Accidentaly Divine by Dakota Cassidy (best large ereader .TXT) 📗

Accidentally Divine

Dakota Cassidy

Copyright

Accidentally Divine

Published 2021 by Dakota Cassidy

Copyright © 2021, Dakota Cassidy

ISBN: 9798744534103

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording, or otherwise, without prior written permission from Dakota Cassidy.

This book is a work of fiction. Any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, locales, or events is wholly coincidental. The names, characters, dialogue, and events in this book are from the author’s imagination and should not to be construed as real.

Manufactured in the USA.

Acknowledgements

Cover art: Katie Wood

Editor: Kelli Collins

Dedication

Twenty.

Holy baloney!

I can’t believe the girls made it to twenty books. Can you? What started out as a crazy concept way back in 2004 after fringing a writer’s conference in a hotel shared with women at a Mary Kay Cosmetics event turned into this—this madness—this mayhem—this ornery, sometimes shallow but loveable clan of women, and the people they’ve collected along the way.

It’s been thirteen years this past February since Marty’s story was published, and here we are, just a pack of mouthy broads, still taking it one adventure at a time.

These books spawned quirky catchphrases people still send me emails about. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard, “What’s in your color wheel?” or have been teased about Nina’s intense hatred for the color yellow—Nina being one of the most polarizing characters I’ve ever written. People either loved her or hated her, and they weren’t afraid to tell me so. Still, these women—these tough-as-nails, ride-or-die women—have endured for thirteen years.

Thank you for joining me on twenty of these whacky journeys. Thank you for using your hard-earned dollars to spend a little time with a vain but loveable werewolf, an ornery, potty-mouthed marshmallow of a vampire and a cultured, well-mannered but feisty halfsie.

They’ve evolved as people, they’ve grown, their families have grown, their love for one another has grown, as has my love for all of you.

I’ll keep writing ’em if you keep reading.

Major gratitude to the many animal rescues I follow on Facebook. As most of you know, I’m a huge animal lover, especially a special-needs animal. I gleaned a great deal of information from too many pages to count, but their kind hearts, detailed posts, and loving dedication to the precious babies some would call imperfect, but I call beloved, never ceases to leave my heart full in gratitude.

And last but never least, with more gratitude, thanks to Touched by an Angel and Highway to Heaven. They were both insightful inspiration and instrumental in helping me build the world of guardian angels and their duties to mankind. This is merely my fictional take. Any and all mistakes, should they happen, are irrevocably mine.

Love,

Dakota XXOO

Chapter 1

Titus stared at Dexter Bridger. His soft brown eyes wide, his magnificent angel wings quivering, his mouth a thin line of disappointment. He stomped out his cigarette and shook his head before tasking a long sip off his silver flask.

Finally, he stuffed the flask back in the pocket of his robes and inhaled deeply. “Oh, this is a pickle, Dex. The biggest pickle ever. How are you gonna get your perm wings back if you pull stunts like this? This is a sitch if I ever saw one.”

Clasping his mammoth hands together, Dex’s superior paced the sidewalk, puffs of transparent clouds, like filmy mounds of whipped potatoes, following his gold-sandaled feet.

Dexter stomped out the remnants of the embers still burning. “You’re gonna kill yourself smoking those things.”

“Hah!” he barked with a lingering echo. “No can do, grasshopper. Already dead.”

He had a point, but Dexter rolled his eyes at his advisor. “C’mon, man. It was pure instinct. I didn’t mean to save her. Though, while we’re visiting the subject, it does make me question the term guardian angel. If we’re going to call ourselves guardian angels, why aren’t we actually guarding our charges? If we just let them do what they want willy-nilly, like topple off a rooftop by mistake, and harm comes to them, what’s our purpose?”

Dex had never understood looking after an assignment if you weren’t going to at least do exactly that—look after them. Though, upon reflection, that’s what had gotten him into his current trouble in the first place and the very reason he still only had his temporary wings.

Titus sighed, his thatch of red hair bright under the streetlamp on this cold January night in downtown Buffalo. “Dex, you know what our job is. It’s to guide. To silently advise, gently persuade, if you will. In other words, don’t be obvi. If someone falls off a roof after tripping over a bottle of Schlitz Malt Liquor at a New Year’s Eve party, that’s not on us. It’s not our place to save them from their destiny.”

He made a face at Titus. Destiny-schmestiny.

Dex had been George, also known as Georgina Denise Maverick’s guardian angel for about a year now, and there’d been moments when he’d been tempted to throttle her for the countless times she put herself in harm’s way. Mostly emotional, but sometimes physical.

Yet never once had he interfered, per se.

Yep. That was his assignment. Thirty-five-year-old, single, events/travel coordinator at a senior living center, animal-loving, sometimes-lonely, guilt-riddled, people-pleasing, George.

And if anyone was asking, being her guardian hadn’t been an easy task. Guarding George was as harrowing as watching over a toddler who’d escaped their sitter, teetering on a high-rise windowsill. George didn’t just put herself out there—she put herself out there, to the detriment of her self-esteem and, more importantly, her lonely, pained heart.

But he still hadn’t interfered. Not even when that asshole Darren Storm had broken up with George a week before Christmas, yet still had the balls to ask her to make good on a promise to bake him a cake for his company Christmas party.

Worse, she’d damn well done it.

In fact, George had stayed up until four in the morning to bake and decorate it,