Daniel and the Angel (8 page)

She gasped, her breath coming in hard shocks, and her hands clutched his shoulders. He tasted heaven. Her fingers threaded through his hair and his name was a prayer on her lips.

He laid her on the bed and kissed her legs, her calves and ankles, then held a foot in each hand and slowly moved his hands up her legs, inch by slow inch, until his thumbs met, then he kissed her again, light feathery touches of his mouth—a kiss so intimate that it was theirs alone.

Tears of passion fell from her eyes. He moved up her body, touching her and kissing her. His hand cupped her womanhood and stroked her over and over. Touching her was everything. Watching what his touch did to her was more than everything.

They spoke in half-finished phrases, desire and passion stealing their words.

"Please, Daniel..."

"Lilli, my Lilli, let me . . ."

And he shifted, poised to touch something finer than Heaven. He slowly sank into her.

She gasped and stiffened. Tears shimmered from her eyes.

"My God ..." He froze. Time stopped. He tried to focus on her face, then groaned, "You couldn't have fallen very far."

She said nothing but gripped his shoulders and slowly opened her eyes.

He saw his future and his heart. "Easy, love, easy." He slid a hand between them and lit her passion again.

A gift for what she had given him. Soon his touches had her body crying tears too.

"Hold on to me, love, tightly," he whispered thickly, then buried his tongue in her mouth.

She gripped his upper arms and lifted her hips, seeking extra caresses that would send her over the edge he craved. He gave her those touches and more, feeling her ecstasy hit fast and pulsing.

Then he thrust home. She groaned and twisted. He stilled, afraid he would give her more pain. "Lilli. Look at me."

She slowly opened her eyes.

"Are you okay?"

She nodded, then reached up and ran her fingers over his mouth, unspeakable emotion in her eyes.

"Tell me if I hurt you." And he moved slowly, very slowly, for long minutes, watching her until her eyes drifted closed and she was meeting each of his thrusts and moving with him, catching an intimate rhythm of their own.

It went on forever, an eternity within this woman that showed him more than words ever could about life and love and his reason for being. He felt release coming hard and fast, from his mind to his heart and on to parts more elemental, hotter and faster and stronger than anything ever before. He slowed for control, wanting to take her with him, needing the first time to be them, together, completely them and nothing else.

He felt the rise in her, the heat run through him. He shifted and moved faster; their motion and drive changed too. Because they were reaching for something impossible, something that a primal sense told them was only a moment away.

The passion came hard and powerfully. Their breathing, like their bodies, became one.

He clung to her, consumed with an emotion that was wild and loose and free. And when every bit of physical passion drained away, what he felt for her was still there.

He tenderly cupped her head in his hand and told her then what he now knew had been there from almost their first moment together: "You are my heart, Lilli. God in heaven, how I love you."

Her face crumpled with emotion too. She shook her head, her breath a cry and a whisper. "Oh no ... please."

But it was too late.

Daniel had found in her a miracle, and he had already given her his heart.

Lilli stood by the bed and watched Daniel sleep. He had fallen asleep before she'd whispered "Oh no."

The house was quiet. Still. There were embers in the fireplace, but the chill she felt had nothing to do with the air. It seemed that her life in Heaven had been everything wrong. Here everything was right. Even her miracles.

There was a kind of cruel and wry irony in the fact that the one thing she could never do in Heaven she had managed to do here. A miracle. Daniel's miracle.

She wondered if she would go back to Heaven now. Could there be such cruelty? With all of her earthly being she hoped not. But if she must go, she had a brief glimpse of how painful eternity would be now that it no longer meant anything to her. Because Daniel loved her.

And what about him? She covered her mouth with one hand and tried to catch a shuddering breath that wouldn't be caught. Her mind became images of his pain should she leave him, this man who had lost every person he'd ever cared for. Dear Lord, she'd carry that pain for him too, would carry it throughout all eternity.

For his sake, she prayed to stay, knowing her prayers were lost before she even said them. She prayed again, and again, litanies of prayer, until finally she sank to her knees. Her hands were folded tightly. She stared at them, not knowing if she clasped her hands so tightly to try to hold on to this earthly life or to help insure that her prayers might by some chance be answered.

But prayers and folded hands and words were not helping. She could feel it. It was as if she were slowly fading away, after only this brief glimpse of Heaven on Earth.

I want to stay. Please . . . please
. . .

She buried her face on her folded hands and sobbed silently.

Somewhere in the distance, a church bell rang.

And a second later, Lilli disappeared.

9

Her angel's face

As the great eye of Heaven shined bright,

And made sunshine in a shady place.

