“What about Katie?”
“I’ll take her with me.”
“Why? She’s sound asleep. There’s no reason to wake her.”
“She’ll be fine.”
“Better awake with you than asleep with me?”
He said nothing.
“Seriously?” She covered her mouth with her hands. “You think I’d try to take her?”
He looked away. He couldn’t say the thought hadn’t crossed his mind. After all, up to twenty minutes earlier he’d have sworn he knew Rose well enough to want to spend the rest of his life with her. But now she might as well have been the Queen Bitch of rock and roll she was evidently dying to once again portray.
“You do. You actually distrust me enough to think I’d stoop to kidnapping.” Now she was crying, and his arms ached from the strain of not reaching out to her.
“I’d better get going. Make yourself comfortable. I’ll be back after a while.”
Rose stood in the kitchen trying to stop shaking but couldn’t. Soon enough Jonah left, Katie in his arms, not even looking at her on his way out the back door.
What had she done? she thought, sinking to her knees. Why did I come back?
Chapter Forty-Six
“What have I done to deserve being saddled with you and Jonah?” Geneva rolled her eyes Heavenward only to kick herself for forgetting she was already in Heaven—at least for the next three or so hours.
What was up with those two? Just that morning they’d been going at it like bunnies. Okay, so sure, neither Rose nor Jonah had clean slates, but why couldn’t they just work around each other’s dirty laundry?
“What’re you going to do?” Teach asked, not fazing her when he popped alongside her on her cloud’s couch.
“Good question.” She drew her lower lip into her mouth for a nibble. “You know,” she said, angling Teach’s way, “I could think a lot more clearly with a margarita.”
He snapped his fingers and, voila, in his hand he held a cobalt blue glass festively lined with salt and a lime garnish. “I shouldn’t be encouraging you to imbibe, but this close to your unfortunate ultimate demise, I fail to see how a little pick-me-up could hurt.”
“Gee, thanks.” She downed her first gulp. “I think.” After a few more sips she said, “So how come I can drink this when I have no body?”
“Long story. One I’m afraid you don’t have time to hear.”
Geneva’s throat tightened. For all her brave talk, she was afraid. She’d had such high hopes for a second chance. She’d worked hard—and she had changed—so how come just because Blondie and Jonah failed to get their acts together, she was still getting a one way ticket to hell?
Chapter Forty-Seven
Rose wasn’t sure how long she’d lain on the kitchen floor until she finally found sense enough to drag herself to bed.
She should’ve hopped in her car the minute Jonah left. If she’d had one bit of sense, she could have been halfway to Little Rock by now. But after driving without stopping all the way to Blue Moon from Sulphur, then climbing onto that emotional roller coaster with Jonah, she knew she’d not only be a danger to herself on the road but to others.
In the upstairs hall she found her toothbrush still in its slot in the hot pink holder. She brushed her teeth, ran a warm cloth over her face, then stepped into the hall, warily eyeing her choices. On the one hand was her old room, but the room she yearned for was Jonah’s.
Why had she gone off on him like that? What had she been trying to prove? He hadn’t meant anything by the Angel crack. He’d said that morning he loved her. Couldn’t she have just left it at that?
Yes, but how many other men in her life had told her they loved her, only as a means to use her?
Yes, Geneva wanted to scream at her, but for the last time, Jonah isn’t like other men. He’s unique in the whole world. He only used you to save our baby. Was that really so bad? Can you honestly say that, faced with the situation, you wouldn’t have done the same—that you haven’t done virtually the same over the years in trying to save yourself?
Rose ultimately made the short trip to her old room. Geneva’s room. Learning about her, she felt an odd kinship with the woman who’d first claimed the title of Mrs. Jonah McBride.
Crawling into bed, drawing up just the sheet to shelter herself from the balmy night air, she asked, “Did you love him, Geneva? Truly love him the way I’m afraid I do?”
“Yes.” Only just that moment did Geneva realize how much she had loved her husband. And how very much she missed him and her child now that she was gone.
