Nightingale

by Jennifer Estep

  Wesley looked at me. I made myself meet his golden gaze. I kept my face smooth, expressionless, the same polite mask I put on at every party I planned.

  It worked, just like always.

  Wesley stood. He slipped his visor back on, morphing into Talon once more.

  “Goodbye, Abby.”

  “Goodbye,” I whispered.

  He moved toward the door. I didn’t start crying until it shut behind him.

  #

  The Fearless Five dropped me off at Piper’s apartment the next day. Fiera even carried me up the stairs so I wouldn’t have to put too much pressure on my ribs just yet. She put me down on Piper’s couch. Rascal hopped up beside me and slathered doggie kisses all over my face.

  “I’ve missed you too,” I said, scratching his ears. “So much.”

  While I got reacquainted with the puppy, Fiera stalked around Piper’s apartment, her smoldering eyes taking in all the superhero paraphernalia.

  “Wow,” Fiera said. “I didn’t know you were into superheroes this much.”

  Piper frowned at the familiar tone in her voice. Fiera stared at a flame-shaped lava lamp in the corner that bore her likeness.

  “Nice,” the superhero said. “But I would have splurged and gotten the one with the signed collector’s plate on the bottom.”

  “It’s in the bedroom,” Piper replied. “Right next to my Fiera throw pillows.”

  Fiera grinned.

  The superhero scorched her autograph into Piper’s kitchen table and left. I filled my best friend in on everything that had happened. The Fearless Five had called and told her I was okay, but she wanted to hear the details firsthand—especially when it came to Wesley.

  “He throws himself at you, and you tell him no, we can’t start over?” Piper said. “Why would you do that? He’s your Wesley, your dream guy, your superhero.”

  “He’s also the guy who wants another woman, a fantasy I can never live up to. I’ll only end up disappointing him.”

  “Those are just excuses, and you know it. You’re just scared he’ll break your heart,” she said.

  “Maybe I am. I love him, Piper, but I don’t know if he can ever love me for me.”

  “Wouldn’t it be better to take a chance and find out?”

  I rubbed my head. “Yes. No. I don’t know. I just—I just need to be by myself right now. Everything’s been so crazy. I just need some normal for a while.”

  Piper didn’t push me anymore. She knew when to kick my ass and when to let me lick my wounds. It was one of many reasons I loved her.

  “Well,” she said. “I have some good news for you.”

  “What?”

  “Clean Dreams finished fixing your loft, and I finally got Kyle to agree to adopt Rascal.”

  “Oh no, he’s not,” I snapped. “Kyle’s not taking my dog anywhere.”

  “Your dog?” Piper asked, arching an eyebrow.

  “My dog. You think I’m going to give him up after he helped save my life? Not a chance. Besides, Quicke’s isn’t the only business that could use a mascot.” I stared at the puppy curled up between us. “What do you say, boy? You and me forever?”

  Rascal barked, jumped up, and licked my chin. I laughed and hugged him closer.

  #

  I went back to work a week later. I was still sore and bruised, but I was going crazy sitting on Piper’s couch all day watching SNN. Besides, I had events to plan. Parties to oversee. Caterers to berate.

  “Abby!” Chloe squealed when I got off the elevator with Rascal. She ricocheted around her desk and caught me in a tight hug. “It’s so good to have you back!”

  “Not so tight, Chloe,” I wheezed. “Cracked ribs, remember?”

  “Oops! I’m sorry. How are you?”

  “I’m fine. How have you been holding up?”

  Chloe had pretty much been running A+ Events while I’d been injured. “Well, it’s been a lot of work, and I’ve had more than a few crises, but I’ve held it together.”

  She launched into a recap of some of her more memorable catastrophes, like how a star running back for the Bigtime Barracudas football team had hit on the wife of the team’s owner at their latest party.

  “It sounds like you did fine,” I said. “I’m going to go catch up on my messages, and then, we’re going to have a long talk about making you a partner.”

  “Oh, Abby!” Chloe squealed, reaching toward me again.

  “No! No more hugging today!”

