Heavenly Husband. Carolyn Greene

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ couldn’t help being amazed by Nahum’s statement. Only a couple of problems? He waited in respectful silence for his superior to continue.

      “The first is your cavalier attitude. You take everything so lightly, as if this were all just a big game. This isn’t the place for someone who chooses to act like such a...a...”

      “Free spirit?”

      “Exactly. We’re a team here. You must learn to work with others.”

      “I’ll try to do better.”

      Nahum crossed his arms over his chest, exposing the many rows of gold trim that weighted his sleeves. “You can start by referring to Mehrdad by his appointed name rather than ‘Mehrdy’.”

      So his fenuki opponent had apparently been complaining.

      “And it would be best if you discourage others from referring to you by a nickname. ‘Jerry’ sounds a bit too modern and casual for the serious nature of our work.”

      Jared reverently bowed his head. “Thy will be done. And the other problem?”

      Casting a skeptical glance at him for his easy acquiescence, Nahum opened another folder and produced a sheet of lined parchment, which he handed to Jared. “Apparently, there has been an oversight. Your training is incomplete.”

      Glancing through the list at the many workshops and seminars written in elegant script, Jared was sure his elder had made a mistake. “But I’ve taken all the courses offered, and I passed them with flying colors.”

      “You haven’t served your apprenticeship on Earth,” Nahum explained. “You need hands-on experience before you can move on to the next level of protectorate.”

      Jared returned the parchment to his superior. “I’ve walked among humans—I’ve seen how they are.”

      “But you’ve never been one. In all your previous assignments, you’ve remained invisible to your protectees, which means you’ve never had to learn to interact with them—communicate on their level.”

      Jared started to interrupt and explain that he had spoken to his human charges on a number of occasions when he’d whispered warnings to them, but Nahum stilled his protest with an upraised hand.

      “It is impossible to truly comprehend them until you’ve experienced their challenges and limitations—such as their inability to become invisible or to transmogrify themselves through earthly barriers. But you will see what I mean once you take human form.”

      “Oh, no, you don’t! You’re not going to send me down there to go through the poopy diaper stage and have parents who tell me what to do all the time. You know I don’t handle restrictions on my freedom very well.”

      “Which may have been why you were overlooked for apprenticeship all this time. There were no parents who deserved such a test.” Nahum leaned back in his chair, the winged back obscuring his face from all but the one directly in front of him, and thoughtfully stroked his long brown beard. “There is an assignment I’d like for you to handle.”

      Jared breathed a long sigh of relief, then regretted his action when he realized the disorder it might cause in the form of hurricanes and twisters down below. If Nahum was giving him an assignment, it meant he wouldn’t be forcing him to go through the childbirth process and schooling and such.

      “There is a young woman who needs your protection.”

      Jared arched one eyebrow. He’d do his best, but if she was clumsy, she’d best stock up on bandages and ice packs. “Give me five minutes to put on a fresh robe, and I’ll be ready.”

      “You won’t be needing it,” Nahum said. “You’ll be working as a protectorate while also serving your apprenticeship in human form.”

      Jared’s mouth opened. He wasn’t being let off the hook after all. “How am I supposed to protect someone while I’m squalling for a baby bottle?”

      Nahum steadied a look of infinite patience upon him before answering. “There is a soul whose hourglass is almost empty. You will inhabit his vessel when he leaves it.”

      Jared rubbed his ears as if he might have misheard his supervisor’s words. “You mean...no spitting up and no fighting schoolyard bullies?”

      “You will be a thirty-two-year-old male, living in Chesden, Illinois. That’s the United States, of course.” The supervisor added, almost as an afterthought, “Perhaps the only country that would put up with your unorthodox ways.”

      “What about the woman? How am I supposed to protect her?” If he went into this assignment with a firm idea of what to expect, perhaps he could be better prepared.

      Nahum closed the folder in front of him. “I don’t have all the details. You’ll have to find them out once you get there. But I do know that the woman is in danger of leaving her earthly body approximately fifty or sixty years sooner than her scheduled departure. Your job is to make sure she comes to no harm.”

      Jared shook his head in amazement. “Only fifty years? What’s the big to-do about? In the overall scheme of things, fifty years is just a blink of an eye.”

      Nahum gazed down at the worker before him. He’d grown accustomed to the oversize wings he wore, not to mention the golden braids on his sleeves that signified his exalted status. He was also counting on moving up to that big throne on the next level up. If this mission failed, he could be stripped of his hard-earned rank quicker than a thunderstorm in July.

      On the other hand, if Jared could somehow manage to harness that creativity and energy of his, he—Nahum—might find the rewards well worth the risk.

      “I believe your experience on Earth will change your mind about many such misconceptions.”

      

      By the time Kim reached the hospital’s emergency room, Gerald’s condition had worsened. Her mouth unaccountably dry, she stopped at the water fountain near the ER receptionist. The water tasted stale and lukewarm, but the hesitation had allowed Kim a brief moment to gather herself together. For some reason, her thoughts kept returning to the feeling she’d harbored as she had watched Gerald drive away: She’d hoped she would never see him again.

      Guilt plucked at her heart. What he’d done was despicable, but no one deserved this.

      In the emergency room, Kim passed several curtained cubicles, some of which stood empty. One revealed a mother standing beside a bed whose occupant must have been no more than two years old.

      Walking faster, she came to the nurses’ station where the hall broke off into more passageways with still more curtained cubicles. She paused, unsure which curtain Gerald was behind.

      A bespectacled nurse glanced up from the rack of charts she’d been looking through. “May I help you, miss?”

      “I’m looking for Gerald Kirkland.”

      “You his wife, honey?”

      Kim paused. Would she be allowed to see Gerald if she didn’t have some sort of family tie to him? “Um, fiancée.” It was only half a lie.

      “Well, СКАЧАТЬ