by Rachel Lee
“Think about it, Angela. Angels are dispensers of celestial justice and wrath. Do you think they could do that if they cared? Do you think I could have done what I did to Raquel if I cared? I’d never have been able to arrest her brother. I’d never have—” He broke off sharply. “Never mind.”
Angela was suddenly finding it hard to breathe. His words were striking her painfully, hitting her in places that she hadn’t realized were becoming vulnerable. “I...don’t think you’re as hard as you believe.”
“Really?”
“I’ve seen genuine feeling in you.”
“Don’t delude yourself, Angel. Don’t trust me. I’m a great actor.”
Her chest was tight, her throat growing tighter. She looked away from him at the baby and tned to beat back the dark emotions that were fluttering around the edges of her mind like the wings of bats. She should have left the walls high, she realized. She never should have tried to breach them.
She sat there listening to the breeze in the trees and the aching silence in her heart and reached desperately for equilibrium.
Peanut made some fussy sounds, and Rafe sat up like a shot, picking up the child, checking his diaper, then changing it with swift practiced motions. Peanut didn’t like the cold air on his bottom and began to cry. When Rafe finished buttoning him up into his bunting, he settled down a little, trying to suck his fist. Rafe got out a bottle and began feeding his son.
Angela looked at the two of them, at the gentle way Rafe cared for his son, and couldn’t quite believe it was just an act.
But that didn’t mean Rafe was capable of caring for anyone else, she reminded herself.
He spoke. “Do you need to eat something?”
It was hard to believe his concern for her was also just an act, but maybe it was. Maybe he figured she needed a caretaker and was fitting himself to the role. The thought angered her.
“I can take care of myself.”
“Sure.” He kept his gaze pinned on his son. “Just don’t wait on me. It wouldn’t be polite to have a low sugar attack out here in the woods.”
That was blunt enough to take her breath away. “Don’t be such a beast!”
“Why not? I am.”
She fumed, reluctant to argue any more with him. His nastiness, she had a feeling, might know no bounds at all. And he knew enough about her now that he could cut her to the quick.
Reaching for her kit, she tested her blood sugar. A little low. Making the adjustments was nearly automatic now, though. She could take her regular insulin and eat a full meal.
Ignoring him, she got out her injection pen, walked off behind a bush and gave herself a shot. When she came back, she opened up the bag and took out a sandwich for herself. He could damn well get his own food.
If she hung around with this guy too much, she thought bitterly, she was never going to get her sugar under control. He kept messing it up with all this anger.
When she finished eating, she lay back on the blanket and closed her eyes, listening to the quiet sounds as he cared for his son, then ate his own lunch.
No more talking, she decided. Keep everything on a superficial level, where it was safe for both of them. Apparently when he started to feel vulnerable, he struck out. And when she was vulnerable, his striking out hurt her. Bad combination.
The baby apparently went to sleep. She heard Rafe move but didn’t look to see what he was doing. Little by little, the sun on her face and the silence began to make her feel drowsy. She felt herself drifting gently. Sleep beckoned, and she was ready to follow it.
Then something blocked the sun. Her eyes flew open, and she discovered Rafe lying beside her, propped up on his arm, looking down at her.
“Sorry,” he muttered. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”
“I wasn’t sleeping.” Nor was it likely she would now, not the way he was looking down at her. He had such an intense gaze; it seemed to bore right into her and touch her in places she didn’t want anyone to touch.
“I’m sorry I snapped at you,” he said. “I’ve been irritable lately. Must have something to do with my whole life being turned on end.”
She didn’t say anything She wasn’t going to talk to him, she reminded herself. Every time she did, she wound up feeling frozen, cold and alone.
“Don’t talk to me,” he said finally. “I don’t blame you. It must be like dealing with an angry rattlesnake.”
“It’s not exactly easy.”
He shook his head. “No. It never has been. I’ve been hearing all my life how hard I am to deal with. Basically, I’m not like other people.”
He said it without any hint of self-pity, as if it were a statement of fact. Perhaps it was that which overcame Angela’s resistance to getting into it with him again. “Who tells you that?”
“Everyone. My mother. My foster parents. My co-workers. Raquel.”
Raquel. Angela was beginning to hate that name. “What did she say?”
“That I was a monster. That no real human being could sleep with a woman, then arrest her brother. She was right.”
Angela didn’t know what to say to that, but she could imagine what a burden it must be for him, especially now that Raquel was dead and he could never rectify what he’d done.
“She was angry,” Angela said.
“Yeah, she was angry, but she was also right.”
“You couldn’t be expected not to do your job because you...because you slept with her.”
“That’s what I thought. Priorities and all that. The damn job always comes first. My mission. My reason for being.” He shook his head and sighed. “But she was still right. Not about arresting her brother, but I never should have slept with her. I can’t figure out why I did.”
“She must have been attractive.”
He nodded. “Very. But there are a lot of attractive women in the world. I don’t sleep with them.”
He was really troubled by this, she realized. For all that he said he was an angel who couldn’t feel a thing, he was feeling an awful lot about Raquel and the way his child had been conceived. She had no idea what to say that might comfort him.
