Not Quite an Angel (Harlequin Superromance No. 595)

by Bobby Hutchinson

  “Delilah reminds me sometimes of Great-Grandmother Kendra, you know,” she babbled. “Both of them seem so strong, and yet they both are emotionally dependent on the person they love.” Her own words haunted her, because for the first time, she fully understood the extent of a woman’s love for her man. “I miss Great-Grandmother. I miss the peace of our era. The turbulence, the constant unrest of your nineties is disturbing. I get homesick.”

  Without him, that peace was meaningless, but she couldn’t tell him so. She had to keep talking, keep her mind distracted, search for something about her own era that made going back seem even a tiny bit worthwhile.

  She refilled the teacups, teleporting them to the table as she wiped up the water she’d sloshed on the counter. Not a single drop of tea spilled as the cups floated across the room, but Sameh didn’t even notice.

  “And more than ever, Adam, I want to master the awareness techniques. Being here has taught me how invaluable those disciplines are for personal advancement.” That, at least, was true. She wished to God she’d learned the techniques before she’d come on this research trip. Then there might have been a chance she could’ve persuaded the tutors to let her stay.

  She could sense that he was going to interrupt at any minute, that he was going to demand she stay with him. She didn’t want to chance it because she wasn’t sure she’d have the courage to refuse him.

  “I think my work with Delilah is nearing completion,” she said in a rush. “So I’ll be going home soon. I’m looking forward to it, although it’s been really interesting observing your culture,” she lied. It felt as if her heart was bleeding. Could a heart bleed from loving?

  Going home soon.

  Looking forward to it.

  Sameh’s words echoed in Adam’s mind, cutting into him the way a dull, slow saw blade would cut into tender flesh, and he lashed out at her because he couldn’t bear the pain and the fear of losing her. “Let me get this straight. You’re telling me that everyone you’ve met here has been a sort of guinea pig to you, is that right, Sameh?” His tone was deceptively mild. He didn’t think he could stand to lose her, but he couldn’t think of a single way to hold her here, either, short of tying her up and locking her in his bedroom for the rest of their natural lives. Come to think of it, that idea had merit.

  “I guess we’re really primitive compared to these—whaddya call them again? Oh yeah, these Adept types from your time.”

  Her eyes widened and she shook her head no, but he didn’t give her a chance to say anything. Her world didn’t sound like a place he even wanted to visit, let alone live in. He belonged here. He wanted her to belong here as well, but the gap between them had never been more obvious than right now.

  “And last night, I guess that was just another part of the whole experiment for you, huh?” He took refuge in anger and sarcasm, wanting to hurt her because of the way he was hurting. “Slumming, making out with the less evolved tribes, I guess you could say. Well, I guess it’s all part of this research thing, right? Were you assigned a paper on the sexual habits of the natives of the nineties?”

  “Stop this, Adam. You know what you’re saying isn’t true.” Sameh’s face was ashen and her voice trembled.

  “I don’t know any such thing. I don’t know a damned thing about truth, or about you, either, when it comes right down to it. Although what I really don’t get is, with all this advanced learning and these so-called superior powers of yours, how come you can’t do more to help little Corey in there?” He gestured to the room where the baby was sleeping. “Seems to me you could use those abilities of yours for something practical for once, instead of just raising dogs from the dead and making tea.”

  Even as the words came out of his mouth, he knew he’d gone too far. He’d deliberately aimed for and hit the place deep inside her that was the most vulnerable.

  The anguish on her face was more than he could bear. He was destroying everything he cared about. With a muffled curse at his own cruelty, Adam stood up, knocking over his chair and gathering her into his arms.

  She resisted, tears rolling down her cheeks, eyes enormous and filled with betrayal.

  “Let me go, Adam.” He couldn’t. He brought his mouth down to hers, trying in his agony to convey an apology in the fashion he best understood. He should have known she’d throw up a block.

