With the dress on its way, Michael went back to the computer. Maybe he could yet find out why someone was trying to kill his Emily. “Correction,” he told himself. Not his Emily. Emily was soon going to belong to a man he had been assured was kind, thoughtful, a good companion, intelligent, had a great sense of humor and—
Michael refused to remember what else his fellow angel had said about the man who was going to be at the ball tomorrow night.
“Alfred,” Michael said without looking up from the computer screen, “tell the Captain I want his wife’s rubies.” He listened for a moment. “Yes, the whole set, with the bracelet and earrings, and, no, he’s not going to get them back. I’m going to give them to Emily.”
He turned back to the computer and tried to give it his full attention.
Chapter 21
IF I DIDN’T LOVE YOU I’D HATE YOU,” IRENE SAID AS SHE looked at Emily in the deep-red dress. For something so expensive, the dress was deceptively simple. It appeared to be merely a sheath of red silk satin, but because of the way it was cut and the way the inside was engineered, it pushed Emily’s ample bosom up until it was nearly spilling over the top.
“You don’t think it’s too much?”
“You or the dress?”
“Both I guess,” Emily said apprehensively as she tried to push some of her flesh under the silk.
“Darling, do you have any idea how much women pay to get boobs like yours?”
Emily let out a sound that was very much like a giggle.
“I tell you, that boyfriend of yours certainly has taste.”
“He’s not—”
“Yeah,” Irene said, “you told me. He’s not your boyfriend. Yeah and I’m a natural blond. What’s he doing with that computer anyway?”
“Trying to find out who wants me dead,” Emily said, for she’d told her friend the truth. In fact, she’d told her friend the entire truth, but her friend didn’t realize it. Irene had laughed a lot when she’d heard a second time that Michael was Emily’s guardian angel.
Emily and Irene were an odd choice for friends as they could hardly be greater opposites. Irene was all glamor: her idea of roughing it was to wear only two-inch heels. Emily, on the other hand, didn’t own a pair of high heels.
But they had been friends from the instant Irene had walked into the Greenbriar Library and asked about renting a place in town. Much to her horror, Irene had been told by her physician, who knew Irene’s true age, something that no one else (including the passport office) did, that she either had to calm down her burning-the-candle-at-both-ends lifestyle or be prepared to pay the price for too much hard-lived fun. Reluctantly and with a great deal of protestation, Irene had rented a tiny house in the absurdly quiet town of Greenbriar. But to her amazement, she had grown to love the place. She’d met Emily the first day; they’d had lunch together at the local diner and had been friends ever since.
“We’re no competition to each other,” Irene had said. “You’re not trying to get my job and heaven knows I don’t want yours. Or your boyfriend,” she said, referring to Donald. “You don’t envy me and I don’t envy you. It’s that simple.”
Whatever the truth was, together it seemed they could find a solution to almost any problem. Emily could see what Irene needed to do in her big city life and Irene always had some exciting advice for Emily to liven up her life. Their only disagreement had been over Donald. Irene hated the man, thought he wanted Emily for his own selfish purposes and often told her so.
When Irene had met Michael she’d liked him instantly. “An angel, huh? With eyes like those, I think he’s more likely from the devil.”
“He’s not for me,” Emily had said stiffly. “So don’t get your hopes up. He’s going to leave.”
“I see. San Quentin? Is that where they put hit men nowadays? Or will they try to kill him again?”
It was obvious that Irene thought Emily had again been conned. She liked Michael but she wasn’t about to believe that he was an angel.
But now, as Emily stood in Irene’s living room wearing her fabulously expensive dress, her hair now a deep red and piled on top of her head, Irene stepped back to admire her friend. Physically, she and Emily were also opposites. Irene was nearly six feet while Emily was barely five. Irene had broad, square shoulders and a figure that was made for clothes. She looked elegant in whatever she put on. Emily, with her bosomy, curvy figure, looked matronly or slutty, depending on what she wore.
But in the red dress she had on now, she looked sexy and elegant and, well, rich.
“You look like your daddy races horses, your brother plays polo and your mother heads charity committees,” Irene said, smiling.
“It’s not too much?” she asked again. “You don’t think there’s too much of me showing?”
“Not at all. What do you think, Michael?” Irene asked him. He was standing to one side of the room and in his tuxedo, he was dazzlingly handsome, but Emily tried hard not to look at him. She had to keep her vow to find an appropriate man, one who wasn’t going to, literally, fly away at any moment.
“I think it looks bare,” he said, scowling.
“All you men think that,” Irene said, smiling. “At least the possessive ones of you do. Think she’ll attract the attention of the three men in the photo?”
“I’m sure they are interested only in a woman of means.”
“Then they won’t want me,” Emily said. “I feel like the small-town librarian wearing borrowed clothes.”
“Like Cinderella must have felt,” Irene said, laughing, then looked at Michael curiously as he took something from his pocket.
“Perhaps this will help your self-confidence,” he said as he fastened a necklace about her ivory neck. There was a band of rubies set in gold that hugged the base of her neck and several perfect, large, drop-shaped rubies dripped from the band.
