Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
DEATH was a fickle bitch, and Zane Halvorson flirted with her every chance he got.
Okay, so maybe firing a flare gun into his parachute while he was still four hundred feet above his landing zone, and staring up in awe as the fragile nylon disintegrated into ash a little more quickly than he'd calculated had been closer to insanity than showmanship. What the hell? He was an aerial stuntman. He got paid to defy death. To make the crowd scream and mothers cover their children's eyes to keep them from being traumatized for life by his twice-weekly, seemingly inevitable, gory demise.
Never let it be said that Zane Halvorson didn't give people their money's worth.
If one of his stunts did actually manage to kill him, at least he'd die in a manner of his own choosing. On his own terms. Terms that seemed to finally be coming to fruition on a sunny Sunday afternoon at the central New Mexico Boat and Air Show, as the shortlived glory of the flaming parachute gag dumped him in the lake next to the airfield, well short of his planned drop on the tarmac.
Tempting fate on a regular basis the way he did, he wasn't surprised to find himself sinking to a dark, watery grave at the bottom of Lake Mitchell. Drifting to his death with a auburn-haired beauty he'd never seen before floating serenely at his side, however, was quite a jolt.
The current fanned a halo of dark, wavy locks around her head. The sunlight glaring off the surface of the water surrounded her in an ethereal glow, like she was some kind of goddess. Her eyes were deep-sea green, and held such tranquility that just gazing into them filled him with peace. Acceptance.
The last bit of oxygen he'd hoarded in his lungs during his descent escaped and gurgled toward the surface in a column of bubbles, and he watched with a kind of detached curiosity. He felt odd. There should have been pain. He'd hit the water at far too high a speed to not be injured. There should have been panic as the weight of his waterlogged jumpsuit dragged him down, and the cords of his demolished parachute tangled around his arms and legs, ending his struggle to kick and swim his way to the surface, to air.
But there was no panic. No pain. There was only a gentle touch of the mystery woman's fingers to his cheek, and comfort, as if someone had tucked a soft blanket around his shoulders on a cold night. That and a slight tingling in his hands and legs as his extremities slowly went numb.
His eyelids grew heavy and slid half-closed. The lake pulsed like a living thing around him, its heartbeat thrumming low and steady in his ears. The woman beside him floated closer, and her nearness enveloped him in warmth.
Who are you? he asked, hearing the words as clearly as if he'd spoken them, though—hell—that wasn't possible. He was underwater. He was drowning. Maybe he was already dead, though he didn't feel dead. He felt… satisfied for the first time in a long time. And a little confused.
I'm an angel, she answered in the same freaky speechless communication.
An angel?
Sent to you by God.
Yep. Definitely dead.
With a concerted effort, he pried his eyelids back open a fraction. They were deep in the lake now, darkness closing around them. Yet the light still surrounded her, bouncing off the particles in the murky water in a strange pattern that spread behind her back like… wings.
He slammed his eyelids shut. Who was he kidding? There was no celestial being coming for Zane Halvorson. After a life of beer drinking, bar brawling, and hell-raising recklessness, he was more likely to spend his eternal days breathing fire than angel dust.
His mouth twisted into a wry grin. 'Fraid there's been some mistake, he drawled in his thoughts.
No. A gentle smile graced the corners of her mouth. I'm here for you. Only you.
He felt her fingers working at the buckles of his harness, and the cumbersome equipment fell away. Instantly he felt buoyant, lighter in body and in soul. Next, her hands moved to the zipper of his jumpsuit.
Okay, normally, a beautiful chick undressing him and professing that she was here only for him would be a real turn-on. An irresistible turn-on, even.
Today, dying at the bottom of this godforsaken lake, it pissed him off.
No. He pushed her hands away.
She arched back, her delicate brows pulling together. Her arms swirled at her sides, holding her stationary in the water. But I've come to save you.
To save him? God had sent an angel. To save him. The irony of it burned. The warmth that had suffused him suddenly banked to an uncomfortable heat. Rage. Don't you get it? I don't want to be saved.
He'd no sooner thought the last word than a current with the strength of a tsunami slammed into him. The jet stream propelled him up with such force that he felt as if the skin might be ripped from his body. His internal organs plummeted to the bottom of his abdomen. He was a bullet streaking across an open plain, a rocket in the night sky, an untamed creature of the sea, streaking from the dark depths toward the surface, toward the sun. Toward life.
She had a name.
A moment ago, she had simply been. A benevolent life force on a mission for humanity, she had existed as energy, as light and imagination, a small piece of the energy, light and imagination that was the universe, and now she was Rosemary D'Amica, photographer for the Las Nueces Times. She had shape. She had form. She had a name.
She had a body.
She ran her trembling hands down her sides, feeling the strength of the ribs beneath her skin, the curve of her waist, the flare of her hips. She tipped her chin down to catch sight of her own heaving chest, her pebbled forearms, and shivered.
God, no!
Being forced to take human form was always a possibility in her job. She'd just hoped she could avoid it…
The sunlight assaulted her eyes, and she flung a hand up in front of her face to ward off the brightness. She was on a boat. The roar of the engine, the slap of waves against the hull, and the simultaneously inhaled breaths of hundreds of air-show onlookers on the shore beat against her eardrums. The cotton tank top and denim shorts she wore chaffed at her skin. The bitter tang of fear stung her tongue.
"Roll him over!" A voice pierced her mind like a needle. She wasn't used to physical sensation. Until a few seconds ago, she'd existed in a place of quiet, of peace. The light, the sound, overwhelmed her. It was all too much, too loud, too sudden.
She clapped her hands over her ears, but the voice drilled through.
"Roll him on his side. Do it now, Rosemary!"
Through squinted eyes, she glanced up at the man yelling at her as he piloted the boat toward shore full-throttle. John Murphy, she realized. Part-time staff reporter for the Times. She knew his name the same way she knew her own. The way she knew where she lived and where she worked. In the blink of an eye, this life had been created for her and all the mortals who would swear they had known her all their lives. Part of the grand plan, whatever that was, designed by a higher power. Much higher.
Following John's gaze, she looked around and realized she was on her knees on the deck of the small boat, crouched over the body of Zane Halvorson. Water dripped from her chin to his still chest.
Coughing as her own burning lungs came to grips with the sudden availability of—and need for—oxygen, she rolled the lifeless man to his side and looked back to John.
"Slap him between the shoulder blades!"
"What?" Violence wasn't in the angel handbook.
"Make him cough up the water. Try to get him breathing!"
Shaken by her lack of understanding of corporeal matters, she did as she was told and hit the heel of her hand on Zane's back, then looked back to John.
"Is he breathing?"
She splayed one hand across the cool, damp chest, and lowered her ear next to the man's mouth, but couldn't hear or feel anything. "I don't think so!"
"All right." John measured the distance to shore with a glance, then turned back to her and shouted. "Rescue breathing."
"What?"
"Mouth to mouth. CPR!"
At first Rosemary had no idea what he was talking about, but the knowledge flooded her mind the same way all the details of the mortal existence that had been built for her had. She rolled Zane to his back, then checked for respiration and pulse. His heart was beating, but he wasn't breathing.
As if she'd practiced a thousand times, she tipped his head back, pinched his nose and blew two quick breaths into his mouth, then rolled him to his side, thumped his back and checked for respiration again.
Feeling her senses heighten even more as adrenaline pumped into her system, she raised a desperate glance to John. "Nothing!"
"Try again! Keep trying!"
The boat's engine revved until they sounded as if they might snap like a wire strung too tight. Rosemary ignored the painful whine, focused on her task. Roll. Breathe. Roll. Slap. Roll. Breathe. Roll. Slap.
Her stomach lurched as the boat hit the dock hard enough to send her skidding across the deck, grasping the shoulder of the unconscious man beside her to keep him from toppling overboard.
Silence descended with a force as deafening as the clamor that had brutalized her only minutes ago. She could feel the dying vibration of the engine as John cut the motor. The held breath of the people watching from shore.
All of her concentration narrowed into Zane Halvorson. Roll. Breathe. Roll. Slap. Roll. He coughed. More accurately, his whole body spasmed. Streams of lake water jetted out of his mouth as his hands clutched protectively over his stomach and his knees drew up to his chest.
After a few moments, Zane's eyes opened. Huge, dark pupils sucked her in like a vacuum. A moment of recognition passed from his eyes to hers, then a hint of inquiry and finally narrow-eyed suspicion. Off to her side, John picked up her camera and snapped off shot after shot of the two of them. Her chest clenched around each gasping breath—Zane's and hers—until he finally seemed to realize where he was, how many people were watching.
His gaze still locked on hers, he reached out and grasped her fingers. His lips curved in a deliberate smile as he rolled up to his knees and raised their joined hands toward the sky in a gesture of triumph for the crowd.
"Woooooo-hooooooo!" he hollered, and as one, the crowd let out a deafening cheer.
The noise and the light crashed in on Rosemary again. Dizzy and queasy from the onslaught, she tried to pull back, away, but Zane held her tight.
His smile widened, but before she'd recovered enough to read the intent swirling in his hazel eyes, he slipped an arm behind her shoulders and draped her backward in his embrace. His mouth followed her down, and his lips captured hers in a kiss that had her fingers fisting in the wet fabric of his jumpsuit and her muscles turning to jelly.
It was over as quickly as it began. He raised his head, waving at the crowd while she hung in his arms, breathless and helpless, like a worm on a hook. Once again the crowd cheered.
"A little CPR of my own," he announced, quieting the people gathered around the dock as he pulled her upright, grinned at her and gestured toward her with his hand and a slight bow of his head. "For my guardian angel!"
ROSEMARY padded through her second-story apartment, absorbing sensory details with every step—the feel of the smooth hardwood beneath her bare feet, the ticking of the mantel clock over the false fireplace, green and blue flashes of light streaming through the sun catcher in the kitchen window. She'd been in this human form, this body, for twenty-four hours now, and still everything seemed too bright, too loud, too hot or too cold.
How long had it been since she'd felt, tasted, touched in the way of mortals?
She couldn't say. Time didn't exist in her plane of existence. There was no past to regret, no future to anticipate. She just was, moment to moment.
She didn't know how long it had been since she'd last been in human form, but she did know the world had not been like this. So crowded, so noisy.
The thought of facing the modern world this way, with all of her human feelings and fears intact, was nearly enough to send her scurrying back to bed and under a cocoon of covers where it was quiet and dark. Safe.
But hiding wasn't going to get her back where she belonged. She was stuck here until she finished the job she'd come to do, and that meant facing the world—and Zane Halvorson.
It happened this way, occasionally. People weren't always ready to accept the gift she offered. They had issues.
Zane Halvorson seemed to have more issues than most. Guardian angel? She was called many names by many people in different parts of the world, but that was a new one.
Sighing, she stopped her pacing before a maple cabinet that displayed an antique china collection with pattern of delicate blue and yellow flowers. A small dish of candies sat on the hutch. Curious, she lifted the lid and cautiously placed a small green square on the tip of her tongue.
Mmmmmmm. Her eyelids drifted down, and she smiled, remembering. Party mints. The sweet and creamy kind that melted in the mouth.
So maybe not everything about the human existence was as odious as she'd first thought. She could get through it. She knew where to find him and she knew what needed to be done. The trick would be to stay focused. Work quickly. She'd be out of here in no time. For if she knew one thing, it was that death would visit Zane Halvorson again.
Soon.
The sound of beer bottles clinking and pool balls clacking was all a man needed to soothe what ailed him—at least in the Zane Halvorson book of medicine. One step into the Oasis, his favorite dive, and he felt like he'd dropped a twenty-pound pack off his back. All around the room friendly faces raised beers and pool cues in greeting.
