v1.5
July 2007
Falling Angel
Anne Stuart
The RITA represents the highest award of excellence in the romance industry. It is presented annually by the Romance Writers of America to the authors of the year's best romance novels in eleven categories at an awards ceremony during the RWA's national conference. This year, eight hundred romance novels competed for the coveted awards.
Anne Stuart received this award for Falling Angel
"You're asking for trouble, Carrie."
Gabriel spoke softy, knowing if he touched her his fate was sealed for eternity…
"I know," she whispered.
He told himself to move, to push past her and walk out of her house. What was the saying? Damned if you do, damned if you don't? Oh, Gabriel Falconi was damned all right. There'd be no heaven for the likes of him…
"Carrie," he whispered again. As he reached out to cup her pale face, his thumbs brushing against her trembling lips, he knew that in this moment—the moment his hands had touched her—there could be no turning back…
* * *
contents
Prologue 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15
* * *
ISBN 0-373-60073-9
FALLING ANGEL
Copyright© 1993 by Anne Stuart Ohlrogge.
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or In part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or In any Information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.
All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any Individual known or unknown to the author, and all Incidents are pure invention.
This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
Printed in U.S.A.
* * *
Prologue
^ »
"This isn't working out, Mr. MacVey."
Emerson Wyatt MacVey III looked up and blinked. The light was blinding up there, endless bright white light set against a clear crystal blue. It gave him a headache. "Could you be more specific?" He managed to make his voice coolly polite.
The woman standing in front of him was an impressive figure, and he didn't like to be impressed. She was ageless, of course, with smooth, unlined skin, pure white hair, a long, slender body and large hands. She was possessed of the most frightening eyes he'd ever seen. Large, dark, powerful, they looked right through you, seeing everything you wanted to keep hidden.
Not that he needed to keep anything hidden, he reminded himself. He'd lived his life as he'd seen fit, and he didn't need to make excuses to anyone.
"How long have you been here?" the woman asked in a voice even colder than his. Augusta, that was her name. It suited her.
Emerson shook his head. "I don't remember. Time moves differently…"
"Then I'll jog your memory. You've been here for seventeen months, Mr. MacVey. And you've shown very little improvement."
"Seventeen months?" he echoed, shocked out of his determined cool. "It was only three months yesterday."
"As you've said, time passes a little differently up here," Augusta said sternly. "You've been dead for seventeen months, Mr. MacVey. And you're still the same arrogant, argumentative person you were when you arrived."
He tipped back in his chair, staring up at her. "Yeah? Well, maybe I wasn't ready to die. You ever consider that? Maybe thirty-two years old was a little young to have a massive heart attack. Maybe someone made a mistake, pulled me out a little too early."
"You've seen too many movies. We don't make mistakes."
"Then why am I here?" Frustration was building, ready to spill over. "Why aren't I floating around with the angels, playing the harp and all that crap?"
"You are an angel, Mr. MacVey."
That stopped him for a moment. He glanced down at himself. Same body, thin, patrician. Same English wool three-piece suit that he died in. It had been ripped off him when the medics had labored over him, trying to bring him back. Fortunately he'd been able to repair the damage. "Really? Then why don't I have pearly wings and a halo?"
Augusta smiled sourly, and suddenly she reminded him of his maternal grandmother, a cold-blooded old tartar who'd managed to terrorize three presidents, a prime minister and her only grandson quite effectively. "Your status is in no way assured, Mr. MacVey. There are two choices. Heaven, or the other place. We're not certain where you fit."
When he'd had his heart attack it had been a huge explosion of red-hot pain. This was cold, icy cold, and even more frightening. "What do you mean by that?" His voice stumbled slightly, and he cursed himself for showing weakness. Augusta wouldn't respect weakness, any more than his grandmother would.
"I mean that you need to earn your place up here. On earth you were petty, grasping, cold and heartless. All you cared about was making money and amassing possessions. Where are your possessions now, Mr. MacVey?"
"It's a little too late to do anything about that, isn't it?" He managed to muster a trace of defiance.
"On the contrary. It's not too late at all. You're going to be given a second chance. One month, to be exact. You're going back to earth and try to right some of the wrongs you've done. If you prove yourself worthy of redemption then you'll be allowed to move on. If you fail…" She made a desultory gesture.
"The other place?" Emerson supplied.
"Exactly." Her voice was sepulchral.
Emerson controlled his instinctive start of panic. He didn't want to go to hell. It was just that simple. But not simple enough that he wasn't ready to put up an argument. "Won't people find it a little surprising to see me running around again? I imagine they had a full-blown funeral, people weeping and all that."
"No one wept."
Again that stinging cold sharpness where his damaged heart should be. "Don't be ridiculous. People always cry at funerals."
"No one cried at yours. But then, not very many people showed up for it, either. Only one person cried for you, Mr. MacVey. And it was one of the people whose lives your selfishness destroyed."