Sam jolted awake to pick up the ringing phone. “Chief Calder.”
“Hey, it’s Frank. Listen, bud, you better get downtown. We got another fire, and this time it’s a doozy.”
Sam pulled on jeans and a T-shirt, slipped bare feet into the ridiculous Birkenstocks a nagging voice had told him to purchase, then made it downtown in ten minutes, only to be faced with an image straight from hell.
From the looks of it, most of downtown was on fire. Next in line to go was the Blue Moon Diner. As if just thinking it had made it so, the building beside it collapsed, raining burning timbers on Jonah’s roof.
Damn that mayor. Evidently their talk on the matter of arson carrying stiff prison terms hadn’t had much of an effect. Oh—of course, he’d sworn to having been lily white when it came to the subject of all these downtown fires, but Sam had been sniffing out criminals all his life and one thing was for certain—while he couldn’t yet prove the mayor was connected to all this, he for damn sure wouldn’t rest until he could.
Sam ached for his best friend, but was glad Rose was back in town. At least Jonah would have her to help him through this loss. Sam fished out his phone and punched in Jonah’s home number.
After eight rings, a woman picked up. “Rose?”
“Yes.” Her voice was groggy. She must’ve been sleeping.
“Hey, it’s Sam. Look, wish I had time for pleasantries, but I’m afraid I’ve got bad news. Can you grab Jonah for me?”
“No. Is there something I can do?”
No? “Where is he?”
“At the diner. We had a fight and—”
“Christ…” Sam’s heart roared like the fire. “Get downtown, Rose. Jonah’s in trouble.”
Rose shook so badly she could hardly get dressed, let alone insert the key into her car. Sam had been cryptic, but she wasn’t dense. She’d heard sirens in the background, along with shouts.
There was another fire. Only this time it was closer to home.
Dear God, she prayed, running every stop sign and light. Please let Jonah and Katie be all right. Looking back on it, she couldn’t even remember what had prompted her to turn all snippy with Jonah earlier in the evening. If she had to guess—insecurity. Fear. Some crazy desire to dump him before he dumped her.
But what if, as he’d said, he had been about to propose? If she’d just shut up and let him, he and Katie would be home safe right now. Katie in her crib, Jonah in Rose’s arms.
Stepping harder on the gas, she tightened her grip on the wheel.
As long as there was breath in her body, she would die before harm came to those two.
Sam’s deputies had both ends of Main Street blocked, protecting passersby from what appeared at the distance of about a block to be a solid wall of fire. Five—maybe even six—storefronts were burning, the last one in line being the diner.
“Noooo!” Rose screamed, running down the street.
When she’d come close enough to be slapped by the heat, yet still fully intending to charge inside, Sam dragged her back.
“No way,” he called above the fire’s roar. “The backside already caved in. And in front the flames are too hot. Frank came damned close to losing two men. Rose, I’m sorry. I loved him, too, but it’s time for you to face facts—Jonah’s gone. Sacrificing yourself won’t bring him back.”
“It’s not just Jonah,” she cried, frantic to escape his hold, “but Katie
, too. I’ve already lost one baby, Sam, and no one, not you—or the devil himself—is going to hold me back.”
Sam grabbed hold of Rose’s sleeve to stop her, but he only had hold of her light jacket. She wriggled out of it to get free, then ran with total disregard for her safety straight into the living wall of flame.
“Oh, hell, no.” Geneva said. Jonah, Katie and Rose—they were a family. What would be the point of Geneva’s trying to get into Heaven were she to lose all of them now?
Teach popped up beside her. “Remember, Geneva, you’re strictly forbidden to perform physical manifestations. You must allow Fate to take its course.”
“I'll give you Fate,” she said, letting Teach have it right in the kisser before scrunching her eyes shut and willing herself into the heart of the flame.
“Jonah?!” Rose screamed, now on her knees, crawling through inky darkness, fighting for every breath as she felt her way across the dining room floor. “Jonah, sweetheart, please answer! Can you hear me?!” Her fingertips met with the heated chrome of what she could only guess was one of the counter stools. Knowing the kitchen and office were directly in line with that, she scrambled all the faster, getting by on little more than a prayer and her unwavering will to succeed.
