A Forever Christmas(21)

“Why don’t you try again later?” he advised. “A lot of times people remember things when they stop trying so hard to remember them. It’ll come to you, probably in the middle of the night, or something equally as inconvenient.”

Angel doubted that she was ever going to remember anything. It caused her to shrug helplessly in response to his advice.

“I guess I don’t have a choice,” she told him, resigning herself to this life in limbo that was staring her in the face.

“You always have a choice,” Gabe contradicted. “Just sometimes it doesn’t jump up, waving flags and grabbing your attention, that’s all.”

She settled back in her seat. Dusk was beginning to creep up, coloring the scenery in darkening hues. “So it’s back to…Forever?” she asked, remembering what he’d just said in response to her question about their next step.

“Unless you have another suggestion,” he told her, letting her know that he was perfectly open to anything she might have in mind.

Angel shook her head in response. That was the problem. Try as she might, no other destination came to her. No town, no shop, no person. It was as if her mind had been sent into solitary confinement.

And her fate was entirely in this man’s hands. A man she hadn’t even known early this morning.

“And what happens when I get to Forever?” she asked him.

He pretended to think it over before saying in a perfectly serious voice, “Well, we sell you into bondage and you have to work for Mick for the rest of your life.” That was as long as he could maintain a straight face. Then he asked her, “What do you mean, what happens when you reach Forever?”

“I mean, well, where am I going to stay?’ she asked, tripping over her own tongue. “I don’t have any money to pay for the motel room.”

She didn’t understand why he laughed at that until he told her, “That’s not exactly a problem since we don’t have a motel in Forever.”

Every place had motels—didn’t they? Just where was she and why had she come here? It didn’t seem like a place she’d choose.

Oh, right, she mocked herself. And your tastes run to what? Palaces?

“What do you have?” she asked gamely.

“Tourists who pass through on their way to somewhere else.” Which was true. Outside of Miss Joan’s cooking, the town boasted of nothing special.

So, they did have people passing through the town. “Where do visitors stay?” she asked gamely.

“Usually with whoever they’re visiting,” Gabe told her.

She looked at him sharply, but he wasn’t saying that to tease her. “You’re kidding.”

“On occasion,” he allowed, then qualified, “but not this time. Why?”

Didn’t he see the problem? “Well, where am I going to stay?”

“I’ve got a pup tent we can set up in the backyard,” he quipped. And then he smiled at her. “Don’t worry, we’ll work something out.”

Suspicion rose in her eyes before she was even aware of it forming. “And by ‘we’ you mean…?” She left the end of the sentence open for him to fill in.

“You, the sheriff, my sister. Maybe Miss Joan.” Although since the woman had gotten married, she wasn’t nearly as available to put people up the way she had previously been. The doctor’s wife, Tina, had stayed with Miss Joan for quite a while before Dan had come into town and promptly fallen for her. “Me,” he added in case she thought he was distancing himself from her.

Her eyes darted toward him. “Oh,” Angel murmured.

He didn’t know if the information comforted her or agitated her. He couldn’t tell by the single-word response. For now, though, maybe it was for the best to leave the matter alone. Angel had enough to deal with without his quizzing her.

Turning on the radio to combat the silence before it became overpowering, Gabe kept on driving.





Chapter Six



Angel was positive that she was far too wired to fall asleep tonight—possibly ever. Wound up as tightly as a coil in an old-fashioned box spring mattress, if anyone had asked her, Angel would have sworn that sleep would elude her for a good long while to come.

This despite the fact that, along with being wired, she felt incredibly drained.

She had initially closed her eyes to rest them because it felt as if they were wearing themselves out, staring at a world and at people that were equally unfamiliar to her. Toward the end, her lids actually felt as if they were burning.