Chapter Ten #2
“This has been a wonderful day here at the park,” the mayor continued.
“But before we get to the fireworks, I just want to say a word here. So many people help this event to happen, not the least of which are all the volunteers that helped us decorate and set up chairs. All the extra food and treats. But honestly, we have one true friend of this celebration, who, every year, donates time and money to make it happen, fundraising with some of her friends in the business community here in Schooner’s Bay.
Without fail, she is here every year, too, to help us celebrate.
But this year, she’s in the hospital. She’s needing our prayers.
So, I’d like to ask for a moment of silence for Emma James.
Please keep her in your thoughts tonight as you watch the show, and we wish her a speedy recovery from the accident that put her in the hospital this Fourth of July. Thanks, everyone, and enjoy the show.”
The shock of the mayor’s words reverberated through Emma. Really? For her? She couldn’t believe it as the whole audience fell silent. That silence lasted almost thirty seconds before the first firework exploded overheard, bursting into a brilliant ball of red, white, and blue.
Connor’s fingers tightened around hers. “Did ye think they’d forget about ye?”
Emma shook her head. “I never imagined they’d even noticed I’m gone.”
“Perhaps ye underestimate your impact here. You’re not gone yet. C’mon.” He tugged her with him toward the small office building at the edge of the park, where they settled on the low-slung roof. “’Tis the best view from here.”
Overhead, the sky had darkened to a velvety black, and a wash of stars lit the backdrop as the fireworks exploded above them.
“You’ve done this before?” she asked. “Sit here on the rooftops, watching?”
“Oh, aye. Ye’d be hard pressed to find a guardian who wouldn’t take a moment to sit in the murk an’ watch this.”
“Drawn to the sparkles, are you?”
He grinned. “Perhaps. Or it could be the whistlin’. Or just the plain spectacle of it all.”
If she ever got out of this, she’d never attend another fireworks show without looking for interloping angels on every rooftop.
They sat for a while in companionable silence, watching the show, leaning against one another.
Emma curled her fingers around his arm. His lips brushed the top of her head and rested there for a moment as he inhaled her scent.
“Ye dinna tell me if Elspeth was able to tell ye about yer sister, Lizzy, and her husband.”
A double heart-shaped firework exploded above their heads. “She did,” Emma said. “She told me she remembered them. It was not what we thought.”
“Her memory about her file work is almost photographic. What did she tell you?”
“We all assumed someone had boarded their boat—pirates, maybe, or someone who knew what they were hunting for. Maybe they set them out to sea or murdered them outright, we guessed. But Elspeth says a storm was to blame. Lizzy was blown off the deck and her tether broke. Daniel went in after her. But the sea was impossible and she’d blown too far for him to reach her with his tether, so he unhooked himself.
He would have done that. I can’t imagine him doing anything else to be honest. So, they died together.
They left this Earth together. If there’s any comfort here, it’s knowing they died doing what they loved. ”
“At least ye know now.”
She nodded. “Elspeth is very kind. I liked her. I think we would be friends if…” She looked up at him as a singer with the orchestra in the gazebo struck up a song from Katy Perry about fireworks as the show cranked up the volume.
She rested her head back on Connor’s shoulder. “Can I ask you something personal?”
“Depends.”
“On whether you trust me enough to answer?”
“I trust ye,” he said, surprising her raising her knuckles to his lips, pressing a kiss there. “But tell me the question.”
“Was Elspeth happy as a Celestial?” She hesitated. “Are you?”
Connor looked up at the sky, as if he could somehow find an answer there. “ Happiness is a relative word, isn’t it? I canna compare mine to hers. Nor yours to mine. ’Tis subjective, aye?”
“That, Farm Boy, is a nonanswer.”
“Fair enough.” He braced one wrist on his bent knee.
“’Tis a word I ken I havna thought about for a verra long time.
Content, I’d say. Mostly. Though if you ask Marguerite, she’d probably say otherwise.
” His fingers tightened around hers. “I canna do this there.” He leaned closer.
“Or this.” Inhaling the scent of her, his mouth traced the outline of her cheek without quite touching.
“Or, especially, this.” He took her mouth with his and slid his hand through her hair, pulling her closer.
He tasted of the sweet night air and some indefinable flavor that belonged to him alone. Maybe it was the flavor of an angel. Maybe all angels tasted this good. She doubted it. But most of all, she didn’t want him to stop.
