Earthbound Angels Part 1 (7 page)

“Yes, sir, Mr. Draco. Thank you so much!”

“You can thank me when I’ve gotten you out of this mess. Now, try not to worry. Remember, you’ve got me on your side and, even if I say so myself, I’ve had a quite a bit of success in defending falsely accused people.”

“I’m so happy to have you helping me, Mr. Draco. You just don’t understand how much hope you’ve given me.”

“Well, Andrew, you keep holding on to that hope. We’ll get this sorted.

AFTER ANDREW HAD left his office, Simon closed the door and sat down at his desk. Picking up the phone, he punched in a number that he could have recited in his sleep and waited for an answer.

“Hi, Simon. How’s it going?”

“Oh, you know how it is, Erick. Never a dull moment. How’s Hollianne? Have you run her off yet?”

He heard Erick chuckling and Simon couldn’t help but grin. That was one of the very significant changes in his personality since falling in love – yes, Erick Angell, one of the most cynical of them angels, had fallen in love. This news had created such a noise among the Earthbound Angels. He could almost imagine the sound they made before their wings were taken from them. The flapping of thousands of wings could be quite… liberating.

Well, that was what he’d thought with not just a bit of sentiment as news about the impending wedding passed from line to line. If the Earthbound still had wings, they would be flapping. Like hands clapping. Quite a lot of Earthbounds had embraced the human life and had married and raised kids of their own. But with Erick being here on Earth longer than most and managing to hide himself from personal human interactions in his castle for years, one could imagine the stir it caused to watch him “fall”, no pun intended.

So, back to the beginning. Erick
wasn’t
a chuckler. It was a good experience to hear him do this now. If someone could make Erick chuckle, then the world really wasn’t such a hopeless place.

“You know, I’m not quite sure how I got so lucky but I’m very thankful. Now, you’re still going to be my Best Man, aren’t you?” he asked.

“I wouldn’t miss it, my friend,” Simon said enthusiastically before sobering and becoming serious. “Look, I’ve got a favor to ask you.”

“Sure thing. What’s up?”

“I’VE GOT THIS new client,” Simon told Erick. “Nice young man named Andrew Martin. You might have heard about the Pamela Stevens attack a couple of months ago?”

“Oh yeah, I did hear about that. So Andrew’s your client. Does that mean that he’s innocent?”

“Yes, he had nothing to do with it but he’s about to be arrested for attempted murder and rape. I wonder if you can get in touch with your special friend. I need all of the information I can get.”

“Of course. Give me the details and I’ll put in a call to him right now.”

“Thanks, Erick. I really appreciate it.”

When he had given Erick the information he needed to pass onto his friend, Simon assured Erick that he would see him that night for dinner before he finished the call.

Sitting back in his chair, he gazed out the window of his high rise office. The view of the city of Moon Bay never failed to amaze him. Even as old as it was, the city still rose to meet the challenges of modern technology while meshing it with the older and more historical sections.

His view of all of it calmed him.

As Simon thought back on his journey thus far, he couldn’t say that he regretted any part of it. Well, there were some regrettable areas – those events when he’d been incredibly ignorant.

He and Erick had both been angels. However, they had been cast out of Heaven to live among the humans that they had so criticized. At first, they had both been quite angry at the situation, but the longer they remained on Earth, the more adjusted they had become.

Simon had adjusted faster than Erick, but it had taken meeting Hollianne for Erick to realize that he could live a very happy life here as a human.

He had to smile when he thought of the changes that had taken place in Erick since he had met and fallen in love with Hollianne Talbot. These changes were so intense that Simon had heard it in Erick’s voice the first time he had spoken to him after meeting Holli – even when they were talking on the phone. It was a truly beautiful experience for them both, and it warmed Simon’s heart each time he thought of it.

Even though they were disgraced and fallen angels, their Father had not totally abandoned them. They wanted for nothing. Their only condition was that they had to use special powers that they had been granted to help unfortunate humans. He had long since stopped questioning how certain humans were chosen for his help. Rather, he had started to just accept it and help those that were sent to him.

