Inked by an Angel

by Allen, Shauna

  Her mother cleared her throat and someone across the room coughed.

  Kyle’s eyes flew to Charles’s. She lifted her left hand, shaking, to his. “Okay.”

  “Yes?”

  She nodded.

  “Thank God,” he whispered under his breath as he slipped the ring on her finger. The band slid around precariously. “We’ll get it sized,” he assured her. He rose to accept her father’s handshake.

  Kyle sat there like a mummified statue. The ring felt like a lead weight on her hand. Her mother patted her shoulder and pasted on her country club smile. “Took you long enough to answer him,” she hissed under her breath.

  “Yeah, well . . .” Her eyes darted around the room seeing no one in particular.

  “People are staring,” her mother admonished. “Smile. You’ve just landed the catch of the century.”

  Yes, of course. All tied up with a neat little bow. The frumpy little daughter of the beauty queen somehow, someway, miracle of miracles, snagged the guy that was so far out of her league it wasn’t even funny. It should be a made-for-TV movie.

  Her lips pulled across her teeth as she tried to smile and her stomach clenched painfully. She caught her brother’s eye. He grinned, seeming to be truly happy for her. Was he so clueless? Of course he was. He was practically a clone of Charles. Another one of those “perfect” guys all the mothers wanted their daughters to marry. Kyle felt like a dud. Maybe she had been switched at birth. Maybe there was a beautiful girl out there in a trailer park somewhere feeling like she didn’t belong. Maybe she’d always dreamed of country clubs and cotillion balls.

  Breathe. Breathe. She sucked in air as she felt panic begin to build.

  Her mother’s inane chatter filled her ears as the country club biddies began to surround them. She searched the crowd for her father, hoping something in his usually distant personality would calm her. He loved her in his own way. Didn’t he? Frantically, she searched for him as the air was sucked from the room and she felt the ring on her finger wanting to consume her hand like a pit of quicksand.

  Her father was nowhere to be seen. She jumped up from her chair, knocking it back several inches. Her mom and the women, who now all strangely looked just like her, stared at Kyle with varying degrees of pity.

  Her vision began to tunnel and her chest felt like a hippopotamus had taken up residence there. She sucked in a strangled breath. “If you’ll excuse me.”

  She rushed to the restroom, splashed water on her face, and studied her pale, ghost-like reflection. That’s when it hit her. Just when she had decided to get on with her own life, make her own way, she had veered back onto her mother’s course.

  But she loved Charles, right?

  “Mrs. Charles Benson, Jr.” She tried out the name, trying to forget that her mother had handpicked him for her.

  She tried to smile again, but it looked forced. “I’m an engaged woman now.” She looked again.

  “Holy Mary . . . ! NOOOOO!” she cried.

  Her brand new engagement ring had just been washed down the drain.

  Chapter 3

  “Michael.” Kyle grabbed his arm and made him look at her while using her best schoolmarm’s voice. How she’d ever been intimidated by him was beyond her. He was as soft and gooey as the inside of a Cadbury egg. No wonder his clients called him ‘The Angel.’ She wondered what it would take for her to get a ‘street name.’ Well, other than the derogatory Miss Muffet that Jed kept calling her, which she thought she did a pretty good job of ignoring, darn him.

  Either way, she’d been coming to Gentry’s studio every night for the past week-and-a-half to work on Michael’s books. They should have been pretty straightforward. File some invoices, log his expenses, have him sign off on the tax forms. Done. She could be free to search for more clients. She needed to search for more clients if this business of hers was going to survive. But, no. Instead, every night without fail he had totally undone all of her work one way or another.

  Now, he turned innocent eyes to hers. “Yeah?”

  The bell chimed and she glanced over as Jed ambled in looking as grumpy as he did every night. He didn’t glance her way, but he did exchange his customary grunted greeting with the ever-silent Noble.

