Witch Angel Page 3

  The fawn trousers fit his lower body like a layer of paint, and Alaynia’s cheeks flushed as the thought crossed her mind that he must only have a pair of skimpy briefs beneath that tightness. Or—maybe even just a jockstrap.

  “Uh ...” she began.

  The man finally spoke in a slow, Southern drawl, which matched his hesitant steps as he walked another few feet toward her. “Are you all right, ma’am?”

  The concern in his tone and his politeness alleviated her anxiety a little. “I appear to be,” she replied as she glanced down, then back at him. “But I need to call a garage to get my car out of the ditch.”

  “Car,” he repeated. “Is that what you call that white machine there?”

  Alaynia’s fingers tightened on both the car door and her mace. “Uh ... maybe you could just go call someone for me, and I’ll wait here until they come.”

  “And what name would I call someone at a garage, who I wanted to come pull a car out of the ditch?” he asked in a curious voice and with a lift of one raven eyebrow.

  Alaynia caught the teasing note, but it was way too darned hot to enjoy a flirtation, even with a man this good-looking. “Whatever the hell the mechanic’s or the wrecker driver’s name is,” she said impatiently. “Mack, Eddie, Billie Bob.”

  “Not Jake, huh?”

  “If Jake’s his name, call him that for heaven’s sake,” Alaynia replied. “Who do you use for your car?”

  “I don’t own a car,” he admitted as he took another step, eyes flickering from Alaynia to her car. “In fact, I’ve never seen a car before in my life. But I wouldn’t be adverse to you or Jake showing me how it works, since it looks like a hell of an interesting concept. What powers it—steam, like most of Jake’s other machines?”

  That did it. Alaynia jumped back into the car and closed the door. She jammed her finger on the lock button, breathing out a relieved sigh at the reassuring click of the locks engaging. She shoved aside the deflated airbag and threw a quick glance at the man, who thankfully hadn’t moved any closer, then leaned over to dig through her purse contents on the passenger floorboard until she found her metal nail file, which she gripped along with her mace.

  The interior of the car sweltered without the air-conditioning, and perspiration plastered her silk blouse against the leather seat. Another glance told her the man had his hands on his hips, head cocked to one side. She started to feel rather foolish—and awfully damned hot.

  Still ... a woman couldn’t be too cautious. Alaynia picked up the phone again, turned it on, and pressed it to her ear. Only static, even when she flicked the button off, then on again. Still no dial tone. She pushed nine-one-one anyway. The static continued. Damn.

  She aimed a red-tipped finger at the push buttons again, but suddenly her hand froze. A dawning realization of something out-of-kilter filtered into her senses, and she slowly raised her head and looked out through the windshield.

  The road—it couldn’t be. She’d been traveling on an asphalt road, and now a dirt road ran beside her car. Could she have somehow slid onto a side road when she skidded down the highway? She twisted around, but no matter how hard she strained, she couldn’t see an intersecting asphalt road back that way. Neither did she see any sign of the shimmering mirage she had skidded into.

  She slid the key into the ignition switch again, turned it forward, but none of the accessory lights came on. She tried to open the window a crack, but when she pushed the power button, the pane only groaned faintly, not moving. To top everything else off, her battery must be going dead.

  A drop of sweat dripped from her nose, and Alaynia swiped the back of her hand across her upper lip and frowned in disgust when she looked down. Antique beige powder smeared her hand above a streak of summer bronze lipstick. She twisted the key again. She desperately needed air-conditioning. Not even a faint click sounded, let alone the reassuring purr of an engine leaping to life. She patted her foot on the gas feed. Nothing. Keys dangling in the switch, she shook her head in disgust and leaned back against the seat.

  Now what was she going to do? With the phone on the blink, she couldn’t call for help, or even contact the attorney to get corrected directions to the stately Southern mansion she had inherited—even if she could get the car started again. And the devilishly-handsome man across the road evidently had a screw loose somewhere. Too bad. Wonder if he would turn out to be a neighbor to Chenaie?

