The third morning I wake up with tears streaming down my face, and when I stare up at the ceiling, wallowing in my misery, a thought occurs to me.

He loves me. Inside his head, his every thought and reaction was born of love, love inside and out, crazy, irrational (and sure, a bit lustful) love. He loves me, and that’s also what terrified him when he saw me all lit up like a Christmas tree. He doesn’t know what I am, but he loves me.

I sit up. Maybe I should have figured this out a long time ago. I shouldn’t have needed to read his heart in order to see it. But when I felt all that love rising up in him, I didn’t know I was inside his head. I didn’t notice that the feelings weren’t mine. And why is that?

Easy.

It’s all me, the human part, the angel part. I love Tucker Avery.

Talk about revelation.

So that’s why I’m waiting now outside the Crazy River Rafting Company, sitting on the sidewalk outside of his workplace like some creepy stalker ex-girlfriend, waiting for him to come out so I can ambush him with love. Only he doesn’t come out of the building. I wait for more than an hour past when he usually gets off, and nobody comes out but a blond woman who I assume is the secretary.

“Can I help you?” she asks.

“I don’t think so.”

She hesitates, not quite sure how to interpret my answer. “You waiting for someone?”

“Tucker.”

She smiles. She likes Tucker. Everybody in their right mind likes Tucker.

“He’s still on the river,” she says. “His raft overturned, nothing serious, but they’ll all be in a bit late. You want me to walkie him, tell him you’re here?”

“No,” I say quickly. “I’ll wait.”

Every few minutes I check my watch, and every time a truck drives by I hold my breath. A few times I decide that this is all a very bad idea and get up to leave. But I can never make myself get into my car. If anything, I just have to see him.

Finally a big red truck pulls into the parking lot towing an open trailer loaded with rafts. Tucker’s sitting in the passenger seat, talking with the older guy I met before who led the rafting trips. Tucker called him Murphy, although I don’t know if that’s his first or last name. When they announced the rules of the raft that time he took me down the river with him, he’d called them Murphy’s laws.

Tucker doesn’t see me right away. He smiles the way he does when he delivers the punch line for a joke, a wry, knowing little flash of teeth and dimple. I melt seeing that smile, remembering the times when it’s been aimed at me. Murphy laughs, then they both hop out of the truck and circle back to the trailer to start unloading the rafts. I stand up, my heart beating so fast I think it’s going to shoot right out of my chest and hit him.

Murphy rolls open a huge garage door, then turns back toward the truck, which is when he sees me standing there. He stops in his tracks and looks at me. Tucker is busily unfastening the rafts from the trailer.

“Tuck,” says Murphy slowly. “I think this girl’s here for you.”

Tucker goes completely still for a minute, like he’s been hit with a freeze ray. The muscles in his back tighten and he straightens and turns to look at me. A succession of emotions flashes across his face: surprise, panic, anger, pain. Then he settles back on anger. His eyes go cold. A muscle ticks in his jaw.

I wilt under his glare.

“You need a minute?” Murphy asks.

“No,” says Tucker in a low voice that would break my heart if it wasn’t already in pieces around my feet. “Let’s get this done.”

I stand like I’m rooted to the spot as Tucker and Murphy drag the rafts from the trailer and into a garage on the side of the office. Then they inspect each one, work through some kind of checklist with the life vests, and lock the garage up.

“See ya,” says Murphy, then jumps into a Jeep and gets the heck out of here.

Tucker and I stand in the parking lot staring at each other. I still can’t form words. All the things I planned to say flew out of my head the minute I laid eyes on him. He’s so beautiful, standing there with his hands shoved in his pockets, his hair still damp from the river, his eyes so blue. I feel tears in my eyes and try to blink them away.

Tucker sighs.

“What do you want, Clara?”

The sound of my name is strange coming from him. I’m not Carrots anymore. My hair is back to blond. He can probably tell even now that I’m not quite what I appear to be.

“I’m sorry I lied to you,” I say finally. “You don’t know how much I wanted to tell you the truth.”

“So why didn’t you?”

“Because it’s against the rules.”

“What rules? What truth?”

“I’ll tell you everything now, if you’ll hear me out.”

“Why?” he asks sharply. “Why would you tell me now, if it’s against the rules?”

“Because I love you.”

There. I said it. I can’t believe I actually said it. People cast around those words so carelessly. I always cringe whenever I hear kids say it while making out in the hall at school. I love you, babe. I love you, too. Here they’re all of sixteen years old and convinced that they’ve found true love. I always thought I’d have more sense than that, a little more perspective.

But here I am, saying it and meaning it.

Tucker swallows. The anger fades from his eyes but I still see shadows of fear.

“Can we go somewhere?” I ask. “Let’s go somewhere off in the woods, and I’ll show you.”

He hesitates, of course. What if I’m an alien invader trying to lure him to a secluded place so I can suck his brains out? Or a vampire, ravenous for his blood?

“I won’t hurt you.” Be not afraid.

His eyes flash with anger like I’ve come right out and called him chicken.

“Okay.” His jaw tightens. “But I drive.”

“Of course.”

Tucker drives for an hour, all the way out to Idaho, into the mountains above Palisades Reservoir. The silence between us is so thick it makes me want to cough. We’re both trying to look at each other without getting caught looking at each other. At any other time I’d find us hilarious and lame.

He turns down a dirt road that’s marked as private property and heads past the log cabins tucked back in the trees, up the mountainside until we come to a big wire fence. Tucker jumps out and fumbles with his keys. Then he unlocks the rusty metal padlock that holds the gate together, gets back in the truck, and drives through. When we reach a broad, empty clearing, he puts the truck in park and finally looks at me.

“Where are we?” I ask.

“My land.”

“Yours?”

“My grandpa was going to build a cabin here but then he got cancer. He left the land to me. It’s about eight acres. It’s where I’d come if I ever had to bury a dead body or something.”

I stare at him.

“So tell me,” he says.

I take a deep breath and try not to focus on his eyes staring me down. I want to tell him. I’ve always wanted to tell him. I just don’t exactly know how.

“I don’t even know where to start.”

“How about you start with the part about you being some kind of supernatural being made of light.”

My breath catches.

“You think I’m made of light?”

“That’s what I saw.” I can see the fear in him again, in the way he averts his eyes and shifts slightly to put more space between us.

“I don’t think I’m made of light. What you saw is called glory. It’s kind of hard to explain, but it’s this way of communicating, being connected to each other.”

“Communicating. You were trying to communicate with me?”

“Not intentionally,” I say, blushing. “I didn’t mean for it to happen. I’d never done it before, actually. Mom said that sometimes strong emotions can trigger it.” I’m babbling. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to freak you out. Glory tends to have that effect on humans.”

“And you’re not human,” he says flatly.