His gray-haired pilot and the designated dirty old man of the aerial-show crew, Jasper, broke away from a conversation that was surely leading to a deep and meaningful one-night stand with the new waitress and sidled over. " 'Bout time you got here, Z. How you doing? Feeling all right?"
"I'm good." Actually he was a little shaken. Not so much by almost dying, but the whole angel-of-the-deep thing had him freaked out.
She'd been on a boat near where he'd splashed down in the lake and jumped in to rescue him. He'd caught a few glimpses of her in the water before he'd lost consciousness. Anything else he thought he remembered was probably just oxygen deprivation screwing with his memory. His mind was a frightening place on a good day. On a bad one… hell, he didn't even want to think about the possibilities.
Jasper clamped a hand on his shoulder and propelled him across the barroom. "Come on, you gotta see this. Jimmie is cleaning house on the tables tonight."
Zane shook himself from the memory of sinking in cold, dark water. "Yeah, in a minute. Let me get a drink."
Jasper toddled away. "Hurry it up. You're missing a show. Kid's got a gift, I tell you."
Zane sidled toward the bar. Jimmie had a gift all right. For losing every cent he won on the pool table in the backroom poker party that would start up in about an hour.
He smiled. It was good to be home.
With his elbows propped on the scarred wood bar, one boot planted on the brass rail near the floor, and hips leaning against a leather-covered stool, Zane waited for Pete, the bartender, to finish the highball he was mixing. While Zane waited he looked around the room, sinking into the familiarity of the place as he picked out all the regulars among the sea of new faces in town for the air and boat show. Dan and Mike were in a heated conversation over who deserved to be this year's baseball MVP. Kyle was working the crowd. Joey was wrapped around his girlfriend in the booth behind—
Her.
She sat by herself at the little table tucked into the farthest corner, head down and both hands wrapped around a glass, almost as if she hoped no one would notice her.
His guardian angel.
He took a moment to study her unawares. He hadn't really gotten a good look at her yesterday before the paramedics had stormed the boat and hauled him off to the emergency room. He just had that impression of wild, dark hair and deep green eyes—the kind of gorgeous that could hit a guy like a punch in the gut if he wasn't careful. He hadn't had a chance to talk to her at all.
He wasn't sure he wanted to.
How fucked-up was that? She'd saved his life. Then there was the whole dramatic kiss thing, which he really ought to apologize for. But even though his brain said to get off his ass and go talk to her, his boots—
Aw, hell. One of the speedboat jockeys had her in his sights and was about to make a move. Zane intercepted the guy before he got out whatever clichéd line he was about to drop on her.
Holding the speed freak back with a casual palm planted on the man's chest, Zane dropped into the chair across from her. "Mind if I sit?"
She raised her head. "No. Although next time it might be nice if you asked before you actually sat."
"I can leave."
She flicked a glance up at the speedboat guy who was still hovering with a hopeful gleam in his eyes, then met Zane's gaze levelly. "No, you can't."
"Cheeky. I like that." He nodded toward her empty glass. "What're you drinking?"
"Water."
Wineing, he held up two fingers to the waitress, and a moment later Sheila deposited two longnecks and a bowl of popcorn and pretzels on the table, greeted Zane with a playful bump of her hip on his shoulder, and then left without a word.
Zane pushed one of the bottles to the woman across the table. "Better than water."
She just wrapped her hands around the bottle the way she had her glass and watched him down his first swig.
"So, you're a photographer. For the Times."
"Yes. You saw the paper this morning, huh?"
"Kind of hard to miss that big headline 'Times Photographer Saves Parachutist.' Not to mention the picture of us… you know."
"Ah, yes. The picture." She picked at the label on the beer bottle with her fingernails, but she had yet to take a drink, he realized.
"Yeah. About that kiss. I mean, it was just for show. Had to do something to reassure the crowd. I'm sorry if—"
"What in the world were you thinking, setting your parachute on fire like that?" she interrupted.
Okay, so she didn't want to talk about the kiss. He was relieved, actually. He'd consider that his apology was accepted.
He shrugged. "It's an old gag. It's been done plenty of times before."
"And the people who did this gag before, they lived to tell about it?"
"Mostly."
"Is the money really worth risking your life for? Or do you just do it for the thrill?"
He leaned back and hooked one arm over the back of his chair. "Yes to both."
"Sure it's not just some kind of death wish?"
"For two people who hardly know each other, this conversation is getting awfully personal."
She pursed her lips a moment, then spoke softly. "I breathed life from my lungs into yours yesterday. I'd hardly say we're strangers."
He narrowed his eyes. His heartbeat quickened and his breathing deepened. He wanted to look away, but he couldn't seem to break the connection between them. For a moment, he felt that same odd, floaty sensation he'd experienced in the lake yesterday.
"You want to know the truth?" he heard himself saying without consciously deciding to speak. "The money's good and I like the rush. But there's a third reason. I do it for the kids. You know, the ones who come to the show with the parents who want them to grow up to be computer engineers or lawyers. The ones who are afraid to dream because they don't think they're smart enough or good enough or… whatever crap has been pounded into their heads."
He wiped his palm on the thigh of his jeans. "I can see them down there, holding their breath while I fall. Then when I hit the ground and later they come running up for autographs—I can see it in their eyes. They know anything is possible if you're not afraid to try. They believe they can fly."
The Army had taught him to jump out of airplanes, but when they hadn't wanted him anymore, he'd taught himself to make a life doing what he loved most. He'd decided to pass on to a new generation the courage and the love of freedom that had made him an Army Airborne jump master for twelve years.
Zane realized his hand was fisted on his thigh and forcibly relaxed his fingers.
Rosemary was quiet a moment, processing his heartfelt confession, he supposed. She dipped her fingers tentatively into the popcorn bowl, as if afraid it might burn her, pulled out a piece and popped it into her mouth. "Salty," she said, cocking her head to one side like she'd never tasted popcorn before. "Good."
She reached for a handful. "Kids or no kids, you have to know someday it could end badly. I guess you're prepared to go out that way, without any warning. You've got your affairs in order."
"I don't really have many affairs to order," he drawled. Strange conversations that kept taking blind curves way too fast had a way of bringing out the good 'ol Texas boy accent. Tended to slow things down.
"So there's not some big thing left undone that you want to do before you die? Some great goal to meet? Some terrible wrong you need to right?"
"No." This conversation was seriously starting to give him the creeps, and still he couldn't help but be intrigued by her. By why she cared about any of this. "I gather you're not much of a risk taker."
"I'm here, aren't I?" She arched one fine eyebrow inquisitively, and there it was. The sucker-punch gorgeous look nearly knocked the breath out of him even though he'd been prepared for it. At least he thought he'd been prepared for it.
He leaned across the table toward her. "You know, it's the strangest thing. When I was underwater… drowning… I could have sworn you talked to me."
"What did I say?"
"That you were an angel."
Just the tips of her mouth curved up. "Maybe I am."
And maybe he was the devil in blue jeans. God knew, he suddenly felt horny enough to be.
The suggestion that they go somewhere more private to talk—among other things—had almost reached his mouth when a hand clapped him on the back. "Z, buddy. Sorry to interrupt the reunion, ma'am." Jasper nodded at Rosemary, then looked back at Zane. "You gotta come with me. Kyle just put out a hundred big ones for all takers that he can beat you off-road, in the desert. Night course."
Zane heard Jasper, but his eyes were all for Rosemary. "I'm kinda busy right now."
"Zane. It's a hundred big ones. And the little toad's running his mouth about how your confidence is shook, after yesterday and all."
Indecision warred within him until a solution made him smile. He stood and held out his hand to Rosemary. "You want to understand why I do the things I do? Come with me."
"WHAT is that?" Rosemary had trailed along willingly enough with her hand still clasped firmly in Zane's until she saw the gargantuan… behemoth parked at the edge of the lot outside the Oasis.
"It's a truck," he answered, tugging her forward when she held back. "A four-by-four."
It looked more like a tank. It was midnight blue, one of those short-bed deals, with roll bars framing the cab, a chrome exhaust pipe and tires… the top of the tires hit her waist-high. She'd need a stepladder to climb into the thing, or so she thought until Zane opened the passenger-side door, spanned her waist with his big hands and lifted her inside as if she weighed no more than a cloud.
The monster sounded like a tank, too, when Zane turned on the ignition and revved the engine. When the diesel roar had receded to an angry growl, he turned his head toward her and threw her a grin. "Buckle up for safety."
"Where are we going?" she asked, fumbling with the latch on the seat belt. She wasn't at all sure this was a good idea. Not at all.
"For a ride in the desert."
"I don't think—"
"Come on, it'll be fun. It's a nice night, and the stars are out."
She glanced up, unimpressed. The stars were much more impressive when they surrounded you rather than just floating overhead. She licked her lips, about to unbuckle the seat belt and bail out when a red Jeep Wrangler—Kyle's, she supposed—whipped by them on the driver's side, its horn beeping like the Road Runner as it passed.
"Damn. He cheats!"
"Zane, you're not going to ra—"
The big truck lurched as he threw it in gear and stomped on the accelerator. Her head snapped back and her hands automatically clutched whatever they could find—the center console and the door handle.
"What're you doing?"
"Reason number four for doing what I do, sweetheart. The most important reason of all. It's called living. Full throttle. Every second of every day."
She swallowed hard as gravel spun out beneath the truck's tires and they peeled out after the Jeep, plunging into the darkness, guided only by two spindly beams of light. "At the moment I'm more concerned about dying."
That couldn't happen, right? She wasn't even really alive, after all. This was just a shell she was inhabiting temporarily until she finished her work here and everything got back to normal.
No way. It couldn't happen.
She squeaked as the truck bounced off the edge of the parking lot and across a dune of sand. Despite the seat belt, her body was ejected from the seat, then jerked left, then right as the rear wheels fishtailed, biting into the shifting sand for purchase.
Zane laughed, his attention focused on the cloud of sand ahead of him that had been churned up by Kyle's Jeep.
"Zane, please!"
"Just hang on, Rosie. We've almost got him!"
Rosie? No one called her Rosie.
They careened over another sand dune, the front wheels popping up first, then the back end, flying so high she felt like they might flip into a somersault at any moment. Her fingers dug deeper into the leather-grained handle on the door.
"This is crazy!" she yelled, but Zane was hunched over the steering wheel, driving blindly into the sandstorm ahead. Seconds later, the view out the windshield cleared as they pulled alongside the Jeep.
"There you are, you little bastard! Thought you could beat me by jumping the start line, did you?" He flipped Kyle the universal sign of disdain and gunned the truck even harder. The engine shuddered and the truck edged ahead of the Jeep by a bumper, and then a quarter panel.
Rosemary finally managed to bring a full breath into her lungs—until she looked into the dimly lit desert ahead and spotted what looked like the edge of the world. She screamed. "Zane, stop!"
He only clutched the steering wheel and grinned. The truck flew over the edge of the arroyo and down the embankment, bouncing and jouncing so hard that the steel frame of the truck groaned in protest.
"Are you crazy?" she yelled over the din.
He glanced away from the path in front of him long enough to chastise her with a look. His eyes beamed with excitement. "Relax. We're fine. And we're winning."
