Caitlin's Guardian Angel.

by MARIE FERRARELLA.

To Leslie Wainger, who turned out to be a guardian angel in her own right: mine.

Thank you, Leslie, for everything.

Prologue.

She was late.

A hint of the sizzling heat to come wafted to her as she hurried across the sidewalk to the alley.

There were very few things that Caitlin Cassidy hated as much as being

late.

This morning it seemed as if the forces of God and nature had conspired to see just how far they could push her.

Her alarm had failed to go off.

She'd woken up with a start to a neighbor's barking dog, twenty minutes behind schedule before she ever set foot on the floor.

The tone for the day had been set.

When she'd slipped behind the wheel, the starter motor on her car had

sputtered and sounded on the brink of death before kicking over.

She'd held her breath as she'd driven through the sleeping streets of Phoenix, willing the vehicle not to die before she reached her shop.

She'd just barely made it, she thought as she hurried now through the

winding alley.

Caitlin took a deep breath of the warm, early-morning air.

Enjoy it while it lasts.

The city would heat up quickly.

Phoenix's spring was everyone else's summer.

Directly overhead, the dawn sky was filled with long, thin fingers of

intense purple, grasping to pull away the final curtain of night.

It was going to be a hot one, she mused.

Bad for business.

Fewer customers window-shopping.

The heels of her beige shoes echoed in the narrow alleyway.

An alleyway she wouldn't have had to take if the city hadn't

whimsically decided to repave the parking area directly before her

store and the accompanying lot.

The entire area had been partitioned off for a week now and she'd had to park her car three long blocks away.

The alley, networking behind two strip malls that stood back-to-back

like two duelists, was a shortcut to her store.

She didn't like coming this way, but she had wanted to get an early start this morning.

She wasn't late by anyone's standards but her own.

As the owner of a small, exclusive lingerie shop, she could have come waltzing in at noon if she chose.

What she chose was to be there a full two hours before she switched the

gaily printed cardboard sign from Closed to Open.

There was always something to do.

Accounts to go over, like this morning, merchandise to rearrange or

simply the opportunity to stand back and silently absorb the fact that Naughty But.

, Nice was hers.

The sound of raised voices cut through her musings like a hot knife slicing through a chilled pie.

Angry voices, buzzing like bees swarming around a hive that had bden'

invaded.

The words were coming so quickly, it was hard'for her to distinguish what was being said, only how it was being said.

Anger reeked in the alleyway like three-day-old garbage left out in the sun, turning her stomach.

Warning her.

Instinctively Caitlin moved to accept the shelter of a grimy, discolored brick building.

Sidestepping a Dumpster, Caitlin inched her way forward to the sound of

the voices.

As she approached, she realized that only one of the voices was angry; the other-high, reedy-belonged to someone who was genuinely frightened.

Caitlin held her breath as she peered around the corner of the building.

Up ahead, squared off in diminishing shadows, were two men. The angry man, taller than the other, far better dressed, stood with his back to her.

"Thought I wouldn't catch on, didn't you, little man ?

The man he addressed shook visibly.

He was as thin as his voice.

"No, I swear, no. I didn't mean no harm. It was just this once,

honest."

"Honest?"

The taller man's voice, more polished than his companion's, dropped to

a low, deadly purr as he turned the word around on his tongue.

"Strange word for a man who's been cheating his employer."

Fear melded with the stench of anger.

Caitlin could almost smell it where she stood.

Her heart raced in her chest.

"It won't happen again. I swear on my mother's grave it won't happen

again. It's just that I got these debts, see, and these guys are really mean."

"Meaner than I?"