by Lisa Hughey
Of course, perhaps she should be just a little nicer, since it was the only new relationship she’d had in forever. Unless you counted her dream guy. And wasn’t that pathetic? Good thing she didn’t want a relationship.
“Ah.”
What did ‘ah’ mean?
“I’m going to take your pulse in three places,” he stated matter-of-factly.
So far she was just the tiniest bit underwhelmed. Ears. Pulses. She was supposed to pay for this?
He pressed his fingertips to her right wrist, listened and counted, then he moved to the next place up her wrist. He frowned. “Why did you come here?”
He’d know if he looked at the damn papers. Did she really have to say it out loud?
“I’m starting menopause,” she blurted baldly. And she didn’t like it. Night sweats, weird dreams. “Early.”
“No.” He shook his head emphatically. “No menopause.”
Ha. I think I know my own body. I knew this would be a waste of time.
“I’m having night sweats,” she said. And she didn’t like it. And she was depressed.
“You have had back pain in your lower right side.”
Yes. She had. An old track injury from high school. Too much high jump and not enough padding when she fell. “Used to.” But come to think about it, she hadn’t had much pain recently.
He nodded. “You also had an injury to your left knee some time ago. But it looks fine.”
He was right. She’d hurt her knee on a ski trip about six years back. She hadn’t gone skiing since and the injury had healed.
“You have stress.” He ran his hand along her shoulders.
“Yeah, what parent of teenagers doesn’t?” She quipped. He was like a fortune teller where one could infer meaning from very obscure and not quite cryptic statements.
“No. No. Not regular stress.” He fingered her newly colored hair. “But you don’t look like you have stress. Stick out your tongue.”
She stuck out her tongue and wished everyone would stop. Angelina knew what she looked like, and while she wasn’t complete dog meat, she wouldn’t win any beauty contests either. As far as she was concerned, she felt every single one of her thirty-eight years.
“May I try your other wrist?”
“Sure.” She thrust out her left arm and wondered how she could gracefully extricate herself from Peter’s office. So maybe he’d nailed a few old injuries, fairly impressive given that he’d only looked in her ears and taken her pulse. But face it, this had been a total waste of time. His and hers.
Peter clasped her wrist between his fingertips, just like last time. He jerked back, his gaze shot to hers. “Ah.”
“What?”
He pointed to the sunspot on her other wrist. “You are changing.”
She sighed. Wasn’t that what she had told him? Guess that meant the spot really was an age spot not from the sun. Damn. “Yeah.”
“Night sweats?” he asked.
Hadn’t she already told him that? She nodded.
“How do you feel?”
“Old.” Worn out and down most days. The pressure and the sheer burden of her life oppressed her. It was difficult to get up in the morning difficult. “Tired.”
“This feeling. It will go away soon.”
Great. Because he willed it so?
“As soon as your transition done.” He bobbed his chin again, as if he’d proclaimed it and now it would be so. “Soon.”
Soon. “Okay.” Time to go.
He bowed low and deep. His gaze almost reverent. Wrong word. Reverent made her think of her dream guy. Angel. Whatever. “Congratulation. This is big honor.”
Honor? She didn’t want to argue with the guy, but what the heck? Since when was menopause at thirty-eight an honor? “That’s it?”
“Yes. I cannot do anything for you,” Peter said calmly. “But do you have moment to look, to touch?”
Okay, he had moved from fortune teller straight into la-la land. Was this where Uncle Pervey came out? The office was deserted and suddenly she wished she’d paid more attention in the one stupid self-defense class she’d taken.
“Uh, sure.” As long as it wasn’t his genitals, she’d touch, get the heck out, then go home and yell at Janine for sending her here in the first place.
Peter held out his hand.
“Thank you, Angel.” Guy couldn’t even get her name right for goodness sake. “Thank you for honoring me with your healing.”
This whole adventure had been a waste of time. Disgust made her actions a little jerky. She grabbed his hand. Her wrist throbbed right by the stupid age spot. Light blasted through her, searing her brain and shattering her vision, until she disappeared.