The Jeep surged in front of them and dived right into the narrow bed-runoff canal. Zane countered by zigging left, throwing her right, and she made the mistake of looking out the passenger window. The desert landscape passed in a nauseating blur of dunes and cacti, glittering eyes as nocturnal critters skittered out of their path, and churning sand. Every bump jolted her upset stomach and aggravated her pounding head. The movement and noise and scattered bits of light was too much for her—she'd barely gotten to the point where she could enjoy popcorn, for heaven's sake. Every jolt was like a hammer blow to her body. Every crunch of the tires and grinding gear was like an ice pick in her ears. Her senses couldn't take this kind of stimulation.
Biting back her rising bile, she switched her hand grip from the door to the handle over the window. "Zane, please!"
He was too intent on the path ahead, if there was any path, to spare her a glance. "We're almost there."
"The race is lost. He is beating you."
"I've got him right where I want him. Right… here!"
The Jeep turned down a narrow track to the right, then swiveled left. Zane passed the point where he'd turned, then yanked the steering wheel right and gunned the truck up an impossibly steep incline. Gravity forced Rosemary's spine against the seatback. She heard the tires spinning, grasping for purchase on the steep slope. The engine whined in protest.
"We're not going to make it!" Oh God, they were going to flip over backward.
Even as she thought it, the truck's front tires peeled over the edge of the canal. The frame bottomed out for a fraction of a second, and then they were airborne, flying without wings. Just before she squeezed her eyes shut, Rosemary saw the hood of the Jeep, its roof just a meter beneath the truck's big tires, still winding its way out of the gulley, and she screamed.
Her chest was still burning, yet to draw in a new breath when they pulled into the parking lot alongside the Oasis. Zane turned the truck off, jumped out and spun around the front of the hood whistling, tossing the keys and grabbing them out of the air before he reached her door and offered her a hand out.
Slapping his arm away, she stumbled out of the truck, her head still spinning and her heart pounding.
He frowned. "You okay?"
She jabbed him in the chest with her index finger. "You. You. Are. Insane!"
He shook his head. "It was just a little race."
"A little race? You—We—" Her voice failed her, so she made an arcing, flying motion with her hand, her eyes wide.
He crossed his arms over his chest and chuckled. "A little rattled, are we?"
"Rattled? Why, you—You want to see rattled? I'll show you rattled!" Zane Halvorson could be damned for all she cared. There was only so much an angel could take.
She felt the well of power within her. Like the buffer in some kind of massive generator, the energy built up in her body, sizzled from her heart to her fingertips. She raised her hands, already feeling the lightning sizzling toward her fingertips, ready to strike out. But before the first bolt left her hands, a wind kicked up, blowing her hair in front of her eyes and whispering urgently in her ear.
Zane threw his arm in front of his face to protect his eyes from the blowing sand. Rosemary dropped her hands and clenched her fists at her sides, then turned and stomped toward the bar.
"Rosie, wait!" he called behind her, but she gritted her teeth and marched on without turning back.
When Saint Peter whistled, even she didn't dare refuse the call.
Rosemary sat on the last stool at the end of the bar, hunched over a half-empty glass until the last of the Oasis's patrons called it a night.
"Careful there," Pete said, swabbing his way down the bar toward her with a damp cloth. "Or I'll have to be calling a cab to get you home."
She looked up at her mentor, confused. "It's ice water."
"It's not the drink I'm worried about." His eyes sparkled when he smiled, and the wings of the eagle tattoo on his bicep fluttered as he slung the dishcloth over his shoulder and stepped her way. "Friends don't let friends drive depressed."
She ducked her head again. "I'm not depressed. I'm just—" She sighed. "I hate this."
"Being human?"
"I don't know how people stay sane in this form." She plunked her elbows on the bar and propped her chin in her hands. "All the ups and downs and noise and people. It's… chaotic."
"It's life."
"Life is highly overrated."
"Says the Angel of Death."
She looked up at Saint Peter through eyes bleary with exhaustion. That was another thing. She never got tired in her true form. The Angel of Death never needed a nap.
She rubbed her temples. "This guy has a death wish, Pete."
"Then why is he still alive?"
"I was hoping you could tell me."
Pete finished cleaning the bar and began to straighten the open bottles in the liquor bin, making sure each was securely corked. "The usual, I suspect. Unresolved issues."
She snorted. "Yeah, like the fact that he's an adrenaline junkie."
"This you've decided after what, a whole hour in his company?"
"That's about fifty-eight minutes longer than I needed."
Saint Peter stopped his cleaning and leaned over to her across the bar. "Does the phrase 'Judge not, lest ye be judged' ring any bells with you?"
She dropped her gaze, a rush of heat flooding her cheeks. By the heavens, it wasn't just the sensory overload anymore, but in the last few hours all these human emotions had begun to surface, as well. How was she supposed to do her job with all these feelings distracting her? One minute she wanted to laugh, the next she wanted to cry. And when she stared into Zane Halvorson's hazel eyes for too long, a whole other set of wants altogether began to make itself known.
She slumped back in her chair. "So what am I supposed to do, Pete? Stalk the guy until he finally figures out what's wrong with his life so that he can die?"
Pete went back to his work, turning his back to her. "Perhaps."
She studied his expression in the mirror behind the bar and knew there was something he wasn't telling her. "Or perhaps not," she guessed, then mumbled, "I have other work."
"You have only the task He gives you."
Embarrassment rose again in her cheeks. "I just want to go home."
"Then you need to complete your task."
"You know I can't affect the outcome one way or another. Only He decides who lives and who dies. I'm just here to bring home the ones He chooses. Why would He keep me here like this, waiting for this one man to resolve his issues?"
Pete set down the glass he'd been drying and met her gaze in the mirror. "Perhaps you should consider that Zane Halvorson is not the one with issues to be resolved."
An hour later, Rosemary stumbled through her dark apartment and fell spread-eagle on the bed.
"What did Peter mean, that perhaps Zane Halvorson wasn't the one with issues? Of course the man had issues. He'd jumped out of a perfectly good airplane and set his own parachute on fire, for goodness sake."
She pulled pillows up to either side of her head to drown out the ticking of the clock and the rumble of cars on the street below.
She would just have to wait him out, that's all. Stay close to him. Sooner or later Zane Halvorson would die, and the Angel of Death would be there to save his soul. Then she could go back where she belonged.
End of story.
ZANE stood on the landing outside Rosemary's door and resisted the urge to tug at his collar. Jesus, he wasn't some kid picking up his date for the junior prom. Just because he'd put on a shirt that actually had buttons for once didn't mean anything. Nothing at all.
He was only here to apologize. He'd been a little rough on her last night at the Oasis. Sometimes he forgot that not everyone liked to risk life and limb for a hundred-dollar bet and bragging rights. Some people preferred a slower pace. Time to smell the roses, or whatever.
He didn't understand those people, but he knew they existed, nevertheless.
Oh, hell. Who was he kidding? He was here because he wanted to see her again.
His dark-haired angel intrigued him on a lot of levels. The ones south of his waistband were easy to understand. She definitely had a look about her. Sexy and innocent, world-wise and naive all at the same time. She had that fresh kind of face that didn't need makeup, a body that didn't need designer dresses to look good.
Some of those other levels, though, weren't so easy to explain. Like the whole guardian angel thing. He didn't believe in the "angels among us" propaganda, but she had saved his life. He figured that created some kind of bond between them.
He was curious about her. Since he'd been a kid, he'd liked to take things apart and put them back together again to see how they worked. Bicycles, toasters, engines—he always had to know what made them tick.
Now he wanted to know what made Rosemary D'Amica tick.
Pulling his shoulders back, he pasted a pleasant smile on his face and rang the bell. A moment later she answered, and the sight of her erased every word of his carefully rehearsed apology from his mind.
"Um," he said.
Her feet were bare, as were her legs up to the fringe of her cutoff denim shorts. She wore an old football jersey that fell off one shoulder, and her wild curls spilled out of a ponytail that looked like it had been caught in a windstorm. In the crook of her arm she held a pint of Ben and Jerry's double fudge chocolate ice cream with a soup spoon sticking out of the open tub.
He grinned. "Breakfast of champions, huh?"
Good going, Romeo. Way to make points.
"I, uh, I wasn't expecting company." She dropped the ice cream on an entry table and turned back to the doorway, looking at him quizzically. "What are you doing here?"
"Brought you something." He pulled the bouquet of daisies from behind his back and held them out for her.
Her eyes widened as she took them. "Why?"
"I'm sorry about last night. I got a little carried away with the whole race thing." He peered over her shoulder. "Can I come in?"
After only a brief hesitation, she stood aside and ushered him over the threshold. In the kitchen, she put the daisies in a vase in the middle of a butcher block table and gestured him toward a chair. He sat while she retrieved her double fudge chocolate from the entryway.
"Isn't nine a.m. a little early for ice cream?"
She hugged the tub protectively. "It's never too early for chocolate. I never tasted any until yesterday. I think I'm addicted. You want some? I can get another spoon."
"No, thanks. You never tasted chocolate?"
"Mmm," she said, spooning a bite into her mouth. "I've led a very sheltered life. So you were saying? About the race?"
"Yeah." He traced a finger over the beak of a hummingbird embroidered into a navy blue placemat in front of him, and his mouth watered as Rosemary's lips closed over another bite of ice cream. "We goof off sometimes," he said, looking away. "Just letting off steam, you know? I shouldn't have dragged you into it, though. It can be a little intense."
"Intense is one word for it. Crazy would be another that comes to mind."
"You think what I do is nuts. I get that. But in reality, every stunt I do is planned out, every detail. My team is the best, and we take every precaution to make the show safe."
She waggled her spoon at him. "So I ended up fishing you out of the lake… why, exactly?"
"I miscalculated the burn rate on the chute. Look, I didn't say there isn't some element of risk. But if you really want to know why I do what I do, then come see for yourself. Come out to the airfield and let me show you how much preparation goes into every stunt."
"Okay."
He opened his mouth, but managed to stop the argument he was about to make just in time. "Really?"
"Really."
He narrowed his eyes. That was way too easy. "Why?"
"Actually, I was talking to my editor at the paper this morning. I told him a little bit about what you said—making kids believe they can fly and all—and he wants to do a story on you. Sort of a follow-up to the accident piece. And he's agreed to let me write it. This could be my big break."
"Well, I wouldn't want to get in the way of that. It's a date, then."
The spoon froze halfway to her mouth.
"Well, not a date, exactly," he corrected. "More like a… a…" He lost his train of thought as she ate her ice cream and pulled the spoon out of her mouth slowly between closed lips, wiping away every hint of chocolate. Except for the smudge left at the corner of her mouth.
"A business meeting," she said.
"Yeah. Sure." He swallowed, working hard to pull his gaze away from the chocolate smear. "Business. I should go now." Before he did something stupid, like taking care of that little dab of chocolate on her lips—by tasting it for himself.
He stood and headed for the door without looking back. She followed and leaned against the jamb as he stepped outside. If he hadn't turned around to say good-bye, he might have gotten away clean. But no, suddenly he had to be Mr. Manners.
Aw, hell. He lowered his head toward hers, until he could feel her breath on his cheek and see the individual flecks of green in her wide eyes. With his heart thunking against his breastbone, he blew out a deep breath, and lifted his hand. "You've got a—" He motioned toward her face.
He moved to wipe the tiny daub of ice cream away, but her hand got there first. She frowned, looking for somewhere to wipe the mess, and with his gaze still locked on hers, he took her fingers in his and brought them to his lips. Gently he nuzzled away the chocolate, then released her.
Her hand hovered in midair, as if she hadn't realized he'd let her go.
"So. I'll see you this afternoon." His voice sounded rough all of a sudden.
"This afternoon." She still hadn't moved.
