CHAPTER 21
Peter Campbell took Eden’s call after a ten-minute hold. He apologized. “My secretary did not tell me it was you, Eden. I was in a meeting.”
“It’s all right, Daddy. I’m lying here on the bed looking out at the lavender fields and thought I’d give you a call.”
“Lavender fields? You on vacation with friends, sunning yourself?”
“I’m at the villa. By myself, actually. I felt the urgent need to get away from the world.” She toed the rumpled sheets that she’d not made up after she and Ashur had made love. “There’s something I need to say, and I don’t want it to go any longer.”
“Is everything okay, Eden? I know it’s been a while since we’ve seen each other—”
“Everything is…” Everything wasn’t near okay, but it wasn’t so bad when Ashur was here. “I love you, Dad. And I needed to say it, because it’s not something that is ever easy or obvious to me.”
“I understand.” He didn’t return the endearment, but Eden found she didn’t need it right now. She had taken to heart Ashur’s suggestion that she accept her father’s means to express love for what it was.
The sun filtered through the tree boughs and twinkled across the wood floor. Eden closed her eyes, loving the warmth of summer upon her face.
“Do you believe in angels, Dad?”
“Eden, we’ve had this discussion before.”
Yes, as she sat in the psychiatrist’s office and denied her dreams as a means to simply be free. He’d never understood. Eden felt only her mother would have truly listened to her and given her the benefit of the doubt.
“So, you don’t believe in them. Not even the idea of a guardian angel?”
“Eden, are you okay? If you need to talk to someone—”
“Daddy, I’ve never been more sane in my life than I am at this very moment. Please don’t patronize me. I know you will never understand the dreams I have, and I accept that. Perhaps I shouldn’t have called.”
“No, wait. I’m sorry. I haven’t been a very good father. I should have been there for you after your mother’s death. Perhaps things could have gone differently for you.”
“My life has gone exactly as it was meant to. And as I move forward it continues on a destined path. I guess it was foolish to try to reach out to you.”
“No, Eden, please.” A heavy sigh sounded like frustration, but Eden wondered if it might be tinged with surrender. “Okay, I’ll play, then. I do believe.”
Eden actually took the phone away from her ear and looked at it as if she’d just received an alien transmission.
“I’ve been in the presence of them twice, that I’m aware of,” he said as she put the receiver back to her ear.
“Really? Did you see them? Were they physical beings?” Why had he never mentioned this before? Could she have inherited her dreams from her father?
“No, I merely felt their presence, but it was such a remarkable feeling I had no question that is exactly what I was experiencing.”
“Tell me about it. I promise I won’t call you crazy.”
His chuckle lasted only two seconds. “Well, the first is humiliating.”
“I won’t tell a soul.”
His sigh startled her. Usually her father’s sighs indicated how long he had worked and meant that the exhaustion would keep him from putting a puzzle together with her or reading her a bedtime story. She had come to know her father by his uttered noises. But why were all her memories of her father from her childhood, so long ago?
Because after her mother had died, they had changed, grown apart and grown away from the innate trust family must share.
“You were younger, about four,” he said. “And I was…well, I was spanking you for having broken your mother’s vase. I didn’t abuse you, Eden, you have to know that.”
“I do. And I don’t recall ever being fearsome of your punishments.”
“Yes, well, I did it rarely, and usually it was just a swat. But I was angry that day. It was a vase your mother bought. I know you didn’t mean to break it. I spanked you once, but when I tried to do it a second time, I could not. Something stopped me. It was as if I could feel a force pulling my arm back. I knew at that moment your guardian angel was in the room. I never spanked you again.”
“Go, guardian angel.”
“It wasn’t like the things you once claimed to see, Eden.”
She’d give him that false comfort. It didn’t matter to Eden now who believed her. She had the truth.
“Thank you for sharing that with me.” After all these years her father finally trusted her enough to tell her. Her father… It had been so long since she’d had real family. She felt a stirring for one of her own. But could she ever have her own family?
Ashur will leave you when the angel is dead. Don’t be stupid.
Swallowing a tear, Eden said, “What about the other time?”
“I had one of my migraines and went to the emergency room. I’d just received a dose of Imitrex and lay there on the exam table shivering. My eyes were closed, and the room was dark. When I heard a female voice ask, ‘Would you like a blanket?’ I knew it was a nurse. But when she brought the warm blanket and laid it over me it felt like heaven. My shivers stopped and my muscles relaxed. I think I cried. And again, I knew an angel had been present.”
“You’re very lucky. I’ve never felt the presence of an angel.” Until Zaqiel had entered her life.
“But I thought…”
“You never listened to me, Dad. I dream of angels, and I know they’re real, but I’ve never seen one.”
“I apologize for what I put you through after your mother’s death. I think a part of me died with her. I shouldn’t have let that affect our relationship. I’m sure my angels look nothing like the ones you paint. Your work is amazing. I don’t think I’ve ever told you that.”
No, he had not. He’d never commented on her work. Eden’s eyes teared up.
“You have so much talent, Eden. And the way you put the images from your heart onto the computer screen and canvas…well, I love it. Is that…? I think it’s my way of saying…well, you know.”
She did know. He loved her. And she had always known it. Even though he didn’t exactly put it into the words, she could accept the way he’d expressed the emotion.
“Thanks, Dad. I love you, too.”
* * *
Ashur lingered by the back door, watching a sparrow collect bits of twig for a nest. Eden sauntered down the hallway, a long skirt flowing around her legs and a floaty shirt billowing about her. A change from her usual tighter, revealing clothing. It wasn’t half as delicious as the red underwear, but since it made him wonder what was beneath the fabric, it had the same effect as the lacy bits.
He nodded and winked. It felt natural to simply exist alongside her. As if he belonged here. Alongside his sweet ache.
Eden Campbell’s death is the key to you gaining a soul.
That bastard Raphael.
But he could not blame the archangel. There was an order to the world. Ashur had violated that order by stealing souls. Of course order must be restored if he wished an earthbound soul.
He sighed as Eden wrapped her arms around his waist. In turn he hugged her tightly. If he could squeeze her into him, he would. Forever imbue her upon his flesh, imprint the soft pear smell of her in his senses. He wanted to bite her, lick her, enfold her within him and keep her from the rest of the world.
She pressed her head against his shoulder and he smelled the salt in her tears. He tilted her chin up and brushed the wetness from her cheek. “They don’t seem like sad tears,” he said. “Are you okay?”
“Actually I’ve never been happier. I told my dad I loved him this afternoon. I feel like the world just flipped on the sunshine.”
He hugged her to his chest again.
“Wow,” she said against his shirt, “that’s a mighty big hug. You miss me?”
“Always,” he whispered.
Something burned in his eyes. It wasn’t tears. Demons couldn’t cry. Yet it was painful and made him swallow hard.
Then something incredible happened. The hard black muscle forged of steel in the center of his chest…pulsed.
“I do need love,” Eden said. “We all do. Even you.”
Ashur’s heart pumped again.
Eden placed a palm over his chest. Her wide, green eyes flashed up at him. She had heard it, too, or may have felt it. The wonder in her eyes asked all the questions rushing to Ashur’s tongue.
“You did this to me,” he said. And though his words were soft and admiring, his feelings were accusatory.
“What are you saying? What did I do? Your heart, Ashur. It’s beating. Does that mean…?”
“No, it’s not. It’s just the souls.” But he couldn’t help wondering if he’d just lied to himself.