Total pages in book: 39
Estimated words: 36632 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 183(@200wpm)___ 147(@250wpm)___ 122(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 36632 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 183(@200wpm)___ 147(@250wpm)___ 122(@300wpm)
Gloria waved her hand dismissively. “Whatever. Say goodbye so we can talk, Colm.”
I looked up at Archangel. He’d already taken up for me. He was holding me so possessively and protectively I knew he was going to tell her to go to hell.
But he was silent, staring at me. When he spoke, something inside me died. “Maybe it’s best if you go, Sonya.”
“Angel?”
“Linnie is waiting for you. I’ll have Red and Rosanna fix her car. If they can’t make it better than it was when it was new, I’ll get her another one.”
“I don’t care about the damned car, Angel! What’s going on? Who is this?”
Archangel winced and, once again, for a very brief moment, I saw what he was feeling. Regret. Longing. Resignation. Anger. Pain. I reached out and touched his face, wanting to take away his pain.
“Go on. I’ll talk to you later.” He gave me what I thought was supposed to be a reassuring smile, but it was anything but comforting.
“No. Tell me who she is, Angel.”
He looked down at me and I could see that whatever he was about to say was going to kill something inside me. I wanted to tell him never mind. I didn’t want to know who she was. But he’d already taken a breath to speak.
“Gloria is… my wife.”
Chapter Eight
Archangel
I stood there and watched the dimming light in Sonya’s eyes flicker, then die. She jerked as if I’d slapped her. I might as well have.
“Your… wife?”
“There’s more to our past relationship than just us being legally married, honey.”
“Don’t ‘honey’ me!” To my utter horror, Sonya’s eyes filled with tears, but she blinked them back heroically. The girl had backbone, but I could see what this was costing her. She tilted her head back in a stubborn tilt. Her chin quivered as she struggled to hold on to her emotions. “You want to honey someone, honey her.” She pointed an accusing finger at Gloria.
“Sonya, please.” I tried to frame her face in my hands, but she batted me away and stepped back a couple of steps. “I swear to you, I wasn’t trying to keep this from you. I’ll explain everything.”
“What’s to explain?” Now her voice wavered and she winced, sticking her chin up defiantly. The tears overflowed then, but she still stood her ground. “She’s either your wife or she’s not. Which is it? Ex-wife? Explain this to me, Angel.” She winced again and gave a humorless laugh. “That’s an oxymoron,” she muttered through her tears. Because two more of the vile things slid from her eyes for her to bat away angrily.
“I hooked up with her in Vegas right before I left for special training in the service. I was drunk, and she was hunting for someone like me. I’m still not exactly sure how she managed it, but when I woke up the next morning, we were in bed together and I was informed I’d gotten married.”
“Why not get it annulled?”
“I was going to, but she spun me a story about an abusive family and being told she was being married off to a man she’d never met so her father could have a business tie to him. I had no family and no reason to think I’d be coming back alive. I figured with the money she’d get in death benefits, not to mention a portion of my pay, she could leave and go wherever she wanted. Then my death would have counted for something, and someone would remember me when I was gone.”
She still looked hurt, but I could see she was at least considering what I’d said. “You made it back, though. When was this?”
“Fifteen years ago, honey. We wrote a few letters to each other. She sent a few care packages, and we talked a couple of times the first year. Then I went deep undercover and couldn’t talk to her for two years. When they’d recruited me for that mission, the primary requirement was that the operative not be married or have children they were responsible for. There were three of us chosen. Not for our skills, but because we had no close family ties. No one we had to keep in touch with or would miss back home and not be able to give a hundred percent. I caught hell from command when I had to make arrangements for the paperwork to be filed so she could get benefits. If they could have replaced me, they would have court-martialed me for that stunt. But I figured if I was going to give my life for my country, the least the people who’d demanded my sacrifice should help me to make someone else’s life a little better, and I didn’t flinch.”
“Sounds like you,” she muttered, toeing a pebble on the pavement.
“It was seven years before I spoke with her after that. And it was only to let her know I’d made it back to the States if she wanted a divorce or whatever.”