“Okay, so she has issues from her past.”
“Maybe. I don’t know for sure. Maybe she’s just plain old mean. That’s not my job to find out. It’s yours. Or it is until someone brings you more information.”
“Like Titus?”
He nodded. “Like Titus.”
George’s stomach shifted in anxiety. “Do I tell her I’m an angel? Because can you even imagine how that’ll go? You did hear her ream me out for not being in my office and at her beck and call even though my hours don’t start until nine, didn’t you?”
He nodded with a sigh. “I did. She was definitely annoyed, but she’s always annoyed.”
“Exactly. She’s always annoyed. I’m not sure how you’d expect me to cozy up to someone like that and confess I’m an angel here to help her with whatever she needs help with. It’s like asking to snuggle with a python.”
Dex grinned and chucked her under the chin the way he had when she still didn’t know he was her guardian angel. “You don’t have to snuggle with her, George. Just find out what she needs and then help her find out, too.”
Leaning her head back on the headrest of the car, she looked up and out of her sunroof, where clouds chased one another and the day grew gloomier.
“So the question remains, do I tell her I’m an angel? I’m not exactly aces at glowing. I mean, I almost blinded Nina, and making my wings appear didn’t go so well either.”
He shrugged. “You can if you want to, but it doesn’t usually go over so well at first. Not until you’ve actually helped them, that is. They’re way more open to believing in our existence once we’ve helped, if you get what I mean. I haven’t run across many who’ve been open to me glowing and showing them my wings until I’ve wormed my way into their lives and there’s at least a modicum of trust.”
She took a sip of her bottled ice tea. “Is that why you never told me you were my angel? You’ve been my guardian for almost a year and never said a word.”
He stared out the windshield. “Sometimes it can be pressure to know you have someone trying to help. In some cases, it hinders more than it helps. I felt like maybe it would be added pressure you didn’t need.”
George bristled, sucking in her cheeks. “Right, and we wouldn’t want poor, fragile George to feel pressured. Who knows what she’d do?” she asked with a sarcastic edge to her words, hating herself for feeling so defensive.
That he knew her troubled past embarrassed her. She hated the thought.
Reaching over, Dex placed his hand on hers, like he’d always done in the past when she’d been frazzled, except now it felt very different. “That’s not what I said at all, George. I said, sometimes knowing there’s someone in the wings waiting to catch you if you fall doesn’t always help, it only makes things harder. That’s what I said. Please don’t twist my words to suit.”
Sighing, she shook her head and gave his hand a light squeeze before returning hers to her lap to squelch the tingle in her fingers. “I’m sorry. That was bitchy of me. I’m just nervous. I don’t want to screw this up. I need to get this right—even if it involves Effie Sampson.”
“You don’t need to be perfect, George. This is your first case. Being perfect isn’t the goal.”
“When I say I want to get it right, it’s not out of ego. I need to get it right because this is someone’s life and the people upstairs seem to think Effie’s in enough need to send a guardian angel. It’s not about me.”
Dex appeared to like that answer. “Okay then, let’s focus on that. And here’s what you can do. Listen. Listen to what she isn’t saying. Listen with your heart.” He patted his chest.
“Okay, but if she punches me in the face—and believe me, I wouldn’t put it past her—I’m holding you responsible.” Then she turned to him and asked, “Speaking of bruises and broken bones, do I magically heal like the OOPS ladies?”
He gave her a puzzled look. “You know, I dunno. I do. However, you’re still half human. But hey, you want me to get someone to punch you in the face to find out? Bet Nina’d volunteer.”
She chuckled as she pulled the handle of her car door. It opened, and the cold she no longer felt rushed in to swirl about the interior. “Funny angel is funny. I have to get back to work. I’m still straightening out the Cabo mess. I’ll catch you later, Dex.”
She hurried toward the building, her mind preoccupied with how she’d weasel her way into Effie Sampson’s very small, very crabby world and what she needed help fixing.
