Inked by an Angel

by Allen, Shauna

  He wiped the excess black ink and studied his current work in progress. He nodded, satisfied. It was coming along well. He dipped his needle again and got back to it.

  The scent of something drifted by, teasing his memory. And not in a good way. He shifted uncomfortably on his stool as his pants became tight. No. No. No.

  He wiped again and dabbed up more ink.

  He would not let something like the scent of Kyle’s perfume, or whatever it was that made her smell like her, keep tormenting him. It was bordering on ridiculous. He needed to get out and get drunk. Or laid. Or both. Both sounded good.

  He felt someone watching from behind him and his hand froze mid-stroke. Salvatore looked at him expectantly. Ever so slowly, Jed pulled back his needle, wiped Sal’s chest and turned around with his hands on his lap and murder in his eyes.

  No one invaded his workspace while he was working. Ever. Not unless they really wanted to piss him off.

  “What can I do for you, Kierstan?”

  She slinked over, all hips, her breasts pushed even higher out of her top than usual. She bent over to examine the tattoo on Salvatore’s chest, making sure both men got a real good look. “Hmmm . . .” She didn’t say more.

  Sal’s eyes were ogling plenty.

  Kierstan smiled and bit the corner of her bottom lip, sucking in the small ring there before letting it loose.

  “Kierstan.” Jed spoke her name as a warning. She needed to back off. She’d always been an in-your-face kind of girl, but she was getting a little too bold lately. She was plumb out of her mind if she thought she was getting her claws any further into him or his business than they already were. If he had any other choices, any other choices, where she was concerned, she’d be gone in a New York minute.

  She rubbed a hand along his shoulder. “What, baby?”

  He looked down at her hand and anger began snaking up through his veins threatening to spew. He had to rein it in, or so help him . . .

  Then he saw her eyes flit just the quickest of glances to the other side of the room to where Kyle was sitting at a table crunching numbers on her dependable little laptop. Whoa. Wonders never ceased. But he was still pissed.

  “Kierstan,” he said, his voice firmer.

  She peered back at him, penciled black eyebrow raised.

  “Get your hand off me. I have work to do and you’re in my way.”

  “Fine.” She reached over and brushed a peck to his head, threw a saucy smile at Sal, and sauntered away.

  He turned to get back to work. “Sorry, man.”

  Sal shrugged. “Yeah. Chicks. They like to bug you while you’re trying to work. My old lady does it all the time.”

  “Yeah,” was all Jed could manage.

  He glanced over to where Kierstan was trying to goad Kyle. He couldn’t believe it. She was trying to mark her territory. But the problem was, he wasn’t her territory. Not anymore.

  And why would she perceive Kyle as a threat?

  But as he remembered the way she’d studied his lips and touched his face the night he’d almost been stupid enough to kiss her, he guessed he knew the reason why.

  Jed tipped back his beer for a long, cold drink. He set the half-drained glass back down on the scarred old bar and glanced around the seedy joint. Man, he loved this place. Just a small, out of the way little dive, it was only a few miles from his studio and it was real. That was his favorite thing about it. It wasn’t full of yuppies trying to be something they weren’t, chasing the ‘American Dream,’ whatever the hell that was.

  Nope. Shorty’s simply promised a cold beer and a place to sit while you drank it, and that’s exactly what you got.

  Jed glanced at Noble, who was sitting on the stool next to him nursing his own bottle, no fancy ass foreign shit for him. “Thanks for getting me outta there, man.” He tipped his glass in Noble’s direction before draining the last half of its contents.

  Noble nodded slightly. “Yeah. You looked like you were about to blow.”

  He nodded. He was.

  “Look, Jed, I know Kierstan can be . . . a bit of a bitch. And I know what she did to you was absolute horseshit. And what she holds over your head every day . . .” He glanced down at his hands peeling the label on his beer bottle. “I don’t know how you stand it every day.” He looked back up. “But you’ve got to hold it together, man. You’ve just got to.”