He racked his brain for people he might have injured, people he might have destroyed, but he came up with a comforting blank. "I didn't destroy anyone."
"Oh, you didn't set out to do so, I grant you that. In a way, that almost makes it worse. Does the name Caroline Alexander mean anything to you?"
"Not a thing."
"She was your secretary for three months."
He shrugged. "I went through a lot of secretaries."
"You certainly went through Carrie. You fired her on a whim, Mr. MacVey, on Christmas Eve, and that started a chain of events that totally devastated her life. She's one of your projects. You have to fix what you so callously destroyed."
"And how am I supposed to do that? I don't imagine she'd want me anywhere near her."
"You aren't going back as Emerson Wyatt MacVey III. Things aren't going to be quite so easy this time around. You'll have your work cut out for you. You have three lives to save, MacVey. And you'll have one month to do it. You go back on Thanksgiving. And you return on Christmas Eve. We'll decide then whether you've earned your right to move on."
"But…"
"Don't fret, Mr. MacVey," Augusta said. "You won't be going alone. You'll have a little help. An observer, so to speak. Someone to keep an eye on you, make sure you're not making things even worse. I don't have a great deal of faith in this particular experiment.
I think you're a lost cause, but I've been overruled in this matter."
Thank heaven for small favors, Emerson thought.
"Not a small favor at all," Augusta replied, reading his thoughts with an ease he could never get accustomed to. "You will go back to earth and repair some of the damage you have caused, or you will be doomed to the other place. And you won't like it, MacVey. You won't like it at all."
He had no doubt of that. "What exactly am I supposed to do?"
Augusta smiled, exposing very large, very yellow teeth. "You will fix Carrie Alexander's life, which, I warn you, is no small task. And you must find two other people you've harmed, and somehow make amends."
"How am I supposed to find two people I've harmed?" he demanded indignantly.
"The problem, MacVey, won't be in finding people you've harmed. The problem will be in finding people you haven't hurt during your tenure on earth. Good luck," she said sourly. "You'll need it."
"But what about my observer? You said I was going to have some help," he said, no longer bothering to disguise the panic in his voice.
"We don't want to make it too easy on you, MacVey," Augusta said with saccharine sweetness. "You'll find out who your observer is in good time. As a matter of fact, no one's offered to take on the task. They all think you're a lost cause."
Emerson sat up a little straighter. He was a man who was used to challenges, would do just about anything to triumph over impossible odds. "Want to bet?"
"We don't gamble up here, Mr. MacVey."
"You just pass judgment."
"Exactly."
"Great," he muttered under his breath, despising the old woman almost as much as he'd despised his grandmother. "So you're going to dump me back on earth and the rest is up to me?"
"That about sums it up. Oh, and you'll be given a slight edge. Miracles, Mr. MacVey. You'll be given the opportunity to perform three miracles. How and when you choose to use that particular gift will be up to you. But you cannot use more than one per person."
"Great," he said again. "Any other rules?"
"You're not to tell anyone who you are. But you needn't worry about that—you won't be able to."
"What do you mean by that?"
"You'll find out. Are you ready?"
"Ready? Last time I looked it was August."
"It's late November. Thanksgiving, to be exact. Time to go."
"But…"
"No more questions, Mr. MacVey. You're on your own."
The light grew sharper, clearer, brighter still, until it felt as if his head were about to explode. The cold stinging in his chest was like a stiletto-sharp knife, a column of ice that speared through his body until it began to dissolve into a thousand tiny crystals. And then he was gone, cast out, drifting through the black night like the flakes of snow surrounding him, no two ever the same. And all was black.
Chapter One
« ^ »
He squinted at the swirling white light in front of him, trying to orient himself. He was cold, his feet, his hands, even the tip of his nose was cold. It took him a moment to realize the bright, fuzzy light in front of him was the headlights from the vehicle he was driving. It was snowing, heavily, and the light barely penetrated the thick darkness.
"Damn," he said out loud, he wasn't quite sure why. Maybe he wanted to hear the sound of his own voice, to prove he was alive.
Except that he wasn't alive. He'd been dead of a massive heart attack for almost two years now. And it wasn't the sound of his own voice coming from his throat.
He dropped his gaze, from the storm beyond his windshield, to his hands clutching the steering wheel. They weren't his hands. His hands were on the small side, neat, perfectly manicured, slightly soft. The hands in front of him were big hands, with long, slender fingers, short nails, calluses and scars marring the skin. They were the hands of a working man. Not the hands of a man who'd never done anything more strenuous than use the carefully padded equipment at his upscale health club.
"Damn," he said again, testing the sound. Lower than his voice. With a slight huskiness in it. No discernible accent. That was something at least. What the hell had Augusta done to him?
He glanced up in the rearview mirror, but all he could see was the swirling darkness behind him. He shifted it, angling his head to get a look at his face. And promptly drove off the snow-slick road into a ditch, banging his head against the windshield.