Suddenly she skipped along his veins. His blood was clogged with tiny white globules of cholesterol. She chugged through his body with agonizing slowness. Instinctively she imagined steel wool scraping and collecting up all the tiny bits of fat, and his blood was cleaner, clearer. She had clearly lost her mind.
Kathunk, kathunk, kathunk. Each heartbeat pumped blood faster, and squeezed her throat until her only thought was fight or flight, except she couldn’t move. Breath obstructed, she tried furiously to open up the passage but instead choked and gagged, until her heartbeat swallowed her whole.
Suddenly she was falling.
Shhhhiiiit. What had he done to her?
NINE
A sharp pain speared Rafe’s chest into his heart. And his fourth chakra.
Angelina. She was in trouble. Dammit. She’d tried to heal someone. Attempted an ailment too big for her knowledge and skill set. She probably didn’t even realize what she’d done.
Rafe opened his senses in order to find her, go to her. Explaining his presence might be difficult, but as he felt the pain overwhelm her energy, he knew he had to move fast. She was drowning in confusion and agony. His fault. Every time he’d visited her, he’d released more of her healing power, the Vis Viva, into her body but he’d neglected to tell her how to use the power.
He materialized into some sort of doctor’s office and noted the shelves full of glass jars. She’d come to an alternative healer. An excellent choice. Except she never would have been in this position if he had tutored her properly.
Rafe burst into the examination room. The practitioner, who had been bent over Angelina, jerked up. She lay on an exam table, her face pale and slack.
“Can I help you?” The Asian man stepped between Rafe and Angelina, and blocked her from Rafe’s view. A small smile quirked the man’s lips, not a smirk but not polite either. He dropped his hand into the pocket of his lab coat.
“I was supposed to meet my friend here.” Rafe stepped around the man and went to Angelina. “I became concerned when she didn’t come out.”
“She should be fine in a moment,” the man said softly. “If you want to go back to the front, she’ll be out soon.”
The alternative healer didn’t seem upset over Angelina’s condition, which put Rafe on high alert. The man practically glowed. She had healed him. But how? And why? How did she know what to do?
Rafe listened to the steady beat of her heart, the rhythm strong in his mind as he examined her telepathically, and touched on each of the seven chakras. Crown, brow, throat, heart, solar plexus, navel, and base. All appeared to be fine. Her body had put itself into stasis to recover from the trauma of healing.
Rafe straightened, squared his shoulders, and settled his face into a frown. “What happened?”
The Asian man swallowed nervously. Which he should. Rafe could crush this man with little more than a thought.
“Ah, I was examining her, and she passed out.”
Lie.
“Really?” Rafe waited to see what the man, who was supposed to heal humans, would say. He crossed his arms over his chest and straightened to his full height.
“Her blood sugar is low.” He edged toward the door. “I’ll mix up some herbs to regulate her glycemic levels.”
Angelina moaned. Rafe di
dn’t want an audience for this meeting. “Leave us.”
“Ah, sure.” The man scuttled toward the door like the cockroach he was. “I’ll just go.”
Angelina moaned again. Rafe strode to the exam table and gently placed his palms over her forehead to monitor her spirit and her health. Her brain seemed to be recovering from the shock of her first major healing. Rafe checked her vital signs. His hands hovered over her still form, and searched for any disturbances in her energy, but she seemed to be fine. He leaned over her, and drew in the unique scent of gardenias and Angelina. While he held her left hand between his palms, he balanced the energy in her body.
Her eyelids fluttered open to reveal her multicolored hazel eyes. A smile curved her lips and her face seemed to glow from within. “You’re here.”
“Angelina.” His voice was low with concern. He could tell she wasn’t quite aware yet, for the last time she’d seen him, she had not been happy.
She lifted her hand to his cheek. Her fingers were cold against the heat of his skin, the gentle touch like a benediction to his weary, battered soul. Her eyes fluttered closed again.