  The instant his lips touched hers, every muscle in his body went into spasm. Agony ricocheted through his nerve endings, and for several moments he was in danger of passing out. The world spun and turned dark as he fought to retain his balance, and even in the face of oblivion, he welcomed the pain. He deserved it for hurting her the way he’d done.

  It lasted what seemed an eternity but in reality was only a matter of seconds. When the spasms stopped, his forehead and clothing were drenched with sweat, and he felt weak and nauseous.

  “I’d like you to leave now, please.” Sameh was standing at the sink with her back to him, shoulders hunched forward and hands clasping her upper arms.

  “Sameh…Sameh, I’m sorry.” He searched for words to make up for what he’d already said and couldn’t find any that were adequate.

  She turned to face him, and the cold aloofness of her expression stopped anything else he might have been about to say. “I think you should leave, Adam. I trusted you. I loved you. I still love you, but whatever there was between us is broken.”

  “Sameh, please don’t do this….”

  She shook her head, and when he took a step toward her, she held up her hand in silent warning. “It’s best that you go now, Adam. It’s over.”

  Finally, he left. He couldn’t figure out what else to do.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  ADAM DIDN’T REMEMBER driving home. He parked the car in his garage and sat in it for a long time before he got out and unlocked the door to the house. The message light on his machine was flashing, and he punched the button with savage impatience and a wild hope in his heart, praying it was Sameh.

  The voice was female, but it wasn’t hers. It was tear choked, and he had to listen closely to hear the words.

  “This is Vinnie Perkins, Adam. I’m calling to tell you that Myles died about an hour ago. I’ll be at the home if you want to come over and—” Her voice broke, and the tape was silent for several moments. “Sorry. If you want to come over and pick up his things, or just—” she struggled for control “—just say goodbye.”

  The message had come in at eight-fifteen, an hour and a half earlier. A coldness that seemed to radiate from his heart spread through Adam as he tried to adjust to the idea of a world without his old friend. He’d known that Myles was getting weaker; the older man hadn’t recognized him again after the Sunday with Sameh. But that knowledge didn’t make the fact of his death any easier to accept.

  At last he turned and went back out the door, methodically locking it behind him.

  “I WENT IN TO GET HIM ready for bed, and he was gone,” Vinnie said when Adam arrived. “I fed him dinner about six, and he was the same as when you were here last, not making much sense or eating a whole lot, but quiet, and I didn’t think there was anything different about him. I’d have called you if I’d had any idea he was close to dying.” Her kind eyes overflowed, and she blew her nose hard into a tissue.

  Adam patted her arm. “Where is he, Vinnie?”

  “He’s still up in his room. I wanted to wait until you got here before…”

  “Thanks.” It seemed important to say a final goodbye here and now to the man he’d loved. He headed over to the elevator.

  On the third floor, tortured voices often called out from one or another of the rooms, but tonight everything was silent as Adam made his way along the corridor to Myles’s door.

  The room was softly lit by a bedside lamp. The old man’s body was lying on the bed. Vinnie had closed his eyes, and his face looked remote and infinitely peaceful. One of his gnarled hands was on the sheet beside him and the other was curled on his chest.

  Adam walke
d over and put his hand over Myles’s. He looked down at the face of the man who’d given him so much and asked so little in return. Fighting the aching wound in his chest that made his eyes burn with unshed tears, Adam bent and pressed his lips to Myles’s forehead.

  “Goodbye, old friend,” he whispered. For the second time in the space of a few hours, he couldn’t find the proper words to express what he was feeling.

  He hoped that wherever he was, Myles understood, anyway.

  DOWNSTAIRS, VINNIE was waiting. “Come into the lounge and have a cup of coffee,” she urged, but Adam shook his head.

  “Thanks, Vinnie, but I need to be alone.”