Other than her personality, that is.
“Hey, Lizzie, how’s it going?” Dex asked the young girl who was bathing a three-legged mixed-breed mutt found just off the highway last night, covered in mange and freezing.
She grinned at him and waved a soapy hand. “Good, Mr. Bridger! Oh, and hey! Guess what?”
He cocked his head as she used the sprayer in the overly large stainless steel sink he’d had put in especially for bathing dogs and cats, and said, “You won the lottery and you’re gifting me a million bucks?”
She frowned, her round face scrunching up as she cocked her blonde head. “I’m not old enough to play the lottery, Mr. Bridger…”
He laughed out loud. Lizzie didn’t quite get the nuance of a good joke. “I know, kiddo. I was joking. So tell me what I’m guessing?”
When she looked at him with her deep-set green eyes, she said quite seriously, “You do know if I won a bunch of money, I’d give you some, don’t you, Mr. Bridger? For the rescue.”
He smiled at her as she rinsed the dog. “How about you buy me an ice cream and we call it even Steven? Now, until then, tell me what I’m guessing. The suspense is killing me.”
She beamed from ear to ear, her sweet face ebullient. “I got an A on my chemistry test! I hung it up on your office bulletin board for you to see. Thanks for all the help with it the other day. I’m still a little fuzzy on the periodic table, but I got ’er done.”
Leaning in, he touched noses with the sodden black and white dog who was shaping up nicely and grinned. “I’m proud of ya, Lizzie. Always happy to help.”
He waved to her as he headed to the back of the old, rambling farmhouse with an enormous backyard and plenty of space for his special-needs rescues to run and play while they waited for adoption.
George would love it here. He’d often thought about bringing her to see the rescue.
Who was he kidding? He thought about her period, but he knew she’d love it. He’d resisted because that would mean he’d become too emotionally involved with an assignment and they frowned upon that upstairs, but she was also his trainee now—an equal, if you will.
The line between them had become blurred, but for the moment, he had other things to keep his mind occupied and off of his continually growing feelings for George.
Primarily, one of the kids who helped out at the rescue who’d been having a really shitty time of it.
Dex padded over to the back door where Justin, one of his high school volunteers, was playing with two blind huskies in the snow in the yard. “Hey, bud!” he yelled. “Good to see you. How was your New Year?”
Justin, a quiet, thoughtful fifteen-year-old with an alcoholic mother and a grandmother just trying to help him survive high school, simply shrugged, breaking Dex’s heart.
He’d been lethargic and despondent since his mother’s arrest on Christmas Eve at a local tavern, and despite seeing his guidance counselor at school, was still really struggling.
“It was okay,” he called, his cheeks red from the cold, before he turned back to the dogs, roughing them up as they rolled happily in the snow.
Justin was a good kid who’d gotten a crap deal in life, and if he could just use the genius mind he’d been given and get a scholarship to a school far away from the responsibility his mother burdened him with, he had a real chance.
And that was what The Furry Gates Animal Rescue was all about. Someone taking a chance, not just on the special-needs animals, but on the kids who volunteered as part of a pr
ogram he’d managed to arrange with the local high school.
Furry Gates was a place for them to go after school. A quiet place for them to study and forge friendships with other kids from similarly troubled backgrounds. It was also a place for them to learn responsibility and, according to the principal at the local high school he partnered with, it would look good on their college resumes.
He’d created quite a network in the time he’d been a guardian angel, making connections with other rescues, local vets and specialists, and tons of foster families.
He wasn’t only passionate about animals; he was passionate about the kids who helped him keep the place running—the kids he actually needed a whole lot more than they needed him. They gave him purpose, a fulfillment he’d never known in life or now death, both the animals and the kids.
“Mr. Bridger?”
He turned to find Gaffney Brown holding Dex’s cat, Susan. The hulk of a seventeen-year-old foster kid was on the cusp of graduating high school and heading off to wrestle at Iowa State on a scholarship he’d just found out he’d earned.
