Thankfully, Cathy took the thinly veiled hint in his words and stood to leave.
“Anytime.” She started for the door but then stopped, and turned back toward him. After a brief pause, she rounded his desk and placed her fingers on his arm.
When he met her gaze, he saw a sadness that said she understood how he felt—at least a little.
“I meant what I said, Drew. I think of you as a friend. I did in middle school and I still have since you came home. If you ever need an ear to bend, I’ll be here.” She turned to leave again, but stopped once more. “Or you can talk to Gary if you’d prefer to keep it amongst the men.”
She smiled warmly at him and he could see why her husband had snapped her up. There was a level of innate understanding buried within her and she seemed to get men in a way most women never could. He was also relieved that she hadn’t mentioned Becca’s name once more.
“Thank you,” he said again, meaning it a little more this time.
Amity hadn’t returned to Drew or to the hospital at all since she’d rediscovered the ache of human emotions and the guilt of her mistakes. Instead, she’d retreated to the top of Mount McKinley thousands of miles away. While the air in Flint had been only just starting to cool toward winter, the season had well and truly claimed the mountaintop. Even though she didn’t need protection from the cold, she’d wrapped herself in a number of layers topped with a Donna Karan jacket. Fashion was her fallback, a way to give herself something to focus on outside of emotions.
Her hands were free from coverings though. Instead of being nestled in warm gloves, they were plunged deep into the surrounding snow. She'd already held them there long enough for a human to have lost most of the feeling in their fingertips, possibly even long enough for a severe case of frostbite to have settled in, but she didn’t care. She didn't have to worry about trivial things like blood flow and oxygen. Her human body did whatever her grace instructed, regardless of what happened around her.
Despite the cold of the snow wrapped around her fingers, the skin of her palm burned as though it was still pressed against Drew’s neck. Her anger and hurt over what she believed constituted a massive betrayal by her brothers—by Michael in particular—burned through her in a white-hot burst.
She heard a flutter behind her, but didn’t even bother to turn to greet her visitor. She already knew exactly who it was, and had no doubt he was ready to launch into some lecture about her behavior and how it served her right. How she’d deserved the surprise she’d just received.
“What are you doing here, Michael?” she asked, not feeling any need or desire to make him feel welcome.
His feet crunched over the fresh snow as he made his way to her. When he reached her, he knelt at her side before resting his hand on her shoulder. “I came to make sure you were okay.”
Even though his touch eased the burden of the burning of her palms, she pulled away from him. He didn’t deserve the peace of mind that came from helping her. “Okay? No, I am not okay. I am so far away from okay I don’t know if I will ever be okay again. You set me up!”
He looked at the snow between them. “That was . . . regrettable.”
“No, the plagues of Egypt were regrettable. What you did was a dick move.”
“I was only doing my duty. This is your chance for penance, which you’ve wanted for a long time.”
“Fuck penance.” At the harsh tone of Amity’s voice, Michael winced away as though he’d been struck.
“Amitiel—Amity,” he corrected himself at the narrowing of her eyes. “Of all the angels who walk the Earth, you should know most of all that the path to the truth brings penance. You want this, even as you rally against it.”
“Why didn’t you warn me?”
“Would you have accepted the task if I had?”
She sighed as his words hit their intended mark. No. She wouldn’t have taken the assignment if she’d known all of the players. As soon as she’d learned the truth, she would have fled to the other side of the world and hoped it would all resolve itself without her involvement. She tipped her head forward, using her curtain of hair to shield her from the world—and from Michael in particular.
“I could have prepared myself for it,” she whispered, even though she knew there was no truth in the words. There was no preparation for the discovery that the one person you were assigned to help was only hurt as a result of your past failures.
Michael sat onto the snow, twisting his hips so he was more in front of her than beside. He brushed her hair away from her face and tucked it behind her ear. “No, you couldn’t have. I know you probably will disagree with my next statement, but this is for the best. By helping Drew find acceptance, you will see that what happened back then was not solely your responsibility.”
She looked into Michael’s eyes and saw galaxies swirling around in the warm amber depths. As much as she struggled with the big brother mantle he took onto himself, it was moments like this one where it was evident why he did. Even though the first of the angels were brought into existence in the same nanosecond, Michael’s burdens in the intervening years made him infinitely older than her or any of her other brothers. After all, he held the literal balance of the whole universe resting within his grace.
She felt like a mewling child staring into an infinite abyss as she met the depths of his gaze. It was no wonder that many humans who had seen the sight went crazy. Others were luckier. Even though everyone met Michael in the end, when his grace would pluck their soul from their body and prepare them for judgment, most were spared the sight of a face-to-face appearance.
She swallowed down her fear as she wondered exactly how many judgments and cases Michael had weighed and decided during the course of their conversation. How many souls he’d gathered? How many had moved onward and upward, and how many had been sent back to Earth to do Heaven’s bidding? She cast her eyes away from his, unwilling to meet the oblivion in the depths any longer. She wasn’t afraid of the infinity they held as much as the judgment she saw within them.