  “Okay, okay.” She leaned forward and lowered her voice. “But you need to know that Olivia O’Hara is in your office. She showed up and wouldn’t leave. I was going to give her five more minutes before I called the police.”

  “It’s okay. I’ll talk to her.”

  “Are you sure?” Chloe whispered.

  “Yeah,” I said, handing her the leash. “But keep Rascal out here with you.”

  I took a deep breath and opened the door to my office. Olivia scrambled to her feet at the sound. She looked at beautiful as ever, but a tight smile creased her face and dark circles ringed her eyes.

  “Hello, Abby,” she said in a soft voice.

  “Olivia.”

  I walked past her and sat down at my desk. I also unzipped a pocket on my vest, pulled out my stun gun, and set it on my lap—just in case.

  Olivia settled back into her chair. “I wanted to say I’m sorry. For everything. I know you probably won’t believe me, but I didn’t know what Octavia was doing. I didn’t know about the radioactive makeup, the animal testing, Bandit, any of it.”

  “But you knew she was Tycoon,” I said. “You knew she killed your father. You had to know that from the beginning.”

  Olivia bit her lip and looked away. “I suspected, but I couldn’t prove it. I tried to go to the police, and Octavia threatened me. She threatened to hurt Paul. His family. I couldn’t let her do that.”

  “So you did nothing instead.”

  Olivia didn’t deny it. Her gaze dropped to her finger, which was missing its diamond solitaire. “The engagement’s been called off, and Polish is going back to the Potters.”

  “Well, that’s something.”

  We sat there, me staring at Olivia, her staring at the floor.

  “I came here today because I wanted to ask you—”

  “If you’re going to ask me to plan some memorial service for Octavia, you can get the hell out of my office right now,” I snarled.

  Octavia had been killed instantly, her body crushed by the giant lips sign. The coroner said she’d never known what hit her. Bandit hadn’t been so lucky, or unlucky, depending on how you looked at it. The sign had landed on his back, severely damaging his spine, and putting him into a coma. Doctors said the ubervillain would probably be paralyzed from the waist down for the rest of his life—if he ever woke up.

  Olivia’s eyes widened. “No! Oh, no. I would never ask you that.”

  “So what do you want?” I asked, tired of being polite to the woman whose sister had tried to kill me.

  “I wanted to ask for your forgiveness,” she said. “I know I don’t deserve it, that my family doesn’t deserve it, but I’m still asking.”

  Forgiveness? I didn’t know if I had it in me, but I didn’t want to have hate in me either. That would make me as bad as Octavia and Bandit.

  “I hope your future is better than your past,” I finally said.

  She nodded. “Thank you, Abby.”

  Olivia walked out of the office and started past Chloe’s desk. Rascal spotted her leaving. He barked and wagged his tail, hoping for a tummy rub. Olivia hesitated, then reached down and petted Rascal. Tears gathered in her eyes. Then, she straightened and left the office.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  “Hey! You! You with the giant singing fish! You drop that, and you’ll be sleeping with the fishes tonight!”

  The mover holding the ten-foot-long plastic fish almost wet himself, but he held the fish steady while his buddy anchored it to the wall. Once the job was done
, I checked singing fish off my clipboard.

  Two weeks had passed since that night at Oomph, and I was back at the convention center, overseeing the annual meeting of the Bigtime Fly Fishermen’s Association. The group had been pretty easy to work with. Their only odd request had been that I order fifty battery-operated singing fishes to decorate the auditorium. My watch beeped, reminding me what time it was—and where I had to be.

  “I gotta run. I’m meeting Piper over at The Blues. Can you handle things from here?”

  “You betcha,” Chloe said, pulling a pen out of her vest.

  To celebrate her becoming a partner, I’d bought Chloe her very own vest. She wore it only to humor me, but in time she’d realize its value. Chloe still had a lot to learn about how to handle crises in Bigtime.

  And I still had a lot to learn about letting go. Making Chloe a partner and giving her more responsibility had been harder than I’d thought, but I was slowly learning. It felt good to let go. Plus, it gave me more time to spend with Rascal. The puppy was growing by leaps and bounds and demanding more attention than ever.