“Stay with me,” Rafe said, uncomfortable with the longing evident in the short simple phrase.
Her eyes popped open. Her feet scrabbled on the table, unable to find purchase on the slippery paper as she snatched her hand away and tried desperately to evade him.
“Who the hell are you?” Her volume rose as she jumped off the table.
Unfortunately her body wasn’t ready for the sudden shift in position and Rafe caught her before she face-planted on the floor. He cradled her in his arms. Her weight was solid and real and so very forbidden.
“You know me,” he countered.
“No. I really don’t.” She shoved ineffectually at his embrace. “I’ve gone ‘round the bend. Completely, absolutely insane. Crazy.”
As soon as she had her feet under her, he let her go. “We must talk.”
“I can’t talk to you. You don’t exist.” She shook her head so hard her streaked blond hair slapped her cheeks.
He frowned. “Of course I exist.”
“Nope. I refuse to believe you’re here. I must be having some sort of illusion brought on by whatever the witch doctor did to me.”
“What did he do to you?” The scowl settled more heavily on his features, and he knew he needed to be less threatening. He was probably scaring her but he wanted answers.
“He--I--I don’t know.” She slumped against the exam table. “One minute I was holding his arm, the next it was like an episode of the Magic School Bus.”
She snapped her fingers. “That’s it. He must have slipped me some magic mushrooms.”
“You will be fine.”
“Of course I will, just like new. As soon as the hallucinogen is out of my system.”
He’d already checked her body. “No hallucinogens.”
“Wrong. If I didn’t have drugs, then I’m crazy.” Angelina swayed and Rafe steadied her again, savoring the forbidden feel of her in his arms.
“You aren’t crazy.” His omission had put this doubt in her mind. He should have told her about her gift long before now. “We must talk.”
“We can’t talk. You’re a dream. One that I liked a lot better when you didn’t speak.” She eyed him suspiciously, then her face flushed as if she realized what she’d admitted. “See? I’m crazy. Give me a few days in a padded room and lots of whatever drugs they give crazy people these days, and maybe I’ll get over it.”
“You aren’t crazy.” Rafe dove right in. “You’re an Angel.”
“I can’t be crazy. I don’t have time. Too many people depend on me.” She dropped her face into her hands. Not tears, please. He did not want to deal with tears.
Her shoulders shook. He didn’t want to touch her. When he touched her, it led to problems and situations he needed to avoid. She lifted her head, her face a mask of laughter and tears. “This cannot be happening.”
“What went down with the alternative healer?”
“You are not here. I’m having some sort of psychotic episode, brought on by stress.” She slipped her purse over her shoulder. “I’ll just walk out of here quietly, calmly. Go home and have a nervous breakdown.”
“We can’t talk here.” Rafe looked around the sterile room. The vibe in the air disturbed him. The healer had been far too smug and Angelina had been unconscious. He had been up to something. Rafe would have to come back later, after he dealt with Angelina. “Why don’t we go to your home and discuss this?”
Her fingers on the door handle, she looked straight at him. Terror and worry mixed in her gaze. “Stay,” she said as if he were a dog. Or a particularly recalcitrant child.
“I can’t.”
“Yes. You can. You are my imagination I can make you do what ever I want.” She eyed him again and licked her lips. Her gaze skimmed down his body, and stopped at the juncture of his thighs. The gesture aroused him and made him the tiniest bit annoyed. They didn’t have time for this.
“At least I have good aesthetic taste. You are totally hot.”
They were not going there. “I’m not a hallucination.”
“Right, right,” she placated, her smile plastic and vacant. “So if you aren’t a hallucination, what are you?”
Rafe looked at her and sighed. He’d really messed this up.
“My name is Raphael.” He paused and wondered if her grandmother had ever mentioned him. Technically it was forbidden for Angels to speak of their healing gifts. But sometimes among family, especially those who carried the gift within them, the outgoing angel would share some small secret with the incoming.