  She sighed and turned back to Michael. “How could you spend”—she scanned the printout from his credit card statement— “$327.99 on tattoo ink and not have accounted for it in your books? And where did you move those files I saved on your computer?”

  “Files?” His face went blank.

  “Yes. The ones I saved under Accounts?”

  “‘Accounts?’”

  She nodded, feeling bile start to rise in the back of her throat. She wondered if it was too late to call and beg her father for her job back. She’d meant for this venture out on her own, running her own business, to be liberating, freeing, not suicidal. With Michael it was a flat-out Kamikaze mission. Perhaps it would be better to die a slow death by boredom at her desk in her dad’s fancy-schmancy office. But she knew she could never go back. She was tired of hiding behind his name, being Daddy’s little girl with all the expectation and none of the affection. It had become plainly obvious she’d never get his approval, and never be her own person. Then, when the day came that one of his senior partners forgot her name at a board meeting and her dad said nothing. Nothing. She resigned the next day.

  She. Had. To. Make. This. Work.

  If not, she could imagine her father’s apathy and how her mother would gloat over her perceived ‘failure.’ No. Never. She’d die trying in the trenches otherwise known as Michael.

  She glanced down at the ring on her left hand. After the kindly maintenance man at the country club had done some pipe surgery and fetched her ring from the bathroom P trap, Charles had had it fitted with a sizer until he could get it back to the jeweler.

  She thought of Charles in his tweed jackets and polo shirts and penny loafers. He was perfectly content as Junior VP at her father’s firm with his window office, awaiting his turn at the helm. Why couldn’t it be enough for her?

  If she listened to her mother, it was because she wasn’t meant to use her CPA license. She was meant for the Real Housewives of Travis County-Country Club Sect. She was a useless, frigid, wife-in-training, and she was petrified.

  “Nice ring, Miz O’Neill. You gettin’ married?” Michael asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Ah.” He shifted his considerable weight uncomfortably. “So, I think I might’ve deleted it.”

  “Might’ve . . . what?”

  “I deleted it. The file. Accounts, did you say? It’s a goner. I didn’t know what it was.” He shrugged. “Sorry.”

  There was the pulse behind her right eye again. “What do you mean, you didn’t know what it was? It was called accounts!” Her voice was slightly hysterical with the last word.

  Jed walked over. “What’s going on, Muffet?”

  She glared at him. She’d had it. “Bite me.”

  Michael took the cramped stairs leading to the basement of the Old Tabernacle Church for his AA meeting with his shoulders slumped, his heart saddened, and feeling absolutely dejected. Nothing was going according to plan. And Divine plan was not something to be messed with. He knew from experience.

  Gabriel stood up once the doors were sealed with light and called the meeting to order. “All right, everyone. Let’s get started. Is everybody here?” He looked around. “Good. So, let’s talk about our week.” He turned kind eyes to Rafael across the circle. “Rafe. Start with you? How are you doing?”

  The golden boy of the group sat up straighter in his chair and smiled. “Well, things are moving along quite nicely, actually. My humans, Gloria and Roger . . . ”

  Michael cringed. Rafael spoke like they were pets. Angels were not on Earth to keep humans as pets. They
were here on assignment from the Big Guy Himself. They may be only Archangel namesakes on Earth, but theirs was serious business. No foolin’ around.

  Rafael continued. “Well, they’ve been dating several weeks now. I’ve hardly had to intervene at all other than to introduce them. The chemistry is quite amazing. Father does know what He’s doing, doesn’t He?”

  His brothers and sisters at what they affectionately called Angels Anonymous all nodded their agreement. How had Michael ended up with this dud of an assignment? Jed and Kyle certainly were not cooperating. They were worse than Henry and Catherine, Henry and Anne, Henry and, well . . . , just Henry in general. Now he was paying several lifetimes of lovematch penance so he could finally graduate from the Cupid Squad and move up to the Messaging Brigade. What he wouldn’t give to just once be able to say:

  Hark, do not be afraid! and have a really cool message for a human from Father. But, he should be glad he hadn’t bumbled it badly enough to have his wings clipped and be cast down as a dark one. He’d take going back to halo polishing or wing prep, heck even Crossovers. Anything but being cast out. That would be unbearable.

