Mercy for the Fallen (6 page)

“So… you’ve got your own religion now.” 

“I do not,” I scowled.  Technically Eve did, from the sound of it. 

“What was with all that child of the light stuff then?” 

“I was improvising.  It worked, didn’t it?”

“This is getting weird, Mercy.”

“And I’m supposed to bear some responsibility for that?”

“I’m not saying it’s your fault, but you have to admit, the weirdness factor has gone way up in the last couple of days.”

“What if this doesn’t go away?  What if they come back?  Or other angels start giving her nifty ideas like how to walk on water?  Or Evie starts sprouting wings when we’re at the supermarket?” 

His head canted to one side.  “You can walk on water?”

“Parker…”

“No, I know, not important.  I’m sorry, angel.  C’mere.”  He wrapped his arms around me, pulling me close.  My head nestled against his shoulder and I took comfort in the soothing warmth of his body and his familiar scent.  “Whatever happens, we’ll deal with it together.”

“I’m sorry things are so weird,” I sighed against his neck.       

“Hey, how about we both take today off and go to the zoo while the weather’s still nice?”

“I don’t know, Parker.  I already missed my afternoon class yesterday, and I’m so close to finishing…”

“Okay fine.”  His arms dropped away, and he took a step back.  “I’ll take Bunny to the zoo and you can go to school.”

“Parker, don’t be like that… it’s not like I don’t
want
to go to the zoo.”

“I like the zoo.”  Adam strolled in, stealing a piece of bacon from the plate on the counter.

Chapter Six

“Nobody asked you,” Parker growled, taking the plate of bacon and shoving it back into the refrigerator.  “What’s he doing here?”

“How should I know?  What are you doing here, Adam?”

“I was in the neighborhood.  I thought I should stop by and see my girl.” He waggled his eyebrows at me playfully.

“She hasn’t been your girl for a while now,” Parker replied smugly, and Adam’s hands came up.

“I meant the kid, of course.”

“My statement stands.” 

“Ouch.”  Adam’s face contorted with pain for half a second before the smirk returned.  “Feeling quite the macho man today, are we?”

“Eve’s upstairs if you want to spend some time with her.”  I cut off the conversation before they got into a real pissing match. 

“Tell you what.  How about I take BunBun to the zoo and the two of you can have your grown up time to work some stuff out?”

Was he serious?  He’d never spent any alone time with her before, at least, not when she was awake.  “I don’t know, Adam.  Maybe you should start with something a bit closer to home.”

“Agreed.  I’m not sure I like the idea of letting her go with him,” Parker said, deep furrows appearing on his brow.

A roll of the eyes was given.  “It’s the zoo, Mercy, not the moon,” Adam pointed out.  “I’ve got it covered.  We’ll even go in the car instead of the fun way.”

Part of me thought it was such a bad idea, but part of me could realize he deserved some time with his daughter while she was conscious.  “Alright.”

“But Merce…” Parker scowled. 

“You wanted to talk, didn’t you?” 

It took another half hour to get them loaded up and out the door.  Adam balked at carrying Eve’s pink vinyl diaper bag, which held everything from snacks to a handful of small toys rather than actual diapers now.  I suppose I could’ve swapped her things out into Parker’s hiking pack, but I admit, I took a perverse thrill from watching him strap on the bag with cute, baby bunnies all over it.

“Okay, you’ve got me all to yourself now,” I smiled, leaning against the door once they’d gone.  “Are you sure you still want to talk?” I quirked a brow at Parker in invitation.

“I think we should, yes.” 

So much for my playful mood.  “What’s so important?  Is it those people outside?  We can call the cops on them if they come back.”

“No, it’s not that.  I want to talk about you and me.”

That brought me up short.  “What about you and me?  We’re good, aren’t we?”  Christ… weren’t we?  I’d thought we were closer than ever.  Maybe we didn’t spend as much time together as we used to, but last night’s awesome proved we still knew how to make that time count.

