Wicked Kiss

He was definitely my guardian angel.

Chapter 7

So much had happened tonight, it was hard to believe it was only a little after nine o’clock when we finally arrived at the small bungalow I shared with my mother.

Home sweet home. I had to say, just the sight of the familiar house helped calm my nerves. Even considering who was with me.

I’d lived here all my life. Until a couple years ago, it was me, my mother and my father. Since the separation, it was just me and Mom. My father lived in England now. I only saw him rarely. Even the emails had started to come with less frequency than they used to.

It would make me sad if I let myself think about it too much.

“Here we are,” I said, stopping at the end of the driveway. My mother’s car was here. I guess she wasn’t working late tonight. Miracles happen.

Cassandra had been very quiet the rest of the way here, as if lost in her thoughts. Her expression revealed nothing about how she felt about having her back broken by a gray...and now voluntarily sharing a house with another one.

In the silence, I’d found it impossible not to think about that gray’s victim. One moment swept away by a kiss from a sexy stranger, the next feeling your life fading away to nothing. A kiss of death.

She didn’t have a chance.

I swallowed past the thick lump in my throat and tried to focus on something else, anything else. I’d decided to tell my mother that Cassandra was one of my friends from school. That her parents were gone for a few days, and she was afraid to be alone.

Not perfect, but it would do. My mother would believe it. She believed a lot of things without asking too many questions.

I let Cassandra into the house, eyeing her warily as she brushed past me. She studied everything her gaze landed on as if assessing it for a future report. The bamboo blind at the window, the colorful rug by the front door. The framed photos on the walls, which no longer included my father.

My mother pretended not to dwell on the divorce, but I knew it hadn’t been her decision. My father hadn’t moved across the ocean just to work at the London branch of his law firm...he’d moved there to be with a beautiful blonde British intern half his age. He almost never emailed anymore and I couldn’t remember the last time we talked on the phone.

I tried to follow Mom’s lead and not dwell on things like that. But it made me understand my mother’s angst.

The sight of empty wine bottles lined up to go into the recycling bin made me wince. Cassandra didn’t seem to notice, but I did. There were way more this week than usual. And there were usually too many.

I wasn’t the only one in the family with a growing addiction to something unhealthy.

“Sam, I’m glad you’re home,” my mother greeted me warmly as we entered the living room. I wasn’t surprised to see that she held a large glass of white wine. On her lap was a stack of papers she was going through. She was a real-estate agent, a job she was good at and put long hours into, seven days a week. I used to complain—to myself, to her, to anyone who’d listen—about how obsessed she was with the job and making money and how she had no time for me.

Since I’d learned I was adopted, she’d tried very hard to mend our shaky relationship by making sure we spent a little time together every day. She assured me that she was a great listener if I had any problems, and that she was here for me, no matter what. And yet, there were more wine bottles by the door than usual.

Stress showed itself in different ways.

I was on edge, but knew I had to hold it together. This was the one place I could still feel like myself. Home was my touchstone for being normal.

And now there was an angel here—one who’d never even been human before. There was nothing normal about that. My mother’s gaze moved to her as she entered the room.

“Hi, Mom,” I said, clearing my throat. “This is Cassandra. She’s a friend of mine.”

“A pleasure to meet you, Cassandra. Call me Eleanor.” My mother got up from her chair and came over to shake Cassandra’s hand. There was a genuine smile on her face. “I’m so glad Sam’s hanging out with new friends. After what happened with Carly, I know the past week’s been rough.”

My eyes started to sting immediately at the mention of my best friend. Mom was one of the people who believed in the “running away with a boyfriend” story. Most brushed it off as the act of a rebellious teenager. But Mom has seen me cry over this and she knew I was taking Carly’s absence hard. She thought I saw it as a betrayal of our friendship.

She was wrong. It was a tragedy.

“Nice to meet you, too,” Cassandra said. “You have a lovely home.”

“Thank you.”

Well, weren’t we all pleasant and polite?

“I, um, need to ask a favor...” I began, ready to launch into my cover story. But Cassandra took over for me before I said another word. She still held my mother’s hand and she looked deep into her eyes.

“I’m going to be staying here with you and Samantha for a little while, Eleanor,” she said smoothly. “It’s nothing to concern yourself with. Do you understand?”

My mother nodded slowly. “I understand.”

I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Cassandra was using angelic influence to mess with my mother’s mind. Zach and Connor could do the same thing, but only in emergencies.

“Are you girls hungry?” my mother asked, taking a quick sip of her wine. “I got home late and haven’t had dinner yet. I mean, I know Sam’s hungry. She’s always hungry lately. I’m shocked she’s remained so skinny with the way she eats.”

This just got better and better.

“Yes.” The angel put a hand on her stomach and cocked her head as if trying to sense her bodily needs. “I believe I am hungry.”

“I’ll order some Chinese delivery.”

“Delightful.” Cassandra took a seat in a La-Z-Boy recliner and leaned forward to flip absently through today’s paper. “Eleanor, you say that Samantha is hungry lately. What does she eat?”

I tensed at the question, and the meaning behind it. Just because she’d also given me a pass as a gray didn’t mean that she was finished investigating me. I learned over. “Not what you might be thinking.”

No souls, thank you. Well, except for Colin’s earlier. And Bishop’s last week.

I could try to convince myself that they didn’t really count. I hadn’t hurt them—it had only been tiny nibbles. But it was still wrong.

However, compared to the murderous gray we’d been faced with tonight...

The thought of the glazed eyes of the dead girl with the black lines around her mouth made my blood run cold.

“You name it, she eats it.” My mother fought against her grin, but lost. “I can barely keep the fridge stocked anymore.”

I gave her a look. “You’re so funny I forgot to laugh.”

“Better keep a lid on it if you can. I might need to save my grocery money to pay for other necessities.” Since she was still grinning, I assumed she was trying to be funny. She shouldn’t give up her day job to become a comedian. “I’m having trouble selling a house I thought would go quickly. It’s on the east side right near the city line. Huge piece of property that’s been abandoned for months. Worth two million.”

“What’s the problem with it?” I asked absently.

Cassandra continued to scan the newspaper, and then picked up the TV Guide to flip through it as if fascinated. If she’d never left Heaven before I suppose all of this was new to her.

“There’s a rumor circulating that it’s haunted.” She pulled her cell phone from her Coach bag. “Which is ridiculous. It seems perfectly normal to me.”

“No mournful moans or rattling of chains?”