Earth Angel (4 page)

“Are you all right?” Gwynne asked.

“Yup, no problem.” Abby spoke with a practiced glibness that came from years of denying sights that were clear as day to her but seemingly invisible to everyone else. Did angels follow Gwynne Abernathy everywhere she went? She didn’t look terminally ill, and she couldn’t think of another good reason why so many of them would be here. The place was positively angel-acious.

A blonde dressed in white linen pants and a clingy white sweater unfolded herself from one of the white sofas and padded over in bare feet. “Hi, I’m Megan McLaren. Kira should be here any minute for the interview. Do you need help setting up?”

“No, I’m good. I’ll just need a few minutes to tune.” Harps didn’t like to be moved—any change in temperature or humidity meant they needed to be retuned, or at least checked.

Abby unstrapped her harp from the hand truck and unzipped it from its padded case, her hands passing through the illusion of angelic bodies. Usually she tried to avoid that, but there was no real reason to—they did not actually have bodies, not bodies you could feel or touch. It was easy to forget, though, because they were good about respecting physical boundaries and usually didn’t crowd so close. She didn’t know what they were so worked up about today. It had to be something to do with Gwynne.

“Look, I’m sorry I snapped at you,” Gwynne said. “At the hospital.”

Abby glanced up from her harp in surprise. “You didn’t snap.”

“I didn’t know you were there. It wasn’t you I was mad at.”

She didn’t volunteer whom she
was
mad at, though. A family member, a nurse, a flock of angels she had no way of knowing was there…

“You don’t have to apologize. It’s fine.” Puzzling, but really, fine.

* * *

Abby Vogel was a tiny little thing, no taller than her harp, but clearly strong. She hefted her five-foot harp out of its carrying case like it weighed nothing. Her dress, however, screamed the opposite of tough. It was straight from a Renaissance faire—a red velvet dress that laced up the back and hugged her lush curves, then flared at the hip into a skirt that fell all the way to the floor. Her sleeves were the same way, clinging to her upper arms but draping loosely from the elbows so the fabric fluttered whenever she moved her arms and made it hard to look away. When she’d hiked up her skirt to avoid stepping on the hem on her way in, she revealed what looked like homemade knee-high deerskin boots lashed to her calves with leather laces. Her long, red hair was streaked with blond and gold and caramel highlights, and on her head sat a gold circlet that had gone out of fashion centuries ago.

Gwynne wouldn’t be caught dead in a getup like that. On Abby, it looked romantic—and that was not a word Gwynne had ever used to describe anything.

Romantic? Try bewitching. Like Abby had emerged from a fairy mound glowing with confidence that this was how the natives dressed, and had no idea that if she wanted to, she could make a string of sexual conquests during her stay.

Gwynne swallowed—it was either that or drool. Obviously the deaths of her mother and sister had knocked out some of her common sense. She wasn’t used to being turned to mush by a stranger wearing period costume.

Kira dashed in as Abby finished her tuning, saving Gwynne from further gooey, unexpected feelings. If she was going to fall apart, she’d rather not do it in front of Megan, her ex. Megan had seen enough of her mush.

“Am I late?” Kira switched from a jog to a bouncing walk for her last few steps across the room. Even when she wasn’t late she was always running, always burning energy, making Gwynne feel like she should drop and do fifty pushups to prove she wasn’t a slacker, even though she was. She was out of shape. People assumed she was fit because she was petite, but
fit
and
petite
were not the same thing. She used to make more of an effort to work out—she liked sports and she did play softball in the summer—but lately her idea of exercise was climbing onto a stepstool to reach the shelves of her kitchen cabinets.

While Kira introduced herself to Abby, Gwynne took the opportunity to brush a flutter of angel light away from her face. It was odd there were so many angels in the room. Either they liked the harpist or they liked her music, or both. Or maybe Abby was ill and they wanted to heal her? According to Kira, she’d had to reschedule the audition because of a doctor’s appointment. For an ear infection, which didn’t seem like it would be an angelic priority, but what did she know? They were here, and they certainly weren’t here on Gwynne’s account. And Megan they completely ignored—for once—so it wasn’t her. No, it was herself and especially the harpist they were swooping around, for whatever reason. Not that they necessarily needed a reason. As far as angels were concerned, any day was a good day for swooping.

