Sexual Shift by Beverly Rae Page A

moment, she wasn’t sure she wanted to hear the rest. Yet she had to. “I don’t mean this the way it sounds, but why didn’t you try to help her?”
    He closed his eyes and gritted his teeth before looking at her again. “I wasn’t around. My mother had sent me away on business.”
    “So you couldn’t save her like you saved me?”
    “No. Before I knew what was going on, Mira was dead.”

Chapter Seven
     
    “Are you all right? You look a little pale.” Tanner shouldn’t care what she thought. Had never cared before—except with Mira. Yet the truth cut through him. As much as he wished he didn’t want Hilly, he did. More than he’d wanted Mira.
    “She’s trying to do the same thing to me?” Hilly swallowed, then pulled her body straighter.
    He clenched his fists. Could he keep her safe from his mother? Or would he fail again? Whatever the outcome, he had to try. “Yes. But I won’t let her hurt you. Can you trust me on this?”
    “I trust you.” She frowned at him, confusion etching lines into her brow. “But what about your father? Can he help?”
    He smiled, giving her a true, sincere smile. Funny how she made him smile like that so often. “Maybe it’ll help you understand once you realize my father was kicked out of heaven at the time he met my mother.”
    “So your father’s a fallen angel?”
    “Not any longer. But he was when my mother got her claws into him.”
    “What did he do so wrong to get kicked out?” she whispered.
    He chuckled , but what came out was a mirthless sound. “My father was once a guardian angel. A little girl, a girl about Emma Grace’s age, wasn’t supposed to die in a car accident. But because my father got distracted, he missed saving her. She died well before her time.”
    “Oh, no.”
    He could feel the horror gripping her heart and sighed. “My father was grief-stricken and ashamed. He was so despondent that he asked to leave heaven and The Powers Above agreed.”
    “Then he met my mother.” He couldn’t help the anger in his tone.
    She didn’t let his words pass. “I know she’s a demon, but she’s still your mother.”
    “I love my mother.” He stared at her, willing her to understand. “But I hate her, too. Even by demonic standards, she’s a truly evil being.”
    They sat for a few minutes, each perched on the edge of the desk, each mulling over the conversation. Tanner glanced at her and wondered if she regretted what they’d done. “My mother seduced my father and got pregnant on purpose.”
    “Do you think maybe she chose your father to have a baby with because she saw the good in him? Maybe she wanted someone better than her to be her child’s father.”
    He cupped her face, amazed at her capacity to see the best in people, even a creature as vile as his mother. “No. She had sex with him thinking it would hurt him more than living among humans. She thought it would damn him to hell.”
    “But you said he isn’t a fallen angel any longer.” Hilly’s face lit up with hope. “Is he redeemed? Did heaven take him back?”
    Where it had taken him months to tell Mira the truth, Hilly had managed to get him to talk about his parents in a matter of days. He took a big breath, happy to tell the good part of the story.
    “My father saved an airplane full of people. Several demons tried to knock the plane from the sky, but my father risked everything, his own eternity to save them. For such a courageous act, he was allowed back into heaven with full angel status.”
    “You sound very proud of him and you should be. He’s a hero.”
    Damn, but he loved the way her blue eyes sparkled. “No, he’s not a hero. He’s an angel. Saving lives is what they do.”
    “Still… But what about you? What did your father think about your mother getting pregnant?”
    Tanner paced to the door, turned and faced her again. The way she looked at him, so open, so caring made him lose his thoughts for a moment. “She never told him about me until I was