Chapter 1
Angel Rule #1: Never lie to your assignment.
From the moment Rebecca set out to become an angel, she’d known she wasn’t the ideal candidate. She cursed. She coveted. She thought highly uncharitable thoughts—and those uncharitable thoughts often led to losing her temper.
Just like she had this morning.
It wasn’t her fault. The assistant kitchen angel wouldn’t give her any apple pie. Rebecca would swear until she turned blue in the face that the wench deliberately skipped over her—and Rebecca really, really liked apple pie. But she’d made herself cool off, and even apologize…until the brat had stuck her tongue out.
That was when the hair-pulling had started.
Like that wretch would ever earn her wings, either. Hmph.
Rebecca rubbed at the bite-mark the stupid brat had left on her forearm, and leaned against a telephone pole. Across the street, a U-Haul truck sat before a modestly sized house. Boxes strewed across the sidewalk. A little girl sat on the steps, clutching a doll in her arms. Her eyes were grave, and her chestnut hair gleamed in the sunlight. She was beautiful, Rebecca thought. As beautiful as the child Rebecca would never have.
She pushed those thoughts away. Her training—a strenuous ten-hour daily lecture combined with good old hands-on experience—warned her against dwelling on her mortal life, or the personal sacrifices she’d made to answer a higher calling. She’d tried, especially after the Archangel of New Recruit Training, Her Holiness and Eminence Miss Sally of the Disapproving Stare, had held her back an extra year.
Most aspiring angels were allowed contact with humans after the mandatory twelve-month training program. It had taken Rebecca two and a half years of endless book studies and lectures on why slouching was bad for her shoulders before Sally even considered letting her accept a case on Earth—and now here she was.
She believed she just might be stalling.
No, there was no “might” about it. Rebecca tore herself from her pensive thoughts and looked away from the child. She wasn’t here for the girl.
She was here for one Anthony Richard Weis, single father of four-year-old Miranda and a man sorely in danger of losing his soul.
A gruff voice rumbled from inside the U-Haul, echoing throughout the cavernous space. Well. He had a mouth on him, didn’t he? The tips of Rebecca’s ears heated, but she lifted her chin, wiped her sweaty hands on her skirt, and crossed the street to the truck.
She could do this. All she had to do was make sure Anthony remained on sound moral footing. In the course of three years, Anthony had lost his job, his house, and the mother of his child—and would soon commit a murder. Her job consisted of stepping into his life and persuading him to take the higher ground. Or in this case, not to kill anyone.
Easy enough, right?
Except that Rebecca had never really succeeded at much in life, unless there was an award for sucking the most. Her life before Sally had been a miserable failure. She couldn’t fail again. She had this situation under control, and she would succeed.
Why, then, was she so nervous?
Maybe because her entire life depended on this mission. Her future as an angel. A purpose that would finally make her life mean something.
She couldn’t panic now.
She’d been chosen by God as one of the elite few humans given the opportunity to become an angel. A real, honest-to-goodness, ever-serene angel.
She just had to get Tony to believe in God, and in her. And work on that serenity thing. Then, maybe she’d be the person she’d always wanted to be. Maybe she’d no longer be a failure. Maybe she’d no longer be alone.
Maybe, just maybe…she’d finally be whole.
…
Tony threw the box into the stack in the back of the truck. It tumbled back down. The packing tape, which he’d only haphazardly slapped on in the first place, snapped. Mismatched dishware spilled across the floor. Two plates shattered. Tony snarled, swore, and climbed into the truck to pick up the pieces. He was in no mood for this.
He was rarely in the mood for anything except Miranda—but these days, no one would be surprised by that. Jane had walked out on him. She hadn’t even stuck around for the divorce. Instead she’d left him with overwhelming daycare expenses, a never-ending stream of diapers, and the stress that came with finding affordable housing on a single father’s income. A plumber’s paycheck only went so far, especially when he missed out on doubling his hourly rate for those lucrative on-call jobs.
He’d only become a plumber when his father passed away. He’d been an accountant before. Lucrative, but with brutal hours. But when Mike Weis left him the family business, it was either sell off a company his father had spent a lifetime building, or take over his legacy. Jane had said she was on board. She’d obviously lied. Once they’d moved into the suburbs to be closer to his father’s established client base, she’d acted like every minute there was torture. Who knew a white picket fence and a homeowner’s association were the equivalent of waterboarding at Guantanamo.
Once she left him, the three a.m. house calls were no longer an option, unless it was a wake-up call to feed a fussy baby. Late night feedings had turned into late night nightmares and under-the-bed monster inspections, but it didn’t change that Miranda still needed him. Then again, he needed his baby girl, too.
She was the only good thing he had left.
Tony sighed, set the fragments of porcelain down, and ran his fingers through his hair. He really should be able to let this go. It had been over three years now, and Miranda was still a joy, no matter the difficulties of raising her alone. It was too hot to be stressing himself out, anyway. He was practically giving off heat waves like molten blacktop, and sweat was a gritty extra layer between his shirt and his skin. He needed an ice cream break—or a beer.
Ice cream. Miranda loved ice cream, and right now he needed to watch her face brighten and her eyes light up. Needed her laughter, and those tiny arms around his neck to remind him why he worked so hard. He climbed out of the truck and started toward the porch.
He only made it two steps.
Two steps, before he stopped and stared at the woman at the foot of the ramp.
She cocked her head to the side and watched him with eyes as blue as the summer sky above. Her shockingly bright red hair cascaded to her hips, and clung to the damp film on ivory shoulders just beginning to dew with sweat. The faint sheen of perspiration made her seem to glow in the sun. A small splotch of freckles splayed across her nose.
She was impossibly beautiful.