Before Gwynne could spend any more time contemplating their reasons, Abby began to play. She recognized the first tune, “Greensleeves.” From there Abby moved from one haunting, aching melody to another in a seamless medley of ancient-sounding music full of aching loss, songs that sensed the grief in Gwynne’s heart and lured it out of hiding. Was it her, or did this woman not know any cheerful music? She didn’t know if she could listen to this every day. She’d either love it or end up an emotional wreck.

Far too soon, it was over. Abby’s hands floated off the strings and down to her lap as the last bell-like notes lingered in the air and died out. For a minute no one said anything, still caught in her spell.

“That was beautiful,” Kira said.

She nodded questioningly at Megan and Gwynne to gauge their opinion. They both nodded back.

“You’ve got the job if you want it,” Kira said.

“Do I get to decide what music I play?” Abby asked.

“Absolutely.”

“Then I’d love to.”

* * *

“By the way,” Kira said from across the desk in her office, handing Abby yet another employment form to fill out and sign, “there are some flakes who work here, but don’t let it bother you. You won’t freak out if Megan tells you she works with angels, will you?”

Abby’s pen stopped, poised over the paper. “She thinks angels are real?”

It would be so great to talk to someone who understood, but she wasn’t going to get her hopes up, because Megan couldn’t see angels. No one could. Maybe what Kira meant was, Megan
believed
in angels. Lots of people believed in all kinds of crazy stuff. It didn’t mean anything. She probably believed in ghosts too. Didn’t mean she could see them.

There was that weird moment at the hospital with Gwynne, though, when she’d wondered if Gwynne had ordered the angels to leave. She’d asked Sapphire, her closest angel friend, about it afterward—when Sapphire finally deigned to reappear after abandoning her for the rest of her shift at the hospital that day—but Sapphire wouldn’t answer. Since mysterious silence was typical for her, she wasn’t sure she should read anything into that. But she couldn’t forget the incident. The possibility that she wasn’t the only one who could see angels was too compelling.

“Are you freaking out?” Kira asked.

“No, I—”

“You have that look,” Kira said. “That look that says ‘Get me out of here.’”

Kira didn’t get it. “That’s not—”

“I’m in love with her, so…”

“So you want to make sure I don’t say anything to hurt her feelings?”

“Exactly. I’m not saying I want you to believe in the woo-woo stuff. I don’t care either way. I just want to make sure this is not going to be a problem.”

“It won’t be a problem.”

“Good. It’ll be nice to have someone else around here who’s down-to-earth. We can bond when the woo-woo factor gets out of control.”

Abby noticed that she did not include Gwynne Abernathy in the “down-to-earth” category.

“So you’re not a fan of angels,” Abby clarified. She liked to know where people stood, especially when that person was her new boss.

“Let’s put it this way. I don’t believe in things I can’t see. Megan’s working on me, though.” Kira looked pleased about that.

The thing was, though…it wasn’t Megan the angels were circling during her performance. It was Abby and Gwynne. They liked Gwynne, and there might be a very good reason for that—a very obvious reason. The same reason angels flocked around Abby.

She’d never met anyone who could see angels. But she had a feeling Gwynne might be different.

Chapter Four

Abby looked up from her harp as Gwynne Abernathy greeted another visitor to Sea Salt. It was Hank, the first baseman from her embarrassing attempt to fit in with the local lesbians. Great. She hadn’t even had a chance to get to know Gwynne yet, and already someone else was going to make that first impression for her. Someone who was dangerously dykey in her dusty work boots and dirty jeans that were the polar opposite of the fairy-tale dresses Abby loved to wear. No one would ever peg Abby as gay if they saw her next to Hank—not unless she and Hank were acting like best friends—and the chances of that happening were slim.

“I wondered where those shoulder muscles came from,” Hank told Abby, acknowledging her presence for a split second before ignoring her again. Abby heard the words she didn’t say:
Because they sure as heck didn’t come from swinging at a softball.

She wondered if working here was going to do anything at all to improve her lesbian credentials.

Probably not.

