Mountain Angel (Northstar Angels, Book One)

by Suzie O'Connell

  “Depends on what you’re thinking. But I can tell you, you’d better clear your schedule for the last week in September because if you’re not at my wedding, I’ll never forgive you.”

  Bill’s laughter reverberated through her living room, long, loud and as happy as she’d ever heard. She turned to Pat and threaded herself into his arms.

  “I think we just made my uncle a very happy man,” she purred.

  “You’re damn right you did. Hot damn.”

  “You were right, Bill,” Pat said. “Your niece is very… very good for me.”

  Bill continued to chuckle. “I guess I win that bet. So, who else knows?”

  “Just the three of us,” Pat answered. “Remember, I promised I’d call you first.”

  “So you did. Well, Pat, I’ll miss you around here, but I’m glad you’ll be part of the family. And soon, too. End of September, huh?”

  “Yep,” Aeli chirped. “What can I say, Unk? I’ve never been much for society’s traditions.”

  “That’s for sure. But your own fit you well. I’d better get off here so I can tell your Aunt Mary.”

  “All right. Give her our love,” Pat said.

  “Will do.”

  When her uncle hung up, Aelissm looked up at Pat. “I know we just called my uncle, but I can’t help but wonder… is this real? Did you really ask me to marry you?”

  “I did. And this is real. Every bit of it.”

  He slipped one arm behind her back and the other behind her knees and swept her off her feet. She squealed and giggled and she instinctively wrapped her arms around his neck.

  “God, I love you,” she said, still laughing.

  Grinning like a fool, he gave her a quick peck on the lips. “I know.”

  “We need to tell June and Luke, but I want to do that in person and there are a few other people we need to call first. Your family.”

  Pat nodded and slowly set her back on her feet. She half-expected to see sadness swimming in his eyes, but there was only a trickle. The rest was overpowered by his love for her. He held out his hand for the phone and she handed it over. With pride and pleasure and a range of other wonderful emotions, she watched as joy overcame the last threads of anguish.

  Three people answered the phone and a quick argument ensued over who had the call.

  “I’m happy to hear nothing’s changed at the O’Neil residence,” Pat remarked. Laughter was thick in his voice.

  “Patrick?” the older of the two women asked.

  “Hi, Mom.”

  “Oh, goodness, Darren, it’s Patrick!”

  “I know that, dear.”

  “Hi, Dad,” Pat said. “And hi to you, too, Shannon.”

  “Oh, honey, it’s so good to hear from you!” his mother cooed. “Bill’s been keeping us updated, but it’s better to hear from you.”

  “I know, Mom, and I’m sorry I haven’t called. I’ll work on that.”

  They asked him how he’d liked Montana and Aelissm listened as he detailed his “vacation”. The way he described everything drove home the reality of their situation. He really was staying and they really were getting married. When he told his family what had happened last week, there was no hesitation and no bitterness in his voice. He described the fight with Sara and her death matter-of-factly as if she hadn’t nearly destroyed his life. When his father asked about Bill’s niece, Pat started grinning like a fool again and listed out all her attributes, both the ones she liked about herself and a few she didn’t. In his eyes, apparently, she was perfect even with her flaws. Now, that was love.

  “Oh, honey, you sound so happy. I haven’t heard that in your voice in so long.”

  “It hasn’t been in my voice, Mom. You have your son back.”

  His mother started crying then and Aeli thought Pat might join her, but he held it in check.

  “You’re coming home today, aren’t you?” Darren O’Neil asked.

  Pat looked at Aelissm and his smile softened. He beckoned her over and again tucked his arms around her. “Funny thing about that, Dad. I am home.”

  Epilogue

  “I SWEAR TO GOD, I’d better not hear the birthday song again. I’ve already heard it five times today,” Aelissm grumbled as she poked her nose over June’s shoulder. They were standing in the kitchen of her grandparents’ cabin, icing her birthday cake. She lifted her gaze to the window above the counter to see Luke and Pat trudging down the hill from her cabin and smiled. “I suppose I should be grateful. I did get the snow I asked for, although I don’t recall wishing for two feet!”

