Eight Second Angel: The Ballad of Lily Grace (Lonesome Point, Texas Book 7) (2 page)

But he was. He was so fucked up that he didn’t hear the dog barking or the passenger door of the truck open behind him. He didn’t hear anything except the sound of his own pitiful retching until it was too late.

Screeching brakes squealed through the warm afternoon. Canyon turned toward the road in time to see Aaron bounce off the front of a giant SUV. He watched his son’s limp body fly, silhouetted for a terrible moment against the blue, blue sky while the dog Aaron had tried to save disappeared into the weeds on the other side of the road.

Canyon sprinted toward the highway, sickness forgotten in the surge of terror electrifying his skin. He fell to his knees and pulled Aaron’s tiny body into his arms, a howl of grief rising in his throat as he got a look at his baby’s face. The driver of the SUV shouted that he was calling 911, but Canyon only shook his head, tears beginning to stream from his eyes.

There was nothing the paramedics could do. His son was already gone.

Later, the coroner would say that Aaron had been killed on impact and hadn’t suffered for more than a second or two. Later, the minister who came to the house to sit with the family would say that it wasn’t Canyon’s fault that he’d been sick or that Aaron had jumped out of the truck to save a stray dog wandering down the road. Later, Reilly would cling to him while she cried, reaching out to him in her grief in a way she had refused to do before.

A day ago, getting close to his wife was all he’d wanted, but not like this. Not because his son was dead and it was his fault.

Because it
was
his fault. If he’d been sober, Aaron would still be alive. If he hadn’t washed pills down with a couple of beers and gotten into the truck, that sweet boy would still be walking around the world, making people fall in love with his big imagination and bigger heart.

The truth was inescapable, and finally, the day after the funeral, Canyon stopped trying to escape it. He told Reilly he was to blame for their son’s death and she told him to go to hell.

So he did.

He went to hell and he stayed there, knowing it was the only thing a monster like him deserved.

CHAPTER ONE
Four Years Later

Lily Grace

After so many months wandering the world in-between, light and weightless as a feather, coming back into a human body hurt like hell.

Lily Grace Lawson felt like she was being poured through a strainer, split into thousands of razor-sharp pieces that flowed across this foreign skin to burrow into foreign bones. The stranger’s lips parted in a silent scream and Lily rushed in through her mouth, stealing the air from her lungs and the will from her flesh and blood.

At that moment, Grace Heller, twenty-two-year-old waitress at a San Antonio truck stop, gave up her claim to the body she had been about to throw away, and the soul that had been Lily Lawson took her place.

Lily’s new head fell back and a low moan escaped her throat. Tears streamed down her face and her breath came in ragged gasps that made her chest feel bruised. The pain that had been Grace’s was so fresh that it felt like her own. She didn’t know why the girl had been so sad, but she could feel despair heavy in her every cell, making drawing a full breath an exercise in misery.

This bottomless suffering…it was hell. This
must
be what hell was like because Lily couldn’t imagine anything worse.

She couldn’t blame the girl for giving up. Who would have the strength to hang on when there was so much pain and so little left to live for? Grace had no parents, no family, no friends she could trust, and six months ago she had been cast out by the only boy she’d ever loved.

Lily wasn’t sure what had happened, only that Grace had made a mistake Eddie couldn’t forgive and that had been the beginning of the end. Grace hadn’t known how to get on without him. Growing up in the foster system she had learned to survive, but she had never learned to be good to herself. Eddie had cared for her enough to make up for it, but without his love she had wandered too far from the light to find her way back.

It was no wonder the spirit sent to help her had failed.

Maybe Lily would fail, too. Maybe she would fail the man she’d been sent to earth to save and this good will mission was doomed before it began. Back in the world in-between, when she’d been offered this chance, it had seemed like a gift to be of service.

But now…

What was the point of saving one soul? What did one person lost to darkness matter, more or less? She would just be shoveling shit against the tide in a world filled with endless hurt and pain.

“Not me,” she whispered, flinching at the sound of the higher, sweeter voice coming out of her borrowed mouth. “These thoughts aren’t mine.”

Curling her hands into fists at her sides, Lily forced her new body to open its eyes. She had to ground herself in something other than the remnants of Grace’s darkly swirling emotions or she’d be no good to anyone.

Lily blinked, taking in the muddy sky, where starlight battled the neon glow of the restaurants and gas stations below. The air was thick and humid, smelling of diesel fuel, charbroiled burgers, and something sad and dirty that made her wish she was anywhere but here.

She supposed Grace must have felt the same way, or she wouldn’t have climbed up to the roof of the Economy Lodge Hotel.

Lily’s heart leapt into her throat as her gaze drifted lower, down to the lined pavement of the parking lot far, far below. She was at least six stories up, poised to take a dive to her death. The wind whipped through her hair, drying the tears on her cheeks as her gaze focused in on the small white sneakers balanced on the edge of the concrete ledge below her, a ledge no more than three inches wide.

Three.
Inches.
Wide.

Terror rocketed through her nerve endings, white hot and clutching. Instinctively her arms pinwheeled backward, clawing through the air toward the safety of the roof behind her, but the sudden movement sent her hips jutting forward, upsetting her already unsteady balance.

She had time to realize that she was falling and to pray she would be able to catch herself before she slid down the face of the hotel, before strong arms closed around her waist, jerking her backward.

Her savior held tight as they both fell to the ground, grunting as he hit the warm tar roof first, shielding her from the worst of the impact. Lily collapsed on top of him, boneless with relief and trembling too hard to get to her feet.

