Earth Angel

by Siri Caldwell

  “I’m sorry,” Gwynne said.

  “Okay.” Abby took the keys and started the ignition, wondering if she’d be able to pull out of their parallel parking space without jerky, telltale movements.

  “You okay?”

  “Dandy,” Abby spat out. “You?”

  Gwynne made an indecipherable noise that sounded vaguely like assent, but could easily have meant just about anything.

  Abby maneuvered the car onto the road and blew through a stop sign as she peeled away. They weren’t going to kiss and make up. And it was going to be a long drive home.

  Chapter Twelve

  Abby followed a trail of solar lights along a well-groomed path through the trees on the grounds of Sea Salt in search of the hot tubs Gwynne had grumpily suggested. Abby had been stretching her back and massaging her shoulders after a long afternoon of playing music at the spa when Gwynne had thrust a fluffy towel into her arms and sent her in this direction. She wished Gwynne had offered to rub her shoulders instead, but apparently she was serious about them not touching. Probably serious about the breakup too.

  Before she got very far, she ran into Dara Sullivan, who was holding a tree branch in front of her like it was a dowsing rod and taking stiff, awkward steps.

  Dara spotted her and let the branch drop to her side. “Are you here for the energy?”

  Abby had no idea what she was talking about. “I heard there were hot tubs.” She held up her towel in explanation.

  “Just follow the path,” Dara said. “You’ll find them.”

  “Thanks.”

  “This your first time here?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’m surprised Gwynne’s not with you. I thought she’d want to show you Angel Rock herself. Isn’t she off work yet?”

  The last thing she wanted to talk about with Dara was Gwynne Abernathy—Dara had a crush on Gwynne, after all—and angels came in a close second. But she was curious. “What’s Angel Rock?”

  “This.” Dara pointed to a large, upright boulder covered in lichen. “Gwynne thinks there’s some kind of portal here that the angels use to travel back and forth between their world and ours. Megan agrees with her. So I was thinking, if I hang out here enough, eventually I’ll see an angel, right? But no luck so far.”

  “Can’t hurt to try,” Abby said, flabbergasted. Where were all these people who believed in angels when she was growing up? This was certainly a conversation she never thought she’d have.

  “Gwynne says it’s one of those things where either you can see them or you can’t. She has such a negative attitude. I think she just doesn’t want me to try, and I have no idea why.”

  Abby bit her tongue.

  Dara kept going. “Megan thinks I can learn. She says this place is a hot spot for healing energy and it can help me, and I’ll take all the help I can get because my hands are in so much pain I don’t know how much longer I can work as a massage therapist. I need to learn hands-off healing skills. I already do Reiki, which is kind of like what Gwynne does, but I need to get better at it. I need to learn to heal physical problems like Gwynne can. She’s amazing. She could make millions if she opened a sunburn clinic by the beach, but she’d rather spend her time healing more serious problems. At least she used to. Which is important, I mean, of course she should be healing serious diseases if she can. But me, I’d be happy if I could get good enough to heal sunburn. It may seem minor to her, but it would be a real accomplishment for me. Or toenail fungus.”

  Abby couldn’t help glancing at Dara’s flip-flopped feet. They looked healthy enough. From a distance.

  “Don’t laugh. Do you have any idea how many people are embarrassed to go barefoot because they have toenail fungus that won’t go away? If I could kill toenail fungus, I’d make millions.” When Abby didn’t respond, she shrugged. “Or at least make a living, that’s all I need.”

  “Or you could become a podiatrist,” Abby suggested.

  “Sounds like something Gwynne would say.” Dara dismissed the idea with a flick of her dowsing rod. “But it would never work. Megan understands. She’s been coming here with me to help me practice my ability to sense subtle energies and work on a psychic level.”

  Dara was certainly committed. If this was the direction she wanted to take her career in, Abby didn’t see why Gwynne wouldn’t want her to succeed. “How’s the practicing going?”

  “Great!” Dara said. “Great.” Her shoulders slumped. “Not so great,” she admitted. “But it beats sitting at home in front of the TV worrying about my career and wishing I wasn’t single.”

