The Pastor’s Jezebel Lover Read Online Free

round here and broke your bedroom window, huh? And you had to sleep in the cold all night?”
    She smirked. “Tommy or Jack wouldn’t dare. They’d know I’d beat the crap out of them.”
    Mom shook her head and heaved a deep sigh. “Sometimes I think you got switched at birth, Erin MacKenzie. Where all this violence and aggression comes from I really don’t know. You sure as heck don’t have it from my side of the family.”
    Erin braced herself for a speech about her no good father but fortunately Mom seemed more eager to get her to Father Ramon on time than vent her frustration over her husband. She gave her daughter a light shove in the direction of the door.
    “Now shoot. Father Ramon is waiting for you. What will you tell him?”
    “I’ll tell him I didn’t do it on purpose and—”
    Mom brought her face close to hers, her eyes cold and hard. “What will you tell him?”
    Quietly, Erin corrected, “I’ll tell him I’m very sorry and I’ll pay for all the damages.”
    Mom gave a curt nod. “Straight to church and back. No hanging around with Suzie this time.”
    “Yes, Mom.”
    She stomped to the door, picked up her hat and gloves from the hallway dresser, and stepped into the freezing cold.
    After heaving another long sigh, she finally set foot for the church, hoping Father Ramon would let her off easy, and tell her she didn’t really have to pay for the windows.
    She liked the young priest, as did most everyone in town, but on this particular morning she wished she’d never ever laid eyes on him. His predecessor, Father Brown, had been far more prone to forgive and forget, but this guy? She had the distinct impression he would give her and Suzie a really hard time indeed.
    And if she was truly honest with herself, she was even a little bit afraid of him.
    People in town said he was a strange man who had done strange things in the past. There were even rumors he’d once killed a man.
    Secretly she hoped he’d practice the age-old principle of turning the other cheek, and let her and Suzie off easy, but somewhere deep in her heart, she feared that he wouldn’t.
    She just hoped he wouldn’t change her into a monster or something, as punishment for her crimes. Though if she really were a monster, she could come back to haunt Mrs Cooper and Mrs Burke and all those other old hags who made life miserable in the small town of Brookridge.
    Resigned, she trudged through the thick blanket of snow on her way to church, and was glad when she finally spotted the soaring spire in the distance, shooting out from the houses.

Chapter 5

    Erin arrived at the church just in time to see her friend Suzie come walking up from the other direction.
    “Suzie!” she yelled happily, and when Suzie spotted her from across the street, she waved back, her pixie face scrunching up to see.
    Suzie didn’t see very well, and should be wearing her glasses all the time now, but stubborn little mule she was, she never took them anywhere, claiming they made her look like an owl, and a very horrible looking owl at that.
    “Erin!” yelled Suzie, and started darting across the street to meet her friend in front of the old church.
    Just then, Erin saw a car trundling down the road, its tires having a hard time maintaining their grip on the slippery surface. The streets had just been sprayed with a fresh coat of snow, and no matter how many times the town’s salt trucks got out, they couldn’t keep up with mother nature giving of its best at an abundance the small town had seldom seen in the recent past.
    As the car rolled down the street, it seemed to speed up, its engine roaring.
    Erin saw it happen in a flash, but even before the car hit her friend, she knew what was about to happen. It was like a bad dream, where you know something terrible is going to happen but you’re too stunned to stop it.
    “No, Suzie!” she squealed, but the girl disappeared beneath the fender as the car hit her squarely in the midriff. What