—Edmund Spenser

SOMEWHERE IN THE DISTANCE A CHURCH BELL RANG
and woke him. He opened his eyes, then reached out and touched the sheet where she had been. It was empty.

He listened for her sounds in the bathroom but heard nothing. He wanted to go to her but thought perhaps she needed some privacy. He locked his hands behind his head and stared up at the canopy, a sense of profound peace surrounding him.

One night wouldn't be enough.

He had never thought of marriage for himself. But he lay there now, knowing that he wanted Lilli with him for a lifetime. He smiled at the contentment he felt, the fullness of knowing and loving Lilli. He closed his eyes and waited for her to come back to bed.

He didn't know how long he'd slept. Five minutes? Five hours? Time had given birth to uncertainty and fear.

He threw back the covers and stood up, then looked in the dressing room. The bathroom door was open. The room was dark.

His stomach turned over.

He rushed inside, stepping around baskets of sleeping puppies, kittens, and rabbits. She wasn't there.

"Lilli?" he called, tearing back into the bedroom. There was no sound but the sleepy meow of a kitten, the whimper of a puppy.

"Lilli!" he shouted again, pulling on his clothes.

He threw open the doors and ran down the hall. He stopped at the top of the stairs. "Lilli!" he yelled. Her name echoed mockingly through the gallery.

But at that moment he knew that she wouldn't answer him. In his heart he knew, because that magical feeling—the one he'd felt since the first moment he had looked at her—was gone.

As quickly as if God had snapped His fingers It was gone.

He stared at his hand, white-knuckled as it gripped the banister, then he sagged down on the top step. He didn't move for the longest time. Everything he was, and every joy he had, drained away until he felt as if he were nothing but emptiness . . . human emptiness.

He rested his head in his hand and took a couple of deep breaths.

"Lilli..."

He said her name that one last time. It was barely a whisper.

"Dammit, Karl! Just forget about the release!" D.L. spun around and glared at his attorney. "I don't care about it! I just don't care about it." He heard his anger and the desperation in his voice. His panic.

Time was going by. A whole day. He couldn't find her. No one could find her. No one had seen her leave. No one had heard a thing.

"I wish she would come back and sue the hell out of me." He spun around in his chair and stared at nothing. "At least then I'd know where she was."

Karl rose from his chair, picked up his case, and snapped it closed. He stood there for an awkward second, then said, "I'm sorry, D.L."

Daniel didn't respond. The door clicked closed, and a minute or so later he heard Karl get into his carriage and leave.

He just sat there staring at the white storm outside. And he relived his memories: Her standing under a tree with so much snow on her she looked like a snowman. Her face looking up at him, her eyes sparkling, the way she crinkled her nose at something, the delight in her eyes when she saw the bakery, and the animals.

He remembered mistletoe. A sweet kiss. Christmas greens. A cornhusk angel atop a tree. And another angel. The only angel he'd ever known.

He stood up and slowly went upstairs, his hand dragging absently along the banister. When he reached her bedroom, his hand paused on the doorknob. Some last remnant of hope made his breath still as he opened the door.

His hope died. She wasn't inside. He stepped into the room, because he had to, then closed and locked the door.

Four puppies, three kittens, and two rabbits greeted him. He crossed the room and stared at the bed. His shirt was lying where she had lain only hours before, when his world had been everything wonderful, when he had been alive in his heart as well as in his mind and body. When love had been there for an instant.

Now there was just his silk shirt, nothing more. He reached out and touched it, foolishly expecting it to disappear too.

But it didn't disappear. He picked it up and walked over to a chair, where he sat down, staring at it.

Her scent was there with him. Lemony and real. But she wasn't.

A puppy jumped into his lap, then another and another. One of them was chewing something, and he took it from its mouth. It was the gold pin. Her wings. He held it tightly in his fist, as if by doing so he could bring her home to him.

Fly home to me, my angel.

The kittens crawled up the chair and the rabbits chewed on his shoelaces. He looked at them, at the pin, then at the white silk shirt clutched in his hands.

A moment later he buried his face in the shirt and cried.

"Lilli's watching him. Constantly she watches him."

Saint Peter stopped pacing and looked at Florida. "Has she stopped crying?"

Florie shook her head.

He sighed, then moved across the clouds with Florie fluttering in his wake, until he stood near where Lillian knelt, clutching the rim of a cloud in tight hands and peering intently over the edge. Her halo had no glow and her wings drooped downward like the wilted petals of a broken rose.

