Page 2 of No Angels

He lifts his head. “Take a minute, Cassidy. But that’s all I’m letting you have. I need to store up memories so I won’t miss you as much when you go.”

Mike Callihan is the kind of guy who doesn’t let on how he feels. I’m always teasing him about his poker face, and he’s beaten me at every single high stakes card game we’ve played. If I was so essential to him, why didn’t he tell me sooner?

“Mike, I never suspected you felt this way. It’s too fast and too unexpected.”

“It’s just a kiss, Cassidy, not a marriage proposal.”

“I know,” I grumble into the tiny space between us as he drops his head again. Why didn’t he tell me sooner? Would it have affected my decision to leave?

Something in my tone must be a red flag, because he tilts my face up and scrutinizes my expression. “That’s not something you want, right?”

I shake my head. “Nope, just wish you’d kissed me sooner.”

“I always thought you wanted to be nothing more than friends. It’s funny,” he says as he slides the pads of his fingers down the line of my throat. “We told each other every secret but the one that would have changed everything the most.”

“You wish you’d kissed me sooner?”

“Hell, yeah,” he mutters as he drops his mouth to mine again.

It’s a long time before we come up for air.

Chapter One

Mike

Twenty years ago, BiancaCassidy showed me the only angels I’ll find here in Willow Creek have shredded wings and crumpled halos.

I can’t believe she’s back and I want to know why. When the mayor, Zane Reid introduced us, she just reached out her hand and said, “We already know each other. Long time no see, Mike.”

I was too dumbstruck to reply with anything other than a curt nod.

But the first rehearsal is over, and the last angel in the choir just got picked up. I snag Bianca’s arm and haul her behind the curtains in case there are any parents left to eavesdrop on what I need to say.

It smells like sawdust and lemon oil back here, and the motes I just stirred up when I brushed past the heavy velvet are swimming in little clouds. It’s quiet and secluded and I can get the answers I need for my peace of mind.

“What are you doing here?” I ignore the crack at the end of my question that lets on how much I’m invested in her answer.

She left the morning after we graduated from Willow Creek High School and never looked back.

The morning after the kiss that turned my world upside down, she hopped on a bus to New York City. The kiss that made me feel like I’d just figured out how to start a fire, that rewired my brain, wasn’t enough to change her mind. It wasn’t enough to keep her in Willow Creek.

What I was offering her when I kissed her wasn’t enough to hold her here, and I gave up on making her mine years ago.

I’m lying to myself, because I’ve been thinking about the kiss off and on since the day she left. I wonder if there’s anything I could have done to change her mind. Like kissing her sooner. Like using my words to let her know how I felt the night before she was going to leave this place and never look back.

There were a couple of calls – but it was before cell phones were really a thing. One day I called because I wanted to hear her voice and ask if she’d be home for Christmas and it wasn’t her who answered. The guy who picked up the phone told me she was in the shower and if I was that loser from back home I should just do myself a favor and stop calling because she was never going back to that podunk place. He said she always laughed – and not in a nice way- when she talked about it and me.

So I never called again. I let her drift away.

I thought about her because there was an empty space where her smile used to be. For the first fifteen years, I couldn’t stand the smell of strawberries.

When her mom was diagnosed with cancer the first time and she didn’t come back, I stopped thinking about the Boone’s Farm strawberry kiss and the way the freckles across her nose looked like the Sagittarius constellation by the end of summer. Because she’d grown into someone I didn’t know. Nothing would have kept away the girl I knew. Not even a natural disaster.

I made myself forget the way she murmured my name when I cupped her nape in that hayfield and her voice was like cotton candy and hot fudge sundaes.

She’s staring at me like I’ve offended her. But I need to know what she’s doing here after all this time. Besides disrupting my life.

“Come on, Bianca. We both know you’re not really here to shepherd around a bunch of rowdy five-year-old angels and herd cats so you can direct a mediocre town Christmas play. Why are you really here?”

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