He sat up.
What he needed was a quick peek at his baby girl, then a steaming shower—all while carefully avoiding Angel. His dreams of her were still too fresh. Too real—to the point that it looked like his morning shower would have to be cold, too.
He’d just pushed himself to his feet, when he spotted an inconsistency in standard Jonah McBride Bedtime Procedure.
Every night since he’d turned eighteen, and his mom had quit giving him flack about too many pillows being bad for his back, he’d slept with two, both neatly stacked. Even when he’d shared his bed with Geneva, every night he’d slept the same way. So how come last night was different?
Different enough that one of his pillows was off the stack, nestled sweetly right up alongside the other? And how come in the center of that pillow was a very long, very blond hair?
Jonah wasn’t sure whether to clutch his head or gut. Either way, suddenly he didn’t feel so hot.
The crazy night had been just a dream, right?
Hand gripping the bed’s cast-iron frame, he turned the corner, only to face still more condemning evidence when he found an ivory silk nightgown and matching lace panties pooled beside the bed.
No. He shook his head for further emphasis. No way was this happening. The night’s fun—hell, the night’s magic—had been a dream. Nothing more. All this other stuff could be easily explained.
From down the hall came the ethereal sound of Angel singing a lullaby to Katie.
Leaping into action, he pulled on boxers, then jeans. Not bothering with a shirt, he stormed down the hall. “Angel?” he called out.
“In here.”
He found her in the nursery’s rocker, pink flannel robe slipped over her left shoulder as she nursed his daughter. Katie balled her chubby hands into fists, kneading the breasts that, with cheeks flaming, Jonah recalled quite vividly having tasted himself.
“Morning, sleepyhead.” Angel’s smile seemed sunnier than usual. “Hope you don’t mind. We, um, didn’t get much sleep last night, so I called Leon and asked him to cover for you.”
Mind? Jonah put his hand to his forehead. “Why didn’t we sleep?”
“You want a play-by-play in front of the baby?” She grinned. “Shame on you. A father shouldn’t discuss such things in front of his daughter.”
He looked to his bare feet. “Angel, I’m serious. Nothing happened between us, right?”
Those big eyes of hers got all teary. “You don’t remember?”
Oh, I remember all right. Only this was one time I was hoping all of it was just a dream.
Katie had fallen asleep. Angel slid up the shoulder of her robe before saying, “I made breakfast. Just a second and I’ll fix you a plate.”
She made efficient work of laying Katie in her crib and pulling a light flannel cover over the infant’s bare legs, before brushing past him.
He caught her by her shoulders, turning her to face him.
“What?” she asked, her voice raspy and more than a little hurt.
To put it in her terminology, he felt like a prick.
“I’m sorry.”
She shrugged. “Doesn’t matter.”
“Of course, it matters.” He released her to raise his hands, only to drop them against his thighs. “Honestly, I thought the whole thing was a dream. Angel, you know what we did—it never should’ve happened. It wasn’t right.”
“How can you say that?” she asked, tears streaming down her cheeks. “After the intimacies we shared.”
“I said I’m sorry.”
“I don’t want an apology, Jonah. I want you to stand by those dear things you said. I want you to stop this stupid protector thing you’ve got going toward me and just be my husband. I want you to be the man you were last night. The man who held nothing back, either in words or actions.”
“That’s all?” He flashed her a hopeful grin.
“This isn’t funny,” she said, pummeling his chest.
He caught her wrists and used them to pull her close. “Let’s get one thing straight.”
“W-what?”
“Every damned word I said—I meant.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah. Oh, Angel. There’s a lot going on here you can’t possibly understand.”
“Then tell me. Let me at least try.”
He shook his head.
“Wait. Let me guess. Doctor’s orders?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact.”
She struggled to get away, but he held firm.
“Let me go,” she said between clenched teeth.
“Not until you cut me some slack.”
“For what? Giving me the best night of my life, then claiming it was all a dream?”
