Rocky Mountain Angels (12 page)

She paused for just a moment before continuing her prayers for each member of her family. Then she added her new neighbors to the list, lingering on Eli’s name as if she didn’t quite know what to pray concerning him. “Only you truly know his heart, dear God. Guide me. Keep me from going down wrong paths.”

Removing her hands from her eyes, she looked at Tawny crunching cat food behind her. “Shabbat Shalom, Tawny cat.”

Mari sat, feeling ill prepared to celebrate the Sabbath. With moving in and shopping and breaking her toe, she hadn’t been able to get to the grocery store since the first day she was out with Ben, and then she had only picked up a few essentials like milk, eggs, and lettuce. So she had no challah bread, no wine, and of course, going to buy some now was out of the question, even if she could drive with her broken toe.

She sat looking at the flame flickering and felt terribly alone. The Sabbath is usually spent with family or close friends. She had never spent the Sabbath by herself. Tawny rubbed on her leg, and she smiled. Reaching down, she pulled the fluffy cat to her lap. “I guess I’m not completely alone, huh, pretty girl?”

She sat stroking her soft fur, and her mind circled back to Eli.
Maybe I should have invited him to stay.
She remembered that Ben said he didn’t go to Sabbath services.
That doesn’t necessarily mean he doesn’t believe. Lots of people aren’t strict about keeping traditions anymore.
She knew even she didn’t following the rituals all that closely.

Back in Oklahoma City, she had attended a more liberal synagogue. It was also a congregation that emphasized that the Messiah was coming soon. Mari never failed to be enthralled with Rabbi Richter when he was on the subject of the Messiah. With the state of the world, she hoped the day of Messiah was at hand.

Before coming to the Springs, she had done her research on the local synagogues and found one she thought might be similar to what she was used to. With the boot on her foot, however, she wouldn’t be able to drive. She wondered if she was anywhere near a bus stop—she wouldn’t be able to walk far either—and got up to find her laptop. She knew this kind of research would be considered “work” by some and felt a moment of guilt.
But I’m trying to find out how to get to a synagogue. Surely God can’t fault me for that.

***

Eli was trying very hard not to blow his top as he walked slowly up the front steps. Ben had done a lot of damage today, and Eli wasn’t sure he’d be able keep from giving him a bloody nose. He took a deep breath and opened the front door. Taking off his coat, he could see Ben in the kitchen. A muscle in his too-tense jaw ticked. “Benjamin, you and I need to talk.”

Ben turned around, and Eli could see a lit oil lamp, as well as the family Torah open on the table. He huffed out a breath.
Damn it.
He stopped and nearly did an about face, but suddenly his brow furrowed and he strode forward.

Ben looked as if he knew what was coming. “It’s Shabbas, Eli. Whatever you want to discuss can wait.”

Eli stopped in front of him. “No, it can’t. You had no right gossiping about me to Mari. I know you have a thing for her, but I didn’t think you’d stoop so low.”

Ben crossed his arms, and his eyes flashed. “You should talk about low behavior. You’ve spent most of your adult life crawling around on your belly with one loose woman after another.”

Eli grabbed him by the front of his sweatshirt and shoved him back against the refrigerator. “Joe and I have had some real knock down fights, but I’ve never used fists on you, little brother. You were so much younger, I never so much as pushed you away even at your peskiest moments, but today I am sorely tempted.”

Ben spread his arms wide. “Go ahead, Eli, I’ve already given her the heads up about you. You can’t undo that. Beat me to a pulp, and it won’t solve anything.” He laughed. “No wait, I’m sure Mari will want to know what happened to me. Punch away.”

Eli stared Ben down for a minute, breathing like a charging bull, then slowly released his shirt and stepped back. After another minute, his pulse had slowed, the fight gone out of him. “I can change, Ben. For her, I can change.”

“Who were you doing last night?”

“Nobody,” he ground out, his ire kicking back in. “I was playing pool with Jeff.”

Ben rolled his eyes.

“I may have a number of unsavory vices, but lying isn’t one of them. I’ve never kept secrets about the women, although” —he turned and threw up his hands— “God knows now I wish I had.”

Ben looked at him askance. “Don’t use God’s name when you don’t even believe.”

