“Let me take a guess. I lived the life of a recluse, surrounded by books and maybe a cat or two. Once a month I put on a literary tea for elderly ladies so we could discuss the latest bestseller. And I never had young friends because I couldn’t bear to see their children and hear of their happy home lives.”
Michael didn’t speak for a while, but when he did, it was a barely audible, “Yes.”
“I can see that. It’s the life I have most feared, what I used to dream would happen to me. And you did that to me twice?”
“I thought that everything went wrong the first time because I didn’t know what I was doing. But I thought I’d get it right the second time. I thought I’d find a wonderful, caring man for you then I’d nudge you both into the right direction and for once you’d have a happy life on earth.”
“I think I can guess this one too. You never found a man worthy of me.”
“Exactly. Who can live up to your goodness?”
Very slowly, Emily moved away from him and when he looked at her he was startled to see anger in her eyes.
“You bastard!” she said softly, but there was power in her voice. “I’m not some…some angel,” she spat at him. “I’m a flesh-and-blood woman, not someone to be worshiped but to be loved. I don’t want to be put in a museum and looked at because I’m—ha, ha—‘good.’ I want to live and experience all that life has to offer. I bet I was happier when I was a washerwoman than I was when I was rich and had ladies’ meetings.”
“Yes, you were,” he said in wonder. “And I never could understand that. I saw to it that you had everything. You had—”
“I had nothing! Do you hear me? I had absolutely nothing whatever. I had—” Suddenly it was all too much for her and she couldn’t continue. “You’ll never understand. Never. Donald gave me—”
“I know what he gave you!” Michael half-shouted. “For all that I’m an angel, right now, in this body, I’m first of all a man. Do you think it’s easy for me to see you like this and not touch you? I had one night with you and now I must pay for it for all eternity. But it was worth it. Yes, holding you was worth all the punishment in the world.”
For a moment Emily stared at him, then she fell into his arms. “Michael, I can’t love you. I can’t. You’re not real. You’ll disappear.”
Michael held her as though to let her go would end his life. “I know,” he whispered. “It’s the same with me. How can I love a mortal? How can I return home and watch you life after life with…with….” He took a deep breath, then held her at arm’s length. “What if I take away all memory of me?”
“You can’t do that,” she said, looking into his eyes. “You’ve told me enough that I understand that not even God can erase love. Maybe I won’t remember why I feel so empty but I’ll always know that there’s something missing. Am I right?”
He took a moment before answering. “Yes. You cannot forget love, whether it’s love for a human or love for God.”
“I don’t miss Donald, but I miss you when you so much as go into another room. I was angry at you for leaving me alone after we made love.”
“I know. I didn’t want to leave but I was…taken. My spirit and my body were moved elsewhere.”
She put her head against his shoulder. “We shouldn’t have done what we did and I’ve tried hard to forget it ever happened, but I can’t. I’m afraid, afraid of being alone after you leave.”
“Emily, you will never be alone, you never have been, never will be.”
She looked up at him. “It won’t be the same if you don’t have a body.”
“I know. I’ll be able to see you but you’ll be unable to see or hear me. And you may be unable to remember me at all.” For a moment he held her, then he pulled away to look into her eyes. “All right, Emily, my love, we have two choices. One is that we can cry in our soup or—”
“Beer. Cry in our beer.”
“Good. I like beer more than soup,” he answered then grinned at the smile he got from her. “Anyway, we can cry over what is going to happen to us, because, make no mistake about it, we are going to be separated. Or we can live for the moment and try our best even though we know that tomorrow may bring bad news.”
“I see,” Emily said, pulling away from him. “By that I take it you mean that we should spend every minute you have on earth making love and being with each other.”
“Exactly,” he said brightly, smiling in delight. “Precisely.”
“You are a man, aren’t you? Angel or not, you are definitely a man!” She spat the last word at him as though it were something vile and loathsome.
Michael looked at her in bewilderment. “Your thoughts are too confused for me to read.”
“You poor thing,” she said, moving away from him. “I am one hundred percent on Adrian’s side. You are indeed the worst angel in Heaven. I don’t even know how you got to be an angel. You tell me that I’m bad at choosing men, but even I can see through what you are trying to do.”
Michael’s face was a study in confusion as he was obviously trying to figure out what she was talking about. “What have I done?”
“You got me away from Donald just for your own purposes, didn’t you? And you let me rot without male attention for two lifetimes, also for your own selfish purposes, didn’t you?”
“I, uh, well, maybe I was a bit selfish, but I was trying to protect you.”
“Oh? And are you trying to protect me now when you’re being so damned nice to me?”
“I wasn’t trying to do anything bad,” he said in confusion. “I—”
“That’s just it, isn’t it? You come here and you’re nice to someone who you know is the world’s worst judge of men, then you’re so blasted nice to me that I fall head-over-heels in love with you and then what? I ask you, then what?”
“I….” Michael scratched his head. “I don’t seem to follow your logic.”
“Well, good! I’m sick of being told what I am by you men. Sick of it! Do you hear me? Sick!”