“I never said that.”
“No, but you wanted to.”
Releasing her right wrist, he curved his open palm to her cheek. “God, you’re beautiful.” He leaned forward, grazing her ripe mouth with a kiss.
“Tell me something I don’t already know.” A smile tugged the corners of her lips.
“Oh, so now you’re getting feisty on me?”
She shrugged. “Maybe.”
“So what if I do this?” He released her left hand as well, slipping both of his hands around her wisp of a waist, tugging her close—close enough that even if he didn’t remember details of their night, his body did. Arousal struck hard and fast and, to give himself some glimmer of release, he pressed her even closer. “Now do you believe me?” he asked on a groan into her ear, the heat of his breath catching in her hair’s fragrant web.
Her back to the door, he covered her lips with his, parting them with an irrepressible, shuddering hunger. In a short time she’d bewitched him. Completely and utterly made him her all too willing slave. Nothing like Geneva, Angel was everything he’d ever wanted in a woman and so much more. “What have you done to me?”
After sidling free of his hold, she blew him a kiss. “Hopefully made you see that this nonsense the doctor told you about protecting me is just that—nonsense. Now, get your sexy butt downstairs. Your breakfast is getting cold.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
“Hot damn…” Geneva’s eyes widened at just how well her osmosis computer lesson worked. She’d tried only a few of the tricks Sam had taught her—computer tricks—none of the juicier stuff. She was, after all, an angel-in-training. Wouldn’t want to mess up her rep now, just when things were going good.
Anyway, the information on Jonah’s Angel was flowing. Compared to her, Geneva felt like a bona fide saint!
Talk about your dirty laundry.
From the day she first set eyes on Blondie, Geneva thought she looked familiar. Now she knew why. Jonah’s ‘Angel’ had a naughty past that read like a racy summer novel—not that Geneva was put off by any of the information. If anything, she had a newfound respect for the woman. Knowing she’d made her share of mistakes and lived to tell about them, meant they had things in common beyond their love for Jonah and Katie.
Sure, Angel might be a model wife now, but whoa… Jonah would blow a gasket when he found out—if he found out.
The way Geneva saw it, Blondie’s past wouldn’t change anything about the person she’d become, except in Jonah’s eyes. If he treated his new woman anything like he had her, he’d expect her to be a perfect paragon of motherhood, sainthood and TV sitcom wife that no real woman could ever live up to.
So here was a brand-new problem—how to erase Blondie’s past without Jonah finding out about it.
Geneva plunked down hard on her cosmic couch.
Looked like she had her work cut out for her. A man to erase. A child. A whole other—
“Knock, knock.”
She jumped. “Damnit, Teach. When are you ever gonna—”
“I did knock. Is it my fault you weren’t listening?”
She flashed her fiercest frown. “What do you want? I’m busy.”
“I hear that. You’re thinking loudly enough to have interrupted my beauty sleep.”
“I’m here to do you a favor, Geneva.”
“Oh, goody.”
He glanced over his shoulder. “You’ll be thinking goody after I give you this heads-up.”
“What now?”
“You can’t magically erase Angel’s past.”
“Why?”
“Because part of her personal journey is learning to deal with her past mistakes.”
“Yeah, but she’s made some doozies and I’m down to what? Like twenty-two days to get her and Jonah together?”
He glanced at his gold Rolex. “Try twenty-one.”
“Great. That’s just dandy. I know Jonah, and when he hears about this, he’s gonna freak. He might be hot for her now but, believe me, once Sam reads him Blondie’s rap sheet, that’ll be the end of this cozy setup.”
Teach frowned. “Even in light of all she’s done for his baby?”
“Especially because of that. Shoot, I’m Katie’s mother and even I wasn’t good enough for her. You think for a second this new fallen angel will be?”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
“Trying to fatten me up?” Jonah asked twenty minutes later, slipping a cloth napkin onto his lap. As usual, the kitchen table was set with his mother’s best china, silver and a vase brimming with flowers—this time pink and white tulips and red bud branches. Spread before him was a feast of scrambled eggs, bacon, French toast, syrup, juice and coffee.
