Angel in Training (The Louisiangel Series, Book One) (23 page)

I blinked. “Do you want to get me a LoJack?”
I asked him, pulling a face. “You’re as bad as Michael, who I think
actually does have me LoJacked.” At his impatient huff, I sighed.
“About ten minutes.”

He pulled out a business card from his pocket
and handed it over. “My number is on there. If I don’t have a call
in twelve minutes, I’m calling for backup.”

“Backup for what?” I demanded. “I’m dead.
It’s not like I can get killed again!”

“Eleven minutes,” Joshua told me.

“Whatever,” I muttered, getting out of the
car and slamming the door behind me. I didn’t think he would follow
me, but as I didn’t want to take any chances, I ducked down Bourbon
Street and lost myself in the crowd before he had the chance to
follow me.

It was busy and there were people all around
– hardly any of them on the right side of sober – but none of them
were paying any attention to me. A wave of nostalgia washed over me
as I realized I could never be carefree and join them again. I
pushed it from my mind and ducked my head as I picked up speed and
concentrated on winding in and out of the crowds. If the streets
were clear, then yes, it might have been ten minutes, but right
now, I would be looking at fifteen.

I ducked behind a group of drunken, giggling
girls to avoid the beads they were waving around, and didn’t see
the group coming out of a bar until the last minute when one of
them knocked into me. He didn’t seem to realize what he had done,
and followed his friends. I was already in the process of
forgetting what had happened, when I realized I could see color
everywhere. It was like a rainbow of moving, bright light.

I stepped back against the wall and took a
deep breath. It was everybody’s auras, I realized. Michael had
never mentioned how overwhelming it would be to see them all at
once. They covered all the colors of the spectrum, and every shade
in between – even grays which hovered like a shadow.

Then as soon as it appeared, it was gone,
leaving me wondering if I had just hallucinated the whole thing.
This time I did push it from my mind. I had lost precious minutes
then, and the last thing I wanted was the entire police department
bearing down on the convent. I sped up, moving as fast as I could
without actually running, until I hit Ursuline Street where I broke
out into my fastest pace.

The reception was empty as I burst in through
the main doors, and I dashed around behind the desk to use the
phone. Joshua picked up on the first ring. “I was about to call for
backup,” he informed me, dryly.

“I’m back, I’m safe, and I will see you
tomorrow,” I quickly told him.

“I should have some files by lunchtime,” he
told me. There was a pause. “Thank you for calling me.”

He hung up before I could respond. Thank you
for calling him? I had only done what he had asked me to. I cradled
the phone and made my way to my bedroom, down the quiet corridors.
“Joshua Walsh, you confuse me,” I muttered as I pulled my nightwear
on and climbed into bed. “How I wish I knew what you were
thinking.” I pulled the covers over me and curled up on my side,
allowing myself to drift off into sleep.

* * *

I knew the moment I opened my eyes that I was
dreaming again. Not because I was standing on clouds or because I
was back at my aunts. It’s wasn’t even the location that gave it
away. It was what I was wearing.

I was wearing a blue plaid shirt – just like
the one of Joshua’s I had worn before. The sleeves were rolled up
to just below my elbows and it hung open to reveal the white
crochet bikini top underneath it. Michael had said that I was the
one to dictate what I would wear, but the bikini was a new one on
me. I was also wearing a light-wash denim skirt and down on my
apparently nail-polished feet, were my flip flops.

Surrounding wise, I was standing on a gravel
track, with two great ruts where many cars had passed over time.
Not far in front of me was an all too familiar car – a bright blue
Dodge Charger. The shirt should probably have given it away, but I
didn’t need to see Joshua to know I was invading his dream.

Even in the dream, there were crickets and
all sorts of bugs chirping away around me. Back behind me, the sky
was dark, but on the horizon behind the car, it was light – that
time of day where the sun is still fighting to be up against the
inky night sky which was slowly drowning it out.

I was tempted to be polite and wake myself
up, but I was curious. I made my way down the track to the car, to
discover it was parked right in front of a small dock on a lake. I
had never been here before, and the dimming light wasn’t giving any
clues away.