“She was in the attic again,” he said with a cheerful smile, scruffing the cat’s ears. “Just can’t keep that nose out of things, can ya, Susan?”
Taken from his abusive father and mother when he was seven years old, Gaffney had been bounced around from foster home to foster home for years before he’d finally settled in at the Hawthornes’ when he was fifteen—a local family who were active in the foster community, if not distracted and a bit overwhelmed.
You’d think the experience of being shipped from place to place for half his life would leave a kid bitter, especially if you read his file with social services and knew about the abuse he’d suffered, but not Gaffney.
Gaffney was a ray of sunshine. Always smiling. Always willing to lend a hand when Dex needed one the most, and he was as proud of him as if Gaffney were his own.
He’d miss him like hell when he went off to school, but he’d send him off with a big party and a smile on his face because Gaffney was going places, and Dex was sick with pride about that.
Taking his calico cat from the boy, he held her close before looking her in the eye. “How many times do I have to tell you, the attic isn’t safe. One day we’re going to find you under a bunch of drywall and floorboards if you don’t stay out of there, Miss,” he chastised as she booped him with her misshapen nose.
When he’d found Susan in an abandoned house at what the vet estimated was six months old, her nose was red, swollen and distorted. Old Doc Leary had done some tests and taken some X-rays and diagnosed her with cryptococcus, a fungal disease that had been left unattended for too long.
Scar tissue had formed due to a long period of inflammation, and though with treatment, some of the swelling had gone down, Susan’s nose would always look like a bumpy round cherry with distorted nostrils.
But she was healthy, and sweet, and beautiful to him, and when it came time to put her on the rescue’s website for adoption, he’d become so attached, he couldn’t do it.
Susan was his and he was hers. For as long as she was here on Earth.
Or he was, for that matter.
“Why are you such a troublemaker, Susan?” he whispered against her soft fur as she curled into him and purred her delight. “For a pet who has everything, including a catio, you’d think staying on this level of the house would keep you happy, Diva.”
“Maybe there’s somethin’ up there we don’t know about, Boss?” Gaffney offered, driving his hands into his slouchy jeans.
“Like what? A tuna factory?” Dex joked. Settling himself at his desk overlooking the backyard, he set Susan on the surface and looked at the stack of incoming bills and sighed.
“More bad news, Boss?” Gaffney asked, giving Dex a slap on the shoulder.
Scooping up the stack, Dex dropped them in a drawer. These kids had plenty to worry about, they didn’t need to worry about him and the exorbitant amount of money it took to run a small rescue.
He’d start up a GoFundMe or something to help get them through the next couple of months, and as long as no serious health mishaps occurred, he just might be able to squeak into the spring before he had to organize some kind of fundraiser.
Dex winked at Gaffney, whose hulking form lingered by the row of windows on the opposite side of the room. “Nope, buddy. All’s well. How about you pull up a chair and tell me all about Idaho State and that full scholarship. Can’t tell you how proud I am of you, man. So proud.”
Gathering up Susan, he cuddled her close to his chest and did what he loved most. Shooting the breeze with the kids surrounded by his rescues.
He’d worry about how he was going to keep the doors from closing tomorrow.
Because time was running out. If he didn’t earn his permanent wings and the right to be an eternal guardian again soon, upstairs was going to want some answers, and if they didn’t get them, they were going to make him give up his earthly possessions to wax the floors and clean the toilets in Heaven, and he’d have to leave the kids and his rescues.
If it was the last thing Dex did, he wasn’t going to abandon the kids and animals who’d already been abandoned plenty in their short lives.
Not if he could prevent it.
Chapter 9
“Hi, Effie.” George waved at the aging eyeball peeking out of one of the more luxurious apartment doors in Mom and Dad’s Place.
She squinted and made a face. “What the hell do you want?”