  “That’s great, Rafe,” Gabe’s voice cut in. “Rafael Sr. will be getting a full report. Well done!” Gabriel interrupted his fantasy. “What about you, Michael?”

  He looked up. “Huh?”

  Gabe tilted his head. “How about you? How are”—he ran his eyes over his notes—“Jedediah and Kyle doing? Have they made any progress in their union?”

  “Well, uh . . .”

  Rafael snickered and Michael felt himself flush with embarrassment. Just because he was probably going to skip Messenger and jump straight to Prophecy was no reason to get all big-headed. Michael still had time. Kyle wasn’t married to that other guy yet, though that was a sticky, unforeseen bump in his road. The game wasn’t lost and he hadn’t been demoted to halo polisher just yet.

  “Well?”

  “Oh. Sure. Jed and Kyle, they’ve, uh, met.”

  Gabe furrowed his perfect brows. “They’ve met?”

  “Yeah. I’m giving them time to get to know each other. Letting it simmer. Marinate.” He smiled. He liked that analogy.

  “Marinate? Like, meat?”

  “Does Father know about this?” Rafael demanded.

  Michael shot him a wounded expression. “Stay out of this.”

  “That’s enough.” Gabe spoke up, his light emanating a sudden flare of brilliance and the room became uncomfortably quiet. “Michael, come with me.” He waited until Michael rose from his chair and followed him out of the room to the small private lobby. He motioned for them both to sit.

  “What’s going on, Brother?” he asked, concern in his golden eyes.

  Michael ran a hand over his bald head. His heart was fearful. “My humans are not cooperating. It’s just like before and I’m terrified of having my wings clipped. I never want to become like . . . , you know . . . .” He couldn’t bear to say the name, though they both knew of whom he spoke. Dark ones roamed all around, but the darkest one of all kept them on a short leash and Michael never wanted to be one of them.

  “I understand. Can I ask you something, Michael?”

  Sigh. “Sure.”

  “Why do you think Father has had you on Love Detail for all these many, many years?”

  Michael rolled his eyes. “That is a fairly silly question, Gabe. Because of how badly I screwed it up with Henry. I royally messed up that match. Or matches. And now I’m making up for it until I get enough right to move up the ranks.”

  “And let me ask you, Michael, did you make him divorce his first wife? Or behead poor Miss Boleyn? Or cause any of his other stupid mistakes where love was concerned?”

  Michael stared.

  “Well? Did you?”

  “Well, no.”

  “Did you forget about a little thing called free will that Father granted all of His children, Michael?”

  “Uh . . .”

  “Michael, you are not on our team out of some sort of punishment from Father. You are here because you are good at what you do and we need you here. But whenever you are ready to move on to another task, I will be happy to put in the word for you. And, Brother? Angels are never cast out because of failed assignments or simple mistakes. Our Father is not so unmerciful as that. We lose our light when we willfully break our Angelic Commandments and break Father’s heart. You know this.”

  He nodded, speechless and humbled. He’d allowed himself to be blinded by fear and self-doubt.

  “So,” Gabe continued with a smile. “Tell me more about your couple. What can we do to get them to cooperate with the plan?”

  Michael practically flew back into Gentry’s with a renewed determination to make his Father and his Archangel namesake proud and to make this match. Free will his wings! So far, his little tinkering with the account files and losing receipts to keep Kyle close to Jed at the studio was just not enough. He and Gabe had hatched a plan to up the ante.

  “Hey, Mike, how was your meeting?” Kierstan asked, glancing up from her magazine at the front desk.

  “Fine.”

