Christmas with an Angel Read online

  “My fiancée dumped me two hours ago,” he said into his beer.

  “Holy shit!” The redhead swiveled on his stool and yelled loud enough for the entire bar to hear, “Gallagher’s fiancée dumped him!”

  “Whoa, that’s rough, man,” the guy a couple of stools down said, which started a groundswell of sympathetic support for Michael.

  “Well, that’s not the worst of it. She changed the locks on my condo”—Michael’s new best friend shared that with the bar too—“packed all my stuff up and threatened to throw it out.” He waited for his bar buddy to share that news before adding, “And she’s holding my dog hostage.”

  If possible, his new friends were angrier than Michael. Apparently no one messed with someone’s dog in Harmony Harbor and got away with it. Thanks to Michael’s tale of woe, he’d officially been welcomed into the fold. The beer kept coming, and he was well on his way to accomplishing one of his goals for the night—he was getting drunk.

  And because he was, he joined his new friends shouting, “Another angel just got their wings,” every time Shay rang in an order on the old-fashioned cash register. Only this time Michael changed it up. “Shay just got her wings.”

  She glanced at him over her shoulder, gave her head a slight shake, and then smiled. “You’re cut off, Gallagher.”

  Shay was no angel and never would be. But unlike his ex-fiancée, she’d never pretended to be something she wasn’t.

  Chapter Two

  We’re getting married!”

  Michael jolted upright in bed, and a dull pain roared through his head. Had yesterday been a dream and he was actually getting married today? Dear God, say it isn’t so. He rubbed his temples, trying to bring the night into focus. No, he’d been sober when Charlie shot the phone from his hand, so he couldn’t call Bethany and ask her for a second chance. Something he might have done when he was drunk in a bid to get Atticus back and protect his family.

  Oh hell, had he asked Shay to marry him? It wasn’t beyond the realm of possibility. He’d been blotto, feeling sorry for himself, and hanging around her had reminded him how much he’d once loved her. Factor in his guilt that he was the reason…No, he’d probably have a boot mark on his ass if he’d asked her to marry him. He considered checking, but the idea of moving made his stomach turn.

  “Wake up, wake up, we’re getting married today!” Mia shouted outside his door. Her feet pounding down the hall sounded like a herd of elephants.

  “Thank God.” Michael fell back against the pillows in relief. Pain throbbed behind his eyes at the jarring movement, and he grabbed his head. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been this hung over. Oh wait, he did. It was the morning after Shay had been arrested. While he’d done a stand-up job accomplishing his goal to get drunk, he hadn’t made amends to her. Although not pressing charges against her crazy-ass uncle probably was a good start, it wasn’t enough. He knew this because he’d seen the ink between her thumb and forefinger—five dots. It was a common tattoo among inmates, a physical reminder of what she’d been through. He didn’t want to think about the reminders he couldn’t see.

  The room phone on the nightstand rang. He covered his ears in hopes it would stop. It didn’t. Leery of making a sudden move, he reached over and patted down the table then lifted the phone to slowly bring it to his ear. “Hello.”

  “Guess the rumor is true,” Liam said with a laugh.

  “Please tell me I didn’t ask someone to marry me. And if you don’t mind, lower your voice and keep it to silent laughter.”

  “Rumor’s true. He got shit-faced,” Liam yelled to someone.

  “Jesus, what part of ‘lower your voice’ didn’t you understand? Who are you sharing my business with?” He inched his way to a sitting positon. “I think I’m going to throw up.”

  “Griffin and Aidan, they just got in. I’ll make it fast. I want you to stand up for me. I’d make you my best man, but then I’d have to listen to Marco whine all night. So what do you say?”

  “You’re still yelling,” Michael said as he slowly moved his legs toward the floor. “If I don’t fall flat on my face when I get up, I’d be honored to stand up for you. Congratulations. I’m glad Sophie said yes because I think I might have outted your plans to everyone at the bar last night. By the way, your daughter is as loud as you are. She’s running up and down the halls announcing you’re getting married.”