“And these,” Michael said as he handed Emily the matching earrings. Rubies the size of pigeon’s eggs dangled from small, round rubies set in gold. “And this,” he said, adding to her hand a bracelet that was three rows of round rubies.
“The captain’s,” she whispered. “His wife’s rubies.”
“Those are real, aren’t they?” Irene said in a whisper of reverence that such jewels deserved. She recovered before Emily did. “If those don’t make you change your mind about looking like boring Miss Emily Jane Todd, then nothing on earth will.”
“Emily is anything but boring,” Michael said and for a moment he looked at Emily with eyes so hot that the rubies seemed to be made of fire. Quickly, he turned away as he went to get her coat.
“Oh my,” Irene said. “It’s been a long time since a man looked at me like that. And you said he wasn’t interested in you in ‘that’ way? Is that what you said, Emily?”
“I told you, he’s going to leave.”
“Wait for him,” Irene said into her ear. “Wait for him for all eternity is my advice to you.”
“Try till the end of time,” she muttered, then walked toward Michael where he was holding out her coat. It was white satin, lined with the same red of her dress and shoes. Emily knew immediately that Michael had been right: the rubies had done the trick. As they left Irene’s apartment, Emily felt as though she were the most devastatingly beautiful woman on earth. In the limo that Michael had arranged to take them to the ball (she didn’t ask how he’d paid for it), she didn’t pay one bit of attention to his orders. She didn’t hear him tell her that she was to leave everything to him and that she was to stay away from the three men.
“I can read their minds,” Michael said. “I’ll know which man it is and I’ll come up with some way to stop this.”
“Only if you know why the man wants to kill me,” she muttered. Wouldn’t it make sense if she tried to find out? Wouldn’t it be interesting if she could charm him with her—she nearly giggled again—charm him with her rubies and her cleavage?
“Emily, I don’t like what you’re thinking,” Michael said seriousl
y. “I see an image of an absurdly large man in your mind. What has he got to do with this?”
Emily gave a little smile and looked out the window. She had been thinking about the latest Schwarzenegger spy movie. Didn’t women in spy movies wear red satin and rubies the size of pigeon’s eggs?
“I think we should go back to Irene’s. I don’t think we should go to this party,” Michael said then leaned forward to tap the glass that separated them from the driver.
But Emily put her hand on his arm and smiled at her. To her delight, Michael glanced down at her cleavage, turned a bit pale then said no more.
Emily had never felt so powerful in her life.
She looked over at Michael. How could she think of any man other than him, she asked herself, glancing at him again out of the corner of her eyes. He was fabulously handsome in his tuxedo and he had done so many kind things for her. When he’d first said he was going to “Raphael” her, she had been insulted, but now, feeling the way she did, she could only thank him. It was amazing how much difference the right clothes and a few jewels could make to a woman. Not to mention two hours spent on her makeup and another four hours on her hair that was no longer exactly her natural color. “We’ll just make it look as though it were kissed by the sun,” the hairdresser had said. It had taken many hours to look this “natural” and Emily was sure it was worth it.
“You look nice,” she said, smiling at him.
“And you are beautiful,” he replied and the way he said it made her feel even better.
What an unselfish man he is, she thought, to do this thing for her. He had said that he loved her yet here he was, introducing her to other men. He had gone to a lot of trouble to find a man for her and he had taken more time and effort to make sure she was attractive to the man. Emily was more used to men like Donald who mumbled thanks when you handed them a stack of papers that represented three weeks’ work.
“I really appreciate all you’re doing for me,” she said softly. “There aren’t many men who’d be this unselfish.”
Michael smiled at her. “I’m your guardian angel, remember? Taking care of you is my job.”
“So what’s he like?”
“Who?”
“The man I’m supposed to meet.”
“Kind, thoughtful, a very good man. Does a lot of good works. He’s in line for a promotion to a higher level in his next life. He really does dedicate himself to good, just as you do.”
Emily leaned back against the leather of the seats of the plush car and smiled. For a moment she envisioned a future with a man who was concerned with his home and his family, as she was. “Thank you,” she murmured. “It’s kind of you to do this for me. I really appreciate it,” she said, her voice full of emotion.
It was thirty minutes later that her warm fuzzy feelings toward Michael changed.
“You lowlife, slimy…” She couldn’t think of anything bad enough to call him. And the words she did think of, she wouldn’t say aloud but she dearly hoped he was reading her mind, and to make sure, she sent him some pointed thoughts.
“Emily, honey, he really is a nice man. He—”
“Don’t you even speak to me,” she hissed, then smiled at a woman wearing a slinky black dress who looked at them curiously. She turned back to Michael. “I trusted you. I believed in you!”
“But he is—”
“Don’t even say it. He’s good!” She spat the word at him. She didn’t know when in her life she had ever been so angry.
