Heavenly Husband

“I’ll make two promises to you, and I’ll keep them both.” Letter to Reader Title Page Dedication PROLOGUE CHAPTER ONE CHAPTER TWO CHAPTER THREE CHAPTER FOUR CHAPTER FIVE CHAPTER SIX CHAPTER SEVEN CHAPTER EIGHT CHAPTER NINE CHAPTER TEN Copyright

“I’ll make two promises to you, and I’ll keep them both.”

When Kim tried to turn away, Jerry touched her chin, urging her to look at him fully. “First, I promise you that I am not your ex-fiancé, nor will I ever hurt you the way he did. My second promise...” he drew in a lungful of air “...is to watch over you and protect you. I will do whatever it takes to keep you safe.”

Kim suddenly wanted to lighten the mood. “That’s what guardian angels are for,” she joked, fingering the gold pin on her blouse.

“That’s exactly it!” he insisted proudly. “I’m your guardian angel.” And before she could protest he pulled her into his arms.

Dear Reader,

Remember the magic of the film It’s a Wonderful Life? The warmth and tender emotion of Truly, Madly, Deeply? The feel-good humor of Heaven Can Wait?

Well, we can’t promise you Alan Rickman or Warren Beatty, but, starting in June in Harlequin Romance®, we are delighted to bring you a brand-new miniseries: GUARDIAN ANGELS. It will feature all of your favorite ingredients for a perfect novel: great heroes, feisty heroines, breathtaking romance, all with a celestial spin. Written by four of our star authors, this witty and wonderful series will feature four real-life angels—all of whom are perfect advertisements for heaven!

We’ll be bringing you one GUARDIAN ANGELS romance every other month.

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With many thanks to Kim Barnes for inspiring

me to write this book

PROLOGUE

KIM had always imagined that when you broke up with someone there would be screaming involved...from at least one of the two parties. And maybe some china thrown for dramatic effect.

The real thing turned out to be nothing like that. Somehow, she just couldn’t dredge up the energy to raise her voice. She felt dead inside, as dead as the love she’d once had for Gerald Kirkland. As for the china, she liked the blue-and-white pattern of the set that had once been her mother’s—the set her father had given her in anticipation of her upcoming marriage to Gerald. The delicate pieces were too precious to be wasted on the likes of him.

As for her fiancé—former fiancé—he was taking the news in a manner that suggested she’d just told him there was a power failure and they’d have to eat out tonight.

Kim moved to the door and held it open for him. “If you’ve forgotten anything, I’ll pack it up and send it to your apartment.” The thought flitted through her mind that she could burn anything he left behind or get rid of it in a garage sale, but, for now, she hurt too much to let her thoughts linger on revenge. All she wanted was to get him out of here—out of her house, out of her life, out of her mind, and mostly out of her heart.

Gerald bent to pick up his briefcase, the movement causing his biceps to bunch under the starched white shirt. Then, in a gesture that came more from habit than from intent, he leaned toward Kim as if to drop a casual kiss on her cheek. When she drew back, he seemed to realize the foolishness of his action.

“This is a big mistake,” he said. “You’re jumping to conclusions. Why don’t you be reasonable and forget about what you saw? Then everything will be the way it used to be.”

He flashed her a smile that, just a few days ago, would have made her weak in the knees.

Kim’s hand tightened around the doorknob. She considered herself a tolerant person. There was a lot she’d tolerate in others, but laziness and lying were two character traits she considered unforgivable. Not that there was a problem with Gerald’s work habits. In fact, other than the way his custom-tailored suit fit—from his broad shoulders to his narrow waist and hips and down over his thick-muscled thighs—his ambition was what appealed most to her. She’d never known a man so willing to work so hard to get ahead. He had lofty dreams and expensive tastes, and he was prepared to do whatever it took to get what he wanted.

But the lying. That was another matter.

