This is my prayer in the desert,
And all that's within me feels dry.
This is my prayer in my hunger and need,
My God is the God who provides.
- Hillsong, "The Desert Song"

Chapter 20

My Prayer in the Desert

It was dark when Araceli ventured out of the rickety house and saw a silhouette sitting on the porch swing. Sam had wrapped a blanket around his bare shoulders against the winter chill. The sky had cleared, and a beautiful canopy of celestial lights twinkled overhead.

"You shouldn't be out here," she warned softly.

"I wanted to see the stars," Sam replied. "Somehow, the stars in the desert always remind me of home, of … of something I've forgotten." His brow tightened. Something with the stars, watching them with … someone. Who?

Araceli sat beside him and gazed up. "They're peaceful. My grandmother used to say, the stars are the wishes God just hasn't answered yet, not just any wish, but those really special ones, ones we wish for with all our soul. When we see a shooting star, that's one of those super special wishes coming true."

She began to lean into him. Sam smiled and raised his arm to hold her, but the movement pained the injury. He hissed softly and lowered his arm with a gentle movement. He tried to grin and laugh through the pain.

"Guess it's not healed as well as I had hoped," he apologized.

She rose, walked around him, and sat on his other side. "How about that?"

Sam felt warmth radiating from her. The way her dark eyes twinkled, then shyly looked aside, soothed any winter chill. He wrapped an arm around her and pulled her in close.

"Yes, that's much better," he whispered.

She stared at the sky for a long time, relaxed in his embrace. Sam leaned his cheek onto her head. This was all so familiar, sitting there in boxers, stargazing with a beautiful woman.

Araceli turned her head over to him with a sincere face. "Do you believe in God?"

His eyebrows arched as he considered this. "I used to be of the scientific mindset, but lately, after everything I've been through … I now believe we are all guided through life by something: God, Fate, or whatever." He chuckled as he mused over this change in his beliefs. "I was put right here for some reason. We can't always know that reason. We can guess, make calculations, but in the end we never know what our quest truly is until it's complete."

"Quest!" She gave a lighthearted laugh and looked back up to the heavens. "You sound like Don Quixote."

"To love pure and chaste from afar?" he questioned.

She swung her head over to him with a dropped mouth, shocked at such words.

"Sorry, that was too bold," Sam said bashfully. He let go of the close hold he had on her bare arm but did not pull back completely.

She leaned back, resting her head on his forearm. "Do you mind if I pray?"

"No! No, of course not."

She let out a small breath to relax her mind, then clasped her hands together and gazed up to Heaven. "Santa María, Madre de Dios," she began, and continued in Spanish. "This man deserves your mercy. When I was starving, without money or shelter, he appeared like an angel. He not only gave me food and paid for my motel, but he gave me money, more money than I've seen in a whole year. He did it without my asking and without seeking thanks. Now I'm trying to repay him. The Devil may challenge us, but I know you are guiding us. I don't know what he did in the past, but please Santa María, show him mercy now. Remove his pain. Help him find his path. Help us both to find our way home."

Sam was moved by that wish. Home! Home was so close, yet so far away.

"En el nombre del Padre, y del Hijo, y del Espíritu Santo. Amén." In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

She crossed herself, lifted the crucifix she wore on a necklace, and kissed it. Sam waited a minute without movement, a solemn moment of reflection, before he squeezed her shoulders.

"Thank you," he breathed in awe. "I'm not sure if anyone besides my parents have ever prayed for me before."

"I'm sure many have, and you just don't know it."

He hummed and wondered if the people in his time prayed. Was there someone under these stars, a few years in the future, praying that he would find his way home?

"Theodore Nyt," she spoke, contemplating that name. "A knight in shining armor who comes to rescue the damsel in distress. Or dark like a desert night." She glanced over to him with her neck still arched back. "Which one is it? Knight or Night?"

Sam was stunned for a moment. Al never told him the spelling, and he had no identification to tell him. "Which would you like it to be?" he asked back.

She laughed musically and returned her gaze to the stars. "Well, you're not much of a knight, considering the damsel had to come to your rescue."

"That's true," he laughed.

"So I guess that leaves Night … a dark night, cool and calm, hiding its secrets, concealing all around it, sheltering it from what might be possible danger, and yet," she trailed off, turning a smile to him, "it is a danger itself. Dark and dangerous. Yet out here in the desert, it is the day that can kill, and the night that provides shelter. You're a dangerous man, whatever you did in the past, but right now, out here in the desert … you're a good man, a protective man. You're a man of dichotomy … like a desert night."

Her black eyes gleamed silver in the moonlight. Sam felt drawn to her. He slowly leaned in, and she tilted her head upward. He hesitated just a moment, caressed her smooth cheek, before finally giving in and kissing her.

Her lips were soft, her mouth warm with a taste of Mexican food still on her tongue. With his good arm, Sam pulled her in closer and deepened the kiss. Araceli hummed happily and ran her hands over his bare chest, dragged her fingers up along his neck to give Sam chills, and clutched slightly into his hair, pulling him closer to her. She was not afraid to explore his mouth, and Sam let his good hand drift along her curves.

"So familiar," San mused to himself as he moved his lips to kiss from her ear down her neck and to her collar, sending her whole body into a surge of passion. "Sitting like this, with the desert stars above, kissing such a lovely lady … like I've done this before."

She chuckled softly as she swung her hair out of the way of his roaming lips and watched with heated eyes as his mouth moved lower. "Maybe you've seduced other women in the desert."

"None I can remember," he answered, privately knowing that meant very little. Like he could remember anything! He raised his head back up and gazed at her. "Perhaps I had such a lovely woman in another lifetime … a life in the desert, a life of happiness and peace."

"It must have been a good life." Her fingers ran through his hair and let her nose caress his. "Would you like a life like that again, Theodore?"

Hearing that name snapped Sam out of the moment.

"We could run away into the desert," she offered, stroking down his bare chest. "It's a vast place. People live out there for years, decades, and are never discovered. The Mafia would never find us."

He shook his head. "I won't damn you to a life of looking over your shoulder. I'm bad news, Araceli. You've said so yourself: I'm a dangerous man. You have a dream you want to fulfill, a family you should take care of. I can't take you away from that. A drifter like me has no right to snatch you away."

Her eyes looked sad, yet her face showed that she had expected as much. Despite the rejection, she reached forward and slid her hands within the warmth of his blanket. "Then, just for tonight…"

"We'll always have this desert night," he whispered to her. Sam leaned in again and gave her another deep, passionate kiss.

Out in the distance, a coyote yipped and howled at the moon.

A/N:

I don't own the lyrics to Hillsong's music. I used it as an epigraph because it's such an awesome song.