  He’d had to tell them something when he left every week, so he told them he was a recovering addict and attended AA meetings. It worked remarkably well as his cover and they commended him for his efforts. He hated to lie, but “Hey, I’m an angel,” wouldn’t work either, and it was also strictly forbidden by the second Angel Commandment. An Angel shall never reveal their angelic visage or mission to a human unless commanded, ordained, or, in exceptional cases, Heavenly possession by the Father.

  “Your appointment’s here.” She nodded to a couple of girls sitting in the corner.

  “Sure. I’ll be right back. Seen Jed?”

  She turned back to her magazine. “He’s in the back.”

  Michael knew there was a history there between Jed and Kierstan and it was tricky. But he didn’t have time to tread that water. He had a job to do. He marched back to Jed’s office and knocked on the doorframe to get Jed’s attention.

  “Yeah?” Jed answered without looking up from whatever he was sketching on.

  Michael stepped in and shut the door.

  Jed looked up. “Mike.”

  “So listen,” Michael began, “I’m gonna be having a little party. At my place. I’d like you to come?”

  Jed sat back in his chair and studied him like he’d just sprouted horns. Or wings. “A party? Dude, I didn’t even know you had a place, you’re here so much.”

  “Yeah, well, I like work. And it keeps me busy. Part of recovery . . .” He tried not to choke on the little white falsehood. An Angel shall never bear false witness against another angel. Humans were no easier.

  “Right.” Jed swiveled his chair to the side and stood. “When?”

  “When what?”

  “When is your party?”

  “Oh. Uh, tomorrow night. Eight?”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes. Yes, I’m sure. Tomorrow night. Eight. My place. You’ll come?”

  Jed shrugged. “Sure. Why not? You want me to bring anything?”

  “Nah, I got it covered.”

  Michael stepped out to meet his clients while making a mental checklist. In all his centuries, he’d never hosted a party before. He was kind of excited.

  Chips. Check.

  Soda. Check.

  Music. Check.

  Ornery tattoo artist. Check.

  All he needed now was an accountant.

  Chapter 4

  Kyle held onto Charles’s hand for dear life as she knocked on Michael’s door. She offered him a small smile, more to encourage herself than him. After all, he had no idea she was quaking in her boots. She glanced down. Well, quaking in her new sling-back pumps which were currently pi
nching the tar out of her toes. Hey, they weren’t Louboutin’s, but they weren’t bad. Baby steps. She had told Charles they were invited to a friend’s party. She had not elaborated that Michael was really and truly a client who had become a friend of sorts, nor had she dared describe what Michael looked like.

  God, she prayed silently, please don’t let Charles be an uptight asshole tonight. Please, please, for once let him break free from his country club upbringing and surprise me. Amen.

  She wanted a chance to make some real friends for once in her life.

  Charles squeezed her hand and smiled. In his other hand he held a very expensive bottle of wine he’d purchased to bring as a gift for their host. He was being so thoughtful, she didn’t have the heart to tell him that she was pretty sure Michael had mentioned something about attending AA meetings.

  The door opened and soft light spilled out from dozens and dozens of softly scented candles.

  Sweet Jesus and His crown of thorns.

  It wasn’t Michael who answered. It was Jed. The light pooled around him, softening his hard edges, and for just a moment Kyle was lost in the blue of his eyes.

  “Muffet,” he said as he moved aside to allow her in and then the moment was lost.

  Charles lagged behind like he was confused. She turned around. “You coming?”

  “Kyle?” Charles’s voice was pitiful.

  “Yes?”

  He looked at her like she’d lost her mind. She shifted her focus and scanned the room. Michael smiled at her. Jed still stood by the door watching Charles with only slight interest. Noble leaned against a far wall, dark and intimidating. Right. It looked like a Hells Angels Convention.

  “Come on in, Sweetheart.” She tried to sound calm and convincing. “These are my friends.” She shot Jed a dark look warning him to behave. “That’s Jed.”

  Charles inched in the doorway and moved to stand at her side.