A Forever Christmas(41)

“Thank you. I really don’t know how I’m going to be able to pay you back for all this—for the jacket, the food, taking me in,” she elaborated. “But I am going to do my damnedest to try,” she promised.

Moved by gratitude—just as she had been the first time—Angel kissed him. But the first time had been partially an accident. This time, she brushed her lips against his deliberately. And lightly. Anything else might have raised problems of varying degrees.

So this time, she was the one who drew back first. “We’d better go,” she told him softly. “Before we’re late,” she added.

Damn it, he had to stop staring at her mouth like that when she talked, Gabe admonished himself. It was as if he was deliberately trying to sabotage his efforts to keep her at arm’s length.

She was just here until someone recognized her or her memory came back. In either case, he had to remember that she was only passing through his life. A man couldn’t let himself fall in love with someone who was just passing through. That would definitely be asking for trouble, not to mention heartache the magnitude that defied measurement, even on a Richter scale.

Still, a hundred times a day—not just today—he felt like giving in. Felt like giving himself permission to kiss her just one more time.

But he knew there was no “just” about it. If he relaxed his guard instead of maintaining it as vigilantly as he had been, there was no telling what would happen.

Or maybe there was, he amended, slanting a quick, stolen glance at Angel.

With quick, deliberate steps, he hustled out of the house ahead of Angel, then waited for her to follow so that he could lock the door.

Not that he had anything of importance to protect even if someone did invade his house. No, the thing in his house that needed protecting was walking ahead of him to his truck.

* * *

“THE MORE HANDS the better,” Miss Joan declared later that day. It was two o’clock and, right on the dot, Miss Joan and the “Christmas tree hunting party” had returned with their prize.

Her words were addressed to Angel when the latter told her that she wanted to help with decorating the town’s tree.

“You’re going to be helping out, too, right?” Miss Joan asked, pinning Gabe with a look.

The question was a mere formality, since Miss Joan expected everyone to join in, especially if she actually asked them to.

Gabe had briefly entertained the idea of begging off this one time. Doing so would give Angel some space and himself some breathing room. But he did enjoy this tradition, and even if he didn’t, there was no arguing with the look on Miss Joan’s face. What Miss Joan wanted, she got. Almost anyone in town could tell him that—if he hadn’t known that for himself.

She’d never bothered asking him before, just assumed that he—like everyone else—would be there. That she actually had asked him made him think that either he was allowing his feelings for Angel to show, or Miss Joan was reading his mind.

Being that this was Miss Joan, it was most likely the latter, he decided.

In either case, he had to admit to himself that he was relieved that the decision was no longer his to make. To turn Miss Joan down was plain asking for trouble and he already had more trouble than he needed.

“Right,” he replied, flashing a grin at the owner of the diner. “Wouldn’t miss it for the world,” he added for good measure.

“Good to hear,” Miss Joan said with a nod.

Then, as her husband came to join her, the woman stepped back. With her fingers laced through his, she watched in rapt attention as the men she had accompanied on the “tree hunt” slowly righted Forever’s latest Christmas tree.

She cheered and applauded as enthusiastically as everyone else once the tree was up and secured into place. “Never get tired of seeing that,” she confided. When she saw Harry looking at her, grinning, she cried, “What?”

“Like seeing you all caught up in this,” he told her. “Makes me think of what you had to have been like, as a young girl.”

“I was skinnier,” she retorted dismissively. “C’mon, c’mon, grab some decorations,” she urged her husband as well as Angel and Gabe. “We’ve got a lot of work cut out for us and the sun’s not going to hang around, waiting for us to get done. Time’s a-wasting,” she declared, clapping her hands together, as if that would get everyone working faster.

Because it was Miss Joan doing the clapping, it did.