“You don’t make it sound very appealing.”
“Ah, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. Even if we hadn’t been blessed with a child . . . by accident, BTW. And can you imagine the decision I had to make, knowing I will probably outlive my child because I won’t grow any older, but he will.”
“Well, like I said, the question hasn’t been asked.”
“But if it is, you need to ask yourself something. Would your life be better with or without him? Better yet, can you live without him? Because if you can, you should.”
Ivak came home soon after that, and he really didn’t know much more than Camille did. He promised to check around and let her know.
“No one has seen him since Nigeria. He just disappeared, but someone—I think it was Vikar—heard that he might be on this Caribbean island that he owns.”
“Harek owns an island?”
“It’s just a tiny island with a bungalow on it. Harek considers it his secret hideaway, but we all know about it. We’re just waiting for Mike to find out. The you-know-what is going to hit the fan then.” He smiled, as if he couldn’t wait.
“Maybe he’s there with Michael,” Camille offered.
“Wouldn’t that be ironical?” Gabrielle said.
“I love when you use big words,” Ivak said. “It turns me on.”
Gabrielle looked at Camille. “Did I mention clueless?”
Camille had a lot to think about as she drove back to New Orleans. When she got there, she took a bubble bath, ate a bucket of Cajun chicken and warm biscuits, drank two glasses of wine, and went to bed, where she dreamed about Harek the sugar planter. Again.
And this time the dream was X-rated. If she hadn’t already thought it before, she thought it now . . . Christian Grey had nothing on Harek in the lovemaking department, even a nineteenth-century Harek.
Could women have wet dreams?
She was pretty sure she just did.
It wasn’t a Sophie’s Choice, but it came close . . .
“Wow!” Harek said aloud as he awakened from a dream that was so X-rated, he felt himself blushing. Well, almost blushing. Vikings really didn’t get embarrassed by much.
Camille was the star of his dream, of course, and he had to wonder if she was having the same dream somewhere on the other side of the world. Sort of life mate telecommunicating.
Does that mean I accept that Camille is my destined life mate?
What good does that do me, if I can’t have her?
Is it time to have that dreaded conversation with Michael?
Yesterday, out of the blue, Michael quoted something from the Bible to Harek about cutting off your hand or foot if they cause you to sin. That was not a good sign. At the time, they’d been sitting at the table eating—what else?—fish. Harek had instinctively placed a hand over his genitals, under the table. Discreetly, of course. Michael just stared at him in that way he had of seeming to see all.
Now, Harek squirmed on the couch where he’d been sleeping, trying to find a position that was comfortable. There was none. He yawned widely, checked the luminous dial on his watch, and saw that it was only six a.m. Barely dawn.
That was when he noticed Michael sitting in the chair across the room, facing out toward the sea. There was a glow about him, like a full-body halo, outlining his white, belted robe. His hair hung loose to his shoulders where the massive wings were tucked in against his back, but still overhanging the chair down to the floor. His eyes appeared to be closed, but his lips were moving, as if in prayer.
This was strange, stranger than anything Harek had witnessed this week, living with an archangel. Michael was stronger than the strongest soldier, in prime physical condition, as evident by the fallen palm tree that he’d lifted off the shore and tossed into the sea. And he was weak as a child in his innocence at times, taking joy in the smallest things. A seagull wheeling above the waters, like a celestial dance. A bag of M&M’s he’d discovered in the cupboard. A Snoopy cartoon Harek had shown him on the Internet where Linus is saying, “I love mankind. It’s people I can’t stand.”
“I must depart,” Michael said, without turning to look at Harek. He must have sensed that Harek was awake. Or maybe he had been waiting for Harek to wake up.
Uh-oh!
“What do you mean, you have to leave? You can’t leave yet. We haven’t finished constructing the website.”
Dawn was raising its orangeish-yellow head on the blue horizon. So Harek could see clearly now. He sat up and kept the sheet wrapped around him in the chill air.
“Thou wilt finish for me. I have been called to something more important.” Michael swiveled the chair to turn toward him. There was an expression of such sadness on his face.
“What? What is it?”
“The things humans do to each other,” he said on a sigh. “The Lord’s work takes me elsewhere.”
“But we’ve worked so hard on the website. We’ve accomplished so much. I thought you considered this important.”
“I do. It is very important. I didn’t realize how many misconceptions there were about angels. Every question you asked led to another and another, all of which need to be answered. Can humans become angels? No. How many angels are there? Thousands upon thousands. Can angels have sex with humans? Not anymore! Are there different kinds of angels? For a certainty. Do guardian angels really exist? Are there female angels, as well as male ones? Why does God need messengers? On and on the questions go.” He sighed again.
“But . . .” Harek was confused. All this work. Ten days here working to build a site that was turning into a spectacular enterprise, if he did say so himself. And all for nothing!
“Not for nothing. Keep working on it, Harek, in between your other duties. Next time we meet, you can update me on your progress.” He stood, and his wings fluffed out.
No, no, no, he couldn’t leave yet. “Wait. I didn’t get a chance to ask you—”
“About the woman? About Camille?”
So he knows. “Do I have your blessing?”
