Angel Falling (32 page)

After the Ferris wheel, we moved on to the Cyclone. It was an old-school wooden roller coaster that sped through its curlicues and giant humps as fast as a whip. Aspen screamed and dug her nails into my pant leg at each dip.

We moved onto the games. I was dead set on winning my Angel the biggest prize I could muster. I popped balloons with darts, shot water into a clown’s mouth, fished with magnets, even knocked over bowling pins with a softball, but still couldn’t get the big prize. She had an armful of stuffed animals, including a frog, a chicken, a bear, even a snake. But I was determined to get her the big dog. The mother of all prizes. The stuffed tiger. It would be mine.

Finally, after an endless battle with the strong man I struck gold. The strong man was no match for me. Plus, it added to my desire to prove my strength after the surgery. Of course, I didn’t use the wounded shoulder, but overall it had the wanted affect. She was fawning over the giant tiger, kissing me, kissing its stuffed face then kissing me some more. I was in hog heaven.

We walked with my right hand tucked in the back pocket of her skinny jeans. Lord only knew why she referred to them as such. She had a slight body with curves in all the right places. Weren’t all jeans considered skinny jeans on someone who was her size? Women’s clothing just didn’t make sense.

“Hank, this has been the best day,” she beamed. Before I could respond, she was rushing over to a booth covered in navy blue curtains with white stars imprinted on them. The sign boasted “Fortune Teller” in fancy cursive lettering. “Let’s do it!” She practically jumped up and down with excitement. I couldn’t deny a purdy little thing like her.

“Whatever you wish. And I bet she says that, too!” I added as she tugged me into the dark space. We were ushered through to a woman who sat at a round table with a crystal ball dead center of the space. She had a candy apple red scarf around her long black hair and bright lipstick on to match. She had flowing glittery clothes on and long purple nails. She gave me the creeps. She cocked her head to the side.

“You,” she pointed a long purple-nail-tipped finger at me. “You’re a nonbeliever. You sit over there!” She pointed to a chair off to the side. Apparently I wasn’t going to get a reading today.
Better be half price then.

She ushered Aspen to sit in front of her. She held her hands and petted the inside of her palm with one of those long nails. Made me shiver. It was weird that she didn’t ask what service she wanted, nor did she offer payment information up front. She was probably a swindler. She was going to charge us out the ass after the services were rendered and we’d have no choice but to pay. I was about to speak when she pointed one of those fingers at me again.

“Don’t speak.” I held my tongue only because she was wicked strange and had my girl’s hand in hers. Aspen seemed completely taken with the odd woman.

“Angel,” she whispered and Aspen gasped. “Your true love will call you that. It’s important somehow.”

I tried to think back to whether or not I’d addressed her since we entered. I knew I hadn’t.

“You have a lot to offer the world. Not only are you smart, you’re creative and you do well in business. Better than most I’d say, looking at how long your success line is here.” She continued to inspect Aspen’s hand. “See this line? It’s your life line. You will live a long, happy life.”

She started to cluck her tongue. “Ah, but you see your Line of Heart, it has some breaks in it. You will or have had a couple heartbreaks already. But there is one, the one of your true love, it breaks for a short distance here, then comes back and follows you to the end of your days.” She smiles. “You must hold out for your true love. You’ll know it, Angel,” she whispered.

Aspen nodded and smiled, risking a quick peek in my direction. Her shy smile was as sweet as the molasses I put on my biscuit in the mornings.

The gypsy fortune teller continued. Shared some additional, surprisingly accurate information that even had me believing in her psychic ability for half a second. She talked about a man in her life who was destined to walk alongside her but was not her true love or her lover. Just a kindred spirit. She suggested that Aspen never forsake that relationship because it would get her through important milestones throughout her life. The things that her true love was unable to comprehend.

As we were leaving, the woman grabbed Aspen’s arm and turned her around. She smiled widely. “Your aura, it’s white and sparkling. Congratulations are in order. If not now, then soon.” The woman hugged Aspen tight. “Come back, pretty Angel, but leave the nonbeliever at home next time.” She glared at me.

