Angel's Touch (18 page)

“How can you say that? Your job is perfect for you.” Kira reached for her and rubbed her shoulder. To give moral support? Megan fumbled with her list, but didn’t pull away. Ninety-nine percent of the time she did not care for back rubs, which were either too intimate or too rough, but Kira’s touch was the perfect blend of nonaggressive and respectful, radiating concern without weird sexual overtones. And she broke the contact almost immediately.

“Sometimes I get the sense that people think I’m no better than a high school dropout cleaning hotel rooms, that massage therapists aren’t very smart,” Megan said.

“Those people are idiots.”

Megan’s heart thumped at the conviction in Kira’s voice. “No they’re not.”

“Then they’re elitist.”

“Even my own mother thinks—” Megan broke off, wishing she hadn’t said anything. It sounded so childish.

“Your own mother thinks what?” Kira asked gently.

“That I’m not ambitious enough.” Megan’s throat closed up. She didn’t want her mother’s respect. She didn’t need it.

“You know what? Ruthless ambition is not something we need more of in the world. You care about people and that’s a heck of a lot more admirable than having an advanced degree. You’ve found a job that fits you and you’re wildly successful at it. And even if your mother doesn’t say so, I bet she’s really proud of you.”

Megan flushed. “It doesn’t matter, anyway.”

“So what happened? Why didn’t you go to med school?”

How had they managed to turn this into such a big issue? She’d honestly never wanted to be a doctor. The stress would have given her a nervous breakdown. “Doctors are taught to distance themselves emotionally from their patients so they can operate without getting queasy, and I didn’t want to do that. I understand why they have to do it, but it seems so cold. I wanted to feel like I was helping a human being, not just a body part.”

“So it sounds like you did consider it.”

“Not really. I also can’t stand the sight of blood.”

“Okay, so, not your best career choice.”

“You know how some kids have trouble dissecting the frog in high school biology? I didn’t even get to the frog. I passed out dissecting the clam.”

“The clam? Do clams even have blood?”

Yeah, yeah, it was kind of ridiculous, but she’d better not laugh. It had been pretty traumatic at the time.

“You poor thing,” Kira said. “Did your parents have to write you a note to get you out of doing the frog?”

Right, her parents. It might not have been so traumatic if they had understood. “My mother said I had to learn to not be so sensitive.”

Kira frowned. “But you said you never did the frog.”

“I told the teacher I felt dizzy and she sent me to the nurse to lie down. I think she was afraid I was going to give myself a concussion on her classroom floor if I passed out again.”

“Maybe she felt bad for you.”

“I doubt it. She did make me dissect the fish.”

“How did that go?”

“It went okay at first, because I was used to eating fish—with the heads, even—so it didn’t gross me out too much to cut one up, but after twenty minutes the smell of formaldehyde got to be overwhelming and I…” Megan shrugged helplessly.

“You passed out?”

Megan nodded.

“Wow. A fish.”

“The clam was worse.”

“Really? I would think it would be the other way around. Clams don’t have faces.”

“Yeah, but they have all this stuff inside you’d never expect. Yucky stuff. Organs.”

Kira smiled. “Organs, huh? I guess it’s a good thing you didn’t try to become a doctor, then.”

“Don’t laugh.”

“I’m not. It’s just funny because you obviously know a lot more about anatomy than you’re making it sound like.”

“I actually do. Massage school gave me the opportunity to learn about anatomy—at least the muscles and bones—without having to cut up a cadaver. But it’s not my main focus. What I’m best at is inviting angels to join us in the room. Most of the healing comes from them. I’m just a channel.”

Megan braced herself for the scoffing that usually greeted this sort of admission. She didn’t even tell half her clients what exactly it was she did that made them walk out of her treatment room feeling peaceful and energized. And her clients tended to be more receptive to talk of angels than someone like Kira, who had called her woo-woo more than once.

But Kira didn’t get that disbelieving, dismissive, even angry look she had seen so often on her mother’s face, on Amelia’s face, on the faces of a long line of others. Instead, her smile turned pensive, like she was trying to figure Megan out, and enjoying the process immensely.