  “Be quiet and quit complaining or I won’t let you help finish icing your cake.”

  Obediently, she took a step back and smiled demurely at her best friend. The last thing she wanted to do right now was sit down while June and her grandparents got everything together for her birthday dinner. She had to do something or the nerves would overtake her. It may have been her birthday, but she had a little surprise for her husband. Thinking of him as her husband made her heart flutter, but it was a wonderful sensation reminding her that every beloved inch of him and every beat of his heart belonged to her. That she belonged to him just as completely. Her lips lifted higher when she again looked out the window. They’d been married for just over a month now and her appreciation for him had only grown in that time. Loving him, unlike what she’d once feared, was not a mistake. Marrying him after so short a courtship hadn’t been a mistake, either.

  Oh, and what a beautiful ceremony it had been, too. As he’d wanted, they’d been married beneath a grove of shivering gold aspen. The grove they’d chosen had had some people wondering at their sanity and others shaking their head in amusement. Most of their guests had arrived on four-wheelers. She and Pat had, too. June had taken pictures of the little turn around in the road leading to the sheep field and the memory of it, packed with dirt bikes and four-wheelers, still made her giggle. Everyone had had to walk a quarter mile to get to the grove at the top of the last hill before the road dropped in to the sheep field, but not one of them had complained about that. By a miracle, her gorgeous, full-skirted, white wedding gown had made it there with out a trace of dirt.

  She glanced at the new photo on the wall behind her. Pat had been drop-dead gorgeous in his midnight blue tux. She hadn’t looked too bad either. The strapless bodice had shown off her neck and shoulders marvelously. June had taken that photo, too, of the wedding kiss. The smile on their faces hadn’t faded.

  “It was a beautiful wedding, Aeli,” June remarked. “And it suited you both.”

  “Not every little girl’s fantasy, but I liked it.”

  She liked her ring, too, which Pat had designed himself. Being the crafter she was, she’d wanted to do it, but was glad he hadn’t let her. It was truly beautiful. He’d chosen to immortalize the flax ring he’d given her in diamond, tanzanite, emerald and white gold. It was dainty and elegant and absolutely the most stunning ring she’d ever seen. Five round tanzanite petals surrounded a small diamond on the engagement ring and the wedding band interlocked with two teardrop emeralds for leaves, one on each side of the flower. The channel band they’d selected together for Pat’s wedding ring had been set, at their request, with matching stones. Their wedding set, though far less flashy and expensive than the massive engagement ring Bryce had given her or the one Pat told her Sara had bought for herself, was far more exquisite. The love they’d found glittered in every cherished stone and every curve of white gold. Sentimental value had no monetary equal, she thought, smiling again like she had in June’s photo.

  Just then, her grandparents came in. Both their coats were dusted with snowflakes. Her grandfather had an armload of logs for the fire and her grandmother had a sack of groceries and the mail.

  “I thought I’d bring it up,” Marge said. She handed a couple of envelopes to June and a larger stack to Aelissm. “I can finish up the cake if you girls wouldn’t mind helping your grandfather with the wood.”

  “Sure thing, Grandma,” Jun
e said.

  She scooted out the front door just as Pat and Luke arrived with the board games Aelissm had sent them up to fetch. She greeted them both with a smile, though the one she gave her husband was considerably hotter. Holding up the mail, she asked, “Want to help me go through this in a minute? Looks like it’s mostly cards and congratulations.”

  “Sure, but didn’t I just hear Grandma ask you and June to help with the wood?” he asked.

  “That’s why I said, ‘in a minute’. You and Luke can help, too. Five people will make it quick and easy.”

  They each brought in a load and stacked it beside the stove in the corner of the living room. Aelissm paused to admire her grandparents’ cabin. She’d always loved the open layout. The living room and dining room made up the front half with the kitchen attached to the dining room. Only the bedroom in the back corner, the little pantry and the bathroom were closed off. Like her cabin, it was efficient to heat, even with the big front windows that looked out over the clearing all the way to the mountains south of the Northstar Valley. Aeli narrowed her eyes. The clearing wouldn’t be clear much longer. It was already carpeted with sapling lodgepole pines.