  Liam laughed. “Sorry,” he said when Michael groaned. “Wedding’s not till three, so go back to bed and sleep it off. I’ll give you a wake-up call at two. Hey, speaking of phones, something’s wrong with yours. I called you last night and again this morning. All I got—”

  “My phone’s dead. Charlie Angel shot it.”

  “Are you kidding me?”

  “I wish I were. SIM card isn’t damaged, but I need a new phone. Any idea where I can buy one in town? I have to get in touch with my housekeeper about Atticus, and I don’t remember her number. Any numbers for that matter. I’m lost without the damn thing.”

  “Check out O’Malley’s, but I doubt you’ll find one there. You’ll probably have to head to Bridgeport.”

  Michael kicked the black Range Rover’s deflated tire then brought his hand to his head and groaned.

  Jasper looked up from shoveling the walkway to the manor. “Is there a problem, Master Michael?”

  “Someone slashed all four of my tires,” he said from where he stood in the parking lot. And he had a good idea who—Bethany or one of her bridesmaids.

  “Shall I call someone from the garage?”

  “Yeah.” Michael reached for his wallet in his back pocket to pull out his roadside assistance card and remembered that he’d canceled his credit and bank cards. At the most, he had forty bucks in cash. There was no way he’d ask for a loan either. He felt like a big enough fool for getting taken in by Bethany. “What time does the bank close?”

  “They closed at noon. It’s Christmas Eve, Master Michael,” Jasper said in response to Michael’s curse. “Now that I think about it, in all likelihood the garage will be closed as well. You’re welcome to borrow the estate car. Sophie won’t be using it today.”

  “Thanks, Jeeves.” Michael could hold off on new tires for a couple of days, but he couldn’t hold off on a new phone. He knew exactly where to get one for free. Maybe while he was at it, he’d figure out a way to make amends with Shay.

  Jasper’s eyes widened slightly when Michael reached him to get the keys. “You smell very much like your grandmother,” the older man said, unable to hide the hint of a smile.

  Michael sighed. “She said I smelled like pretzels and beer and doused me in rose water. I couldn’t find my clothes. You wouldn’t happen to know where they disappeared to, would you?” He had on the black suit and white dress shirt that he’d worn yesterday.

  “Yes, and I’m afraid they would have been no use to you in the condition they were in. I should have mentioned it to you last night. I’ll have Master Liam bring you a change of clothes.”

  Bethany strikes again. “It’s okay. I’ll buy…” He made a frustrated sound in his throat. “Thanks, I’ll be back within the hour.” It was twelve-thirty; he’d have plenty of time to get ready for the wedding.

  “You may want to drive with the windows down, Master Michael. The estate car wasn’t damaged in the fire, but the smell of smoke has permeated the leather interior.”

  Apparently driving with the windows open and freezing his ass off didn’t help.

  Charlie Angel stopped wiping down the bar when Michael walked in and scrunched up his haggard face. “You been out fighting fires with your cousin?”

  “No, the car—”

  Eyes narrowed, the old man cut him off. “What are you doing here?”

  Michael scanned the dimly lit interior. There were two parties of four sitting at adjoining tables, and aside from a couple of guys tuning their guitars on the raised stage, the place was empty. Michael sat on a stool and tossed his phone on the bar. “I ne
ed a new one.”

  “Looks like, but what does that have to do with me?” There was a twinkle in the old man’s eyes when he picked up the phone and turned it over in his weathered hands.

  “You owe me, and I need a phone. No one in town sells them.” When Charlie lifted his hands, Michael said, “Shay offered me a replacement phone from under the bar last night, so don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about.”

  The old man searched Michael’s face then bent to look under the bar and came back up with a phone in his hand. He tossed it to Michael. It was the exact make and model of his. “You’re full of surprises, Gallagher. Always took you for a black-and-white kind of guy, by the book.”

  “I am, and I’ll be returning this, but I need to get in touch with someone.” He dug in his back pocket for his wallet and handed the forty dollars to Charlie. “Any chance you’ve got a couple pay-as-you-go cards?”

  Charlie pocketed the money and picked up the phone. “That’ll cover a couple hours.”

