Redemption's Road, page 17
part #3 of Five Points Series
“Maddie is incredible at finding homes for odd pairings. That Great Dane and calico were adorable together. “
I nodded in agreement. “Maddie rocks. That pair we just delivered came from the same home. Their owner passed away with no family to take them. Maddie scooped them up and made sure they would be rehomed together. I met her the same year I moved to Thomas.”
“You know, we should really think about getting a cat, maybe a dog, someday.”
I grinned and tried to concentrate on the road. What my body wanted was to pull over and kiss her. “Sure. You want to go to the shelter this week?”
“Yeah. I think we need to help out an older cat. Kittens have a much easier time getting adopted. Maybe even one with special needs.”
“I’ll talk to Maddie and see if she knows of any that are having a hard time being adopted. We’ll take them down to Jax for a thorough checkup and make sure they have everything necessary.” I extended my arm and laid my hand on her leg, palm up. She entwined our fingers, while I drove us to Roman’s.
Naomi caressed my hand with her thumb. “I can’t wait to see Roman again. Don’t let me forget to give him his wedding invitation.”
The last few weeks had seen a flurry of activity surrounding our simple nuptials and the St. Patrick’s Day celebration we’d had at Redemption’s Road. We’d decided to move the wedding up. Ellie had called saying she would be with us sooner than originally expected. The ceremony was now planned for the weekend after Easter, April 27. The plan was to hold the wedding in our small courtyard beside House of the Rising Son.
Snow at Easter wasn’t unusual for our area. Even if it snowed, the ceremony would be held outside. If it rained, we’d move inside on the small stage of our church. We’d ordered four outdoor heaters to make the space comfortable for our guests. Most of the people attending were from our church and a small group of friends and family. We had friends coming from Colorado, as well as the few remaining members of the original Regal Crimson.
Though I bugged her every day, Ellie had yet to let me know what steps she’d taken to slow down. I’d called Stuart and made him promise to stop pushing so hard. I wasn’t sure whether I’d gotten through to him or not. When you were up close and personal with someone, you could occasionally miss signs. Seeing Ellie at the funeral had given me a pretty big dose of reality on what the constant touring was doing to her.
A simple sign hung over an unassuming door. Sessions at The Acropolis were highly sought after and by appointment only. I ran around to open Naomi’s door and took her hand to help her through the gravel lot beside Roman’s tattoo studio. Her high-heeled leather boots turned me on but weren’t the best choice for this surface.
Roman greeted us at the counter and quickly came around to hug Naomi.
“It’s been too long, woman. You look fantastic.” Roman held her at arm’s length before pulling her into a tight hug. They caught up with each other, and Roman waved me back to his salon.
Naomi took the chair close to the table. “So, what are we doing tonight to my beautiful bride to be?”
I removed my jacket and shirt before I lay face down on the cushioned black surface that smelled slightly of disinfectant. “I think we’d planned to put more detail into the wings and add the cross.”
I heard Roman roll his chair close to the table and turned my head to look at him for confirmation.
“That’s what I have written on the schedule.” He pulled on a pair of nitrile gloves, before he cleaned my back with an antiseptic solution. He traced a few lines on my shoulder and chuckled. “You two will have to go easy for a bit while this heals. Don’t fuck up my work, okay?”
It took me a few seconds to realize he was tracing fingernail scratches. The second I understood his meaning, I felt my face heat. Naomi laughed, and I turned to see her grinning with both hands in the air.
“I’ll do my best to, uh, hold onto something else.” She shook her head and put a hand over her mouth. She was incredibly adorable when she blushed.
“Okay, okay, you two. Let’s get busy. Naomi, I know you are aware of how to care for these, so I’ll skip that lecture. I won’t ask how you were cleaning it before that beauty busted her way through your thick head.” Roman’s tattoo gun buzzed. “Ready?”
“Let’s do it.” I lay with my face pillowed in the circle, with my arms resting at my side. I felt the bite of the needle. Within minutes, endorphins flooded my system.
I enjoyed listening to the banter between them, as Roman worked his artistry into my skin. I didn’t know if he could capture exactly what I’d talked about. I never brought Roman any pictures. We’d talked through the design, and I trusted him. He was working on the center of my back, and the buzzing I felt into the base of my skull told me he was working near my spine.
I completely lost track of time in my hormone-induced haze. Roman turned off the gun.
“Let’s take a break. You want something to drink?”
“That’d be good.” Standing to stretch, I wobbled, slightly light-headed. Naomi caught and steadied me with both hands.
“Easy there. Lean against this for a minute.” Naomi rubbed my arm and pointed to the table.
“How long have we been at it?”
Roman handed me an orange juice. “About two hours. It’s looking really good, don’t you think, Naomi?”
Naomi turned me so that the light was fully on my back.
“It’s outstanding. What you do with ink is what Michelangelo did with paint. It looks so real.”
I rolled my neck back and forth. “When Roman started specializing in the 3D look, I was hooked. We started on this, what? Five years ago?”
“That’s when we first put ink to the idea. We’ve been kicking this one around since you met her.” Roman pointed to Naomi. “You’ve always been her inspiration for this, you know.”