  At the rapping noise in her ear, Alaynia turned her head straight into the concerned gaze of the man her thoughts had wandered to.

  “Look, my name’s Shain St. Clair, and I own a plantation not too far from here,” he called through the glass. “I’ll take you there, if you’ll come on out here before you pass out from the heat.”

  Alaynia smirked distrustfully at him, and he spoke again in a reassuring tone. “I’m perfectly respectable and my sister lives with me, so there’ll be a woman there with us.”

  Alaynia closed her eyes in dismissal. The temperature continued to climb inside the car—she swore she could feel each new degree—and more rivulets of perspiration crept down her face.

  * * * *

  Shain stepped back and eyed the white machine she called a car while he tried to decide what the hell to do next. The woman evidently was in control right now, keeping the door she’d stepped out of earlier firmly closed between them despite what had to be sweltering heat in the interior. Maybe taking this woman into his home for even a brief time wasn’t such a good idea—could she be touched in the head?

  She was only half-dressed, and she babbled nonsense about things called garages and phones. He moved around to look through the front window pane on the machine, which was clear instead of covered with a smoky tint, as the side panes were.

  The woman had to be at least twenty-five, but she wore her hair loose instead of tethered back in a fitting style for a woman her age—a style that wouldn’t tempt a man’s touch. Sunlight streamed through the front window, shooting golden highlights from the shiny mass, which would slither through a man’s hands nicely despite the curls and waves.

  Gorgeous blue eyes peered out at him through the glass for just a second, but her skin had to be why he didn’t notice a wedding ring on her left hand—the one she had draped on the wheel in front of her. Blotchy, it spoiled her entire appearance. And the sweat running down her cheeks carried streaks of the black kohl she used around her eyes, further blemishing her face in stripes.

  He had enough on his mind right now—trying to get the plantation back on its feet and keep tabs on his baby sister, along with wondering what crooked trick Fitzroy would come up with next. Hell, he didn’t need a beautiful woman complicating matters.

  Suddenly the woman slumped over the wheel in front of her. Good God, she’d passed out. Shain leaped back to the car door.

  He pounded on the side window, but the woman didn’t budge. Neither did the glass pane. It appeared stronger than normal glass, which he could have shattered with one thrust of his fist. Glancing down, he saw a metal hinge on the side of the machine. He grabbed it and lifted, then hastily drew his hand back and sucked on his burned fingers.

  The sun beat down on him, and sweat pooled in his armpits and slid down his ribs. It was hot enough to almost make him promise to live a sin-free life, rather than risk the even more blistering blazes in Hell. And it had to be at least twenty or more degrees hotter inside that damned machine.

  The woman slipped sideways and fell across the seat, her mouth partly open in a pant.

  “Goddamn it, she’s gonna die in there,” Shain muttered. He raced back across the road and grabbed a dead limb from under the live oak. When he got back to the machine, he swung the limb over his shoulder, prepared to shatter the window pane. But the woman had regained consciousness and now sat back up in her seat, swaying unsteadily. Shain rapped on the window again, and she turned her head weakly toward the noise.

  “Damn it!” Shain yelled. “You’re going to die in that heat in there! You better get the
hell back out here before you faint again!”

  She stared at his face for a second, then at the limb propped on his shoulder. Understanding her concern, he threw the limb across the dirt road. She drew in a tortured breath, probably filled more with heat than the air her lungs demanded, and jabbed at something below the window. Her other hand fingered the ring of keys hanging from the column attached to the wheel in front of her.

  She started to slump forward again, then jerked her head back up in response when Shain pounded on the machine’s door. Her lips moved in what could have been a moan of misery, and she clutched at her stomach and gazed at him through the window. Licking her lips and frowning in confusion, she squinted as Shain shouted loud enough for his voice to pierce the glass pane between them, “You’ve got to get the hell out of there! Come on! Open this thing up!”

  “Open?” her lips imitated in response.

  She steadied herself with one arm on the wheel and glanced down at something on the inside of the door. Blinked her eyes once, then closed them, her eyelashes remaining glued to her cheeks.