He smiled to himself as he turned and left, checking his watch as he jogged down the steps. He had to get to the airfield. He had a hangar to clean up and a crew to browbeat into being on their best behavior.
Most of all, he had to figure out how he was going to pull his head together enough to perform an aerial stunt this afternoon, when all he could think about was the taste of chocolate and Rosemary D'Amica on his lips.
"Hello? Earth to Rosie!"
Rosemary felt someone tapping on her shoulder and turned to hear Zane's muffled call. "What? Oh." She pulled out the plastic earplugs she'd bought at a drugstore on her way to the airfield.
"Sorry about that," she said, shrugging. "All the engine noise and such. Have to protect the old eardrums." Actually it wasn't just the engines, but the crying children and their cheering parents, the hawking of the hot-dog vendors, the blare of the loudspeaker that bothered her. She was still having a hard time adjusting to the constant noise. She hadn't realized that the noise had abated when they'd left the field and walked into the hangar.
Zane guided her over to a vintage biplane and she walked along the fuselage, trailing her hand across the riveted metal.
"It gets a little loud out there sometimes," he said, "but I doubt it's anything that'll do you any permanent damage."
"Better safe than sorry."
"So some people say."
"Not a theory you subscribe to, I take it."
"There is such a thing as being too cautious. Missing out on some of the best moments life has to offer just because they involve a little risk."
Near the front of the plane, Rosemary climbed the stepladder and peered into the rear cockpit.
"Go on," Zane said behind her. "Climb in."
In the copilot's seat, she tried to imagine soaring a thousand feet up with nothing beneath her but air. The thought brought goose bumps to her arms.
"So what's on the bill for you today?" she asked. "Hurling yourself out of a perfectly good airplane with nothing but a bed sheet to slow your fall? Shackle your hands and feet like Houdini and see if you can escape the locks in time to pull your parachute cord?"
" 'Fraid not—although that last one is not a bad idea." He patted the side of the biplane like a favorite pet. "It's Louise's turn. Wing-walking day."
"While the plane is flying. Wing walking." She pointed forward and to the left of her seat. "Out there."
"That's generally where the wings are, yes."
"You really should have your head examined, you know that?"
He swung up onto the wing to demonstrate. "Look, it's not that bad. I have these struts here to hold on to. And when Jasper gets ready to do the barrel rolls, I slide my feet into these straps here on the lower wing."
"Barrel rolls?"
"Yeah, we do a few acrobatics while I'm out. Slow and easy, though, nothing—"
She held up her hand to stop him. "I really don't think I want to know." The turkey dog he'd bought her for lunch wasn't sitting well on her stomach, and this conversation wasn't helping.
Smiling, he grabbed her hand and pulled. "Come on. I'm closing the show tonight, so I've got a couple of hours before I have to get ready. Let's go walk around."
She let him lead her around the aircraft on display and listened patiently while he lectured her on wing design, air speed and avionics. Surprisingly, she found if she focused on his voice, the background noise didn't disturb her as much as it had before. And she enjoyed listening to him. To her, they were just a bunch of airplanes, but he was like a kid in a candy store. His eyes lit up as he made an airplane shape with his hand and flew it around, even making engine noises as he explained the concepts of bank, pitch and roll to her.
Everywhere he went, people watched him. He'd been right about the kids, she realized. They stared at him in awe, and a few of the braver ones even ran up and asked for his autograph.
Amused, she noticed the children weren't the only ones staring openly. Rosemary caught a fair number of young women ogling him as well, especially at his backside as he walked away from them. Not that she blamed them. He did fill out those worn jeans quite nicely—
She caught herself and stamped out that thought before her own gaze wandered into forbidden territory. What was she thinking?
The Angel of Death should not be lusting after the soul she'd come to collect.
All too soon the afternoon wound down and it was time for the last stunt—Zane's wing walk.
Her stomach quivered unhappily as he climbed into Louise's second seat behind Jasper, his pilot, and gave the thumbs-up. It protested significantly more vehemently when the yellow biplane soared over the upturned faces of the air-show crowd and a figure clad in black coveralls and goggles climbed out onto the left wing. He waved and they cheered, and her breath stalled as he ambled along the rear edge of the wing all the way to the tip, where he held on to a strut with one hand, braced his feet and bowed dramatically backward off the tip of the wing, before levering himself up and proceeding down the front edge of the wing as if he were strolling down a country lane.
The plane made a large loop at the edge of the airfield. Zane crossed over Louise's fuselage and repeated his performance on the right wing.
When Zane was headed back toward the cockpit, Rosemary finally dared suck in a lungful of air, thinking the show must be almost over. Until he stopped halfway up the wing and stretched his arms out to the struts on either side of him.
Jasper climbed to a higher altitude, then eased the biplane into a slow, spiraling roll to the left. The crowd gasped. Rosemary covered her mouth with her hand, afraid to look and yet unable to close her eyes.
When Louise had leveled out, Jasper executed the same maneuver in the other direction and the crowd let out an approving roar.
And then the unimaginable happened. Halfway through the roll, while the airplane was upside down, a black dot separated from the plane's wing and tumbled through the sky, end over end.
Oh, God. Oh, no. Oh, God!
Zane had fallen.
"UH-OH." Kyle, one of Zane's mechanics, stood to Rosemary's right, his hands jingling change in the pocket of his coveralls.
The second mechanic, Jimmie stood on her other side in a similar position. "Looks bad for the Z-man."
Oh, God. This couldn't be happening. She hadn't been called. If Zane was going to die now, she had to be there.
She bent her head and started to run, but strong hands on her arms held her back. "Let me go!" She slapped at the mechanics.
"Wait for it," Kyle said, watching Zane's body tumble headlong toward a horrific death.
Jimmie cracked his gum.
A moment later something fluttered alongside Zane's falling form, then a rainbow of color exploded above his head with an audible phhhhhhummpf.
A parachute. Oh, thank God.
Rosemary doubled over and pressed a fist to her chest.
"Ah, disaster averted once again," Kyle said dryly.
Jimmie cracked his gum again.
Realization setting in, she straightened and turned her head from one man to the other. Flames rushed up her neck to her cheeks. "You knew. You knew and you didn't tell me!"
Jimmie hunched his shoulders. "Well, what'd be the fun in that?"
"Fun! You think that was fun?"
Kyle and Jimmie shared a look.
"You know, I think I've got a carburetor to clean," Kyle said.
"And I—" Jimmie bit his lip. "I'm sure I got something to do. Must be somethin'," he mumbled as the two of them turned tail and ran.
Chickens. They shouldn't have bothered. They weren't the ones in danger.
Zane Halvorson, on the other hand, was in serious trouble. Unresolved issues or not, when he got back here, she was going to kill him.
"Thanks for the ride, Mac." Zane grabbed his gear bag and swung his legs out of the ATV that had been sent out to the field to pick him up.
"Anytime, man," Mac called, but Zane didn't turn to acknowledge him.
He was frozen in place by an icy green stare. Rosemary's body language screamed furious. Her arms were crossed over her chest, her hips cocked out to one side and she was tapping her foot.
"What?" he asked.
"Did you think that was funny, Zane? Was it a big joke—make the gullible reporter think you really fell? And could you have mentioned that you wear a parachute when you do this little stunt?"
He sighed and started toward her, albeit with a little less swagger to his gait. "It's the shock value that sells the gag."
"You about shocked me into a heart attack!"
He dropped his bag in front of her and shook his head. "Look, I honestly just didn't think to tell you I was going to take a dive for the tourists. Everybody around here knows the routine. Besides, I told the guys to stick close to you. Surely you saw that they weren't too upset."
" 'The guys'? By that you mean your little junior birdmen? They were having too much fun watching me nearly pass out to clue me in."
Zane rolled his head back and shot an exasperated look at the two young mechanics watching them through the office window. When they scurried away, he turned back to Rosie, reached out and took both of her arms and slid his hands down to hers. She stiffened at his touch, but didn't pull away. Hopefully that was a good sign.
"I'm sorry I scared you. But hey—" He winked at her. "I had my guardian angel looking out for me, right?"
Her eyes narrowed dangerously. He sighed and let go of her hands. "I know what I'm doing out there, Rosie. You've got to trust me."
"Trust you? Helloooooooo! Pulled you out of the lake. Mouth-to-mouth, remember?"
"You are never going to let me live that down, are you?"
"No."
He hung his head for a moment, and then looked up at her, trying to figure a way out of the hole he'd dug himself. Her dark curls were even more tousled than normal, as if she'd run her hands through them. Repeatedly. Her cheeks were flushed and her lips were pressed into a straight line with little crinkles at the corners.
Damn, she was cute when she was angry. So cute that his own annoyance faded, and he chuckled, then laughed outright. "Okay, I guess I deserve that."
Behind him he heard Louise taxiing into the hangar. He cocked his head toward the bird and told Rosemary, "Come on, I got just the thing to help you put the whole ordeal behind you."
She narrowed her eyes. "What?"
"Come fly with me." He called up to the cockpit, "Leave her running, Jasper."
"You taking her out?" the pilot called.
"Yes."
"No, I don't think so." She backpedaled as Jasper climbed out of the front seat and Zane rolled the staircase up to the second seat for her.
"Come on, it'll be fun. Just you, me, Louise and the open sky. We've still got plenty of daylight left. I bet you've never seen the desert from three thousand feet, have you?"
"No, I haven't."
He held his hand out to her. "Let's go, then. I know just the spot I want to show you, where the dirt turns red as—"
She finally relaxed her uncrossed arms, and instead wrung her hands in front of her.
"What's wrong?" he asked.
"I—I've never flown in an airplane before."
That took him by surprise. "You weren't kidding when you said you'd led a sheltered life, were you?"
"No. Actually sometimes I feel like I haven't lived at all." She gave the airplane a long look, and then tipped her chin up. "Maybe it's time to change that."
Rosemary had to admit, Zane had been right. Once her initial bout of nerves had worn off, she'd loved every minute of her flight over the desert, even the few minutes when he'd switched off the engines and they'd glided, nothing but the air currents beneath them holding them aloft.
The sunset was indescribable. So many colors, so vivid. Vibrant, like the man who had talked her into taking that magic carpet ride.
She watched him now from her table at the Oasis where she sat with a spiral notebook in front of her, purportedly scribbling notes for her newspaper article. He was kicked back against a windowsill, long legs stretched out in front of him and a beer bottle in his hand, watching his crew, who were caught up in some game she didn't fully understand, but that seemed to involve playing pool with blindfolds on and drinking shots every time the other team hit one of their balls into a pocket. He laughed at something one of them said, and winced as Jimmie and Kyle each downed their third shot in under fifteen minutes. Thankfully, the table was clear of balls and, judging by the handing off of blindfolds, it was time to switch teams.
Zane strolled over to her table, turned a chair around and straddled the seat, hooking his arms over the back and resting his chin on his forearms. He took a swig of the beer he'd been nursing all night and nodded toward her notebook. "Making any progress?"
She wrinkled her nose. "Not really. The guys look like they're having fun."
"They can afford to let their hair down a little. Tomorrow's our off day."
"No stunts?"
"No. Air show runs Sunday through Saturday, with Wednesday off to give everyone a chance to rest up and maintenance their equipment."
Inwardly she breathed a sigh of relief that he wouldn't be performing tomorrow. Zane Halvorson was the most alive man she'd ever seen. Knowing that life would be over soon, and that she'd have some part in its end, even if it was only to carry his soul on to a new plane of existence, wasn't sitting with her the way it once had.
Until Zane, she'd always believed that life on Earth was a mostly painful and unhappy experience. Sure, there were moments of joy, sometimes even true love, but she never doubted she was taking them to a better place. She never understood why some of them clung so tenaciously to their lives here. Why they grieved for each other so when a soul moved on.
