Read Her Latin Lover (Contemporary Romance) for Free Online Page B

ceiling above the altar. She presumed that this was the cross she had heard about, the one made of Aztec gold. It was splendid and frightening at the same time.
    She was so busy staring at it that she didn’t notice the man who walked up beside her.
    “Beautiful, isn’t it?” he asked her. He spoke with a slight American accent.
    Mary turned around and looked at him. He had thick grey hair, a large flat nose and a broad face. She guessed that he was a Native American. It also seemed that he was a priest as he was wearing a long black robe and a white collar around his neck.
    “Is it really made from Aztec gold?” she asked.
    “Who knows Señora Delaney, I was not around when it was made.”
    She wanted to laugh at his joke, but she was surprised by his use of her name.
    “How do you know who I am?”
    “You are Señora Mary Delaney,” he articulated the words slowly and clearly. “I know who you are because I am the local priest. People tell me things, sometimes in confidence, sometimes not. You are the friend of Don Paulo de Castile.” He smiled warmly at her.
    She saw that his teeth were yellow and in some places a few of them were turning black, but he looked kind, like he wanted to help her. Maybe she should ask him about what was going on. Surely she could trust a priest, couldn’t she?
    “Do you know what happened to my friend, Nick Kingsley?” she asked.
    “Come and sit down.”
    She half expected him to say, “My child,” like priests always did on TV, but he did not. Instead, he led her to a long wooden pew and motioned for her to sit down next to him. She took a seat and waited for him to answer her question.
    “We could go into my office, if you would like to speak to me privately, but I think it is cooler in here and anyway the ladies here can’t understand English.” He pointed to a couple of older women who were arranging huge, exotic blooms in vases by a small side altar on the other side of the church.
    He was right about it being cool in the church. She had finally stopped sweating. It was the most comfortable she had felt so far in Corazon. “Your English is very good,” Mary said in an attempt to make conversation. She had never really spoken to a priest before, except to shake hands and say hello at weddings and such like.
    “I studied theology in America for several years, in California, but that was a long time ago and you were asking about your friend, Señor Kingsley?”
    “Yes, of course.” Mary did not know that priests could go to places like California to study. It didn’t seem appropriate somehow; surely there would be too many distractions, like Hollywood for example. She’d never really thought about it, but she presumed that priests went to places like Rome to learn how to be priests, though maybe Rome was too far away. However, rather than ask him about it, she pressed on with the Nick issue.
    “What happened to Nick? Why did he leave?”
    “I understand that there was a card game in the bar the other night. Of course, I was not there myself. I go to bed at nine o’clock, as I get up early to say Mass at six. Many of the people in the town come to Mass first thing in the morning. It’s a said Mass and so it is quite short, just thirty minutes, but it is a good way to begin the working day, don’t you think?”
    Mary nodded in agreement, but she couldn’t see herself getting up before six, though she’d been woken up more than once at that time during her stay in Corazon by the church bell ringing. Each time she heard it, she shoved a pillow over her head, rolled over and gone back to sleep.
    “The card game was for money.” The priest said and shook his head in disapproval. “Gambling is a dangerous thing. Men can lose more than just their money: they lose friends, they lose their good name, they can even lose their loved ones, as I believe happened to Señor Kingsley. I have seen terrible things occur because of gambling.” He began a long story about how