All Amity Allows (Fall for You Book 2) Read online

  FALL FOR YOU BOOK 2

  Michelle Irwin

  COPYright

  Copyright © 2015 by Michelle Irwin

  First Edition May 2015

  Published in Australia

  Digital ISBN: 978-0-9941746-2-8

  Also available in paperback:

  Print ISBN: 978-0-9941746-3-5

  Cover Artist: Soxsationalcoverart

  Cover content used for illustrative purposes only, and any person depicted is a model.

  Editing by: Hot Tree Editing

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to an actual person, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental. The following story is set in the USA and therefore has been written in US English. The spelling and usage reflect that.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the Publisher, except where permitted by law. To request permission and for all other inquiries, contact:

  Michelle Irwin P O Box 671 MORAYFIELD QLD 4506 AUSTRALIA

  www.michelle-irwin.com

  [email protected]

  Dedication

  There are simply too many people to thank to be able to thank each one.

  So this is for you: thank you.

  Click here to get started: http://www.michelle-irwin.com/

  Chapter One

  The denizens of Hell were gunning for Amity.

  At least, it felt that way to her. It was easy for her to believe that for the last few days, all the creatures from the pit were working as hard as they could to invade the semblance of peace she’d forged for herself on Earth. One thing was clear to her—someone was determined to mess up her “life,” such as it had been. At first, it was just little things: the spaghetti strap on her blouse snapping; finding a streak of black grease marring her long blonde hair; and the bouncer at her favorite nightclub refusing to allow her through the velvet rope—not that his words had stopped her from getting inside, but it was an unusual and unexpected frustration for her.

  What topped it all off though—what made her week truly terrible—was the three-inch scratch along the side of her Corvette. The car had been immaculate when she’d left it to go spend a few precious hours hunting for her latest look from her favorite designers. It should have been pristine when she returned. She’d only conjured the damned thing a week earlier, so there were no excuses for any damage on the beautiful body. With her angelic protection around it, it should have still been perfect when she’d returned to it. Instead, there was a blemish in the baby blue paint.

  She swore under her breath and then cursed at the sky. Tipping her head up, she let fly a stream of invective that looked out of place from her plump, pouted lips. As the words flowed from her, calling out each of her many brothers in turn—warning them what she might do if she ever found out they were responsible—she paced along the sidewalk beside her car. Three steps, turn. Three steps, turn. Three steps . . .

  “You have got to be fucking kidding me!”

  The heel had just snapped clean off her favorite pair of designer shoes. It was something that had never happened in all her years of loving designer items—something which made her certain the cause of her heartache could only be coming from the demons of Hell, or her meddling brothers. It was hard to tell the two apart sometimes.

  “Michael, if this is your doing, so help me . . .” she muttered under her breath as she ripped off the once exceedingly expensive heels and threw them onto the passenger seat of her now-ruined convertible. He honestly seemed like the most likely candidate for the trouble in her life. She tossed her waist-length platinum hair over her shoulder. The small action resulted in a round of hollers and catcalls from behind her. In her current state, she was unable to ignore the noise like she usually would.

  She closed her eyes as her frustration bubbled over and lightning crackled between her fingertips. The three men calling to her from the café were blissfully unaware just how close they were to dying in that instant as they shouted names such as “baby” and grossly complimented the way her legs looked in her skirt. The base, disgusting things they said were enough to send even the most pious angel to the edge of vengeance.

  Sucking in a breath and shaking the tingles out her hands, she reminded herself that the men were only human. Mortal males were attracted to her curves and hair, to her boobs, and her thin waist. It was just the way of the world, had been for as long as she’d visited Earth. It wasn't as if she hadn’t used that attraction to her advantage when it had served her purposes. Long ago, before it was frowned upon, she’d even had a couple of dalliances with human lovers. Back when angels were openly permitted to show their true form as they walked among mortals, and regularly interacted with them.

  As she calmed herself with a few more deep breaths, she decided there wasn’t really any point in smiting the poor humans who thought it was their right as men to shout obscenities at her. They deserved her forgiveness. Her pity. Not her wrath.

  With a sharp exhale, she decided to save all of her anger for her asshole brothers, especially if she found out any of them were in fact responsible for the little trick with her shoes or the scratch in her paint job, as she suspected. There were a few angels who would have done it to her just for a laugh, and others still who would have done it as a perceived justice for her not-so-angelic ways.

  When her eyes fell on the scratch again, her certainty grew that someone from Heaven or Hell was punishing her for some reason. After all, she’d picked the color purely because it perfectly matched her eyes. Adding the fact that someone broke through her defenses, it was only logical that the wound in the paint was a personal attack.

