Happily Evan After Read online

  She didn’t understand the need. She’d never felt it before. After all, she had a good life—she certainly didn’t need a man to complete it. She paid her own bills, kept herself happy, and managed to feed herself often enough that she hadn’t starved yet. She didn’t need a man to fulfill her in any way, never had.

  Yet every time someone even remotely attractive passed by, she could practically feel her tongue dragging on the pavement. Even Cathy had noticed her preoccupation.

  Cathy had even pulled her away from a meeting with one of the senior doctors at the hospital, citing an emergency. The instant they were alone, she pounced. “You didn’t take my advice to heart and throw away all of your B.O.B’s did you?”

  “That’s your big emergency?” Becca was miffed that her friend was interfering with her job to discuss her sex life—battery-operated or not.

  “No, my big emergency is that you were practically humping Doctor Petersen’s leg. I just thought it was safer to pull you away from the situation for a moment before you had a sexual assault claim on your hands.”

  “I was not!” Becca’s face flushed red. Maybe she’d taken a moment to appreciate the fact that for an older man Doctor Petersen looked after himself really well. Maybe she’d even sniffed him to see whether his aftershave smelled as good up close as it did when it wafted by her as he walked passed—which it did. That didn’t quite equal humping his leg. He was a married man after all, she knew that. She respected it even. That didn’t mean she couldn’t appreciate some of his finer qualities.

  God, what’s wrong with me? she asked herself silently.

  “You have a problem. And the first part of finding a solution is admitting that you have a problem.”

  “I don’t see what the problem is,” Becca argued, even though she could see that Cathy was right. “You say all the time that it’s perfectly fine to admire a good looking specimen. And you’re married.”

  “Admiring from a distance and getting ready to offer personal services in the privacy of his office are two vastly different things.”

  Becca’s face turned a deeper shade of red. “I was talking about taking photos of him and his wife.”

  “Sure you were.”

  “I’m not interested in Doctor Petersen that way. Our relationship has always been purely professional.”

  “I know that, that’s why I’m so worried about you. You’ve been different this week, distracted almost. I’ve swung the afternoon off for you, so why don’t you go home and relax? Find a date maybe. Someone your own age and not married for a start.”

  Becca didn’t really fancy returning to her house, but she figured that maybe a new photo session at one of her favorite haunts would help refocus her mind away from men and back onto the things that she had control over in her life. “Maybe I should.”

  “Just do me a favor, will you?”

  Becca waited to find out what it was.

  “Find a man. And when you do, take what you need.” She did a new mime of her deep-throat action—clearly lacking the fruit for a proper demonstration.

  “You and your fascination with cock,” Becca said with a laugh.

  Cathy pressed her fingers over her mouth. “Ooh, I’m telling. Becca said a naughty word.”

  Becca flipped her the bird and then lifted her middle finger to her lips, using it to blow Cathy a kiss.

  With an open-mouthed smile on her lips, Cathy pretended to catch the kiss before pressing her hand against her ass. “Love you,” she shouted at Becca’s back.

  With the afternoon off, plans for a photo session rushed through Becca’s mind and she pushed thoughts of strange happenings and sex-starvation out of her head. She raced home to quickly change and grab her equipment before heading back out to Sunset Hills Cemetery. She reasoned that the lack of an outlet for her creativity must have been what was causing her extra attention in anyone with a Y-chromosome.

  I’ll lose myself in my photos, I’m never happier than when I am there.

  Evan used his precarious position—with his butt parked on Becca’s Mustang’s dash and his feet on the passenger seat—to his advantage to carefully consider the one who was so similar to, and yet so completely different from, his long lost love. The sun streamed in through the window, warming his back to the point where he squirmed from the heat, but it also lit Becca’s features so that she almost seemed to glow from within.

  As with the last few times he’d sat in the same spot, he found that the shape of the car meant he had to lean forward at the waist and use all the strength of his legs to hold himself in place. He enjoyed the chance to watch her carefully as she drove toward the cemetery for a de-stress session. Or something like that. He’d lost his train of thought when Becca’s friend had been talking about cocks, and mouths, and taking what she needed. In fact, part of his mind had been trying to figure out how to volunteer for that service.

  For the better part of the last week, he'd been following Becca around, invisible and silent, trying to find out what it was that made her tick—and what she could possibly want in her perfect match. Despite the fact that a week was usually more than enough time to learn everything he needed—in fact, he’d even fixed some of his couples up within a few days and his record was four hours—he wasn’t any closer to an answer for Becca than he’d been on day one.

  He knew so much about her, more than he’d ever known about any other assignment, but knowing how many sugars she took in her coffee, her favorite wine, or that she liked to relax in the bathtub just as often as she liked to play in her darkroom wouldn’t help find her a partner. Neither would knowing that when she smiled, the right corner of her lip curled just a little more than the left and that the top of her left ear was just a little more rounded than her right. The fact that she was kind and caring, generous with her time and had the patience of a saint when dealing with problems at work, all went a long way to enamor him to her, but none gave him anything solid to use to find her someone who would fulfill her dreams.