Finally, maybe, she was beginning to understand.
Zane took another sip of his beer and she realized she was staring at him. And he was staring right back. Awareness left tingly little tracks up her arms and all the way down to her toes, an odd sensation, but not altogether unpleasant. In fact, she rather liked it.
"You had a good time in the air today," he said.
"I already told you three times that I did."
"Just making sure. Because I've got some really big fun planned for us tomorrow."
She wasn't sure she liked the sound of that. "What kind of fun?"
"Today you flew with me. Tomorrow you jump with me."
She jerked as if she'd stuck her finger in a light socket. "Oh, no. Hell, no."
"Hell, yes. Tandem jump. You'll be strapped to me, and I'll do all the work. You'll just be along for the ride."
"Not going to happen, flyboy."
"I'll give you a lesson in the morning, we'll jump in the afternoon. You'll be perfectly safe."
"Lak—"
He held up one finger to silence her. "Don't say it. We'll land squarely on terra firma. I promise. You'll love it. It's the closest thing there is to heaven on Earth."
She drew a shaky breath, her resistance fading. This was crazy, but it was also exhilarating. Her stomach was already in knots just thinking about jumping out of an airplane. But she was the one who'd decided to give this living thing a try as long as she was stuck in human form. It was like once she'd begun to sense and to feel, a door had been flung open, and that door couldn't be closed again. She craved new experiences.
Did he say she'd be strapped to him?
Who knew? This jumping thing might have all kinds of possibilities.
"I'll think about it," she said.
He grinned and before it turned into a gloat, she plucked the beer bottle from his hand and took a swig.
The alcohol tried to come back up as fast as it went down. She coughed and waved her hand in front of her open mouth to cool her burning throat.
"Let me guess," he drawled. "Never drank beer before, either."
Her composure regained, she spun on her heel with a haughty "Hmpf," and went off to see about joining the boys in a game of blindfold pool.
There were lots of things she'd never done before, but before this week was up she just might try every one of them.
WHAT in heaven's name had she been thinking?
The wind from the open door of the plane buffeted her. The vibration of the engines only added to the shaking her body was doing on its own. She was holding on to the strap riveted into the wall beside the door so tightly that she would probably need pliers to pry her fingers off.
Zane straightened up from where he'd been checking every buckle, clip, strap and carabiner on their combined gear for the third—no, fourth—time. "You ready?"
"No." Was that her voice? It sounded like a Saturday morning cartoon character.
"Come 'ere." His arms circled her waist and drew her flush against him.
They were strapped together, her back to his chest. She could feel the slow beat of his heart between her shoulder blades. His hips against her backside. The hard muscles of his thighs against her legs. She let herself sag against him, increasing the contact until there was no part of them that wasn't touching. Molding to the other's shape.
"Breathe slow and deep," he murmured in her ear just loud enough to be heard over the wind and engines. "In and out."
While her respiration gradually evened out, he tucked his chin in the crook of her neck and kept talking. "You're going to be fine. I've done this hundreds of times. Maybe thousands."
"Really?" There, she didn't squeak quite as bad that time.
"Twelve years Army Airborne. Seven of them as a jumpmaster. I've taught more people how to hurl themselves out of airplanes than you'll find in most small cities."
She groaned. Did he have to use the word hurl?
Breathe. In. Out.
A light went on over the cockpit door.
"What's that?" she asked, tensing again.
"Drop zone." Still holding her around the waist with one arm, he stroked the curve of her waist and her hip with the other. "Are you ready now?"
"Just do it already," she answered, squeezing her eyes shut. "Because if you're waiting for me to say 'yes,' it's not going to happen."
"Okay, here we go." She let him scoot her closer to the open door. "Just remember what I showed you in the classroom. Relax and let me do all the work."
She nodded, her eyes still closed, but unable to shut out the image in her mind of the patchwork landscape and tiny buildings so far below. Too far below.
Teetering on the brink of the doorway, Zane stopped them once more. With a hand on her chin he turned her head and she opened her eyes to meet his gaze.
"One more thing," he said. "Don't forget to breathe."
With that last word he pitched forward, tipping her out of the plane and into the most terrifying moment of her life.
The initial blast of the wind was almost bruising in its force. She wanted to curl up in a ball to escape it, but Zane's instructions echoed in her mind. Extend your arms and your legs. Arch your back a little. Keep your head up.
Moving jerkily, sometimes flailing against the air currents, she worked to find the position, while her heart tried to pound its way out of her chest.
"Don't fight it."
She jolted at the sound of Zane's voice in her ears. She'd forgotten there were radio headsets in their helmets.
"Don't try to control it. Don't try to hold on to the air," he said. "Let the air hold you."
She tried, willing her muscles to relax, and gradually the ride smoothed out. Her initial panic faded and she opened her eyes.
"Oh, my. It's beautiful!" Falling through clear blue sky, totally unencumbered. Totally free.
"I told you you'd love it."
"How fast are we going?"
"You sure you want to know?"
"No." Laughter bubbled up in her chest, borne of sheer joy. "It's… amazing."
"You've got about fifteen more seconds to enjoy it. Then we're going to deploy canopy. I'll give you a three count, and you'll feel a sharp pull. Remember not to brace against it. Just go with the motion."
She gave Zane a thumbs-up, content to spend her last few seconds of free fall in silence, memorizing the feeling so that she would never forget.
"Three. Two. One. Deploying canopy."
As he'd warned, their direction changed suddenly, but Rosemary hardly even blinked. She was too busy smiling to be afraid.
Their mad dash toward the ground became a leisurely excursion. She felt like a child on a playground swing set, floating this way and then that. Back and forth and ever downward.
It was over far too soon. Zane guided them to the ground so softly they could have been stepping off a curb instead of hitting the ground from thousands of feet in the air. They could easily have walked right out of the landing, but Zane's arms snaked around her waist and pulled her to the grass in a gentle roll anyway.
When she found herself on her back, on top of him, with his hands not so tightly wrapped around her any longer, but roaming restlessly over her stomach, her rib cage, and occasionally grazing higher, she began to suspect his motives. When a pair of moist lips nipped at the back of her neck, she knew exactly what his motives were.
"Hey, no fair," she said. She couldn't reach much of him in this position.
He chuckled and pulled his hands away long enough to make quick work of the rat's nest of straps and buckles and cords entangling them, then flipped her over so that they lay chest to chest.
That was better, she thought, pulling her helmet off and pressing her lips to the hollow of his throat. Much better.
He let her explore for a while. Pulling the neck of his jumpsuit aside, she pressed kisses down the length of his collarbone, then up the tendons on top of his shoulder, up his neck to the underside of his jaw. All the while his mouth was on an expedition of its own, plundering the side of her neck and the sensitive spot behind her ear.
"God, you taste so good," he murmured, and her pulse leaped at the scrape of breath and lips and teeth over her carotid.
Eventually their meanderings brought them face-to-face, and their mouths danced at first, searching for the right position, the perfect angle, then their lips fused, sealed in a bond of give and take, conquest and surrender, then a melding of two into one. A communion.
The kiss evolved as they shifted restlessly against each other. It changed. It advanced and retreated and surrendered only when their need for oxygen became greater than the desire to tease and touch and taste.
Rosemary sagged against Zane, panting. He shifted one of his legs between hers, raising his knee until his thigh pressed against her intimately.
She moaned, the friction between her legs adding one more ache to the long list of demands her body was making—all of which could only be met by the man lying beneath her.
Carefully she levered herself up on her elbows and laid her hands on either side of his head. His chest heaved against her breasts, setting off another delicious tingle. "Zane?"
"Him."
"Can we do it again?"
He opened his eyes halfway. "Mm-hmm. Soon as I catch my breath."
She giggled. "I meant the parachute jump."
"Oh." Was that disappointment in his voice? "You bet. Anytime."
Across the field, Rosemary saw Mac headed toward them on the ATV. Zane rolled his gaze that way, too, then lifted his head and kissed her long and hard until they could hear the whine of the engine close by. Finally he eased his head back and tucked a curl behind her ear.
"Meanwhile," he said, "what do you say we take this free fall somewhere a little more private?"
Zane splashed some water on his face, then leaned on the bathroom sink and faced himself in the mirror.
What the hell are you doing?
"Exactly what you think I'm doing," he grumbled almost silently.
You can't. It isn't right. It isn't fair.
"Life isn't fair."
So it's okay for you to hurt her because you don't like the way your life is going.
"I'm perfectly happy with the way my life is going. It's the way it's going to end that I'm pissed off about."
Will dragging her into your troubles change that? You have no future to offer her.
"I'll break it off after the air show. Once she's done her story. She never has to know."
She'll still be hurt.
"She'll be hurt if I back out now."
Not as badly.
"Dammit! What do you want from me?"
Keep your voice down.
Zane glanced nervously at the door, hoping she hadn't heard anything. All he needed was questions about who he'd been talking to.
What are you going to do?
He scrubbed his hands over his face and shook his head. "Hell if I know."
Indecision churning in his gut, he pasted on a grim smile and stepped out of the bathroom.
"Took you long enough. I was beginning to get worried about you in there." Rosemary sat on the edge of his bed, biting her lower lip. Her legs were crossed and her hands were clenched in her lap. He'd never seen her look so nervous.
It was normal to be a little anxious the first time with someone, but she trusted him, he thought. And there was no doubt their attraction was genuine—
Realization hit him like a lightning bolt from heaven.
What were the chances that a woman who had never tasted chocolate or drunk a beer until this week had ever… ?
Slim to none, he was afraid.
Damn, as if this wasn't hard enough.
He sat next to her, close but not touching. She searched his face with her eyes, questioning.
"Look, Rosemary. I was thinking. Maybe this isn't the best time—"
Her hands clamped together even tighter in her lap. "Did I do something wrong?"
"No. God, no. Hell, no." Christ, if this didn't kill him, nothing would.
She lurched off the bed, almost stumbling in her hurry to get away from him. "Sure, well. Yeah. I mean if it's not a good time, then we should reschedule. How does a week from Tuesday sound? Maybe you need to get your calendar and check. Or maybe you were thinking of something a little further out. Like not in this lifetime."
She scooped up her jacket and tried to jam her feet into the sneakers she'd kicked off like she was trying to kick the stuffing out of something. Or someone. Oh yeah, she was a virgin all right.
Zane had to bite back a grin. Her embarrassment had morphed to anger in record time, giving credence to the old saying that hell hath no fury…
Color flooded her cheeks and her hair lashed her cheeks as she whipped her head around. The angrier she got, the more beautiful she looked.
How the hell had a woman like her reached this point in her life without sleeping with anyone? She must have had men knocking at her door night and day.
Maybe someone had hurt her before she'd gotten to that point. The way he just had.
He sighed. "I'm sorry, Rosie. There's just some stuff going on in my life right now—"
She turned on him, one shoe on, one shoe off and eyes like twin green flames. "Oh, stuff going on in your life. I'd love to say I understand, but I really can't since I've never actually had a life, have I?"
He scrunched his face, confused. "What?"
"Never mind." She bent down and picked up the sneaker she couldn't get on. "You're right. I'm sure it would never work out between us. I mean I'm—"
He grabbed her wrist as she straightened. Waited for her to raise her head and look at him. Damn, he hated seeing the hurt swimming in her green eyes just beneath the fury. Hated that he had put it there, and that he was going to make it worse.
"Rosie, I'm dying."
Her lips pursed, her mouth slightly open. For a moment, neither of them breathed.
