Rose for Rose: Book Two in the Angels' Mirror Series by Harmony L. Courtney Page B

into balls when he returned them to his sides. He pocketed them, instead.
    “Thanks for being so understanding,” she said. “I’d like to, I just… I don’t know how…”
    “Look, no worries. You make it, you make it; you don’t you don’t, alright?” He smiled down at her, thinking how easy it would be to fall in love with her, but knowing it just wouldn’t work.
    Why would she ever love a man like him?
    Besides, after what he’d done today, no woman would want to be with him, would they? Let alone a beautiful one.
    Finally deciding to just leave, he shrugged as he turned, opened the door, and walked outside, slamming it lightly on the way out. Quickly, he hopped into his car to head for a phone booth.
    He had some calls to make. People owed him, and Andrea needed to pay most of all.
    Rosemary may not be in his back pocket yet, but he was pretty sure if he played his cards right, she’d be the one having his baby.
    Maybe then Andrea would understand she didn’t stand a chance with him. Maybe then, he thought, she’d finally get the picture once and for all that all she was good for was to be thrown away, after all she’d done to him!
    A smile came over his face as he brought to mind all the plans he’d put together behind bars.
    With a little help, it could all be pulled off, no sweat.
    The only real question was how long it would take, and if he’d have the help he wanted. Either way, he was more than ready to just get on with his life… without all the distractions keeping him from the destiny he was sure awaited him.
     
     
     
     
     
     
     

 
     
     
     
    Six
    Wood Village, Oregon… August 11, 2013
     
    The storm looks like it’s finally clearing , Eugenie thought, finally able to concentrate now that she’d put the lovebirds away. Glad the thunder and lightning had lasted mere moments, she sighed.
    She hated it when storms came… especially when she was all alone.
    As a child, she’d loved them… but that was before her neighbor’s cow was hit by a falling oak tree. Lightening had struck it, and the tree had been spliced nearly perfectly down the middle. While it wasn’t a full-sized tree, it had been enough to hurt Mamie the milking cow, and the damage was too much to keep her alive.
    Tears welled in Eugenie’s eyes as she pictured poor Mamie. She didn’t climb a tree for over a year after that, believing if she did, the tree would fall over and she’d be maimed, too.
    A sudden burst of movement behind her caught her off-guard. She jumped, hitting her hand against the glass. Her stomach did a somersault and her heart began to pound.
    It sounded as though something, or someone, fell!
    “Hello, Darling,” she heard Clementine call in a loud voice, making her jump again. But when she jumped, she heard an in-breath, like someone else had been startled, too.
    After I’ve finally come over to stand and watch the rain, tired of just watching that freaky mirror’s movements and tending to the birds, now something happens , she thought, frustrated and frightened.
    She’d seen a blur of things through the old silvered glass, from what seemed to be differing times, or at least places, and it had begun to wear on her nerves. To try to block it out, she’d turned the jukebox on and come to watch from the window, glad to listen to the Beach Boys singing about their Surfin’ Safari .
    “Who’s there,” she asked, too scared to turn around.
    Her blonde bob and uniform suddenly didn’t feel much like the armor she sometimes pretended they were.
    “It’s me, but… but where am I,” she heard a young girls’ startled voice say behind her, “and who are you? What was that weird voice? One of those fancy birds?”
    Eugenie did her best to calm her nerves, and after she was able to catch her breath, decided it was now or never.
    In a bold move, she turned around: before her stood a tow-headed, thin and dusky girl in a blue floral drop-waist feed-sack dress that seemed a bit small, modest