“I love you and your daughter, Jonah! Don’t you dare die on me!”
A flaming timber crashed to the floor beside her and she screamed. Hell itself couldn’t be any worse than this. She crawled for feet without knowing if she was even getting close. But then she felt the foot of the stove, and the stainless-steel work counter, and she knew from there the office door opened onto her right. “Jonah?!”
In the office, the air wasn’t as thick, and flames from the kitchen helped guide her way.
There they were, Jonah sprawled out on the sofa with Katie on his chest. They both appeared deathly still.
“Nooo!” she screamed, scrambling to her feet to shake them. “Don’t you two dare leave me! Not when I’ve only just realized how much I need you.”
From over their heads came a terrible shudder and roar.
Rose looked up.
In slow motion, ceiling tiles tumbled toward her in a shower of sparks and flame. She hugged herself over Jonah and Katie, sheltering them with her own body from the hellish storm. If they were going to die, then at least they’d die together, for there would be no life for her without them.
She’d resigned herself to this fate when a brilliant light descended upon the room. A light far brighter than the flame.
A woman dressed in flowing white emerged. She didn’t speak, just extended her hand.
Convinced she must’ve already died and was now in the light-tunnel folks talked about on late-night TV, Rose shook her head. “I’m not leaving until you promise Jonah and Katie will survive.”
All the more animated, the woman again reached for Rose’s hand, this time making contact in shimmering waves of ice.
Before she could even think to fight, the light was lifting not just her, but Jonah and Katie. Lifting, lifting, flying them magic carpet-style across the office, the kitchen and finally out the front door, landing them in a heap, Katie cradled in Rose’s arms.
“I’ll be damned!” Sam shouted. “Look, they’re all three alive!”
“Thank God,” Frank said, gesturing like mad toward the paramedics, who hefted all three to safety, then administered oxygen.
“What happened?” Jonah asked minutes later, sputtering awake with a cough as he slipped the plastic mask off his face. “Katie? Where’s Katie?”
“She’s right here, Jonah.” Held in Rose’s protective arms. Rose had slipped off her oxygen mask but held Katie’s firm. “The diner—it’s gone, but Katie’s okay.”
“You, too?”
She nodded, eyes shimmering with tears. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “I don’t know what made me go off on you that way.”
Scooting across the pavement to pull her against him, he said, “I’m the one who’s sorry. I thought I had everything under control. Katie, the diner, you—but that control was an illusion. I’m just a man, Rose. A man who’s finally wised up enough to realize all the perceived control in the world means nothing without you. I was planning on going home to you, you know, to force you to hammer all this out, tell you I’d be proud to marry a rock star if you’d deign to hook yourself up with a lowly cook, but I must’ve drifted off. I can’t remember anything past that. Now—” he looked to the ground, reached for a pebble he rolled with his fingers against the pavement “—now, I look back on all the petty things I’ve been caught up in and they seem like nothing. This diner being one,” he admitted. “I was actually prepared to lose you just to keep up this same day-in, day-out existence. I mean, where’s the fun? The passion? Geneva was right. I am boring.”
“You? Boring?” Rose cupped her hand to his soot-shadowed cheek, thinking that never had she seen him look more handsome. “Not a chance. And I do have some money set aside, you know. True, the original diner held a ton of great memories, but we can make new ones, Jonah. The three of us—together.”
With Katie asleep in the cradle formed by Rose’s cross-legged lap, Jonah took his future wife’s hands in his. “Without you, there wouldn’t be a three of us. You’re the one who saved us, aren’t you?”
She shook her head, tears of relief falling freely. “I tried, but the ceiling was caving in. I remember trying to shelter you, but I thought it was too late and we were all going to die. But then...” Had she dreamt what happened next?
“What?” he asked, tipping up her chin so her gaze met his.
“I thought I saw an angel-like light lifting us, but…” She shrugged. “I had to have been hallucinating. We must’ve all somehow crawled out.”