“A man needs plenty of good food to build stamina, don’t you think?” Slipping a strip of bacon onto his plate from her still sizzling pan, she winked.
“What I think, is that you’re trouble with a capital T.”
She placed the pan back on the stove before joining him.
They’d been eating a few minutes in companionable silence when she said, “I’ve been thinking lately about ways we can save more money.”
Bacon to his lips, he said, “Let’s hear it.”
“Well, I know how sensitive you are on the subject of the diner, but—”
“Aw, man.” He dropped the bacon on his plate. “I knew all this was too good to be true. What do you want?”
“What is it with you always thinking I want something?”
A little something I learned from my first wife.
“Why won’t you for once consider that maybe I’m wanting to give.”
“Give what?”
“My time. I sit around here all day, just me and Lizzy. Yes, I’ve made some improvements to the house, but that’s not enough. I want to get out and do something. Be productive.”
“You saying you want a job?”
“Not just any job. I want to work with you. At the diner.”
“No. Absolutely not. Out of the question.”
“Why?
“B-because...” Because he’d tried it once with Geneva and, for that one week, she’d made his life a living hell. Always acting like she knew best. Suggesting he cut costs by cutting portions. Being rude to his best customers. Refusing to wait on people because she thought it was beneath her. To her way of thinking, she was strictly management material.
Yeah, but that was Geneva. This is Angel. What if she’s as night-and-day different from Geneva at the diner, just like she is at home?
“Please, Jonah.” She covered her hand with his, filling him with inexplicable warmth. “Just for today, let me and Lizzy come with you. I’ll wait tables, do dishes—whatever. I just want to feel like I’m making a contribution.”
“You are. The difference you’ve made for Lizzy means the world to me. But the diner—it’s not fun. Most days, it’s boring as hell. Going through the motions for nothing. Cooking lunch and dinner specials nobody eats. Baking pies that rot on the shelf.”
“Fine. I’m prepared for all that and more. I...” She swallowed hard. Looked to her plate, then to him. “Especially after last night, I want to share everything with you. Good and bad.”
“You know the pay’s lousy,” he offered as a final argument.
She grinned. “I work for kisses.”
Leaning across the table, he did just that, kissed her sweetly yet urgently. Nothing this amazing, this right, could last. Sam was good. One of these days he would unravel Angel’s mystery but, until then, Jonah was determined to take each minute as it came.
Living, laughing, loving.
He knew better than anyone he was doing all that in a fantasy world, but how did a man force himself to wake from the dream he’d waited his whole life to live?
“What’s she doing here?” Sam asked, seated at the diner’s counter.
“She’s my wife. What do you think she’s doing?” His friend’s response gave Sam instant indigestion.
The one lead he thought he’d had on her vanished, right down to the detective’s name, number, and precinct. If he didn’t know better, Sam would’ve sworn the same hackers messing with his computer and phone lines were messing with his head. Leaning across the counter, he all but hissed, “Don’t you mean your pretend wife?”
“Don’t start,” Jonah warned, swiping a wet cloth across the counter.
“What’s the matter?” Sam asked, slanting a look Angel’s way. “Long day?”
Jonah laughed. “Even longer night. Damn storm. If I got ten minutes’ worth of sleep, I’d be surprised.”
“Yeah. Me too.” He finished his coffee. “Had some of the kinkiest damned dreams of my life.”
Jonah blanched. “Thanks for sharing.”
“You bet.”
Across the room, Angel sat in a window booth, singing Itsy Bitsy Spider to a grinning Katie.
“She’s got an awesome voice, hasn’t she?” Jonah stopped his cleaning to simply stare. His expression turned all warm and fuzzy.
Beat anything Sam had ever seen. It was like his friend had fallen victim to a spell.
