“Daddy? Were there dinosaurs on the ark?” I asked.

Still kneeling in the pew, my father turned toward me with a stern look and put his index finger to his lips. I’d interrupted him praying again, but I had so many questions that I couldn’t possibly remember them all or keep them in my head.

Leo at preschool said that dinosaurs didn’t exist. I knew that was a lie because I’d seen their skeletons in museums – which Leo said were also fake. He also said that if dinosaurs were real, they would have been saved on the ark.

My father resumed his prayer, and I swung my feet back and forth, patiently waiting. I wasn’t tall enough to reach the floor just yet, but I could touch the kneeler with my tiptoes. And if I stood on it, I looked like a third grader at least.

When my father was done praying, he sat down beside me and put his arm around me. I liked it when he did that.

“Dinosaurs on the ark, you ask?”

My eyes opened wide.

“They say the dinosaurs all died before the ark was built, and that’s why Noah couldn’t take any with him.”

And now my mouth dropped open. My father knew everything.

“How do you know?”

“Because I pray.” He answered in the same way I’d heard him answer before.

“Really, Daddy?”

“Yes. God has all the answers. We may not hear them all the time, but he hears us. And if we have a question, He’ll guide you in life to help you seek the answers.”

“You should ask God why Mommy is upset with you.”

“Is she? Hmm, maybe I should ask Him so. In the meantime, I love you. Both your mom and I do.”

It made me feel all nice and warm on the inside when my parents told me they loved me. Despite their fights, they always hugged me and my brothers.

“What do you say to God?” I asked.

“You know your prayers, son.”

“But when I want to say other stuff.”

“Then you talk to Him as if He were sitting beside you, the way I am, listening.”

“And He’ll listen?”

“Always.”

Present day

I knelt in front of the cross and lowered my head.

He’ll always listen.

“Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. It’s been…” I took a deep breath, then released it. “It’s been a long time since my last confession.”

To be honest… actually, I couldn’t remember the last time I was honest with myself. So much had happened in the past few months that I could barely remember my mission: to find Aaron Cortez before he found me. To set up a trap for one of the most powerful cartel operations in the country and to find the woman who’d stolen my father’s heart. The more I dug through the papers in the attic and spoke to Father John, the more evidence I found of Kate’s mother’s involvement with the Cortez family, and that scared me; though if Father John wasn’t aware of Kate, maybe the Cortezes weren’t either. Maybe that’s why her mother had never returned. She’d already lost one child in Pace, and my gut told me that she didn’t want to lose another.

She’s kept Kate hidden.

The gentle sound of footsteps approached from behind.

Right on time.

I made the sign of the cross, stood up, and turned around. Kate was standing in the chapel’s doorway, and she looked not only gorgeous but sinful. God was definitely not making this job easy on me.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt,” she said.

“It’s all right. You didn’t. I’m glad you found my note.”

“You beat me to the punch, Father Cameron. I was going to come by here today.”

She came closer, removed her sunglasses, and placed them on top of her head. The gesture seemed oddly familiar, and I had a déjà vu moment. I followed her gaze as she looked around the chapel. Small glass-stained windows decorated the sides, and a larger clear one right across from the entrance illuminated the space with natural light, giving it plenty of peace and warmth. The little chapel had been on my mind since Father John first mentioned it, and I’d wanted to come here as soon as we returned from the retreat last night.

“I wouldn’t expect you not to. Did you see the inscription over the door?”

“Yeah. My mother used to say those words all the time.”

“That would explain the tattoo, then; but where are the gravestones? Father John said there was a crypt here.”

Our gazes slowly fell to the floor. I watched her lightly open her mouth. Her response drifted on her quiet breath, with a barely audible note, “I don’t know.”

She was looking around the chapel, slowly approaching the cross, and I wanted to know what thoughts were behind that look of curiosity on her face. Her breathing was deep, but that could have been because of the hot weather. The thicker vein at the side of her neck pulsed impatiently. I watched her kneel where I had earlier. She made the sign of the cross and closed her eyes. I focused on her lips as they gently moved to the whisper of her prayer. Her beauty stirred something new and raw in my heart.

I shut my eyes, turned around, and stepped to the side, where I hoped to refocus. The boards shifted under my weight, and I looked down at the floor. There appeared to be a hollow opening underneath. I quickly turned around and bumped into Kate.

“I’m sorry,” we said at the same time, but neither of us moved.

Her front was pressed against mine and she just stood there, her body frozen with shock and her eyes wide open, looking up at me. She looked beautiful and innocent.

“Are you okay?” I whispered.

“Yeah…” her voice trembled. Kate cleared her throat and moved back, her gaze darting sideways. That same board I stepped over a moment ago squeaked again, slightly shifting underneath us, and so I crouched down.

“There’s something under here.” I tugged at the side of the board. The nails gave way, sliding out of their spots as if they were lifting from sand. I looked up. “It’s probably the crypt.”

I grabbed the second board.

“That’s vandalism. What are you doing?” Kate stepped to the side, and I pulled on that one as well.

“They often say that the dead take a lot of secrets to the grave with them. Let’s see what secrets are hiding underneath the chapel.”

“Father Cameron, this is a holy place. We shouldn’t disturb it. I don’t know about you, but I sure as heck don’t want to disturb the dead.”

She was right. I wasn’t acting in an expected way. I was so driven by this need to know more about Kate and her family that I was beginning to make stupid mistakes. “I’m sorry. You’re right.”

Kate kept her gaze on the hole in the floor and the set of wooden stairs that led downstairs.

“Does that mean you don’t want to know what’s hidden underneath?” I finally asked, and watched as she bit her lip.

