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“What stage?”
He shot me a grin that I was pretty sure had broken dozens of girls’ hearts. “The one where you pretend that you’re not already in so deep you’re never getting out because you think lying to yourself about your feelings will make them go away.”
“It sounds like you’re talking from experience,” I said, trying to turn the spotlight on him.
“I am,” he said without shame. He looped his arms around Sierra’s waist. “Thank God I got over it.” He dropped a kiss on his wife’s head before moving back to the kitchen to grab dishes.
When we were all sitting around the table and food had been passed around, Sierra asked, “So how long have younotbeen dating Sam?”
“It depends on what you mean by that. I met him when I was fifteen, eight years ago, but after that night, I didn’t see him again until a couple of months ago.”
“That fucker,” Nate muttered. “He met youeight yearsago?”
“Nate,” Sierra scolded him. “Language.”
He followed her gaze to Nova’s high chair. “It’s a lost cause, baby girl. Nova’s half angel. She’s going to hear everything adults say under their breaths around kids.”
“That doesn’t mean you have to encourage it.”
“Sorry.” Nate turned his full attention back on me. “So you two reconnected a couple of months ago. What happened then?”
It was unnerving to have Nate’s bright green eyes fixed on me. He listened well, didn’t interrupt as I spoke, and he never seemed distracted.
To avoid looking him in the eye, I focused on the thick silver wedding band on his left hand, which he was leaning against while he listened to my story.
“Can I ask you a question?” I asked before Nate or Sierra could comment on my story.
“You can ask,” Nate said.
“You’re married.”
“That’s not a question,” he pointed out.
I swallowed hard. “Sam told me he couldn’t give me the life I want, but you two have everything I’ve ever wanted. Why did he tell me that we have no future? Honestly.”
Nate sighed and reached for his wife’s hand. “Strictly speaking, I was never supposed to get this. There are laws against angels being romantically or sexually involved with humans. Our children have been flat-out forbidden since Noah and the Flood.” He pressed a kiss to the back of Sierra’s hand, just below the diamond that sparkled on her ring finger. “I broke the law when I loved Sierra, and we were just lucky enough to get away with it. I really believed that I was going to lose everything. This life is a gift that I was never supposed to get.”
“When you say lose everything…?”
“I would have considered myself lucky to have been stripped of my halo and banished from Heaven. I never dreamed we’d be allowed to keep Nova.” He shuddered, and Sierra reached out, stroking a hand through his hair. “I was expecting to die fighting for my girls or spend the rest of my existence in a cell.”
I let his words sink in. There was so much I didn’t know about Sam and his world. “Do you think there’s any chance Sam could be that kind of lucky?” I whispered, not sure I really wanted to hear the answer.
“A chance? Yes. A guarantee? Absolutely not.”
After the deep breakfast conversation on the first morning I spent with the Nate and Sierra, I settled into a comfortable life with the Blue family. I sort of loved being in their home. It was a perfect mix of country and contemporary, with so much light and laughter.
Nate only made occasional comments about uninvited houseguests that Sierra assured me weren’t personal. According to her, Nate didn’t really care for humans in general. And I couldn’t really blame him for the comments since I was, in fact, an uninvited guest.
It was so easy to feel at home in the house and giant yard that surrounded it. Sierra and Nate really did feel like family to me. They welcomed me fully into their lives—letting me play with their daughter, inviting me to their self-defense practices in the gym that took up half the second floor, and teaching me how to cook their überhealthy food.
I learned that Nate was an artist and craftsman who had apparently built most of the house himself and then filled its walls with artwork. Sierra had quit her job as a barista when Nova was born and had no plans to go back. They both—but mostly Sierra—asked about my family and life and dreams.
We didn’t bring up the topic of my intimate relationship with Sam or half-angel children, skating around it whenever conversation started to head in that direction. At least getting pregnant with Sam’s forbidden child was one thing I didn’t have to worry about.
Sam texted me often and called nearly every day. I missed him, but it wasn’t as bad as when he’d left for two weeks with Joriel. I was pretty sure I had Sierra to thank for that. She got it. Though Nate had never hidden what he was from her, she was intimately familiar with having someone guarding her against demon threats.
Sierra set me up at the desk in the office for my schoolwork. It surprised me how little I missed the city and the rest of my life. I liked being in Nate and Sierra’s world, and no small part of me wished it could be my life too.