“Pfff! That is like asking for permission when you’ve already done the deed.”
Harek had to act quickly. He could see that Michael was ready to leave. “In all our discussions this week about God and religion and angels, and how all these need to be relevant in a changing world, the one word that kept coming up over and over is love.”
“Dost try to turn my words back on me, Viking?”
“I love her, Michael.”
“Are you sure you don’t just think you love her?”
Harek cringed at his word being thrown back at him. “I know that I do. I have just been afraid to . . .” He shrugged, unable to explain his hesitancy.
“Mayhap your greed still overrides everything else,” Michael suggested. At the no-doubt guilty look on Harek’s face, the archangel added, “Didst really think you could hide your materialistic ambitions from me?” He waved a hand to encompass the bungalow and island paradise as an example.
“I have changed,” Harek protested. “Do all those years in Siberia count for nothing?”
Michael no longer seemed to be listening. Instead, his head was cocked to the side, as if listening to something, or someone. He nodded and then turned to Harek again. “I must leave. If you are asking for my blessing, I cannot give it. Whether you take Camille as your life mate or not is your decision.”
Huh? Since when was I given that choice?
“But there are consequences.”
Okay, here it comes.
Michael pointed to the Michelangelo painting still propped against the wall. “The painting is yours to do with as you will. You can sell it and purchase all the things you yearn for. A palatial home. A boat. Jewels. Whatever. Consider it a reward, if you will.”
Holy crap! This past week Harek had researched on the Internet the value of newly discovered works by Old Masters, even those with no known provenance, and this painting could be worth five or ten million dollars. Maybe more.
“But you
cannot have both,” Michael said. “Either Camille or the painting.” As a parting message, he added, “Go with God.”
And just like that, he was gone.
Now what?
Was ever a Viking given a choice like this before?
Harek smiled.
Chapter 22
Visitors to the right of her, visitors to the left of her . . .
After the most extraordinary sex dream so far, Camille decided she needed a cold shower. She washed her hair, brushed her teeth, and went downstairs to make herself a cup of coffee.
Time to make some decisions, she thought, as she stood at the kitchen counter, sipping the strong brew, looking over her mother’s wonderful gardens. A gardener came every day to make sure no weeds dared come out and to water and fertilize the thriving plants. The roses especially were in full, gorgeous bloom.
The front doorbell rang. Who could that be at nine a.m.? A sudden hope that it might be Harek was immediately dashed. He wouldn’t bother ringing or knocking. He’d come right in. Glancing down at herself, she saw that though her hair was wet and her feet were bare, she was decent in jeans and a Snoopy T-shirt. Yeah, she had a thing about Snoopy. This one said: “Happiness Is a Warm Hug.”
She opened the door, and there stood Julian, holding a huge bouquet of flowers. How little he knew her. She’d be much more impressed with a ginormous box of chocolates, mixed nuts and creams, with a few caramels thrown in.
“What are you doing here, Julian?” she asked, taking the flowers from him, but not opening the door any wider.
“Aren’t you going to invite me in?” He flashed her that closed-mouth smile, the one he believed was sexy, in his own overinflated opinion.
“No!”
He glanced at her T-shirt. “Not even if I have plenty of hugs to give.”
Cute!
Not!
“Especially not then. What are you doing here, Julian?” she asked again, and set the flowers in the antique Newcomb umbrella stand near the door.
“I suppose you’ve heard about Justine,” he said, and painted a sad, pity-me expression on his face. “She lost her baby.”
“Oh no!” At this late stage in a pregnancy, that had to be especially heart-wrenching. As much as she’d been betrayed by Justine and Julian, Camille couldn’t feel anything but grief over the death of a child. She homed in on something else then. “You said her baby. Don’t you mean your baby, as in belonging to both of you?”
“Of course.” He tried to look even sadder.
“What does this have to do with me?”
“We’re friends, aren’t we, Cam? I heard you were in town and thought you ought to know. Can I come in?”
“No, you can’t come in. Why would I need to know?”
“Don’t play dumb, sweetheart. You know that the only reason I married Justine was for the baby. You know I still love you. You know you love me.”
Camille couldn’t believe her ears. “You are a solid gold prick, Julian Breaux. Is Justine even out of the hospital?”
“Now, darlin’, don’t be—”
“Get out! Go away and don’t ever come back. I mean it. I don’t love you. I probably never did.”
“Is this about that guy you brought to Alain’s wedding to make me jealous?”
Camille rolled her eyes. The ego of the jerk! “Wake up and smell the roses, Julian. We . . . are . . . no . . . more . . . ever! And, by the way”—she leaned forward—“do I smell like roses to you?”
“Huh? No. You smell like coffee.”
“That’s what I thought.” She smiled and slammed the door in his face.
When she went back to the kitchen, she was still smiling. Picking up her cup of coffee, she glanced out the window and saw a man leaning over to smell one of her mother’s prized Francis Meilland hybrid tea roses, pale pink flowers the size of grapefruits.
It wasn’t the gardener, Camille realized almost immediately. What gardener would wear a long white robe, belted at the waist with a gold cord? She should have been alarmed at a stranger on the property, but she wasn’t. Slowly, like a domino effect across her body, every fine hair stood out on his skin. Blood drained from her head.