  But Gwynne had said…“I thought you were seeing someone.”

  “What? Oh.” Her face fell. “That’s just something I tell Gwynne. I don’t want her to think I’m pining for her, you know? I don’t want her to think I’m a loser.”

  “I’m sure she doesn’t think that.”

  Dara fiddled with the giant quartz crystal she wore on a leather cord around her neck. “Yeah, because of my fake girlfriend.”

  “No, because she’s not like that.”

  Dara looked at her blankly. “Not that I would say no if she ever did ask me out, but I know that’s never going to happen. I know she doesn’t want me.”

  If Dara only knew how much time Abby and Gwynne spent together—if she knew they’d kissed—she wouldn’t be telling her all this. Of course, after the kiss, Gwynne had rejected her. She sounded like she meant it too, but that didn’t mean…Because how could she kiss her and then turn around and say she didn’t want her to touch her?

  “Don’t feel sorry for me,” Dara said, reading only one facet of the expression on Abby’s face. “I’ve moved on. I’m open to dating other people.” She used her branch to scratch circles and zigzags in the dirt. “Besides, Gwynne has her eye on someone else.”

  Abby felt a flash of embarrassment. Dara knew? Dara didn’t know. She didn’t want Dara to know, because she didn’t want to make her feel bad—if Abby and Gwynne had a salvageable relationship—or, if they didn’t, to bond over both being rejected by the same woman. She didn’t know what was up with Gwynne, and if she didn’t know, there was no way an outside observer could know, no matter what Dara thought she saw.

  “I wish she’d help me with my energy healing, though,” Dara said. “Has she ever done any healing on you? She’s amazing. It’s like she opens up this space where you can breathe…and then the power of her energy slams you to the ground.”

  No, Abby hadn’t felt any slamming when Gwynne healed her ear infection. The slamming came later, when Gwynne told her she didn’t want her touching her—which was not a particularly healing experience. So yes, her ear didn’t hurt anymore. Now it was the inside of her chest that hurt.

  * * *

  Gwynne pulled off the side of the road not far from the house where she grew up and tramped through pale winter weeds down to the river that flowed unnoticed under the white noise of the busy road. The water moved peacefully, relentlessly on its way. There was no sign that anyone had died here.

  She picked her way down the steep, muddy bank, holding her arms out for balance, trying not to slip and land on her ass. This was the spot. Under the bridge. From here, she couldn’t see the railing overhead anymore, only chattering sparrows who flew around the support beams building a nest.

  The river was deceptively deep. Not that that mattered when the water was as cold as it had been in January. Her mother should have had more sense than to run onto the ice and try to save Heather on her own. She should have known the ice wouldn’t hold. She was just like Abby, wanting to rush in and help without worrying whether it was safe.

  No, not like Abby. Her mother was caught up in a frenzy of panic and wasn’t thinking straight. Maternal instinct had taken over. She must have been terrified.

  Abby didn’t have the excuse of impulse or panic. She was calm, she was not terrified, she was trying to be logical—and letting logic lose badly to rationalization.

  What Elle was asking her to d
o was dangerous. Irresponsible. Crazy. Not that angelic thought processes always made sense, but this was outrageous even for them. Couldn’t Abby see that? How could she even consider doing what they asked?

  Gwynne kicked the heel of her sneaker into the mud. This was why she couldn’t date her. She needed to be with someone grounded and down-to-earth. Someone who wouldn’t make her feel like she was the practical one. Someone who didn’t talk to angels.

  Unfortunately those down-to-earth types quickly lost patience with her once they figured out she spent most of her time, when she wasn’t hanging out with angels or helping sick people go into spontaneous remission, staring off into space getting sidetracked by luminescent grids and vortexes of color that no one else could see. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t make it work. She’d try again. She’d meet someone, she’d be so charming that they’d overlook her habit of talking to invisible beings, and she’d forget all about Abby Vogel and live happily ever after.

  Because she was not going to stand by and watch Abby self-destruct.

  Chapter Thirteen

  There was something to be said for not letting people know what you were capable of. Look at Abby sitting there behind her harp, wisely saying nothing—no one pestered her for tips on how to sense angels. No, they pestered Gwynne.