“So what do you want me to do?”
“Find me a man, of course. I don’t want to live alone. I want a house in the country and I want at least three children. You’re an angel and you can see into people’s hearts so you find me a man before you leave.”
“But we have to find out who’s trying to kill you.”
“I see. You have the time to do that but not to do something good for me, is that it?”
“Emily, I seem to have lost my intelligence. I can’t figure out why you’re angry at me. I am thoroughly confused.”
“It’s very simple. You came to earth and ruined the life I chose. Maybe in your eyes it wasn’t a good life but it was a life. But, now, thanks to you, I have nothing. I am two-thirds in love with an angel who is going to leave this earth and may or may not take away my memory of him when he goes, and I live in a tiny commuter town where I see very few men and meet even fewer. Being a small-town librarian doesn’t open a lot of doors, does it?”
Emily almost felt sorry for Michael as his handsome face became a glower of concentration as he thought about what she was saying. But Emily was tired of being told she was a doormat, tired of what seemed to be centuries of falling in love with the wrong man. She had no doubt that she was in love with Michael and she didn’t want to examine that too closely, but, by golly, sometimes a person needed to be selfish! Maybe it was wonderful that an angel had come to earth to save her life, but what kind of life was it going to be if she spent the rest of it alive but pining away for some man who she might not even remember?
“Well?” Emily said and was surprised by the strength in her voice. Her mother had taught her to be nice at all times, but right now being selfish felt amazingly good. She was going to use an angel for her own selfish purposes. “Can you find a good man for me or not?”
“I guess so,” he said quietly. “What did you have in mind?”
“Apparently I usually prefer drunkards and men who marry me to give dinner parties, remember?
So why ask me what I want? I want a man who will treat me well, one I can have children with, one of those men you read about, a man a woman can trust, one she can rely on.”
“I see. Those are more difficult to come by in the present day and age. There’s too much temptation in this world to—”
“Then when you’re back home you’ll just have to watch out after me, won’t you? I mean, that is your job, isn’t it?”
Emily could see that that’s not what he had in mind, and truthfully, it’s not what she wanted either. But what she was wanting more with each day was a lifetime spent with Michael. Not with someone like him but with him. Where else was she going to find a man so awed by life? A man who looked on a football game as one of the wonders of the world? Where else was she—?
She made herself stop thinking. She was not going to get to live with Michael and if she wanted to stay sane then she’d better get that idea out of her mind. As her friend Irene said, “The only antidote to a man is another man, preferably one who is younger and better looking.”
“All right,” Emily said firmly, trying to sound businesslike, “do we have a deal?”
“A deal?”
She’d never heard anyone sound so dejected. “This is an example of, I scratch your back, you scratch mine.”
“Ah, at last something I like,” Michael said in such a lascivious way that Emily had to turn away to hide a smile.
She turned back. “No, not like that. From now on we’re business partners, nothing more. No more hanky-panky. That way you won’t get bawled out by Adrian and demoted even lower, and I’ll get a man and some kids out of all this. Sound good?”
“Sounds scientific,” Michael said glumly. “And I don’t mind what Adrian says. He’s just jea—”
“Deal?” Emily said, holding out her hand to shake. “By the way, I don’t think I like skinny men. They have no zest for life.”
“Right,” Michael said, shaking her hand.
“Now that that’s settled, shall we get some sleep? Tomorrow we have to start going through those files and you have to start finding me a lifetime partner.” With a smile, Emily went to the other side of the room to the mattress Michael had dragged down from the attic earlier. It was musty, as were the old quilts on top of it, but she was so tired that she knew she could sleep anywhere.
As she settled down, she smiled into the darkness. For the first time since she ran into Michael she felt that her life was going to begin, not finish as she’d seen in the last days. They needed to find who was trying to kill her, then Michael would find her a husband, someone nice, someone she could have children with, someone….
She drifted off to sleep with a smile on her face.
But Michael did not sleep. He knew that Emily had no idea of the difficulty of what she requested. He knew that he had no “good” men among those he looked after. At least not good enough for Emily. So he’d have to contact some other angels and see who they had. Then, of course, the man had to be of suitable age and size. And wouldn’t it be nice if he lived near Emily?
Michael tried not to think of what he was doing, tried his best to dampen down his feeling that he wanted no other man to touch “his” Emily. “Mortality is for mortals,” Adrian had said. “Leave it to them to make their own mistakes, to wallow in their own bad karma.” Adrian had meant that Michael was not to put himself on an earthly plane where he felt possessive of this mortal woman. Adrian wanted Michael to remember that he was an angel and above such lowly feelings.
But Michael didn’t feel very angelic. In fact, maybe if the truth were known, he had never felt very angelic about Emily. For right now what he wanted most in the world was to climb into bed with her and make love to her.
But he didn’t do that. Instead, he settled the earthly body that was housing his spirit onto the second mattress then pulled his spirit out of the body. “Astral projection,” it was called on earth. Then, in spirit form, he went to Heaven and began to confer with other angels about what man could make his Emily happy.