  Jed flagged the guy behind the bar for a second beer. He felt the truth of Noble’s words like a knife to his chest. Of course he knew he had to keep his cool and tolerate Kierstan as a part of his professional life every fucking day. But that didn’t mean he had to like it.

  “I know, Noble. I know it. It was just a bad day for me, that’s all. It’s fine.” He managed a tight-lipped smile and sipped his new drink.

  Noble studied him, searching him with his eerie, dark eyes that had always been all knowing. “Hmmm.”

  Jed let it go at that. They could sit in silence and drink for a while. That was just fine with him. He turned his attention to the TV and the news, but it didn’t hold his interest.

  The television flashed to commercial and suddenly he was staring into the mugs of Muffet’s daddy and her lightweight loverboy. They were all spiffed up and smiling cheesy smiles in some commercial for their accounting firm. He couldn’t help thinking how well Kyle would’ve fit in with one of her little business suits and her pearls. Then Charles’s voice, overly chipper and slightly grating, jumped in right at the end:

  “Se habla espanol!”

  Jed wanted to gag.

  He couldn’t remember being this conflicted over a woman since . . . well, since Kierstan, but that was for totally different reasons. The damn kicker was, he wasn’t even sure why. They didn’t belong in each other’s worlds. And she was an engaged woman. And he wasn’t interested.

  She was just, what? Interesting? Infuriating? Damn sexy . . .

  Seeing her, smelling her, not being able to touch her, every single day was driving him crazy. Kierstan was irritating his raw nerves beyond reason. And what made it worse was he could see the sweet girl underneath the prim, business-bitch exterior Kyle tried to put up for him. He saw the insecurity she had around her family and the shoddy way they treated her and it pissed him off. She didn’t deserve that. Even if she drove a fucking Prius and was sacrilegious about his Mustang.

  “Hello?” Noble interrupted his thoughts.

  Damn. Dangerous thoughts. He shook his head. “Sorry. I zoned out. What was that?”

  “You drunk already?” Noble eyed his glass.

  “Nah. Only on my second one.”

  “I was wondering if you wanted to come by the house this weekend. We could watch the game. Grill some steaks? I could invite Mike if he can detach himself from Miss Accountant long enough to come hang with the dudes for a while. Cool?”

  Damn Noble. Why did he have to bring her up? “Yeah, sounds good.”

  “So why do you think Mike has so much accounting to do anyway?” Noble wiggled his brows.

  Grrrrrrr. “Hell if I know.”

  “Well, I can guess. She may dress like a librarian, but the girl is smokin’ hot.”

  Jed shrugged, wishing Noble would drop it already. “I dunno. I guess. Her shoes, right?” Yeah. He’d noticed her sex goddess shoes after Noble had pointed them out. Damn him. He signaled for their tab. Time to change the subject. “So. Anybody move in next door yet?”

  Noble looked down. Busted. Friggin’ busted!

  Jed smiled. “Yeah?”

  Noble shrugged. “Yeah.”

  “Who? A family?” He had a guess, but he wanted to make Noble sweat.

  Noble looked toward the door. He maybe even blushed, but it was hard to tell. “Just a girl.”

  “A girl?”

  �
��A woman, okay? A lady.” Now he looked irritated.

  Jed paid the bill and stood. “What kind of lady?” He shot him a smirk. “An old lady?” He grinned. “A decrepit old hag?”

  Noble ignored him and walked out ahead of him. Jed knew only one kind of neighbor would make his friend act like this. A hot one. He laughed and followed him out. Messing with Noble on this one was going to be fun.

  Chapter 7

  Sweat poured from his head and stung his eyes as Jed pushed his father’s ancient lawnmower in neat lines through his mother’s backyard. He paused long enough to shuck his T-shirt and wipe his forehead with it before tossing it to the porch. He knew his mom would probably prefer he left it on just in case her neighbors were to peek out their windows and get a good eyeful of him. Not that Paula Gentry gave a rat’s ass about other people’s opinions, and she’d never once said anything about being embarrassed about his appearance, but he knew she’d probably just as soon have him not rock the boat in her nice, quiet, conservative neighborhood.