  Gwynne planted her elbows on the spa’s appointment desk and cupped her chin in her hands and glared at Dara. She was glaring at everyone today, wishing she didn’t work in the same space as Abby.

  “Don’t try so hard,” she told Dara, trying to think of something helpful to say. How did you teach someone to do something that came naturally? But Dara wanted it so badly. “Allow the angels to reveal themselves. It’s the same with healings. Don’t reach for the energy. Surrender into it. You strip away the noise and what’s left is…nothing. That’s when the energy starts to flow. Beyond that, I don’t know what to tell you.”

  Dara keyed that bit of dubious wisdom into her notes. “But…”

  “I don’t know how to explain it any better.”

  “But…”

  “And what I do is pointless, anyway.” Her so-called abilities weren’t as exciting as Dara seemed to think. “Why is this so important to you?”

  “I need a new career. I can’t keep doing massage forever.”

  “It doesn’t have to be energy healing,” Gwynne said with what she thought was extreme reasonableness. There were a million other jobs Dara could be trained to do.

  “I wouldn’t mind having your job, if you ever decide to go back to being a healer.”

  “I’m not going back to being a healer.”

  “How can you say that?” Dara protested. “You’re so good.”

  Fortunately, she was spared from having to answer because Hank lumbered in with a stack of glossy brochures and wavered between handing them to Gwynne and clutching them uncertainly. Finally she settled on placing them on the edge of the desk and sliding them forward.

  “Aisha wants to know if you’ll display these for her.”

  Gwynne scanned the image of Aisha, standing out with her smoothly shaved head and her camouflage-print bikini, flanked by students doing pushups. Looked like she was offering her beach boot camp again this year. Aisha already had a successful career as a dentist, but had decided she liked to unwind from her day by yelling at students to haul ass. Supposedly she was friendly and gentle as a dentist, though. Go figure.

  “I heard you guys broke up,” Gwynne said. “Is that just a vicious rumor, or is it true?”

  “It’s true.”

  “I’m so sorry.” Gwynne came around from behind her desk and gave her a hug, which was nothing like hugging Abby.

  No. No thinking about hugging Abby. No thinking about kissing Abby. No thinking about…

  “Want me to say mean things about her?” Gwynne said. “Like Aisha really, really, really doesn’t deserve you?”

  Hank shook her head mutely.

  “How about like why is she making you run her errands for her? Dropping off these brochures?”

  “It’s okay, Gwynne.”

  “What’s your favorite bra of hers?”

  Hank choked. “You are not calling her the black satin bra, you hear?”

  “Okay, but only because I don’t want to confuse people and make them think she’s my ex. I have enough exes around here.”

  Gwynne glanced guiltily in Abby’s direction, but Abby was tuning a harp string, tightening the pin with her special wrench, and didn’t look up. They may not have slept together, but after all the fantasizing she’d done, it almost felt like they had. She’d never felt that way after just one kiss.

  Gwynne realized she still had her arms around Hank and released her. Hank plopped down on the nearest sofa and nearly landed in Dara Sullivan’s lap.

  “Excuse me,” Hank said, mustering the energy to move only a few inches away before collapsing on the sofa cushions.

  “I’m Dara, by the way,” Dara told Hank’s slumped form. “Would you like me to do some energy healing on you?”

  Hank grunted. “You believe in that psychic crap Gwynne does?”

  Dara leaned over her. “It’s not crap.”

  Was that her hand on Hank’s thigh? Okay, yeah, now it was on her shin. This should be interesting.

  “You should try it,” Dara said.

  “Will it get my ex-girlfriend back?”

  Dara jerked away. “No,” she said stiffly.

  “Then what good is it?”

  “I’m just trying to help.”

  “Sorry.” Hank sat up abruptly, showing more life than she had since she’d walked in. “I’m sure you’re amazing. I’m probably missing out, right?”

  Dara didn’t bite. “Actually, I’m not that good. At psychic healing, I mean. I’m trying to get Gwynne to teach me.”