I didn’t see him at first. He was lying on
his back, with his legs hanging off the edge of the dock to dangle
lazily into the water. I didn’t know whether to be thankful or
grateful at the fact he was fully clothed. He was in his usual
attire of dark jeans (the legs rolled up), and a dark shirt (the
sleeves rolled up).

It wasn’t until I walked up to him and peered
down at him that I realized his eyes were closed. With a soft smile
on his face which made him seem more relaxed than I’d ever seen
him, I was certain he was asleep. Asleep in a dream? He worked too
much. I started to back away, ready to leave him to get the rest he
clearly needed, when he spoke. “I was wondering when you’d get
here.”

“You were expecting me?” I asked in surprise,
looking around to see if there was someone else around whom he
should have been talking to.

I looked back at him to find one eye cracked
open, a bigger smile on his face. “You’ve been in my dreams every
night since I met you. Why would I expect anything else?”

What
? “And, uh, what do I normally do in these
dreams?” I asked, hesitantly, unsure if I really wanted the answer
to that.

Both eyes were open now, although he was
frowning. “Your hair is blonde.”

I reached for it and pulled it in front of
me. He was right. I had reverted back to my natural hair color,
complete with the longer, curlier style. “This is what it used to
be like,” I told him.

Joshua sat upright and patted the wood next
to him. “It makes you look…”

“If you say dumber, I am pushing you in the
water,” I informed him as I slipped my flip flops off and sank down
next to him.

“I was going to say softer – more
normal.”

“Normal?” I repeated, unable to keep the
indignation from my voice. “What the hell do you mean by that?”
Joshua gave me a soft smile and reached for my face. I flinched and
jerked backwards. “What are you doing?” I demanded.

He smiled again and this time, when his hand
went to my face, I refrained from moving my head out of reach of
his hand and settled on staring at it suspiciously. He gently
twisted a stray lock of my uncontrollable hair around his finger,
before brushing it behind my ear. “I like it.” His hand paused,
cupping my cheek, his thumb gently stroking the corner of my
mouth.

My eyes were locked on his, unable to break
the gaze as he slowly started to move his head closer to mine. I
knew exactly what was going to happen next so I cleared my throat
and jumped to my feet. Seconds later he was on his, his arm
sweeping around my waist to draw my body flush with his.

“No,” I muttered quietly, using the last
remaining piece of willpower I had to press the palms of my hands
against his chest, feeling the heat through the thin material, and
pushed myself away.

He arched an eyebrow at me – that familiar
smirk appearing on his dream face. “You’re different tonight,” he
told me. “And I don’t mean the hair. You’re acting like you do when
I'm awake.”

“I don’t know what we normally get up to in
your dreams,” I informed him, mentally kicking myself at my
quivering voice. I should have removed my hands, but somehow, I was
using them to keep myself upright as much as I was ensuring that he
kept his distance. “But I can assure you there will be nothing
untoward happening here tonight.”

“Untoward?” he repeated, wiggling his
eyebrows at me. “How good are you at swimming?”

I barked a laugh. “Swimming? In that?” I
asked, glancing down at the inky blue water. “That thing is
probably full of gators. I'm not swimming in-” The next thing to
leave my mouth was an embarrassingly girly scream as he clamped his
hands around my wrists and flung us both into the water.

I can swim. Quite well, in fact. You can
blame it on the fact that when I was still living in England, the
worst that I would probably encounter in a lake would be a leech
(and even that would freak me out), but as far as I was concerned,
if you stick me in potentially alligator infested waters – which
was true of most of the bodies of fresh water in Louisiana – I
panic.

I thrashed about, trying to make it to the
surface, but the shirt I was wearing was getting tangled in my face
and I couldn’t tell up from down. When something fastened around my
waist, I used the last of my breath in screaming, swallowing a
large mouthful of water.

There was nothing dream-like about what was
happening – it was all too real for me. Then I was turned around,
and pulled through the surface of the water where I gasped in
several deep, desperate breaths, as I tried to fling the shirt back
over my head, while also trying to break free from whatever was
clutching at my waist.