I handed the woman a couple twenties and she tucked them into her bra. “Goodbye, Hank,” she said and turned on her heel and left.

“How did you know my name?” I called to her but she continued walking and waved her hand over her shoulder. We were clearly dismissed.

“That was incredible, Hank. You should have had an open mind.” Aspen pouted but hugged her giant tiger. Best money spent on that tiger, not the psychic. At least she could cuddle up to it and remember me.

“I don’t believe in all that hocus pocus.”

“She called me Angel. She knew your name. And she knew some pretty crazy stuff about my life. You know what she told me?”

“I don’t know. I kind of spaced out through some of it.”

“She told me that big things were about to happen in my love life and to take the bull by its horns. She said that. The bull. You know, like cattle!”

“Oh, don’t listen to that hunk of horse manure. She’s joshin’ ya. She could read you like a Bible on Sunday in church.”

“Not funny, Hank. She really did know some things. And what was up with that congratulations stuff? What do you think she was talking about when she said my aura was sparkling and white?”

“I don’t know. Maybe she took too many hits to the head from pissed off customers or was dropped on her head as a baby. Don’t put too much thought into it.” I gripped her around the waist and pulled her to me. “’Sides, the only congratulations that are in order will be when we are both sayin’ ‘I do’ in front of God and everybody.” She kissed me softly. “So, when you think I’m gonna be able to make an honest woman out of ya?” I asked nervous about her answer, but needed to know how long it was gonna take.

Her face fell a bit. “It’s not that I don’t want you. I love you. I’ve never loved a man the way I love you. And for the first time in my life, it actually feels like forever.” She smiled and her eyes twinkled as they sought mine. “But we just got back together. I don’t want to rush it,” she admitted.

“We got nothin’ but time, Angel. It’s me and you against all odds.”

“I love you, Hank. All your pieces,” she said. I’d heard her say that to Oliver and her sister once before.

“What does that mean?”

She smiled and searched my face then settled those clear-water blues to mine. “It means that no matter what, I love everything about you. Good, bad, and everything in between. All your pieces.”

“I love all your pieces, too, Angel.”

Epilogue

It was October and we were closing in on the holidays fast. Hank and I had spent the last three months really getting to know one another on a level outside of the physical. He had received a clean bill of health from the doctor who performed his surgery. We were warned that he should still take it easy and work up to lifting heavier amounts week by week, building back up to the couple hundred pounds he was bench pressing prior to the accident. I added more weights to our home gym so that he could build up, and hired us both a personal trainer.

Hank wasn’t thrilled with having what he said was a “half-naked” man working out with me, but all it took was letting him bend me over every piece of equipment in the gym for him to get comfortable with the idea. He said it helped him believe I’d be thinking of what we did on that equipment when the trainer was having me use a particular piece. Such a wacko.

Hank’s business was booming as well. He said he had more work in New York than he’d ever had back in Texas. Mac was running the Texas branch and enjoying being at home with his family. A few of the single guys chose to stay in New York, preferring the big city life over the country living. Hank offered to pay them quite a bit more per hour to fit the cost of living and average pay for men that did that type of work here in the city. With Ollie’s help, Hank hired a receptionist, office administrator, and a few other needed positions, including a dozen new crew members to serve on the jobs out in the field. According to Ollie, he was going to need to double the size of his staff within a year’s time due to the jobs he was turning down even after he’d won the bid. We discussed my concerns that he was underselling his work. He felt it appropriate to make good money for a decent day’s work, which kept him beating out all the bids. More bids were approved than he was able to handle, but it was a good problem to have in the grand scheme of things.

Bright Magazine was knee-deep in preparations for the January 1
^st
launch. The buzz was big, and I felt confident that the team we’d hired and the first sets of interviews, photo-shoots, and columns would intrigue the public to take a chance on a new magazine. Plus, we had one of the hottest celebrities in the market half-naked on the cover. You couldn’t go wrong with a beautiful man to get the average woman’s attention, as well as the married and at-home-mom demographics.