“So when you say angels are in the room with you, that’s, like, a metaphor, right? For loving thoughts?”

“No, it means angels are in the room with me.” If she was going to tell her, she was going to make sure she understood.

“You mean you can actually see them?”

“Yes.”

“Huh.”

Huh? That was it? No ridicule?

“You’re an interesting person, you know that? You know all this medical stuff, you combine it with the angel stuff, and it all works.”

“Except for the anti-spa attitude,” Megan joked to cover her reaction to the genuine respect in Kira’s voice.

“Now that I know what an expert you are on the clam organ system, it’s totally understandable. If we ever have a clam come in for a facial…”

“Clams don’t have faces,” Megan reminded her.

“That could be a problem.” Kira broke into a smile and winked.

Megan huffed.

“You were impressive with that waitress,” Kira said, serious again. “I never knew massage therapists could sound so much like doctors.”

“We don’t. Svetlana and Patrick know Russian medical massage, but a lot of my classmates barely scraped by in anatomy class, and they just do relaxation massage. Or take my friend Gwynnie, for instance. She can treat injuries even though she doesn’t give a shit about anatomy. She does it solely through intuition, and her clients adore her because she’s great at it. But for me, when I put my hands on someone, I like to know what’s under the skin, and what that’s connected to, and what massaging it is going to do. My intuition became a lot more effective once I understood anatomy.”

“And yet you don’t call it medical massage.”

“Medical massage, sports massage, deep work—a lot of people respect that more. They want you to make it hurt. It has its place. But until they learn to appreciate how healing it can be to be touched gently by someone whose heart is in the right place, and how wonderful that feels, they’ll never really understand what massage is all about.”

Okay, maybe she shouldn’t have said that last part, because now Kira looked like she was going to kiss her, and she didn’t want to see that. She didn’t want to know that Kira felt that way about her.

“I should go,” Megan said.

Kira closed her eyes.

That was almost worse—wondering what she would see in her eyes when she opened them. Kira saved her from that by turning away and walking to the balcony’s sliding glass door. She pushed aside the curtain and pressed her face to the glass, cupping her hands to block the light from inside. “Looks like it’s still raining hard out there.”

“I have an umbrella,” Megan pointed out.

“The roads—”

“I can handle the roads.”

“I know.” Kira breathed a sigh of resignation and turned from the window. “That doesn’t mean you have to go.”

Wow. Megan could hear her pulse pounding in her motionless body. She was sure she was now the one who looked like she was going to kiss someone.

“So we can talk business?” Megan gulped.

“If that’s what you want.”

“I should go.” She had to get out of here before she threw herself into Kira’s arms.

That Friday, the phone rang while Megan was in her massage room jotting notes about what muscles she’d worked on with her last client of the day. “Megan McLaren. How can I help you?”

“Next time I get slathered in scented mud, I want you to be the one smearing it on me.”

Her heart relaxed at the familiar timbre of Kira’s voice. She could almost see Kira’s scowl turning into a teasing smile. Good to know that while Megan buried her confused feelings in work—because helping her clients get in touch with their pain was a great way to hide from her own—someone had been busy doing spa research.

“They used scented mud?”

“You would have hated it.”

“I would have asked for unscented.”

“It was itchy, too. Are they really supposed to leave it on your skin until it dries?”

Megan couldn’t tell if Kira was joking or not. “Haven’t you ever given yourself a mud mask facial?”

“Seriously?”

“You’re not joking.” She wondered again what Kira could possibly have been thinking the day she decided to open a spa.

“Never painted my toenails, either,” Kira added. “In case you’re wondering.”

“So you’ll be opening a nail salon in the near future?”

“You underestimate me. And I think you were wrong when you said just about anyone could give a mud treatment. It seems to me there’s definitely a learning curve involved.”

Uh oh. Had some undertrained, indifferent wage slave slapped mud on her in a careless, untherapeutic way and scared her off? “What did they do to you?”

“Maybe not a
big
learning curve…” Kira backpedaled.

Okay, so maybe Kira didn’t love the treatment, but mud was not for everyone. “Are you sure it wasn’t the whole concept you were uncomfortable with? Maybe it wasn’t the esthetician’s fault.”

