An Angel for Emily Read online

  “Thank you,” the woman said, then bent and kissed Michael’s cheek. Smiling once more at him, she left the ice cream parlor.

  “I don’t want to know,” Emily said as she finished her ice cream. “I don’t want any explanations of a word you said or what you knew. I don’t want to know anything. Do you understand me?” She said the last while glaring at him.

  “Perfectly,” he said, smiling.

  Emily stood. “Look, I think this has gone far enough. It’s obvious that you’re not hurt from the accident and I have a lot of work piled up at home, so I think I should leave.”

  “You aren’t going to help me find out who I am?”

  Her lips pursed. “I think you know very well who you are and it seems that a lot of other people also know. I don’t like being the object of your little jest.”

  “Just minutes ago you were glad that wasn’t my family, that I wasn’t going to desert you to spend the weekend alone and—”

  “Clairvoyant!” she snapped at him. “I don’t know why it’s taken me so long to figure it out. Do you work at one of those psychic hotlines? Do you tell people that the love of their life is just around the corner?” Grabbing her handbag, she turned to leave, but he caught her arm.

  “Emily, I haven’t told you one lie. Well, except maybe a few that you made me tell you. But the basics are true. I really don’t have a home, don’t have anywhere to spend tonight.”

  “You have cash and credit cards and I’ve seen you use them.”

  “I learned by watching others.” He put his hand on her arm. “Emily, I don’t know why I’m here. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do and I need help. All I know for sure is that my life is connected to yours and I need you if I am to complete my task.”

  “I’ve got to go,” she said, suddenly wanting to get away from him as fast as possible. She liked her life as it was and she had a feeling that if she spent even ten more minutes in this man’s company, her life would change in a way that she didn’t want it to. “It has been very nice meeting you and I thank you for…for the dress,” she said hesitantly, then before he could say another word she ran from the ice cream parlor.

  And she didn’t stop running until she got back to the inn.

  “Miss Todd,” the young woman behind the desk said. “I have a package for you.”

  Emily’s first thought was, He couldn’t have. He couldn’t have sent something to her so quickly. Even an angel—Stop that! she ordered herself. Stop that now! He is not an angel; he is merely a very strange man. A strange man with strange powers.

  She took the express package from the woman, thanked her, then went to her room. It wasn’t until she was inside that she saw that the waybill said the package was from Donald.

  “Dear Donald,” she said aloud. Dear, plain Donald, who was a local celebrity because he was on TV. Dear Donald who spent his weekend at the site of a fire. At the moment, a fire seemed so very normal compared to a man who knew a woman’s husband’s name without ever being told. And knew that a child liked music and said that he had known the child for a long, long time.

  She tore into the package and withdrew a flat white box. Inside was a gorgeous black silk teddy. Holding the lovely thing in her hands, she thought how she had never felt such softness, much less owned something like this.

  With trembling hands, she read the card. “Please notice that the label says it’s hand-washable,” was written in Donald’s handwriting. “Your practicality and my sense of the absurd. May they always work together. I love you. Again, I’m sorry about the weekend. Watch the five o’clock news tonight. I’m on…With you.”

  The note brought tears to her eyes. Just when she was sure that Donald was the most vain, selfish man alive, he did something like this. Holding the silk to her face, she fell on the bed and cried a bit from missing him, and from something else that she couldn’t understand. She wished she didn’t hear the voice of her friend Irene in her mind asking pointedly, “But is this really a gift for you or for Donald?”

  “That odious man,” she said aloud, thinking of the dark-haired Michael. Since she had nearly run over him her life had been turned upside down, and she knew that the only way she was going to get herself back to the way she should be was to get rid of him.

  Grabbing her suitcase off the rack in the closet, she began to throw her things into it. She had to leave now, right this minute. The sooner she put this town behind her and went home, the sooner her life would get back to normal.

  But as she was packing, she glanced at her watch. It was already 3:00 P.M., and if she left now she’d miss the five o’clock broadcast, miss seeing whatever her dear, beloved Donald wanted to show her. But what if he came to the room? What if he again tried to get her involved in whatever strangeness that was his life?

  But somehow she knew he wouldn’t. She’d not known Michael Chamberlain for even twenty-four hours, but she sensed that he had great pride. He wouldn’t come to her again, wouldn’t try to force himself on her.

  Good, she thought, as she put the last of her clothes in her suitcase. Emily didn’t like driving at night, but she’d leave immediately after the broadcast, because although maybe Michael didn’t plan to bother her, she was very aware that she felt that she was leaving behind a helpless kitten.

  Ridiculous! she said to herself, then looked at her watch. Ten after three. Less than two hours to go. Piece of cake. She’d…. What would she do for these two hours? She hadn’t seen the craft fair, something she’d been longing to see, but if she went outside she might see him. And she knew that if she looked into those big, dark eyes, she’d succumb. She’d promise to help him do whatever it was he thought he had to do.

  She looked at her watch. Twelve minutes after three. If she saw him she’d probably even try to help him figure out whatever it was that Archangel Michael wanted him to do, she thought with a little laugh. Yes, that was good. Thinking of the ridiculous things he’d told her would help her keep her perspective. Were all the angels named Michael? she should have asked. Or did escapees from mental institutions name themselves that?

  She looked at her watch. Fourteen minutes after three. I think I’ll go out. I think I should buy Donald a gift. With her mouth set, she left the room.

  Chapter 4

  HER ARMS LOADED DOWN WITH BAGS FULL OF GIFTS, Emily ran into her room at one minute to five. “Perfect!” she said, dropping her bags as she turned on the TV. Donald didn’t usually do the weekend news, so she was dying to find out what he was up to. She was calmer now that she’d been out and hadn’t so much as seen a trace of the odd man who had entered her life last night. And she was glad he was gone. Now she could think about her real life, the one that didn’t have even one wing-wearing person in it, she thought with a smile.

  The broadcast came on. She was greeted by the sight of Donald and immediately relaxed. How well she knew his blond good looks, knew the twinkle in his blue eyes. They’d been going together for five years now, engaged for nearly a year, and they’d had some wonderful times together.

  Watching him now, he didn’t look real. He was dressed perfectly, his hair sprayed into place, and he was as remote as though he were computer-generated. Many times when he was wearing old sweats that hadn’t been washed in weeks and he had a three-day stubble on his chin, she’d asked, “Is this Mr. News?” teasing him about the name the station had coined for him. “Is this the man who is being groomed to be the next governor?”

  She loved the way he’d grin at her and tell her to get him another beer. “I don’t think the First Lady fetches beer,” she’d say, then Donald would leap on her and start tickling her, and quite often one thing would lead to another and they’d end up in—

  Emily hadn’t been aware that her reverie had taken up nearly the entire thirty-minute broadcast, but now she came out of it—because there on the screen was a video of her! She was wearing her evening gown and she was walking up to the podium to accept her award of special merit from the National Library Ass