  He refused to listen to the small voice at the back of his head that told him he hadn’t discovered the traits of her perfect match yet purely because he didn’t really want to know who her ideal man might be. That voice was stupid and it didn’t know what it was talking about.

  Trailing her hadn't helped him decipher her needs and wants at all, and neither had watching her dreams. It was like she was a riddle twisted inside of an enigma and planted deep inside a mystery. After the third night, he’d decided he couldn't risk trying to watch her dreams again, as the first two times had been far too wonderful . . . no, dangerous. That's what it was. The reactions his body had to her were dangerous, not pleasant, not marvelous, and certainly not wonderful.

  He was slipping, feeling something new, and it frightened the hell out of him.

  Hell is exactly where those thoughts will lead, he warned himself.

  As a cupid, he was used to experiencing the second-hand emotions of his matches, to feeding on the lust, love and happiness, and trying to shield his heart from the loss and sorrow as best as he could. Only he wasn’t just experiencing her emotions any longer, he was feeling them all for himself.

  He wasn't sure where he could turn to for help on this particular case; it wasn't like there was a cupid's handbook anywhere. But there had to be someone who could help. After all, someone pushed the names on his list into his head and presumably the same someone—something—had offered him the choice of Hell on Earth or Hell itself, but he’d never had to rely on them before. Despite being certain that there was some sort of hierarchy in Heaven, or whatever intermediary dealt with cupids on Earth, he had no clue how it was structured. He didn’t have the first clue how to even try to contact them.

  It all led him straight back to the fact that there wasn’t a handbook—or a phonebook for that matter—that could help him out of his predicament. He could manifest money, food, gifts—almost anything he needed—out of thin air, but that didn’t help him when it came to knowing what to do. He
didn’t know how to solve the puzzle that Becca presented or what to do about the emotions bourgeoning through his body and manifesting themselves physically far too regularly.

  With each new feeling he encountered, he grew more desperate to persuade himself that his attraction to Becca—and he knew it was attraction, because he had too many of the symptoms for it not to be—was purely due to the likeness she bore to his Rose and not because she herself fascinated him more than any other assignment ever had. He tried to convince himself that once he saw her happily paired with the man who was right for her, he would be satisfied and those emotions would go back to where they belonged—buried deep inside his mind where he didn’t have to try to examine them.

  Evan was also forcing himself to be certain that when he found her a match, his constant desire to be by her side would fade. The need to see her smile and hear her laugh would disappear. The desperate ache to hold her in his arms and never let go would be nothing more than a memory. He was positive of it.

  When he paired her, he would take his hit of shared endorphins and leave happily knowing that he'd done the right thing. Only he couldn't figure out the damn enigma of what her ideal guy might be. Sure he'd seen her eye lingering on some men, so he could gather a certain amount of information from that, but that was only physical attraction. And it seemed to be directed at almost every man at the moment.

  Evan knew better than most that physical attraction wasn't love. It wasn't what made a woman walk down the aisle with a smile on her face that could light up the world. The best physical attraction and blind lust could ever do was to cause two normally sensible adults to crash headlong into each other's worlds even though they had nothing in common.

  Evan began to wish he could just ask Becca what she wanted in a man. It would have been an awkward chat for sure, but it would have been a conversation. It would have also given him an excuse to approach her. It was ridiculous how just the thought of being able to speak to her made Evan's long-dead heart rap a crazy beat. He was thinking how wonderful—terrifying—it would be to voice those few first words to Becca, and just how easy it might be to approach her, when he began to feel a wistful longing to show himself to her.

  How hard could it really be to try to learn more about her that way?

  He'd done it before after all, regularly. Having a random conversation with one of his assignments was a way of sorting through the nuanced information he received from their dreams. It was a technique that helped him sift through the debris and picking the traits they genuinely needed versus the products of their lustful desire.

  Somehow the thought of talking with Becca made his mouth both dry and sticky all at once. A tingling feeling, which started deep in his stomach, spread through his torso and into his limbs. If he couldn’t get her desires from her dreams and from watching her, it might soon become necessary to reveal himself. While he was sitting on her dash, watching her and contemplating the best way to attack the situation, he grew more determined than ever to talk to her. So determined in fact, that his shield started to falter.

  Becca was almost at the cemetery when something in the corner of her eye caught her attention. At first it was just a flicker, like a shadow passing through the bright sunlight, but then it happened again—for longer the second time. An instant later there was a man sitting on her dash, staring at her like she was a puzzle to be solved.

  A scream rose in her throat and tore from her. “Holy fuck!”

  She twisted the steering wheel sharply, pulling the car off the road as quickly as she could, getting ready to either push the man out or run from the car herself the second it stopped. When the first scream that issued from her ended, another one started. She didn’t seem to be able to stop herself or gather herself enough to open the door once the car skidded to a halt.

  The man’s expression went from quizzical to concerned in an instant. His gaze met hers—which started a fresh bout of screams—and then his eyes widened.

  “Can you see me?”

  Becca’s screams barely stopped long enough for her to form actual words, but when she did, they rushed out. “Get the hell out of my car!”