  “You know, I’m a little surprised that I’m not sick of being happy all the time,” she remarked. “It’s not like me at all.”

  “Hush up and help me open all this,” Pat said.

  She joined him at the dining room table. They made quick work of the pile. There were a couple of bills and a lot of cards offering congratulations, gift cards and money. The last envelope Pat handed to her to open. When she saw the name and return address, she shook her head and smiled. Six months ago, seeing Adam’s handwriting had made her cower. Now, she looked forward to hearing from him. She took the letter opener from Pat cut the envelope open.

  “It’s an invitation,” she said, opening the card. “Adam and Amber are getting married in the first week of June, down in West Yellowstone.”

  Frowning, she counted on her fingers. November, December, January… June. Eight months. “I’m gonna be huge,” she muttered.

  “What did you say?” Pat asked.

  She looked up, blanching. He watched her with a frown of confusion. “Oh, dear. This isn’t how I was planning to tell you.”

  “Tell me what?”

  “Well, you remember that night on our honeymoon… we, uh, got a little rambunctious and something broke?”

  “You’re pregnant,” he said.

  She nodded shyly, acutely aware of the five pairs of eyes on her. “According to the little stick I peed on this morning.”

  “But you just went off the pill before the wedding.” Pat sat back in the chair, resting his hands on his thighs. “Wow. We’d talked about not waiting too long to have kids, what with me being so old, but…. Wow.”

  “Hey, twenty-nine, isn’t old, Mr. O’Neil,” Aeli remarked. “And I know we were thinking of starting our family in a year or two, but apparently Mother Nature had other ideas.”

  “Well, seems to me that starting a family around here doesn’t follow tradition any more than anything else does,” he replied, glancing at June and Luke.

  Aelissm laughed. “I really had planned to tell you differently. And it’s still really early. Anything could happen.”

  He leaned across the table, took her by the chin and kissed her. “I sincerely hope not. Grandma, can we have some glasses of juice for a toast, please?”

  When the glasses had been distributed, Pat raised his, grinning. The only time she’d seen that exact smile had been on their wedding.

  “June, get a picture of him, will you?” Aeli requested. “He’s smiling like an idiot again and I want proof.”

  Everyone chuckled. June obliged and Pat patiently waited for them to stop laughing.

  “Here’s to my beautiful wife,” he began. “Mrs. Aelissm O’Neil, the woman who showed me life wasn’t over. And the woman who’s currently in the process of making me a father, something I thought, not too long ago, would never happen for me.”

  They all drank to that and Aelissm felt her face warm.

  “Here’s to my husband, who taught me what real love is.” They drank to Pat, too, before she added, “And to making our own traditions. Because this family seems fond of it.”

  Turn the page for a sneak peek of the next book in the Northstar Angels…

  Summer Angel

  Chapter One

  WHEN THE CALL CAME over the radio about a possible drunk and disorderly near the Hood Canal Bridge, Ben was wondering if it would be too late to call June when his shift ended in an hour. Probably, he thought as he turned his patrol car around and headed north toward the bridge. Dinner with her and Aelissm last night had been wonderful, and he looked forward to a repeat. June wouldn’t be heading back to Montana for at least two weeks, and Aelissm had recently withdrawn from her summer classes in Seattle. With a snort, he mused that though her name sounded like the flower alyssum, she was no delicate lady. Neither was June, for that matter, who could be as gentle as a summer breeze or as fierce as the Montana thunderstorms he missed so much.

  He pushed his thoughts and memories aside as he pulled into the gas station. Sure enough, a man—plainly inebriated—staggered out of the convenience store, pausing momentarily with his hand gripping the metal edge of the glass door to regain his balance. Ben put his car in park and studied the man for a moment, noting the unkempt brown hair, grimy white T-shirt and ragged jeans. Ben guessed the man was in his mid-thirties, but he looked older; the wear and tear of a rough life distorted the youth of his face. He was a smallish man, standing only an inch or two over five-and-a-half feet with the kind of thin, ropy musculature that disguised a surprising strength. He straightened and slammed the door, cursing loudly.

