Reckless Radiance (15 page)

She smiled at Gabriel as he slept then she freed her hair from a tight bun at the base of her neck. The golden strands fell around her face like silk and Russell felt the familiar burn begin to rumble in his chest. Her turned from her the minute he knew she was undressing. He had only caught sight of her bare shoulder when she began shrugging out of her teal and black plaid flannel shirt.

With his back to her, he shut his eyes and reveled in the noises he would miss so much. The sound of her breathing and the soft padding of her feet across the hardwood floor. When he heard the rustling of the comforter, he turned around and saw her perched on the bed in a pair of pink cotton shorts and a gray tank top.

With only the moonlight filling the room, she found the bottle of lotion on the bedside table and quickly spread it over her legs and feet. It wasn’t seductive and Russell didn’t see it as titillating. It was the only moment she had to herself all day. It was the only shred of pampering she’d experienced in weeks. Hearing her sigh as she squeezed the heel of her foot, the burn in Russell deepened.

This young woman had given up everything for the man she loved. She’d bathed him and fed him. She’d cleaned up his vomit countless times and yet still kissed him with the passion she’d kissed him with when they were wildly inexperienced high school students.

She never had time to make plans for herself because it wasn’t in her nature to think about herself. She cooked and cleaned and drove to the hospital. She put power behind her voice when calling the insurance company and she kept the tears out of her eyes when anyone in town asked how she was holding up. Her beauty was only outweighed by her strength yet she did not believe she possessed an ounce of it.

Russell breathed in the scent of lavender that floated his way from the cream she used and his guilt returned with a vengeance. How could he do this to her? He loved her. He loved Gabriel. Five years with the boy had given him more of a life than he had ever known in all of his centuries before. He hadn’t just been a Guardian to Gabriel, he had been his friend. Gabriel taught him about humor and had given him his first laugh.

 Valerie slid under the covers of the bed she shared with her husband and propped herself on one elbow, cuddling up next to him as he slept. She put her other hand on his chest and felt the comforting rise and fall of his strained breath. She did it all the time. She was seeing if he was still breathing. Russell’s stomach twisted within him. It would be the last time she’d do it.

“I almost made the insurance man cry on the phone today,” she whispered with a grin. “Those bastards know not to mess with Mrs. Jarrett. Got it figured out though. We’re going to get that hospital bed so you can be more comfortable. We should put it in the living room so you have more windows.” Her hand started rubbing circles on his emaciated chest and she sighed. He couldn’t hear her but she needed someone to talk to. What a lonely life she was living.

She leaned in and pressed her full lips to his cheek. He shifted and the corner of his mouth turned up in a smile. He moaned a happy breath but didn’t wake fully. She grinned widely looking at his absently satisfied face. “Still got it,” she whispered in a tease. “I love you, hubby. Goodnight,” she said, settling in next to him, shutting her eyes.

Russell’s hands trembled as he took the handful of steps toward the bed. He placed a palm on the side of Gabriel’s face and shared with him a dose of Serenity and some energy to help him wake. His sky blue eyes opened and he stared up at Russell without making a sound.

“It’s time,” Russell said for only Gabriel to hear.

The young man’s face flickered with surprise at first then he gave Russell a half-hearted smile and nodded.

When they reached The Gates, Gabriel turned to Russell and gave him a serious look. “You remember what I asked you, right?”

Russell examined the young man’s face. He was now but a soul painted in the shape of his former human body. The ghostly glow of the human soul exuded around him in a pale aura but he was still the same young man.

“I will do my best to look after her. Goodbye, my friend,” Russell replied, trying to hide the emotion in his voice

Gabriel nodded with a final smile. “See you later, dude.” And with that he was gone from Russell’s sight. Russell wasn’t meant to take him any further than that.

Sometimes when Russell travelled to The Gates or the angel’s realm, he lost a bit of time on Earth. He willed himself back to Greensburg and a day had already passed. He stood next to the boy’s mother as she was comforted by the town’s pastor.

“I’m not angry with her. I’m just worried about her. I can’t imagine being alone right now,” Alicia said, dabbing at her eyes with a tissue.

