Before I recovered, he asked, “You know Riverside Baptist Church?”

“Oh God. First you give me five orgasms, now you’re gonna save my soul?” I asked back.

He crossed his arms on his chest. “Rein in the smartass, Cher. Don’t got time to get you sweet, which means get you hot, so you’ll give me what I want instead of bein’ a pain in my ass. Answer the question: Do you know Riverside Baptist Church?”

That was when my eyes narrowed. “Get me sweet, which means get me hot?”

Merry became visibly impatient. “Babe, focus.”

“You want me focused, tell me why you’re here, injecting cheer into my day,” I demanded.

“Peggy Schott belongs to Riverside Baptist Church.”

I snapped my mouth shut.

Merry didn’t.

“She talk about that? Trent talk about it? Ethan come from them to you and talk about it?”

I felt my heart beating hard in my chest. “What I wanna know is why you’re talking about it, and how do you even know that? How’d you even find out Peg’s last name?”

“I told you I was gonna take your back and that’s what I’m doin’,” he returned.

That was what he was doing?

We’d had our previous fun-loving chat at four o’clock yesterday afternoon.

It wasn’t even ten o’clock the next morning and he’d already learned about a church Peggy belonged to.

I had a bad feeling about this because I knew Merry, and once he got his teeth into something, he didn’t let go.

And he had his teeth into Trent and Peggy, so my chances at stopping him from getting right up in my shit were minimizing by the second.

These thoughts made me throw up both hands in exasperation and snap, “It hasn’t even been twenty-four hours!”

“Someone gives you a heads up they’re thinkin’ of fuckin’ with you, you don’t offer them a head start,” he replied, then kept going. “Margaret Schott is the volunteer assistant director of a program run by Riverside Baptist Church called Faith Saves. The mission of this program is to send members to hang outside AA, NA, and Al-Anon meetings, as well as methadone clinics, approaching people who leave to seek recovery or guidance through the word of God.”

“Holy shit,” I whispered.

“Considering those programs are already significantly faith-based, the folks at Riverside either aren’t that bright or not real good at hiding their recruitment tactics. Google Peg Schott’s name; she’s all over the church’s website, tied to this program. Might be a jump, but doubtful—this is how she met your ex. You know anything about that?”

I shook my head.

“They take Ethan to church?” Merry asked.

I kept shaking my head.

“He’s never mentioned it?” Merry pushed.

I continued shaking my head but asked, “This church bad news?”

“Haven’t had time to dig deep. Jumped from that to some articles about a couple of community centers and other churches that give space to recovery programs that got together to call the cops to get Faith Saves off the pavement so they don’t bother group members after meetings. But they stick to publicly owned space and they’re peaceful, if irritating, so cops can’t do jack. Haven’t been able to follow it further.”