But it didn’t matter. She liked having the freedom to play whatever music she wanted and she liked everyone she’d met here, even those who didn’t understand there
were
other ways to get shoulder muscles. Try a feminine activity like playing the harp, thank you very much.

Not that she didn’t understand why Hank didn’t want to play softball with beginners. Performing music with struggling novices was not something Abby had much patience for, either.

“Thanks for the invite,” Hank said to Gwynne.

“You should have told me your crew was doing repairs down the street. I would’ve invited you sooner,” Gwynne said. “You didn’t have to wait for me to drive by and notice you by accident.”

“We only started today. Besides, I didn’t know you worked here.”

Gwynne poured Hank a glass of water and added a slice of cucumber. “You don’t follow my every move?”

“Afraid not.” Hank accepted the glass and plopped into an overstuffed chair. “Heard you quit the mumbo-jumbo business, though. How does it feel?”

“Hard to say.”

“Right. Because you decide to take a job here in la-la land serving cucumber-laced drinks. You could’ve called me. I could’ve gotten you a job.”

“Thanks, I appreciate the thought,” Gwynne said drily. “Is this why you’re visiting?”

Hank shrugged out of her jacket. “It’s cold out. You have heat.”

“Glad to know my company is so thrilling.”

“Just trying to eat my lunch in peace,” Hank grumbled. “This here is one of the shitty perks of road maintenance—if we want to eat, we have to hide, or some self-righteous member of the driving public is sure to report us to complain we’re sitting around on our asses wasting the taxpayers’ money. I’d like to see them out there freezing their toes off or frying in the sun, sucking fumes.” She unwrapped a paper bag and started in on the burger that was her lunch.

“The guys give you a hard time for ditching them?” Gwynne asked.

“They think I have a hot date. Whatever.”

“Why would they think that?” Gwynne said. “Did you fuck things up with Aisha? Because I swear to God, I’m going to make you apologize to her. Tell me you didn’t break up with her.”

“Shit, no.”

“Then…?”

Hank finished chewing. “I don’t talk about Aisha at work—period. The crew knows I’m not into guys, but I don’t fill them in on my personal life.”

“They’re guys. They don’t care about your personal life.”

“Oh, they care all right. If it’s something they can give me a hard time about, they care. And personally, I could do without their dating advice. I get enough shit from you already.”

Abby watched them chatting, catching up on gossip about friends on the softball team. It figured that Gwynne played softball. She was probably great at it. Even if she
wasn’t
great at it, she looked like she’d at least fit in. She was the cute, petite, less intimidating version of Hank, with a too-short haircut and a direct gaze that was not quite feminine. She’d swing the bat with a confident, graceful arc and she’d look perfect sliding in the dirt, her body tangling with another jock’s and rolling from the impact.

And where did that thought come from?

She snapped out of it as Hank crumpled her trash and rose to return to work.

“When are you going to start playing with us again?” Hank asked Gwynne.

“I don’t know.” Gwynne’s shoulders slumped. “I have a lot going on.”

Hank swayed uncomfortably like she didn’t know what to say. “I heard. Sorry about your mom and your sister.”

Kira’s partner had warned Abby about that—that Gwynne wasn’t normally grumpy, but she’d recently suffered two deaths in the family.

“Thanks.” Gwynne stared at her desk.

Hank stood silently for several long, awkward moments before edging toward the exit. “Come back anytime. We could use you.”

“I guess,” Gwynne mumbled unconvincingly.

“You too,” Hank threw over her shoulder at Abby. It sounded like an afterthought.

Abby fingered the ends of her longer-than-shoulder-length hair. Maybe she would try softball again. Just because she didn’t look the part didn’t mean she couldn’t learn to smack a ball. Her strong shoulders had to count for something.

Hank stopped in the archway and turned around. “And that chick you were dating,” she told Gwynne. “The good pitcher?”

Gwynne frowned. “The red pushup bra?”

“Yeah, her. How come we never see her anymore?”

“Because we broke up.” Gwynne sounded like it should be obvious.

“That doesn’t mean she had to quit showing up.”

“Her choice, Hank. Maybe if you guys had bothered to learn her name…”

“Maybe if you didn’t call her
the red pushup bra
, we would’ve.”