An Angel for Emily Read online

  “Ah well, you think that because you mortals have odd ideas of what we angels are like. Now, would you please get out of bed so we can get something to eat? This body is weak with hunger. What an annoyance this is. How often do I have to feed it?”

  “Once a month,” she said, smiling sweetly. “And give it something to drink every two weeks.”

  Laughing, he said, “Up! Get dressed.” Then he stood back and looked at her. “It’s very strange seeing a person’s body through mortal eyes. Usually, I just see spirits, but seeing you like that is quite interesting.”

  Emily flung the covers back over her body. “Go outside and wait for me. Keep hidden and don’t let anyone see you.”

  “My wish is your command,” he said then looked puzzled at his own words.

  Emily couldn’t help laughing. “Go on, get out of here,” she said as she threw a pillow at his retreating form.

  Chapter 6

  NO, NO, NO AND DOUBLE NO,” EMILY WAS SAYING. SHE was sitting with Michael in a back booth at a truck stop eating blueberry pancakes. At least she was trying to, but he kept eating half her food as well as his. He said he was trying to decide whether strawberry pancakes or blueberry were better.

  She lowered her voice. Not that anyone was looking at them. From the look of the men in this place, half of them were wanted by the FBI. “I am not going to take you home with me. I am not going to hide you. I am not going to take you to the old Madison place so you can snoop around. That house is falling down and it’s dangerous. Not to mention that it’s haunted.”

  “Haunted? What’s that?”

  “Ghosts! Stop that! That’s my pancake. Yours are on your plate. Look, it’s not polite to eat off another person’s plate. At least not if you aren’t lovers.”

  Immediately, he looked hurt. “But, Emily, I’ve loved you for thousands of years. I love all the people in my care. Well, maybe I love some of them more than others but I make a supreme effort.”

  “We’re not lovers. Actually, we’re not ‘in love,’ either.”

  “Ah, I see. Sex. We’re back to that.”

  “No we’re not. We can’t get back to something we never got to in the first place and stop doing this to me!”

  “What?” he asked innocently.

  She narrowed her eyes at him until he grinned.

  “All right, back to the subject. Emily, love, I need to see that house. If it’s as you say it is, then maybe it’s what I was sent here to fix.”

  “What are you going to do? Perform a séance?”

  She could tell by his expression that he had no idea what that was. “You sit around a table, usually with a person who is a spirit medium, then you call a spirit up and ask questions and—” She stopped because his mouth was definitely twitching in laughter.

  “What have I said that is so very hilarious to you?” she hissed. “And you take one more bite of my pancakes and you’ll lose a hand.” She held her fork aloft, ready to jab.

  “I’m just trying to understand what you said,” he told her, and she could see that he was working hard to keep from laughing out loud.

  “No you’re not. You’re not trying to understand anything. You just want to make fun of me.” Grabbing her purse, she started to leave the table, but he caught her hand and instantly she calmed and sat back down.

  “Emily, I don’t mean to offend you—I really don’t. Why can’t you just look at me as though I come from a different country and my ways are very different from yours?”

  “Another country?” she said. “You come from an insane asylum and I’m not going to help you do anything whatever on this earth.”

  She sat there with her hands folded across her chest, knowing full well that she looked like a sulky little girl, but she couldn’t help herself. He seemed to bring out the worst in her.

  “Hear that, Mr. Moss?” Michael said casually. “To talk to a spirit we have to sit around a table and call you up. You know, I think I remember seeing a few of those things. Emily, you loved them back in…when was that? I think it was about 1890. Or was it 1790? What do you think, Mr. Moss?”

  “Very funny,” Emily said, her arms still folded. “Talk to your imaginary friend and make fun of me.”

  “Are you going to eat that?”

  “Yes!” Emily said, although she was full and didn’t want another bite. But she stabbed what was left of her pancakes and put a huge bite in her mouth.

  “Emily,” Michael said softly. “I don’t mean to make fun of you, but I think I see things differently than you do. There are spirits everywhere. It’s just that some have bodies and some don’t. There really is no difference.”

  “And I guess you can see the ones without bodies,” she said, her voice dripping sarcasm.

  Michael didn’t answer but looked down at what was left of his pancake.

  “Well?!” she demanded. “Can you or can’t you?”

  His head came up, his eyes fierce. “Yes, of course I can. And it amazes me that you can’t. Can’t you see Mr. Moss sitting right here beside me?”

  In spite of herself, Emily glanced to his right, then back at him. “I guess you’re going to tell me that this truck stop is haunted and there’s a ghost sitting next to you.”

  “Mr. Moss says he is….” Michael paused, then smiled. “I don’t understand this but he says he prefers to be called ‘anatomically challenged.’ He’s a very nice man, and he says that the next time we come here we have to try the sausages. Maybe we could order some now.”

  “No!” Emily said. “You’re going to get fat. Would you please stick to the subject?” She would have died rather than ask him such a dumb question, but she couldn’t resist. “Are you telling me that you’re talking to a ghost right now?”

  “Well, more listening. He says it’s been a long time since anyone’s been in here who can hear him. He says this modern world is really sad because no one believes he exists so when he tries to talk they don’t listen. The only people who listen are ones who are crazy or on lots of drugs.” Michael leaned toward Emily. “He says being a ghost in modern America is a very lonely life.”

  “Well,” Emily said slowly, looking about the restaurant. “I think I need to use the ladies’ room, then we’d better head out.”

  “What’s a powder?”

  “A what?”

  “Mr. Moss says you’re going to take a powder.”

  “That’s right. I’m going to go to the powder room.”

  “He says you’re going to run away and leave me here because you think I’m crazy. He says he sees it all the time. If that’s so, Emily, I wish you well in your life and hope you have every happiness.”

  “You are a truly horrible person,” she said, glaring at Michael. If he’d protested or demanded that she stay, she could have walked out, but how could she leave a man who wished her happiness? “I’m going to the rest room now and I want you to pay the check while I’m gone, and when I return I don’t want to hear one word about Mr. Moss.”

  Michael turned to his right. “Sorry. Maybe next time.”

  Emily didn’t respond but turned on her heel and walked toward the rest room.

  When Emily returned, Michael was waiting for her outside the restaurant. It annoyed her that he was becoming so familiar. Sometimes she felt like she had spent more time with this man than she had with Donald. But then she and Donald were always working on one of his stories.

  “I think we need to talk,” she said seriously, planning to start with the speech she had written in her head in the few minutes they had been apart. He couldn’t go home with her, so she had to leave him somewhere else. They just had to figure out where was safe.

  Safe for a man wanted by the FBI, the Mafia, an enraged wife and the media. Not to mention bounty hunters and—

  “Worried about me, are you?” Michael said, and seemed to be extraordinarily pleased at this idea.

  “Not in the least,” she answered, walking through trucks parked in front and back of the restaurant. S