Chapter Four
Delilah
“Lord that smells good, Christina.”
My father beams as he sticks his head into the steaming kitchen full of bubbling, simmering pots. My mama flashes him a smile, but her face is tense. “Well, I wish we’d discussed it first before you invited a preacher over for dinner, Jeb,” she says with concern. She frowns and bustles past me, checking the gravy, peeping into the oven at the roast, and quick-stirring the green beans simmering in butter and sugar in a pan.
“I mean, he lives in a Winnebago,” I shrug. “I’m sure it’s going to be—”
“Delilah May!” my mother says in a shocked, scandalized way. She brandishes a wooden spoon at me. “Don’t you dare speak of a man of God like that! Preacher Gabriel has humbled himself before the Lord in order that he may travel this great country spreading His word!”
“Yeah, jeez, a little charity, Lah-lah,” Paul, my older brother, throws in from the other room.
“Paul, shut up.”
He chuckles and my mother even cracks a grin. But papa frowns.
“Alright, that’s enough of that. Paul, call your sister by her God-given name, please. And Delilah, honey, please show a little respect for a wonderful, pious, and Godly man like Gabriel. Christina, sweetheart, the roast smells divine, and he’s going to love every bite of it, just like we all are.” He smiles and crosses the kitchen to kiss my mother’s cheek before he ducks back out.
A wonderful, pious, and Godly man. Yeah, right. They’re all so excited for Gabriel to come for dinner, even the perpetually sullen Paul. And they all see him exactly how they want to see him, and how I’m willing to bet he’s gone to great trouble to make them see him.
…But I know.
I know what they don’t know. I shiver at the memory, and again, that horrible, forbidden, wicked heat wells upside me before I tamp it down like rogue campfire. No. Lord, no. Gabriel isn’t a good man. He’s not a Godly man, that’s for darn sure. He’s… wicked. And sinful. I shiver again as my mind goes back to the baptism tub. I think about his big hands on me and helping me under. But then I remember slipping, and falling into him, and suddenly, I remember… it.
My face goes red, and I suck my bottom lip between my teeth as I stir the gravy. I remember what I felt when I fell against this “pious man of God.” I remember what throbbed against me, under the water, sending sin blazing through my core.
…Men of God don’t get erections when spreading His word. They don’t get aroused while baptizing their flock.
I shiver, and another voice in me says that good Christian girls don’t get excited either when they do feel something like that pressing against them. I quickly blush and swallow the thought back, trying to take a breath.
What I felt today is something I’ve never felt before. But I know what it is. Canaan might be bit more conservative and religious than other places in this country—I mean, I don’t live in a bubble, and I do have an iPhone, and the internet. But while we might be a bit more old-fashioned down here, we do learn about, well, the anatomy of conception in school. I know that men get… hard, uh, down there, when they’re aroused. But I also know darn well that a preacher should not be getting like that in the middle of a baptism.
And you shouldn’t be so excited about it, the voice in my head spits back. I want to deny it, or claim that I’m just incensed, or scandalized. But those aren’t really the right words for it, and I’ve sinned enough today without adding lying to the mix.
No, the word is “excited,” even as horrible as that is. I was excited when I fell into the roguishly handsome, sinfully good-looking man with the broad shoulders, big hands, and tantalizingly wicked tattoo ink. The man with the dark hair, the square jaw, and the piercing blue eyes that looked right into my very soul.
But, my own sins of faltering into the temptations of the flesh aside, I know what the rest of my family doesn’t: that Preacher Gabriel Marsden is a wicked, sinful man. I even wonder if he’s a preacher at all.
The spoon in my hand stirs the gravy on autopilot as I slip deeper into my thoughts, and of thinking of Gabriel. I’ve never felt this scandalized before. But the worst part of it is, it’s not an altogether unwanted scandal. It’s like the feelings of the forbidden that his touch today brought out in me are something I want more of. But I quickly try and squash them down yet again.
No. I’ve had thoughts like that before and felt the things they do to my body and my soul before. Sinful, horrible things, too. I’m ashamed to say I’ve given in to them before, too, on occasion. There’ve been times when the wickedness of my own mind was too powerful, and I… well, I touched myself, there, because of them.
Thankfully, every time that’s happened, I’ve managed to pull myself back from the brink of damnation. But those other times, we still had a church in town. Those other times, I could run there on Sunday and soak in His holy spirit and Word and read the passages chosen for the day as hard as I could in order to cleanse the wickedness from my heart.
But there’s no church in Canaan anymore, after Pastor Michaels took the job in Athens and the rickety building he was holding services in here was finally deemed unsafe. The only church is the one we infrequently go to in Huntington Parish. And now, the only one in town is his—Gabriel Marsden’s wicked Church of Carnal Sin and Eternal Damnation.
“Delilah!”
I snap out of it and gasp at my mother’s call. I look down and realize I’ve forgotten to keep stirring, and the gravy is getting too thick.
“Sorry, mama,” I mutter and keep stirring, bringing it back to creaminess just in time.
I frown. See, these are not the sort of thoughts a preacher should be instilling in his flock. And yet, this is the very man who’s coming to freaking dinner at our house, tonight. The man doesn’t instill righteousness and Godliness in me. The thoughts in my head are wicked, sinful ones, and he’s the one who’s put them there.
As if on cue, the doorbell rings, and my heart skips a beat.
“Honey, would you get that?” my mother says from the dining room where she’s setting out plates.