by Anne Conley
Into the depths.
Absently, Grace wondered what was down here. She'd never actually swum this deep before and wondered where he was taking her. She should have been panicking. Damien was dragging her under the water, and it was so deep here. It shouldn't have been this deep. He hadn't been that far out. But like her dreams, he just kept pulling her down deeper and deeper. The tightness in her lungs lessened, and Grace's subconscious took that as a sign that this was okay. She needed to go with him. She started kicking her legs to help him, so he wasn't totally dragging her down.
A hand grasped her other hand, pulling upward.
Grace looked and saw Rafe, floating above her, a desperate look in his eyes. She stopped kicking, and clarity came to her, along with a pain in her chest. Her lungs were filled with stale air again, and she had to get air or she would die. In a heartbeat, she realized the danger she'd put herself in. Unsure of whether this was a dream or not, she stopped swimming and floated, helpless between the two men.
Rafe pulled on one hand, while Damien pulled on the other. He must have sensed something, because he stopped swimming down and looked back. When he saw Rafe hovering above Grace, he let out a growl, releasing a cascade of bubbles from his mouth under the water.
Grace felt the danger emanating from him, as she kicked at him to try to get him to release her to Rafe, who continued pulling up.
Her shoulders hurt with these two men struggling with her, and she wondered briefly what the hell was going on. Why was Damien trying to drown her? Why was he not drowning? She kicked at him again, and Rafe joined in, his long legs outmaneuvering hers. He wrapped his arms around her waist, clutching her tightly, as his powerful legs kicked at Damien's face. Grace could feel the energy pouring from Rafe's arms, frantic energy, distress and fear trembled in his muscles, as he gripped her in the crook of his arm, while fighting Damien with his feet. Bubbles escaped his mouth as he struggled. Grace tried to fight too, but the air in her lungs was gone and she could feel her muscles burning with the lack of oxygen.
As soon as Grace realized that she was drowning, Damien released her. A wicked smile played across his face, as blackness overtook her vision. Unconsciously, she inhaled, lungs desperate for air, and they filled with water. Burning, stinging, salty water. And then, nothing.
Her next thought was, "He's finally kissing me again." Rafe's mouth covered hers, and he was breathing precious air into her lungs. Grace retched, vomiting up salt water that burned a path up her chest, as Rafe turned her over to empty her lungs, murmuring words of encouragement into her ears. Sand stuck to her back and side, where he had dragged her before performing CPR. A crowd of people surrounded them.
"Thank God, Grace. I thought I'd lost you." She looked up at Rafe, and his beautiful green eyes were spilling over with tears. She blinked at him, before he pulled her into his arms.
His touch made her feel better immediately. He held her in his lap, as she coughed and sputtered, wiping her face with a towel somebody had given him. She wasn't aware of anything besides his warm touch on her cold body. They were both wet, and covered in sand, but at this moment, there was no other place she'd rather be.
"Grace, what happened to you?" Mark's voice broke through her Rafe haze, and she looked up into her boss's concerned eyes.
What to say? That Damien had tried to drag her under and lost a tug-of-war with Rafe?
Apparently, her silence spoke for itself.
"That's it. You are on a paid LOA for an indeterminate period of time, mandatory counseling. Go home. Get some rest. Come back tomorrow, and we'll talk about it." Grace hoped his gruffness was a cover for empathy. That he wasn't mad at her. Oh well, she'd find out tomorrow.
Rafe scooped her up in his arms, and walked up to the Sea Wall with her.
"Where are you taking me?"
"I'm not sure, yet. But we need to talk. Are you okay?"
Remarkably, she felt fine, as if she hadn't just almost drowned. "Yeah. I'm fine. I can walk."
"I like carrying you."
She liked it, too.
Chapter Seventeen
"Your leg's better."
He looked down at his leg, knowing that this was the time. He would have to tell her. Now that the Deceiver had made his play, she needed to know everything. "Yeah, I'm a pretty fast healer. Always have been." He noted the irony of the words, even as he spoke them.