“No, we’re good.  But I can’t help but think we could be so much better.”

“How?”  If he said word one about an open relationship I was going to let him have it.

“You really can’t guess?” 

“I may be part angel, but I’m not a mind reader, Parker.  If you want something, you have to tell me what it is.”

Parker took hold of both my hands, leading me over to the couch.  “I want you to marry me.”

“Not this again…”  He hadn’t brought up the subject for over a year.  The last time we’d talked about it, we both agreed it wasn’t necessary.  We were both happy, and we had Bunny, there was nothing marriage could possibly add to the scenario other than a tax break. 

“Why not?  Whatever you were afraid of happening before, it’s pretty clear it hasn’t come to pass.  I love you, Mercy, and I want you to be my wife.”

“We’ve been over this before.”  I shook my head, pulling my hands from his.  “What would getting married possibly change?”

“Plenty… You love me, don’t you?”

“Of course I do.  And it has nothing to do with our legal status.”

“Marriage is more than a certificate and a box to check on your driver’s license, Mercy.  It’s a commitment.  To us, to our family.”

“I am committed to us.  I’m not going anywhere.”  I started to see where this was coming from.  “Wait, is this because of Adam?”

“You know I’ve wanted this for a long time.  I tried bringing it up before I even knew he was in town.  But Adam’s part of it, I’m not gonna lie.  What kind of a mixed message are you giving him that you won’t agree to marry me?”

“I’m not giving him mixed messages, he knows I want to be with you.”  Not that it necessarily made it through that thick skull of his.  Maybe I did need to be more direct?  But I wasn’t going to get married just to send a message to Adam.

“You have to be doing something to make him think he can waltz in here whenever he wants to.”

“That’s the way Adam is.  He’s always been a pain in the ass, since the first day I met him.  He can’t help it.  Thousands of years of being worshipped by women tend to make a guy a little fat-headed.  He can’t bring himself to believe that I don’t want him.”

“Don’t you?”  Parker’s eyes were hooded with vulnerability and I touched my forehead to his.

Maybe a part of me would always want Adam, but I wasn’t a slave to those emotions.  I pulled back to look him in the eyes.  “I love
you
, Parker.  Not because I had no choice, but because I wanted to be with you.  I still do.  You made me fall in love with you and Bunny loves you too.  Adam dropping in out of the blue isn’t going to change that.”

“I want Evie to have my name, not yours.  I want to adopt her, and make things legal between us.  I want us to be a real family.”

I’d been all set to have Parker’s name on her birth certificate in the first place, but the papers Finch provided had my last name on them and Adam Anderson listed as the father.  I hadn’t pushed at the time, but in the years since, Parker was the only real father she’d ever known.  “I can have Finch do that if it’ll make you happy.  We don’t have to get married to do it.”

“That’s all just paperwork.  I’m talking about standing up before friends and family and pledging to be together forever.  I want to know that you want to be with me as much as I want to be with you.”

“I do, I really do.”  Even though forever might mean something entirely different for me. 

“Then marry me.”

I don’t know why I couldn’t say yes.  But every time he said marriage it set off a burst of fear, deep in the pit of my stomach.  “I promise I’ll think about it.  Now, I really have to get going for my first class.” 

“Are you sure you can’t play hookey today?” 

“We can talk about it later, I promise, but I have to go.”  I could see the disappointment in his eyes, but he let me go with a faint smile. 

* * *

Parker didn’t pressure me for an answer when I got home later that afternoon.  Barely trading more than a few words with me, he took off for the club, leaving me to a quiet house with Eve upstairs taking a nap after her busy day at the zoo.  My daughter chattered on about Unca Adam from the moment she woke to the moment I put her back down for the night, and I wondered how she’d take it when Adam disappeared again.  Would she simply roll with the punches and get super psyched to see him every time he blew into town, or would his absence break her little heart? 

