Page 19 of Ruled By Fate

She caught herself suddenly and let out a sigh of relief. “Sherry? Yeah, she’s the best.”

He nodded thoughtfully, his eyes on the road. “She cares for you deeply,” he murmured. “She thinks of you before herself.”

Brie nodded along absentmindedly, then looked over in sudden shock. “You know what she’s thinking?”

Do you know what I’m thinking?

He shook his head vaguely. “I know what she’s done.”

A profound silence followed this remark.

“How do you know what she’s done?”

His face flushed, and he became suddenly absorbed in the locking mechanism on her glove compartment. “I have a great many powers I find difficult to explain in only three dimensions.”

If I had a dime.

She drew in a deep breath and looked back at the road. “We’ll have to work on dialing down those little truth bombs. It’s bad for my blood pressure.”

He shot her a look of alarm, then placed two fingers on the inside of her wrist, feeling for her pulse. “Do you have any basil root?”

Her eyebrows shot into her hair. “Excuse me? Basil—”

“Basil root. To help with your blood pressure.”

There was a moment of silence.

“I honestly can’t tell if you’re joking.”

He turned back to the road, looking slightly unsettled. “Neither can I.”

For the next few minutes, the two drove in perfect silence, trying to ignore each other and trying to ignore the watchful gaze of the teddy bear on the dash between them. When that silence became too much, too charged with things unsaid, she turned to the radio, fiddling with the dials, finding and rejecting several stations at lightning speed.

After watching for a minute or so, he had to ask. “What are you looking for?”

“Anything classical. Anything soothing.”

He cocked his head, then gave the dial a slight touch. Two clear, bell-like soprano voices rang out in perfect harmony, trilling a moment before soaring to even greater heights.

Her heart quickened, and she looked at the radio in surprise. “‘The Flower Duet!’ How did you…?”

He simply looked out the window. “It’s your favorite when things are complicated.”

Just like tomato soup is my favorite when I don’t feel well.

Her eyes fixed upon him as those words from the diner echoed in her mind. “I found you because I was already there!”

Those questions started spinning again, and for a split second, she almost lost that tenuous grip. Who else in the world was having a conversation with their guardian angel? How was it possible that a person like him could even exist? Could she even call him a person? Was that right? And why, in the name of Heaven and Hell, was she being forced to ask all of these questions?

She stared a moment longer, then turned to focus on the road. “Complicated, huh?”

Better play it on a loop.

? ? ?

Two hours later, the situation had gone downhill.

The sweet balm of the music wore off around the same time Cameron decided it was a good time to start asking her questions or “dissecting the mortal nonsense,” as he’d called it with delight. She’d tried humoring him. She’d tried leaping from the car. Nothing had worked.

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