Kelly Jo Read Free Page A

call at the Gates lickety-split.  Once Peter puts his black Sharpie check mark beside your name your opportunity to return is gone."
    "Well, gee," Jack answered sarcastically and put a thoughtful finger to his chin.  "Which is better?  Running from an angel who will escort me to the Pearly Gates or running with the angel that killed me and is now attempting to coerce me into helping her do...I can't imagine what, but I'm guessing it isn't good." 
    Kelly Jo glared at him.  "Big Bob warned you not to take my hand.  You did it anyway.  So you weren't kidnapped, you came willingly."
    Jack threw his hands in the air.  "That's it," he informed her and stretched his long form out beneath the tree.  He squinted up, between the branches, into the sunlight dappling the deep green leaves.  "I'll wait right here.  Run if you want, to, but I'm not getting involved any further than you've already dragged me."
    "Nobody dragged you," she said testily, kneeling in front of him.  "You took my hand because you felt sorry for me and you might as well admit it, Jack, you were torn between wanting to help me and going with Big Bob."
    "No," Jack answered, looking up at her.  "I wasn't." 
    Summer-sky blue eyes mocked hazel ones.  "Oh, you were.  Big Bob saw it too, and that's why he tried to hurry you away from me.  So you couldn't take my hand."
    Exasperated, Jack rose to his feet and scanned the sky.  "Shouldn't Robert have found us already?"
    Kelly Jo came to stand beside him.  "No.  He'll be looking for me in a small town many miles from here.  I have to find a way for us to get there without being seen."
    "Don't tell me anymore," Jack warned.  "Just tell me how to call Robert."
    "If I don't get where I need to be in time, Jack, to that little town…the consequences will be devastating. Someone will die that isn't supposed to die."
    "They already did," he answered testily.  " Me.   Remember?"
    "I need to fix something, to undo what I caused and I can't do it alone."
    "Yep," Jack said pleasantly, pointedly ignoring her and watching the sky for signs that Robert and or a posse had tracked them down.  "It's going to be a nice day."
    Kelly Jo gasped, but Jack ignored her and kept his gaze on the sky.  She was not going to get to him.  His resolve was stone that he’d not allow her to wheedle her way into his sympathies again.  
    "Oh, no," Kelly Jo cried in horror, and despite himself Jack turned.
    Kelly Jo's wings were gone and her gown was nearly transparent.
    Jack blinked twice.  "You're not wearing anything under that gown."
    Kelly Jo shot him a look and crossed her arms over her chest, then ran for the cover of a grove of bushes almost fifty yards away.
    Jack was hot on her heels, involuntarily checking his own clothes, doing the gentlemanly thing and not fastening his gaze on her very exposed, very curvy behind.  Everything about his own clothes seemed the same.
    Just as her gown faded completely, Kelly Jo dove behind the bushes. 
    Panting for breath from running, Jack demanded, "What's going on?  If Robert found us and is carting you back to...wherever we were...does this mean that I'm staying on earth, that you're the only one in trouble and I'm off the hook?  I'm alive again?"
    Kelly Jo's head shot up above the bushes and though she carefully used her arms and long hair to cover her now completely naked body, her voice was curt.  "No, Jack, it doesn't.  What it does mean is that my power is dissolving."
    "Oh, you mean like your clothes did?"
    "Very funny," she shot at him. 
    Jack laughed.  "You made it behind those bushes just in time."  He couldn't help it.  He snickered and added, "Well, almost in time."
    Kelly Jo's eyes snapped fire and she lifted her chin.  "Voyeurism of an angel isn't a good character trait, Jack, and Robert won't like it."
    Jack raised an eyebrow.  "Voyeurism?  Not from where I'm standing.  Flashing is the word that came to my mind.  Is Robert okay with you doing that