Those thoughts plagued me as I plodded my way through my homework.  After setting Nelo on patrol outside and checking one last time on Evie, I changed into my nightgown, emerging from the bathroom to find Adam stretched out on my bed, reading through one of my books.  I couldn’t see which one he had, but the bare chest on the front gave me a pretty good idea what kind of a book it was. 

“What are you doing here?” 
Was
I giving him mixed signals?  Why else would he think it was okay to hang out on my bed and go through my stuff?

“Hang on a sec, it gets really good here.”  Adam ignored my question, continuing to read until he flipped the page.  “This is what it takes to get your motor running these days, is it?”  He tossed the book aside.  “I can refresh your memory if you like.  I can send a quiver of pleasure to your heated core from the barest of touches,” he quoted, flashing me those bedroom eyes again.

“Yeah, that’s not happening again in this century.  But you can borrow the book if you need help working some frustrations out.”  I smiled sweetly, pulling a pair of shorts out of my dresser drawer.

“W
hat happened to me ruining you for all other men?” he grumbled, rolling onto his side to watch me.

“Parker does just fine.”  More than fine, but I didn’t want to get into detail.

“But it can’t be like it was with us, is it?”

I wasn’t about to answer that.  “There are more important things than sex to a successful relationship.”

“Name three.”

“Why can’t you leave it alone?” I snapped, already filled to the brim with my annoyance quota for the day thanks to him.  Adam immediately backed off, rolling up to a sitting position, his hands coming up in a supplicating gesture. 

“I was just teasing.  Jesus, you don’t have to bite my head off.”

“I’m sorry.  You just make it hard sometimes, you know that?”

“I know, I do.  I really do.”

I wasn’t prepared for him to agree with me.  I sank down onto the end of the bed, leaving a good foot of space between us.  “You’re always pushing, always joking, always taking it too far.”

“I thought you didn’t want me to be serious anymore when it came to you and me.”

There was nothing funny about the way he looked at me then.  The regret coupled with need… it wasn’t a teasing lust he showed me, it was so much more.  I forced myself to take in a long, slow breath before I replied.  “There is no you and me anymore.” 

Adam nodded slowly, dropping his gaze after a few heartbeats.  “Do you want me to stay away?”

Did I?  “No, Adam.  You deserve to see Evie whenever you want to.”

“Just not you?”

“Not like that.  If you want to take her out to the zoo again, or the movies, or the park or whatever, that’s fine.  You can even come over to hang out at the house, just… I wish you’d call first.  It upsets Parker when you drop in unannounced.”

“What about you?  Does it upset you?”

“Whatever upsets Parker upsets me.”

“But if it was just you?”

“It’s not.  And it won’t be, not for the foreseeable future.  Parker asked me to marry him again.”

He was silent for a second, but I saw no sign of surprise on his features.  “And you said…?”

“I haven’t answered him yet.”

“That’s kind of an answer in itself, isn’t it?”

“No, it’s not.  It’s a big decision.  One that affects Evie too, not only me.”

“And me.”

My brows came together at his interpretation of things.  “I don’t think you can rightly say it affects you.  I’m already with Parker now.  The only thing that would change if we got married is me getting a new piece of jewelry.”

“If that’s all you’re after, I could have you dripping in diamonds within the hour,” he grinned and I shook my head, biting back a smile.

“You know it’s not.”

“If that’s the only thing that would change, then why haven’t you said yes?”

He had me there.  “I don’t know.  Something about the idea of marriage freaks me out.  I agreed to marry you before, and look how craptastic that turned out.”

Adam swallowed back his initial response to that, and it was another few moments before he spoke.  “Mercy, I know I freaked out when I first found out about Bunny…”

“No, I know, and I’ve come to understand it was all for the best.”

“I don’t know if I’d go that far…”  His brows twitched closer together.

“Don’t you see?  When does it ever work out for people?  I can’t think of a single married couple that’s been together for more than a few years, tops.  Oh, I’m sure they exist, but I’m not convinced it’s the right way to go.”  Things with Parker were good, really good, and I didn’t want to screw it up.