If those two keep it up, all the homeless people will lose their appetites,” Frank leaned over and whispered to Faith.

Faith nodded, but didn’t take her eyes off the elderly couple necking at the end of the table. It was like a train wreck. No matter how much you might want to, you just couldn’t look away.

“And you two will be there, too,” Faith’s mother said.

Faith finally pulled her gaze from her grandparents at her mother’s command. She stared right at Faith and Frank, leaving no doubt who she was referring to.

“Sorry, Mom, I’d love to, but I’m on call all weekend. It was the only way I could get today off.” Frank was an intern at New York-Presbyterian. It amazed Faith how much of her brother’s behavior her mother overlooked now that he was a doctor.

Her mother turned the full force of her scrutiny on Faith. Not having a medical degree to back her up, Faith’s mind scrambled for an excuse to get out of volunteering. Spending time with a man she found charming, witty and incredibly sexy was something she’d usually jump at, especially given the dry spell she’d been going through lately. But given the object of her interest was a priest, she thought it better to pass. She was on the receiving end of her mother’s wrath often enough. She didn’t need to get on God’s bad side, too.

But she couldn’t seem to come up with a credible objection fast enough. She opened her mouth, but was cut off before she got so much as one word out.

“You’re going, Faith.” Her mother’s raised eyebrow told Faith objecting was futile.

“Fine,” Faith huffed out. Nothing like being reduced to a child in front of company. She’d just have to find a way to avoid Father Michael this weekend.

“Yay!” Maddie actually clapped her hands. “Father Michael, can I cook something to bring? I have a wonderful lasagna recipe.”

Faith and Frank shared a quick look. Of course her sister had an amazing lasagna recipe. Watching her sister bubble over while she shared all her ideas for the coming weekend, Faith rolled her eyes then narrowed them as her sister reached out to touch Michael again.

After dessert Maddie jumped up to help clear the table. Of course, she ran to grab Michael’s plate first. “Relax, Father Michael. You’ve done more than enough, helping with the dinner dishes.”

“What are you doing?” Faith hissed when she and her sister were alone in the kitchen.

“What are you talking about?” Maddie perched on the edge of the breakfast bar while Faith filled the sink with hot, soapy water.

“You’re…you’re flirting with Father Michael.”

“Oh, that.” Her sister’s smile reminded Faith of the Mona Lisa.

“Yes, that. What are you thinking?”

“He’s attractive.” Maddie shrugged.

“Maddie, you’re supposed to be the good one. Even I know nothing good can come from flirting with a priest. Hello, remember the Thorn Birds?”

“He’s not that kind of priest. Honestly.”

Faith could almost see the exasperation dripping from her sister’s words. But she gave her own smile and pulled out one of her secret weapons in the face of Maddie’s condescending tone. “Honestly, Maddie, you sound more like mom every day.”

Maddie gasped.

Score. But it would take more than a little bit of sibling in-fighting to distract Faith from Maddie’s comment. “What do you mean he’s not that kind of priest?”

“He’s not a Catholic priest. Those are the ones that give up women. He’s the other kind. Episcopalian.”

Faith wracked her brain to remember anything about Episcopalians. It had been awhile since her mother explored that particular religion. Her mind flipped through scenes of various family dinners when her mother had entertained people from whatever church was holding her interest that season. Episcopalian. Episcopalian.

Her mind settled on a picture of a short, white-haired man with a kind smile. Her mother had invited him for dinner once, but he hadn’t arrived alone. Faith closed her eyes as she pictured him walking into the living room and being introduced to everyone. And then he’d introduced everyone to his….Wife!

Episcopalian priests weren’t celibate. They could date and marry. Father Michael. Her Father Michael could date.