All the Rules of Heaven (All That Heaven Will Allow #1) - Amy Lane Page 0,47

“He… he was in awe of her, I think. She had me when she was forty, you know? By the time they passed away, they were in their fifties, and she just kept him running laps and eating kale, telling him, ‘Dammit, we waited long enough for him. I want to see my grandchildren!’” Angel could hear his grunt of pain across the cab of the truck. “That didn’t pan out for them, really, and they weren’t hip and young. But Dad followed her into anything. He told me again and again that when you found someone who made you your best person, you had to be grateful for them.” His face—pale from the two psychic encounters—lapsed into sorrow.

Angel could not remember feeling crappier in fifty-five years of being an awful friend and a worse person.

“I’m sorry,” she said, wishing she had left it alone. “They sound like lovely people. I just… I didn’t mean to pull up the sad things in your heart.”

Tucker cast her a watery grin and started the truck.

“They’re good things too,” he admitted. “I think I needed to think about them right now. Taking apart that bed was—”

“Not the greatest part of being human,” Angel said delicately.

Tucker darted a glance at her, and his face colored charmingly. “No. Not that way. I mean, sex can be great, you know?” He didn’t wait for Angel to respond, which was good, because Angel had no frame of reference. “But not like that. It was all just so—” He shuddered, and his flush washed away. “—soulless. Children could have been conceived on that bed, but the onslaught of it all…. I did not need to be there.” He sighed, and she wondered if an actual woman could have smelled the embarrassment sweat rolling off of him. “You did not need to be there.”

Angel couldn’t look at him when she said this. “You have nothing to be ashamed of.” He did not. He’d been caught in the throes of a supernatural vision. She’d stayed there—why? Because watching him orgasm was fascinating? Because he’d needed her?

“You won’t look at me,” Tucker mumbled. “I mean, I know we’re only working partners, and you’re not even alive, but at least we were talking.”

Oh.

Oh hell.

“I made you do it,” Angel said. “I made you mad and forced my… agenda on you, and you grabbed it, even though you knew it was going to be difficult. I am feeling the shame here, Tucker. I am not shaming you.”

Tucker’s mouth quirked at the corners. “How about no shame for either of us, okay? If you can’t look at me, Angel, I’ve got no one…. Never mind. Just no shame.”

“Now we sound like vampires,” Angel grumbled. And oh yes, she’d seen them around town.

“There’re vampires here? I’ve seen a few in the city, but I didn’t know they’d be out here too!”

“They come with the fairy hill,” she said sharply. “Which we do not—”

“Yeah, yeah, we do not talk about. I understand.” Tucker’s humor seemed to be restored, and Angel took a deep breath.

“Well, we shall check out the cemetery,” she conceded, “and see if there is anything to be done. And then you can go back home and rest—”

“And you can catch up on Buffy,” he said with grim humor.

“There must be a way for her and Angel to get back together,” Angel said tearfully. “There must!”

“Well, sometimes it’s not your first love who’s your best love,” Tucker said thoughtfully, like this would mean something. “Sometimes it’s an unlikely person you meet later and have trouble being with in the beginning.”

Angel narrowed her eyes. “If you’re giving me spoilers, I’ll hog Squishbeans for a week.”

Tucker laughed. “No spoilers, I promise.”

The atmosphere in the cab lightened for the five minutes it took to get to the cemetery, but Angel couldn’t help but wonder—who was Tucker’s first love who wasn’t his best love? It sounded like he knew.

More importantly, who was the unlikely person he would meet later?

HOW DREADFUL it was to be wrong.

“Oh, Tucker. This is bad!”

The ghost of an indigent miner swiped an angry hand against the windshield, leaving a swish of green like the mashed corpse of a big bug.

“Right? Let’s get out, though, and see—”

“What if they’re hostile?” Angel asked, because the cluster of ghosts whirling around the graveyard seemed to be truly massive.

“Not right now. Watch. See? As we drive by, they’re fading away. They’re afraid of you.”

“How do you know they’re not afraid of you?” Angel demanded, because it did seem