His heart lurched. He moved himself through space in a series of flashes. She wasn’t at her house. She wasn’t in town. She wasn’t at the funeral home. He even went to the woods where as a young couple, Valerie and Gabriel spent hours making memories. She was nowhere to be found. Valerie was gone.

Ringing started in his head. He screamed though no one could hear him and he covered his ears though he knew the sound came from within. He’d never communicated with the realm from Earth before. He honestly didn’t even know if they could hear him but he looked to the sky and shouted.

“No! You can call for me all you want but I am not coming back. Whatever you want me to do next, I will not do it. Calling me to be his Usher was unfair and cruel. Find someone else to do your work. I quit!”

He left town in search of her. He stayed in motels and bed and breakfasts. Luckily he remembered about the realm’s bank account. It was left for those who needed to completely blend in to human society. He took out as much cash as they would allow him every few weeks until he had more than enough to last him.

If it took years to find her, he would do it. Every day he hoped he would see her. When he caught the scent of lavender on the air, his heart skipped a beat but it was never her. Not until almost a year later when he was walking down the streets of Somerset with his eyes to the ground. A laugh sounded in the distance and a chill ran up his spine at the sweet noise.

He lifted his gaze and heading toward him with her arm linked through that of another young woman with beautiful brown skin and sparkling wide eyes, was Valerie Gilmore. She giggled again and bumped into her friend playfully as they strode down the sidewalk in matching yellow blouses. He stepped to the far side of the concrete and held his breath as they passed him without noticing.

A relieved smile graced his face and he tilted his lips to the sky. “I found her, Gabriel. I found her,” he whispered.

Chapter Twenty Three

Valerie stared at him with troubled eyes. Hearing Russell recount the same day she remembered so well in a completely different way was strange but also enlightening. The way his voice wavered when he told her how he’d watched her isolated bedtime routine moved her. It wasn’t upsetting in the way she thought it might’ve been. In fact, knowing he’d been there that night watching her and worrying about how she’d take the loss of Gabriel filled her with gratitude.

She felt the tears welling up when he told her Gabriel’s words just before he entered whatever heavenly place Russell escorted him to. And again upon seeing Russell’s own eyes well with tears as he recalled the heartbreaking moment when he went back for her and she was gone.

When Valerie took off just hours after realizing Gabe had died. She knew she was leaving behind Alicia and her own mother. She knew her father and brother and friends were losing her. But Valerie had no idea she was leaving behind someone else that loved her. If only she’d waited a day she might’ve met him sooner and felt some sort of closure hearing Gabriel’s final words to his angel, making sure she was looked after. Instead she took off and walked right into a mostly miserable existence in Somerset.

After what she’d unknowingly put Russell through, she couldn’t help but scold herself for the choice that still haunted her. She wondered why he even made an effort to speak with her once he found her.

She turned her eyes from him and her lips went thin. “How can you love a mess like me?”

When she glanced back to him and something flashed in his eyes. His mouth opened to speak but no words emerged. Russell shook his head and muttered something she couldn’t decipher. He stopped for an instant and pressed his knuckles into the tree trunk they were sitting on. “
How?
Shall I tell you moment by moment how you slowly chipped your way into my heart?” He shook his head before he continued. “I was never meant to feel this way so the mere fact that I do should be proof enough to you or anyone that the affection I have for you is genuine and enduring,” Russell said, sucking in a breath, turning his eyes from her.

Valerie’s mouth barely turned up on one side slowly. He was angry. In the handful of days they’d spent together, he’d never seemed so heated. She wondered if he even had the capacity to be mad. Those cool blue eyes never flared and he didn’t huff. Until now.

“But I ran away. I was a coward. I
am
a coward,” she breathed.

His face fell and his eyes met hers firmly. He placed a hand on hers in a sweet but not forward gesture. Valerie didn’t look down to see the shimmer of him against her skin.

