Angel’s Forecast Read online

  The Weather Series, Book 3:

  ANGEL’S FORECAST

  BY

  J.J. MASSA

  www.VenusPress.com

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  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, places, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  ANGEL’S FORECAST

  Copyright © 2006 by J.J. MASSA

  ISBN: 1-59836-395-6

  Cover Art © 2006 by Dan Skinner

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any form without permission, except as provided by the U.S. Copyright Law. Printed and bound in the United States of America.

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  www.VenusPress.com

  Dedication:

  I dedicate this book to a very special Angel—Angel Lavette. Here’s that Cajun man. There’s one just like him out there waiting for you.

  And to Tracey—you’ve been Deke’s biggest fan since the beginning. He and I both have you to thank for giving him a future. Thank you for being there for me.

  Prologue

  Bullets smacked the water around him as Deke rushed his niece to safety. Two officers from his own Parish waited in a flatboat, urging him on. He wasn’t certain what Ashlynn had gotten mixed up in, but he sure as hell knew that it was dangerous.

  That silly girl always managed to embroil herself in the riskiest pursuits she could find, no matter that she was a Treasury Officer and shouldn’t be threatened with gunfire at any time. He wished his good friend Gabriel much success in calming and controlling his little fire-starting niece. Someone had to take care of her. From now on, it would be Gabriel.

  It was something Deke was going to have to accept. He’d always looked out for her, they had a connection that he treasured, but knew he’d have to step aside and let his best friend—and now Ashlynn’s lover—be the man she turned to.

  Deke ignored the biting sting of whatever vicious creatures were feeding on him as he forced himself and Ashlynn through waist-deep water.

  “Deputy,” Marie Collins, one of Gabe Theroit’s officers, called low and urgently, “Deputy Doucette…”

  “Help her get in there and Ledet, give me your gun, you two get her out of here. Collins, shoot anyone not in uniform from here on out, you got me?”

  “Sir,” Officer Ledet croaked, his voice high and tight.

  “Your gun, officer,” Deke demanded sharply, irritated at the delay. “Mine’s all wet.”

  “Oncle Deke!” Deke had been surprised when Ashlynn called him Oncle. Her accent was very European, like her mother’s. “Uncle Deke!” she screamed again.

  And then he felt it…a sledgehammer to his back, bursting into flames.

  Surprised…he was very surprised. He’d been shot. Had he thought he was bullet-proof or something, he wondered.

  That was his last thought before the muddy water of the bayou rushed up to embrace him.

  ———

  Angel Baptiste saw it all. Saw a hint of it the day he kissed her, the day she knew he was hers…saw it the night before it happened, in a dream.

  She made it to the hospital in time to greet the ambulance. Would she grieve, or would she celebrate? If only her forecast could tell her that…

  Chapter One

  “Dekon Cassion Doucette! Don’t you dare take that out!”

  Deke groaned inside. For all he knew he’d groaned aloud. He still didn’t know if he was in heaven, hell or just purgatory. All he knew for sure was that his own personal angel wasn’t acting all that heavenly right now.

  “Don’t you growl at me, either,” she snapped, dark glossy hair sliding forward across his cheek as she reached behind him.

  “Non,” he exhaled, his breathing still shallow from whatever was wrong with him.

  “Not growl,” he declared, pleased to get that much out, sounding more like a gasp than a statement.

  His voice was rusty from disuse and his body felt like it had been hauled through a gravel pit and then dumped on. He wondered how long he’d been wherever he was. He should know and it would come clear to him soon, he was sure.

  “Deke?” She stopped reaching and her face was directly above his. “Dekon?” she asked again.

  He grinned, pleased that she was back to being a sweet angel again. “’s me,” he told her. “’m Deke.”

  “Oh, Deke!” she rained kisses on his face and dislodged the cold tubes in his nose that he’d been trying to rid himself of when she’d snapped at him. “Deke! You’re back!”

