Chapter Five #2
Stunned, Emma swayed in his embrace, her knees going weak as he leaned her backward in the cradle of his arms. There was anger in his kiss, but she didn’t care about that, either.
She felt her stomach drop and flutter as heat impaled her from the core of her being, outward toward every part of her.
As he plundered her mouth, she did the same to his, clinging to him, her fingers tucked into the long curls at the base of his neck, her lungs breathing in the sweet scent of him.
All the while, there was a buzzing, something electrical and glittery moving through them.
Some stirring of an old sparkle of memory that echoed inside her for only a moment before he lifted his mouth from hers.
Still holding her, his face only a breath from hers, he spoke to her without saying a word aloud. “Dinna think I haven’t imagined this every day for centuries. Dinna think I haven’t wanted to taste ye again. And now I have.”
His voice. It reached right inside her. She wasn’t sure her legs would hold her as he set her away from him.
She crumpled onto the window ledge, leaning back against the glass, still catching her breath.
“That was quite a kiss…for being impossible.” She grinned up at him through her lashes.
“Apparently you haven’t lost your touch. ”
“My self-control is another matter altogether.”
Another shiver of heat chased across her skin as his gaze raked over her. “I’m of the opinion that self-control is often overrated.”
“Not in my case.”
“Regardless,” she told him, “I won’t forget it. No matter what happens.”
A half smile curved his mouth, but his gaze caught sight of something outside. She followed his look. A man, a familiar-looking man with blond hair and a slim build, was walking across the parking lot, holding a bouquet of flowers.
She jumped to her feet. Holy old boyfriends! Could she have conjured him up with her thoughts about him the other day back at the car? The boy who’d started the whole kissing ballgame rolling all those years ago?
Connor raised a disapproving brow. “Who’s that?”
“Someone I used to know.” Surely he’s not here to visit me. Oh, please, don’t let him be coming to see me. Automatically, she reached a hand up to straighten out her hair, only belatedly realizing it would do nothing to improve the appearance of the other Emma, lying in the bed.
Connor took her hand. A moment later, they were standing at her bedside near Aubrey and Jacob. They both looked exhausted.
A nurse popped her head in the door. “There’s someone to see you, Aubrey. He’s just outside in the waiting area. Says his name is Aaron.”
With an uncertain frown, Aubrey followed her to where Aaron was waiting.
He smiled, holding the flowers out toward her as she approached. Emma thought fourteen years had been good to him. He had grown into his body, his face angled instead of rounded. His smile, kind as ever. How had they let so much time pass between them?
“Aubrey, I don’t know if you remember me,” he said, holding out the flowers to her. “Aaron Pleasure. I’m an old friend of Emma’s. You and I—we spoke after your parents…”
“Yes. Aaron. How lovely of you to think of her.”
He handed her the flowers wrapped in florist paper.
“Thank you for these. I’ll make sure to find a vase for them. By the way, it was so kind of you to send flowers for my parents’ service.”
“Of course,” he said. “How’s Em?”
“The same. She’s in a coma. We don’t really know what’s going to happen.”
“Right.” He gestured to a chair there in the waiting area, where they sat down.
“I’m very sorry you’re going through this again.
And for Em. She doesn’t deserve this. I just happened to be in town to see family.
I’m in Palo Alto now—California—and I heard about her accident from a friend.
Terrible. It shook me. I wanted to come by and—”
“It wasn’t an accident. At least, we’re pretty sure it wasn’t,” Aubrey told him.
He blinked. “What?”
“We think she was driven off the road intentionally. They found pieces of the other car apparently. A dark gray SUV, they think. But you know, there are a million of those. Finding the ‘one’ may be like…like finding a needle in the haystack.”
“But they think it was intentional? Why would someone do that?”
“I don’t know. No one knows.”
“Jeez, Aubrey. I’m…sorry.”
“Thanks,” she said. “Hopefully, the police will figure it out.”
“If there’s anything I can do—”
“Say a prayer? It was nice of you to stop by. I’d let you see her, but she’d probably kill me if I did. Nothing personal. She’s a little vain.”
Emma’s eyes widened with affront. “ Vain? I am not!”
“Well,” Connor pointed out. “You did say yourself ye didn’t want him to see ye like this.”
“No, I didn’t.” Emma narrowed a look at him. “Well, I may have thought that, but I never said it aloud.” Her expression flattened. “Are you reading my mind again?”
He lifted his hands a smidge.
With a huff of exasperation, she turned her attention back to Aaron, who was talking about Lizzy now.