  “Shit, no, look calm down, please?”

  “Get the hell out of my car!”

  “Can’t we talk about this?”

  Becca reached for the nearest thing to her, a pair of cute stilettos that she’d taken off after her disappointing non-date a week earlier. Clutching one of her shoes in her hand, she hit the intruder with it. She didn’t know how he’d gotten into her car, but she would make damn sure that she got him out again. Fast. With her heeled weapon providing an illusion of safety, she felt braver and her cries died away as she smacked him again and again. Each hit that landed gave her more strength to keep going.

  In response, the man raised his arm and tried to shield himself from the blows as best he could.

  “Becca!”

  How does he know my name? Afraid that she was facing some deranged stalker, she increased the speed of her assault and asked the question again, out loud, between strikes. “How. Do. You. Know. My. Name?”

  “Becca! Please! Stop!” He had both arms raised to protect himself from her onslaught.

  Becca continued to rain down her shoe-driven vengeance. “Who. The. Hell. Are. You. And. What. Are. You. Doing. In. My. Car?” Each word was punctuated with another blow. Despite the crazy circumstances, she was proud of herself for keeping her composure as best she could, given the circumstances, and also for her near perfect aim.

  “If you stop hitting me, I promise I’ll explain.”

  She slowed her attack momentarily and then remembered the scare he’d given her. Her assault started again.

  “Please, Becca?”

  She stopped, but held her shoe tightly in both hands with the heel pointed right at him, making it clear that any false move would cause a fresh flurry. “Who are you?”

  “I’m Evan.”

  “That’s not going to cut it in any way, mister. You can’t just turn up in people’s cars and declare that you’re Evan and think that it’s explanation enough to stop them panicking. You’re still just a stranger, even if you have a fucking name."

  He held up his hands in surrender. “I’ll explain it all, I promise. Just put the shoe down. Please?”

  She gripped it tighter. There was no way she was going to relinquish her weapon, especially not when he seemed genuinely scared of it. It was a shame to damage such a perfect shoe, but if it went down, it went down serving her and what more could a girl ask.

  “Who are you?” she repeated, brandishing the heel as though she might strike again.

  “Are you sure you want to damage your practically new Betsey Johnson heels? Why don't you put the shoe down?”

  It struck Becca as a little odd that he knew exactly what brand of shoe she was using as her weapon of choice. She wondered if he was some sort of freak with a shoe fetish who broke into people's cars. While they were driving no less.

  “Not until you tell me who you are.” Becca hoped she sounded brave and like she wouldn't take any crap from this weirdo. In reality, she wasn't sure she could release the death-grip she had on the shoe even if she’d wanted to. At least, not without giving away exactly how much her body was quivering beneath her bravado.

  “Okay, I'll tell you,” Evan, said. “Although the more appropriate question is probably, ‘What am I?’”

  “What?”

  “Exactly.”

  Becca's crazy week seemed set to continue in the same vein and it was starting to cause her temple to pulse in tune with her rapidly beating heart. An eye-twitch would probably follow if things didn't ease up soon. She blinked twice to make sure it hadn’t already started.

  When she refocused on the man in her car, pushing concern about brain embolisms and stress-induced heart-attacks out of her mind, he was staring intently at her. His gaze seemed particularly focused on her mouth, where her lips where parted as she breathed heavily to calm herself down. He c
aught her gaze and for a moment, their eyes locked.

  It was testament to exactly how man-hungry she'd become that despite the inherent danger of this complete stranger in her car, she was tempted to reach out and run her fingers through his chestnut hair to see if it was as soft and feathery as it appeared. At the thought, she found herself getting totally lost in his hazel gaze until she shook her head and tightened her grip on her shoe.

  “No, not ‘what’ as in 'what are you?' ‘What’ as in what in the actual fuck are you talking about?”

  Evan chuckled and wiggled a little in his ridiculous perch on her beloved car’s dash.

  “Honestly this is going way better than I thought it might when I realized you could see me,” he said.

  “Realized I could see you? You mean I shouldn't . . .” She trailed off and her eyes widened at a sudden thought. It was impossible, wasn't it? “You—you're the one who's been at my house!”

  It had started as a question but with every word she became more certain about the truth of it. That laugh was exactly the one she'd thought she’d imagined she’d heard when she’d been at her computer looking up ghosts and specters.

  Evan raised his hands, appearing to brace himself for a new onslaught of heeled vengeance.

  As tempting as it was, Becca held her hands still. Even though it was all so surreal, she had asked whoever—whatever—it was to come forward. Maybe this was the first time he’d actually been able to manifest properly. She didn’t know whether it was something he could control or not. She didn’t even know what he was.

  I am so far out of my depth here. She swallowed down her fear. “Okay then. I'll bite. What are you?”

  Evan smiled. When he did, one side of his mouth tipped higher than the other and an elongated dimple appeared to slice through his cheek.

  God, I could lick that dimple, Becca thought before fighting her lust and forcing it out of her head. Seriously girl, get a hold of yourself!