Explosions burst above their heads. Fans of color and icicles of white fell from the sky, then burst a second time into balls and flags of red and blue.
In the distance, the crowd oohed and aahed over the show.
Emma almost forgot where she was as he deepened the kiss, stealing away every bit of her self-control just before she felt the nudge of a cold nose against her arm and the appearance of a dog beside her, wagging his tail.
Connor broke the kiss at the sight of him, but the dog settled his curly little self against her knees, untroubled by the fireworks going off overhead or the fact that Connor had been kissing her.
“ Enoch? ” Connor said, sounding exasperated.
Emma reached out tentatively and scratched the pup behind his ears. “How did you get up here?”
But Connor was not looking at the dog. Instead, his focus was on the woman who had settled herself on the rooftop nearby them. “Marguerite?”
Marguerite? Had Connor somehow conjured her up by speaking her name a few moments ago?
“What a night for a fireworks show, no?” she responded, smiling slyly at Connor. “ Bonjour, ma fille . Emma, is it not?”
She nodded warily. Emma glanced past the woman to notice others now, sitting on the roof, faces turned up to the sky. More were perched in branches of nearby trees and sitting by twos atop telephone poles. All—
“Guardians,” Marguerite confirmed. “ Mais oui . You see? There’s Henry.
I think you ’ave met.” She pointed to a play structure Henry was standing atop beside several others.
Henry nodded to her but pulled his attention immediately back to the exploding lights in the sky.
The more she looked, the more she spotted—angels seemingly drawn here to the spectacle like moths to a flame.
Connor tightened his fingers around Emma’s. “There must be a thousand fireworks shows tonight. What can we do for ye here?”
His tone suggested there was nothing she could want that he could give her, but she smiled at him nonetheless. “We?” she repeated. “ Non, mon ami . Not you both. You have done all you can do—and a good job of it, too. I’m afraid, though, it is time for Emma to go.”
Emma inhaled sharply, turning to Connor, wide-eyed with fear. She wasn’t ready. She hadn’t prepared herself. Adrenaline rocketed through her like the explosion of lights above them.
He tugged her closer to him. “ No. Not yet. She’s no’ ready.”
“But then, who is, eh?” Marguerite asked, her gaze on Emma.
Enoch licked her hand comfortingly, and Emma knew with absolute certainty that dogs were true angels on Earth. She blinked back the sudden tears that filled her eyes. “Connor? I—I’m afraid.”
Emma watched him glance down at the dial on his wrist: +94 percent! He held it out to show Marguerite as if to prove that his task with her was incomplete.
“This is wrong. See? I’m askin’ ye, Marguerite.”
The older woman tilted a sympathetic look at him. “Ah, Boo. I’m surprised you haven’t yet realized. That dial on your wrist…it was never about her, mon ami . It was about you.”
In shock, Connor stared at the dial as if he’d never seen it before.
“You must come now. It’s time.” Marguerite held out her hand to Emma.
Inexplicably compelled, Emma obliged, and Marguerite’s fingers closed around hers. They felt so different from his but still comforting somehow. The woman pulled Emma to her feet. The dog leapt up, too, wagging his way over to stand beside Connor.
“But…wait!” she stammered. “I—I’m not ready!”
Beside her, Connor’s jaw worked. She could see him fighting what he wanted to say. Instead, his eyes met hers with a kind of desperation. Desperation and surrender.
“But you are,” Marguerite argued. “You’re more than ready now.”
“’Twill be all right, mo ghràdh ,” Connor told Emma, his mouth still bruised by her kiss. “She’s right. Ye must go. Ye’ll be all right now.” But he wore an expression she’d never seen on him before, and it scared her. Where was she going?
Marguerite pulled her away from him, and Emma felt herself falling, fading. The park, the fireworks, the sound from the orchestra, all of them disappearing behind her. Worst of all—
“Connor!” she called out as the space between them widened and the fireworks crescendo overhead exploded in a final overpowering finale. “Don’t leave me! Please! Wait! Will I ever see you again?”
But he was on his feet, the July evening breeze tugging at his too-long hair, but he didn’t reply. He only stared after her as the sky, the angels on the rooftops, and the crowds in the park grew farther and farther away.
And then, Conner, along with all the rest, disappeared behind her.