The Angel of the Lighthouse (3 page)

“That’s where I know you from,” Jack snapped his fingers, pleased, as the other man came out from the kitchen carrying three steaming mugs. “Has the big man here remembered to give you his name?” Jack asked.

“Not yet,” Skye said.

Jack mock scowled, shaking his head at his companion’s absent-mindedness. “Well, he’s generally known as Aries, since he refuses to tell me what his parents named him. You’d think he was embarrassed or something. And I can’t find his driving license or passport.”

“Aries?” Skye asked. “Like the Zodiac sign?”

“Exactly that,” the newly named Aries said as he set the mugs on the table, From somewhere behind him a microwave pinged.

“That must be some name,” Skye said in a stage whisper to Jack, who chuckled lowly.

Aries shook his head. “Keep guessing,” he said, and headed back to the kitchen.

Skye found her eyes following him. There was something about the way that he moved, with grace and controlled power in every step. Would his hands move with the same grace as they touched the body of his lover?

She frowned inwardly. Now, where had that thought come from? Objectively speaking, he was a handsome man, but she was taken, and off the market. She shouldn’t be speculating about anyone’s lovers!

And certainly not imagining yourself in that position,
a little voice whispered in her ear. It sounded like her fiancé.

“One of these days, I’ll figure out the name,” Jack confided in her. “I don’t know what I’ll do with it when I have it, but I’ll do something.”

Skye dragged her mind back to simpler things, and brought her eyes back around to look straight at Jack, rather than admiring Aries’ backside. “So, you said that you’re a lightkeeper?”

“Yep,” Jack said proudly.

“I didn’t think that any of the lighthouses were still manned.”

“Not at all.” Jack warmed to the subject. “Automation is all well and good, but sometimes you need sets of human eyes on the scene. Every lighthouse on this coast is manned, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, thee hundred and sixty five days a year. It’s more of a life than a job, really.”

“The Forgotten Lightkeepers. Catchy title for a documentary, don’t you think?” she asked him.

“Aye,” he said, sounding as if he’d like to talk more about this, though he was interrupted by the appearance of Aries, balancing three bowls of soup and a plate of bread. Without spilling a drop he slid the bowls on to the table, and the plate to the centre.

“Thought you’d be looking fed as well,” he said to Jack, who grinned.

“You know me so well. This the homemade stuff?” he asked.

“It is,” Aries confirmed.

“Grab a spoon,” Jack urged Skye. “You’ve not tasted soup like this.”

Skye wasn’t entirely sure about this claim. Surely soup was soup? But she lifted a spoon and a slice of bread, and set to filling her stomach.

While it was probably not the best soup in the world, as Jack had claimed, it certainly
was
a cut above all the others she had tasted. It was warming and filling, with thickly sliced vegetables and chunks of chicken floating in a thick broth. The bread was still warm inside, crusty and fluffy. It was just what she needed.

Aries slid a plastic pack of painkillers over the table towards her, followed by a glass of water. “You’re not allergic?” he asked.

“Not at all,” she replied as she popped two tablets free and swallowed them.

Conversation stopped again as they returned to their soup, and soon enough, spoons scraped across empty bowls. Jack leaned back in his seat with a sigh of relief.

“That’ll keep me going,” he said. “You fit to take half the shift now so we don’t get too badly out of sync?”

Aries looked at Skye as if in askance, and she looked back at him blankly before she realised that he was taking the time off to look after her. She felt colour rising to her cheeks and damned her complexion.

“Once I’ve contacted my family, I don’t plan to do much. If I can borrow one of your books, Aries, then I’ll happily sit in and rest,” she said.

Aries nodded. “You’re welcome to borrow any book you want,” he said. “You could stay here, or read over at Jack’s. Better safe than sorry, but I’d rather not leave you on your own. Not for a while, anyway.”

“I’ve got a spare armchair by the fire that you can claim,” Jack said.

“Sounds good,” Skye agreed.

Aries cleared the plates, and Skye rose to begin wandering through the stacks, tilting her head to look at the titles.

Aries didn’t appear to stick to one genre. Pulp fiction was stacked with autobiographies, poetry with westerns. Science fiction rubbed shoulders with chemistry textbooks, and graphic novels bracketed encyclopaedias.

Over the sound of clattering dishes and running water, Jack sidled up to her. His face was faintly curious.

“What did you two talk about upstairs?” he asked.

“Nothing much. Why?” she asked curiously.

“Because Aries never lets anyone touch his books. You must’ve made quite an impression, whatever you said.”

“Really?” Skye felt a peculiar warm thrill at this admission.

“Really. Got any tips for me?”

“I have no idea,” she admitted, sliding a worn copy of
Pride and Prejudice
out of a stack, careful not to knock any of them down. She turned to look at Aries where he was carefully drying dishes.

“I wouldn’t have thought he’d read the classics,” she noted. “Somehow he doesn’t seem the type.”

“That’s Aries. Full of surprises. Look, when he’s done clearing up, he’ll head over to the tower and I’ll head across the way to my place. You can ring whoever you need to in privacy. Just come across when you’re done. You’re not over in thirty minutes, I’ll come and make sure that you haven’t passed out on the floor. Sound like a plan?”

“It’s a plan,” she agreed, and he buffeted her gently on the shoulder.

“Stout lass,” he said.

“Stop flirting with our guest,” Aries shouted mildly, turning to brandish a tea towel in their general direction.

“It’s not flirting, it’s my winning charm,” Jack called back.

“I’d give you that quote about a rose still smelling sweet, but then I’d be paying you a compliment.”

“And we couldn’t have that, could we?”