Rafe had carried her to Old City Cemetery, on Broadway, and they sat under the shade of a tree near an old mausoleum that dated from the 1890's. He felt like the peacefulness of the setting might help her understand. He hoped so, anyway. Her next question derailed his train of thought.
"I want to know more about Rafe as a kid. What are your parents like? How many brothers and sisters do you have?" Her face looked eager, and he knew he was going to disappoint her. She didn't want to hear the truth. Uri had told him so.
"I'll tell you about myself, if you promise to keep an open mind," he said gently.
She nodded in acquiescence, so he continued.
"My brother Uri told me to tell you this with patience in mind. Women don't trust men, and nobody has the faith that they used to." Her eyes clouded briefly, and he wondered what that meant. He couldn't dwell on it, though. He had to continue on. "Do you believe in God?"
She shrugged, "Sure. I'm Christian."
"Not quite the same thing, but I'll take it, for now." He stroked her hair, and she laid her head in his lap. He took that as a sign of trust and moved on. "My brothers are Uriel, Michael, Gabriel, Chamiel, Jophiel, and Raguel. We had another, but he was…disowned."
Her eyebrows furrowed. "Those are some weird names, Rafe."
"It's short for Rafael, remember?" He paused, gauging her reaction, unsure of how to continue. He knew this wasn't going to go over well, but he wouldn't know how she'd react until he just said it. Taking a deep breath first, Rafe blurted, "We're archangels. Not born, never children, no emotion. Just emissaries of God, doing his will."
Grace sat up and stared at him, mouth agape. "What?"
Might as well get it all out there. "I'm falling for you, Grace."
"What?" She looked like she couldn't comprehend, so he gave her some time to digest the information.
"What did you say?" She repeated herself, enunciating the words.
"I'm an archangel. Raphael, the healer. I've been with you on your saves, Grace."
Grace stood and paced back and forth, muttering under her breath. He couldn't quite catch what she was saying.
It was his turn. "What?"
"I said, this is a great big mind fuck, Rafe. There is no way you expect me to believe this!"
"Think about it, Grace. My color is green. Haven't you noticed something different, since Alex? He's what brought me to you. I can tell you about your dreams, I can get in your head. I can…"
"Stay out of my head!"
Rafe was desperate to make her understand. He stood, and followed her back and forth in her pacing. "I love you, Grace."
"You're a crazy person. You just said archangels can't feel emotion. But you're an archangel, and you love me? You aren't making sense." Tears began streaming down her face, and she wiped them off her face with the back of her hands.
He reached for her, clutching her shoulders. "God told us we could…fall." He looked into her eyes, seeing fear and hating himself for it. "If we fell in love, we'd become human. I wish I could prove it to you." Roughly, without thinking, he pulled her to him and felt her gasp against his chest. "Today, I thought I'd lost you to the Deceiver. He was taking you for himself, and I would have lost you forever. You have no idea how desperate I was to get you back from him."
Her face turned up to look at him, and he could see her thinking. Then her face carefully went blank as she said, "You sound like you need help." The tears still streamed down her face.
"If I'm crazy, why are you crying?"
"Because I like you, Rafe. I like you, and you're crazy, so I can't like you." She broke down into heavy
sobs. "Because I couldn't stop thinking about you when you left, and I broke up with Brad, and I was excited because that meant I could see if we could start something, but now I can't see anything, because you're mind-fucking me!"
She started to leave, but in a last-ditch effort to distract her, Rafe hauled her against him and kissed her.
To his immense delight, her body melted against his, and she kissed him back. The strange stirring in his groin that Uri had explained made sense now. He wanted Grace. All of her. He wanted her love, her life, her body, her all. He tried to impart that desire through his kiss, his tongue tasting hers, probing her mouth. His hands pulled her against him, so she could feel the evidence of his desire, his hands touching her waist, her back.
She groaned against his mouth, and Rafe lost the battle to show her, all he could do was take her. He lifted her body against his and walked over to the concrete mausoleum, leaning her against it, as his hands wrapped her legs around him, continuing to kiss her senseless. The noises she was making were almost too much.
