A Forever Christmas(42)

Chapter Eleven



For a moment, when he pulled up to his house, Gabe experienced a feeling of déjà vu.

He thought that he was going to have to carry Angel into his house the way he had that first evening he’d brought her home.

His mouth curved as he vividly recalled that evening. At the time, it had seemed the simplest thing to do: bring the beautiful amnesia victim into his house just for the night and decide what to do about the situation in the morning.

Except somehow, that decision was reached.

Never explored.

Somehow or other, as one day fed into another, there were so many other things to deal with that finding another place for Angel didn’t come up.

Seeing her like this now, sitting in the passenger seat, her head against the headrest, her eyes closed, stirred up all sorts of things within him: nostalgia, desire and a host of other feelings he knew he wasn’t free to act upon.

Automatically slipping his key into his pocket the moment he turned off the engine, Gabe was about to get out of the truck and come around to her side when he heard her ask, “When are you getting your tree?”

With a self-deprecating laugh, Gabe settled back in his seat for a second and looked at her. Her eyes were open, which meant she wasn’t talking in her sleep. “I thought you were asleep.”

“Just resting my eyes,” she told him.

That wasn’t exactly the whole truth. She’d fallen asleep for a minute or two, lulled by the sway of the vehicle and the long day she’d just put in. But she’d woken up the second he’d brought his truck to a stop before his house.

“You didn’t answer my question,” she pointed out. “When are you getting your tree?”

“I wasn’t really planning on it,” he confessed. “My dad always has a really tall tree in his living room that we all help decorate, and, knowing Alma, she’ll have one at her place, too. I didn’t see the need to get a tree for my house, especially since it was just going to be me. All that work for just one person seemed like a waste to me.”

“Not that I agree with you, but even so, it’s not just you anymore,” she reminded him, her eyes holding his prisoner. “Unless you want me to leave.”

“No!” he cried, uttering the single word with a great deal more feeling than he’d intended. “No,” he repeated, clearing his throat and sounding a lot more subdued this time around.

He didn’t want her to think he’d prevent her from leaving—if that was what she wanted. But neither did he want her to think he was holding his breath, just waiting for her to leave.

“Of course I don’t want you to leave. I guess that with everything that’s been going on—trying to find out who you are, looking for a missing-persons file on you—I haven’t been thinking beyond the moment.” He shrugged now, trying to seem open to either decision. “Sure, we can get a tree if you’d like.”

“When?” she asked with far more eager enthusiasm than he’d thought she was capable of right now, given that she’d done a great deal of climbing up and down the ladder, hanging decorations while balancing herself at precarious angles.

Well, it was much too late to go cut one down now, he thought.

“Tomorrow, I guess. Why? You didn’t get enough of decorating today?” he teased. Her eyes, he noticed, were sparkling like a child’s anticipating a meeting with Santa Claus himself.

“Never enough,” she enthused. “I was kind of sorry when Miss Joan declared the tree done,” she confided. “We could have at least put more tinsel on it.”

Gabe laughed and shook his head as he got out of the truck, walked to her side and held the door open. “Any more tinsel and that tree was liable to fall over.”

Without thinking, he slipped his arm around her shoulders, momentarily indulging in a one-arm hug as they walked up to his door. “You’re really one of a kind, Angel,” he marveled. And then he paused just before opening the front door as a thought struck him. “Did decorating the tree remind you of anything?”

“You mean did it make me remember?” He nodded, watching her expression, searching for a glimmer that hinted she was trying to pin down even a fragment of a memory. He saw nothing. “Almost,” she admitted. “But every time I tried to reach for it, for any of the half shadows that slip in and out of my head so fast, they’re gone before I even realize they’d been there. I wind up with nothing,” she told him, a deep sigh accompanying her words.