Forgiven Read online

  Gunnar stared at him a beat, and then looked down at the table. “I’m a bad match for this,” he mumbled.

  “And so are we,” Adela said. “But we must succeed, Gunnar.”

  “Exactly. I’m not burning in Hell,” Liam railed. “Been there, done that, and I didn’t even get a crappy t-shirt for my suffering.”

  With that, he stood up and began clearing the plates. Adela also stood and helped him, both of them washing and drying the dishes side-by-side. Although it had not been discussed, they had each fallen into their own roles: he washed, while she dried or loaded the dishwasher. In Arizona they had been fortunate enough to have one, but here in Lake Tahoe, there wasn’t such a luxury. However, their soapy hands moved in a familiar rhythm, and the mundane tasked helped calm her nerves from her earlier scuffle with Gunnar.

  When they were finished, Adela turned around to offer Gunnar a cup of coffee, but was met by an empty kitchen table. “Where did he go?”

  Liam looked over his shoulder while drying his hands on a blue hand towel. “Don’t know. Let’s check the living room.”

  Liam threw the towel on the counter and they walked into the living room. Adela stopped short at the sight on the back deck. She laid her hand on Liam’s arm. “Look,” she whispered.

  Gunnar stood outside with his arms outstretched in a T, his face upward, his blond hair falling down his back. He wore his leather pants, but he had removed his vest. The snow fell around him silently, while the moon peeked out of the clouds and illuminated him as if he were in a spotlight.

  Adela’s breath hitched as she watched him. It looked as though the Creator were shining His light down on Gunnar, and Gunnar was soaking it up as if it were a ray of sunshine. It truly was a beautiful sight.

  “What’s he doing?” Liam whispered.

  Adela thought she saw a tear trace down the side of Gunnar’s face. “I’m not sure,” she said in a low voice, “but I do believe he’s having a moment.”

  “A moment?”

  “Yes. Let’s just let him be. He’ll be in when he’s ready.”

  She glanced once more at Gunnar. Obviously the snow and cold didn’t bother him. Perhaps it was what he was used to when he was alive. Perhaps his memories of his life were becoming more vivid as he stood in the frigid air.

  They walked back into the kitchen and Liam grabbed a beer out of the fridge. Adela noted it was 8 p.m., and decided to turn in for the night. A full belly, a warm bed, and a long night’s sleep was just what she needed. “Goodnight, Liam,” she said, turning for the short hallway leading to their bedrooms.

  “Early night?” Liam asked, taking a long pull on his beer.

  “Yes.”

  He gave her a wink, and a jolt of warmth traveled through her. “Goodnight then,” he said.

  “Goodnight, Liam.”

  Chapter 9

  Liam watched Adela walk down the hall, her socked feet silent on the hardwood floors. Her hips swayed under the thick green sweater, her long legs clad in black leggings. Damn, she was sexy as all hell. He took another swig of beer and heard the sliding glass door open.

  He wondered what Gunnar had been doing. It looked like he was offering himself up to the moon gods, but Liam suspected something else. Adela had called it a “moment.” Liam wasn’t sure what that meant, but as he heard Gunnar’s heavy footfalls coming from the living room to the kitchen, he figured he was about to find out.

  Gunnar carried his vest, his chest and cheeks red from the cold. “It’s glorious out,” he said with a grin. “I had forgotten how refreshing the cold can be.”

  Liam preferred to be refreshed by the warmth of the sun, not the snow, but to each his own. “Sit down and take a load off, mate,” Liam said as Gunner took a chair at the small kitchen table.

  Sitting down across from him, Liam realized he knew very little about Gunnar. They had been at some sites where there were multiple deaths and the need for several Angels of Death, but they never actually had the time to go beyond small talk. Liam was going to grill Gunnar to find out every detail of the Viking’s life. He decided after the Archangel Michael’s ass-chewing, he would not overlook anything on this assignment. As far as he was concerned, everyone was a potential target for falling in love, and that included Gunnar. After all, Liam was human again after five years, and therefore, who knew what the plan was? Perhaps the powers-that-be in Heaven had decided that Gunnar had done his time as an Angel of Death and he was being granted another lifetime, or maybe they had simply forgotten about him while he performed his Angel of Death duties. Gunnar had been delivering souls for a very long time, longer than any angel Liam had ever come across. Heaven was a busy place and Liam had no doubt that stuff slipped through the cracks.