Into her mouth, he said, "I'm not crazy." He kissed her neck, open-mouth, tasting kisses. She tasted like the sun that she bathed herself in everyday. Grace threw her head back with abandon, arching towards him, gripping him with her legs. His mouth continued its travels, across her shoulder, with the whimpers she expelled with each sweet ragged breath she took.
Suddenly, her legs went limp, and she tried to push away from him.
"Rafe. Stop." Abruptly, he stopped kissing her, but he didn't let her go. He couldn't. "We can't do this."
God, he wanted to keep kissing her, to prove to her how much he loved her, that he wasn't crazy. His control was stretched to his limits. But, instead of kissing her, he just looked. Her blue eyes were wide and filled with shimmering tears. "I can't do this."
"Why not?"
"Because, even if you weren't crazy, you're too…" Her eyes darted around, searching for the words. "Not casual."
He barked a laugh, despite the seriousness of the situation. "No, I'm anything but casual when it comes to you. Can't you see it?"
She pushed him farther away. "Yes, Rafe. I can. That's exactly why I can't do this." And then she ran.
Chapter Eighteen
The next day she met Mark at headquarters and, at his urging, sat in the chair across from his desk.
"I think you're cracking, Grace."
She nodded. It was possible. She felt like she was cracking.
"I heard about the save during the storm, when you were supposed to be off-duty."
Surprised, she asked, "How did you hear about that?"
"The grateful fisherman wrote us a letter."
"Oh…"
"Yeah, oh. You disobeyed direct orders, and put yourself in danger. That right there is enough for probation. And then, on top of that, whatever it was that happened yesterday…" He looked at her, the question in his eyes.
"Yes, sir. I still can't explain that one." She wasn't willing to, either. Mark would lock her up in a straight jacket if she said that she'd been caught in some sort of tug-of-war between two men, especially if she told them that one of them was a self-proclaimed archangel. That would probably make Damien the devil, and it was an epic battle between good and evil. Yeah, she couldn't go there with Mark.
"You're our best lifeguard, Grace. I'm giving you a two week leave of absence, with pay. After that, you'll be promoted to lead trainer. No more duty for awhile."
Grace felt the prick of tears and a lump in her throat. "No more stand?"
"None. I need your skills, though. I can't lose those. But your judgment is impaired. And apparently, your own safety is in question. I need you to teach your skills to others." He stood in a dismissive gesture. "Enjoy your time off, come back ready to work. I have a bunch of off-season recruits coming in at the end of September."
Grace left with tears in her eyes and a downtrodden heart. She called Nicole.
"Hey, can you come pick me up? I've got to get back to the hotel."
"I can come get you, but I've got to get back to work. Come hang out here."
Not having a response to that, Grace agreed, reluctantly. Yaga's was a fun, upbeat place, and she wasn't in the mood for good vibes right now. She wanted to soak in a hot bubble bath and wallow in her misery.
Nicole sat her up at the bar, and poured Grace a beer from the tap, before floating away to wait tables.
She hadn't told her roommates about Rafe and his crazy proclamations. She hadn't told them about Damien drowning yesterday because she couldn't be sure it was real. She had had a nightmare last night though, right there in the hotel room with her friends. They had watched her recover, shooting her comforting smiles, hugging her tightly. They knew something was going on with her, but had no idea what.
And she didn't know how to tell them. Her life was falling apart.
She sat and drank beer, getting a warm buzz, while Nicole finished her shift. They then picked up Bree and looked at the houses.
They settled on a cute little bungalow, three bedrooms not too far from their old house. This one had miraculously escaped the tornado, and the flood damage had been minimal because of its elevated design. The occupants, however, had had enough of the hurricane madness and were moving out of the area to a more temperate climate. So the house became theirs. They could move in two weeks.
That night, they were back in the hotel room, celebrating their find with a gallon of screw-top wine in red Solo cups, when Grace's phone rang. She couldn't stop the pounding of her heart, as she looked at the caller ID expectantly, hoping it was Rafe, at the same time, hoping it wasn't. She wasn't disappointed.
