“You can’t save them all, Gwynnosaurus.” She was a hypocrite for saying it, but she said it anyway. Compared to what she’d risked her safety to do for the angels, caring for a few more critters was nothing.
Gwynne looked at her like she could see into her hypocritical soul and wondered what it would take to make her fall in love with her. She blinked, and the look was gone.
“That doesn’t mean I can’t save some of them.”
A customer came in, so Abby returned to her harp. She watched Gwynne out of the corner of her eye while she meandered from one Irish ballad to another.
“I’m a friend of Kira’s,” the woman was saying. “I’m visiting from out of town and she sent me down here for a free massage.”
“Rae, right? She told me.” Gwynne checked the computer. “I have you on the schedule. If you’d like to make yourself comfortable, it’ll just be a few minutes.”
The visitor leaned forward to check out Gwynne’s photos—in the outward-facing frame, like a proper guest should. “That kitten is adorable! Oh, the rabbits too. Which ones are up for adoption?” She kneeled gracefully on her impossibly long legs to get a closer look. “They’re so cute. I wish I could adopt one.”
Gwynne perked up. “You can.”
“I really can’t. I’m a dancer and we go on tour. I’d have to leave them with someone else for months.” She rose and backed away, probably worried that Gwynne was going to pester her if she didn’t make it clear she wasn’t interested. “Maybe someday.”
At least Gwynne wasn’t flirting with her. Listening to them talk was bad enough. Abby transitioned to a lively Scottish reel she thought a dancer might appreciate and played it as loudly as she could. If it distracted her from Gwynne, so much the better.
As Rae turned away from the desk and chose a sofa, Gwynne glanced in Abby’s direction. Their eyes met and Abby fumbled her tune. She looked away immediately, shaken by her reaction. There was something in Gwynne’s eyes, something in the set of her jaw, something that said:
I see you.
I am aware of you.
I could be making love to you right now if we weren’t both pretending to do our jobs.
Her link with the angels had been like this, except far, far less sexual. How a single human being could fill her with as much yearning as the light of a trillion angels, she didn’t know, but gazing at Gwynne made her realize she belonged on earth as much as in the Angelic Realm. She loved playing music for her sick patients at the hospital and she loved…her. Did angels fall in love? Or was that something you had to be human to experience? Was she in love with Gwynne?
Angelic love was searingly pure and absolute. Human love was less simple. What she felt for Gwynne was both.
She switched to an even trickier, faster-paced reel that required her full concentration. She barely noticed when Dara Sullivan arrived for her weekly appointment with Megan McLaren. What she did notice was Gwynne tapping something into the computer.
“Your appointment’s not for another hour,” Gwynne told Dara. “Did I mess up the schedule?”
“No, I’m early,” Dara said.
“Would you like to relax in the whirlpool while you wait?”
“I like it here. I like listening to the harp music.”
Abby smiled up at her in thanks.
Dara gave her a flicker of a smile in return, but it was Gwynne she addressed her next comment to. “I also like watching you count down the nanoseconds until the clients are gone and you and Abby can jump each other.”
Abby ended her tune midway, rolling a finishing chord in a feeble attempt to pretend she’d reached the tune’s real end. She had never seen Gwynne turn red.
Gwynne ran a nervous hand through her hair. “We don’t—”
Dara nonchalantly picked up a magazine and flipped it open. “Megan says she doesn’t know what’s going on between the two of you, but I think she’s just being tactful.”
Gwynne met Abby’s gaze again. There was vulnerability exposed beneath the raw desire that had been there earlier, and it made her want her even more.
Gwynne closed her eyes. “I have work to do in the back,” she said. “Come get me if anyone needs me.” She disappeared into the storeroom.
Abby rocked her harp onto its base. Gwynne couldn’t look at her like that and then walk away. What a chicken.
She marched across the room and poked her head into the storeroom. Gwynne was pouring massage oil from a gallon jug into small squirt bottles using a funnel that she transferred from one bottle to the next.
Gwynne looked up from her work. Her eyes were bleak. “Is there a customer at the desk already?”
“No.” Abby stepped into the room and pulled the door shut behind her. “Do you need help with that?”
“Abby. I don’t know if it’s such a good idea for you to be in here.”