What did she want? Funny Effie should ask. She wanted a new assignment. Did Atilla the Hun need some Heavenly guidance? He’d probably be an easier assignment than Effie Sampson.
Listen… Dex’s words came back to remind her why she was here.
Sighing, she forced a smile. “I came by to see how I can help you with your trip to Cabo. I’m sorry I was so busy this morning, but I’m available now.”
Effie pushed her wispy gray hair from her eyes, giving George a stern, displeased look down her pointy nose. “And you don’t know how to use a phone?”
George dug the colorful brochures from her big tote and waved them at Effie. “But I brought pictures,” she enticed cheerfully, trying to do that thing where she listened between the lines but all she was hearing was the grind of Effie’s teeth because she was an unwilling participant in human interaction.
Effie sighed through her pinched lips. “Fine. Come in and I’ll look at the pictures. But you can’t stay long. I have things to do.”
George turned up her smile to one hundred watts and slipped in past Effie to find herself standing in a nearly empty apartment.
How strange. Literally, there was nothing more than a folding chair, a blow-up mattress with some neatly folded blankets and a pillow, a couple of plastic cups, and a laptop on her kitchen counter with a Facebook page pulled up.
Effie didn’t have a single picture on the wall nor a dish in the sink. Her stark apartment took George aback for a moment.
Without missing another beat, she asked, “Haven’t gotten around to decorating yet?”
Effie adjusted her green and blue scarf and scowled, making her wrinkles deeper. “That’s none of your business. Now show me the pictures,” she groused.
George pulled the brochures out and dropped them on the flecked granite countertop. “So tell me what you want in a vacation, Effie. Anything in particular you want to see? Sights? The ocean? Or do you just want to lounge by a pool and relax while bare-chested men in shorts bring you brightly colored cocktails?”
Effie captured George’s gaze, her hawk-like eyes, as per usual, annoyed. “I don’t care about a stupid pool or the food or men with no shirts. I don’t even care about my hotel. I just want to be on the beach with the sun shining down on me as the water laps at my toes.”
For a moment, Effie’s words struck George as odd. Effie had never seemed like a minimalist, not if the abundance of rings on her fingers were any indication. Also, Effie had one of the most decked-out apartments offered
at Mom and Dad’s. She had the top-tier, two-bedroom, two-bath with all the trimmings.
A master bedroom with a view of the water, walk-in closet with an island, a gorgeous master bath with a shower the size of George’s kitchen and a standalone cast iron tub that looked fresh out of a magazine.
All that, and she claimed she didn’t care what hotel she stayed in?
No, no, Nanette. She wasn’t going to fool George into making a mistake only so she could turn around and torture her for a month upon her return about how unsatisfactory the accommodations were. Nuh-uh.
“Any particular price range you’re looking for, Effie? Mid-luxury? Luxury?” she asked as she caught sight of the Facebook profile on Effie’s laptop and wondered if this handsome guy named David Eisen was a friend.
Effie didn’t have many friends. In fact, she was surprised to see she was on Facebook at all.
Effie gave a disinterested shrug as she went to stand by her big window in the living room, overlooking a row of barren trees. “Doesn’t matter, really. I just want to be somewhere warm when… I’m damn tired of the cold.”
George nodded, pushing together the brochures. “I get that. Buffalo can do you in with all the snow, but I wouldn’t live anywhere else. Have you always lived here, too?”
Effie’s gaze grew faraway as she fiddled with her scarf. “Not always. I used to live in Texas.”
Listen between the lines, George…
“Really? Well, yeehaw,” she cheered, moving to stand near Effie and look out the window with her, hoping to see what she was seeing. “It’s warm in Texas. What made you move somewhere as cold as Buffalo?”
As far as George knew, Effie was a single, retired prosecuting attorney for the state of New York who’d made a windfall in the stock market, had never had children, and probably had never even had a goldfish, if her warm-and-squishy thermometer was any indication. She’d never considered Effie had ever lived anywhere else.
“A job opportunity,” was her vague response.
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