  With a sigh, she bent over and rubbed a finger over the scrape, all but erasing it completely. The car was almost pristine again, but it didn’t erase the knowledge of the scratch. She would never be able to look at that spot again and not see the injury inflicted upon her car—and therefore against her. That alone was more than enough reason to conjure a new one before too long.

  Maybe I’ll get a pink one next time.

  After sliding into the driver’s seat, while muttering curses under her breath aimed at whoever was screwing with her, she started the car and threw it into gear. Despite the roaring growl of the engine that filled the cabin, it was impossible for her to miss the telltale flutter that indicated one of her family had come to visit.

  She cast an irritated glance at her passenger seat and, sure enough, her most powerful brother was there on the seat. Michael held the balance of life and death of everyone on Earth in the palm of his hand, but that didn’t mean he didn’t have time to screw with her for fun. She scowled at him when she noticed that he’d tossed her precious shoes casually onto the floor as if they were worthless. She wanted to kick his ass out of the car for that alone.

  Once she was certain he was aware of her displeasure, she gave him a once over. For the moment, his hair was mahogany brown, but of course, that could change at any moment. His grey wool suit was clean and pressed, but definitely not designer. Amber eyes assessed her and she itched to flip him the bird. Through it all, his superior attitude radiated out of every one of his pores and triggered Amity’s irritation. It was the tight set of his eyes and the way his top lip lifted into a sneer.

  Amity clicked her tongue when she realized that his suit wasn’t even tailored. It actually looked like it might have bee
n off-the-rack, and the grey was so dirty-looking it could have almost been brown.. She didn’t understand it. Every member of her family had the ability to conjure anything they wished into existence, just like she could, yet, without fail, her brothers all went for the cheap stuff. They all took the pious route.

  “The way it should be,” they would say as they looked down their collective noses at her luxurious choices.

  With the way Michael’s arrogance infected the car and dragged on her mood, she was barely able to resist the urge to roll her eyes at his smugness or hold her tongue about his attitude. It was clear that if she raised the issue of his less-than-desirable choice in clothing, he’d respond with some sanctimonious bullshit about money being the root of all evil, or something equally as annoying. Then the argument would start in earnest.

  She would bite her tongue, even if she didn’t agree with his views. It wasn’t like angels had to worry about money. Her logic: why conjure off-the-rack when with no extra effort she could have designer? Sure greed was one of the seven deadly sins, but so was sloth. In her opinion, not going after what she wanted was the epitome of laziness. True, her brothers might have argued that it was a weak case, but she’d stopped caring what they thought about her centuries ago.

  “Good afternoon, Amitiel.” Her brother’s voice seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere all at once. Not just from inside the car around her either. No, he made it so that the noise reverberated inside her skull too. Wincing away from the sound, she glared at him. She hated when her brothers used that voice here on Earth. In Heaven, it was okay; there was no cage of flesh and bone for the sound to rattle around inside and echo off repeatedly. Captured by the soft tissue within her human shell’s brain though, the experience gave her a headache.

  “Cut the crap, Michael.” She pressed the heel of her palm against her forehead to ease the ache. “And it’s Amity. It has been for the last hundred years or so.”

  Ignoring her comment, he took a moment to look at their surroundings, before running his fingers along the leather interior of her door. His gaze followed the luxury lines and fine details that would have cost her a pretty penny if she hadn't just conjured the car into existence. When he turned to look at her, he had one eyebrow raised.

  “Still as shallow as ever, I see.”

  The arrogance radiating from him seemed to grow to epic proportions, but Amity was relieved that at least he was back to using his human voice rather than his “normal” one; the angelic one which could rip apart the sky on his whim.

  She debated ignoring him for a while as she zipped in and out of traffic on the 405. The car was traveling at speeds that would have had any mere mortal in the passenger seat gripping onto the dash for fear of a grim end. She didn’t need to fear death though, and neither did Michael. There was little either of them had to fear. At least, outside of scratched paintwork and broken heels—and her wrath if she confirmed it was definitely Michael’s doing.

  “What do you want?” she asked after the silence filling the car grew too much for her to bear.

  He picked at an imaginary piece of fluff on the car door. At least, she hoped it was imaginary.

  Her mind raced as she wondered whether there actually was a loose thread that he was picking at. If so, his actions would only serve to make her week that much worse. She was tempted to growl at him at just the implication of the potential for damage. She twisted in her seat and watched his fingers until she was satisfied he wasn’t breaking her car.

  “Well?” she prompted when he didn’t respond to her question.

  “We’ve a job for you.”

  In a performance worthy of an Oscar, she showed him exactly how she felt about that statement. Her eyes left the road as she tossed back her head and groaned at the sky with a sound that wouldn’t have been out of place coming from a dying walrus. Without glancing back down at the road, she swerved to the right to avoid the minivan going less than half the speed limit. When she finally finished her wordless, but certainly not silent complaint, she turned back to her brother.