  She nodded her understanding. “There are some papers for you to sign. Myles arranged everything in great detail when he first arrived, so there isn’t much for you to do. Before you go, though, I want to give you a box he had me keep in our safe for him. When he first came here, he gave it to me and told me that you were to have it. He used to remind me of it whenever he was coherent. It was very important to him that you receive it.”

  Hours later, when the moon had disappeared and morning was only a whisper away, Adam took the green steel box Vinnie had given him and used the key to turn the lock. It was full of letters, forty or fifty of them, divided into neat piles and held in place with elastic bands. Adam reached down to pick up one of the bundles and froze when he saw the faded handwriting on the letter at the top of the pile.

  It was bold and slanted and feminine.

  At summer camps, at boarding schools, all during his childhood, he’d received letters, three or four a week, in this same hand. Adam knew it as well as he knew his own, because it belonged to his mother.

  Years before, he’d burned every letter Gina had ever sent him. Seeing her handwriting again was like having a ghost—an unwelcome ghost—walk into the room.

  Gina. Why would Gina have written to Myles?

  About Adam, probably. She’d likely written to find out how Adam was doing. He’d stopped answering her letters by the time he attended the academy.

  He slipped the top envelope out of the elastic band and unfolded the brittle paper.

  “Dearest,” it began.

  Adam’s heart hammered. He skimmed the letter and let it slip from his fingers. He felt as if he’d been hit by a truck.

  It was a love letter, reminiscing about a weekend Gina and Myles had spent together. Hands trembling, Adam checked the date on the envelope. It had been written only days before Gina was murdered.

  He flipped through the other envelopes. Every single one was from his mother, addressed to Myles, arranged in what Adam’s stunned brain finally figured out was the order in which they’d arrived. Myles had always been compulsively neat.

  Still shaky, he found the bottom one and opened it. He studied the date, calculating in his mind. It must have been written when he was about fourteen, a few months before he’d been enrolled at the academy. With a feeling of foreboding he read the letter.

  My dear Myles,

  Forgive me for presuming on our past relationship, but you did say if I ever needed help, I could ask you, and I’m afraid that time has come. I’ve spoken to you over the years of my son, Adam. He’s fourteen now, such a fine, handsome boy, but what I’ve been so afraid of has happened. He’s found out about my profession, Myles, and of course he’s angry and hurt. I blame myself for not being brave enough to be honest with him from the beginning, but I always remembered what you said once about boys wanting their mothers to be virgins. I’ve been a coward with my son, and now I’m paying.

  “I’ve spoken to you over the years…”

  Adam skimmed the rest of the letter, that one phrase echoing in his mind as he read further, skipping from one line to the next.

  “Take him under your wing…”

  “Needs a strong, trustworthy man in his life…”

  “Promise me you’ll never reveal our relationship. It would seem the final betrayal to him, should he ever find out that you and I…”

  He dropped the letter back in the box. He was sweating and shaking, and he felt as if he was going to vomit. It was obvious that Myles and Gina had known one another long before Adam entered the academy. It was also obvious they’d known one another sexually over a period of years.

  An enormous sense of betrayal rose in him, bitter as bile.

  He’d believed—no, goddamn it, he’d known—that Myles’s friendship for him was his and his alone. He’d never dreamed that Gina had had anything to do with Myles’s affection or with the older man’s persistent efforts to make friends with the rebellious, angry young boy he’d been. Now he realized that Gina was the real reason Myles had taken a special interest in him.

  His mother had played a far greater role in his life than he’d ever imagined, and the knowledge was galling to him. It felt as if a monstrous trick had been played on him, one which he’d never even suspected.

  He got to his feet, spilling the letters onto the floor. His body was stiff and sore. He had to get out of the house, away from the steel box and the truths it contained.

  He was still wearing the pants and shirt he’d put on hours earlier when he’d dressed with such care to spend the evening with Sameh. He ripped them off, tugged on jogging shorts and singlet, and tied his running shoes with numb fingers. Feeling as if something ugly was about to explode inside him, he burst out of the house and started running the moment his feet hit the sand.