“…I stayed in touch for a long time with Lizzy and Dan. She knew I was always interested to hear about the shipwrecks they were exploring and what they’d found.
Your parents were my aspirational adventure heroes while I sat writing code at my desk in Silicon Valley.
I can’t tell you how crushing it was to hear about their deaths. ”
“Crushing. Yes,” Aubrey said, her eyes shiny with moisture. “It was. They loved their treasure hunts. They died doing it.”
Connor turned a curious look on Emma. She answered with a quelling head shake.
Thankfully, Aaron didn’t ask for details about Lizzy and Daniel’s deaths. Not that Aubrey would know the answers, but he had grace enough not to press her right now on another painful topic. She was already going through enough.
Aaron stared down at his feet. “So often, over the years, I’ve wanted to get in touch with Emma. One thing after the other, I guess. I’d like to think she knew I was thinking of her, though.”
“She talked about you often,” Aubrey said. “When we’d hike up on the cliffs, she’d tell me all the stories about you two. She’s always thought of you very fondly.”
“I still do. I’m not dead yet,” Emma murmured, standing close to Aaron now. She flicked a look up at Connor, whose expression had gone curiously dark.
“Thank you for the flowers,” Aubrey told Aaron. “I know she will appreciate them when she wakes up.”
“I do,” Emma murmured.
“I’m in town for a week or so. I’ll stop by again. I hope…I’m sure she’ll be awake then.” He handed her a business card. “If you need anything, Aubrey…”
“Thanks, Aaron. For stopping by.”
He kissed her cheek, then walked down the hallway.
Emma watched him until he’d disappeared around the corner. “Why do we procrastinate doing things that are important? I should have gotten in touch with him myself, but I didn’t, either.”
“Do ye find it a wee bit odd that he should show up here just now?”
“What do you mean?” she asked as Aubrey headed back to Emma’s room.
Connor stared down the hall after Aaron. “I mean I dinna believe in coincidence.”
It took her a few beats to catch up with him. “What are you implying? That he could have had something to do with my accident?”
He shrugged noncommittally. “Might’ve.”
“Aaron? You can’t possibly think—?”
“It’s been years since he last saw ye. Last…kissed ye.”
She felt her cheeks heat. How could he know that? And what difference could it possibly… “Are you—? You can’t be jealous?”
“ Jealous? Och , no. I’m only sayin’—”
“That because he came to see me , he must have some ulterior motive?”
“Well, someone has it in for you or Aubrey. Knows somethin’ about ye.”
“There’s an old saying that if you hear hoofbeats, you should be looking for horses, not zebras.”
His jaw worked. “I dinna ken what that means, but—”
“Aaron is a zebra,” she informed him. “He would never .”
“And,” he added, “your zebra, Aaron, also knew your sister, Lizzy.”
“So what if he did?”
“Maybe ye should tell me how she died, your sister.”
Emma braced her hands on her hips. “Don’t you know? You know everything.”
“No,” he said. “I don’t. ’Tis not my job to keep track of all the souls. That would’a been Elspeth’s job.” Almost instantly, she could see he regretted bringing up her name.
“Who’s Elspeth?”
“A friend of mine. Ex-keeper of the Celestial files. She had a knack for it. She rarely forgot anything. Some kind of a photographic mind, she had.”
“Had? Where is she now?”
Now he really looked uncomfortable. “Retired.”
“Is she a guardian like you, then?”
“Not anymore.”
“What happened to her?” Emma asked.
“Nothin’ happened to her. ’Twas her choice. She’s mortal. For good.”
Emma shook her head, confused. “She’s—? How…how is that?”
“’Tis no’ important.” Connor started toward the ICU, but she followed close on his heels, dodging wheelchairs and nurses walking down the hall. “That’s only on a need-to-know basis.”
“Well, I need to know. How exactly is she down here for good?”
There was the scent of antiseptic in the air, of sterilized sheets and the sound of TVs coming from rooms they passed.
Nurses chatted in the nurses’ station, answering questions of patients’ families that waited nearby.
But all of that was just a distracting hum in the background.
Emma could hardly keep up with Connor’s steps, but she wasn’t about to let this go.
“Tell me.”
“Why?” he demanded.
“Why did you bring her up?”
“Because you—” He turned abruptly on her. “She fell, all right? Because she decided to. Remember the mingle I told you about?”
She nodded.
“That’s what happened. She wanted to stay. She met a man. A mortal. It was meant to be.”
“And she fell?”
“Aye.”