It was this very situation that had brought him together with some of the most special people that he had ever met. Of course, there was Erick who was his brother. Then there was Karl, his house manager. Simon had long ago started to think of Karl in that capacity. But he was much more than that. He was Simon’s friend, and that meant more than any of Karl’s other numerous talents, which weren’t simple necessities – he often wondered how he could live as comfortably and accomplish many things without Karl. As a friend and a house manager who took care of most of his needs, Karl was irreplaceable.

In truth, there wasn’t anything that Simon had found that Karl could not do. He was a registered nurse, a world class chef, a licensed masseuse, and his chauffeur. Not only that, but Karl did do windows when cleaning the Simon’s home as well as the laundry.

The first thing he had learned when he started living as a human was how activities that used to be mundane were pushed in the forefront of his struggle. Angels don’t eat, do laundry, and clean after themselves. But suddenly, he needed to learn how to cook, wash clothes, and take a bath every few hours. It would sometimes made him feel foolish, remembering his early struggles were about which to use in order to clean an undershirt – a bar of soap or the powder? Although the bath soap had smelled much better, and yes, he did use that for quite a while.

But of course, when Karl came to his life he gratefully, and finally, had had time to face the more serious challenges in being a human that used to be an angel.

And that had been quite a ride. It was curious that the first unfortunate incident in his interaction with humans that had pushed him to the direction that he needed to take and the mission that he had to take upon as a mantle – defender of the innocent. Simon used the Law to defend humans who had been falsely accused of wrong doing.

His first mission was a man whose name was Dennis Harmon. The first time he met him was the time Dennis had saved him from a muggers. But he had been beaten so much that he lost consciousness, only to learn upon waking up in the hospital that Dennis himself had been accused of the one that had beaten and tried to steal from him. Oh, and did he need to be reminded how painful it was to be mugged?

It was ironic, that the beings he’d been accusing for a long time of being worthless of the Father Time’s love, proved themselves to be worthy just by being themselves – reckless, ignorant, and weak. Oh, how much they had thought him about humility. Angels and humans had the capacity to believe they were “better” than certain other people. It’s the attitude, and not the person, and someone with a superior attitude would always find something – even the most ridiculous reasons – to insult another and then feel superior.

Did that mean that angels were just incredibly insecure? That would have been Dreama’s answer, had she known about angels.
Had she known about me,
he thought.

As he reflected on the past, he gradually moved forward and landed in the present.

THIS BROUGHT THE beautiful image of Dreama Addison to his mind. With her perfect light blonde, shoulder length hair and sexy aquamarine eyes, she drew him in more and more all the time. Even though he had known her for a while, he had never been able to get as close to her as he wanted because of some inescapable complications.

The first one was that she was the younger daughter of the senior partner in the Law Firm where he worked. The second was that Raven, the older and favorite daughter, had made it quite obvious as soon as she could manage that she wanted him for herself. And Raven could be very ruthless when she wanted something. Just a whiff that Simon was actually interested in Dreama could set manipulated events that would make life uncomfortable for the younger woman. That was the reason why, on social gatherings when both of them were there, he avoided being near Dreama for too long, in case Raven noticed that he was interested in being more than a friend to her younger sister.

Yes, truly. Raven could be such a pain in the ass.

Simon was still very much lost in thought, figuring out how he was going to find time being with Dreama without Raven there, when the phone on his desk buzzed.

Hitting a button on it, he said, “Yes, Rosalyn?”

“Simon, Ms. Addison is here to see you,” Rosalyn said over the message system.

“Wonderful, Rosalyn! Send her in!”

Simon jumped up from behind his desk with a decided spring in his step as he hurried to the door. Whipping it open to greet her, he had to adjust the disappointed look on his face when he saw who it was.

“Ah, Raven,” he said.

“Well, yes, Simon,” the woman said to him. “Who did you think it was?”

“I knew it was you,” he lied as he allowed her to hug him.