They had arrived at this heavenly party and, at first glance, everything was as Emily had pictured it: there were so many jewels on the women that a single candle could have lit the room and the sparkles would have made enough light. Never had Emily felt as good as she did walking up the steps of that marble building and into that divine ballroom. She hated to relinquish her coat but she did, then took Michael’s arm and walked in with the other guests. Everything was perfect and in her beautiful dress and the rubies, she felt as though she belonged.
It wasn’t until Michael led them to their table that she grew puzzled. “Their” table was so far from the others that she could barely see the dance floor. Tall palms hid them from the dancers and even from the other guests. It was almost as though they were outside looking in.
“Privacy,” Michael said, smiling at her and she’d given a weak smile in return. Maybe it was better to be private when she met the man of her life.
But twenty minutes later she was ready to kill Michael. An elderly gentleman came to sit at their table and, politely, Emily tried to carry on a conversation with him. But she was constantly craning her neck trying to see who else was going to sit at the table. The man chosen for her was divinely inspired. What would he look like?
“Mr. Greene founded a center for cancer research,” Michael was saying to Emily.
“How good of you,” she said, looking over the man’s shoulder at the dancers. If she turned her head just so and looked through three palm trees she could just see the skirt of one of the dancing women.
“I don’t usually come to these things,” the man was saying, “but I made an exception tonight because this one is for charity. And I asked for this table to be set up here to keep away from the folderol of the dancin’. Don’t approve myself. What about you?” he asked Emily.
“Me? Oh I love to dance.” She looked pointedly at Michael and asked in her mind when the man was going to show up.
Michael turned away to look at the older man sitting next to Emily. “And you share the profits of your company with your employees, don’t you?”
“That I do. They helped me; I help them.”
“And you’re a widower, aren’t you?”
“My dear wife passed on fourteen years ago. I would have remarried but I never found a modern woman with her morals.”
“Emily runs the library in Greenbriar,” Michael said, then nudged her with his shoulder, making Emily search for something to say.
“Yes. Uh, ah, maybe you’d like to attend one of our career days, Mr., uh, I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name.”
The man chuckled. “Greene. Dale Greene. I’m pleased to hear of a woman who hasn’t heard of me. So many women today know more about a man’s bank balances than he does. It’s refreshing to meet someone like you, Miss Todd. And if I may say so, you are lovely.”
It was somewhere in here that Emily began to realize that this old man, a man who was on the far side of seventy, was the man Michael had chosen for her. Slowly, she turned her head toward him, her eyes glittering. “May I see you in private for a moment?”
Michael gave her a weak smile. “Emily, dear, I think—”
“Now!” she said, then lowered her voice. “And I do mean now!”
“If you’ll excuse us, Mr. Greene,” Michael said politely as he followed Emily deeper into the palms.
“Emily, I—” he began once they were alone.
“Don’t you say anything to me. You are the lowest of the low. I don’t know how I ever had a kind thought about you. How I ever believed that you were an angel.”
“He’s a good man. He—”
“And I bet he’s a real firecracker in bed, isn’t he? And that’s where I’m supposed to get children, isn’t it?”
“Look, I didn’t have much time so I did the best I could.”
“No, you did the worst that you could. You could have found me any number of men who were at least young! But, no, not you. You can’t bear any other man touching me, can you? For generations you’ve done this to me.”
“I thought you didn’t believe I was an angel,” he said with a bit of a smile.
Turning on her heel, Emily started to leave.
He caught her arm. “All right, I apologize. Maybe I didn’t mind that he was older than necessary.”
“That man is older than my grandfather,” she said, her teeth clenched, then smiled at a passing couple. “Look at this,” she said. “My one and only chance in the world to go to a party like this and you
ruin it.”
“You’re right,” he said solemnly, “and I apologize. I think the evening is ruined and we should leave at once.”
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you? And what did you have planned for the rest of the evening? A little hanky-panky between you and me?”
Blinking, he looked at her in consternation. “Sex,” she nearly spat into his face. “Is that what you had planned?”
“I hadn’t thought of that but I am quite willing,” he said without a hint of a smile.
Emily could think of no reply so she slammed the high heel of her shoe down on his instep then had the satisfaction of seeing him nearly collapse in pain. “Serves you right,” she said in his ear. Then when a passing couple looked as though they might stop and ask if they needed assistance, Emily said, “I think we should get you home, dear. You know how your gout acts up.”
While trying to balance on one leg and rubbing his foot, Michael said he thought it would be a very good idea if they left.
“I want to dance and have a good time, and I’m not leaving until I get it.”
“I’m afraid I can’t allow that. There’s a man here who wants to kill you.”
Emily gave him a little smile. “But isn’t that what I’m here to find out about? I thought we came to find out who he is and why he keeps trying to blow me up.”
“I am to find out those things. You wanted to find a good man you could spend your life with. Mr. Greene is a very good man and you—”
“Could die of boredom, that’s what. Did you hear what that man had to say? He doesn’t drink, smoke, dance or wear bright colors. He is such a paragon they’d have to create a new wing of Heaven just for him.”
Michael didn’t smile at her jest. “Emily, you know how you are.”
“And what is that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing bad, but you do have a tendency to choose men who are less than virtuous.”