He shook his head, tenderly kissing her cracked lips. “I know exactly what happened.”
“You do?”
He nodded. “Me and Katie were once again saved by our own personal Angel.” Tweaking her nose, he added, “And this time, don’t you dare try to deny it.” Rose wouldn’t have dared—wouldn’t have cared, actually. As long as her adopted daughter and husband were safe in her arms, the rest of the world happily faded from view.
“Am I too late?”
Sam turned from Frank to wide-eyed Leon. “They’re okay, aren’t they? I heard on the scanner Jonah was inside—little Katie, too. If I did something to hurt them, I swear, I’ll kill myself right along with ’em.”
“Whoa…” Sam clapped his hand over Leon’s shoulder. “Hold on a minute. They’re fine.” He narrowed his eyes. “How’d you hear about the fire?”
“Police scanner. Delilah’s cousin always keeps one on.”
Sam nodded. “What did you mean when you said if you did something to them?”
The diner’s roof gave way, collapsing in a crackling burst that shot sparks and flames twenty feet high.
Quivering head to toe, Leon burst into tears. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know it would be like this. He said it would be easy. If I just did my job, no one would get hurt and the insurance would make us all rich. He promised no one would ever have to work—or worry ’bout money—again. I thought I’d be doin’ poor Jonah a favor. I never meant to kill him.” He dropped to his knees, covering his sobs with his hands.
Sam touched his shoulder. “Who said this, Leon?”
“The mayor—he hired me. Found out through town gossip how bad in debt I am. Wife’s got to have new hats and shoes every Sunday. Got that no-count son and his three young’uns to raise. Chevis is too proud to say, but he needed money, too. I was drownin’, Sam. I didn’t know what to do. Mayor said Jonah wouldn’t be out any money, what with the insurance. All he wanted was to get the diner out of downtown.”
“Did he say why?”
“Shut up, Leon.” The Boy Mayor stepped up beside them, brandishing a sickly grin. “This is a sad night for our fair city, isn’t it, Chief Lawson?”
Sam refused to give the man who was barely one step above a murderer the respect of even l
ooking him in the eye. Turning back to Leon, he repeated, his voice deadly calm, “Stand up, and then tell me why.”
Leon, still sniffling, looking from the mayor to Sam, grappled to his feet.
The mayor’s icy stare would’ve froze anyone’s lips, so Sam gave Leon encouragement in the form of cuffing the mayor, then asking one of his deputies to read him his rights before locking him into their most dank iron-barred suite.
Once the mayor and deputy were out of earshot, Leon asked, “You gonna lock me in the same cell as him?”
“Nope.”
“Okay, then. All I know is that the mayor’s been gettin’ big money—and I mean big—from some Texas company wantin’ to put in a power plant. Guess with that new highway, the governor’s been tellin’ folks outside the state that this whole area’s fixin’ to boom. Mayor says all that power company needed to set up shop, we have right here. A river, railroad—only thing is, best spot for the plant is Riverside Park. Mayor knew he’d never get folks to vote for their downtown to be dozed, so he thought he’d do it for ’em. From what he told me, that company’s gonna pay a whole lot of money to give us better schools and electric rates, and they’ll even put in a new park. Got the land all set aside over by the new highway. Gonna be a fancy rest stop, with toilets and picnic tables and everything.”
Sam eyed his other deputy. “Do me a favor.”
“Yeah, Chief?”
“Cuff this one, and read him his rights, too.”
“Hey, Chief?” Leon called out on his walk to the station.
“Yeah?”
“Tell Jonah I’m sorry.”
Mouth set in grim disgust, Sam waved him off. “Tell him yourself. You owe him at least that much.” Watching Leon and the deputy go, Sam rubbed his hands over his face and sighed.
Christ on a cupcake, what a night.
How was he going to tell Jonah that one of his oldest friends—a guy who’d been working in the diner damn near as long as Jonah—had been responsible for torching it to the ground?
Angel Baby (Heaven Can Wait) Page 29