It wasn’t enough to stop her from asking the question which had frightened her the most since she’d seen the truth though. “What if it was my fault though? What if all of her suffering was because of me?”
Michael reached for her arm again, allowing his compassion to flow through his touch. Instead of fighting him off once more, Amity allowed him to comfort her. With the contact, he shared everything that happened after she’d left that fateful day so long ago and the rest of the story about the cupid—the parts he’d hidden before.
She clenched her eyes as tight as she could while images of her last case assaulted her mind. It was no wonder she’d been instructed to stay away from the cupid. From Evan. The name brought his face into her mind. Both of their faces. Evan and Rose: young lovers torn apart by greed.
Once, long ago, Heaven had a plan for the two of them. A cupid had been assigned to their case when they were still in school. The problem was that Rose’s father had planned another outcome for both his daughters. He wasn’t at all satisfied with the punk from the wrong side of the tracks wooing Rose. No, he’d wanted to use her as a commodity to advance his own selfish needs. Ultimately it had cost his daughter her life.
Michael had given Amity the case rather late in the piece. Her duty was to show Rose’s husband the truth: that the marriage was a loveless one and that both he and Rose would be happier if they were apart. Heaven had expected her to do it the proper way, guiding the man slowly to reality. Amity had decided to do things her way, but she’d had no way of anticipating the reactions her methods would inspire though. The damage that the truth had caused on that occasion raced through her mind and caused her hands to tremor. And now, now she’d forced Drew into seeing similar truths with the same lack of care. She couldn’t help but question, once again, how she’d got everything so wrong.
Back then, she’d always had five or six special cases at a time. In fact, despite the perfunctory manner in which she performed her t
asks, she’d been the perfect angel. She’d even worn clothing off the rack. But the truth was that humanity sucked and the truth hurt. Free will was synonymous with pain and suffering. And that was why she’d run from her duty.
After sensing Rose’s panic that day, Amity had raced to her side, but it was too late. Less than a second after her arrival, she’d felt the presence of Michael’s grace in the room and sensed Rose’s soul slipping away for judgment. It had been too much for Amity to cope with and she’d walked away after that. She’d hidden from the truth and tried as hard as she could to turn her mind away from that pain.
Until the moment Michael revealed Evan’s subsequent choices, she hadn’t even known of his tragic decision after learning of Rose’s death. She hadn’t known of his date with the bottom of a cliff. Or his agreement to serve a stint as a cupid.
With the new information at her disposal, Heaven’s decision to give the cupid a human life as a reward made more sense. He was merely being given what had been snatched away by Heaven’s own previous missteps.
My missteps, she thought bitterly.
The fact remained that if she hadn’t pushed Rose’s husband with a hard jolt of the bitter truth—hadn’t enraged his jealousy and clued him in to the existence of the letters between Evan and Rose—things might have been very different. Rose and Evan may have secured their happily ever after a lifetime ago.
Michael’s fingers stroked a gentle path over her arm, the touch giving her something concrete to focus on rather than the agony of the past.
“It wasn’t your fault,” he said. “No one could have predicted what would happen after he’d learned of the truth.”
Amity nodded at his platitude, not believing it for a moment. When she opened her mouth, her newest fear rushed out. “What if Drew’s just the same as he was?”
“Even if he is, you aren’t responsible for his actions.”
She pulled away from Michael’s touch.
“I won’t let it happen again,” she hissed. An instant later, she was cloaked and back at Drew’s side ready to do whatever it took to stop him from hurting Becca or Evan.
Chapter Six
Drew had never had a more embarrassing day.
The humiliation of everyone knowing about him and Becca breaking up would have been bad enough, without the added fact that after Cathy’s visit to his office, he didn’t seem to be able to keep any of his little secrets inside. Each time he opened his trap, something he’d have preferred to keep hidden came spilling out. He didn’t know why, but put it down to a bout of insanity that he wished would stop. He’d even spent twenty minutes telling the janitor about the little strawberry birthmark Becca had on her inner-left thigh—everything from the way the skin tasted, to the way the slightly raised bump felt against his tongue.
In the end, his father sent him home on stress-leave.
“Take tomorrow off to recuperate.” He’d been instructed as he’d been walked out of the hospital.
His jaw was so tightly clenched that he worried he might be causing permanent damage to the veneer of his teeth, especially with all the extra pressure he’d been exerting on them in the last day. He reasoned it would have to get easier when he was home, and away from other people. Home. Even the word seemed to mock him. He’d barely moved in yet he was already sick of it and ready to move out. Move on.
The fact remained that everything about his home was arranged with the understanding that he’d soon be showing Becca the space. He’d planned on bringing Becca back home for their first full night together. Planned on holding her tightly in his arms and giving himself to her, falling asleep at her side—a deed, which to him, required a much greater level of intimacy than something as common as sex. He’d done it before with other girls, almost exclusively because of too much alcohol consumption, and he’d always hated himself in the morning. A long time ago, he’d learned it was far easier to get the job done and then just go his own way rather than try to deal with awkward morning afters.