She’d had vague suspicions about what he’d been up to when he broke dates with her and claimed to be working late. Even so, she’d given him the benefit of the doubt when he did show up—late—smelling of a citrusy feminine perfume. Even yesterday, after Gerald had told her he’d be working straight through lunch, she had wanted to believe him. When she drove to pick up a sub sandwich a few blocks away, she’d been surprised to see Gerald’s Lincoln a few cars ahead of her. She was even more surprised to see a woman seated beside him. Although the hat that shielded the passenger’s face prevented Kim from identifying her, something about the woman seemed familiar. She reasoned Gerald had changed his mind and decided to take a co-worker after he couldn’t reach her at her desk. Assuming he was also headed to the sub shop, Kim followed him, intending to join them for lunch. When he passed the popular meeting place, she continued to follow him, thinking he’d stop for a burger farther down the road.

Instead, he’d pulled into the parking lot of a small motel. Staying a discreet distance behind them, Kim had watched in horrified disbelief as the couple walked, arm around waist, into the building.

Now, leaning against the door—more to prop herself up than to prop it open—Kim looked up and saw that Gerald was waiting for her to “be reasonable” and make everything “the way it used to be.”

She tried to take a deep breath of air, but her chest felt so tight that all she could manage were shallow pants. “All right,” she said at last, her voice coming out in a pitiful squeak. “I’ll be ‘reasonable’.” Searching his face, knowing the expression she saw there would be more honest than the words that would come out of his handsome mouth, she spoke slowly and deliberately. “Tell me truthfully why you and that woman were at the Kelawnee Motel.”

His gaze darted briefly away before he met her eyes and held them. “I told you, we had some business to discuss, and we didn’t want to be disturbed.”

His large fingers opened and closed around the briefcase handle. When she took notice of the nervous gesture, he squeezed the handle until his knuckles turned white.

Her voice sounded flat, even to her own ears, giving the impression that there was no knot in her throat, no crushing tightness at the pit of her very being. “Then why did you sign in as Mr. and Mrs. Gerald Kirkland?”

She hadn’t intended to let him know she’d stooped so low as to follow them inside. She hadn’t wanted him to know she cared. For, if he knew how much she cared, he must surely know how much she was hurting. And her pride couldn’t take it if pity prompted him to apologize or, worse, tell her he loved her.

He wouldn’t meet her gaze...just kept glancing at his car in the driveway. By now he’d moved out onto the gray-painted slabs of the old farmhouse’s broad front porch. He shifted the briefcase to his other hand and opened his mouth to speak.

Kim shook her head. She couldn’t bear to hear any more lies.

Resolutely, he closed his mouth and gave her a grim-lipped nod.

“Drive carefully,” she said. As she watched his car pull away for the last time, she realized how stupid that must have sounded. For, in her heart, she hoped she never saw him again.

Less than an hour later, the telephone rang. Thinking it might be Gerald trying to change her mind, she let her answering machine take the call.

After the beep, there was a slight hesitation before a woman’s voice spoke.

“This is the emergency room at Memorial General Hospital. I’m calling about—”

Kim snatched the phone out of the cradle. “Yes. Yes, I’m here.” She felt her heart pounding against her ribs. Her father’s health had seemed better since his last operation. She dreaded hearing what must surely be bad news. Even worse, she couldn’t bear to be away from her father if he was having a relapse. “What’s the matter? Is he all right?”

The woman didn’t answer her panicked questions, and Kim assumed the worst. “Are you Ms. Barnett?”

“Yes,” she blurted. “Yes, I am.”

“You’re listed as the person to contact in case of an emergency.”

“What’s wrong? Is he badly off?”

The woman’s voice softened. “You’d best come in, Ms. Barnett. He’s not expected to make it through the night.”

Kim felt her mouth go dry. She held the phone in stunned silence for several seconds before she spoke in a hoarse croak. “Was it his heart again?”

“I’m not aware of a heart problem,” the woman said gently. “Mr. Kirkland was injured in a three-car accident.”

CHAPTER ONE

TAKING a surreptitious glance at his fellow fenuki players, Jared reached into the billowing sleeve of his pristine white robe and withdrew a perfect gilded feather. Confident no one had witnessed his deft maneuver, he placed the coveted game piece on the table atop the plain white plumes placed by the other two players.