Naomi put her hand to her mouth, as if she finally understood everything. “The saint within the sinner.”
Years before, Naomi had taught me that within each of us, there existed both. We were imperfect and yet longing to do the right thing. Thus, a saint existed within every sinner. It was also why the angel wing was more detailed and slightly larger in size.
I took another drink of juice and smiled at her. “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. You read that to me years ago, from the book of Romans.”
“I also read to you from first John. If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.”
“I am who I am today because you believed in me enough to remind me that the saint existed inside the sinner. This tattoo is the representation of my redemption, though both still reside within me.”
Naomi took my hands, kissing each one. “And God loves them both. One just needs a little more work than the other.”
Roman sat back down on his stool. “Come on, I need to add a little more shadow to the cross. Another thirty minutes or so and we’ll quit.”
I handed my empty cup to Naomi and returned to my prone position on the table. I could hear them talking to each other, but I was lost in the endorphins.
Naomi held my hand. “You used the cross she wears around her neck as the model?”
“That was her request, down to the small imperfections from years of wear.”
I felt her lean over me and kiss my neck. She whispered close to my ear. “You were never really without me, were you, Rhebekka?”
I didn’t dare turn my head, even though I wanted so badly to kiss her. All I could do was mumble. “No, not for one second.”
***
Later that night, with her spooned up tight to my front, I lay there listening to her rhythmic breathing. The feel of her skin on mine was like nothing I’d ever experienced. The first time I touched her, it was like I absorbed her into my flesh. It was a miracle that I found her at all. Our touring schedule was crazy, and Ellie and I were either on a bus or a plane over two hundred days a year. I’d purchased a small studio apartment in Durango. I wanted to be away from LA and New York. Pittsburgh felt like home in many ways, but I was too well known there and couldn’t disappear into a crowd. I loved snow and craft beer, so Durango became a place to roost when I wasn’t on tour. Those were dark times for me, and the memories weren’t always clear. This one was.
I woke up, still wearing my clothes from the night before, minus shoes. “I need coffee.” I jammed my feet down in the motorcycle boots and threw on my leather jacket and sunglasses. There was a coffee shop three blocks down. I could get something to eat that might soak up some of the Scotch still swimming around in my stomach.
“Shit.” I pulled up the zipper on my jacket and jammed my hands into the pockets, as I stepped out of the lobby door into the biting January wind. There was fresh snow on the sidewalk. I made my way down to Black Gold, a local café that played up to the gold rush days of old. I’d come to know the baristas pretty well.
Tegan gave me a thumbs up. I ordered a breakfast sandwich and hoped I could hold it down. I still felt queasy, so putting the highly caffeinated coffee in my empty stomach wasn’t an option. I stared at the bulletin board full of telemarketing job openings, sale advertisements, and available housing. I saw a bulletin for someplace called Open Door Ministries. There was a color photo of a woman with auburn hair, wearing leather, with a Fender hung around her neck. I was pretty sure there was a Bible in her hand. The welcome line caught my eye. “Saints and Sinners Welcome.”
It literally made me laugh. That a church would invite sinners intrigued me. I slid up my sunglasses and examined a list of dates and activities a little closer. “Beer and Bible Study? What kind of preacher advertises that? You’ve got to be kidding me.”
Tegan walked up and handed me my coffee. “No, it’s for real and awesome. Naomi Layman is the coolest pastor you’ll ever meet. Her services are full of hymns that sound more like a rock concert. Just don’t call her a preacher; she hates that. You should come later. Her service doesn’t start until four in the afternoon, so everyone who partied too hard on Saturday night can sleep in and still get their Jesus on.”
“I don’t think so. I’ve had all the Jesus I’ll ever need.” I walked to the counter to get my sandwich.
“You’re missing out, trust me. Pastor Naomi is fucking amazing. Your loss.”
I thanked him for the coffee and stopped briefly in front of the flyer again. I mentally took note of the address and pushed out the door.
Later that afternoon, I was still hungover and slightly high, as I paced my apartment. Something was niggling against my skull wall. I knew what it was and looked at the clock. “Still have thirty minutes. What do I have to lose?” I called a cab and met it downstairs.
The cab let me out in front of an obscure storefront, with a glass door bearing the words Open Door Ministry, along with a list of times. I hadn’t stepped into a church in nearly ten years. Walking across that threshold meant I was missing something. It certainly wasn’t the people who’d given me a skewed version of who God was. No, it was something I couldn’t explain.
I walked down the street and away from the door. “This was a bad idea.” I kept walking for several more blocks, before I turned around and went back. When I looked at my phone, it was fifteen minutes after four. I hesitated. Someone stepped to the door and opened it. A gentleman, who had to be in his seventies, looked at me. His rainbow bow tie proudly peeking out of his overcoat.
“Come on, I’m always late. Pastor Naomi won’t care. Trust me.” He held the door for me, and I stepped inside.
I could smell cinnamon and cloves as he guided me into the sanctuary. I sat in the back near him. The woman I’d seen in the flyer paced the stage, reading from Ephesians 2.