Sighing, Sam waved his hand in front of Jonah’s glazed eyes. “Earth to Jonah.”
“What?” Jonah’s tone was sharp as a bratty ten-year-old’s whose mom had called him away from cartoons to take out the trash.
“Not that you probably even care, but Cecil’s place—looks like it was arson. Even worse, Cecil has a solid alibi.”
Jonah cleared the remains of Sam’s meat loaf special, a white plate, a water glass and a crumpled paper napkin. “So?”
“So? Cecil was my number-one suspect. I thought for sure he did it for the insurance. But now...”
“Jonah, sweetie?” Angel called from across the room. “Come here. Lizzy just did the cutest thing.” Forehead against the baby’s, she cooed, “Didn’t you do the cutest thing, sweet cheeks?”
Sam groaned when Jonah abandoned him to watch his kid blow a spit bubble.
Rubbing his jaw, Sam supposed he should be happy for Jonah. A few weeks earlier Katie had been in a bad way. Now, judging by the empty tables around him, it was just the diner in trouble. But Jonah had his head so far up his ass making goo-goo eyes at Angel, it was like he wasn’t even living on the same planet.
Sam would’ve been thrilled for Jonah if what he shared with Angel was the real deal but, as far as he could tell, she was nothing more than a Band-Aid covering the worst of Jonah’s wounds. Take her out of the equation and his life would be as rotten as ever.
And therein lay the rub. Maybe not today, or even tomorrow, but she would be taken out.
For as long as he could remember, Sam’s only passion in life had been solving mysteries. He’d helped out old Police Chief Stutts back in high school—even played a big part in solving the town’s only murder.
Now, in less than a month, their normally quiet town had a strange woman making moves on one of its most respected citizens and an arsonist flaming half the historic downtown.
Initial findings proved those second two fires were caused by oil-soaked rags and heat, but Sam wasn’t buying it. They were too close to Stump’s Hardware to have been coincidental. The worst part of all this was, as long as Sam was saddled with crappy equipment down at the station, he could
n’t do a damn thing about any of it.
Make no mistake, if he found a phone that worked, Sam knew he could work miracles, at least with Angel’s case. But, with the way things had been going, he might as well be working blindfolded, both hands tied behind his back.
Snatching his hat from the counter and plunking it on his head, he frowned while eyeing the happy threesome laughing it up in the comer.
This couldn’t help but end bad.
“Come on, Earl…” Angel set the elderly man’s sausage and pancakes on the table. On only her second day waitressing, she already loved her job. And who said the pay was lousy? She’d already raked in a bundle in tips, and getting paid her hourly wages in Jonah’s kisses made her feel rich as a millionaire. “You don’t really want me to sing that old song again.”
“Yes, yes, I do,” he said with a clack of his dentures. “You sing purdy as a bluebird buildin’ its nest.”
“That’s quite a compliment,” she said, her hands on her hips. “For that, maybe I will have to sing it again.” She launched into the song Judy Garland made famous, Somewhere Over the Rainbow, oblivious to the other diners looking on. Her performance was solely for the pleasure of this dear old man who’d said his now deceased wife used to sing the song to their babies. Babies who were now well into their sixties!
In the kitchen Leon said to Jonah, “If that don’t beat all.”
Jonah looked up from the pie crust he was rolling. “What?”
“The way that woman’s singin’. Looks like she’s been doin’ it all her life.”
Jonah shrugged. “Sings all the time around the house. Lizzy loves it. You should see her green eyes sparkle every time her momma launches into a song.” Feeling his friend’s stare, Jonah glanced up. “What?”
“Don’t you mean Katie?”
Jonah sighed, fitting the flattened dough into a pie plate. “Most days I don’t know what I mean. Guess she’s growing on me.”
“From the looks of it,” Leon gestured to the almost full counter crowd, “she’s growing on everyone else, too. Word’s spread fast.”
Angel Baby (Heaven Can Wait) Page 18