Eli slowly looked back. “I never realized what a low opinion you have of me, or how judgmental you’ve become. Isn’t there something in your religion about forgiveness, Benjamin?”

“There has to be repentance,” he countered.

“Believe me, Ben, when I saw that look” —he motioned toward Ben’s face— “in her eyes, I was repentant.”

He opened the refrigerator, effectively shoving Ben aside, and took out a bottle of beer. Popping off the cap with the bottle opener hanging on the side of the fridge, he caught Ben’s disdainful look. “Oh, for Pete’s sake.” He slammed the bottle and the cap down on each side of the lamp, turned, and started toward the stairs. “Shabbat Shalom, Benjamin.”

***

The second he knocked on Beth’s door, it hit Joe that it was Friday, and the sun had gone down a good thirty minutes ago. He silently cursed his addled brain that could seem to do nothing but think about things it wasn’t suppose to think about today and totally forget things that mattered.

He was still fuming when Beth opened her door in jeans and a t-shirt advertising a local art gallery. “Joe! What are you doing here? Didn’t you have a meeting today back in the Springs?”

He sighed and stepped into her apartment. “I did, but I just wanted to see you. I can’t believe I completely forgot about Shabbas, though.” He looked around as she closed the door. He could hear a TV going in her bedroom. “Don’t you and Sheri observe?”

“Sheri isn’t Jewish, and I haven’t really observed the traditions other than Chanukkah since high school.”

Joe took a few steps into the room and took off his wool topcoat and flung it on the back of the sofa, revealing a royal blue dress shirt over black slacks. “Really. How did I not know that?”

Beth shrugged. “You’ve never been here on the Sabbath—you always said you needed to spend it with Ben, and I guess you just never asked me what I did.”

Joe looked at her curiously. “Huh.” He looked around. “Well, it’s too late to light a candle, but I suppose we could still read scripture.”

Beth stared at him a moment before blinking and moving down the hall. “Sure, just let me find... I think it’s in my room somewhere. Make yourself comfortable.”

Joe sat on the sofa, feeling a little lost.

***

Mari had tried to concentrate on reading some Psalms at her kitchen table, but she just couldn’t get Eli out of her head. After repenting of her wandering mind for at least the sixth time, Mari just gave up and shut the book. “I’m sorry, God, but I feel anything but restful on this Shabbas. Please send your peace.”

Her butt was aching from sitting so long on her hard iron chair, but she wasn’t quite ready to get back in bed again. She got up to walk, but the pain in her toes reminded her of why she had been sitting in the first place. She checked her watch to see if she could take more pain meds yet.
Not for another half hour.

Sighing, she continued into the dark living room, despite the pain, and stood looking out the window facing Eli’s office. A light was on, but his shade was drawn. She wished now that she had kept him there to talk some more.
What if Ben had been exaggerating out of jealousy?
But Eli admitted to sleeping around. He couldn’t even give her a ball park figure of how many women he’d slept with.
Is that the kind of man I want? Don’t I want a guy who has saved himself just for me?
Shaking her head, she wondered if there were any of those kind of men left in the world.

“The best predictor of future behavior is past behavior.”
The much quoted phrase from her psychology studies came to mind, but she also knew that this was not a solid rule.
People can change their behavior if they want to.

Turning, she wandered to the center of the room and absently sat on her wicker settee. She groaned and thought of Eli’s offer of a thrift store love seat. Then she thought of Eli’s offer to kiss her on that thrift store love seat. And heaven help her, she closed her eyes and conjured it up.

***

Eli tried to work on the Marshall apartment designs but finally decided to give up for the evening. He was “undoing” more than he was drawing with the computer CAD program, and he finally admitted to himself that he was only working, because it would bug Ben. Eli usually didn’t mind an excuse not to work, but Ben had set him so on edge with his sanctimonious attitude, he was all too happy to go one hundred and eighty degrees in the opposite direction.

Closing his laptop, he gave himself free reign to think about Mari. To think that he could lose her after only one kiss was eating at him. He was still mad as hell at Ben, but he knew deep down this day of reckoning would have come eventually even if Ben hadn’t said a word.
And maybe it was better to have it out sooner rather than later.