“No, I think you definitely would have been much better at it.”

“I already told you I can’t—”

“I’m not asking you to. I’m really not. I’m just…”

Just what? Just calling me and being charming and pretending I didn’t run out on you the other night? And
then
convincing me to give you a massage?

“Can I come over?” Kira asked.

Kira didn’t scare easily? Well, neither did she. “Okay.”

“I’ve got to warn you, I took a shower, but I still smell like that mud.”

“I’ll keep my distance.”

“I can’t promise the same thing, myself.”

***

“You want me to what?” Megan turned away from her kitchen windowsill where she was watering the healthiest aloe plants Kira had ever seen. She set the watering can on the counter with a thunk.

“Teach me to do massage. I’m not asking you to give me a massage.” Kira hovered outside the kitchen, wanting to come closer but afraid to, despite the words that had slipped out over the phone. She didn’t want to mess this up. Something had spooked Megan the last time they were together—her conscience, no doubt—so Kira wasn’t too sure of her welcome.

Megan joined her in the living room. “It’s going to be a little difficult to teach you how to give a massage without demonstrating.”

“You don’t have to touch me. Just tell me what to do.”

Megan plopped onto her couch and draped her arms over the suede upholstered back. “That’s something we professionals like to call B.S.”

Kira remained standing. “You think I’m trying to get you to touch me?”

“Aren’t you?”

Well, yeah, but that wasn’t the
only
reason. It really wasn’t. “Of course not,” she said mildly. She settled into one of the overstuffed chairs. She could live without Megan’s touch. Probably.

“Then why?”

“Why?” Kira hesitated, unsure whether it was a real question or if that was Megan’s way of saying no.

“Why do you want me to teach you to give a massage?” Megan clarified. “I can’t even get you to receive one.”

“I’ve been meaning to, but…” Kira really
had
been meaning to. But some stupid part of her still wanted her first real, hour-long massage to be with Megan, so even though she knew it wasn’t very nice to hope that her favorite massage therapist would change her mind, she kept procrastinating. And now Megan was mad. “I’m not crazy about letting a stranger touch me. I thought maybe it would feel less awkward if I knew what to expect.”

Megan didn’t look completely convinced.

Smart woman.

“Tell me again why you wanted to invest in the massage industry?” Megan said.

It wasn’t a real question, but Kira answered anyway. “I researched the market and this is where the numbers pointed me.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I realize you might not want me practicing on you when I don’t know what I’m doing,” Kira ventured.

“Your competence is not what’s holding me back. I went to massage school, remember? Practicing on each other before we knew what we were doing was a major part of the curriculum. You can ask Patrick sometime. We were classmates.”

“You practiced on each other?” Patrick seemed like a nice guy, but the thought of his hands on Megan’s body did not make her happy.

“Occasionally. Mostly I practiced with my friend Gwynne.”

And what do you know, the thought of a woman’s hands on Megan’s body was not any better. “That’s how you know she’s bad at anatomy.”

“You remember me saying that?”

Well, yeah. Did she think Kira wasn’t paying attention? She’d memorized every word Megan had ever said to her.

“So my lack of skill isn’t the problem because Gwynne was a terrible practice buddy, too?”

“Actually, no, she was great. Just not at anatomy. But she knew medical massage wasn’t going to be the focus of her career. She’s mostly an energy healer.”

“How come you trade with Svetlana now?” Kira asked. “Seems like you’d prefer that energy jazz that Gwynne does, pulling demons out of people’s bodies, etcetera.”

“Gwynne is a wonderful, wonderful healer, but I wouldn’t dream of working with her. I guess you don’t know she’s my ex.”

Gwynne Abernathy was Megan’s
ex
? Shit, if that was the type of woman Megan liked, she was screwed. She’d suspected it, hadn’t she? Watching them work together to exorcise that hitchhiker thing, she could tell they had a history. And Gwynne was into all that energy healing stuff that Kira didn’t even believe in. Not to mention she was a professional massage therapist, who no doubt knew exactly what to do with her hands.