Oh. My. God!
She set her coffee back on the counter, and like a sleepwalker, opened the French doors to the back gallery, then stepped onto the dew-wet grass. The person . . . angel . . . whatever it was . . . didn’t look up until she got closer.
She almost staggered at his ethereal beauty. Dark, silky hair. A tall, muscular soldier’s body. Piercing eyes.
“I . . . I know who you are,” she said dumbly.
He nodded. “I wanted to meet you, to see if you are worthy.”
She arched her brows. “Of what? Salvation?”
“That goes without saying. No, I meant worthy of Harek.”
She bristled. “Why aren’t you asking if Harek is worthy of me?”
The archangel smiled, and it was a glorious thing. “That goes without saying, too.” He fingered the soft petal of the long-stemmed, full-blown rose he held in one hand. “Do you mind?” he asked. “I would take this to Him. A reminder of just how glorious His creations are.”
“Take as many as you want.”
“Just one.” He seemed to be thinking deeply before he looked at her again. “He doesn’t know it, but Harek is one of my favorites, even if he is a Viking. He could do great things. He will do great things if . . .” He let his words trail off.
“If . . . ?”
“If he has a helpmate who understands his primary duty in this world. If he has a helpmate strong enough to aid in his fighting both real and inner demons. If he has a helpmate whose love will lift him, not lower him. Are you that person?”
What a question!
“Would he be better off without me?”
Michael shrugged. “That is the question. Would you give him up if you thought it was for his greater good, if it would be better for his vocation’s greater good?”
She hesitated, but then said, “Yes.”
“Right answer,” Michael said, and just like that, he was gone. No poof of smoke, no fluttering wings. Just here one moment, gone the other.
Camille had a lot to think about. It was time she got back to Coronado. Waiting around for Harek was doing her no good. She had a job to do with WEALS. Any decisions she had to make could be made there as well as here.
She shouldn’t have been surprised, but she was, when she went back into house and found another visitor at the front door. Harek.
“Hi, honey. I’m home,” he joked, and stepped inside before she closed the door on him, like she had with Julian. If she was so inclined. She wasn’t sure about that yet. “Do you think I should develop a Southern drawl?” he asked. “Would it sound better if I said, ‘Hi, darlin’. Ah’m home’?”
“It would sound better if you said where the hell you’ve been,” she snapped, and stepped backward, putting a few feet between them. Already, the scent of chocolate was wafting her way.
“I’ve been on my Caribbean island,” he said, and took two steps closer.
So it was true. He owned his very own island. “Alone?” She edged her way into the archway leading to the front salon.
“No, someone was with me.”
Her nostrils flared and she turned away, taking several steps into the room.
He noticed her jealousy and laughed, circling around her. He was wearing black jeans and a white T-shirt under a black leather jacket. In New Orleans. In the summer. Heck, it works for me. “With Michael.”
She wanted to laugh and cry. She wanted to smack him for staying away so long, and hug him for being here now. She wanted to do the right thing.
“I had a visitor,” she said.
“I know. I saw the bastard driving away in a red Jaguar. Do you want me to go punch his nose? Or tie his tiny cock in a knot?”
He must mean Julian. “Not that visitor. Your friend. Michael.”
“Uh-oh. Is that good news or bad news?”
She shrugged. “It could go either way.”
“Did you wait for me, Camille?”
She didn’t answer, but instead told him, “I’m going back to Coronado today.”
“Can you put it off for a few days?”
“Why?”
“I thought we might get married and have a short honeymoon.”
That was the last thing she’d expected to hear and her knees buckled on her. She just barely stayed upright by grabbing on to the back of the camelback sofa in front of the fireplace. “That wasn’t funny.”
“It wasn’t meant to be funny. Will you marry me and be my life mate?”
“Why?” She felt tears well in her eyes.
“Because I love you, of course.”
“All of a sudden, you know for sure,” she whispered over the catch in her throat.
“I always knew, sweetling. I knew the first time I saw you coming in off the beach from your run, all sweaty and waspish with irritation. I knew when you made fun of my hair. I knew when you kissed me like I was a soldier just come home from the wars. I knew when you wore that sexy red dress and siren lipstick. I knew when you bent over in those blue denims. I knew when you looked at me like I was the sugar on your beignet when you opened the door just now.”
“I did not,” she said indignantly.
“Did so.” He waggled his eyebrows at her, and, oh, she loved him so.
“Tell me again.”
He knew what she meant without explanation. “I love you.”
She threw herself into his arms and wept and laughed. He hugged her tight and groaned and smiled.
Their kisses became so frantic and their caresses so desperate that they fell to the floor and made love on her great-grandmother Octavie’s antique Aubusson carpet.
He kept saying he loved her.
She kept saying she loved him.
She showed him in every way she knew how that she adored him.
He showed her that there were lots of ways to adore that she’d never imagined.
When they were both sated and still lying on the floor with several tasseled pillows from the sofa under their heads, she said, “I still want to continue being in WEALS. Will that be a problem?”