“Anyway,” he said, “I messed up royally. I wasn’t using my brain.”
“How did Raquel die?”
“Drive-by shooting.”
“My God!”
“She wasn’t even the target. She got caught in a gang disagreement when she went to visit a sick friend. They caught the perps. None of them knew her from Adam. Disgusting, isn’t it?”
“It’s terrifying!”
“There are places in this country,” he said slowly, “where hopelessness breeds barbaric behavior. Drugs make it a lot worse, but drugs aren’t all of it. There’s a resentment of society at large, a feeling of alienation, that leads to the formation of smaller societies. And some of those societies preach a culture of power and death. Tribalism gone bad, I guess. But it would sure help if we could get the drugs off the street. Then there wouldn’t be so many kids with the money to buy a gun.”
“It’s such a bleak picture.”
“Yeah. It is. Kids want so badly to belong, and they’re easy targets for gangs.” He closed his eyes a moment. “Once they get in, they find it isn’t so easy to get out. One sixteen-year-old that I know of wanted out, so the rest of the gang nearly beat him to death. His family had to go into hiding. Anyway, that’s what cost Raquel her life. A damn turf war between two gangs, a dozen kids who are still wet behind the ears. The shooter isn’t even old enough to be charged as an adult.”
“I’m sorry.”
“So am I. And I don’t want to raise my kid in that. Or anywhere near it. And I certainly don’t want him with the Molinas. It’s not just their drug smuggling I’m worried about. They have gang affiliations, use some of them to control the streets for drug traffic. Money and drugs can buy a whole lot of influence on the streets.”
“But Raquel wasn’t involved in that, was she?”
He shook his head. “Not with the gangs.
Not with the kids whose warring got her killed. When she was younger, she used to be a mule.”
“What’s that?”
“She carried drugs from South America into Miami. She was lucky and never got caught. Then she started to grow up, and she backed out of active participation, at least as far as I could tell.”
Angela felt utterly shocked by this glimpse of a world she couldn’t even begin to understand.
“It was the Molinas who found her killers. They used their street connections to force the kids to turn themselves in. That wasn’t pretty, either. Those kids had to surrender to the law or face street justice.” He shook his head. “What a choice for a twelve-year-old—prison or death on the streets.”
“So...you don’t really want to go back to Miami?”
“The longer I’m here, the worse it sounds, actually. But cities are no different anywhere, Angel. They all have these problems.”
“They’re not all bad, either.”
His smile was bitter and didn’t touch his eyes. “No, not if you’re lucky enough to live in a better neighborhood.” He sighed, then shook his head. “I’m sorry. I’m being a downer.”
“That’s okay.”
“No, it’s not. We came out here to get away, not worry about problems we can’t fix.”
“It’s been my experience that trouble follows us wherever we go.”
A short laugh escaped him. “Ain’t that the truth.”
Then he lay beside her, clasping his hands behind his head. “I’m glad we came up here. It’s easy to forget all the ugliness when everything is so beautiful.”
The minutes slipped by on the buzzing of an insect and the occasional call of a bird. Drowsiness began to steal up on Angela again, and with it came flashing images.
Images of Rafe leaning over and kissing her, that same gentle kiss he’d given her the other night. But in those imaginings, the kiss deepened, became something more than comfort.
Everywhere the sun touched her skin, she tingled, but a deeper tingling began, a delicious, almost forgotten feeling. In the safety behind her closed eyes, she indulged it, letting the images grow and develop until she was on a pinnacle of sexual anticipation, half wishing he would roll over and take her in his arms and half hoping he wouldn’t move a muscle.
It had been a long time since she’d allowed herself to feel these things. As much as she might ache for the man beside her, she knew better than to think reality could possibly measure up. Reality always shattered illusions.
So she lay there, imprisoned in a silky web of delicious, nearly forgotten feelings, torn in two directions, and unwilling to open her eyes and shatter the fantasy that she was a whole woman some man might actually want
But then a shadow darkened her face, and Rafe’s voice said, “Angela?”
Reluctantly she opened her eyes. He was leaning over her, a frown creasing his brow.
“You okay?” he asked.
Then, as if someone else owned her body, she reached up and twined her arms around his neck. And she didn’t care if it was the biggest mistake she had ever made.
Chapter 7
Angel felt an instant of resistance from Rafe, but before she could drop her arms and release him, he closed his eyes and kissed her.
It wasn’t the gentle kiss he had given her before, not at all. This time his mouth settled demandingly over hers. Hungrily. Realization that he wanted this as much as she did exploded in her brain, unleashing all her yearnings like a wind hitting a banked fire. Embers burst into flames.
His chest settled against hers, crushing her breasts in the most delightful way. His hands clasped her head, holding her for his kiss, and she relished the feeling.
His tongue found its way between her lips, past her teeth, meeting hers in teasing strokes that caused her to go weak with longing. The only thought in her head was a single word: yes...