  “Yeah?” he closed his eyes and snuck an arm around her waist, letting its weight pull her closer against him. “Where was I?” he murmured, loving the feeling of her soft lips on his face and silky hair brushing his neck and shoulder.

  “Deke?” her hand cupped his cheek and he remembered, as if in a dream, she’d done that before. He nuzzled against it, not opening his eyes. “You know you were shot, right?”

  His eyes flew open. “Ashlynn! He hit Ashlynn,” he fought with the words now, his breath coming in gasps.

  He remembered a man backhanding his sweet little niece and knocking her backward into the murky swamp. After that, he couldn’t recall much at all.

  “Shhh,” she soothed, her fingers carding through his hair. “Ashlynn is fine. So is Gabriel. They’re so fine, shai. No fear.”

  He did feel reassured and he was exhausted now just from the adrenaline rush of remembering and fear, but, “Non,” he’d meant to growl that time instead of the whisper he heard. Still, it brought her face close to his. “Dekon. Not shai. ‘M your Deke. ‘r mon ange, no shai, no child.”

  He struggled against sleep, forcing his eyes to open just a little, hoping she’d see he was serious. He meant it. Something had happened to him, okay. He was alive, not dead and he’d need care. But he would not be thought of as a child. Not by this woman.

  “All right,” she crooned, her face against his neck, he could feel moisture, she was crying. “I won’t call you that, Dekon, I promise.”

  Pushing against air that weighed more than air had any right to, Deke pulled his arm around her, stroking down her long hair and spine.

  “S’ry, don’ cry, ange,” he murmured.

  ———

  Angel let herself stay cuddled against him a moment longer, tears of relief leaking from her eyes. It had been two long weeks, and into the third, that Deke had been in and out of surgery and in and out of consciousness.

  She’d stayed at his bedside as much as possible, turning over his care only to the most trusted of her friends. She was grateful that her last class had ended the month before and that she’d taken all of her specialty certification exams well before all this had happened.

  Deke’s even breathing told her that he’d succumbed to sleep once more. A real sleep, not drug induced. What was she going to do with him? What was she going to do, period? She stayed where she was, mumbling a health charm into his shoulder.

  Levering herself away from the reassuring comfort of his body, tucking his arm back at his side, Angel reached for the telephone. With a wry smile, she reminded herself that she might not really need it, and called her cousin Gabriel who would be thrilled to be the first person she called.

  It might take him a little while to get used to the unique way the Doucette fami
ly kept in touch with each other.

  “So it will,” a sweet voice filled her head and Angel brushed away a tear, feeling like she’d been hugged from the inside out.

  “Madame Doucette!” she addressed her mental intruder. “Dekon is…Deke is, well, not awake but better.”

  “Il ira bien, ma chère, il est hors de danger.” Angel heard the smile in Rayne Doucette’s voice as she promised that Deke was out of danger. The older woman’s wry, “Appelez votre cousin et reposez vous. Je suis sûre que vous en avez besoin,” was an admonishment to rest after calling Gabe, telling her that she would need it.

  He will be well, my dear, he is out of danger. Call your cousin and then rest. I am certain you will need it. That was what Rayne Doucette had thought to Angel in her native French, but somehow, it just sounded like music that made perfect sense. She considered how easy it was to share thoughts this way.

  Deke shifted on the bed and Angel shook her head. She really did need to get some rest, Madame Doucette was right. As she dialed her cousin Gabe, who was Deke’s best friend and his niece’s fiancé, Angel wondered at the Doucette family.

  Ashlynn Doucette was her closest friend in the world. They’d met when Angel had first moved to Napoleon Parish, had gone to school together, had even gone on their first date, a double, together. Angel was a year older than Ash, but she’d avoided serious relationships, always had.

  She wasn’t afraid of men, she just didn’t trust easily. In addition to that, she wasn’t pretty and tiny like her friend. She wasn’t all that tall, but she wasn’t all that small, either.

