Page 19 of Matches and Mistletoe
He nods. “You have friends here?”
“I do. I did.” Somehow, in the months since Mary’s birth, I’ve lost track of most of them. One or two still call occasionally; but I’m so busy always, with work and the children. I have no time for them, and they’ve drifted away from me.
He must see the shadow on my face, because he says, “It’s the way of things. People move into your life, and out again. It hurts, every time. Until you learn not to care.”
“That’s a sad way to live.”
“Maybe. Some would call it survival.”
“Well, I don’t want to survive by not caring. I want to care—I just don’t have the energy for it most of the time. Or for life in general.”
“I’ll tell you a secret,” he says, leaning closer. “When you feel that way, do something new, something you’ve never done before. It could be anything. Pick a new thing, and do it, and you’ll find you have more zest for life than you thought. You can go on for centuries that way.”
My breath and my heart rate speed up in unison as he smiles. Something about him feels unnatural, not quite right. He’s gorgeous, sure, but he makes me uncomfortable. Those silver eyes, and those brilliant white teeth, and the golden glow I saw earlier, at his fingertips.
I narrow my eyes at him, shaking my head. “You’re not human. You’re something else.”
Something dark leaps into his gaze, something cautious and predatory. “Why do you say that?”
“You just appeared, to save Ellie, to bring her back. You stayed around to help. You act as if you have nowhere else to go.”
He glances away.
“I mean, surely you have things to do. A family.”
“Of a sort. They’re none too pleased with me right now. I have interfered in their business, and their pleasure.” He says the words low, as if he’s talking mostly to himself.
“Are you an angel?” I blurt out the words before I lose my courage.
His eyes snap to mine, startled. “An angel?”
“Yes, an angel. Servant of God, guardian of man, holy messenger?”
His eyes crinkle at the corners again. “Would an angel have kissed you like I did?”
“I—I don’t know.”
“Let’s put it this way, love,” he says, leaning toward me and smirking. “I’m perpetually, eternally on the naughty list.”
Something about the devilish gleam in his eyes makes me reach for my rosary beads. He follows the movement to the string of them, and to the crucifix around my neck.
“You’re Catholic?” he asks.
“Irish Catholic. It’s in my blood.”
“Hmm.” He stands suddenly, shrugs out of his coat, and tosses it over a chair. My eyes widen at the lean beauty of him, crisp lines of a muscular body under a red pullover shirt and dark pants.
“So you have a priest then?”
“Yes.”
“And do you confess everything to this priest?”
“Lately I haven’t done much that needed confessing.”
Seating himself again, he grins. “What a shame.” Somehow, when he sat down, he ended up closer to me. I can almost feel the heat of him, that magnetic pull that seems to reach right down inside my body.
Suddenly I can’t think of anything except being closer to him, touching him, kissing him again. Feeling alive again.
