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of what transpires and no damage will be done. Except, of course, to you, Gabe. For you, failure means eternal damnation.”
    Gabe resumed gazing down at the Hoffman woman. She seemed to be frozen in place, as if time down there had stopped. He mourned the fact that the angels had turned her motionless
after
she’d finished dressing. She had a body to make any man salivate, and Gabe had been enjoying the view. Absently, he asked, “Exactly what kind of ammunition were you referring to when you said I’d be able to coerce the woman into marrying me? I’m not pushing any woman around, no matter what you say.”
    Gabriel smiled slightly. “Before we get to that, you must first commit to the assignment, and to do that, you should be made aware of everything you will be expected to accomplish.”
    “Shoot.”
    “First of all, you must agree not to die intestate the second time around. You will be expected to leave all your worldly goods to Nan so she will no longer have to work so hard to make ends meet after she is widowed.”
    “I have no problem with that,” Gabe said honestly. “My father’s money has never meant all that much to me, and I don’t really care who it’s left to.”
    “Second,” Gabriel went on, “you will be expected to free Nan from her past, which still haunts her and from which she is still running. Unbeknownst to her, Horace Barclay, the man she believes she killed, survived being stabbed with her knitting needle and is alive to this day.”
    “She went after a man with a knitting needle?” Gabe glanced down at Nan with new respect. “She doesn’t look like she’s got it in her.”
    “Normally, she doesn’t,” Michael said. “You of all people should understand how it feels to be backed into a corner. Nan was trying to ward off the unwanted physical advances of Horace Barclay, a much older man to whom she’d been affianced by her father, and she threatened Barclay with the needle to hold him at bay. Unfortunately, Horace tripped on the edge of a carpet, fell on top of her, and impaled himself. Nan couldn’t feel a pulse or see any sign that he was breathing, so she believed the man dead. After emptying her father’s coffers, she fled with her younger sister, assumed another name, and ended up living in Random, where she’s been hiding from the law ever since.”
    “So she still thinks they’re trying to find her and put a noose around her neck?” Gabe asked.
    “Precisely,” Gabriel replied. “How you impart to Nan that Barclay didn’t die and chose to press no charges because the incident was an embarrassment to him—well, that will be entirely up to you.”
    Gabe nodded. “I reckon I’ll know when the moment is right—if I decide to take her on.”
    Michael shifted on his chair, glanced at a sheet of paper, and cleared his throat. “Third, there is your relationship with Nan to discuss. As we have already made clear, we don’t care how you go about it, but you must accomplish several tasks. You must not only get Nan to marry you, but you must also gain her complete trust, make her fall in love with you, and then make physical love to her. The last is extremely important, for in Nan’s mind lovemaking is yet another way in which a man exercises his control over a woman. It will, of course, have to be a pleasurable experience for her, no matter how you decide to initiate it.”
    He was supposed to accomplish all this in a lousy month? And had he just heard right? Once again, Gabe held up a hand. “Are you saying you don’t care how I get into the lady’s drawers, coercion notwithstanding, as long as I make her enjoy it? This deal is starting to smell worse than last week’s fish. Am I having a weird dream or something? I mean, okay, a guy can go to hell up here for adultery, yet rape isn’t against your rules?”
    The angel Gabriel smiled, a gentle curve of his lips that made his face seem to glow from within. “Of course rape is against God’s rules, as are