  The tug of guilt had him glancing around. No noses were pressed up to any neighboring windows that he could see and he hadn’t heard any gasps of fright at the ‘tattooed monstrosity’ mowing Mrs. Gentry’s yard. Not that he could hear anything over the growl of the mower. He turned to head in the other direction, wishing his mother’s yard wasn’t so damn big, and hoped his mom had remembered to buy beer this time.

  “Jedediah!” she called from the shaded back patio, her hand perched on her hip.

  He stopped pushing the mower, but left it running, and turned to face her. “What?” he yelled over the racket.

  “Are you almost—?” She stopped mid-thought. “Where is your shirt?” She looked around, presumably for those nosy neighbors he’d already scouted for himself.

  He shrugged and kept on going. He was almost done here anyway. Surely, if they were gonna look, they’d have looked by now, and they would’ve seen the bald man full of tats and piercings. Oooh. Big, scary man. Big damn deal. It’s not like he hadn’t been here before and wouldn’t be here again. They would just have to get used to him being around here. A lot.

  He finished the yard and shut off the mower, pushing it into the shed before striding up to the porch. With his eyes on his mother’s face, he bent over and retrieved his sweat-soaked T-shirt from the chair she’d draped it over and pulled it back on.

  “You wanted me to take a look at the air conditioner, Mom?”

  “I just needed you to see if the filter needs to be changed.” She studied his face. “Jedediah.”

  He raised a brow in question.

  “I’m not ashamed of you, son.”

  He nodded once. “I know that.”

  Her eyes softened. “You don’t have to do all of this for me, you know.”

  “Mom—”

  She reached out and brushed a hand across the koi fish tattooed across his forearm. “No. You don’t. I’m just so, so sad that your father isn’t here to take care of these things anymore.”

  He felt a little pebble tumble off his heart. He swallowed. It killed him to remember how devastated she’d been when Dad died. She could hardly function for a while. It was almost as if he’d left them on purpose. But, by not taking the doctor’s advice, he had. And he didn’t want any part of a love that could tear him up like that. Never again.

  “I know,” he reassured her. “That’s why I do them now.” He cupped her chin so she’d look up at him. Her eyes were shimmering with tears, nearly breaking him. “I always will. I’ll take care of you now.”

  She nodded, held back her tears. He was grateful. “I know, sweetie.” She brushed a kiss to his cheek. He caught the familiar scent of her Liz Claiborne perfume. She pulled back from him, gathered herself, and smiled. “Are you staying for lunch?”

  “Did I smell chicken and dumplings on my way in?”

  “You did.”

  “Then yes, I’m staying.”

  She wrapped her arm around his waist as they walked back inside. “Good. I’ve missed you. How are things at work?”

  A flash of Kyle in her yoga pants flooded his mind. He pushed it away. “Good. Business is booming since I brought Michael on board.”

  She smiled. “I really like Michael. There is something special about him. Don’t you think so?”

  He shrugged. “I guess so. He sure brings in the clients left and right. Angel tattoos. Portraits.” Sexy little accountants.

  “And Noble? How is he doing?”

  Jed poured himself a drink and sat at the kitchen table. “About the same.” He thought of Noble’s mysterious new neighbor and smiled.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “Ah, it’s nothing. Noble’s just pretending to not be interested in the girl next door. It’s been fun teasing him about it.” He accepted the steaming bowl of chicken and dumplings. “Thanks.”

  She sat across from him with her own lunch and shot him a strange look. “Gabriella? But I thought Papa Turoni all but had you and her walking down the aisle. Now Noble’s interested? She, uh, doesn’t seem his type.”