  Gunnar sat down and Liam considered what he knew about Vikings: they were a dirty, barbaric lot, who looted villages, raped women, and settled new lands. They had worn those stupid horned hats and they loved their boats. In essence, they were a nasty bunch.

  “What are you drinking?” Gunnar asked, nodding to Liam’s empty beer bottle.

  “Beer. Do you want one?”

  Gunnar nodded. “I used to enjoy an ale every day while alive.”

  Liam went to the refrigerator, retrieved a beer for Gunnar, and helped himself to another. He sat back down as he tried to recall how Gunnar had died, but couldn’t.

  Gunnar took a long pull from the bottle, his face contorting in disgust. “This tastes nothing like the ale we used to brew.”

  Liam shrugged. “Budweiser could care less about your Viking taste buds.”

  Gunnar nodded in agreement, but cringed again.

  “So how did you die, Gunnar?” Liam asked.

  “I burned down a fellow’s house and he speared me.”

  Liam stared at the big man. His assumption of the Viking culture had been correct: they were a bunch of barbarians.

  “That wasn’t very nice of you,” Liam said.

  Gunnar shrugged. “He killed my family, Liam. It was retribution.”

  Liam took another long pull from his beer and thought Annie’s death. He had wanted to kill who was responsible for her dying as well, which was himself. However, he’d been too much of a coward to actually take his own life, so instead he tried to escape his guilt through booze and women.

  “My wife and my four year-old daughter were slaughtered in our family home as I worked the fields of our farm. I do believe I had the right to avenge them.”

  Liam nodded. “I’m sorry to hear that, and I agree—you did have the right to kill the bastard. Why did he murder your family?”

  Gunnar took another sip of his beer. “He was from a neighboring village that we were fighting. It wasn’t anything personal, he was just continuing the battle.”

  “I didn’t know Vikings were farmers,” Liam said after a stretch of silence.

  Gunnar nodded. “I have seen the way history portrays my people as vicious killers and conquerors, and I suppose by today’s standards some of us were. However, most of us were also farmers, and in those days, our actions didn’t seem that terrible. It was conquer or be conquered.”

  Liam wondered what else in his Viking knowledge base was also false. “What about the horned hats? Did you wear those?”

  Gunnar threw his head back and laughed. “No, I never knew a Viking who wore such a thing. I’m not sure who started that myth, but it is unequivocally false.”

  A moment later, Gunnar stood and stretched. “I’d like to try the shower. And I’m very tired.”

  Liam nodded. “I’m sure after delivering souls to the Fringe for seven hundred years you’re exhausted. And as far as the shower goes, watch the water temperature. You’ll burn your dick off if the water’s too hot.”

  Gunnar smiled. “Thanks for caring about my man parts.”

  “No problem. There’s four bedrooms down the hall,” Liam continued. “You know where Adela’s is at, and mine is the one with the unmade bed. Stay out of both of those. You should find some clothes in one of
the other ones that will fit you.”

  Liam stood and went into the living room to stoke the fire, and realized it had burned out. “Dammit,” he said, kneeling down to get it started again. After his nap this afternoon, he had a feeling he was going to be up late and he had no intention of freezing.

  Crushing some newspaper, he lined it under fresh logs and snapped the match over the matchbook. Quickly and carefully he lit the paper, then blew the match out.

  “When I was alive,” Gunnar said from the doorway, startling Liam, “we used to take a fungus called touchwood and boil it in our urine. We would then pound on it, making it into something similar to a cloth. I don’t know the chemistry of it all, but when we lit it, it would smolder, and we could take our fire with us. We were never without fire.”