My only complaint was that I constantly felt like crap. The last few weeks had been filled with headaches, loss of appetite, then ravenous hunger, exhaustion, crazy bursts of energy, and the feeling that I just wasn’t myself. I knew my body. It was freaking out over the Hank proposal issue. The symptoms were on and off, and corresponded with Hank’s demand that I request his hand in marriage and not the other way around. The problem was, I didn’t know how or when to do it, or whether or not I wanted to. Don’t get me wrong, I loved Hank more than anything else in my life. He was definitely the only man I could ever imagine being in my future, and the only person I’d ever considered marrying.

Then what is your problem?
I actually went to the jewelry store a couple times and browsed for rings. Once, Oliver dragged me and demanded I pick one out. Wouldn’t leave until I’d done the deed.

The next day I returned the ring. It wasn’t that the ring didn’t fit Hank. He wouldn’t care one iota what the ring looked like, only that making the leap meant I was ready for more, ready for our forever. He’d been incredible about giving me space, too. He seemed perfectly comfortable with living together and enjoying the last three months, but I knew it was on his mind.

When we’d see couples getting married on TV, in a movie, or receive a wedding invite, Hank would get this wistful look in his eyes. It broke my heart to see his desire, knowing that I could so easily give him everything he ever wished for. But would it last?

My parents’ marriage was not one built on love, trust, and passion. It was a marriage of convenience, a business negotiation. Last week when I was feeling pretty down and out about my lack of ability to give Hank what he wanted—namely, me—I visited my father and asked about their marriage.

“Darling, your mother and I were from the same world. Our families had been acquainted for years. The mutual appreciation between her family and ours went a long way toward our decision to be together. The situation just fit,” he’d said.

“But did you love Mom?”

His eyes searched mine, but held no sparkle, no fond stories about falling madly in love with my mother and sweeping her off her feet so that he would never be without her. “Darling, I learned to love your mother very much. And besides, she gave me the three best things I’d ever created. You, London, and Rio.” He smiled and pulled me in for a hug.

“What would you say if I told you that Hank wanted to marry me?”

He grinned. “I’d say I’m surprised he waited this long. The boy is taken with you, darling. You know he already asked for your hand.” He said it as if he’d asked me to pass the sugar for the tea.

“He asked you? When?”

“Two or three months ago. Said he was going to win you back, and when he did he was going to marry you. Wanted to make sure I was okay with his intentions. I told him that I’d be honored to welcome him into the family. Then I gave him some contacts for his business expansion to look into.”

I shook my head and thought about all that my dad had expounded. “Why didn’t you tell me? That was months ago.”

“Well, I had expected that you would come over and announce your engagement, but since you hadn’t, I didn’t want to pry or ruin the surprise for you. Just a couple weeks ago, though, I got curious and called him to check on his intentions.” He laughed deep in his throat. “He told me he’d turned over the reins on that plan to you. Said he wanted you to be certain you were ready to saddle up with him. His words, not mine.” He laughed and steepled his fingers under his chin. “What are you waiting for, darling?”

“Honestly, Dad, I don’t know. Oliver is beside himself. Dean will hardly look at me. London practically cries every time we speak, and now I find out you’re having secret conversations with my boyfriend behind my back.” I grinned but it turned into a sigh. “And I just haven’t been feeling well. I don’t know. One moment I’m fine, the next I’m ready to crawl into bed and close out the world. Both Hank and I have had long days in the office.” It was the most plausible explanation.

“How’s that going? The expansion?”

“Wonderful. Hank is incredibly smart. Turns out he has an architectural and business degree from the University of Texas.”

“Proof that you can’t judge a book by its cover.” He winked at me and sipped his tea. “If you’re not ready to become Hank’s wife, then don’t rush into it. If the man wants you, he’ll wait. And if he loves you, he won’t push you to do something that’s not right for you.”

“No, I know, Dad. He really hasn’t. He’s only brought it up a couple of times over the past three months, hasn’t pushed or prodded at me, but I know he’s ready. Knowing that you approve of him helps. I love you, Dad.” I got up and hugged him.