  “Goddamn it!” He thudded his fist on the window in an accompaniment to the curse, and her head jerked up from her chest, her lids slowly lifting. “Open this thing, or I’m going to kick that damned window in!”

  “I’m trying,” she appeared to whimper.

  He bent his head close to the window and could see her red-tipped fingers weakly pressing various buttons on a panel inside the door. Nothing happened when she pushed one after the other of the four buttons grouped together. Finally her index finger touched a lone button an inch or so behind the others. She shoved at it, and Shain gratefully heard the faint, answering click of locks disengaging.

  The door opened and she slid out and tried to stand. Her legs crumpled under her, and Shain caught her as she fell.

  Chapter 4

  Shain hefted Alaynia against his chest. Her inert body sagged in his grasp, head falling back and arms and legs dangling limply. She didn’t look that heavy, but her lax muscles made holding her difficult. With a grunt, he shifted his hold and tried to ignore the feel of her long, bare legs in one hand, the breast beneath the hold of his other hand. Staggering across the road, away from the white machine, he laid her down in the shade beneath the live oak.

  She was going to get dirty, but he couldn’t help that. His spooked stallion had carried off the only available blanket beneath its saddle.

  Shain stood and, fingers to his mouth, whistled shrilly. That damned stallion better not have gone far, or there would be hell to pay when Shain finally got back to the stable. The bushes lining the road a hundred feet or so away rustled, and the stallion stuck its head out, ears flickering and eyes rolling in wariness.

  “Blast you, Black! Get over here!”

  The horse tossed its head and took a tentative step onto the roadway. When Shain whistled again, it walked hesitantly toward him, but stopped a dozen feet away. Nostrils wide, it eyed the machine across the road and refused to move any closer.

  Shain glanced at the beautiful woman sprawled at his feet and his lips thinned in worry. He had to get her cooled off—and fast—or she would indeed die. He strode forward and picked up the stallion’s trailing reins, but when he tried to lead Black forward, the horse shied and tossed its head. Shain tugged again, and Black planted his feet, refusing to move.

  Afraid of injuring his favorite animal’s sensitive mouth, Shain tied the reins to a sapling beside the road. He grabbed the canteen from his saddlebag, hurried back to the woman, and knelt beside her. Uncapping the canteen, he pulled his handkerchief from his back pocket and saturated it with water.

  The cloth bag around the container had helped keep the water cool, and Shain wiped the wet handkerchief over the woman’s face. He snorted in astonishment when a layer of tan color stained the cloth and the blotches on her face disappeared. Evidently she used some sort of powder on her face, similar to what his sister, Jeannie, used when she could get away with it. Once clean, her skin glowed a healthy, peach color.

  Unconsciously glowering at women’s foolishness in covering up flawless skin, Shain moistened the handkerchief again and sponged the remainder of her face clean. The black streaks beneath her eyes proved harder to remove, and he gave up on them. It was more important right now to cool her body.

  He tilted the canteen, dribbling water across her neck, down her blouse. The woman never stirred. Reluctantly, Shain unbuttoned the top two buttons on her bodice. After saturating the handkerchief again, he reached inside the blouse for the ribbons on her chemise, preparing to untie them in order to lay the wet handkerchief directly on her chest.

  Instead of a chemise, Shain touched bare skin. He shoved the blouse open further. The firm mounds of her breasts were supported not by a corset, but a fragile, skimpy piece of rose-colored lace. He scowled as he recalled the feel of her corset-less body in his arms. Damn, everything about this strange package of womanhood puzzled him.

  The barely perceptible rise and fall of the woman’s breasts finally penetrated Shain’s thoughts, which were veering away from methods of treating heat faintness toward another way a person’s body could get overheated. He hurriedly hid the breasts with his soaking handkerchief and slid one arm beneath the woman’s shoulders to lift her against his chest.

  “Come on, honey,” he murmured as he tipped the canteen toward her mouth. “Let’s try to get some of this water inside you, instead of just on the outside.”