After a quick moment, she pointed her finger to the next board, saying, “Get another one off so we can both fit in. If it’s my grandparents’ resting place, then I should see where they’re buried. But why is the staircase sealed off?”

“Maybe someone was trying to hide a secret?”

“Okay, okay. Let’s see what’s underneath.”

I lifted the next three boards and removed the flashlight I had in my back pocket. Before I had a chance to stack all the boards against the wall, Kate was already on the third step, making her way down. I cleared my throat. She stopped, turned around, and I passed her the flashlight.

“Is there something wrong with me that I don’t think this is creepy?”

“If here’s something wrong with you, then there’s something wrong with me as well.”

I don’t know why, but I found her lack of fear sexy. Sometimes she looked more afraid than she really was, like when she had watched me climb the spruce at the retreat; and then other times, like now, Kate managed to cross a new line of fear I would never have expected her to. It was like she was someone else.

“It’s cool down here,” she whispered.

“You don’t have to whisper, Kate. I don’t think anyone’s here.”

“Don’t be rude to those departed,” she said in a warning tone.

“I’m sorry.”

Was I really apologizing to her now, in a crypt underneath a chapel? I shook my head and searched the floor where I could barely see my feet. The little light creeping in between the loose boards above us was barely enough.

“If this is a crypt, then where are the bodies?” she asked.

“Try further down, against the back wall.” I pointed, though I wasn’t sure if she could even see my hand.

I heard her gasp. I hadn’t realized that she’d also stopped, and so I’d walked right into her, pushing her forward. I heard a thud and she yelped out in pain.

“I’m sorry. Are you okay?” I asked.

“Yeah, just my shin. I walked into something.”

So did I. I walked into her, and having her standing so close to me now with her ass right in front of me, an ass I just bumped into, was almost painful. At least my body’s reaction to this woman was now hidden by the darkness.

I followed the guidance of her flashlight as she lowered it to the ground. A granite tombstone, not larger than four feet, rested on the ground. She shone the light down, then to the side at two larger tombstones.

“Mikey Hernandez,” she read out loud. “Wait a minute. What is this? Hernandez?” she asked, then shone her light back to the two larger resting places, then back down to the small one.

“Father John and your mother had a son,” I explained.

“You knew about this?” She turned around.

“He told me at the retreat. I wasn’t sure how to tell you that you didn’t have a brother, but a half-brother. I wanted to see his grave first, though, to confirm.”

“Wait – Father John could have been my step-father?”

If she wasn’t seeing where I was going with this, then I’d have to spell it out for her.

“I don’t think that’s how it works, Kate. Father John didn’t know about you. This happened the year before you were born.”

“Which means that I was conceived that same year he died.”

“That’s what it looks like.” I grinned. Would she get it? Would she realize there was a possibility of Father John being her actual father, and neither of them knew?

She shook her head. “How did I not know anything about this? Why wouldn’t my mother tell me?”

Come on, Kate.

“I think she was trying to protect you from Cortez. I think that’s why she ran away from Pace and John. She lost a son, and she blamed Mikey’s death on Benjamin Cortez.”

“Oh, my God.” She gently touched my hand. “Father John could be… their son died, and she left the year before I was born.”

“Did your father ever tell you a story about how they met?”

“No, never. But she said she’d felt a connection from the moment they saw each other.” I felt her hot breath at the side of my arm. It carried anxiety and fear of the unknown.

“It’s true, then. Father John and my mother had a son.”

I didn’t count the minutes that we stood in silence as it was a much-needed silence. There was no longer a need to bring up the fact that Father John could be her father. I couldn’t even imagine how lost Kate must have been feeling at the moment. She’d came to her mother’s hometown which she didn’t know had her family roots, and then found out that her mother had been involved with a priest, and had to run away from a cartel. The irony was definitely not lost on me; if history did in fact repeat itself, then it had a strange sense of humor.

And if history took it too far, I was afraid that Kate could end up on the run from Mateo Cortez or his son, just the way her mother had.

“Kate? Are you all right?”

“For the first time in my life, I don’t think I am.”

She turned around and rammed into me with full force, throwing her arms around me. I held her against me, smoothing my hand up and down her back.

“Shh, it’s okay. You’re still the same wonderful Kate that I know.”

But she shook her head and pulled her nose upward over my shirt. I knew I was looking down at her, right into her eyes, but I could barely see her; yet there she was, even in the darkness, still the most beautiful creature I’d ever met.

“I just feel like my entire life has been a lie, you know. Everything I’ve been told is one big lie.”

“Not everything,” I lied. The only true fact was that I was a good liar.

Something crashed above us. Kate grabbed me around my waist and dug her fingers into my ribs. My arms instinctively flew around her, shielding her. Dust fell through between the wooden boards, disturbing the streams of faint light squeezing between the slits.

One of the boards leaning against the wall must have fallen over. Its crash echoed through the chapel, ringing in my ears until there was nothing but silence.

Silence and us.

And for the first time in a long time I felt like a man again. I felt like it was my duty to protect her. There was a need inside of me to make sure that nothing ever happened to this woman. And then there was another need — a more physical one. I could feel her breasts rising and falling as she clung to my body. The heat of her skin, the smell of her breath, the vibration of her nerves camouflaged as small trembles in her thighs — they all aroused me. Everything about her aroused me.

“Kate, you should stay away from me.”

“What if I don’t want to?”

Her voice, full of desire and need, was singing the exact song my dick wanted to hear.

“Kate, I’m warning you.”

“Why?”

She tightened her grip around me, her curves molding against my chest, her hips pushing forward until I could feel my rock-solid dick press into her soft triangle. It was painful and beautiful at the same time.

“That’s why.”

I seized her mouth with mine and finally discovered what she tasted like.