“‘For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.’” She looked out into the crowd, looking at each one of us, and briefly stopped on my face before she continued.
“‘…that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.’”
I sat up straighter, captivated by her beauty and the honeyed gravel of her voice. She set her Bible on a lectern and pulled a pick from the pocket of her short, leather coat. I didn’t recognize the song at first, the arrangement completely different, until the first few words left her lips. I definitely wanted to hide the cracks in my soul.
For the next four minutes, I sat transfixed, watching her play through a hard rock version of the iconic hymn, Beautiful Brokenness. She bent the strings and tapped out a melody that pulled deep on my insides. I leaned forward and watched how she completely captivated the congregation of mostly twenty-somethings, save rainbow tie guy. I glanced at him and watched his hands play the same chords as the pastor. The ends of his fingers had thick callouses. The dude was a serious string player.
I had no idea how much time had passed while I listened to the beautiful woman. She reached into my body and found my soul. Before I knew it, she was closing the service. For the first time in my life, I didn’t feel like a wrathful God was being jammed down my throat. The message Pastor Naomi Laymen had offered was that I was worthy of God’s grace, freely given.
***
Naomi stirred in my arms and rolled over, tucking herself under my chin.
“What are you pondering so hard on? I can hear you thinking.”
Placing a soft kiss on her forehead, I sighed. “Just remembering the first day I met you.”
I felt Naomi smile against my neck.
“Did I ever tell you I recognized you immediately?”
The dim glow of the streetlight filtered through the window, and I leaned back to see her. “How is it I’ve never known that fact?”
Her arms tightened around me. “I didn’t want to freak you out. When you told me your name was Bek, no last name, I realized you wanted anonymity. I was willing to let you have that. Durango’s pretty small, but remember the day I told you I’d seen you in concert?”
“Yeah.”
“What I didn’t tell you was that I’d been to more than one of your shows, a few before Regal Crimson even hit it big. You played an armed services concert in Colorado Springs, a few years before you walked into my church in Durango.”
“Weren’t you married then?”
“I was. Aaron was in the Air Force and stationed at NORAD. We saw you together.”
“He tracked Santa?”
Naomi chuckled against my chest.
“Every year. God, we were just kids, trying to make our parents happy.”
“Have you heard from him recently?”
“About a year ago. He’s retired. He and his wife, Denise, own a ranch in Wyoming.” She laughed, “They have six kids.”
“Wow, busy guy.”
Naomi kissed me.
“According to him, he’s happy as a lark. So am I.”
“You know who else came to mind? Alfred. I can still remember him opening the door to your church for me.”
“Oh my, Alfred. What an incredible man. Did you know he played violin in a symphony? That man was a serious rock and roll fan. I can’t tell you how many Metallica concerts he’d been to. He’s the one who helped me rewrite the hymn arrangements with a rock theme.”
“I’d never heard anything like your rendition of Fountain.”
“We worked on that together. Alfred was in his early seventies when you met him. I was devastated when he passed away.”
I pulled her close, remembering how hard it had been for her to write his eulogy service. “Alfred adored you.”
“I’ll bet he’s incredibly proud of you, too. He never got to see you as a pastor in life, but I’m betting he hangs out to hear your sermons now.”
“I wonder if God let him keep his rainbow tie. It always made me smile, knowing he was wearing it for you.”
“Few people knew he was a straight ally. His wife passed years before he did. I never got to meet her. That tie was also a tribute to his son, Roger, who died of AIDS. Alfred told me he wasn’t as supportive of his son as he should have been.” Naomi leaned up on her elbow. “Enough reminiscing. What time do you want to leave to pick up Ellie?”
The morning sun was slowly overtaking the streetlight. We had things to do. Ellie had chartered a plane that would bring her into a neighboring town that had a small airport. She’d be staying with us through the wedding and into her long break before Pittsburgh.
Finally, I’d get real answers about her health. Stuart had managed to cancel the last few small concerts at her request. That was as much information as I could get out of him. When I’d pressed Ellie about what was going on, she told me it was nothing to be concerned about. Her excuse was that she was suffering from exhaustion and the doctor wanted her to rest for Pittsburgh. I wasn’t buying it, and neither was Naomi. I was worried, but there was also nothing I could do until she was in front of me. “We need to be over there by eleven. We can take her to lunch before we come home.”
Naomi’s eyes lit up. “Oh, can we take her to Beanders?”
I kissed Naomi. “It’ll cost ya.”
Naomi slid her hand down my abdomen toward my center and caused my back to arch into her touch. Her fingers sought out my clit and grazed across the tip. Her eyes locked on me.
“I’ll be more than happy to pay the cost. How’s your back feel?”
“Still a little tender.”
“Well then, let’s get a little creative.”
The grin on her face sent a shiver up my spine. When she rolled onto her back, she let her tongue snake out and flick her upper lip. She drew me in with a crooked finger. I knew what she was proposing, and I loved her that much more for it. I climbed up her body and straddled her face. Her hands found my center and spread me open. The first touch of her tongue against my skin made me buckle forward, forcing me to grab the wrought iron headboard to keep myself from falling.
