Adrenaline (Speed Series Book 2)(8)

My eyes took in the only woman I’d ever had in my life as a mother-figure. She was a young, beautiful twenty-year-old when she first held my eight-year-old hand in hers and led me into Saint Patrick’s Orphanage. Now she stood before me as an even more beautiful thirty-seven-year-old woman, who also happened to be one of my best friends.

With a smile, I shook my head. “I’m not sure I’ll ever get used to the fact you don’t wear a habit anymore.”

With a chuckle, she wrapped her arm with mine as we made our way to the front of the church.

“I see the heaviness in your eyes, Paislie. Do you want to talk?”

At one point in my life, I told this woman everything. Every hope, desire, and dream I had floating in my head, even my wish to follow in her footsteps and become a nun.

“I was asking for forgiveness.”

“Hmm . . . for?”

My eyes closed as we sat in the front pew. “My ways.”

“I see,” she said as she looked at me. “Paislie, you’re a young woman and your ways as you call them are normal feelings that every woman has. Even me.”

Pressing my lips together, my chin trembled. “I’m not as strong as you, Elizabeth.”

“Strength has nothing to do with it. I had a calling . . . your calling is not the same as mine.”

“Do you ever wish your life was different?”

She lifted her brow as she stared intently at me. “Let’s go for a walk outside. I need to check and see how my winter garden is doing today.”

Lacing my arm with hers, we made our way out to the garden tucked behind the church.

I inhaled a deep breath of air as I let the familiar smells of this place fill my senses. After walking in silence for a few minutes, she finally spoke.

“Paislie, you let guilt fill your heart when you follow your human nature. Sex is not a bad thing and something you certainly shouldn’t feel the need to drop to your knees and ask forgiveness for.”

I swallowed hard. “What if I’m using it for all the wrong reasons?”

She lifted a brow. “You don’t have feelings for him?”

I let out a gruff laugh. “No, Elizabeth. It’s nothing like that.” Anytime we were alone and just the two of us, I called her Elizabeth. Around others from the church, she was always Sister Elizabeth. Over the years we had grown very close. With just twelve years separating us, she was more like an older sibling to me. Almost a mother figure. “It’s always been about the feeling I get out of sex. The desire to have a man want me for something . . . anything. The attention feels . . . good.”

Motioning for me to sit on a bench, she softly replied, “Oh . . . I see.”

“I’m making myself sound like a slut. Forgive my language. I haven’t slept with that many men, but more than I should have at my age. I often wonder if I’m even capable of loving someone. If I let my heart open up to them, I have a fear they’re going to leave me like my father did.”

“Everyone is capable of loving, Paislie. Don’t let what your father did to you lead you down a road you’re not meant to travel.”

I thought back to this morning with Trey. “I did meet a guy last night. We had a . . . um . . . well, we had a good time together.” I felt the heat in my cheeks as Elizabeth covered her mouth to hide her smile.

“Do you like him?”

With a shrug of my shoulders I chewed on my lip. “I think I could possibly like him. He knows how to make me . . . well . . . gosh you know sometimes it would be so much easier if you weren’t a catholic nun!”

With a giggle, she bumped my arm. “I am still a woman though. I have the same desires as you do.”

“Oh, Elizabeth I’m pretty sure your desires are nothing like mine.”

We both laughed as she nodded her head. “Most likely not. Paislie, do me one favor.”

“Anything,” I said with a smile.

“Open your heart and let your father leaving you go. You’re going to meet someone who is going to love you and want to give you every bit of happiness he can.”

Wringing my hands together, I pushed out a deep breath. “I sure hope God will let me know when I meet him. So far he has given me no clues.”

Standing, she reached for my hand. “Trust me. He will. Now help me pick some of this squash. You can take some home with you.”

My heart always felt so much lighter after visiting with Elizabeth. If only I thought the words she spoke were true.





February

“STAY CLEAR OF THAT DEBRIS around turn four,” Dalton said as I focused on my line.

“Yep.”

“Number eighteen is two car lengths ahead,” Russ, my spotter said.

Gripping the steering wheel, I had four laps to try and pass the eighteen car to win the Daytona 500.

“Seventy-eight is coming up on your inside.”

“The f*ck he is,” I said as I hit the gas more.

“We’ve only got three laps to go, Malcolm. Easy.”

“Easy? It’s the f*cking Daytona 500, Dalton.”

“Where is he?” I yelled out to Russ.

“Lap traffic has slowed him down; looks like you were half a second faster on that last lap.”

Dalton calmly stated, “Keep doing what you’re doing, buddy. We’ll get him.”