Sensuous Angel Read Online Free PDF Page B

she was thinking? Heaven forbid. How could she? She had grown up with such a very, very Catholic family! Yes, that was true, but, she reminded herself, the friars who had conducted the Inquisition had been religious men.
    “Ms. Miro, are you quite all right?” he queried her suddenly.
    “Fine, thank you. But would you mind telling me what you’re doing?”
    “Not at all. I’m thinking.”
    He drummed his fingers on the desk and started speaking again, slowly, as if he carefully weighed each word. “Andrew is not always an easy man to find, Ms. Miro. I haven’t the right to explain to you why that is. If you want my help, you’re going to have to trust me.”
    “But why—”
    “Questions already!” he reproached her.
    “Father, you make less sense by the moment.”
    “Nothing is going to make sense to you, but I can’t change that. It’s going to have to be part of the deal.”
    “Ah, yes! The deal,” Donna murmured with annoyance.
    “Yes, the deal.” He raised a dark brow high, as if questioning her integrity. “It begins right now. And it encompasses only this, Ms. Miro. You’re going to have to put your faith in me. Absolutely no questions asked. No matter what you think, see, or hear, you’re going to have to believe me when I tell you that Andrew McKennon is a good man—and that what I’m asking of you is for your own good.”
    “You want me to go by blind faith?” Donna asked incredulously. “In you?” Was he asking her the ridiculous, or could it be true that Andrew McKennon was not a bad or evil man? That the priest couldn’t—for reasons unknown to her—say more, but that he was really trying to give her an emotional assurance?
    Father Luke smiled. Faint lines of laughter crinkled about his eyes, giving them a mocking and devilish glow. He lifted his hands, as if to heaven. “Blind faith? In me. Yes, I suppose I do want you to go by blind faith. I’ve gotten quite accustomed to doing it myself, you see.” The laughter faded from his handsome-features. “It’s the only way that I will help you, Ms. Miro.”
    Suddenly Donna found that she couldn’t meet his eyes—eyes that raked over her with both a peculiar appreciation and a searing that seemed to touch her soul. She felt absurdly stripped by that gaze; as if she had been taken down to naked flesh—and naked motive. He was a very strange man. Compelling, frightening. She began to feel that she might have been safer in the hands of the mugger. There was about him a sense of energy, and of danger, and of sexuality. He truly had no right to be a priest.
    “Well?” He demanded suddenly.
    Donna paused a minute, wondering what purgatory awaited those who purposely lied to priests. She swept her lashes over her cheeks. Andrew McKennon was impossible to find. She had hired a private detective, who had gotten nowhere. She had tried the police, and they had almost thrown her out the door. She had tried the streets and fared even worse.
    “Blind faith, Father. All that I want to do is meet McKennon for myself and get some kind of real assurance that Lorna is all right.”
    She watched as he suddenly frowned, then drummed his fingers on the desk for a moment and picked up the telephone. After a second a smile touched his features, making Donna once more acutely aware of his devilish, ruggedly male good looks.
    “Tricia? Ummm…it’s Luke. Fine…fine…thanks. Listen, I’d like to see you as soon as possible. It’s about Andrew.”
    Apparently “Tricia” had a few things to say about the reason for his call. Not angry things; just worried things. The next thing Donna heard was the priest reassuring the woman. “You know that if I didn’t really believe that what I was doing was okay, I wouldn’t be doing it.”
    More conversation. Then: “Trust me. Andrew would.”
    Donna waited tensely as the woman replied. The priest’s golden eyes abruptly turned her way. “Where are you staying?” he demanded.
    “The Plaza,” Donna