  Hours? Michael scowled at the man but let it go. He looked over his shoulder. “Shay around?”

  The old man’s eyes darted around the bar as he shifted from one foot to the other, his hand tightening around the rag. “What do you want with her?”

  “I…” He frowned. If he wasn’t mistaken, Shay’s uncle was nervous, maybe even panicked. “What’s wrong? Has something happened to Shay?”

  Charlie snarled, “Don’t pretend you care, Gallagher. If it wasn’t for you—”

  “Stop right there. It’s because of you she ended up in prison, not me. She was protecting you.” It was something Michael had always believed but had never been able to prove. “She drove my brand-new Corvette into a chop shop and they were raided. You think the cops would have believed me if I said I’d given her my car? There was nothing I could do or say to protect her.” Even if there had been, his parents were involved at that point. Namely, his mother. “I loved her, old man. I wasn’t the one having her running cons since she was twelve.”

  Charlie’s eyes searched his at the same time he slowly nodded. “You’re right. I screwed up when she was a kid. I know I did. But I love that girl. And I’m clean—”

  Michael held up the phone.

  He waved his hand as though lifting cell phones and reselling them wasn’t a big deal. Given the old man’s past history, it probably wasn’t. “She’s in trouble. It’s bad, Gallagher. The guys she’s running with…” Charlie rubbed his hand across his mouth.

  “Who’s she running with, Charlie? What kind of trouble is she in?” If any of his clients told him what Charlie just did, Michael would have asked the questions calmly in a controlled manner. But this was Shay they were talking about, and he fired the questions at the old man in a voice tinged with both anger and worry, anger that Shay would put her freedom at risk and worry that she was in over her head.

  “How do I know you won’t turn her in to the cops?”

  Michael wanted to make amends, but this sounded like way more than he’d bargained for. He wasn’t sure how far he’d have to go to protect her. But if there was a possibility he could get her out of a bad situation before she ended up in prison… “Give me a hundred bucks. Just do it,” he said when Charlie’s brow furrowed.

  The old man walked to the till, the ring of the cash register reminding Michael of last night. He saw Shay standing there, her smile when he told her she’d gotten her wings. He’d been too drunk, too mesmerized by her face and the memories, to have read anything into her smile or the emotion that he’d seen in her gray eyes. Maybe it hadn’t been there; maybe it’d been his imagination, but he’d felt like she’d been remembering that long-ago summer too.

  Charlie returned with the money, and Michael took the bill. “You’ve just retained me as your lawyer, and Shay’s. Anything you tell me falls under attorney–client privilege. I can’t tell anyone without your permission.”

  “You do this, you help her, and your debt to the Angels is wiped clean.”

  Michael bit back a heated response. He didn’t owe the old man anything. Charlie’s debt to Shay was bigger than Michael’s would ever be. But that was between Shay and her uncle. “I don’t have all day.” Michael glanced at his watch. He had a little more than an hour left before the wedding.

  “Shay hasn’t been around much since she got out. She checks in a couple times a year, stays a day or two at most. Then she shows up at Thanksgiving and decides she’s going to stay awhile. I didn’t think anything of it, just glad to have her around, you know—” A barmaid approached, and Charlie stopped talking to fill her order. He waited until she walked away to continue. “Anyway, Jimmy and Eric, they’re a couple of lowlifes, dealing drugs down at the harbor front. Pills and weed, not enough to put them on the cops’ radar. Back in November, though, word on the street was that they’re mixed up with a gang working out of Bridgeport. They’re dealing heroin. The stuff’s so pure, the junkies can’t handle it. A couple deaths on the outskirts of town were linked to it. They’re calling it ‘Hollywood’ heroin.”

  Michael had heard of it, and there had been more than two deaths attributed to the drug. He crumpled the money in his hand. “Are you telling me Shay’s mixed up in this?” He didn’t know if he could help her if she was, didn’t know if he wanted to.

  “I don’t know. I can’t get her to talk. She just brushes me off. But Shay and Eric go way back. They used to”—his face flushed—“run cons together.”

