Page 44 of Across Time

I sigh, wondering where he’s headed with this. I’m sure he can find a way to turn anything I say into an anti-Mark rant. "Almost never."

He grins triumphantly. "It means you will have no passion in bed," he says.

I roll my eyes. "Then I guess that means you and I would?”

He's so stunned by the question that he stops in his tracks. I feel burned alive by his gaze, by the way his jaw shifts and those eyes of his dip to my mouth before veering away. As if he allowed himself, for a moment, to consider it. “What a question to ask just before I walk into mass,” he mutters. He turns toward the church steps and places a hand on my back. "Prepare yourself," he says.

"For what?"

He nods to the crowd ahead, already turning toward us. "This."

It feels as if every single person here is staring at me, and by the time we reach the first step, we are enveloped. His hand is on the small of my back, friendly to all who approach, but using his shoulders and the occasional menacing smile to make sure I get up the stairs safely, which is easier said than done with so many people stopping us to talk.

Ma cousine, Henri says again and again, aux Etats Unis. And then he apologizes for the fact that I don't speak French as if it’s a serious flaw, as if I’m a child who’s spitting everywhere or won’t stop hitting people.

Nearly everyone who approaches wants to meet me, aside from the young females, who only use my presence as a ruse to come hit on Henri. It’s grown tiresome by the fourth step and by the time we reach the top, I’m tempted to start swinging my crutch.

We are nearly inside the church when we are waylaid by yet another pretty girl named Claudette, all dimples and shiny eyes. Her wide smile is only for Henri, although Henri introduces us anyway, making sure, as always, to mention I don’t speak a word of French. I see something calculated enter her eyes upon learning this. She rests a gloved hand on his arm and moves in closer, casting a quick, mildly hostile glance at me. We barely see you anymore, she says to him in French. She’s stayed a very long time. It must be getting tiresome.

The bitch is talking shit about me right in front of my face, and I clench every muscle not to react, praying, praying that Henri puts her in her place.

She’s only here a few more weeks, he says mildly. Hardly the vigorous defense I’d hoped for. Disappointment twists a small knife in my stomach, and I turn away from them and begin heading inside, wishing I’d just refused to come.

Within seconds Henri has caught up with me, his hand once more on the small of my back. “Where are you going?” he asks.

“To sit,” I say between clenched teeth. “I don’t need your help, so don’t let me get in the way of your flirting.”

“I wasn’t aware that I was flirting,” he replies, steering me toward a particular pew. “And you have no idea what we even said.”

“I don’t have to speak the language to know flirting when I hear it,” I reply coolly. He takes the crutches from me as I slide sideways into the pew. “Are you dating her?”

He raises a single brow. “What?”

“Dating, courting, wooing…whatever stupid expression you use. Are you doing it with her?”

He gives a low laugh. “How can I, when I spend all my free time bickering with you?”

Heat climbs in my chest and I face forward, knees pressed tight, pretending he is not there. That’s when I see Marie, sitting to the left of the altar with the choir. She looks eager. Flushed and happy. Different than she is at home.

Her eyes flicker toward the door of the church and my head turns, wondering who she’s looking for. The crowd is pouring in. What was it she said just after I arrived? That there was someone she wanted but he wasn’t suitable. Is that who she’s looking for? I glance back at her and am suddenly certain it is. The longing comes off her in waves.

Her eyes drop to the book in her hand, and then back toward the door. Whoever he is, she likes him a lot more than she’s let on. She said he wasn’t suitable. Does that mean he’ll come in here with a fiancé or a wife? Or perhaps he’s a different race, though it seems unlikely—a Klan meeting is more diverse than the membership of this church. I peek around Henri a second time.

"Do you always fidget so much?" he asks.

"I'm just wondering where all the handsome men are."

He raises a brow. “Being so near me all the time has been like staring at the sun, hasn’t it?”

“Painful? Ill-advised?”

“Blinding,” he corrects. “My looks make it impossible for you to appreciate lesser men.”

I roll my eyes. “You may very well have ruined men for me, but not in the way you think.”

The choir begins the first hymn and the congregation rises. I can hear Marie’s voice, as angelic as her face, which is a quality we do not share. And she is still glancing at the door.

Henri holds the hymnal open for me.