  He laughed at the way she kept her words gentle. Gabby not being Noble’s type was the understatement of the century. Hell, he wasn’t hers either. No man was. “No, Mom. Not Gabby, but she did finally come out of the closet, by the way.” He grinned and took a bite after heavily peppering his food. “I’m talking about the girl that moved in next door to Noble’s house.”

  “Oh.” She tilted her head. “But why would he pretend to not be interested? He’s always been quiet, but I’ve never thought of him as timid with women.”

  “I have no idea. That’s what makes it so fun.”

  They ate in silence for a while, the steady hum of the refrigerator and the wordless tune of his mother’s radio down the hall the only background noise. But one glance at her face and he knew she had something on her mind. It was enough to make him uneasy. That look never meant anything good for him. He took a big swig of his sweet tea.

  “So,” she hedged. Uh oh. “How is Kyle?”

  The way she said her name caused a visceral reaction but he didn’t flinch. “Fine.”

  She furrowed her brows. “Just fine? Isn’t she getting married?”

  “Yeah.”

  She studied him, waiting.

  “So?”

  “So, you don’t have more for me than that? Shouldn’t she be over-the-moon with excitement? Isn’t she giving you any details? A date? Anything?”

  He sighed. “No.”

  “No?”

  “Nope.”

  He went back to eating, but his mom just sat there. She went all Robo-Mom on him, like she used to when he was younger. That’s how she found out when he’d smoked his first and last cigarette. The day he skipped school with Noble to go to Hippie Hollow and ogle the topless girls. He was pretty sure she also knew the night he lost his virginity to Stacy Emerson, but she was kind enough to not embarrass him by bringing it up. But the box of condoms that mysteriously appeared in his dresser drawer the next week pretty much confirmed it.

  And now, even as a grown man, she was damn well doing it again. “What?”

  “Is there something going on between you and Kyle?”

  His heart began to thud uncomfortably in his chest. “No! Like what? Jezus, mom.”

  Robo-Mom’s laser beam eyes honed in on his. “She’s a nice girl, Jedediah. And she’s getting married.”

  The forgotten spoon in his hand dropped with a clank. He stood and carried his bowl to the sink.

  She followed him. “Jed—”

  “Mom, seriously.” He turned to her, anger sparking from every pore. “Let it go. There is nothing going on between me and Kyle. She works for Michael. That’s it. I tolerate her for his sake.”

  “I—”

&nb
sp; He stopped her with a look. The conversation was over. He strode out to go change her air filter and to convince himself that what he’d told his mother was true.

  Michael sat in the overly small chair, sipping his Coke as the meeting began. Someone sealed the doors and the Tabernacle’s basement room filled with the sanctified light that allowed them all to relax amongst themselves. They could all breath and glow as angels do, even in their human vessels, and feel free to let down their guard for their time together. It was their time of safety and security. But, for Michael, Rafe’s absence was obvious tonight and it was eating at him. He fidgeted with the chain that held his wallet, causing Gabriel to shoot him an irritated glance as he called the meeting to order.

  “Good evening, everyone.” He smiled with sincere love at his brothers and sisters around the room, his kind, golden eyes glowing. “Let’s get started. We have a lot to cover tonight.”

  Michael peeked around again. Where was the paragon of angeldom?

  Gabe cleared his throat. “Well, as you all may have noticed, Rafael is not with us this evening.” He beamed so radiantly, it looked like his wings were about to sprout.

  This was not good.

  There was an expectant hush in the room as they awaited the news.

  “His humans, Gloria and Roger, are not only engaged, but I’ve gotten it on good authority,”—he lifted his reverent gaze skyward—“that they plan to secretly elope over the weekend.”

  “But why so soon?” Rachel wondered from the back of the room.

  Gabe smiled. “Well . . .” He actually blushed! “Father saw fit to instruct Lailah to intervene a bit and answer Gloria’s prayers.” He glanced down at his folded hands then back up at the crowd. “She’d thought she couldn’t have children. She now knows differently. Father pulled out a miracle for them.”