  “How the hell did you figure that out?” Liam asked, looking at Gunnar over his shoulder, trying to imagine the events that led up to someone saying piss and touchwood were a good mix for fire.

  Gunnar shrugged and yawned. “Who knows? I’ll see you in the morning.”

  Liam stood and turned, feeling the heat from the flames on his back. A shiver went down his spine as he recalled his own fiery death, the smell of burning flesh, and the searing, torturous pain came back to him as if he were there once again.

  He sat on the couch and pulled the blanket over him. It smelled like the wildflower lotion Adela used, and he inhaled deeply.

  As he sipped his beer, he thought about Gunnar. The angel seemed mellower in human form than he had been as an Angel of Death. He wasn’t as loud or sure of himself, but that assessment could apply to Adela, and maybe him as well. Maybe for Gunnar it was just the shock of being human again after hundreds of years, just as it had been with Adela. If Adela had problems adjusting, Liam guessed Gunnar would as well, and maybe even more so. As for him, he remembered his life just enough that the modern day trappings didn’t scare him, but he appreciated his short stint as an angel now living as a human.

  He hoped Gunnar would be a good addition to their Angel of Affection crew. Liam still didn’t fully understand why Gunnar had been added, and frankly, even though he sort of knew Gunnar, Liam wasn’t happy he was here. Evangeline had said it was because they had such difficulties last time, but Liam wasn’t sure he fully bought that. He couldn’t help but think there was another reason as well, but what that was, he had no idea.

  The house was quiet—as if he were the only one there, the crackle of the fire the only sound. Liam hoped the snow would stop. He looked out the window, and it seemed like his hopes would not be honored for the night. The snow fell heavily, a thick white curtain dropping from the sky.

  He took another sip of his beer. Tomorrow they would go and meet the neighbors and Liam would be aware of everyone and everything around him. This assignment was going to go off without a hitch. The next time he saw Michael the Archangel, instead of lightning and thunder, he would be praising all three of them.

  Chapter 10

  Adela lay beneath the quilt, the morning sun blocked by thick clouds. It was so cold in her room, she didn’t want to get up to see if the snow had continued. She had been thinking of the best way to approach the neighbors when there was a light knock on her door. “Is that you, Liam?” Adela called.

  “Of course it’s me,” he said in his thick Australian accent. “Were you expecting someone else? Maybe the Easter Bunny?”

  She smiled in spite of herself. As an Angel of Death, he seemed to want nothing more than to get a rise out of her—to make her angry. As an Angel of Affection in human form, he loved to tease her. He seemed to smile the widest when he knew she was embarrassed, but at the same time, he’d become her protector and provider.

  “Come in, Liam,” she said, trying to hide her smile.

  He opened the door and stepped in carrying a coffee cup.

  “Good God, woman!” he bellowed. “You could light a candle in here and the damn flame would freeze! Didn’t you turn on the heat?”

  Adela shook her head, feeling the flush of embarrassment on her cheeks. She hadn’t even realized she had a heater in the room. “I didn’t know I could do that.”

  Liam walked to the bed and handed her the coffee. “I know the way I make it is too strong for you, so I watered it down a bit, and added some milk. Should be just the way you like it.”

  She sat up and took the cup. It smelled wonderful, the heat warming her hands. “That was very thoughtful of you, Liam. Thank you.”

  Taking a sip, the warm, bitter liquid slightly burned her mouth, her chest, and her abdomen as it went down, but tasted wonderful despite the mild discomfort.

  As she sipped her coffee, she watched Liam bend down over the long, white, metallic thing on the side of the room.

  “You’ll freeze to death, Adela, especially if this God-awful weather keeps up. There must another six inches of fresh snow out there.”

  He stopped and gazed upward. “Not that there’s anything God-awful about snow,” he yelled. “Some like it, some don’t. It’s cold. It makes clothes wet. And did I mention it’s cold? But that doesn’t mean it’s God-awful. That’s just a phrase. Nothing God does is awful.”