She raised her head and looked up at Saint Peter, the tears she couldn't seem to stop streaming down her face. "He's at the park, calling my name."

Saint Peter looked down. "So I see."

She bit her lip and watched Daniel, his head bent, his hands shoved in his coat pockets and snow falling all around him as he walked despondently from the park. "He's alone and lost. Can't I help him? Can't you or someone help him? He's lost everyone."

"Some people have a harder road to travel, Lilli."

She looked up at him. "I never really knew what Heaven was until I found Daniel."

Saint Peter looked at Florida, who was crying silent tears of her own. He shook his head and waved her away.

Lilli's shoulders shook and she hiccuped as she looked downward. "He's at the church now, praying. Hear him?" She paused. "I can hear him."

Saint Peter sat down on the rim of the cloud. He looked down at the world below, then watched one man in particular—the dark and empty shape of a man.

Saint Peter was quiet, then he looked at Lillian for the longest time. After an eternal minute, he cleared his throat and said in a gruff voice, "So. Lillian. Tell me about your young man."

Daniel had searched everywhere. He went back to the German bakery and stood by the window, watching and hoping, until hope felt like it was nothing more than a fantasy. He sat on the same bench in the park for hours, wanting to see her running in the snow, her hat flying behind her, wishing to once again hear a little of that joyous laughter. All he found was the world going on without him.

Scouring the Washington Market had done no good either. He had rung bells and asked children if they'd seen her. She seemed to be as elusive as Saint Nicholas. He went into churches, every church, and he prayed, prayers that seemed to have no answers.

By midnight on Christmas Eve he had walked all the way to the opera house, not caring about the cold or the snow. There was a performance of Handel's
Messiah
scheduled. He wandered through the crowds until most had gone inside. He dug into his pockets and dropped coins and bills into every dented and rusty tin can along the way.

The snow began to fall harder and faster. He tossed a gold coin into an old dented enamel bowl sitting by a blind man dressed in rough homely clothes, then he paused and said, "The storm is picking up. Do you have somewhere to go?"

"I live near Grand Street, east of the Bowery." The old man tried to get up but his hands were old and gnarled and he had no gloves to protect him from the elements.

Daniel helped him, then bent down and picked up the bowl and placed it in the man's gnarled hands. He turned and hailed a hansom cab with a sharp whistle.

He opened the door. "I've paid the driver to take you home," he told the old man, helping him inside. He paused and looked into the old man's creased eyes, eyes that showed every hard year he had lived. Without a thought, he pulled off his gloves and placed them in the man's hands, closing his bent and aged fingers around them. "Merry Christmas," he said, then closed the door. "Merry Christmas."

For the longest time he just stood there, watching the cab disappear down the snowy street. He turned, stuck his icy hands in his coat pockets, and walked toward home, his mind in a place of loss and emptiness.

He passed a Salvation Army bell ringer near the corner and reached into his pants pockets. He'd used the last of his money for the cab.

He started to walk on but stopped and pulled out his gold pocket watch. He looked at it for a moment.

Time didn't matter to him anymore. Without Lilli, nothing mattered.

He walked back and tossed the watch into the collection bucket, then he turned and walked away.

He realized with a sudden sense of panic that the woman had stopped ringing the bell. He froze, his shoulders hunched against the cold in his heart more than the cold outside. "Don't stop ringing that bell. Please. Keep ringing, because . . ." His voice dropped to a tight whisper and he stared sightlessly at the snow-covered walk. "Every time a bell rings ..."

"An angel gets its wings," she finished.

"Lilli?" His head shot up. He spun around, then reached out and pushed back her bonnet. A pile of silver-blond hair tumbled loose. "Lilli!"

"Daniel..."

And she was in his arms.

"God, Lilli. It's really you!" He held her so tightly, afraid to let her go lest she disappear again.

"I'm here now. I'm here." She must have read the look on his face because she said, "And I'll not leave you. It's for a lifetime."

"My God, I thought I'd lost you." He held her face and kissed her over and over. "I've searched everywhere. Been everyplace we were, looking and hoping." He held her face in his hands and just took a moment to look at her, to memorize her face, that smile. "I've given away more money than you could fathom. Everything. Anything. Nothing matters but you."

Tears streamed down her cheeks.

He held her so damn tightly and whispered, "My angel."

She touched his lips with her fingers. "Daniel? Your angel?"

"My fallen angel. You've come home to me."

She smiled up at him, then fixed an odd look up at Heaven. She winked, then she was looking at him again, her smile only for him. She leaned back in his arms. "Maybe, just maybe, Daniel... all you had to do was whistle."