Free Flights of Angels (Exit Unicorns Series) by Cindy Brandner

her. Bile surged hotly at the back of her throat and she thought she might be sick right there.
    And then he looked directly at her, standing frozen in the doorway, hair in dripping rat tails, skin bled white with shock. She couldn’t breathe and understood suddenly that he had known she was there the entire time and thus the act had been one of deliberate cruelty. She didn’t feel her legs move, nor her feet walk across the floor, but suddenly she was there within a foot of them, but it was only Casey whose eyes she looked into.
    “You bastard,” she said and slapped him across the face. “If you’re having an affair, at least let me know ahead of time, so I don’t have to wait up any more.”
    Casey’s head rocked back slightly, a look of shock imprinted across his features along with the outline of her hand. His mouth opened but no words came forth, nor was she inclined to wait for him to make his excuses.
    She turned on her heel and strode out the door, banging it so hard that she could feel the jolt of the heavy oak in her very bones. Fury was filling her with a hot-white light, making her feel disconnected from the wet pavement beneath her feet.
    She heard his step behind her before she’d even crossed the narrow roadway, but was too angry to turn back.
    “Pamela, for Christ’s sake. Stop!”
    “Go to hell,” she said furiously.
    “I think I’m there already,” he said, and there wasn’t anger in the tone, only resignation. The words stopped her cold. She turned, a brick wall at her back, rain sluicing down pipes like a minor waterfall.
    “I’m sorry,” he said, the rain already running in rivulets down his face, tracing the tight-held lines around his mouth.
    “For what, whoring around the village while I stay home?”
    “No—Jaysus, woman, I’m not havin’ an affair with anyone—particularly not with that one in there. I’m sorry for lettin’ her touch me like that.”
    “Are you?”
    “Ye want honesty then? No, at this present moment I am not particularly sorry, but I imagine I will be soon enough.”
    “Why are you seeing her then, if you’re not having an affair?”
    “She’s an old friend of Robin’s an’ she heard I was livin’ back here again, an’ so she looked me up. She has a wee girl who she says Robin is the father of an’ she’s been wantin’ to talk about him. I don’t know why she touched me like she did. It’s not been like that at all, woman.”
    She shook her head, knowing suddenly that it wasn’t about the woman sitting back there in the dim light of the pub but rather about the ghost whose taint spread between them like something dark and oily, clinging to their every interaction and all the unspoken words. The fury that warmed her went out like a light switched off, and she felt a great chill settle in its place.
    “Ye can trust me, woman. I’m a wee bit insulted that ye jump to conclusions so swiftly.”
    “But you can’t trust me anymore, can you?” she said so softly it could barely be heard above the pounding of the rain. She knew the words had reached his ears though, for he swallowed, his mouth twisting as if he would say the words she needed for comfort and yet could not bring himself to do so.
    He leaned forward as if to touch her, then merely put his forehead to the brick wall behind her shoulder. Against her, she could feel his warmth, in the chill of the night, yet there was no intimacy in the touch, just a pulsing of pain that divided them no matter how physically close they were. The baby was kicking and turning as if it sensed the cracks that were opening wide between its parents.
    “Did you want to hurt me?” she asked, words barely above a whisper over the pain in her throat. “Is that what this is all about—revenge? Well congratulations, you did it. I felt like someone had jabbed me in the windpipe, like I could hardly breathe when I saw her touch you.”
    “Hurts doesn’t it?” he said, the pain in his voice