"What?" she finally asked, the word coming out on a rush of breath.
"That's why I left the Army. Medical discharge." He let go of her wrist and took a slow breath. "Three years ago I was diagnosed with a brain tumor. Radiation and chemotherapy didn't work. I went into surgery three times, and they finally got it all, but by then the damage to the blood vessels in the area couldn't be repaired. I have a hundred little aneurysms in my head just waiting to explode. And when one of them goes, they tell me, it will be like a string of firecrackers, only a little slower. Within a few hours, a day at most, they'll all go."
He didn't think she even realized she was shaking her head, denying his words even as she heard them. "That can't be—You can't—"
"Last time I saw the doc, he said he didn't think I'd make it another six months." Zane managed a weak smile for her benefit. "That was five and a half months ago."
"WHY didn't you tell me?" Rosemary knew she was out of line—not just with the question, but with the tone of voice in which she'd asked it. No one talked to Saint Peter that way, but she wasn't sorry. She felt like she'd just woken up from millennia of sleep. For the first time in her existence, she had begun to question what she did, and why.
Across the bar, Zane and his crew broke into a fit of laughter as Zane turned away from a swimsuit-model calendar they'd tacked to the wall and then threw a dart over his shoulder.
Rosemary smiled. At least there were no blindfolds involved tonight.
"That's ten points!" Zane declared, studying his hit.
"No way!" Kyle called.
"I got her thumb!" Apparently certain body parts were worth higher scores than others.
A dark-haired man in black jeans and a leather jacket shouldered Zane out of the way. "Let me show you how it's done, old man."
The new guy looked familiar to Rosemary, but she couldn't place him. "Who is that?" she asked Peter.
"Name's Trey MacAllister. He's a wheel man. Heard Zane is thinking about adding some ground work to his show, needs a stunt driver. The deal is, if he can beat Zane at backward darts, he's hired. If not…" Peter shrugged.
Rosemary shook her head. Only Zane would substitute a game for an employment interview.
As if he knew she was thinking about him, Zane turned to her from across the room. The look he sent her was quickly shuttered, but not before she'd read the pain there. The longing. The same feelings echoed inside her.
He broke the eye contact suddenly, and stumbled into a chair as he reached to pour himself a beer from the pitcher on the table.
"I don't think the wheel man's going to have much trouble winning himself a job. Our boy's been hitting the brew hard tonight." Peter's voice was heavy with resignation. "Guess I can't blame him."
Rosemary turned back to her mentor, fighting back the moisture in her eyes. "Why didn't you tell me Zane thinks he's going to die?"
"He is going to die."
"He thinks he's going to die of a brain aneurysm. That's why he does the crazy things he does. He doesn't think he has anything to lose."
"Maybe he doesn't."
"What about time? No doctor can know for sure when it's going to happen. He could have days, weeks, maybe even months left."
Peter checked sideways up and down the bar, as if to be sure none of his other patrons were close enough to overhear, then leaned toward Rosemary across the bar. "I thought you were the one who didn't understand why people fought so hard to stay here, to hang on when there was a better place waiting for them on the other side."
Her shoulders sagged. "Maybe I did feel that way, once. But I hate to see him give up even a minute of what he has left. He just… lives more than any human I've ever seen."
Every second. Full throttle. That's what he'd told her. Now she knew why. He didn't think he had many seconds left. And that belief was going to drive him into killing himself in some stupid stunt.
Peter peered at her over the rim of the glass he was wiping dry. "What about you? How are you finding mortal existence?"
"I want to go home," she said. Life hurt sometimes, as she'd found out firsthand earlier today in Zane's bedroom. Still, she didn't blame him. "But not at his expense."
Peter made a noncommittal noise. "It's not our choice. You know that. When it's time, it's time."
"I don't think I can do it." She swept a stray lock of hair behind her ear and looked up at Peter through her lashes. "I can't take him."
"You have to."
"What if I don't?" She raised her head and met his gaze squarely. "What if this one time, I say no?"
Peter's silvered eyebrows drew down even as his gaze lifted, traveled back to the pool tables, and Zane's new wheel man. He wiped the glass in his hand hard enough to shatter it.
At first, she thought his anger was directed at her. Then she followed his gaze across the room, and a cold pool spread through her chest.
The new guy clapped Zane on the back and laughed at something one of them had said. He had the rakish dark hair and easy smile of a charmer, but when he turned his gaze back toward her and Peter, as if he felt their gazes on him, his dark eyes were empty, bottomless wells.
Rosemary's skin prickled as she recognized him—not the mortal body he currently inhabited, but the evil inside him. His purpose on Earth was the same as hers—he was a shepherd of souls from this realm of existence to the next. Only when he gathered a person's essence, he took it to a much darker place.
"If you don't take Zane's soul," Peter said in a rough tone she rarely heard him use, "someone else will."
Rosemary tried to stay away from the air show on Thursday—tried, and failed. Zane had made his choices, and they didn't include her. Today's stunt wasn't a dangerous one, a formation skydive with a local team he'd worked with before, and it had gone off without a hitch. The airfield was closing down for the day. There was really no reason for her to be here.
Except that she couldn't stay away.
She hadn't slept well, knowing that one of the Fallen, a dark angel, had taken up residence so close to Zane, and this heavy-limbed, blurry-eyed feeling that came with exhaustion had her fighting to hold on to any semblance of objectivity about death—Zane's death—even more than usual.
Zane's hangar was cool compared to the evening heat outside. Kyle and Jimmie had the biplane's cover opened and were standing with tools in hands over her, but seemed to be more focused on a discussion going on in the office than the engine. Through half-open mini-blinds, Rosemary saw two figures behind the glass. Since they were shouting, it wasn't hard to identify them as Jasper and Zane.
"I didn't ask for your opinion on this stunt, Jasper!"
"That's the point, Zane. You didn't ask because you know it's crazy. I'm not letting you do this."
Rosemary glanced at Kyle and Jimmie. "What's going on?"
The boys shrugged as one. "Been at it like this all afternoon," Kyle said. "I've never seen them so mad at each other."
Jimmie shoved his greasy hands into the pockets of his coveralls. "It's the new guy's fault. Jasper don't like the stunt him and Zane worked up. Says it's too risky."
Rosemary's heart rolled over. It wasn't beyond one of the Fallen to put ideas in a human's head that would guarantee a soul to be available soon. Ideas like an impossible stunt.
A third figure moved out of the shadows in the office. Rosemary's jaw tensed. Trey MacAllister. The dark angel spoke too quietly to be heard, but Rosemary knew how insidious the Fallen's strategy could be. He would plant the seeds of distrust, drive the two long-term friends apart.
Clenching her fists until her fingernails dug into her palms, she marched toward the office.
"I'm not doing it, Z. I'm not flying this stunt."
"Fine!" Zane dragged a hand through his hair as Rosemary opened the office door. "You think I can't replace one washed-up pilot? I'll have someone else on board before you make it out of the parking lot."
Zane's statement drew Rosemary up short just inside the office. Surely he realized how hurtful his words had been. Jasper rasped his hand over a day's gray beard stubble. "You do that," he said quietly, and shouldered his way out without looking back.
"Jasper, wait!" she called, but his footsteps echoed across the hangar without pause.
She turned back to Zane in disbelief. "What are you doing? He's your best friend!"
The hard mask that was Zane's face slipped for a moment, revealing a wash of emotion, but then snapped back in place when Trey spoke up.
"I know a couple of pilots. I could check if they're available tomorrow," he said.
Never taking his eyes off Rosemary, Zane said "I'd appreciate that."
After Trey stepped past her with a triumphant look, Zane closed the door behind him.
"I didn't expect to see you back here," he said quietly, as if all the fight in him had been used up.
"I didn't expect to be back here."
He wandered across the room to his desk, looking lost. "So why are you?"
Because she really wasn't sure why she'd come herself, she ignored the question. "What are you doing, Zane?"
"Doing about what?"
"Hiring a guy because he was able to beat you at darts—when you were drunk and he wasn't, I might add."
"Hey, his resume is great and his references all checked out." The cocky grin he flashed didn't fool her. "The darts were just a formality."
"So you're going to throw away a friend who has stood by you for years for a good resume and references?"
Zane's grin fell. "Jasper will come back when he cools off. He always does."
She shook her head. "Whatever you're planning, don't do it, Zane."
"It's just a gag. It'll come off, no problem."
"Are you sure you want it to?"
A muscle ticked in his jaw. "I'm not trying to kill myself, Rosemary."
She wasn't so sure, but she held her tongue until he finally quit picking at his desk blotter and raised his hazel gaze to hers, the fake grin back in place.
"Besides, if anything goes wrong, my guardian angel will be there to protect me, right?"
"No." Rosemary shook her head slowly, sadly. "No, she won't be."
She left before she gave in, before she told him too much, before she begged. Kyle and Jimmie called to her as she passed, but she hurried on by, wiping her eyes before anyone could see her tears.
Outside, a hand grabbed her arm and swung her around. Trey MacAllister twiddled a straw in his mouth, the dark voids of his eyes boring into her.
"The more you try to talk him out of it, the more determined he'll be to do it," the dark angel said.
"I know."
"Good. Just so we're clear. He's mine."
Rosemary yanked her arm free. "Go to hell." Trey smiled. "Plan to. Saturday, as soon as I'm done here." He strolled away, and Rosemary had to lean against the corrugated tin hangar for support.
Oh, God. On Saturday, Zane was going to die.
"GIVE me some more altitude!"
What the hell was he doing?
Zane stood just inside the door to his jump plane, and wondered if the multiple aneurysms in his brain had somehow robbed him of common sense. Or maybe the part of his brain responsible for self-preservation had been removed with the tumor.
He had a pilot whose name he didn't even know at the controls of his plane and a wheel man he had never worked with in the cab of a semi below. A semi that would squash Zane like a bug on a windshield if it weren't perfectly controlled.
He also had several thousand people on the ground below, looking up and waiting to be thrilled on a beautiful Saturday afternoon. Too late to back out now. He'd been paid, and he'd damned well deliver, even if the only two that really mattered to him—Rosemary and Jasper—weren't among the spectators.
He'd expected either or both of them to show up in the hangar before he taxied out, but it didn't happen. He might have expected it to take a bit longer with Jasper, the stubborn old man, but Rosemary… he'd really needed to see her. To know he wasn't alone.
Silly superstitious idea, he knew, but he really had come to think of her as his guardian angel. She made him feel safe.
He'd find both of them afterward, he promised himself. He'd make things right.
Taking a deep breath, he stepped out of the airplane, and tumbled into position for the free fall. He couldn't see Trey's truck yet, but when he reached one thousand feet, he would key his radio, and the semi would begin a lumbering trek down the airfield's west runway. By the time Zane lined up on it, it would be traveling fifty miles per hour.
He would have to maintain a fast descent himself to keep up. But the real trick would be releasing his chute at exactly the right moment—the moment before his feet touched the padded deck of the truck's flatbed trailer. A fraction of a second too soon, and he'd fall like a rock, missing the padding and going splat on the concrete instead. Too late, and the wind resistance on the chute would tumble him off the back of the truck, which would be about as fun as leaping off a speeding train.
What the hell was he thinking when he agreed to this?
One thousand feet. He could see the truck now. It pulled out and slowly built up speed as he steered left and right, lining up on the flatbed.
Five hundred feet. Two-fifty. One hundred.
His heart crashed in his chest. He let go of the fear, the noise, the bright sunlight in his eyes, and narrowed his focus to two things: his feet and the X marking his landing spot on the flatbed.