The engine stalled, the headlight spearing into the darkness. He hadn't been wearing a seat belt. How strange. He always wore a seat belt. Of course, in New York, where he'd lived, it had been the law, and he'd been a very law-abiding citizen. But he'd been wearing seat belts since he'd first ridden in a car. And what use had they done him? he thought bitterly. Seat belts weren't much good against a heart attack.
He jerked the mirror down, almost ripping it from its mooring in the tattered roof of the pickup truck he'd been driving, and stared down. It was no wonder he'd driven off the road. A total stranger stared back at him.
Emerson Wyatt MacVey III had been a compact, good-looking yuppie, with perfectly styled sandy blond hair, even features, clear-framed glasses and carefully orthodontured teeth. He'd had icy blue eyes, and a faintly supercilious expression on his naturally pale face.
The man who stared back at him was his exact opposite in every way. Dark brown, almost black, eyes, long, curling black hair that obviously hadn't been cut in months, a high forehead, high cheekbones, a large, sensual-looking mouth, and a strong Roman nose all composed a face that didn't belong in his world.
He glanced down at the long, jeans-clad legs, the faded flannel shirt beneath the down vest, the big, strong hands that had first startled him. Whatever he had become, it was as different from Emerson MacVey as night and day.
Enough of his ingrained nature remained that he carefully turned off the truck lights, pulled the key from the ignition and locked the truck when he climbed out into the mini-blizzard. A stray thought hit him—who would steal an old truck from a ditch in the middle of a blinding snowstorm?—but he ignored that. Emerson was a man who locked his car. Even if he was currently possessed of an old pickup that looked as if it belonged in a junkyard, it was still his car, his possession, and he wasn't going to let anyone else make off with it. Who knew what else this stranger possessed?
He could see lights in the distance, through the swirl of snow. He shivered as a mantle of snow covered him, and he stared down at his feet. Way down, and the feet were big, like his hands. And wearing only sneakers to wade through the drifts.
He shivered again, grimaced, and then struck out toward the lights. He felt a little dizzy, and he realized there was a throbbing where he'd smashed his head against the windshield. He touched it gingerly, and beneath the melting snow he could feel a respectable lump. Maybe that could explain away some of his confusion when he asked for help from whoever lived nearby. Because he sure as hell felt confused.
As he drew nearer, he saw it was an old farmhouse, in about as good condition as the truck he'd been driving. The front porch sagged, the windows had sheets of plastic stapled around them, rather than decent triple-track storm windows, and ripped tar paper had been tacked around the bottom of the house. He imagined that the roof was in equally shoddy condition beneath the thick blanket of snow. He could smell the rich, aromatic scent of wood smoke, and he stopped still. In his endless, timeless sojourn at the Waystation he'd been able to see and hear and even feel things. But there hadn't been anything to smell.
He took another deep sniff. Turkey. Roast turkey, and the faint trace of cinnamon and apples. And he remembered with a start what Augusta had told him. He was coming back on Thanksgiving, leaving on Christmas Eve. It was Thanksgiving, and someone was just sitting down to dinner.
And he was standing outside in a blowing snowstorm, freezing to death. He shook himself, running a hand through his long, thick hair in a gesture that was both foreign and automatic. And he stepped up to the ancient, scarred door and rapped.
r /> In a moment the door was flung open, letting out a flood of warmth and light and noise. Someone was standing there, silhouetted against the brightness, and he could make out the slender shape of a woman. Beyond her were others, various shapes and sizes, friendly, nosy, he thought, swaying slightly.
"My truck's gone off the road," he said, then fell silent, shocked once more at the unfamiliar sound of his new voice. Deeper than his old one. Slower. "Can I use your phone?"
She moved toward him, reaching for him, hands touching his snow-covered sleeve, and he realized he hadn't been touched. Not since all those technicians had labored over him. And even then he hadn't felt it. He'd been a few steps back, watching them as they tried to save him.
"You must be frozen," she said in a voice that was light, musical, oddly charming. "Come in out of the storm and we'll warm you up. It won't do you any good to call anyone at this hour. Steve runs the only garage in town, and he's gone to his mother's for Thanksgiving. But there are a bunch of us here, we'll get you out."
He let her pull him into the kitchen, into the noise and warmth and hubbub, even as he wanted to pull back. It hurt in there. The bright light hurt his eyes, accustomed to the darkness. The friendly conversation hurt his ears, accustomed to silence. The heat hurt his skin, which had grown so cold, so very cold. It was life, he realized. For the first time in months, no, years, he was no longer dead, no longer in a cool, sullen cocoon, and the shock of it was intensely painful.
He turned to look at his hostess, the woman who'd pulled him into the kitchen, and got his second shock of the night. This time it wasn't a stranger's eyes he stared into. It was the warm blue-eyed gaze of a woman who'd once spent three thankless months as his incompetent secretary. It was Carrie Alexander, one of the people he'd come to save.