“Raphael.” She tested his name, slowly.
“Call me Rafe.”
“This is pointless.” She yanked open the door, but Rafe couldn’t let her leave without him. He shoved the door closed and trapped her inside the room.
He needed to talk to her. Her home was difficult with the children there. The Angelic Realm was out. Although humans were allowed there, it happened so rarely the inhabitants made note of it. And the last thing he wanted to do was draw attention to Angelina. Rafe thought about the images that sometimes filled her mind and knew exactly where to go. “You haven’t heard of me?”
“No. Apparently you’re a legend in your own mind.”
“Not a legend.”
She arched her brow in skepticism.
Rafe sighed again. “An Archangel.”
TEN
Suddenly she was on the beach.
Her favorite beach. Situated in a small cove, even in crowded California, it wasn’t very populated. In the distance was the hazy, familiar outline of a wrecked ship with a pier built over the water so beach goers could walk to the half-submerged vessel. The hardy boat not only refused to go quietly but demanded an audience. Waves crashed on the cold wet sand and seagulls squawked as they dipped and swooped in the bright blue sky. Close to shore, a seal’s head popped up from the waves.
“This is impossible,” she whispered. A frigid wind whipped through the corridor created by the cove. Her hair blew across her face and blocked her vision.
She must still be in the acupuncturist’s office having some sort of psychotic episode because Raphael the Archangel was also there. Tall, imposing, and gorgeous. Only suddenly his gorgeousness wasn’t quite as attractive.
He was bigger than she’d realized. And not nearly as gentle. His fingers curled around her bicep in a grip that would be difficult to break although he wasn’t hurting her.
Great. She couldn’t even have an erotic dream without messing it up.
She closed her eyes, squeezed them tight. “Back home.” She wished herself back to her house. To her cozy kitchen. She was pretty sure there was half a bottle of Chardonnay in the fridge and right at this moment, she would trade her soul to chug it down and pretend she hadn’t gone crazy.
“Angelina.”
There he stood, looking more like a Hell’s Angel than an Archangel. He wor
e ripped jeans, a muscle t-shirt, a worn black leather jacket, and a few days stubble on his chin. Only a do-rag was missing. His eyes were the most unearthly shade of silvery gray. They appeared to glow from within. She guessed the sooner she indulged this fantasy, the sooner she would return to her regular life. “Archangels don’t exist.”
“And yet, here I am,” Rafe the Archangel, hah, said.
They really were here. The cool wind whipped off the ocean and briny salt water scented the air. Her eyes watered and her nose grew cold. She’d never had a dream where the details seemed so real. Except when they were.... She narrowed her gaze. “What kind of Archangel are you?”
“Healer.”
“Well, I don’t need to be healed, so carry on.” She flicked her fingers at him.
“I’m not here to heal you.” Rafe’s lips flattened into an irritated line.
“Then why are you here?”
“To train you.”
To train her? “And what would you train me for?” She looked around. Maybe this was some sort of new television show, a longer, extended version of Punk’d but without the celebrities. Of course that wouldn’t explain how she’d transported to the beach in a blink. Unless she’d been drugged. Maybe that was it. Maybe she was, as she stood here, in a coma somewhere.
“Search inside yourself, Angelina.”
“Oh, don’t go all Obi-Wan on me.” She hated cryptic shit. She wanted a straightforward revelation of the facts.
“Okay. You want it straight.” Rafe began to walk toward the horizon. “You’re descended from a line of healers.”
Healers. Right. She shook her head. “Your research is wrong. I studied nursing years ago. Now I’m going to school to be a paralegal.”
“A waste of your talent.” He turned back to look at her, but she still hadn’t moved. And he was as gorgeous as ever. “Let’s walk. I’ve noticed that you are rarely still.”
He’d noticed? Had those dreams been real? “I’m not a healer.”
“You are.” Raphael’s face was hard and implacable. “Matriarchal line, for the last thousand years. Maybe longer.”