  “I’m on vacation.” It wasn’t entirely true. She was still doing most of her tasks after all. She just wasn’t dealing with the face-to-face stuff. The fact was that every minute of every day was a balancing act in her head, overseeing the internal truths of seven billion humans on Earth, and at least half a billion more souls who’d been tapped to do Heaven’s bidding rather than passing through the pearly gates.

  It would have been impossible for her to monitor the individual thoughts of every person, but most people didn’t need that to happen anyway. They just needed the spark of recognition when they hit on the truth and a gentle reminder when they strayed. She was that little voice of intuition to guide them to what was right. That was her specialty, and she could do that without getting her pristinely manicured hands dirty in the field.

  “You’ve been on vacation for over half a century.” His disapproving tone told her that he’d lost the little thread of sympathy he’d shown her when she’d first requested her leave of absence from dealing with the up close and personal side of her role. Once, getting into the nitty-gritty had been a big part of her job, but to say that her last assignment hadn’t gone so well would be a gross understatement. Michael had understood that at the time, but obviously, her continued absence was yet another cause for concern for him in a long line of what he considered her failures. “We’re calling you back in for a hands-on operation.”

  “Why me?” she asked. It didn’t make sense. For the last three-hundred odd years, she’d started to use good old-fashioned miracles to force her charges to see the truth—which tended to leave souls in a bit of a mess for their remaining days on Earth—and Michael had never even bothered to try to hide his disapproval of those methods. In fact, he’d whined and bitched at her twice as often as usual in that time. He'd hated that she’d dropped the touchy-feely crap. “Why call me in now? Just get one of the others to handle it.”

  “It’s a delicate case. One which requires our best woman.” Even as he spoke, the hair at his temples seemed to grey, as if he was trying to add seniority and gravitas to his words by pretending to be her senior. As if they hadn’t both been brought into existence in the exact same instant with the snap of a metaphysical finger. There were some younger angels, but she and Michael were both among the originals.

  “Why?” she asked, trying to sound disinterested, even though her curiosity was well and truly piqued. From the moment Michael opened his mouth to lure her back to work, it was clear that this particular assignment was something more than normal.

  Occasionally, some people needed direct help, something more than their own instincts. It was possible Michael was there to give her one such charge, but even that was unlikely. She hadn’t been tapped for any of those assignments since her so-called vacation began. That level of assistance would be a fairly straightforward assignment for any one of the multiple legions of Heaven’s little helpers. It didn’t even need to be an angel giving it, a cupid or cherub would suffice. At any moment, there were scores of workers scurrying around Earth ready, and usually more than eager, to take any command her brothers were willing to issue. To guide fate as it was. It would have been easier for Michael to use one of them.

  Even if Amity was specifically needed for one of those types of assignments, she would generally have received the request the normal way—straight into her angel mind, buried beneath the layers of humanity she tried to wrap around herself. True, she would have ignored it for a while, but Heaven had come to expect that.

  That was why it was apparent that if Michael had personally come to deliver the request for her presence, there was something major going on. It had to be the sort of assignment that either needed her particular fast and furious style, or that could only be handled by her greater capacity to know truth from lie. It was impossible for Amity to deny the fact that she really wanted to know why.

  She wasn’t entirely sure she was ready to take on another pe
rsonal case, regardless of what Michael might have wanted. Still, she was definitely curious. Most likely, it was a monumental screw-up that they needed her particular lack of tact to resolve. Something they couldn’t—or wouldn’t—do for fear of crossing the line and not being pious for one goddamn second of their existence.

  She waited for Michael to elaborate, enjoying the way he squirmed in his seat under her gaze. The action was a confirmation of everything she’d suspected. A wicked grin crossed her features as she realized that it might have been even bigger than she'd suspected. There was no way she was going to let Michael get out of this one easily.

  It was almost refreshing to think that maybe someone else in Heaven had screwed up. That she wasn’t the only fallible one. The memory of her failure weighed heavily on her for a moment before she shook it off. That was then; this was now, and it was different. She’d had plenty of time to close her angelic-self off from the world in order to heal after that nastiness.

  “What did you do?” she asked with a barely suppressed chuckle.

  Drew threw his keys into the bright bowl on the stand near the front door.

  The ring full of metal struck the side of the dish with such ferocity that for a moment, he thought the glass might shatter. As if he would have cared if it did. If he’d shattered his perfect little bowl—the one that sat at what he considered exactly the right distance from the door—it would just be one less thing for him to dust. One less thing for him to worry about. The fact was that he needed to have less to worry about at that particular point in time. Well, more specifically, he needed to worry less about everything—or maybe he needed to fill his mind with random crap that didn’t matter. Anything to stop his mind from working overtime like it was.