“Oh, did you think my lovely sister just dropped by?” Raven said archly.

“No, I knew it wasn’t Dreama.”

Even as Simon lied to Raven, he did his best to hide that fact. But he had a feeling that he wasn’t fooling her in the least.

So Raven had heard that Dreama had been dropping by recently. There was no doubt that she was here today to find out how he liked being visited by her sister.

He did think Dreama would be here today, had actually thought this was true when Rosalyn said a Miss Addison was outside his office door. Since Dreama started assisting Holli in her wedding preparations, the younger woman would sometimes be near enough the office that she would drop by to visit her father, peeking into his office a few times, too, before she would leave for a restaurant or for the castle to meet Holli.

Raven tilted her beautiful head to the side a bit, her long black hair swinging. Her dark eyes flashed at him in disbelief, but she kept her thoughts to herself. Instead, she laid a well-manicured hand on his arm. “I thought we could have lunch together, if you don’t have any plans,” she said.

“Um, sure, I’d like that,” he said. “Let me just tell Rosalyn that I’m leaving.”

Turning his back to grab his suit jacket gave him a chance to regain his composure. He didn’t want to be so transparent, especially to Raven, but it was becoming harder all the time to deny how he felt about her sister Dreama.

Dammit, he had to get a grip. If he didn’t, everyone would know how he felt and that just wasn’t something that could happen.

At least not yet.

So for now, he turned around and smiled at Raven as they strolled out of the office.

OVER LUNCH, RAVEN kept up a running stream of chatting.

She was really quite good at that, which came in handy when Simon wasn’t in the mood to talk. He had a lot on his mind that he barely tasted his steak sandwich and cheese fries. There were times that he simply didn’t want to eat healthy and this was one of them.

Raven had lifted a carefully arched eyebrow at him when he ordered his food but wisely remained silent and ordered her own shrimp salad and mineral water.

Finally, she stopped talking and sipped her water.

“Simon, you haven’t been listening to a word I’ve said,” she said icily.

“Sure I have, Raven,” Simon protested. “I’ve just got a new case that’s kind of preying on my mind right now. I’m sorry if I’ve made you feel that I’m not paying enough attention to you. Please, go ahead with what you were saying.”

“Oh, never mind,” Raven said, waving her hand dismissively. “It’s not important, anyway. What I wanted to ask you about is Erick’s wedding. You’re his Best Man, aren’t you?”

“Yes, I sure am,” Simon answered, smiling, even as he began to feel like he needed to take care about what he would say next. If Holli and Dreama had hit it off from the first, Holli and Raven did not. Upon knowing about Dreama’s humble background, Raven had acted snobbish, and had petulantly declared that she wasn’t someone worthy of a billionaire like Erick to a select few. Noone had to tell Holli about this, because she already was sensitive enough to know. But when Erick noticed, the look on his face was enough to tell that Raven would never be in any if his lists. Not even of his least favorites.

“Well, I thought I would help you out and go as your date, since I know you don’t want to be hounded by all of those single women that are sure to be there. Just let me know when you have all the details on the date and time so I can have a new outfit to wear.”

SIMON STARED AT Raven for a few moments more before he was sure she actually said what she had said.

And then he would have wanted to laugh, but he instead put what remained of his tasty sandwich down on his plate.

There was no way Raven was going to be his date to the wedding.

How long was this nasty business going to last? If he only knew what Dreama actually felt about him, things would have been different.

Raven had always felt herself to be in competition with her younger sister. There had been some issues in the beginning when Simon and Dreama had first met. Raven had been jealous that he and Dreama had hit it off and it had been a bit of a problem.

In fact, Simon hadn’t seen Dreama very often at first because of the way Raven reacted – and because something always “happened” that would eliminate either one of them in any event when they could have been together. When he learned that Raven had been manipulating arrangements so that schedules would not permit he and her sister would not be in one place at the same time, especially when the event had something to do with the firm, he knew he only had opportunities to act freely with Dreama anywhere wherein Raven would definitely not be there, like events arranged by other people and other friends.