  Angel considered herself normal-sized, somewhere in the neighborhood of one-fifty—and not a small neighborhood at that. As long as her clothes fit and she was healthy, she wasn’t worried about looking like a cover model. With long, wavy, chocolate brown hair and eyes the color of dark butterscotch, she figured she’d do. When the right man came along, he would be happy with how she looked, she just knew it.

  Though her interactions with Deke were limited, he seemed to like her looks just fine. Now, it appeared that he might just live long enough to find out if he liked the rest of her.

  Chapter Two

  “The pelvis protects the digestive and reproductive organs in the lower part of the body, and a lot of large nerves and blood vessels that pass through it to supply the legs. Not to mention it’s an important load-bearing part of the skeletal system.”

  “While I do thank you for that anatomy lesson, Doc, you have failed to answer my question,” Deke enunciated carefully, his patience all but non-existent. “What I asked you is what the damages are and when I take my leave of this place.”

  Dr. Santiny rolled his eyes while releasing a cleansing breath. “I am trying to explain, Deputy Doucette, but I find I must tell the entire story…”

  “Don’t use his title,” Remy Doucette threw an arm around the frail doctor, causing Deke to roll his eyes now. “It jus’ makes him feel bigger and more ornery.”

  The small doctor didn’t appear to be impressed by either man, shrugging off Remy’s arm and earning himself a mock-wounded look. “And what about your title, Sheriff? Should I stop using that, too?”

  “Naw, mine’s important, his is jus’ for show,” Remy laughed, causing Deke to laugh with him.

  “Aw, that hurts,” he moaned. “Hush,” he glared at his brother.

  “Where is Angel when I need her?” Dr. Santiny addressed to no one and everyone. “She’s the only one around here who has a chance at managing you,” he sighed.

  Deke felt a zing of awareness flash through his body at just the sound of her name. How had a woman he barely knew found her way into his heart like this? Into his very psyche?

  “Look, Doc, just tell me,” Deke was feeling tired again, and he missed his Angel.

  His Angel? “What broke, how’d you fix it, and when can I use it again?” he snapped.

  “You got shot, shai.” There she was, in the doorway. She was also using a nickname for him that he wasn’t overly fond of…the fact that it was just a habit somehow irritated him more. He wanted everything about her view of him to be new, special, unique to them.

  “Shai?” Deke narrowed his eyes at her.

  A flash of dimple on the left side of her mouth told him that she was in no way intimidated. “Dekon,” she challenged, head tilted, both eyebrows arched.

  “It’s my name,” he rumbled back at her, noticing that Doc Santiny had beat a hasty and grateful retreat. “It’ll do nice and fine.”

  She rolled her eyes and picked up the accounting of events. “The bullet pierced near the center of your ilium, the wide bone of your pelvis, which now has a small, titanium plate covering the hole that the bullet left,” Angel explained as she moved further into the room, stepping around Remy toward a chair by the bed.

  Deke smoothed the sheet next to his waist, hoping she’d take the hint. “You lost a lot of blood, so you were transfused. The same bullet went through your right kidney where it made a big mess, and finally lodged in your large intestine,” she went on, seating herself near his feet at the end of the bed. “You’ve had one kidney removed and part of your colon, too. They took out your appendix while they were in there.”

  “No wonder it hurts,” Deke murmured, leaning back and closing his eyes.

  He was disappointed and confused about why he felt that way. He barely knew this woman, but he wanted her—wanted her badly. It wasn’t just a body thing, though there was that…it was a whole life thing. He had to have her. Once he got her, he reckoned he’d have to figure out what to do with her. He sighed.

  “Dekon?” A silky brown-sugar hand, fine boned and soft, gripped his knee where the sheet had slipped away. “Are you in pain? How bad does it hurt?”

  Deke opened his eyes just a little and mumbled something, he had no idea what.

  Angel leaned a little closer, her hand on his forearm now.