“Angel!” I heard Joshua call sharply. And
then my face was free of the shirt and whatever was holding my
waist let go. The next thing I was aware of was that Joshua was in
front of me, his hands firmly holding my cheeks.

“We need to get out of here,” I gasped,
trying to pull myself free. “Before the alligators come.”

He laughed loudly, but didn’t let go of me.
“There are no alligators in here,” he told me.

I didn’t believe him. “I'm not about to take
that risk,” I said, trying to pull him with me. If he wasn’t going
to let go of me, he was getting out too. But whatever supernatural
strength I once had was now nowhere in sight.

“
Angel, it’s a dream –
my
dream. Trust me; there are no alligators in
here.”

I stopped resisting him and glanced from side
to side. Then, with a sob, launched myself at him, clutching
tightly to his shirt as I tried to control the shivering that had
taken over me. I didn’t like this dream and I wanted to wake up,
but as Joshua stroked my back, holding me as tightly as I was
holding him, I knew I wasn’t about to wake up yet.

“I'm sorry,” he muttered, one arm leaving my
side to brush my wet hair from my face. “If I had known you were
scared of alligators I would never have thrown us in like
that.”

The water wasn’t deep – it came just above my
chest. I planted my feet in the muck below us (which made me cringe
inwardly), and stepped back, shaking my head. “I'm not scared of
alligators,” I told him, adamantly.

He arched an eyebrow. “Really?”

“I'm not!” I objected. “I don’t mind if the
alligators are behind a wall or a fence – I just don’t like
swimming in alligator-infested water, alright?”

“There are no alligators,” he told me again,
his added laughter causing me to cross my arms and scowl at him.
“It’s my dream and I'm telling you, there are no gators in this
water.”

I found myself closing my eyes taking some
deep breaths in through my nose and out through my mouth. I could
feel him moving closer to me so I shook my head at him. “I can’t
stay in here.”

I turned to make my way back to the shore,
ready for the shakes and the racing pulse to leave me, but Joshua
grabbed me, pulled me to him, and before I could blink, he was
kissing me.

For a length of time that could have been
seconds, minutes, or hours, everything else was forgotten about.
All I was aware of was his tongue on mine and the heat of our
bodies pressed up against each other. His lips moved from mine and
began nibbling on my neck and I couldn’t help but make a low groan
of pleasure as my hands snaked up into his hair.

His mouth moved to my ear, which he gently
nipped. “You want to know what we normally do in my dreams?” he
asked, his voice low and throaty. I nodded. “Hot. Dirty. Sex.”

My eyes shot open. “No,” I told him, weakly,
only half meaning it as his mouth made its way across my collar
bone. When his hands slipped up under the shirt and began tugging
at the bikini strings I knew it was either now, or never – and
never wasn’t an option.

I'd stopped Joshua kissing me once before
because I wasn’t prepared to face the wrath of an archangel – and
that was when I had been awake. Dream or not, this shouldn’t be
happening.

“No,” I repeated loudly.

* * *

I sat bolt upright in bed, breathing heavily.
The dream had felt so real, that my lips felt swollen underneath my
fingertips. I pushed back the covers and stepped out of bed and
into the bathroom. It was still dark. I couldn’t have been sleeping
long, so I flicked the bathroom light on and peered back at the
small hands on my alarm clock in the dim light. I was right. It was
just going on two.

I padded over to the sink, running some cold
water to splash over my face, and then peered at my reflection.
Hot, dirty sex? That was what we got up to in his dreams? I was
never going to be able to look him in the face again – my face was
already flushing and I was only looking at myself.

I glanced up at the ceiling. “I think I hate
you a little bit more,” I muttered, before I switched the light off
and returned to my bed.

Detective Work

I awoke at a decent hour to Cupid opening my
curtains, the bright morning light exploding into my room. I
groaned loudly and pulled the covers over my head in protest. I
felt like I hadn’t slept at all, and all I wanted to do was stay in
bed for a couple more hours.