"He was messing with kids?"

"Rumors circulated that one of the school officials, another Jesuit, was attempting to hide doc.u.ments from the plaintiff"s attorney, who was suing the school and others in civil court."

"What happened?"

"I called the attorney and told them everything I knew, everything I"d heard and everything to ask for during the discovery process."

"You ratted out another Jesuit to lawyers? Jesus Christ, how big are your b.a.l.l.s?" Her father had "friends" who got themselves killed talking to cops or lawyers.

S0ren laughed softly.

"I believe those were the exact words my superior said to me. But he didn"t smile when he said it like you did. I"m not telling you this story to impress you or shock you. I"m telling you this so you know why I"m here. I was to spend two weeks in New York visiting friends and family before being sent to India. Instead I"m here at this tiny parish in a tiny town in Connecticut."

"Oh, s.h.i.t. You got in trouble."

"Me being here is the Catholic equivalent of "go stand in the corner and think about what you"ve done.""

"So you"re not letting kids in your office because-"

"Of St. Paul and First Thessalonians 5:22. "Abstain from every appearance of evil.""

"I guess having kids in the office could look bad."

S0ren rearranged some books in the box to make room for two more.

"It could. I"m afraid Father Gregory was slightly lax in those areas. Of course, from everything I"ve heard of him, he was a good and gentle man."

"He was."

"I"m an unknown integer here, however. Being alone with a seventy-year-old priest and a twenty-nine-year-old priest give two entirely different appearances."

"Doesn"t help that you"re like the hottest priest on the planet."

S0ren looked up sharply at her. Eleanor went pale.

"I said that out loud."

"Should I pretend I didn"t hear it?"

Eleanor thought about his offer as the blush stared to fade from her cheeks.

"I said it. I"ll go say some Hail Marys."

"Finding another person attractive isn"t a sin."

"It isn"t?"

"Desire is not a sin," S0ren said, sitting on his desk and facing her. "Fantasy is not a sin. Sins are acts of commission or omission. Either you do some act you"re not supposed to do. For example, shooting someone. Or you fail to do an act you should do. For example, not giving alms to the poor. Finding someone attractive is no more a sin than standing on a balcony and enjoying a lovely view of the ocean."

"What"s l.u.s.t, then?"

"You ask excellent questions. These are the questions of a young woman who is not of the lip-biting variety."

"I"m going to bite my lip out of spite from now on."

"That is exactly what I knew you would do. Would you like me to answer your question?"

"About l.u.s.t? Yeah."

"Let"s go into the sanctuary. You can sit down there."

"I don"t mind standing."

"You"re wearing combat boots."

"They"re comfy."

"Where does a young lady in Wakefield, Connecticut, purchase combat boots?"

"Goodwill," she said.

"You"re wearing Goodwill combat boots?"

"Yes."

"Congratulations, Eleanor. Your footwear has achieved irony."

Before she could ask him what he meant by that, he stepped past her. She spun around on the heel of her Goodwill combat boots and followed S0ren to the sanctuary. He opened the doors, putting the stoppers down to keep them open.

"You"re really into this "avoiding any appearance of evil" thing, aren"t you?"

"I am. I wouldn"t want either of us accused of anything we hadn"t done."

"What if it"s something we have done?" she asked, kneeling backward on one of the pews to face S0ren, who was seated in the row behind her.

"That"s an entirely different situation. But we"re talking l.u.s.t."

"I"m l.u.s.ting for your answer."

"You aren"t, actually." He gave her a steady gaze with his unyielding eyes. "You"re simply desiring my answer. l.u.s.t is overwhelming or uncontrollable desire that leads to sin. A man might desire another man"s wife. It happens. The question he has to ask himself is, given the chance, will he act on his desires? Will he try to seduce her the first time they"re alone? Will he attack her? If she came on to him, would he give in? Or would he honor her marital state, politely tell her no and suggest she and her husband go to counseling?"

"So it"s a matter of how much you want something that"s the difference between love and l.u.s.t?"

"Partly. But it"s not only a question of degree of desire, but what you do with it. If I were to find a young woman stunningly attractive, intriguing and intelligent, then I will not have committed a sin. I could take that to my confessor, and he"d laugh and tell me not to come back and see him until I had something worth confessing. Now, if I acted on my attraction to this young woman, then we might have a problem."

"Or a really good evening." She grinned at him. S0ren c.o.c.ked an eyebrow at her. "I mean, a really sinful evening."

"Better."

"So it"s okay to desire someone as long as you don"t act on it?"

"There are many situations when acting on one"s desires is not a sin."

"Married couples, right? They can have s.e.x all they want."

"Married couples can certainly engage in s.e.xual acts with each other."

"And ..." Eleanor waved her hand, hoping for more to the answer. "n.o.body else? The rest of us are screwed? I mean, not screwed?"