Skye could see in that instant how close these two men were. They bantered back and forward with the ease of long practise and the gentle affection of men whose lives depended on each other. Her fingers itched for a camera. They were as close as brothers, or so it seemed to her.

Aries emerged from the kitchen, the tea towel dangling from his shoulder. He crossed the floor to stand at her side.

“You feeling all right?” he asked her.

“Just achy,” she said. “But I’ll be fine when the painkillers kick in.”

“You find a book?”

She held it up as if for inspection, and was pleased to see his eyes warm, along with his smile. “It’s one of my favourites,” she said.

He leaned in close, his breath brushing against her ear. “Mine too,” he whispered, and a spark of pure lust shot through her like a lightning bolt, shocking her silent. Something stirred in the back of her head, feeling like sharp nails running down a chalkboard. Aries flinched but controlled it so quickly that if she hadn’t been so close to him, she wouldn’t have noticed. She shook her head to try and clear it of the feeling, and Aries stepped back as the moment passed.

“If you need me, I’m just over in the tower. Come and find me,” he told her, before turning on his heel and walking out with no more farewell. She would have felt more stung at his sudden change in demeanour if Jack hadn’t rolled his eyes and followed with a wave of his hand and a tap on his watch face.

The phone was sitting over in a corner nook, and Skye made her way over to it. She felt unaccountably nervous as she wrapped her hand around the receiver.

She dialled the number she knew by heart and let it ring. She leaned against the wall and tried to pull herself together. The memory of the blazing row she’d had with Lewis was still fresh in her mind, the hateful and hurtful words still stinging.

No one picked up on the other side, and it went to answer phone. The voice of her fiancé was curt even on the machine.

“Lewis, it’s Skye,” she said after the beep. “In case you hear that my plane went down, I’m fine, just bruised. I’ll ring you later.”

No sooner had she hung up, she began second guessing herself. Maybe she could have been nicer, gentler about telling him what had happened. He was her fiancé after all. Too late now, she sighed, and picked up the book. Maybe some escapism was in order.

***

Outside, Aries was about to head over to the lighthouse to start his shift, when Jack laid a firm hand on his shoulder.

“What’s up with you, Aries?” he asked, unusually stern. “This woman’s got you waxing and waning. And you’ve always been the calm, unflappable sort.”

Aries shook his head. “There’s something about her that calls to me. Every time she speaks I can feel it in my bones. She’s special, Jack. I wish you could see her aura. Taurus would be blinded by her.”

For the first time, mentioning one of his lost family didn’t bring a stab of pain to his heart, merely a wistful ache.

“So why do you keep looking like you’re hurting?” Jack asked.

Aries considered how best to put it into words. “She’s warmth and light, a beacon in the dark. But sometimes I can feel a darkness in her, a web that pulls down and strangles the light. It feels to me like razors and broken glass, tearing me apart from the inside. It cuts deep every time it appears.”

What Aries knew but didn’t say, was that it was demon taint. Skye herself was pure, but someone near her wasn’t. Someone near her was strangling her attention, polluting her core.

“Can you help her?” Jack asked, and Aries thanked heaven for his caring friend.

“I believe so,” he said. “Time will tell.”

“Anything I can do?”

“Just be yourself. Your own aura compliments hers. Mine agitates.”

“I’ll look after her,” Jack said, and strode off towards his cottage.

Aries headed towards the lighthouse to check that list of jobs that were on the schedule. There was paperwork, but there was always paperwork. The weather wasn’t due for an hour, and there were trees to clear over by the tree line.

Action sounded appealing. Aries reached for the axe, ready and sharpened in the storage nook. He rested it over his shoulder and headed out again.

The lighthouse was set on cleared land, but the tree line and undergrowth was always trying to make a comeback. It was hard, relentless work, but right now, Aries needed that. The web of demon taint was prodding his angelic side to attack – to destroy the demon, to burn it in holy light. But the web was hiding in the body of Skye, who called to him as no one else had in all his years. To destroy the darkness he would have to destroy Skye, and that was something that he would not,
could
not do.

But unwinding the demon taint… that was another thing entirely. That was possible with skill and with patience. And skill and patience were usually in short supply when an angel was faced with a demon. That was the terrible beauty of demons.

Aries shook his head. He would have to figure out what to do, but right now, he needed to lose himself in action – to do something to clear the confusion in his head. He made his way across the cleared land, looking out for any damage in the wake of the storm. He didn’t have to look for long: a tree had been blown down across the property border, lying across the fence. Aries hefted the axe, and set to work with a will, hewing branches.

An hour later his shirt had been long since discarded and his muscles burned pleasantly. He could feel power thrumming under this skin, content. The branches of the tree were neatly stacked to one side, and the bare trunk remained. It was perhaps rather quick for any normal mortal, but Aries found that he didn’t mind if Skye noticed. He left the axe buried deep in the trunk to return to later, and went back to the lighthouse to fill out the weather report.

***

Jack’s cottage wasn’t as cluttered as Aries, Skye noted. It certainly wasn’t as studious. The walls were a pale blue and the carpet a sea green. A miscellaneous piece of machinery sat on the table with a mechanical manual open beside it.

Jack was clattered around in the kitchen and seemed quite happy to leave her to her own thoughts. She pulled one of the armchairs over to the window and settled down, curled up. The painkillers were easing the aches, her stomach was full, and the sun through the glass was warm.

As much as she wanted to read, she found her eyes drifting shut. It was peaceful here – a kind of peaceful she hadn’t known in what felt like years. She’d only been half joking when she suggested making a documentary. It would be fascinating to bring this tower to the television screen. Men like this deserved to have their stories told.

Perhaps she’d make a few notes, throw together a pitch before she went back. That would give her a reason to come back here after she had gone back to her home and her life.