“Fenuki!” he shouted, proclaiming himself winner for the umpteenth time this century. Jared felt his halo slip to the left as if to herald to the others that this game—like many of the others—had come to him by sleight of hand.

As he counted his winnings, Mehrdad reached across and placed a quelling hand on his arm. Although his tone was gentle, his voice held a warning. “If Nahum thought that any of his staff wasn’t one hundred percent virtuous, it would be quite difficult for that staff member to earn his wings, don’t you think?”

Heedless of the implied threat, Jared laughed. “Would it matter? I now have almost enough fenuki feathers to make my own wings.”

Mehrdad bristled and rose to his feet. The tension caused light to crackle through the air. Heat lightning, the humans down below would call it.

But before Mehrdad could argue further, the wispy covering of fog swirled about them. A moment later, the thin veils of white parted and settled around their knees and ankles. Asim stood before them.

“Nahum wishes to see you,” the messenger told Jared. At his questioning glance, Asim added, “It is time for your performance appraisal.”

With a taunting grin at his fenuki opponent, Jared tucked the last of the feathers into his robe pockets and rose to follow Asim to the supervisor.

After all these centuries, he knew it would take more than luck to improve his abysmal performance record. Maybe he just wasn’t cut out for this kind of work. Workers in the Human Resources Department were expected to be reliable, dependable, and have an intimate understanding of the most fickle and confusing of all creatures...humans. As it happened, Jared possessed none of these qualities. Especially the last.

Nahum sat in beatific splendor upon his chair of gold-painted wicker. Jared knew it wouldn’t be long before his supervisor would be trading in that humble chair for a throne in another department. Already, Nahum had moved up the ranks of wing size until he now sported a pair that was taller and wider than himself.

Jared would have been happy with a pair of dinky baby wings made of gray down. Considering his own track record, it would take him at least several millennia, if ever, to earn such a glorious pair as Nahum’s. Jared tried to still his wayward thoughts. Wing envy was frowned upon up here.

But he had broad, strong shoulders that Nahum had told him gave him the potential to carry the weight of large wings. Although his supervisor had routinely given him low, yet honest, appraisals, he’d always encouraged Jared to put aside his playful ways and set his mind to the tasks he was asked to perform.

But, somehow, Jared’s attention would stray and he’d fail the assignment or have to turn it over to a worker with a better track record.

But this time was different. This time, he would do whatever Nahum asked, even if it meant safeguarding an accident-prone human. Jared grimaced as he remembered the last klutz he’d been assigned to watch over. After one too many mishaps while he’d let his mind wander, he’d been forced to let Mehrdad assume the responsibility of protecting President Ford.

Nahum nodded benevolently, his gaze falling upon Jared’s bulging pockets. “When your time comes to meet with the Chairman of the Board, I doubt he’ll think much of wings made out of fenuki feathers,” he said softly.

Sheepish, Jared stuffed the telltale overflowing fluff back into his pockets.

“I’ve been going over your personnel file.” The left-hand side of the folder held page after page of not-so-glowing reports. The right-hand side, reserved for commendations and accolades, sported only two thin sheets of parchment. “In addition to your lack of...shall we say, finesse... as a protectorate, there seems to be a couple of other problems holding you back.”

Jared couldn’t help being amazed by Nahum’s statement. Only a couple of problems? He waited in respectful silence for his superior to continue.

“The first is your cavalier attitude. You take everything so lightly, as if this were all just a big game. This isn’t the place for someone who chooses to act like such a...a...”

“Free spirit?”

“Exactly. We’re a team here. You must learn to work with others.”

“I’ll try to do better.”

Nahum crossed his arms over his chest, exposing the many rows of gold trim that weighted his sleeves. “You can start by referring to Mehrdad by his appointed name rather than ‘Mehrdy’.”

So his fenuki opponent had apparently been complaining.

“And it would be best if you discourage others from referring to you by a nickname. ‘Jerry’ sounds a bit too modern and casual for the serious nature of our work.”

Jared reverently bowed his head. “Thy will be done. And the other problem?”

