Hot Under His Collar by ANDIE J. CHRISTOPHER

Author:ANDIE J. CHRISTOPHER [Christopher, Andie J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2021-07-20T00:00:00+00:00

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SASHA WAS ALWAYS WALKING into Dooley’s when Patrick was least expecting it. It was as though she knew when his resolve not to think about her was weak. Actually, that was a lie—he’d added lies to his list of sins. His resolve not to think about Sasha was always weak.

Sister Cortona’s words ran through his head and mingled and rioted with thoughts of Sasha and the way she’d looked reading to the preschool kids. He looked at her and saw forever, and it was wrong, wrong, wrong.

She’d left a couple of phone messages with ideas for another event to raise money. He’d saved them and listened to them over and over, lying and telling himself that he needed to hear her voice to properly mull over her ideas.

After his conversation with Bishop Rafferty, he’d been feeling like the whole enterprise was for naught. All the community outreach he’d done over the past few years, trying to get people to give the Catholic Church another chance, was based on the premise that he could do something to make the Church more welcoming. Not that he could change canon law, but that he could make a difference around the edges.

Intellectually, he’d known he was wrong about his individual efforts to make change for a while, but the conversation with Rafferty had really driven it home. And his ambivalent feelings about the Church were now all wrapped up with his growing feelings for Sasha.

He didn’t really doubt his calling anymore. He had the growing suspicion that it was bullshit. His mind was scrambled. And he would probably think more clearly if he didn’t have a cockstand from the gentle timbre of her voice.

The only voice message that he didn’t listen to over and over was the one that referenced that the guy she was dating—he refused to say the man’s name, even in his mind—could help out with a church carnival in a month.

He loved the idea, but the prospect of watching that guy with his hands on a woman that he shouldn’t think of as his, but that he did, was enough to muddle his thoughts even more. He wished that he hadn’t agreed to work with her to save the pre-K program, even though he couldn’t have done it on his own. He’d known it was dangerous to spend too much time around a woman who aroused him that much, but now that he knew her a bit more, he craved her presence.

It was both heaven and hell when she walked into Dooley’s followed by an older woman with a sour expression on her face—had to be her mother—and a woman about Sasha’s age who, he would place money on, was her sister.

Sasha looked tense, like one more thing would make her snap in two. He ached to fix things for her. He knew her family was difficult and she remained entangled with them financially. Even though what he truly wanted from Sasha in his heart of hearts would mess up her life, he would never allow himself to actually do that.

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