It was her mother.
Stifling a groan, she answer the phone, "Hey Mom. What's up?"
"He broke up with me." Her mother was in tears, but thankfully, she didn't sound drunk yet.
"Again?"
"Yes."
"What happened?" She didn't really care. Her mother and Carl had broken up and gotten back together so many times over the past ten years or so, Grace couldn't keep count.
"I caught him cheating again." Her voice broke with sobs, a hysterical, broken sound that almost tore at Grace's heart. Carl was the reason Grace didn't like pretty boys. And Rafe was just the icing on the cake.
"Well, when he comes crawling back, are you going to take him?"
Her mother's voice perked up. "Do you think he'll come back?"
"Of course he will, Mom. He always does. He's like mold. Really hard to get rid of."
"I love him so much, Grace. I don't know what I'll do without him."
Grace blamed the dimples.
She hated to see her mother reduced to tears over that man, but it had happened more times than she could count. Her mother was so wrapped up in the world of Carl that Grace couldn't stand it. She'd moved out to live on her own, as soon as she could, and vowed not to become dependent on a man for her own self-worth ever since.
"Mom. You'll be fine. He's not worth your tears." Never had been, as far as Grace was concerned.
"How can you say that?"
"You're worth more than this, Mom."
"Maybe I should call him and apologize…"
"Don't call, Mom. Just wait, he'll come crawling back, and you can lose any vestiges of pride then."
Her mother sniffled again, trying to compose herself to ask the obligatory questions. "How are you doing? Are there any men in your life, right now?"
She had talked to her mother last month and told her about Brad then. Apparently, she had a short memory.
"No, I broke up with Brad, so there's not anybody."
"Well, you should probably apologize to him, Grace. Why would you do that?"
She sighed. "Mom, I'm not apologizing to him, because I didn't do anything. We just weren't working out. I don't have to be with a man to have a purpose in life." Her mother was silent on the other end of the line. "We had a hurricane here a couple of weeks ago. Did you watch the news?"
"No, I didn't kno
w that. Everything okay?" She sounded distracted, like she was thinking about something else.
"Yes, I saved a man, spent the night in a shelter. Our roof got blown off in a tornado, so we've got to move into a new place."
"I need to get out there and see your new place. Maybe I can help you decorate."
She had said that about the old house, but had never made it out to look, because Carl never wanted to make the two hour drive.
"Sure Mom, that would be great."
"Well, I'll see you then." The tears which had never left her voice, were coming back to the surface. Maybe she was thinking about the hissy fit that Carl had thrown the last time she'd planned to come down.
"He's really not worth all this Mom."
"He's a really nice guy. He loves me. He just can't control himself."
"Whatever, Mom. You're better than him."
"I've got to go."
"Love you."
"Love you too, Sweets. Bye."
Grace hung up the phone, and looked at her friends, who'd been sitting there listening, as there was nowhere else to go.
"I need to go dancing."
They decided to go into Houston to dance because Grace needed to be lost in a sea of people. She needed to forget she'd lost the part of her job that she loved. She needed to forget about the Damien hallucination. She needed to forget Rafe's insane claim of being superhuman. She needed to forget her mother was like a needy child. She needed her girls and some sweaty, bouncing, bonding.
They went to the most crowded dance club they could find, an overpriced, upscale club downtown with a line of men wrapped around the corner. The girls were let in immediately.
Grace went straight to the dance floor, while Bree and Nicole grabbed some drinks. She immediately immersed herself in the pounding beat, flashing lights, and sweaty press of bodies. Closing her eyes, she felt the rhythm in her gut and forgot about why she was there.
Grace danced herself into a sweaty mess, then went to the bar for a bottle of water. Gulping it down in, she looked for her friends. Bree was in a man-sandwich on the dance floor, and Nicole was nowhere to be seen. Grace watched Bree, as she fondled the guy’s chest in front ofher, while the guy behind her rubbed her hips. Grace felt a pang at the memory of Rafe's hands on her hips while they'd danced.