Heavenly Lover by Sharon Hamilton Page A

anything of value, but he seemed to treat these items as if they were even more rare than money. She could imagine that when he got home, he would put them somewhere special—maybe in a special box of treasures he kept under his pillow at night.
    Next, Daniel was older, seated at a campsite in the early evening, the glow of sunlight giving way to a sprinkling of stars in a turquoise and violet sky. He picked up a piece of charcoal and started to draw on a discarded piece of brown bag. A small group of preteen girls sat in the sand, carefree and laughing as they showed off their smooth tanned bodies. He liked looking at them, especially his favorite. His fingers sketched outlines of her face.
    They hailed him over. These were friends from school, slightly older girls who typically made fun of him. They teased him constantly about his good looks. They told him how he would break many hearts when he was older.
    The girl giggled at her likeness on the brown canvas, holding the sketches upside down, laughing as she maneuvered it to the right and to the left. He leaned back on his elbows, watching her. She laughed all the time, her bright white teeth a sharp contrast to her bronzed skin. The small hoop earrings on her delicate lobes twinkled gold, playing a bit of sultry hide and seek in her long dark hair. He basked in her warm smile.
    The look she had given him one day at school when she turned around and found him staring at her made him wish he were ten years older. She let him stare, without embarrassment, when her friends weren’t around. The stolen gazes became a secret they shared. He thought maybe he could be in love.
    Daniel saw other images of a back alley in a poor village without paved streets, all the children running barefoot down the sandy path. He sketched a likeness of a dirty Coke bottle in the sandy soil outside his back door. He discovered he could make the translucent sketches with blue green pencil and chalk resemble a photograph.
    He drew by candlelight in his shared room with two other brothers, looking out the glassless window at the dusty streets to a golden orange and pink sunset. The faint outline of a dark, ominous jungle died into the horizon, filled with the sounds of creatures that squawked and screeched all night long as he lay in his bed.
    Next, he was a young man, walking the streets of San Francisco, sketching brightly colored houses, little boats with blue water. He drew in classrooms and coffee houses, smoothing the chalk with his third and fourth fingers, a curl of his dark hair falling across his wrinkled brow as he concentrated.
    Claire considered all the images he showed her in his dreams. What touched her most was the little box of “treasures,” those pieces of colored glass and shells washed up on the beach. He probably considered these trinkets as having come from some faceless benefactor. Claire had met that benefactor, knew him enough to call him Father. These were obviously young Daniel’s most precious possessions. In a world filled with wonderful things, she was struck that he chose to cherish pieces of broken shell and glass—miracles of the human world, worn by time and polished by the ocean.
    She wanted to wander the streets again as a human, get a feel for the town and Daniel’s world. But tonight she sat at the corner of his bed, propped against the wall, watching his chest rise and fall in peaceful repose. Nothing could touch him now that she was on guard.

Chapter 9

    Claire settled herself over Daniel’s sleeping form, loving the pull his body commanded over hers. She could easily fall into the fantasy of his kiss, up close and oh, so personal. Elongating her neck, she angled her head as if his lips had opened and beckoned her. The urge to whisper in his ear pulled at her soul. She was desperate know him, to feel every muscle, every electric current between their bodies. She allowed her thighs and lower torso to bond with him first, then lowered her spine down so