  Down on his luck? Ben wondered, swallowing the stab of pity. Unsnapping the leather guard on his holster, he stepped out of his car. Adrenaline trickled through his veins, heightening his senses.

  “Evening,” he called pleasantly to the man.

  The man looked up at him with bloodshot brown eyes and snarled. The back of Ben’s neck tingled and his hair stood on end as the trickle turned into a flood and primal instinct drove any thoughts but survival from his mind. His heart pounded, and seeing the flash of bright metal, he dove behind his patrol car just as the first shot whizzed by him. Another shot and another cracked in the still evening. Ben yanked his gun out of its holster and edged around to the passenger side. Carefully opening the door, he reached for his radio.

  “Shots fired! Shots fired!” He relayed his information and location, then knelt beside his car, using it as a shield.

  The man swayed drunkenly, glaring with his pistol shakily aimed in Ben’s direction.

  “Drop it!” Ben bellowed. “Get on the ground! Now! Face down, on the ground!”

  The shooter didn’t seem to hear him.

  Please don’t make me shoot you!

  The man fired again and again, his shots singing wildly in every direction. One of the convenience store windows shattered, and the clerk inside screamed. A slug ricocheted with a zing off a concrete parking block and tore across Ben’s thigh. Ignorant of the pain, he braced his forearms on the hood of his car and trained his gun on the man.

  “Drop it, goddammit! I will shoot you!”

  For one long, agonizing moment, the man paused, standing as still as a statue. Ben took aim at his leg, intending to disable him. Just as he squeezed the trigger and the gun bucked in his hands, the man stumbled.

  Oh, God.

  * * *

  Ben snapped awake with the gunshot echoing in his mind. He stared blindly into the dark room and quivered, his skin damp with cold sweat. He was awake, but the nightmare played on. With the same horrifying detail the dream had had, he saw the bullet slam into the man’s chest and sat helplessly paralyzed as the memory continued to unfold. Blood bloomed on the dingy white t-shirt and the gun slipped from the man’s hand as his legs folded beneath him. He was dead before he hit the pavement.
/>   Even in his dreams, Ben still couldn’t recall much of what happened in the following hours and days. The only clear memory he had was of later that night, when he’d stood in Bill Granger’s office, staring at an eleven-year-old boy with blond hair and tears spilling from frightened blue eyes. That memory was the sharpest of them all and sliced him more deeply each time he recalled it. The horror of killing a man was nothing compared to the guilt that had crashed through him as he was debriefed by Aelissm’s uncle—a man Ben had known as a close family friend for years before he’d joined the sheriff’s department. The man he’d shot was John McKindel, and the boy was his son. Now, because of Ben, the boy was no one’s son. No one’s brother. No one’s nephew or cousin or grandson.

  Bill had conducted the investigation into the shooting and reported that Ben had acted well within his duties and the law, but that didn’t matter. Ben absently traced his thumb over the smooth, four-inch-long white scar on his left thigh. The bullet had burned a shallow furrow across his leg a hand span above his knee, and he was lucky it was the only one that had struck him. But that didn’t matter, either. Two weeks past his twenty-fifth birthday, with only three of the many years he’d hoped to serve as a sheriff’s deputy behind him, he’d killed a man and—so much worse—destroyed a young boy’s life.

  Ben sagged back to the mattress and covered his face with his shaking hands. He tried not to remember the name, but it exploded in his mind, and he groaned. He would never forget it. Luke Allen McKindel. He was tiny for an eleven-year-old, Ben had thought, barely four and a half feet tall, rail-thin, and pale. How could someone who looked so weak and frightened possibly survive in this world on his own? The boy had looked at Ben, and for the briefest moment, they had locked gazes. Even now, nearly five years later, Ben wanted to wretch at the fear and uncertainty in those blue eyes.

  Ben glanced at the obscenely perky green numbers of his bedside clock and flopped the spare pillow over his eyes. It was half past four in the morning. With a grunt, he flipped back his blankets and pushed himself out of bed. His golden retriever lifted his head and whined softly. Smart dog, Ben thought, you know when I’m down. Ben patted the dog’s head, and Casey thumped his tail slowly.