A Forever Christmas(17)

Warmth and the scent of—

Fried chicken?

Angel stopped moving toward the counter for a moment, stunned by what was, she realized, her first fragment of a memory.

Gabe was immediately at her side, looking to see what had caught her attention. Nothing out of the ordinary popped up. But, he realized, that was his ordinary. It might not be hers.

“What’s wrong?” Gabe asked. The expression on her face was difficult to place.

Angel turned toward him and said, “Fried chicken. I smell fried chicken.”

There was mounting excitement in her voice, the way there might have been in the voice of the fifteenth century Spanish explorer Ponce de Leon the moment he realized that he’d stumbled across the long-missing Fountain of Youth in Florida.

“That’s because that’s the special of the day,” Miss Joan informed her, calling out the information from her place behind the counter.

In the past few months, Miss Joan had finally broken down and married the man who’d been courting her for longer than anyone could remember. But, wedding or no wedding, everyone still called her Miss Joan. And Joan Randall Monroe definitely would not have had it any other way.

“C’mon over here, darlin’,” she called, beckoning Angel over to her. “Pull up a stool and rest yourself. I’ll bring you a plate of chicken that’ll make you swear you’ve died and gone to heaven.” She paused a second before heading to the kitchen. “White or dark?” Miss Joan asked.

Angel looked at the still-attractive strawberry blonde blankly. “Excuse me?”

“What’s your preference, darlin’?” Miss Joan rephrased her question. “Do you like white meat or dark meat better?”

Angel blew out an edgy breath. Even that was a mystery to her. What kind of a woman didn’t know if she liked white meat or dark meat?

“I don’t know,” she answered unhappily.

As if not knowing was perfectly plausible, Miss Joan never missed a beat. “Then I’ll bring you both.” But before leaving, her almost-violet eyes shifted toward Gabe. “And you, handsome? What’ll you have?”

“Dark,” he said with finality. “And if you don’t mind, make both to go.”

Miss Joan looked from Gabe to the young woman beside him and then shook her head, as if mystified at the way any mind under fifty worked. “A little cold to be having a picnic, isn’t it?”

“No, no picnic,” he told her. “We’re on our way to Pine Ridge.”

Gabe thought nothing of sharing that sort of information with Miss Joan. Everyone did. Besides, the woman had a way of finding things out whether or not she was directly told. This just wound up saving time for both of them.

“Nothing wrong, I hope,” Miss Joan said sympathetically. No one went to Pine Ridge unless it was to utilize the services of the hospital located in that town.

This time Gabe decided to just leave a vague response to her query but it was Angel who spoke up. “I don’t know who I am.”

To their surprise, Miss Joan took the response in stride. She merely nodded and chuckled. “A lot of that going around, darlin’,” she assured Angel. “Don’t let it worry you.”

The woman probably meant something of the ordinary variety, Angel thought, like a person trying to “find” themselves. She wished that was her problem instead of the one she faced.

“No, I don’t remember anything.”

Miss Joan thought of the memories that crowded her brain, as well as a couple in particular that had, until her recent marriage, haunted her nights.

An enigmatic smile played on her thin lips. “Sometimes, honey, it’s better that way.”

That same strange chill slid down Angel’s back, as if in response—and agreement—to what the outgoing woman had just said.

Now what did that mean? Angel couldn’t help wondering.





Chapter Five



“So, according to the CT scan, there’s no damage?” Gabe asked Dr. Thom Holliman, the tall, imposing radiologist.

He and Angel had been at Pine Ridge Memorial Hospital for the better part of the day, during which time she’d been seen by a neurologist and had undergone several tests, the last of which had been a head CT scan.

As a favor to Dan, who had gone to medical school with the radiologist, Dr. Holliman had put a rush on the CT scan and had then personally interpreted the findings—or as it turned out, lack thereof.