  “Have a good time tonight,” Chloe said.

  “I always have a good time at The Blues.”

  She smiled. “I know.”

  I stared at her, wondering at the strange tone in her voice.

  Suddenly, Chloe lunged forward and leaned over the balcony. “Hey! You!” she yelled. “You break that wine, you buy it!”

  I hid a smile.

  #

  I grabbed a taxi and arrived at The Blues at six o’clock. To my surprise, nobody waited outside. Usually on a Friday, you couldn’t get near the place, but tonight, the street was deserted, except for Izzy the bouncer. He stood in his usual spot in front of the velvet rope.

  “Hey, Izzy, where’s the crowd?”

  “Private party,” Izzy said. “And you’re on the guest list.”

  Party? What party? I planned all the parties in Bigtime. I didn’t know of anything going on here tonight.

  Curious, I stepped inside. The karaoke bar looked the same as it always did. Bar. Stage. Sound equipment. Except that all but one of the tables had been cleared out. That one table was at the foot of the stage, with two chairs beside it and a single red rose laying across the white tablecloth. An ice bucket stood at one side, chilling a bottle of champagne. It resembled a setup I might do at one of my Valentine’s Day events.

  “What’s going on?” I asked, more confused than ever.

  Melody stepped out from behind the bar and handed me a flute filled with champagne. “It seems you have an admirer who wants to serenade you tonight. So sit down, and enjoy the show.”

  She steered me over to the table. I sank into the seat, still not sure what was going on. Stanley waved to me from his place beside the stage. After a moment, the lights dimmed, and a spotlight fell onto the stage. The curtain parted.

  And then—Wesley stepped into the light.

  He wore corduroys and a blue suit jacket over a white T-shirt. His golden eyes shimmered. I breathed in, letting his minty scent wash over me.

  “Hi, Abby,” he said.

  “Wesley,” I said, trying to ignore how good he looked.

  It was a battle I’d been losing for two weeks. Wesley had been at just about every event I’d done since that night at Oomph. My gaze followed him all night long, every night. More than once, I found him staring back at me. I definitely wasn’t invisible to him anymore, but we never spoke. Never said hello. Never even waved at each other.

  Sitting in Piper’s apartment, I’d had a lot of time to think about Wesley—and wonder if I was being a fool for not giving him a chance. For not giving us a chance. Maybe Piper was right. Maybe a broken heart would be better than always wondering what could have been because my heart couldn’t hurt more than it did right now. Half a dozen times, I’d thought about calling Wesley. Half a dozen times, I’d stopped myself, unable to squash the nagging voice in the back of my head that told me he’d always find me to be a disappointment.

  He smiled. “You sang for me once. I thought I’d return the favor.”

  Wesley nodded at Stanley, who hit a button on his sound board. The opening strains of “Annie’s Song” by John Denver filled the bar. Wesley put the microphone to his lips and sang.

  Now, if there was one John Denver song that would make any girl cry, it was this one. A beautiful, beautiful song—being terribly, terribly butchered by Wesley.

  He might be able to create complicated gadgets, sail over the city on zip lines, and take down ubervillains with a few well-placed punches, but there was one thing he couldn’t do—sing. After the first thirty seconds, my ears hurt. After a minute, I was in agony. Finally, around the one-thirty mark, I stood up.

  “Okay,” I said, waving my hands. “That’s enough. Please, please stop.”

  Wesley winced. “Was I that bad?”

  “Honestly? I think I’d rather listen to polka music.”

  He laughed. I joined in. Now, that was a sound I could get used to.

  “Can you guys give us a minute?” Wesley asked.

  Melody and Stanley nodded and went into the back. Wesley hopped off the stage and came over to me.

  “What’s going on? Why are you here? Where’s Piper? Why are you … singing?”

  “Piper helped me set this up, with Chloe’s help,” Wesley said. “There was no girls’ night out. That was just a story we made up to get you here. I didn’t know if you’d come otherwise.”