Casting a skeptical glance at him for his easy acquiescence, Nahum opened another folder and produced a sheet of lined parchment, which he handed to Jared. “Apparently, there has been an oversight. Your training is incomplete.”

Glancing through the list at the many workshops and seminars written in elegant script, Jared was sure his elder had made a mistake. “But I’ve taken all the courses offered, and I passed them with flying colors.”

“You haven’t served your apprenticeship on Earth,” Nahum explained. “You need hands-on experience before you can move on to the next level of protectorate.”

Jared returned the parchment to his superior. “I’ve walked among humans—I’ve seen how they are.”

“But you’ve never been one. In all your previous assignments, you’ve remained invisible to your protectees, which means you’ve never had to learn to interact with them—communicate on their level.”

Jared started to interrupt and explain that he had spoken to his human charges on a number of occasions when he’d whispered warnings to them, but Nahum stilled his protest with an upraised hand.

“It is impossible to truly comprehend them until you’ve experienced their challenges and limitations—such as their inability to become invisible or to transmogrify themselves through earthly barriers. But you will see what I mean once you take human form.”

“Oh, no, you don’t! You’re not going to send me down there to go through the poopy diaper stage and have parents who tell me what to do all the time. You know I don’t handle restrictions on my freedom very well.”

“Which may have been why you were overlooked for apprenticeship all this time. There were no parents who deserved such a test.” Nahum leaned back in his chair, the winged back obscuring his face from all but the one directly in front of him, and thoughtfully stroked his long brown beard. “There is an assignment I’d like for you to handle.”

Jared breathed a long sigh of relief, then regretted his action when he realized the disorder it might cause in the form of hurricanes and twisters down below. If Nahum was giving him an assignment, it meant he wouldn’t be forcing him to go through the childbirth process and schooling and such.

“There is a young woman who needs your protection.”

Jared arched one eyebrow. He’d do his best, but if she was clumsy, she’d best stock up on bandages and ice packs. “Give me five minutes to put on a fresh robe, and I’ll be ready.”

“You won’t be needing it,” Nahum said. “You’ll be working as a protectorate while also serving your apprenticeship in human form.”

Jared’s mouth opened. He wasn’t being let off the hook after all. “How am I supposed to protect someone while I’m squalling for a baby bottle?”

Nahum steadied a look of infinite patience upon him before answering. “There is a soul whose hourglass is almost empty. You will inhabit his vessel when he leaves it.”

Jared rubbed his ears as if he might have misheard his supervisor’s words. “You mean...no spitting up and no fighting schoolyard bullies?”

“You will be a thirty-two-year-old male, living in Chesden, Illinois. That’s the United States, of course.” The supervisor added, almost as an afterthought, “Perhaps the only country that would put up with your unorthodox ways.”

“What about the woman? How am I supposed to protect her?” If he went into this assignment with a firm idea of what to expect, perhaps he could be better prepared.

Nahum closed the folder in front of him. “I don’t have all the details. You’ll have to find them out once you get there. But I do know that the woman is in danger of leaving her earthly body approximately fifty or sixty years sooner than her scheduled departure. Your job is to make sure she comes to no harm.”

Jared shook his head in amazement. “Only fifty years? What’s the big to-do about? In the overall scheme of things, fifty years is just a blink of an eye.”

Nahum gazed down at the worker before him. He’d grown accustomed to the oversize wings he wore, not to mention the golden braids on his sleeves that signified his exalted status. He was also counting on moving up to that big throne on the next level up. If this mission failed, he could be stripped of his hard-earned rank quicker than a thunderstorm in July.

On the other hand, if Jared could somehow manage to harness that creativity and energy of his, he—Nahum—might find the rewards well worth the risk.

“I believe your experience on Earth will change your mind about many such misconceptions.”

By the time Kim reached the hospital’s emergency room, Gerald’s condition had worsened. Her mouth unaccountably dry, she stopped at the water fountain near the ER receptionist. The water tasted stale and lukewarm, but the hesitation had allowed Kim a brief moment to gather herself together. For some reason, her thoughts kept returning to the feeling she’d harbored as she had watched Gerald drive away: She’d hoped she would never see him again.