He pushed his chair back and stood, stretching. He was feeling caged but didn’t want to go out and give Ben more ammo to use against him. He leaned over his table to peek around the side of his shade. Mari’s living room was dark.

He wondered what she did on the Sabbath. She had scooted him out the door before sundown, so she probably had lit a candle and prayed just as Joe and Ben did every week. Eli couldn’t see the point of it all and usually stayed out late on Friday nights. He smirked, sliding his hands into his pockets.
And God hasn’t come down to straighten me out yet.

His cocky attitude disappeared, however, remembering Mari’s look of disgust when he couldn’t answer her question, and he wondered if God had come down after all.

***

Ben rolled over in his bed to see the clock. It was nearing 11:00, and he wondered where Joe was. The only time he could remember Joe missing the beginning of the Sabbath was when he got caught in a near blizzard coming back from Denver. Ben had tried calling him but just got his voice mail.

Ben had put in a good show of reading scripture in his room with the door open, but he knew he hadn’t really digested a word. He had been more shaken up by Eli than he cared to admit. The three of them had lived together for nearly two years, and even though they had disagreements from time to time, they’d never once come close to having a fist fight.

Was I wrong to tell her?

Ben had felt guilty ever since he had warned Mari—not because it wasn’t true, but he worried that his motives weren’t exactly pure. Yeah, he didn’t want to see Mari hurt, but he also wanted her to look at him the way she looked at Eli.

“A heart at peace gives life to the body, but envy rots the bones.”

The proverb popped into his mind, and he closed his eyes, praying that God would give him peace and keep him from envy.

But he also prayed that God would give him Mari.

***

There was still a light on in Ben’s room when Joe pulled into their driveway, and he was immediately kicking himself for not calling and explaining why he hadn’t been there for Sabbath prayers. He absolutely didn’t know where his head was today. I 
guess I need Shabbas.

He had debated whether it was more of a gaffe to drive home from Denver on the Sabbath or spend the night in his girlfriend’s apartment. He finally decided that he was probably wrong either way so drove home.

As he opened the door, Ben was heading down the stairs. “It’s about time! I was this close to calling the highway patrol to see if you were dead in a ditch somewhere.”

Joe shook his head in contrition as he took off his coat and hung it up. “I’m sorry, Ben. I should have called.”

Ben stopped on the bottom step. “Well, I tried to call you, but I just got voice mail. Did you turn it off for some reason?”

He put a hand to his head as he walked to the kitchen. “I got a wrong number while Beth and I were reading scripture and shut it off. I guess I forgot to turn it back on.” He dug a couple cookies out of the cookie jar and poured himself a glass of milk. “It hasn’t been a good day for brain power.”

Ben had followed him to the kitchen. “So you and Beth did the prayers. You might have told me you were going to do that.”

Ben almost sounded like a disgruntled spouse, which on any other day would have gotten at least a chuckle out of Joe. Today, however, had been too long and too confusing. “Well, I didn’t really intend to do it, that’s just where I ended up, and before you ask any more questions, let me just” —he waved a cookie in the air, trying to find the words— “let me just eat my cookies and go to bed. I’m really in no mood to talk.”

Ben turned on his heel and headed for the stairs. “Fine. Shabbat Shalom, Joe.”

Joe hung his head. “Ben,” he called after him. “I really am sorry. Shabbat Shalom.”

Ben paused and nodded before heading on up the stairs.

Chapter 10

Bus routes to Old Colorado City didn’t run on Saturdays, so Mari had called a cab to take her to Sabbath services. She hated to spend the money on it, but she didn’t want to bother her “angels” when she didn’t know if they attended services or where. She assumed that Ben and Joe did since Ben had made a point of telling her that Eli didn’t. She had spent four days with one, two, or all three Rhodes men in it, however, and she thought maybe a day away would help with perspective.

She had spent a restless night with their handsome faces coming and going in her dreams, each one kissing her at one time or another. She had awakened in a sweat, tangled in her blankets, and had jumped in the shower, standing in the chilly spray until her teeth started to chatter, but she still couldn’t get them completely out of her head. She hoped the Sabbath service would bring some balance back to her thinking.