“If anyone can understand why you felt the need to run away, it’s me,” he assured her. “You are no coward. You are the strongest woman I’ve ever known.” She placed her free hand on top of his, keeping his flesh firmly against hers, feeling his warmth. His touch had stopped giving her that blissful feeling he called his Serenity. He was no longer accidentally medicating her with happiness perhaps because she didn’t need it. He alone, without his gifts, gave her feelings she knew lived deep inside her. For so long she’d been waiting for a second chance and she hadn’t even known it.

“Did you know about Henry when you first saw me in Somerset?” Her voice quaked as she said the name that still tasted like acid on her tongue. Russell shook his head.

“No. And he doesn’t matter.”

She sighed and slipped her hands in her hair as a breeze blew past them, rustling the trees that encircled their space. “You must think I’m such an idiot for being with him.”

“You are human. You cannot imagine the esteem I hold for you. Amazing, beautiful, human.”

She put her palm against his jaw and watched the light flicker. He shut his eyes and she wondered what the light felt like to him. Slowly but without hesitation, she pressed her lips to his. Valerie opened her eyes with her mouth still against his, curious to see if the shine of his halo would flourish. What she saw was a spectacular blaze of golden beams that seemed to glitter as they radiated out from his skin. He pulled away from her and it was gone in an instant.

“We really need to stop doing that,” he said with a disheartened laugh.

She stroked his cheek and shook her head. “But, I want to,” she replied.

Russell smiled at her and took her face in his hands. “And I want to, too. I only wish it were that simple.”

“What do you mean?” Valerie asked, shrinking away from his touch.

“The light of my halo has been growing stronger each time we touch. I’m fairly certain it’s acting like a signal flare to The Order. I have absolutely no idea what kind of trouble I will be in should they find me.”

He spoke of things she still didn’t understand. There were so many names and titles she could barely keep track of them.
Guardian, Usher, Proxy.

“The Order?” she probed.

“They are messengers of the Creator. I have no doubt they will come for me eventually. I have already evaded them too long.”

Valerie stood up and paced a few steps as her brow knit together. She looked at him with fear in her eyes. So that was it? The fear she’d seen in him wasn’t about telling her he was angel and not about telling her he’d been Gabriel’s Guardian. It was the fact he was on the run.

“I finally get the truth out of you and you could just be—taken at any moment by some messenger angel?” she asked cautiously.

“Three angels. Cassandra, Daina and Kalliope,” he replied.

“Oh great,” she snipped. “Even better odds.”

He reached out to her to stop her marching back and forth in front of him but she slinked away. She didn’t want him to touch her if it meant they could find him. The fact that he didn’t know what would happen to him when they did was what scared her the most. Could they keep him away from her forever? Would he just vanish one day? Could they kill him?

“I don’t want you to concern yourself with this,” he said. She scoffed.
As if that’s possible
, she thought. “I’m going to learn to control it. I did it before. Remember that first day here in your bedroom when you felt my pulse? I hid my halo from you. I can do it again, I just need to practice.”

She did remember that day. She remembered that he looked like he was in pain. He looked like he was disgusted by her touch. Valerie had felt so rejected when he pulled away from her. She smiled absently knowing now he was trying to quell the beams of light that would’ve bloomed from her touch.

“What now? Where do we go from here?” she asked, stepping close to him again. He looked up at her from the makeshift bench and smiled sweetly. Putting his hand out with his palm facing up, he breathed deep. “You can help me practice,” he said.

Valerie breathed a laugh looking down at the hand he offered. Her hand reached out to him and she started with his pinky at first. Nothing happened as she slid her fingertip down his last finger to his palm. When she saw that he had the light under control, she pressed all of her fingers against the flesh of his palm brazenly. No light emerged.
Hmm, he’s better at that than I thought,
she mused.

Keeping her eyes on their hands, she grew bolder with her touch, tracing circles on the skin of his hand and rubbing over the veins that protruded on his thick wrist. Minutes later their hands were still doing a lightless dance. Valerie bit her lip keeping her joyful smile less than it could’ve been. She took her gaze off their hands and looked at Russell’s eyes with a grin still plastered on her face. His eyes lifted to her intuitively and when they locked stares, a burst of glimmering gold emanated from Russell’s hand.