With Becca, it was going to be different though—special. He was building up to it and had intended to bring her over as soon as he had everything just right. In hindsight, he could see how idiotic he’d been. Maybe if he’d shared more, been more open about everything, then that fucker Evan wouldn’t have had a chance to muscle in on his girl.
Becca didn’t even know he’d leased the place—he’d wanted to surprise her. It seemed so stupid now, but carving out this little slice of privacy for himself was Drew’s way of recognizing he was almost ready to make a longer-term commitment to her. Not entirely ready, because marriage was a huge step and he didn’t want to end up having multiple wives like his father, but certainly closer to investigating the options of thinking about getting engaged.
He’d set the getting-a-place-of-his-own wheel in motion the day after she’d given him a key to her own house. That simple gesture had made him believe they were on the same page about the direction things were moving in. That it was the way she’d wanted them to go.
Could I have been a bigger fool?
He clenched his hands around the steering wheel. The skin over his knuckles and all of his joints, still sore from the pounding he’d given his punching bag the night before, ached in protest. How had it all gone so wrong in the space of twenty-four hours?
Without a second thought, he twisted the wheel so he was headed toward Becca’s house. Yesterday, confronted with the multiple images of Evan, he’d told her to let him go. Today, after everything he’d endured and the knowledge of what life was like after losing her, he wasn’t nearly so ready to give up without a fight.
“Goddamn you, Becca,” he growled as he turned onto her street and saw the house where he’d spent a number of evenings with her panting and desperate in his arms. He’d given her experiences unlike any she’d had before. She’d told him as much, and his pride desperately needed to remind him of them all.
His mind whispered cruel thoughts at him about the things Evan might have done with her—things which could have wiped all thoughts of Drew from her mind.
Drew’s painfully tight grip on the steering wheel impossibly tensed even further until his knuckles threatened to burst through his already white and stretched skin.
“I should just show you why I’m better than he is,” Drew muttered, thinking about how easy it would be to reenact the pummeling he’d given the punching bag with the real thing.
The steering wheel that had been so tight in his grip an instant earlier took a sharp turn to the right, throwing him against the door as the car lurched into a spin.
Although the temptation was there to ram his foot onto the brake as hard and fast as he could to bring the car to a complete stop, he knew that it would be a mistake. Instead, he feathered his foot on the pedal to bring his Merc to a steady halt.
He looked around the car, wondering if anyone in the houses that lined Becca’s street had their noses pressed against their windows to watch his humiliating spin.
That’s just what I need. He placed his hands in a steel grip at a perfect ten and two.
With care, he moved the car out of the middle of the road, trying to ensure he didn’t further damage whatever had broken to cause the spin. The car drove perfectly—moved perfectly. He started to wonder whether he’d accidentally knocked the steering wheel out of alignment. The skin of his knuckles protested as he pushed the speed of the car higher until he was at the speed limit.
Once he was satisfied that whatever had caused the issue was clearly not repeating itself, he brought the car around so that he was heading for Becca’s once again.
He was only a few houses away when the wheel yanked sharply to the right again. He tried to fight it, the muscles in his arms straining as he used everything he had in him to hold the wheel straight and stay on the road.
“What the hell?” he growled. He mentally catalogued everything that could be wrong with the car to make it lose control twice in such quick succession. He got as far as flat tire, damaged
steering arm, or broken axel before he ran out of ideas. He was a doctor, not a mechanic.
Once again, he was able to bring the car to a careful stop. This time, he climbed from the vehicle and did a quick circuit around the car to see if he could figure out what was wrong. Nothing looked out of the ordinary, at least nothing he could see from a standing, and then a kneeling, position. He was damned if he was going to lie down on the road or slide underneath to see if he could see something wrong. It wasn’t like he’d know what to look for anyway.
There were only a few choices Drew could make. He could ring AAA and wait for someone to come to his rescue, as if he were some goddamn damsel in distress. Alternatively, he could attempt to drive the car home and hope to God that the steering held out until he made it back; or he could walk to Becca’s house, knock on her door, and use the whole broken down car thing as an excuse to talk to her. Except then he’d have to explain why he was on her street in the first place—and he would potentially be stuck without an escape route if things went badly.
That wouldn’t be good at all.
Unless . . . He stood a little straighter at the thought. Unless it was the moment.
His smile stretched wider. That was what it would be. The moment. That perfect time where what happened wouldn’t matter anymore and things would suddenly become right between them again. He allowed himself to envisage the scene. He’d ring the bell and then wait, posed on the doorstep, for Becca to answer. The instant she pulled the door open and saw it was him, she’d throw herself into his arms and apologize again and again for not believing him when he’d warned her of Evan’s true intentions. They’d kiss. They’d make-up. He’d carry her to her bedroom where they’d spend the better part of the night having wild and wonderful make-up sex in every position possible before inventing some new ones.
All Amity Allows (Fall for You Book 2) Page 6