Guilt plucked at her heart. What he’d done was despicable, but no one deserved this.

In the emergency room, Kim passed several curtained cubicles, some of which stood empty. One revealed a mother standing beside a bed whose occupant must have been no more than two years old.

Walking faster, she came to the nurses’ station where the hall broke off into more passageways with still more curtained cubicles. She paused, unsure which curtain Gerald was behind.

A bespectacled nurse glanced up from the rack of charts she’d been looking through. “May I help you, miss?”

“I’m looking for Gerald Kirkland.”

“You his wife, honey?”

Kim paused. Would she be allowed to see Gerald if she didn’t have some sort of family tie to him? “Um, fiancée.” It was only half a lie.

“Well, come on, then,” the nurse said, stepping out from the station. “They’re prepping him for surgery. Maybe you can see him for a moment before they take him in.”

Gerald looked almost as pale as the bleached white sheet beneath him. Two plastic bags hung suspended above him, one dripping clear fluid into his veins and the other replacing the blood he’d lost. An airway tube made a hissing sound as it pumped oxygen into his lungs.

Kim caught her breath at the sight of him. Only when she began to feel slightly faint did she make a conscious effort to breathe normally. It wouldn’t do him any good if she flaked out now.

“You okay, honey?” the nurse asked her.

Kim nodded. Another half lie.

She stepped closer, trying to ignore the various tubes and wires attached to Gerald’s body. His was a large, strong frame accustomed to vigorous activity. His body was the first thing she’d noticed about him. The reason she’d first been attracted to him. And perhaps the reason that other woman had been attracted to him.

She tried not to think of that now. Instead, she concentrated her effort on offering emotional support. She took his hand in hers and gently squeezed his fingers. He did not squeeze back, and Kim began to realize with a horrified understanding that there was nothing she could do to help him. Her eyes filled with tears that spilled onto his hand.

“He’s not able to respond,” said a man in scrubs, “but it’s possible he can hear you. It might help if you tell him how you feel about him.”

Tell him how she felt about him? As in, I don’t love you anymore, but I don’t want you to die, either? No, she couldn’t be so cruel.

When at last she spoke, her voice cracked. “Hang in there.” She squeezed his fingers again, as if the gesture would impart all the sincerity she was unable to put into words.

Blip, blip, blip. The only response she got was the unsteady beep of the heart monitor. Another man in green scrubs entered the tiny cubicle, and a woman in white followed.

Releasing his hand, she stepped away from the gurney and started out the way she’d come. She went out into the tiled corridor, determined to wait on the hard bench until the surgery was over.

Amid the murmuring of voices, the blips wavered briefly, then fell into one long, flat beep. Kim had seen enough television to know this was not a good sign. Activity in the room increased, and she rushed to pull the curtain open. For several moments, she watched in horrified fascination, wishing there was something she could do to help and knowing she was powerless to stop the current course of events.

Kim had no idea how long she stood there, watching without seeing, as the medical team struggled to bring Gerald back from the brink.

Finally, one of the men stepped away and began removing his gloves. “We’ve lost him.”

Please don’t let him die!

The man stopped what he was doing and looked up at Kim. Until then, she hadn’t realized she’d prayed out loud.

“Get her out of here,” he demanded.

The woman in white came to her and took her arm to guide her out, but not before Kim saw them raise the sheet over Gerald’s face.

Exhausted, she allowed herself to be led to the bench across the hall. The woman with her was uttering words of comfort, but Kim didn’t hear them. Her ears were tuned to the room where Gerald’s body lay.

When the woman suggested she call someone to drive her home, Kim realized she hadn’t told her father or stepmother before rushing over to be with Gerald. She dug some coins out of her purse and rose from the bench.

Someone behind the closed curtain asked, “Did he just move? I could have sworn I saw that sheet move.”

As if to confirm the statement, the monitor once again began blipping, this time stronger and steadier than before.

The woman in white ran back to Gerald’s cubicle. Kim’s legs felt powerless to support her, and she sank back onto the bench.