  Gwynne snatched the brochures from her desk in the vain hope that might keep her from being dragged into the conversation. She shuffled a few things on the display rack of local attractions to make room, then shuffled them a different way. Bored, she took a closer look at the beach boot camp brochure and noticed Hank was one of the students in the picture. Turning around, she made the mistake of glancing in Abby’s direction and saw her smirk. Like Abby knew exactly what she was doing, messing around with the display rack when it did not need help.

  “Why would you want to be psychic?” Hank was asking Dara.

  “Who wouldn’t?” Dara said.

  “It’s a waste of time.”

  “It’s part of my spiritual path,” Dara said. “I don’t consider that to be a waste of time.”

  “If you want to be spiritual, just be a decent person,” Hank said.

  “I am a decent person,” Dara said. “Thanks for the unhelpful advice.”

  “You don’t need to be psychic to be spiritual,” Hank insisted. “It’s a distraction. Like…” She trailed off, like she couldn’t decide on the perfect disparaging analogy. “Like…like having a hot body. You work and train and push yourself to get a great body—or in your case, ESP—and then what? So you have a great body. Or you see angels or ghosts or whatever. So what? All those hours of work, and on the inside you’re still the same old sorry excuse for a human being.”

  Dara cleared her throat and Gwynne held her breath. Not thinking about hot-body beach boot camp babe Aisha, now were we?

  Hank seemed to realize what she’d implied about Dara because she cleared her throat too. “Not that you’re a…you know. No offense.”

  “I’ve heard worse,” Dara sniffed.

  “What I’m trying to say—badly—is do the work where it counts. You don’t need to drink Gwynne’s Kool-Aid like a girly girl and chase the shiny glitter.”

  “Psychic abilities are not glitter,” Dara said. “They bring you closer to the nature of reality.”

  “Not in my book. You think Gwynne here understands the nature of reality?”

  “Hey,” Gwynne protested weakly. “I do you a favor and let you display your ex’s broch
ures, and this is the thanks I get?”

  She’d have to talk to Hank later, not because she couldn’t handle the insults, but because she’d appreciate it if she watched her cracks about girly girls and glitter when Abby was within earshot. Hank didn’t know how sparkly Abby’s costumes could be, and she didn’t want Abby to be hurt.

  But hey, if Hank could convince Dara that her obsession with all things psychic was unhealthy, she’d tell her to knock it off with the glitter analogies and afterward she’d buy her dinner. Heck, she’d buy her flowers.

  When Hank left, Dara rose from her seat and made a beeline for Aisha’s brochure. She fished it from the rack and turned her back to Gwynne to stare at it, slouching over it like she needed privacy. “Her name is Hank?” she asked, not looking up.

  “Yeah, I think it’s really Henrietta,” Gwynne said. “But she refuses to confirm or deny.”

  “Hank could be her real name,” Dara said.

  “Could be.”

  “It’s cute. Is she on a spiritual path, do you think?”

  “I’m sure you could find out,” Gwynne said.

  “She’s single,” Abby volunteered. She winked at Gwynne.

  Gwynne’s throat tightened. Abby was so beautiful. And so not for her.

  It was sweet of her to try to steer Dara away from her and toward someone new, but wasn’t Dara already involved with someone? Not that that relationship was working if Dara could still proposition Gwynne on a regular basis. Sure, she was joking, but underneath the flip attitude she was dead serious, and she made it obvious it wouldn’t take much for her to break up with her mystery woman. Maybe Abby was right to push her into Hank’s rebounding arms. She couldn’t quite see the two of them hitting it off, but she’d be happy to be proven wrong. Thrilled. She’d buy both of them flowers.

  * * *

  In the spa’s lounge the next afternoon, Gwynne watched Kira crouch in front of her rabbits’ pet carrier and make an awkward attempt to talk to them through their jail bars. Kira really was trying. Which was sweet, because it was clear from her stilted words that animals were not her thing. Gwynne squatted next to her to coach her on the fine points of rabbit conversation, but instead of keeping an eye on the rabbits or on Kira—who was, after all, her boss—she caught herself glancing in Abby’s direction again and again.