  I didn’t know if I would have either.

  He put his hands over mine. “I lured you here tonight because I wanted to say I’m sorry for being such a jackass. You were right. I was expecting something different from Nightingale.”

  I nodded, hoping he would hurry up and finish his apology so I could go cry in private. I was right. He’d been disappointed in me—was still disappointed in me.

  Wesley’s golden eyes locked with mine. “But I found you instead, and you’re wonderful, Abby. Better than a fantasy, better than Nightingale could ever be. Because you’re the real thing. You’re the one I want. Not her. You’re the one I fell in love with.”

  He put my hand on his chest, right over his heart. I felt it thump through the fabric of his shirt. “You’re the one I fell in love with, Abby. I feel the lightning with you. The passion, the everything. It took me a while to realize it, but I fell in love with you that first night in your apartment. And then again that night I saved you from Bandit. And again that day behind the waterfall. And again that night at the convention center.”

  “Shut up,” I snapped.

  “What?”

  “Shut up,” I repeated. “Shut up and kiss me.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Wesley murmured.

  He lowered his lips to mine—and it was perfect.

  Better than before. Because this time, I knew he was kissing me. Abby Appleby. Wren, Nightingale, they were gone now. I was the only one left—the only one he wanted. Wesley had come to me, not them. He’d done all this for me. He wanted me, supersenses, anal retentiveness, freakish tendencies, warts, and all. I couldn’t quite believe it, but I wasn’t going to ignore destiny’s call, as Piper would say. Not this time.

  Wesley ended the kiss and leaned his forehead against mine. He stroked my cheek.

  “So, does this mean …” his voice trailed off.

  “It means I love you too. I have for a long time now.” I smiled. “Even if you do like John Denver.”

  We both laughed.

  Epilogue

  Two weeks later

  I stood on the balcony at the Bigtime Convention Center. Below me, about a hundred workers strung up balloons shaped like hearts, various superheroes and ubervillains, and certain body parts best left to the imagination. It was time for the big Valentine’s Day dance put on by the Slaves for Superhero Sex club, and I was overseeing the show, freakish balloons and all.

  The doors at the bottom of the stairway opened, and footsteps squeaked on the stairs. A moment later, mint
filled the air.

  “Did you bring Rascal with you?” I asked without turning around. “Piper had a date or something tonight and couldn’t keep him.”

  A bark answered my question. I turned around to find Wesley standing behind me. Rascal sat at his feet, waiting for one of us to pet him. I leaned down and obliged the puppy.

  “I’m still getting used to you having supersenses,” he said. “I’m never going to be able to sneak up on you, am I?”

  “Probably not,” I said, scratching Rascal’s ears. “But I can’t sail over the rooftops without you, can I?”

  “It’s not quite as romantic as sailing when your beloved screams her head off,” Wesley quipped.

  “I don’t scream—anymore. Well, not that much.”

  He raised his eyebrow. He came over and put his arms around me. “Can you get away yet?”

  I leaned into him. The past few weeks had gone by in a rosy blur. I wasn’t sure where Wesley and I were headed, but I was enjoying the ride so far—and going to do everything I could to keep sailing across the sky with him.

  “Give me a few more minutes.”

  “Well, hurry up. I think there’s a broom closet down the hall we haven’t explored yet,” he murmured in my ear.

  I smiled back. “And I just happen to have the master key to all the doors in the building. Imagine that.”

  “Why use my imagination when the real thing’s right here?” Wesley asked, pressing a kiss to the side of my neck.

  “Why walk all that way to the broom closet?” I whispered back.

  I tied Rascal’s leash to the balcony railing and pulled Wesley into the shadows. The puppy barked in protest, wanting to follow us. He strained against his leash and whined and barked.

  But it was a very, very long time before we got around to untying him.

  EXCERPTS

  Read on for excerpts from KARMA GIRL, HOT MAMA, JINX, and A KARMA GIRL CHRISTMAS

  in the

  Bigtime paranormal romance series

  by Jennifer Estep