  It was barely dawn, and the beach was still deserted, except for the birds and one old beachcomber. Adam pounded through the sand, on and on, welcoming the pain in his lungs and the heaviness in his legs that eventually forced him to slow down. Sweat dripped from his forehead and into his eyes. Blinking, he swiped at it with his hand, allowing his body to fall into a slower rhythm.

  For the first few miles, the running itself occupied his mind. He concentrated on keeping his pace steady, his breathing even, his arms moving rhythmically. But the time came when even running wasn’t enough to stop the thoughts from forming in his brain.

  Against his will, he realized that in turning him over to Myles, Gina was caring for him the best way she could. She knew how her son felt about her, she knew how he despised her, and she did the only thing she could: she turned him over to someone she must have implicitly trusted.

  She knew, too, that Adam would come to respect Myles. With painful clarity, Adam remembered the ugly words he’d used to graphically illustrate the total lack of respect he felt for Gina. The more exhausted his body became, the more vivid grew the memories of his mother. He remembered that she’d never once tried to defend herself against his rage.

  God help him, he’d almost struck her once, the day he confronted her, the day he’d all but begged her to deny the ugly things Morgan had told him. Instead, in a calm voice, Gina had admitted it was all true, and in that moment of awful acknowledgment, he’d wanted to lash out at her.

  She must have loved you a great deal, Sameh had once said.

  For the first time in his adult life, Adam realized the truth.

  Gina had loved him, loved him enough to set him free, to steer him to the one person who would care about him. Myles had cared. He’d illustrated it countless times over the years, and it really didn’t matter whether that caring had originated with Gina or not. What Adam had shared with Myles was a relationship both had cherished.

  The sun was beginning to come up and other early-morning joggers plodded past him. Adam was miles from home, walking now, his strength exhausted. Just ahead he saw a wooden pier, and he made his way to the end of it and sat down, legs hanging over the edge of the planks, the rising sun warm on his back.

  He looked out at the ocean, salmon colored in the dawn light, and like a long dammed-up torrent, his love for his mother flooded through him, a love he’d denied all his adult life. It was agonizing to think of her, to remember the mother who’d loved him so very much.

  He cursed the stupid young boy he’d been, cringing at how much he mus
t have hurt her. Even after her death, he’d denied her, never allowing himself to mourn for her. Now as he sat on the pier, the tears came at last, an outpouring of grief inside him that began to cleanse old wounds, deeply buried but still unhealed.

  It was hard to cry. It was something he hadn’t done since boyhood. He cursed as the tears streamed down his face, struggling with shame and embarrassment, glancing around to make certain no one was watching. He fought to control himself, gritting his teeth and trying to stop the flow, but his emotions seemed to have a will of their own, and at last he was forced to allow the sorrow freedom.

  When it was over, he stripped off his singlet and used it to blow his nose and mop his wet face. He dropped it into a garbage can near the pier and crouched at the edge of the waves to slosh saltwater over his head and stinging face. Bare chested, feeling drained and light-headed, he slowly made his way back to the house.

  He called Janice and told her that Myles was dead and that he was taking a few days off, then disconnected and unplugged both telephones before she could say how sorry she was or put Bernie on the line.

  Before Sameh, Adam would have found a woman, a willing but faceless someone to lie with, and used sex as he always had to obliterate the raw, agonizing emotions that swelled within him like the ocean tides. Because of his love for her, Sameh had made that escape impossible. Because of the years he’d spent pretending he didn’t need anyone, he was unable now to go to the woman he loved and ask for forgiveness.

  He drove to the nearest store and picked up several bottles of whiskey and then went home, poured himself the first drink, and settled in to read his mother’s letters and do penance for the omissions in his life. He thought of Sameh, and of Myles, and of Gina, and the three were all part of one enormous loss that gaped like a black hole inside him.