Divine Temptation Read Online Free PDF Page A

she was compelled forward. The bottom edges of her jeans were getting soaked, but she didn’t let that stop her from climbing the modest incline to where the tholos stood at the highest point of the garden. She stepped onto its dry surface and slipped between two pillars to discover that something actually was in there—a stone urn. It was partially filled with rain water and crumpled leaves that must’ve blown into the deep bowl during the past fall.
    She turned and peered between the pillars, down upon the expanse of earth spread before her. When she moved to the edge of the circle, she looked upon the rose garden, and to the right she caught a glimpse of the prairie. Between them, set back, were the formal Japanese gardens leading to the mansion. Her lips spread into a smile when she imagined the large house belonging to her, and all the gardens her personal playground.
    She pictured her children playing croquet on the lawn with their friends. Her parents would live with her and host tea parties in the rose garden. Everyone would be abundantly happy. There would be no more endless new projects at the church, no more jealousy or nagging sense of failure tickling the edges of her consciousness—just Maggie in her gardens. Anyone who visited her here would be free of the worries of this world.
    A cloud drifted through the April sky and temporarily blotted out the sun. As the grounds darkened, Maggie’s longing for the bright vision intensified. The urn. She had an urge to look into it again. She turned and went to the center of the structure to stare down at the murky water, searching for…something; she didn’t know what. Leaning to grip the edges of the urn, she felt a force coming from inside it. Calling to her. Her knees bent with the desire to kneel and ask for the sunny vision to become reality.
    The cloud passed and Maggie bolted up straight.
    “What the hell?” She shifted her eyes back and forth, checking to make sure no other park visitors were close enough to have witnessed her temporary hallucination. Or whatever it had been. She spotted someone standing in the trees, about fifteen feet away.
    Maggie gasped. It was him. The angel, or rather the guy she’d seen in the coffee shop who resembled the angel. He stared earnestly back at her with that same questioning eyebrow slanted just as it had been in her dream. No—at Starbucks. Except he hadn’t had a questioning look at Starbucks. It had definitely been in her dream. He turned and hurried away, and Maggie noticed that he was wearing all white.
    “Wait!” She hopped down from the circular pavilion and followed him. He picked up his pace, and she picked up hers, trailing him deeper into the trees and out the other side into the grove of fruit trees. Without even glancing back at her, he dashed into a long tunnel covered with thick, woody vines. Maggie didn’t want to look like a lunatic, so she didn’t scream for him to stop or run at full speed like she suddenly wanted to.
    Brushing past the fading blossoms of the cherry and apple trees, she entered the tunnel to find a handful of visitors dappled in spots of sunlight. He wasn’t among them. Figuring he must’ve sprinted through the tunnel, she too threw off decorum and ran the rest of the way, halting once outside to scan the grove. No sign of him. She rushed to go around the high boxwood hedge that blocked her view of the main path, but just before she cleared it, a diminutive figure in black stepped out from the other side of the hedge.
    “Monsignor Sarto,” Maggie said, stopping in time to avoid slamming into him.
    “Good afternoon, Magdelyn. Enjoying your…jog?”
    “Oh.” Maggie gave a dismissive chuckle and stopped her eyes from flicking around the path, where she didn’t see him anyhow. The chase was over. “I thought I saw an old friend and was trying to catch up. Instead I— literally —ran into a new one.”
    Sarto’s thin lips pressed into a small smile. “I’m glad you