  He leaned over the white contraption against the wall again, and Adela suppressed a giggle with a sip of coffee. “I’m sure they’ll forgive a simple expression,” she whispered.

  “Can’t be too careful,” Liam mumbled. The long white thing hissed, kicked, and apparently came to life in the manner that it should, according to Liam.

  He stood, put his hands on his hips, and smiled. He wore the same white turtleneck and blue flannel bottoms from before, as well as some socks.

  “I didn’t know that was a heater,” she said, her gaze traveling over his body while she hoped he didn’t notice. He stood before her tall, strong, and terribly sexy.

  Damn those books.

  “I should have showed you how it worked our first night here,” he said, coming over and sitting on the bed. She halfway listened as he explained what the knobs did.

  They stared at each other for a beat.

  “Well, I’m glad you showed me today,” Adela said.

  He folded her in his arms and kissed her passionately. All thoughts left her as she drowned in his wonderful scent.

  Those damn books.

  Liam let out a large burp, and stood. “Sorry about that,” he said. “I need an antacid. I’m going to cook up some bacon and eggs after I take one. Are you interested?”

  Adela closed her eyes for a moment, the hero she had built up in her mind slowly dissipated. Did heroes burp? She couldn’t recall reading of a belching man in any of those books, and she sighed. Those romance novels made the men too perfect, and she doubted there was a man alive who could even come close to them. “Thank you for the coffee, Liam, as well as the instructions on the heater. It’s much appreciated. And yes, I will take up your offer on bacon and eggs. Is Gunnar up yet?”

  Taking another sip of her coffee, she felt Liam’s eyes on her, and she stood to meet his gaze.

  They stood almost eye-to-eye. He had just a couple of inches on her six-foot frame.

  His gaze traveled from her head down to her toes, and back up again. When he met her eyes, her heart skipped a beat as she stared into the cool, grass-colored gaze.

  “You should think about what that does to a man,” he said gruffly.

  She looked down at herself and saw her nipples stood out against the yellow long underwear pajamas she had on. Being heavy-breasted, their swell was only more obvious.

  She crossed her arms over her chest while trying to hold on to the coffee cup.

  Liam shook his head and turned for the door. As he left, she thought she heard him whisper, “Damn it, Adela.”

  What that meant, she didn’t know. What she did know, was that she had just elicited a very real and visceral reaction out of Liam without even trying. She glanced in the mirror and took in her reflection. Yes, she was fully clothed, but the pajamas hugged her breasts, the slight curve of
her hips, and her legs. Was she what people deemed ‘sexy’ today? She didn’t know.

  She smiled as she reached for her bra and thought about Liam’s comments.

  Perhaps she was, and that he possibly thought so made warmth rush through her body—heater or not.

  Chapter 11

  Liam looked at his two partners who were digging into their breakfast. Adela wouldn’t meet his gaze and her cheeks seemed perpetually pink. Was it embarrassment of what he had said, or just because it was twenty-three degrees outside? The cabin felt a little warm to him. He didn’t know if it was from the heater and the raging fire, or seeing Adela fresh out of bed.

  Hell.

  She had been prettier rolling out of the sheets than she was once she was dressed with her hair combed, and he wished she didn’t have that type of effect on him.

  The visceral reaction to her was nothing more than a simple biological response—or that’s what he told himself.

  He turned his thoughts away from how cute she looked in her yellow pajamas, the way they hugged her breasts, her waist, and those oh, so long legs.

  Liam tuned back into the conversation between Gunnar and Adela.

  “I think you’re right, Adela,” Gunnar concurred. “From what you’ve told me of the past assignment, and what you’ve told me of this one, I think your logic is sound. How do we approach them?”

  Adela explained that in their last task, they had approached their target as a couple, and it seemed to work out well.

  Gunnar nodded in agreement and mentioned how intelligent Adela was, and that it sounded like a great plan to approach their neighbors. “By the way, you look lovely this morning, Adela,” Gunnar said.