Chicken.
“Because I might steal some of the inventory?” Abby approached the worktable and screwed the tops onto the squirt bottles Gwynne had just filled. “These could be worth a lot on the black market.”
Gwynne continued to pour oil into more bottles. Abby was standing right next to her, in her personal space, helping her when she asked her not to, and she wasn’t backing away. This was good.
Except the next words out of Gwynne’s mouth were, “I don’t want to lead you on.”
Abby tightened the lid in her hand too hard. Gwynnosaurus wasn’t chicken at all.
It made her want to kiss her even more.
“You think
this
is leading me on? What about the way you were looking at me out there?”
“I know. I’m sorry.” Gwynne put the jug down and sidestepped Abby and opened the door. “Dara?” she called out. “Come get me if a customer shows up, okay?”
“Like I want to walk in on you two making out?”
Gwynne flushed. “We’re not—”
“Don’t worry about the desk,” Dara said. “You think I don’t know how to do customer service? I am the personification of customer service.”
“I want you to come get me,” Gwynne said.
“You want me to disturb you.” Dara clearly didn’t believe her. “When I am offering to help.”
Gwynne stepped out and strode to her desk. “You must really want my job.”
She leaned over and fiddled with the mouse. Dara slid into her unoccupied seat like she belonged there and Gwynne showed her what to do.
“You should be healing people,” Dara said. “Not filling out spreadsheets recording payments.”
Gwynne straightened from the computer. “Leave the billing program to me, please. All you need to worry about is the appointment schedule.”
“Relax.” Dara waved her away.
Gwynne started to leave, then stopped and looked over her shoulder at Dara. Abby watched from the doorway, half afraid Gwynne would not return to the storeroom, but she didn’t disappoint. Gwynne closed the door and once again they were alone in the small room.
* * *
Gwynne had no idea why Dara was so gung ho to take her job except that it was yet one more way to worship the ground she walked on, something she dearly wished she would stop doing. If Dara and Hank would just hurry up and sleep together…
If it wasn’t imperative that she hash it out with Abby, she wouldn’t have let Dara take over her desk. Not because she didn’t trust her to handle it, but because she didn’t like knowing Dara was on the other side of the door assuming she and Abby were getting in each other’s pants. Especially since now all she could think about was getting in Abby’s pants.
Why
was
she here?
Um…yeah. She wanted to apologize for earlier.
If only Abby wouldn’t stare at her mouth.
“You know what would really be leading me on?” Abby stepped closer and angled her head.
Gwynne swallowed. Abby was going to kiss her. She could see it coming. This was not a drive-by assault by a woman intent on making contact before she could react. This was calm and deliberate. Abby knew perfectly well that she might be rebuffed, yet she was confident enough not to care. Abby would give her all the time in the world to reject her, and still get what she wanted. It was hypnotizing.
She loved that about her, that she wasn’t afraid.
Her blood thrummed. She swayed toward her and met her halfway, and for the first time in her life, she understood what it meant to swoon. Her body buzzed with crazy pleasure and she knew denying herself this happiness was a terrible mistake she would never make again. Abby kissed her and kissed her and Gwynne clung to her and drank her in. Abby clutched the front of her shirt to bring her closer, and when that wasn’t enough, got underneath it and wrapped her small, gentle fingers around her bra straps with a fierceness that made Gwynne want to pass out from oxygen deprivation. She wouldn’t have minded. But it didn’t happen, because Abby broke the kiss.
“I want to be with you, Gwynnosaurus. I know I should have more pride and not put that out there, but what the hell. If I’m going to off myself, I might as well.”
Gwynne sucked in some air. “You are not going to kill yourself, damn you.”
“Yeah, that’s not the point.”
She didn’t think Abby really meant her death threat, but really, how
was
she supposed to respond? And anyway it was easier than figuring out what to say to
I want to be with you.
The only response she could think of was to kiss her again. Abby welcomed her and pressed her curves into her with intoxicating surrender until they came to their senses and broke it off. They separated and she immediately felt the aching loss of not having her in her arms. She snatched her back.
Abby’s chest rose and fell with quick, shallow breaths. She smoothed a lock of Gwynne’s choppy hair. “Don’t kiss me like that and then tell me you want to be friends.”