He needed more speed; the truck was outrunning him. He eased up on the braking of his chute and felt the pull as his speed increased.
At ten feet, he centered himself over the landing zone, said a quick prayer and reached for the clasp that would release his parachute.
As he pulled the clasp, the truck's brake lights flashed on.
"No!" He had time only for that single thought, that single syllable, before his momentum carried him off his landing spot and into the back of the cab of the truck. He hit with a grunt, and pain exploded in his ribs, his back, his head. He tasted blood in his mouth and felt it running down his throat when he was yanked violently to the side.
Something was dragging him toward the edge of the flatbed. Abstractly, as if it were happening to someone else, he looked up and realized that one of his arms was tangled in the cords of the parachute that had not blown completely free. The other ends of the cords had dropped down beneath the truck and wrapped around an axle.
In seconds, he, too, would be pulled beneath the massive wheels.
Pushing her way to the front of the crowd lined up along the fence outside the airstrip, Rosemary spotted a familiar gray head and weathered face.
"Jasper? Jasper!" She waved and shouldered past a big man with binoculars trained on the sky to stand beside Zane's pilot—former pilot. "I didn't think you'd be here."
Jasper cast a worried glance at the sky. "Damn fool kid."
"I know. I'm worried about him, too." She rubbed the older man's shoulder. "Can he really land a jump on the back of a speeding truck?"
Jasper clenched his fingers in the chain link when the loudspeaker barked out the jumper was away. "Yeah, he prob'ly could. It's something he's thought about doing for a long time. On a perfect day, with the right team and a lot of time spent working out the details, he's good enough to do it."
She frowned. "I take it you don't think today's that day."
"He threw this together too fast. They're not ready. And he's been a little… off… lately." He kicked at the grass.
"He's had symptoms from the aneurysms?"
Jasper's gaze snapped up. "He told you?"
Rosemary nodded.
"He's been having headaches and such. It's why he ended up in the drink with you the other day. He'd never have miscalculated the burn on that parachute if he'd been feeling right."
Rosemary felt as if she'd swallowed a stone. It sunk slowly to the pit of her stomach. "He doesn't think he'll be around long enough to get another shot at this."
And she was beginning to wonder if he might be right.
Zane's parachute came into sight, and both she and Jasper pressed closer to the fence for the best view of the truck as it ambled down the runway. Zane pulled on his steering cables and zigged left, then right.
"Come on, kid," Jasper grumbled. "Line 'er up."
She put one hand over his on the chain link as Zane drifted closer to the bed of the truck. As his feet were about to touch, she held her breath and squeezed Jasper's hand until her knuckles went white.
For a second, it seemed he would land the jump perfectly, and then all hell broke loose. The truck slowed, and Zane kept going forward until he hit the back of the semi with a thud, and slumped to the bed of the trailer. The sound of fabric ripping could be heard even over the truck's engine, and Zane was slowly dragged toward the edge, and then disappeared underneath the behemoth vehicle.
High-pitched screams from the crowd mixed with the squeal of the truck's brakes. Before Rosemary knew what he was doing, Jasper started to scale the six-foot fence.
"Oh, God. Oh, Jesus. Christ." He pulled Rosemary up the chain link with him.
Together they ran across the field and onto the runway. The truck had finally stopped. Trey MacAllister had gotten out of the-cab and disappeared under the front wheels of the trailer. By the time Rosemary and Jasper got there, they were both breathing heavily.
"I still don't see him!" she panted. "Do you see him?"
Jasper shook his head, his face pale. A knife appeared in his hand, pulled from a sheath on his belt, and he dove under the trailer. From somewhere in the distance, Rosemary heard the wail of sirens as she ducked down after him.
The darkness disoriented her for a moment while her eyes adjusted. She smelled grease and rubber and her own fear. Her heart threatened to kick out of her chest before she was able to make out Zane on the ground, his right arm tangled in parachute cord and stretched up toward the axle. Jasper hacked at it with his knife while Trey MacAllister leaned over Zane, a hand on his chest as if to comfort him.
Rosemary knew better.
With one great lunge she shoved MacAllister back on his heels. "Get away from him!"
Trey grunted at the impact. "Hey!"
Rosemary fumbled on the ground for Zane, pulled his head into her lap. Blood smeared his face from his nose to his chin. "He can't be dead. He's not dead."
Her hands shook so badly she couldn't find a pulse, which only increased her panic. "Please don't be dead."
"N't dead." Zane's weak voice was music to her ears. When she looked down, his sleepy hazel eyes were the most beautiful sight she'd ever seen.
Trey crawled an arm's-length closer. "You can't just cut in—"
"Get out of here!" she snapped, tightening her hold on Zane and rocking slightly. "Get out and don't ever come back!"
Jasper finally cut through the parachute cords, and lowered Zane's right arm down to this side. Then he held up the knife, the tip pointed toward Trey's chin. "The lady said, 'Git'!"
Mumbling a curse, Trey backed away. Rosemary could hear doors slamming and the sound of boots on pavement, and knew the medics had arrived.
One corner of Zane's mouth kinked up weakly as she rocked him. "Gr'dian ang'l," he slurred happily, looking up at her, and then his eyelids drooped closed.
"YOU should be in the hospital," Jasper grumbled as he helped Zane up the stairs to his apartment. On the landing, Rosemary fumbled with Zane's keys, trying to find the one to unlock the door.
"No way," Zane argued, gently pushing Jasper's arm away. He sounded stronger. "Hate those places. Sleep in my own bed."
"Uh-huh," Jasper said, and caught Zane as he stumbled on the top step. "If you can get there without falling on your face, that is."
"I'm fine. Just a little groggy from the pain meds."
Amazingly, the worst of his injuries from the fall had been a strained shoulder and a broken nose. The ER had released him, despite Jasper's vocal protests.
How he had avoided being crushed under the truck's wheels, God only knew. All Rosemary knew was that he hadn't died today after all, and as she'd recently come to understand, every day on Earth was to be cherished.
As she and Jasper led Zane to his bedroom, she got a good look at his apartment. It was masculine and efficient, decorated in navy blues and deep greens. There wasn't an abundance of belongings sitting around. Not that it was stark by any means, but everything had a place and served a purpose.
The only indulgence might have been the king-size bed with its polished posts and cozy down comforter folded at the footboard. When Zane stretched out, Jasper plumped the pillows while Rosemary leaned over and began to untie his shoes.
Zane cringed and pulled his legs up. "All right, enough with the hovering. I'm fine."
Jasper eyed Rosemary at the end of the bed spreading the comforter over Zane and tucking it around his legs. He lifted one eyebrow. "I can see that." He smiled at her, then turned back to Zane. "You behave for once. Do what the lady tells you. And you take care of my boy," he added for Rosemary.
"Always," she promised.
Once they were alone, Rosemary wasn't quite sure what to do with herself. "Are you hungry? I could make you some soup."
He wrinkled his nose. "Soup?"
"You really should eat."
"I was thinking more like steak, baked potato, salad. I've got some great Greek dressing I bet you'd like. I'll do the meat if you handle the rest." Like that, he was out of bed again, and she sighed. The man never stopped.
In the kitchen, while the steaks sizzled in the broiler and the microwave hummed as the potatoes cooked, Zane reached for a bottle of wine.
She stopped him with a hand on her arm. "Not a good idea while you're on painkillers."
He patted her on the head. "Just getting some for you, Mom."
Dinner passed companionably and the wine went to her head. With her belly full and a light buzz, she didn't know how long they'd been sitting in silence until she finally became aware that he was staring at her, bemusement and some other emotion she couldn't define etched in his expression.
She looked down to see if she'd dribbled salad dressing down her shirt. "Something wrong?"
"No. Everything is perfect." His voice had a husky edge that chafed over her nerve endings, making her whole body tingle.
Suddenly restless, she jumped to her feet, collected the dishes, deposited them in the sink and started rinsing. She jolted when a pair of strong arms wrapped around her from behind, and a broad chest pressed to her back. "You don't have to do that," his voice rumbled in her ear. His warm breath bathed her neck. "I'll get them tomorrow."
"There's no reason to—"
"Shhhhh." He pulled her hair over her shoulder to hang down her chest and then traced a single fingertip down her spine from her hairline to her nape, triggering a string of explosions as he passed over each vertebrae. Involuntarily, she audibly gasped for air.
"Scared?" he whispered as his lips replaced his fingertip.
"Yes."
"Me, too." Was that his… tongue curling over her spine now? "Want to stop?"
She shook her head in the negative. Speech was beyond her for the moment.
"Good."
He turned her in his arms and his mouth covered hers, soft and moist and unrelenting. He was perpetual motion, always adjusting, always seeking, always giving, and she followed his lead, accepting all that he offered and softly demanding more. When both their chests were heaving, he abandoned her lips to kiss a trail down her neck and murmured, "You know all I have to offer is one day at a time."
She let her head fall back to give him better access. "I'll take it."
He slid his hands down her sides to her hips and back up again, catching the hem of her shirt and sliding his hands beneath until his thumbs brushed the undersides of her breasts. "All I could think about during that damn jump today was that I didn't want to die without ever having a chance to do this."
She arched her back, bringing her harder against him, and tunneled her fingers through the waves of his hair. "I don't want you to die at all."
He stripped her shirt off and ran his hands up her rib cage again.
This time when he reached her chest, he palmed her breasts and lifted them, bringing his mouth down at the same time to kiss the swells.
If Rosemary thought she had experienced the gamut of human sensation this past week, she'd been mistaken. Nothing, nothing she'd seen, heard, tasted, smelled or touched compared to this. It was as if her very blood had become electrically charged. Everywhere her pulse beat, her body tingled.
Zane's hips met hers, pushed against her rhythmically. The counter bit into her back giving her no retreat. No relief from the pressure, and the tingle became a burn.
With the current inside her sizzling hotter with every nip on her breast, every touch on her neck, her ribs, her stomach, she forgot about retreat and went on the offensive. Sliding her hands over his shoulders and down his arms, she hooked her fingers in the belt loops of his jeans and pushed, stepping forward as he walked backward so that they never lost that luscious contact.
His shirt came off in the living room, and she explored miles of smooth skin and hard muscle with her fingertips. Her pants were lost in the hallway and she discovered what delicious friction denim made against bare skin. By the time they made it to the bedroom, they were down to just their underwear, and those didn't last long. Zane gave an appreciative smile for the black lace—or maybe it was for what lay underneath—when he flipped off her bra and tossed it on the nightstand.
Finally unencumbered, they lay on his big bed, their bodies entwined, enmeshed so that one was indistinguishable from the other.
Rosemary gasped at each new nerve he discovered. Each new sense he titillated. She remembered how sensitive she'd been to too many stimuli when she'd first taken on this human body, how she'd feared she would drown in the sensations. Now all she wanted to do was dive in headfirst.
She made a game out of eliciting the same responses in him that he won from her. Everywhere he stroked her body, she stroked his. Everywhere he kissed, she kissed, carefully avoiding the little white bandage across the bridge of his nose. Every nibble was returned with equal fervor. Before long he glowed with a fine sheen of sweat and her skin glowed as if she had a fever. She spread her legs and hooked one knee around his hips seeking the contact that would be the final bridging of their two bodies into one.
He rolled gingerly onto his back, protecting his sore shoulder as he pulled her on top, and brushed back the damp hair that was stuck to her forehead. "You've never done this before, have you?"
His voice had that rumble to it again. The one that passed over her skin like silk, exciting every nerve.
She bit her lip. "Is it that obvious?"
"No," he whispered, palming her breasts again and tweaking the nipples until she moaned. "Just a lucky guess."