“And you miss her.” It was not a question. There was a sadness in his eyes as he told her. Maybe a bittersweet sadness.
He shrugged. “Aye. But…’tis all right.”
They reached Emma’s floor and moved down the hallway. “Have you seen Elspeth since she…fell?”
With the shake of his head, he closed the subject.
But she couldn’t stop thinking about his friend falling.
An angel falling. Becoming human. Was it common?
Rare? Were there people she knew who had fallen?
Could one intersect with an angel—a guardian—and not even know it?
Of course, Aubrey had just today with Connor in the guise of a male nurse.
“What did Aaron want?” Jacob asked Aubrey outside Emma’s room when she returned.
“Flowers for Emma. He was a friend of hers. A long time ago.”
“And Kinsey brought these by,” he said, holding up another bouquet.
A cheery mix of peonies, tulips, and pink roses mixed with baby’s breath.
The fragrance of the flowers cut the sting of the sterile hospital smell.
This was the second expensive bouquet she’d brought since Emma had been hospitalized.
But the ICU frowned on flowers in the room. They’d have to take them back home.
“That’s very nice of her,” Aubrey said. “And not to point fingers, but it’s a little unusual for Kinsey, who rarely seems to notice anyone outside her own little box.”
“That’s kind of true,” Emma allowed.
“I don’t know,” Jacob mused. “She seems genuinely broken up about Emma’s accident. You just never know what’s going on inside someone like Kinsey.”
“That’s the understatement of the year. Kinsey’s loyal to Emma, but flowers? That so isn’t like her.”
“Sue Marti stopped by earlier, too, to see if you needed anything. She’s bringing you some soup tomorrow, staffing the Brandon’s Hope Home Tour this weekend. She’s apparently got it all under control. She said, and I quote, ‘It’s already a screaming success.’”
Emma smiled to herself. Brandon’s Hope was a fundraising nonprofit that benefited children’s cancer research.
Every year, Emma arranged for one or two of the beautiful homes she’d brokered to be perfectly staged for house tours.
People paid big bucks to see homes like these, and Emma loved doing it.
Their tours had raised almost three hundred thousand dollars since they’d started five years ago.
“Now that doesn’t surprise me. Good for her.”
Worry creased Jacob’s expression. “But listen, Aub. I’m worried about Emma’s safety. And yours. I don’t think she should have any visitors until we figure this thing out.”
“I think you’re overreacting about this,” she told him.
“I’m not. I’m worried about you.”
Aubrey rubbed her forehead. “I won’t let whoever did this make me a victim.”
“You already are,” Jacob told her. “I don’t want anything to happen to you.”
Taking his hand, she said, “I’m a big girl. I can take care of myself.”
Emma moved close to Aubrey. “No, you can’t. Listen to him.”
Jacob frowned. “Whoever did this, Aub? They’re not messing around. They nearly killed Emma. They could do the same to you. What if you’re right about them mistaking Emma for you?”
“I still can’t wrap my brain around why.”
“Nor can I,” Emma murmured. She glanced at Connor, who was staring down at the Emma in the bed. She couldn’t read his expression except it read as conflicted, as it usually did when he looked at her. Who was he seeing? Her or Violet?
“The police want to know if they took anything,” Jacob continued. “We’re going to have to go back. You’re going to have to go back. With me.”
“Now?” Aubrey said. “But I need to be here.”
Emma leaned close to her ear. “Aubrey,” she said, using one of their favorite Oda Mae Brown lines from Ghost , “you in danger, girl.” That line used to make Aubrey laugh, even when Emma had been grounding her for some infraction or other as a teenager.
If only she could laugh her way out of this mess.
But in the end, he convinced her, and Aubrey agreed to go. Emma watched with Connor as they left the hospital to go back to her house.
Emma stared down at her body on the bed.
She felt very separate from that Emma. Disconnected almost. That Emma looked frail, vulnerable.
Not at all like who she thought herself to be.
Most of her life, she’d been called willful, headstrong—words, she suddenly realized, that were rarely, if ever, used to describe a man.
She was all of those things, but in a good way.
But now no one would look at her and think of that other Emma she had been only two days ago.
“Look at me. I look awful. Am I dying?” she asked Connor again.
“Do ye feel like you are?” he asked, his gray eyes going dark as they swept over her form lying in the bed.
“I don’t know. How does it feel to die?”
Her question caught him off guard. For the briefest of moments, a flicker of pain crossed his expression. “Come with me,” he said, taking her hand in his.
“Where are we going?”
“You’ll see.”