  * * * *

  Sylvia lay down on her stomach and propped her chin on her palms as she peered over the edge of the cloud. Though she and Francesca had both been a little worried at first that Alaynia’s fear of Shain might cause irreparable harm to her health, it appeared she would recover. Already Alaynia’s eyelids were fluttering in response to Shain’s ministrations. She glanced at Francesca, who still stood upright beside her. Instead of watching the scene beneath the live oak, Francesca scanned the surrounding sky.

  “Hey, Frannie.” Sylvia kicked her legs up and down and her dashiki hem slid up her brown legs; feathers of cloud mist scattered around Francesca’s feet. “I unlocked the door, and he has her out of the car now. Take a load off and lie down here with me for a while. This cloud’s as comfortable as one of those featherbeds I’ve read about from back in olden times.”

  Francesca gazed disdainfully down her slender nose. “Angels have no need to rest, Sylvia. It’s not as if we have a physical body that has to recoup itself.”

  “Who said anything about needing to rest? Vacations are for doing what you want to do, not what you have to do.”

  “We aren’t on vacation yet, Sylvia. We have to take care of this little matter first. And we both ought to be honored that we were chosen for this assignment, since it’s a step above what a guardian angel usually has to handle. Our getting the summons shows that someone has noticed our effectiveness and has confidence in us—trust in our abilities.”

  “Trust—schmust,” Sylvia grumbled. “Or maybe it’s just that we were available at the right time. I mean, Violet had already taken over for you and picked out someone else to watch over Jacki. One more minute and we would’ve been gone to ... we never did decide where we were going on our vacation, Frannie. And now it’s been delayed again.”

  “Hush your griping. We’ve got to talk to Basil.”

  Sylvia rolled over and rose to her feet. “Well, where is this Basil guy?”

  “Over there.” Francesca nodded toward what looked like just another cloud in the clear, azure sky. The angels’ eyes could discern what human eyes would miss—a recognizable shape to the irregular white mass. As they watched, it faded and disappeared.

  “When are you going to tell me what this is all about, Frannie?” Sylvia asked in exasperation. “My idea of a stressless vacation is definitely not visiting a time period where black people are fresh from being kept as slaves—and still treated like second-class citizens. I’ve used this corporeal body ever since I saw that horrible slavery thing
happening while what they called the South in the United States was being settled.”

  “It was definitely not a time in history humans should be proud of,” Francesca agreed. “All of the cultures that have practiced that barbaric custom over the years should be ashamed of themselves.”

  “You got that right. And the magnitude of it in the South made it a particularly grim time.” Sylvia suppressed a shiver, but her wing feathers fluttered. “The sooner we get out of here, the better—at least in my mind.”

  “Oh, this shouldn’t take long, my dear,” Francesca replied with a negligent wave of her hand. “We just have to talk some sense into Basil and have him return Alaynia to her own time.”

  “You better be right about it not taking long. I want my vacation.”

  “Hush and quit acting so churlish, Sylvia. Some things are more important than what you want.”

  “Churlish? Now, you listen here, Frannie. You granted me this vacation. I think I have a right to be churlish, whatever that means, about it being delayed!”

  “Churlish means ... well, it means ‘difficult,’” Francesca explained. “It really pains me at times to realize how much flavor some of us have lost from the language these days. I think ‘churlish’ is a much more appropriate word to describe your behavior.”

  “That does it!” Sylvia traipsed across the cloud with her hands propped on her hips and brown eyes glittering in indignation. “I thought it would be fun to have someone along to share my vacation. But if all you’re gonna do is find fault with me, I’d be better off alone. Talk about stress! Your picking at me over the way I behave is—”

  “WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN MY SPACE? GET OUT OF HERE!”

  Braids bouncing, Sylvia whirled toward the thunderous voice. Shock clogged her indignant reply in her throat, and she protectively lifted her hands. With a millennium of existence behind her, she hadn’t thought anything would ever scare her again, but the ugly, ferocious countenance hovering a bare dozen feet from her froze her scream somewhere down there with her words. Wings fluttering, her feet backpedaled without conscious direction from her mind. A second later, she peered over Francesca’s shoulder.