A Forever Christmas(29)

“Well?” she asked as the first forkful slid between his lips.

To his relief, it definitely did not taste like three-day-old shoe leather stuffed with rotting rattlesnakes. Instead, magnificent tastes exploded on his tongue, tantalizing him.

He nodded with feeling. “You’re definitely a professional.” Setting aside the coffee mug, he drew the plate closer and began to eat in earnest. “This is really great. You’ve got a gift,” he told her.

Angel hugged his words to her. They filled her insides like the first rays of sunshine rising after a long and dreary winter. Why hearing them from Gabe meant so much she wasn’t able to explain, but there was no denying the end result.

“You really think so?” she pressed, barely able to suppress her enthusiastic reaction.

Rather than answer verbally, Gabe just nodded. He was too busy polishing off the rest of the omelet. As he ate, an idea came to him. And in its wake, a sense of relief along with it.

“Now I know what to do with you while I’m at work,” he told her.

He’d been a bit concerned about that. Since he’d just begun to fill in for Larry, he couldn’t exactly take off to watch over Angel, and yet he didn’t feel that he should leave her by herself. She seemed a bit fragile to him and he was afraid that she might wind up losing the ground she’d gained so far.

Angel frowned slightly. She wasn’t quite following him. “You want me to cook for you?”

Gabe held up his hand to keep her from making any more guesses until he could tell her himself. He didn’t like to talk with his mouth full, but there was no way he was about to leave even so much as a single morsel on his plate.

“Not for me,” he corrected, even though he had to admit that he was strongly tempted to keep her and her culinary talents all to himself. He couldn’t remember when he’d eaten anything this good. “Miss Joan could use you in her kitchen. Eduardo, her short-order cook for what seems like the past century, told her he was retiring at the end of the month, which means that she has to find someone to take his place before then.” He grinned at her as he reached for the last of his coffee. “I think you’re about to solve her problem. It’ll only be temporary,” he added quickly, in case what he was saying made her feel hemmed in. “Just until you get your memory back and she finds someone. And who knows?” he posed. “Cooking for her might even help you get your memory back.”

She looked at him hopefully. “Do you really think so?”

“Why not?” he asked. “Things never go according to plan. Sometimes they go better, sometimes worse, but always, it seems, at their own pace, not ours.” Finished, he set down his mug, his eyes still on her. “How does that sound to you?”

Angel smiled warmly at him. “It sounds great,” she told him. “Really great.”

He found himself fascinated with the look that came into her eyes.





Chapter Eight



“So it’s all right with you?”

Gabe looked at Miss Joan closely as he asked the question an hour later.

He and Angel were in the diner, standing off to the side of the counter and trying to keep out of the way of a steady stream of breakfast “regulars.” The latter group were coming in to jump-start their day with Miss Joan’s famous coffee and one of Eduardo’s special breakfast platters.

“Yes.” Miss Joan gave him a look that said he should know better than to think that she wouldn’t agree to this. “Even if you weren’t my brand-new granddaughter’s brother,” she added with a smile.

Having married Harry Monroe, she now had the family she’d been denied for so long. And with Harry’s grandson marrying Alma, that made Alma’s five brothers part of her family, as well. It filled a need within her that had gone begging far too long.

Miss Joan glanced around Gabe’s shoulder at the young woman he’d first brought in with him yesterday. “With Eduardo running out on me, I’ve got to find someone to take his place.”

“I am not running out on you, old woman,” the cook spoke up from the kitchen where he was furiously working to keep up with the incoming flood of orders. “I am retiring,” he declared, stressing every single letter of the word. “Before I fall on the floor, dead, because you have worked me to that state. A man has a right to live and enjoy himself in his last few years.”

Speculation went that Eduardo was actually younger than Miss Joan, but no one really knew for sure and, in the interest of peace, no one was about to bring that matter up with Miss Joan.