  “Great. So she’s gone from stealing cars to dealing drugs.”

  “You can’t make me feel any guiltier than I already do, Gallagher. I’d tell you to get the hell out of my bar if I didn’t think you could get through to her. But Shay and drugs.” He shook his head. “Never would have believed it if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes. Saw her down on the wharf, selling pills to…Never mind, best if you don’t know. Anyway, after that, Jimmy and Eric came around. I think they tried to warn her out of their territory. Shay, she don’t scare easy. Neither do I.” He looked Michael in the eye. “But I’m scared now. She’s hooked up with those two. They’ve been hanging out. Not here, I don’t hold no truck with drugs, but I’ve seen the three of them together. Two nights ago, they were joined by another guy. Shay can handle Eric and Jimmy, but him…He’s bad news. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that he’s meeting up with them at the same time I start hearing rumbles about a big shipment arriving in Bridgeport. If that happens, I don’t want her anywhere around.”

  “You want me to threaten her? Tell her I’ll turn her in?”

  “Yeah. She’d believe you. She doesn’t believe me.”

  “You’ve threatened to go to the cops?”

  He bowed his head and nodded. “Yeah.” His eyes filled when he lifted them. “If the people involved are who I think they are, the only way she’ll get out is in a box.”

  “Is she using?” He hadn’t seen any visible signs that she was.

  “No, no way. I’d stake my life on it. She was young when my brother and her mother died, but she remembers. Used to see it in her eyes. She knows the how and the why of it. She wouldn’t go down that road.”

  Michael didn’t know much about Shay’s past. She and her two sisters had been sent to live with Charlie when their parents died. A few years after they’d been with him, Social Services removed them from Charlie’s care. The girls were separated, and no one seemed to know where her sisters ended up, but Shay hadn’t been easy to place. She’d run away from every foster home she’d been put in. Always making her way back to Harmony Harbor and Charlie.

  Her early life had been difficult and only got worse after she met Michael. He didn’t condone what she did then either. She didn’t have to steal his car; he would have given it to her if she’d asked. He would have done anything just to see her smile, to see her happy. Yet indirectly he was responsible for her being sent to prison. If his mother had shown even an ounce of empathy instead of doggedly pursuing the case and pulling strings, Shay would have s
erved a year and paid a fine. In Maura Gallagher’s eyes, Shay’s biggest crime was not stealing Michael’s car; it was stealing his heart.

  That’s the only reason Michael wouldn’t drive directly to the police station and fill them in. He’d try and set her on another path before it was too late. “Where can I find her?”

  “She’s not at home, and I haven’t seen her since last night. You could try the shacks on the harbor front.” The brightly painted fishermen’s shacks had been converted into storefronts for artisans during the summer tourist season.

  “There’s too much foot traffic on the harbor front even at this time of year. Besides, if what you’re saying is true, they’ll want somewhere out of the way. Somewhere with easy access to the water. Any abandoned warehouses or buildings in Bridgeport that you can think of?”

  “The old Marine Paint Factory. Closed down five months ago. She’s driving a black Challenger Hellcat.”

  No surprise there, the woman had a need for speed. Michael glanced at his watch as he got off the stool. He had to be back at the manor in forty-five minutes. “If I can’t find her in the next fifteen minutes, I’ll go back out tonight.”

  “You’ll let me know?”

  “Yes, and I’ll do my best to get her out of town. But, Charlie, I’ll tell you what I’m telling Shay. She has twenty-four hours before I call in an anonymous tip to the police. I won’t disclose where I got the information or Shay’s involvement.”

  The old man nodded with a resigned expression on his face. He knew as well as Michael did, that if Shay didn’t leave town, she was already lost to Charlie. “Thanks, I appreciate you sticking your neck out for my girl.” He thrust his hand at Michael.

  “She used to be my girl too,” he said, meeting the old man’s eyes as he shook his hand. In that moment of shared connection, Michael knew that he’d won Charlie Angel’s forgiveness, no matter the outcome. Sadly for Shay, Michael saw only two ways for this to go—bad and really bad.