Christmas in the City - Jill Barnett Page 0,4

"No more angels," she said, hearing her voice catch. "No wings. No halo. I had such a beautiful halo. But it's gone. I heard it break. Gone. all gone." Her voice was little more than a whisper. "My wings.... Everything." She began to sob.

"She's clearly hysterical."

"The poor woman is in shock."

She could barely catch her breath between sobs. "All of it is gone. Everything wonderful is gone. I've fallen." She began to sob loudly, her shoulders shaking, and it hurt terribly.

The dark shadow stood over her. She could feel him, could feel the tension emanating from him. The air seemed to swell with his very presence.

Her sobs caught in her throat.

"You will stop crying, Lillian. Right now."

She couldn't stop. did he think she wanted to sound so lost. She didn’t like being pitiful, but she couldn't help it.

"Stop this," he said more forcefully. "Now."

She tried to stop and took a labored breath.

"I order you to stop."

"Mr. Stewart. You shouting at her isn't going to help. I suggest we get her into a bed. I'll give her something to calm her down, then clean the scrapes on her face and shoulder. She needs sleep. Sleep is the best thing for these things."

She felt two strong arms slide beneath her. She opened her eyes and saw the tall dark image bending over her, still only a blurred image of him through her tears. A second later, he lifted her into his arms and turned.

Pain shot through her side and she gave a slight moan.

He stilled immediately, standing stiff and apprehensive.

She blinked, once, twice...and her vision cleared. She looked into a face so harsh she lost her voice.

He was no god. In fact, he looked like the Devil himself.

His hair was short and slicked back from a broad stern forehead. Like his hair, his thick brows were black as the River Styx, and his skin was rough, his jaw covered with a dark shadow.

As a whole, his features were nothing but sharp angles and firm ridges—a hewn-from-granite look that was rare in Heaven, a place where beauty was light and soft and gossamer, not dark and hard and glittering.

But there was harsh beauty in this face. A dark beauty that seemed deep and fathomless. He stared down at her from eyes blacker than onyx. And in those eyes she caught one brief flicker of a soul that was lost.

Then, as if he, too, had gauged her measure in that one look, he turned with her in his arms and strode from the room, her weight seeming no more a burden to him than one of her molting feathers.

"Be gentle with her, Mr. Steward. Please."

"I'm not hurting her. I'm getting her into that bed, like you said. To do so, I must got up these stairs." He sounded irritated."

So the doctor with the kind voice followed behind as her dark rescuer with the troubled soul carried her up a wide, seemingly never-ending staircase. He looked down at her once, his expression stern and hard, so hard that she sensed he was hiding behind it. She cocked her head slightly, but he fixed his gaze ahead of them.

He took her to a room where the door opened quickly, efficiently, when they were but a few steps away. She caught a quick glimpse of a gray-haired servant, but then she was inside where everything was blue, like the skies above Heaven, and gold, like Saint Peter's precious gates.

He laid her down on an elegantly draped bed. She winced and instinctively gripped his hand for strength.

"Did I hurt you?" His voice was gruff.

"No."

He stared oddly at their joined hands.

She watched his eyes change, flicker with something indefinable, then she whispered, "But I think you will."

He stilled, his look direct, a question in his eyes, then as if he realized what he was doing, he caught himself and hurriedly stepped back and away from her, pulling his strong, warm hand away.

The physician came into the room, followed by a maid with a steaming water pitcher, washbowl, and towels, and he removed his coat and sung it on a chair, then rolled up his shirtsleeves. "Now let's see if we can fix you up and then you can rest, my dear."

The dark man stood back near the door, watching, looking out of place. He gave her one long, unreadable look, then without a word he turned and left the room.

Chapter Three

D.L. LEANED A SHOULDER against the doorjamb, crossed his arms, and just watched her sleep. He didn't know why