Page 43 of When the Angel Falls First

I hung up, and good sense immediately made me wonder what the actual fuck I was doing.

Hours ago, I was ready to throw my body and soul at Caleb. Now, I was going on a mystery date with an unknown quasi-obsessive rock enthusiast. What if he turned out to be a serial killer? The more I thought about it, the more I realized I had to be careful. Safety first. As long as he picked a public place and not a random abandoned parking lot to meet up.

That seemed unlikely. For all his strangeness, he seemed like a mostly normal guy. With a sexy voice. And maybe even rock-hard abs.

A sense of excitement bubbled up inside me as I tried to fall asleep. I was taking life by the horns. And for the first time in a while, it felt like the right direction.

The next morning,I arrived at the Bookish Cat to find Heathcliff, Gatsby, and Matilda already there. “Good morning, magic furballs.”

They sat in the middle of the shop as if holding some secretive cat conference, their eyes glinting with hidden knowledge. Their inexplicable presence before me only added fuel to my magician cat theory.

Many new customers, including a class of second-graders studying mythology, kept me busy until late afternoon.

I turned to the shipment that had come in from England. Crates of books, their spines vibrant and uncreased, fresh off the press of an independent publisher. And I was their first stateside customer! I was going to put the Bookish Cat on the map, I could feel it in my bones.

As I began to arrange them, their familiar smell wafted toward me, a comforting mix of paper, ink, and something indefinably bookish.

I was in the middle of categorizing a set of dark police procedurals when my phone buzzed with a new text.

Ethan: Hey, are you excited for our date or am I rocking the boat with my eagerness? Here’s what I’m thinking…

I rolled my eyes at the pun but was relieved to see he’d selected a gorgeous little spot in the Central District. Very public, and not setting off my sketch-o-meter.Perfect.

I was just about to reply when the bell over the shop door jingled, and there he was. Caleb. His eyes met mine as I shoved my phone behind a stack of books. If Caleb saw that I was texting with another man…

So what if he did? I had nothing to hide. I was a grown-ass woman who owned her own business and was taking life by the horns, wasn’t I?

Sure, Caleb’s eyes sought out the deepest part of me as hestepped tentatively closer, and the affection he felt was so obvious on his face that I couldn’t help feeling a tiny bit guilty for trying to run off with someone just to forget him.

Stop it, Josie. He’s not yours. You ought to forget him, and fast.

“Caleb! Is it time already?”

He looked at his watch. “Closing time has come, and here I am.” His smile was nervous. “Just like we said.”

He let out a long exhale, and the air of it washed over me like a sea breeze. Calming my anxious bones. It took every ounce of willpower I had not to wrap my arms around him and forget everything he’d said. Let our lips meet the way they were supposed to, searching hungrily for the other as I’d imagined all these years.

And like he’d done last night.

With a deep inhale, I veered the conversation into safer territory. “So, Caleb,” I began, leaning against the counter. “Tell me more about this matchmaking mission of yours.”

He blinked, as if surprised by my formal tone of voice, and then nodded, leaning back against a bookshelf. His eyes were serious as he spoke to me like a colleague, but his muscles flexed, and I remembered how strong he was when he pulled me into him. “Well, first I’ve got Jonathan and Kim, who are absolutely destined to be together and won’t let me make it happen.”

I pursed my lips to think. “Okay, sure. But if they don’t want it, maybe it isn’t meant to be.”

“That’s not how this works.”

“Maybe you should explain it to me.”

He scratched the back of his head, squeezing those fine lips to the side. “These are couples who should have been together already,but I made errors early on that got in the way. I’m lucky to have been given a second chance to correct my mistakes and help them find love now.”

“Errors, huh?”

“Yeah. Lots of them.” The sheepish look on his face was more boyish than man, and I got a glimpse of how he might have been if he hadn’t been a powerful other-worldly being. “The list I was given, to prove my worth, was many couples long. Only two are left now, and I’m getting desperate to finish. Anything to be back in good standing. The alternative is… unbearable. I need this, Josie.”

That vulnerability, thehonestyof it, wasn’t only utterly endearing, it was sexy beyond my ability to manage. A lock of hair fell into his eyes, and without thinking I reached up to move it aside. He looked surprised at first, and then the corners of his eyes filled with understanding. And then they filled withsomething else. From my fingertips straight to my core came that shot, the electrical wave that made my body react. I was sure he could hear my heart beating, it was so loud, so intense.

What am I doing?I reprimanded myself.Why is everything in me rebelling against my better judgment, demanding that I touch him?

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