“I don’t want to be friends.”
“You’d better not be saying that just because you’re turned on.”
Harsh. She deserved it, though. It wasn’t fair to kiss her, or even to flirt with her the way she had, and then run away. She wouldn’t do that anymore. She should have known she couldn’t stay away.
An angel fluttered in and immediately winked back out, giving them privacy. Good. They needed privacy.
“I haven’t been fair,” Gwynne said, “and I’m sorry.”
“You weren’t being unfair on purpose,” Abby said, giving her the benefit of the doubt, which made her feel even guiltier. “You were confused.”
“I was…conflicted.”
“And now you’re not?”
“I’d be happier if you forgot about Elle and her scheme, but…”
Abby’s hand slid from her hair and landed on her shoulder. Her fingers tightened on her shirt. “I tried to fix their bridge,” she blurted out.
Gwynne became very still. “Without killing yourself, I take it.”
Abby’s grip tightened on the shirt and Gwynne felt the fabric pull across her back. “I wanted to see if there was another way. It didn’t work.”
“What did you do?”
“I…I was on the bridge. And it was beautiful, Gwynne, you can’t imagine. It was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”
A knock sounded at the door.
“Gwynne?” Dara turned the knob and cracked the unlocked door but didn’t push it open. “You’re needed.”
“I’ll be right there.” Gwynne kept her eyes fixed on Abby and spoke over her shoulder in the direction of the door. Without waiting for Dara to leave, she gently brushed Abby’s arm, trying to convey everything she was feeling through that one, simple gesture.
“We’ll talk later,” she told Abby. “Don’t go home without talking to me, okay?”
* * *
It was hard to spend the rest of the day listening to Gwynne chat with clients and be reminded each time of how easy it was for Gwynne’s unmistakable voice to kick-start her imagination. Even playing complicated tunes that she didn’t have completely memorized—which should have forced her to concentrate—didn’t stop her vivid, enthusiastic, depraved imagination. It felt like the end of the day would never come.
When it finally was time to leave, they walked to the dark parking lot together and Gwynne helped her slide her harp into the back of her ancient minivan. Abby made sure her harp was secure, then closed the hatch.
“You should ask me to drive you to work. I’d be happy to do it,” Gwynne said.
“Thanks,” Abby said, even though she had no intention of taking her up on the offer. She knew she shouldn’t be driving, but she didn’t want to impose on Gwynne for a ride in her own vehicle, and her harp was too big to fit in a taxi or on the useless bus that didn’t go anywhere but up and down the shore to shuttle tourists.
Gwynne ground the heel of her hand into her forehead as if she could hear the excuses churning in Abby’s head. “I mean it.”
“I appreciate it.”
“Now about what happened on the bridge…”
What Abby really wanted to discuss was that thing about not wanting to be just friends, but it seemed Gwynne had other priorities and that conversation was going to have to wait. This was what she got for letting those words—
I tried to fix their bridge
—fly out of her mouth unchecked. But she could live with that, because she couldn’t
not
tell her. Especially if Gwynne was serious about a relationship.
Gwynne plowed ahead. “Now that you did what they wanted, are they going to leave you alone?”
Probably not. And Abby didn’t want them to. She knew how deeply the angels loved her—she’d felt it in that momentary link, and felt an answering love in her own heart—and she couldn’t let them die falling off an unsafe bridge. Elle was right—Abby was one of them. She couldn’t abandon them.
“I didn’t fix the bridge,” Abby said. “It didn’t work.”
“They’re going to keep after you.”
She understood why Gwynne was unhappy, but the truth was, she wasn’t angry at Elle anymore. “Elle saved my life up there. She caught me when I almost fell off.”
“You
what?
”
“Forget I said that.”
“Okay,” Gwynne said, humoring her for one-point-five seconds. “She did
what?
”
“She caught me.”
Gwynne made a noise that sounded like a laugh, but wasn’t. “She knew it wasn’t safe. If she hadn’t taken you there in the first place, she wouldn’t have had to save you.”
“Did you ever try to fly when you were a little kid?” Abby said, hoping the question wouldn’t remind her of her sister’s fatal jump. “Leap off the furniture and flap your arms like crazy?”