  “Don’ mind him, he’s shamin’,” Remy accused, laughing at him from next to the open door.

  Angel looked from one brother to the other, obviously trying to gauge the truth of that statement.

  “It does hurt some,” Deke opted for honesty. “But I’m okay. It ain’ that bad.”

  Virtue is truly its own reward, he decided, when Angel leaned over him, cupping his cheek. “Are you sure you’re okay? There’s nothing to be gained by suffering needlessly.” She smoothed his hair back from his face and peered intently into his eyes.

  Deke reached up, two fingers combing a lock of wavy dark hair off of her face, pulling it from its elastic confinement. “’m fine,” he mumbled. “I like your hair.” He felt himself slipping away again. “Sit by me f’r a spell?”

  Angel moved to sit at Deke’s waist, taking one of his hands in both of hers. Deke knew when Remy moved forward and took a seat in the chair. He could see them both through slitted eyes, he just couldn’t call up the energy to move or talk. Listening didn’t seem to be a problem.

  “Are you goanna tell him the rest of it?” Remy asked Angel.

  There’s more? He wished he could interject, speak up for himself, demand the information.

  “In a little while, I expect,” Angel murmured. “He’s doing so much better now. I thought…I worried…”

  She thought and worried…what? Deke saw a dark tear track its way down her face and wanted to roar his objection when his brother reached up and swept it away with the tip of his finger.

  “It’s over now, petit,” Remy covered Deke’s hand and Angel’s. “It’s the Doucette blood. We’re all meaner than bayou backwater in the summertime. No more infection, yeah?”

  Infection…okay, so that’s why I’m so weak. That wasn’t such a big deal. He wasn’t going to die and nobody was keeping deep, dark secrets from him.

  “Doc Santiny says it’ll linger a little, but the antibiotics are doing their job. It was just something in the swamp, I guess.”

  “They’re testing the soil and water ‘round there,” Remy mumbled. Much to
Deke’s hazy surprise, his brother stood and brushed a lock of hair off of his forehead, pausing to rub Deke’s cheekbone with a thumb. “I need him to hurry up and get better so I can kick his…” he hesitated, “…hindquarters good for scaring me this way.”

  “You’re not fooling anyone at all, Sheriff Doucette,” Angel laughed at him. “Now you’d better hurry and go take Madame Doucette out for supper. Ashlynn’s heading her way right this minute with a bridal magazine and it’s goanna cost you a big one if you let them alone together.”

  Remy looked alarmed. If Deke could have right then, he would have laughed out loud. He heard his brother leave, heard the nurse come in and exchange a few words with Angel.

  Something cold around his forearm, rhythmic pumping, tight, and then the hiss of air escaping. Vitals…the nurse was taking his vitals now. Along came the beep of an ear thermometer—he didn’t even feel it.

  Soon, all was quiet again, and Angel shifted a little at his side, as if she wanted to get up. With great determination, he managed to close his hand more firmly around hers.

  “Mon ange,” he mumbled, tugging. He forced himself to open bleary eyes. Willed her to come into his arms. He’d be strong for her any chance he got, but for now, he needed her, needed every bit of her, right beside him.

  “Oh, Deke,” she sighed, leaning against him, her soft hand stroking his arm, his shoulder.

  Maybe she’d fall asleep with him, possibly still be here when he woke up. He’d never wanted such a thing before, couldn’t believe he wanted it now. Would he still feel so strongly when his body was closer to healed? He suspected he would. For now, he would sleep.

  ———

  The sun was just dipping down the far side of the bayou. Birds trilled from deep in the trees. A light wind kept the marsh grasses riffling. Angel could see Deke from the window in their room. The angel's trumpets had just opened their blooms, and their fragrance filled the air.

  What was he doing? It looked like he was just standing there, but now she could see that he’d brought both hands up, one crutch dropping to the soft earth, the other caught on the trunk of a cypress tree.