He was drinking from her as if she held a life-saving nectar, with hunger and single-mindedness unlike anything she had ever known. The world faded away, until he was the sum of her universe. He and the feelings he was stoking in her, the sparkling, sizzling flares of desire that were igniting everywhere inside her, sensitizing her every nerve ending to his merest brush against her.
She felt him move, felt him lie over her, between her legs, and she accommodated him, needing his weight on her as desperately as she had ever needed anything. His hardness pressed against her, and she reveled in it.
When he pressed against her again, she rose to meet him, driven by the hard ache between her legs, by a heaviness that needed more heaviness, each movement feeding her hunger for more.
One of his hands slipped between them, finding her breast through the fabric of her shirt and bra, squeezing gently, finding her hard nipple, brushing against it, sending more sparks running through her to join the conflagration at her center.
She ached for him, burned for him, felt everything inside her spiraling downward to the knot of aching need between her thighs. She lifted herself, pressing harder against him. Clutching at his back, she felt the play of muscles, and it only fueled her need.
He was man, she was woman, and nothing else in the world seemed to matter. He swept her higher and higher, reminding her that she could reach the stars if only she would stay close enough to him.
And then the baby cried.
It was just a single whimper, but it acted like a pin on a balloon. In an instant, the two of them froze. Their eyes met, and Angela felt shame pour through her. Rafe squeezed his eyes shut for an instant, then rolled off and away from her, sitting up and reaching for his child.
Angela stared at the sky overhead, wrestling with a maelstrom of emotions ranging from anger and disappointment to shame and fear. How could she have acted this way? How could she have let herself become so wanton?
“I’m sorry,” Rafe said over his shoulder.
She didn’t want to talk about it. The last thing on earth she wanted to do was add reality to what had just happened by holding a post mortem. “Forget it,” she managed to say, her voice thick.
Jumping up, she walked off into the woods, needing the space. Not to see him. Needing not to hear him.
How could she have been so foolish? The man was poison. And even if he weren’t personally a bucket of trouble waiting to happen, she knew better than to give another man a crack at her.
Finding a boulder, she sat on it in the dappled sunlight and tried to feel the peace of the forest around her. The wind was becoming chillier, though, and a few moments later the sun disappeared behind the mountain, leaving her in a strange twilight. Without the sun, the day was even colder, and she had no choice but to go back to the clearing. She zipped up her jacket and headed back with a heavy heart.
When she arrived, she found Rafe had packed everything up.
“Time to go,” he said, as if nothing had happened between them. “From here on, the temperature will keep dropping.”
She nodded and picked up the blankets. They walked back to the car in silence, neither of them making a sound. They were, thought Angela, even further apart than they had been a few short hours ago. And it was her fault She should never have reached for him.
“I’ll dnve most of the way back,” Rafe said. “If you don’t mind.”
“No, that’s fine.” At least she could keep her eyes closed. She passed him the car keys, trying not to let her skin brush his. She failed, and was dismayed when another electric crackle passed through her. She did not want to notice how warm and dry his skin felt, how enticing.
When she climbed into the passenger seat, she promptly buckled up and closed her eyes, signaling that she didn’t want to be disturbed.
Rafe had other ideas, however. After they’d been driving awhile, he said, “I’m sorry.”
She shifted irritably in her seat. “And I said forget it.”
“Not until I’ve said my piece. I shouldn’t have let things get out of hand like that. I know better.”
“So do L It just
happened. Let’s forget it.”
He sighed but didn’t say anything for a few more minutes. Just as she was beginning to relax, thinking he was going to drop it, he spoke again. “I’m sorry I made you feel bad.”
She couldn’t imagine how she could safely answer that.
“Hell, I made us both feel bad,” he said. “It’s never fun to taste something you can’t have.”
That pretty much summed it up, she thought. “It’s okay,” she said, deciding she was acting like a child rather than an adult. “I understand why you don’t want me.”
He spoke impatiently “Do you? That’s interesting, because the problem isn’t that I don’t want you.”
“You don’t have to be nice to me, Rafe.”
“Who said I was being nice? Are we on different wavelengths here?”
Irritation surged in her again. “I guess we must be.”
“Apparently so.” He fell silent again, and she was relieved to let him.
When they approached town, they switched places, Rafe hunkering down in the back seat. At the Daltons’ house, she pulled into the driveway near the back door and climbed out, looking around.
“It’s clear,” she said, opening the back door of the car. Rafe and the baby disappeared quickly inside, leaving her to carry the blankets.
She pulled the car back out on the street, so Emma could get into the garage, parked it, then went inside by way of the front door.
Rafe and the baby were nowhere to be seen, for which she was grateful. She’d had enough of that man, she decided. If she never set eyes on him again, it would be too soon.
Emma came home early from work, complaining that she felt as if she were coming down with the flu.
“It’s awful,” she told Angela, who was reading in the living room. Rafe hadn’t come out of his bedroom all afternoon.
“Well, you just go to bed,” Angela said, instantly concerned. “Can I get you anything? Aspirin? Chicken soup?” Emma looked awful, she thought, pale, with a fevered look to her eyes.
“I just took some aspirin. I feel like I’ve been beaten all over and my chest is tightening up.”