Her hips bucked of their own volition as he toyed with her. His erection lay against his stomach before her and she took matters into her own hands.
"Well," he said, his voice strained, "I was thinking the only reason you would still be a virgin was that you'd spent your whole life locked in a convent. But apparently that's not the case."
She leaned down and tongued the center of his chest, then the spot just above his navel. "Not as far off as you might think," she whispered through a curtain of hair.
He pulled his head back and gave her a quizzical look.
She gave him a light squeeze to distract him, then leaned down and nibbled on the shell of his ear before whispering, "Guardian angels don't get a lot of chances to consort with mortals."
Smiling, he wrapped his arms around her back and scooted down the bed until his shoulders were between her thighs. "Then we'd better make the most of what time we have."
At his first touch, her hips flexed of their own accord. At his second she was mindless. She devolved from a complex creature of intellect to something much more primitive. There was no thought, only sensation exploding white and hot within her body, and need. Desire so strong it stole her breath.
When Zane climbed back up to kiss her lips again, leaving a void of emptiness below, desire became greed and she swallowed him with her body. Enveloped him with her soul.
Time became meaningless. Yesterday irrelevant and tomorrow impossible to contemplate. She was awash in a hot molten river of now.
The fury rose. Heat and light boiled beneath her, around her, inside her until the desire detonated. It lifted her up, and away, scattering her until she settled slowly back to Earth like ash in the wind.
ZANE could have lain in bed all night, watching Rosemary sleep in the dim light that slivered in around the edges of the curtains. She lay with her head on his shoulder, her breath tickling his chest, one arm draped over his waist and a smooth leg laced between his. If perfection existed, this was it.
Or almost it. Lying still gave his muscles a chance to stiffen, and his body was beginning to protest this afternoon's abuse. His head hurt and his shoulder ached. Much as he hated to let go of the moment, he needed to get up.
In the hallway he grabbed his jeans off the floor and slid them on, then grabbed the Tylenol from the medicine cabinet in the bathroom. He didn't bother to turn on any lights as he headed toward the kitchen to get a glass of water. He didn't need them, and he didn't want to risk waking Rosemary.
As he leaned over the tap, filling his glass, he felt something warm drip onto the back of his hand. Well, damn. He was bleeding again. Damned broken nose.
Not thinking much of it, he grabbed a paper towel to wipe up the mess, then walked over to the table to sit and tip his head back. The legs of the chair scraped over the tile as he pulled it out, and a wave of dizziness hit him. He fell more than sat down, blinking hard to clear the white spots in his vision.
When he could focus again, a dark puddle the size of a dinner plate stained the floor between his feet.
Double damn. Probably not just the broken nose, then.
His heart kicked into high gear. Now? God, why now? Why tonight?
Why him?
Pounding his fist against the kitchen table, he tried to stand, but his legs had turned to gelatin. The glass still in his hand shattered on the ceramic tile and he found himself lying on the floor staring up at the light fixture.
He could feel the blood flowing even more freely now, out his nose and his ears. Around the back of his neck.
Zane had never been a particularly religious man. He'd long ago forgotten how to pray and he'd never been a churchgoer. He'd sworn when the time came he would accept his death the same way he lived his life—taking responsibility for himself. But still, now that the time had come, he found himself asking for a little help from a higher power. For himself, and for Rosemary.
He wished it hadn't gone down this way. That she wouldn't be the one to find him, and have to live with that image forever. He would liked to have given her that much, at least, but it wasn't to be, because, as if his thoughts had summoned her, she stood in the kitchen entryway now wearing only his T-shirt, her hair tousled and her green eyes huge and frightened.
He had to give her credit. Her shock lasted only a moment, and then she was in motion, grabbing a cushion from a chair and propping it under his head, a dish towel from the refrigerator door to hold under his nose. Then she was up and running.
"Nine-one-one. I've got to call nine-one-one." She looked around, then at him. "Where's the phone?"
His voice came out thick, choked. "No. No call."
"Damm it, Zane, don't give me that! You need an ambulance. Where is the phone?"
He shook his head slowly. It was easier than talking. "No hospital. Don't want to die like that."
"You're not going to die."
Even as she said it, he could see in her eyes that she knew it wasn't true.
"Have a… DNR order on file anyway. Do Not Resuscitate. Nothing they can do."
She squatted by his side, fists clenched on her knees and tears in her eyes. "Don't ask me to do this. Don't ask me to sit here and watch you die."
"Okay." He struggled to a sitting position, his hands braced on the floor behind him. His head was still pounding, but he felt stronger. "Don't sit. Doctor said I might have a few hours once it started. Don't want to waste them. Let's go somewhere."
She laughed sardonically. "Go where? Out to dinner and a movie? You're bleeding."
He thought fast, but speaking was more of an effort. His tongue weighed almost too much to lift. "Out in the desert. My truck. Beautiful out there at night."
"You really are insane."
He looked up at her and knew his eyes were pleading, even if his words never would. "Every second," he said. "Full throttle."
She struggled with herself visibly, but in the end she did as he bade, as he'd known she would. The flow of blood had subsided to a slow trickle for now, so she wrapped him up in a blanket, handed him towels in case the hemorrhaging started again, and helped him into his truck.
He gave her a queer look when she hesitated before putting the key in the ignition. "Do you know how to drive?"
She searched her mind. The information would be there, given to her by the Father when she took human form, as was all information she would need to complete her task. "Yes."
They rode in silence until they reached a two-lane county road, where Zane pressed the button to roll down the passenger window and leaned his head against the door frame, looking up, enjoying the clear night sky and brilliant stars.
"Don't worry," he said when he caught Rosemary throwing him worried glances. "I'm still with you. Just enjoying the view."
The paved road led into the desert and eventually gave way to dirt. Zane pointed off to the right. "Turn here."
He smiled when she complied. "Now, go faster."
The truck bumped over the uneven surface. She gripped the steering wheel with white knuckles. "I don't think that'd be good for—"
He wanted to straighten up, to show her he could take it, but in truth he didn't have the strength. Instead he beseeched her with his eyes. "I want to feel the wind in my face. Just one more time."
Her lip trembled and he knew she wanted to refuse, but she stepped on the accelerator anyway. It wasn't the kind of speed he was used to, but the breeze at least ruffled his hair. He breathed the clean air in deep. It felt good. It felt right.
They drove for almost two hours, speeding up whenever the terrain wasn't quite so rough. He could tell she was beginning to enjoy the speed. Before long she'd be an adrenaline junkie like him. She'd changed, his girl.
She pointed out a cacti shaped like a bunny rabbit, laughing even while her eyes glimmered with unshed tears. He caught the yellow-eyed glimpses of nocturnal critters getting in a nighttime foray.
Finally his strength waned. She seemed to sense it and pulled near the edge of a plateau facing east, and cut the engine. Scooting across the bench seat, she pulled the blanket from his shoulders and wrapped it around both of them. He shifted his weight away from the window, into her, and rested his head on her shoulder.
"Too bad's'ill drk," he said drowsily. "Bet's'nrise'll be pr'ty."
She sniffed. "I bet it will."
"Wish coul see't."
"You will. It'll just be a few more hours."
But he knew he wouldn't. One last ragged breath was all the time he had. At 11:59 p.m. according to the clock on the dash, he drew it, and let go of life.
Rosemary had no idea how long she sat rocking Zane's still body in the cab of the pickup, but when she looked up, a blazing pink and yellow morning sky silhouetted the figure of Saint Peter floating beyond the front bumper. His white bartender's T-shirt had been replaced by cream-colored linen slacks and a loose shirt. The eagle tattoo on his bicep was gone.
Her breath hitched as she looked up at him. "He's gone."
"He's been gone for some time." His voice surrounded her. Filled her. There was reproach in it, but it was gentle. "Why haven't you taken his soul yet?"
"He—he—" A tear streamed down her face. The feeling shocked her. So this was what it was like to cry. Painful, and yet oddly comforting. "He wanted to see the sunrise," she explained, the tears falling in earnest now. "One more time. I—I couldn't deny him that."
"Then you have learned your lesson well." Peter smiled patiently as his image faded to dust and only his voice remained. "Let him see it."
She stared questioningly at the empty space where he had been.
His last words seemed to reach her from far away. "The power is in you."
Eyes wide, she slowly gathered Zane close and laid her palm flat on his cool chest. Almost instantly his eyes opened and found her gaze. His face was relaxed, pain-free as he looked out the windshield at the morning sky.
She felt the angelic glow envelop her, the weight of wings folded on her back.
Finally Zane turned to her, and she could see in his eyes that her true self had been revealed to him. "So," he said, his voice calm as if they'd been discussing flower arrangements. "Not my guardian angel, then."
"No. I am the angel of death. I've come to save you. Your soul, that is."
"Thanks for waiting. For letting me see this." He nodded at the windshield.
Her chin trembled. "You can see as many sunrises as you want where I'm taking you. You can be the sunrise. You can have anything you want…"
"All I want is you." He brushed his knuckles across her cheek. "I love you, Rosemary."
She held him tighter, choking back a sob. "I love you, too."
With her head tipped down, she looked up at him through wet lashes and linked one hand with his. "Follow me?"
He lifted her chin and his index finger until their gazes met. "Anywhere."
"Every angel has to have a purpose, Zane," Saint Peter said. "Everlasting existence would get pretty boring without one."
Zane propped his booted feet up on the gatekeeper's desk, earning himself a raised eyebrow. "And you think I should be the inspiration man."
"You've inspired people with your courage for years. You're a natural."
"And while I'm busy inspiring people, I can take human form?"
"From time to time, if it's necessary."
"And while I'm in human form I can do anything I used to? Fly an airplane? Jump out of an airplane?"
Peter smiled smugly. Should saints be smug?
"You won't even need a parachute. Of course if there's something else you'd rather do, you can. You can have whatever you want."
"I want Rosemary."
Saint Peter sighed. "We've been over this. You can have anything you want. Not anybody.'"
"What's the difference?"
"You can't have another angel. End of story."
"But I need a partner. What do I know about this angel era—I mean business."
"You'll do fine."
"I'd do better with Rosemary."
"She's the angel of death. How is that going to inspire people?"
"Maybe it's time she changed departments."
Peter drew a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Angels do not change departments."
"Why not? Why'd you let her hook up with me anyway? She could have just taken me when I crashed into the lake."
"She had a lesson to learn."
He cocked his head. "What's that?"
"She had taken many souls. She'd led so many away from pain and suffering to a better place that she'd forgotten how important life is. How precious. She'd lost her empathy for the souls she brought home."
"So you reminded her how precious life is only to yank it out of her hands once she's held it?" He dropped his feet off the desk and leaned forward. "Seems kind of harsh."
Peter leaned back, considering. If Zane hadn't known better, he'd have said the man was flustered by the color that suddenly spotted his cheeks. "You may have a point."
"So you'll give it a try? Letting Rosemary work with me?"
Peter paused then sighed heavily. "On a conditional basis."
"Woo-hoo!" Zane lurched out of his chair and was out the door before the boss could change his mind. In the hall, he found Rosemary anxiously awaiting the decision and scooped her into his arms. "He said 'yes'!"
Her smile was pure heaven.
He lifted her off her feet, crushed her to his chest and kissed her.
"I love you, Rosie," he said.
Against his neck, he felt and heard her heartfelt, "I love you, too."
From the door of his office, Saint Peter watched Zane and Rosemary practically skip down the hall, hand in hand. They were going to be trouble, those two. If a pair of angels could make a saint's life hell, they were bound to do it. And still he smiled.