"You can't imagine. I've had to be really vigilant. Guilt sneaks up on you when you're not looking. You see a nun, you get this instinct to stand up and recite catechism. You have to fight it all the time."

"You're so funny," she murmured.

"Yeah, so they say."

She cocked her chin. "I 'm a rebel in a different way."

"Yeah? What way?"

"I stayed with the Catholic fold. Have to admit that. But my senior year, I was suspended from school, almost didn't graduate. Kind of staged a party at a friend's house. The party got a little out of hand. Ended up with a car in the swimming pool in the backyard."

"Uh-oh."

"A major uh-oh. My friend was the dean's daughter."

Will winced on her behalf.

"Yeah," she said. "So don't be thinking I'm a saint."

"Oh, no," he assured her. "I took one look at you and thought. Now there's a wild woman. A hard-core rebel."

"A lot of others don't seem to recognize it."

"Imagine that." A strand of hair drifted across her cheek, mesmerizing him. for no reason that he could imagine. "I attended Notre Dame, actually. The university. Since we're confessing sins and all."

"That's quite a biggie."

"It was my dad's choice of school. Naturally. Played tight end." He added. "That's an offensive football position."

"Like there could be anyone raised in South Bend who didn't know that. Only darn, we can't talk anymore now that I know you're a god."

"Not. Team didn't do well in those years."

"Ah. And that was all your fault?"

"Probably, I know it's sacrilegious to admit it, but I wasn't that into football. It was just a way to get a scholarship, so I could pay my own way."

"A scholarship? To Notre Dame? There's another wow. I'm impressed."

"Good, good. No one else is, so I'm glad you are." He still hadn't brushed away the silky strand of hair on her cheek, but he was thinking about it nonstop. The moonlight. Her cheek. Her eyes. That strand of hair. "It was an athletic scholarship, not an academic one."