Mirror of My Soul by Joey Hill (book club recommendations .TXT) 📕

Mac grinned at her. “Sugar, men never break up fights between women. It’s the

closest thing to watching them have sex with each other and we’re always hopeful it will lead to that. Kind of like how it does between men and women on soaps.”

“Yeah, like that happens,” Lauren said dryly. “I always feel like having sex with Josh when I want to kill him.”

“You always desire me,” he said, unruffled. “You just pretend to be angry with me to make me work harder for it.”

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Joey W. Hill

“Men. Pigs. The lot of you.” She tugged his hair. Obligingly he tilted his head toward her, giving her an easy smile. Marguerite saw no shadows in his eyes tonight.

There was too much love to light their way this evening, no room for nightmares.

“We’re simple creatures, Mistress, when all’s said and done.”

“No. No, you’re not.” Marguerite was surprised when the words rose so strongly in her. She thought of what she knew of Josh, his artistic talent and those nightmares, his ability to give comfort with his easy manner. Mac’s protective nature. And the small taste she’d had of Justin…it was obvious to her. And she wouldn’t even begin on the man who sat next to her, his arm around her, holding her into his body, his warmth.

His statement of perpetual protection and love on her throat. “You’re so much more than that.” She looked at each of them in turn. “You’re our dreams come true. The dreams we all pretend we don’t have until we meet you and then it all makes sense.

From then on we know no matter what happens, it’s going to be okay.”

She raised the glass of wine Tyler had put before her. “To love. In all its forms. It gives us the ability to fly. To believe we can fly with the angels.” She raised her gaze to Tyler and he met her look with warmth and all she’d just spoken reflecting back at her.

His attention went around the table, lingering on each woman as she’d done with the men, and then came back to his own.

“And to the angels themselves,” he added. “Who make it worth taking that leap of faith.”

“Hear, hear,” Justin said. The glasses raised, catching the soft gleam of the fairy lights. Marguerite closed her eyes, thinking she felt the brush of wings against her hair a moment before Tyler’s lips touched hers, sweeping all need for thought away.

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Mirror of My Soul

Epilogue

“Can we make it happen that quickly?”

“Angel, we’ve got a whole month left before the carnival. A city can be built in a month.”

“If you have more money than God.”

“Well, aren’t you fortunate to be married to me, then?” He grinned, slowed down to kiss her, but she spun away, pulling him onward.

“No time for your husband anymore?”

“Not a moment,” she agreed. “He’s kept me out of this part of the garden for two weeks. He told me today was the day I get to see what he and Josh have been doing.

Our anniversary was yesterday, after all.”

“More money than God doesn’t faze an artist,” Tyler grumbled. “I even tried

threats of violence. He just waved his hand at me like he was swatting at an annoying fly. He’s already made the damn thing. I didn’t realize he would take half a week to determine how to set the base and arrange the area.”

“Well, at least you tried. That’s something.” Showing a woman’s proclivity for changing moods, now she stopped, turned full into him and rose onto her toes to wrap her arms around his neck and give him a heated, openmouthed kiss. Her body was soft and giving, making him groan and grip her hips, pull her hard against him.

“You sure you won’t reconsider Jell-O?”

“No,” he said decisively. “Sarah will not make enough Jell-O to fill a wading pool.

She draws the line there. And I am not opening ten thousand of those little cups.”

“Chloe will help.”

He raised both brows. “She’s…”

“Brendan told me he’s bringing her. Or she’s bringing him. It’s unclear.”

Marguerite smiled. “But I suppose one of my employees is about to see a very different side of her boss.”

“Baby oil.” His eyes gleamed. “It’s much easier to obtain by the gallon and it does lovely things to female skin.”

“It’s not too bad on males, either,” she returned. “All right, then. We do wrestling contests in the baby oil pool and then the contestants can go to the open shower area.

Only there’s a cost. Men have to pay a donation to hold the detachable showerheads and the women can’t leave the shower area until they’ve reached orgasm. And the couple that takes the longest to finish has to pay a bonus donation.”

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Joey W. Hill

“I like that.” He liked it a lot. Enough to want to whisk her away to their private bath area and practice.

“Oh, no.” She disentangled herself and backed away, chuckling. “My gift. You

promised.”

He would promise her anything, his angel who had learned how to laugh and smile so much more easily this past year, who let him help her keep her lingering nightmares at bay with his arms safely around her through the night. And in that miraculous reciprocity that love had, she kept his at bay the same way.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” She caught everything, every change in his expression. It made it easy to learn to be open with her, in a way he hadn’t ever trusted himself to be with a woman before.

“I was thinking how different you’ve become this year. The way you laugh and

smile more.” He reached out, touched the curve of her mouth, saw her quell the instinctive urge to cover the gesture, a gesture that had become instinctive of late only when pointed out, like now.

“Will you stop loving me if I become so different from the person you knew?”

“It has nothing to do with who you are today, tomorrow or yesterday, angel. It’s