Page 77 of Price of Angels

Because the world was scary, but family should have meant love and acceptance.

“It doesn’t always work that way,” Maggie had told her several Christmases before, on a night when Denise had had one too many glasses of Chardonnay and lit into Ghost. “But you know what? Mom wouldn’t have been happy even if I’d done exactly what she wanted. She’s not a happy person. So I stopped trying to please her, and I met your dad” – her arm had squeezed around Ava’s shoulders – “and I had you, and I love you, and your brother more than anything in the world. We’re our own family.”

Ava took a deep breath, and it fogged the window. On the other side of the glass, the first downy white flakes were begin to drift down from the triple-stacked gray clouds.

“It’s snowing,” she murmured.

Michael woke before her. It was the faint gray light of a cloudy dawn that roused him, and his consciousness filled with the soft smells of clean sheets and warm skin. He opened his eyes and there was Holly, lying on her side and facing him, one hand upturned on the mattress between them, fingers lightly curled. Her face was smooth with sleep, a delicate porcelain in the pale light, her hair in dark loose waves across her shoulders.

The scar on her wrist looked faint and silver in this morning glow, not the angry red bracelet it had been last night under the lamps.

Michael had thought, for so many years, that what his mother had suffered at the hands of his father had been the worst kind of abuse. He’d been wrong, of course. Holly was living proof of that. She’d survived worse –survived. She was a living, breathing, warm girl in the bed beside him. After all that she’d endured, she’d been whole enough to welcome him into her arms, to dig her nails into his skin and whimper against his mouth when she wanted more.

How?

His head was empty save for that question. How was she this sweet, soft thing who’d never seenThe Wizard of Oz? How was she the girl, of all girls, who leaned into him rather than away?

How was he going to explain to his president that he’d killed three possible sources of information because he couldn’t stomach the idea of them drawing another breath?

He reached with one fingertip and traced the scar at her wrist. Felt the faint rough texture of the skin there. Felt the small steady beat of her pulse.

Her eyes opened. Michael saw the split second in which she reminded herself where she was and who she was with, and then she smiled at him, the gesture drowsy and content and a little shy. “Morning.”

“Hi.”

“Did you sleep alright?” she asked. “This mattress is kind of old and lumpy.”

“It was fine.”

His finger shifted, gliding up into her palm, following the line in the center of it. Holly’s fingers closed over his.

“I had a dream,” she said, her eyes coming to his face. “That your wings were real; that you could fly.”

“Wouldn’t have much need of a bike then, would I?”

She gave a quiet laugh. “No, I guess not.” Then she sat up.

His eyes fixed to the way the covers slipped down, and the gray light curved around the full globes of her breasts, the cold-tightened nipples throwing little shadows. She shook her hair out and he saw the faint pink lines of scars on her naked back: marks from the belt.

“I’d better get up if I’m going to make it to the store before work,” she said, reaching for the terry robe hooked on the bedpost and sliding her arms into it.

He frowned. “Store.”

“To get stuff for our dinner. I don’t keep turkey and stuffing on hand all the time,” she teased.

“Oh.” He sat up beside her, raked at his sleep-flattened hair. “What do you need? I can go.”

She paused and turned to him, her eyes wide. “You can?”

He felt his frown deepen. “I buy eggs and coffee somewhere, don’t I?”

“Well, yeah, but I…” Thinking better of it, she nodded. “I’ll make you a list.”

She swung out of bed, belted her robe and walked to the kitchen to do just that.

In the pure spill of light from the window, she looked like a carefully crafted miniature of a person, a little figurine. The robe sagged open a bit in front, giving him a view of the insides of her breasts and the smooth flat of her belly. He swore he could see the tunnels his fingers had dug through her hair last night.

With pen poised above a pad of paper, she said, “Oh, look, it’s snowing.”

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