"I believe that is a question for your own conscience. I"m not dogmatic when it comes to s.e.xual behavior in the modern world. The church can proscribe anything and everything it wants to, but the church is still made up entirely of human beings. Heaping rule upon rule on our congregations isn"t going to make anyone holier. It"ll serve only to add to the guilt that is endemic in our churches."

Eleanor pointed at the sanctuary doors.

"You said five minutes ago you were imposing new rules on the church."

"The rules are not for the church. They are for me. If I were to allow you and I to be alone together in my office, I would be breaking the rule, not you."

"So what are all these rules?"

"Nothing burdensome, I promise. Actually, you might be able to help me with one of them. I have a feeling it"s not going to go over well."

"Oh, no. What are you doing?" Eleanor knew her church well enough to know any sort of big change would be met with fear, anger and confusion. She couldn"t wait to see everyone freak out.

"The rectory. I"m closing it off to parishioners."

"Whoa. Wait. You"re closing the rectory?"

"No church members will be allowed inside it."

Eleanor"s eyes nearly fell out of her skull.

"I take it from you look of wild-eyed horror that such a declaration will ruffle a few feathers?" S0ren asked, a slight smile on his lips. He didn"t seem the least bothered by the prospect.

"If you turned the church into a McDonald"s, that would ruffle some feathers. This is going to ruffle the whole f.u.c.king turkey. Pardon my French."

"Pardoned."

"Why close the rectory? The church uses it all the time."

"This church has a sanctuary, a chapel and a large annex. There"s no need to use the rectory for church services. I, however, will need a home. I"ll no more hear confessions in my bedroom than I"ll take a bath in my office."

He said the words without a hint of flirtatiousness, but that didn"t stop Eleanor from mentally conjuring the image of S0ren lying wet and naked in a bathtub. Or was it laying wet and naked?

"Eleanor?"

"Sorry. I was trying to remember when you"re supposed to use lay versus lie," she lied.

"Lay requires a direct object and lie does not."

"Oh, that makes perfect sense. Thank you. Also, no. You can"t close the rectory. You"re going to p.i.s.s off the entire church."

"I had a feeling. Your prayer service you"re supposed to be at is meeting at the rectory right now. A sanctuary, a chapel, and for some reason neither of those will work."

"The rectory is cozier. Father Greg always had snacks."

S0ren tapped his knee. "That"s unfortunate, but I"ve made up my mind. It"s important for a pastor to have strong boundaries with his church. I"ll do my best to explain my logic to them."

"Logic? You"re going to use logic on Catholics?"

"Do you have a better idea?" From anyone else, the question would have sounded sarcastic or like a challenge. But instead from S0ren it sounded like a genuine question. If she had a better idea, he wanted to know it.

"Look, I know these people. I grew up with them. They don"t really like outsiders. Everyone"s already freaking out that you"re a Jesuit instead of a regular priest."

"They"re afraid of Jesuits?"

"They say Jesuits are really ..." Eleanor waved her hand to beckon S0ren forward. He leaned in and she put her mouth at his ear. "Liberal."

S0ren pulled back and looked her in the eyes.

"I have to tell you a secret." She leaned in again toward S0ren and inhaled. In that inhale she smelled winter, clean and cold, and briefly she wondered if someone had left a window open. "We are liberal."

He sat back in the pew again and brought a finger to his lips.

"But you didn"t hear that from me," he said and gave her a wink. Eleanor"s body temperature, already running a low-grade fever from being in the same room as him, shot up even higher. "But that"s beside the point. You were going to give me a better idea than logic."

"Yeah ... no. Logic won"t work. What might work is if you trick the church into thinking closing off the rectory was their idea."

"How so?"

She shrugged and raised her hands. "I don"t know. Tell them you heard from concerned members of the church who want more rules and safety procedures or whatever?" They were always talking about safety procedures at school. "And you can say you heard the cry of the people and have decided to take their advice and add some new rules so you can keep everyone safe and avoid all appearance of evil. n.o.body wants to be in a church with a scandal, right? You"re doing what they asked."

S0ren raised his fingers to his mouth and slowly stroked his bottom lip. It seemed an unconscious gesture, as unconscious as her lip-biting. But whereas her lip-biting apparently made her look like an idiot, his lip-caressing made her want to straddle his lap, wrap her arms around him and put her tongue down his throat.

"So you"re telling me I should manipulate the church into thinking that closing the rectory was a suggestion they made me?"

"Or just flat-out lie. Or lay. Whatever."

"I could lie. That would be a sin, but I appreciate that suggestion."

"You don"t sin?"

"I try not to."

"I don"t."

"You don"t sin?" S0ren sounded so skeptical she would have been insulted if he weren"t entirely right to be that skeptical.

"No, I don"t try to not sin."