When his spirit returned in the morning, his body was rested, albeit a bit stiff from not having moved all night, and Michael had some names and some places and a plan. Also, he had a heavy heart. Even Adrian hadn’t lectured him when he’d seen how miserable Michael was. The other angels couldn’t understand what Michael was upset about, but they could feel his pain and they sympathized.
For a moment, before his spirit reentered the body, Michael hovered over Emily, watching her sleep, and he vowed that he’d do the best job that he could. He’d try to make up for the loneliness he’d caused her in the past and maybe, if he were clever enough, he’d change Emily’s luck with men in the future.
Swooping down, he kissed her cheek: it was an angel kiss, given often, but rarely felt. However, Emily stirred in her sleep and Michael moved away. He must not let her see what he was feeling. To burden her with his feelings of jealousy and regret, even to pile his love on her, was not fair. As she’d said, he was going to leave and he had no right to take her heart with him. From now on, he was going to do the job he was supposed to do and keep his feelings to himself. Yes, he thought, smiling. For once he was going to do the job an angel should do. He was going to give and give and give, with no hope of receiving anything in return.
“But Lord,” he whispered as he slid back into the earthly body, “don’t let her do that thing with her hair over her left ear. I can only take so much.”
Chapter 20
TWO DAYS, EMILY THOUGHT AS SHE OPENED YET ANOTHER big trunk in the attic of the Madison house. For two days Michael had paid no attention to her. Instead, he had become as obsessed with the computer as any nerd on earth. That he was doing just what Emily had wanted didn’t help matters, but she had grown used to his undivided attention and she now knew that she was, well, rather more than fond of having a gorgeous man concerned about her every thought and action.
But that seemed to be over. Ever since the night when Emily had asked Michael to get her a man, he had been different. The next morning, against Emily’s protests, he had walked into town and returned an hour later in a truck with a young man from the phone company. Had Emily not already seen what Michael could do she would have been amazed when this man—free of charge of course—ran a line from the nearest pole and installed both telephone lines and electricity in the old house. Michael could run both the computer and the modem in case he decided to tap into the Internet.
Michael also brought back several bags of groceries and when Emily offered to cook breakfast, figuring she would somehow use the ancient stove in the kitchen, Michael declined, saying he had work to do. When she volunteered to help him plug into the Internet, he told her that Alfred was there to help him and why didn’t she find something else to do? He’d call her when he found what he was looking for.
Blinking at him, astonished at this turn of events, Emily backed away.
“There are keys to every lock in the house hidden under a tread in the main stairs. It’s the third or fourth one,” Michael said, looking at the computer screen. She could tell that he was also listening to someone she couldn’t see because he was murmuring “Yes” and “No” now and then. Also, there were several mutterings of, “I don’t understand,” as he touched the keypad.
“Third one,” he called after her. “The captain says it’s the third tread. And he says that you can snoop all you like, that there’s nothing anywhere that tells the truth.”
Feeling as though she were a child who had been dismissed and told to go occupy herself, Emily went in search of the keys. Sure enough there were several bunches of keys hidden under the third tread, which had been cleverly fastened down so, only if you knew it would open, could you move it.
“Did it meself,” came a voice clearly in her head.
“I have to talk to angels,” she said aloud, “but I draw the line at ghosts. Go haunt someone else.”
Emily was sure that she heard laughter but it faded away so maybe the captain—or whoever it
was—had decided to leave her alone. Muttering to herself that all men were, basically, slime, she headed straight for the attics. If she was going to go exploring she knew exactly what she wanted to explore.
But now she had spent two days in the extensive attics and even though what she had seen and discovered had been wildly interesting, she was still more than annoyed at Michael. How could he turn on and off a person so easily? They had spent nearly every minute together since she’d hit him with her car but now he had his nose in that computer and he didn’t have the time of day for her. He didn’t so much as eat meals with her. He didn’t look up when she came into the room and made no attempt to speak to her when she was near him.
Last evening she had tried to talk to him. “Any luck?”
“Depends on what you call luck,” he said, never raising his eyes from the computer screen.
“Have you found any evil?”
“Lots. That’s the problem. There is nothing but evil inside this computer. Every one of these stories deals with horrible men and women doing horrible things. It is nearly impossible to find out which evil relates to you, especially since you wrote all of this, therefore all of it relates to you.”
“Maybe I could help,” she said with more eagerness than she wanted to let him see.
“No,” he said blithely. “Alfred and I are fine. You go and look in your attics. The captain says there’s some treasure up there but he could just mean something sentimental to him. On the other hand, he was a rich man.”
Again, Emily felt that she’d been dismissed to the children’s playground. “Found any men for me?” she asked. “I want someone very handsome. And virile. Remember, I want half a dozen kids.”
“I found three men for you days ago. Well, hours ago, anyway.”
“Oh,” Emily said, feeling a bit let down.
Michael glanced at her over the computer screen. “That’s what you wanted, isn’t it? Have you changed your mind?”
“Of course not. What choice do I have? You’re going to leave soon and you sent Donald away so I must take one of these men.”