“Thank you,” she gasped, fisting her fingers in his soft tee shirt and holding on for dear life, a part of her still feeling like she was falling. “Thank you so much.”

“Jesus Christ, Grace.” The man cupped her face in his rough hands, his arms shaking as hard as she was. “What were you thinking? What the hell were you thinking?”

“I d-don’t know,” Lily stammered, overwhelmed by the adrenaline pumping through her new body and the way it felt for that body to be pressed against someone else. The man who held her was so warm, so
alive
.

God, she’d almost forgotten what that was like, the pain and pleasure and vulnerability of it. She’d forgotten what it meant to have nerves that feel or a heart to break. She’d forgotten how lonely it could be inside your own skin or how quickly the loneliness could fade away when the right person holds you close.

John.

It made her think of her husband. She wondered where he was right now and if his new wife was holding him close, taking his loneliness away. She hoped so, no matter how much it hurt to know that the man who had been her everything now belonged to someone else.

“Talk to me, Grace,” the man beneath her demanded, pulling her thoughts back to the present. “Why are you up here?”

Tears sprang to her eyes, blurring the man’s handsome face. “I don’t know. I really don’t. I’m s-sorry.”

“All right. Don’t cry.” The stranger guided her head to his chest with a sigh and held her, his fingers threading gently through her hair. “I didn’t mean to yell at you. You just scared me is all.”

Lily relaxed into him, taking comfort from the feel of the strong chest beneath her cheek, even if it was the wrong chest and this man was a stranger. She sniffed hard, the action drawing his scent deep into her lungs. He smelled like sweet grass and dust, a warm, earthy combination she associated with the barn back home. Beneath the barn scent was a hint of clean sweat and below that something uniquely masculine.

It was an intimate smell, one that only a lover would know by heart, but it was familiar for some reason.

Had Grace been with this man? Were they a couple? And if so, why had Grace felt so hopeless when at least one person seemed to care very much if she lived or died?

Lily didn’t know—she didn’t have access to anything but Grace’s final thoughts—but it felt good to be in this man’s arms. To be safe.

She closed her eyes and inhaled the warm, dependable smell of him again, wishing they never had to move past this moment. She wanted to stay just like this, lost in the illusion of safety, being held by someone who felt like home.

But of course, he wasn’t home. And he wasn’t safe.

The woman who had sent her back to earth had given Lily few instructions, but she had made four things crystal clear:

1. Lily wouldn’t have long to change the course of fate. The man she had been sent to save was close to taking his own life and she must work quickly to prevent the worst from happening.
   

2. She could use whatever measures she thought best, including telling the man the truth, though people in his position usually had a hard time believing anyone was on their side, especially a soul sent from beyond the veil.
   

3. There would be no confusion about who she was here for. Her charge would be the first person she encountered.
   

4. There would be no painful distractions. Lily wouldn’t remember who she had been before. She would only recall that she was a soul from the other side, sent to do good work for a man in desperate need. Only when her work was finished and she returned to the in-between would she remember that she had once been Lily Lawson.
   

But I do remember
, Lily thought, fresh tears slipping from her eyes to soak into the stranger’s already damp tee shirt.

She remembered everything: from her middle name—Grace, just like this girl’s first name—and her age on the day she was murdered to the look on her husband’s face when he said “I do” to Persephone, the woman he’d married nine months after Lily’s death.

Lily had been in the room that day in December, lingering in the air at the back of the small church, her spirit thin and tired of haunting the earthly plane. But she’d needed to see the ceremony. She had to look into John’s and Percy’s eyes and see for herself that John had found a love that would last the rest of this life. And she had. She’d seen that they were happy together, said goodbye to John and their beautiful sons, and drifted away, not expecting to return to the mortal world again.

But now here she was, in a new body, with arms that could wrap around two little boys and hold them tight. She had a voice Carter and Peyton could hear and she couldn’t imagine passing up a chance to tell her sons that they would always be loved, no matter where her soul went next or in what body it resided.

“Why don’t we get some coffee. My treat,” the man drawled, patting her gently between her shoulders. “Talking’s always easier over coffee.”

Lily swallowed and reluctantly lifted her head from his chest. “That sounds nice.”

It didn’t sound nice. She didn’t want coffee; she wanted to jump the first bus to Lonesome Point and not stop until she was standing on her old front porch, listening to her sons come stampeding through the house, racing each other to the front door. She had made peace with the end of what she and John had shared, but she could never make peace with not being there for the boys. She needed to see them again, needed it so badly her bones ached with the longing to hold them.

But that wasn’t why she was here.

She was here for this man and the sooner she learned what he needed from her, the sooner she would be able to find a way to reach her sons. The poor man could heal as well in Lonesome Point as anywhere else. She had no idea how she was going to convince him to take a trip to a tiny Texas town in the middle of nowhere, but she would do it.

She’d died and come back from the other side. After that, she should be able to heal a broken-hearted cowboy with one hand tied behind her back.

CHAPTER TWO

Canyon

All the way down the elevator and across the parking lot to the Dunkin’ Donuts tacked on to the gas station, Canyon was torn between relief that he’d seen Grace in time and feeling like the world’s biggest hypocrite.

Who was he to talk her out of taking her own life when he planned to do the same thing in a week’s time?

But it’s different for her. No matter what drove her up to that ledge, it isn’t worth dying over. She’s just a kid, with her whole life ahead of her.

He knew Grace was in her early twenties, but looking at her now, in her cutoff jean shorts, white tank top, and spotless tennis shoes, she looked maybe eighteen. Maybe.