A Forever Christmas(48)
“Not really,” he told her. “Actually, it all seems very serious, at least to me.” Holding her to him, he gave in to the urge that he’d been wrestling with all the way home. He kissed her. Then, as he drew back his head again, he shook it, utterly mystified. “What the hell have you done to me, Angel?” Affection laced every word. “What kind of spells do they teach you to cast in your world?”
She was incredibly content. Too content. And that worried her. She was afraid that something would happen to steal all of this away from her.
But for tonight, she’d pretend that this would go on forever and that this was paradise.
Because it was.
She threaded her arms around his neck, savoring the moment. Savoring him.
“The same kind they teach to cast in your world,” she answered quietly just before she pressed her lips against his.
They got around to putting up the tree and decorating it a great deal later than Angel had initially anticipated.
The delay was well worth it.
* * *
DESPITE THE FACT that only small bits and pieces of her previous life started to fall into place—she had a preference for Mexican food and was able to create minor miracles in the kitchen—Angel found that she was less and less focused on trying to remember the life she’d had before coming to Forever.
That was largely because she was happy here, happy in a town that had accepted her so readily. And far more than just “happy” with the man who had come into her life, a man who continually placed her wants and needs above his own each and every time.
For all intents and purposes, she’d been a clean slate when Gabe had rescued her. As the days slipped into one another, she felt the desire to find her past lessened bit by bit. If she never found out who she was or why she’d wound up here, well, that was all right, too. As long as she was allowed to remain here, with Gabe, for the rest of her life.
She had an underlying fear of what any sort of “discovery” about her previous life would yield. Although she was inexplicably certain that she didn’t have a husband waiting for her somewhere, Angel began to suspect that if she did remember all those pertinent pieces of information about herself and her world, she wouldn’t be too happy with what that discovery would yield.
So, banking down what she assumed was a natural strain of curiosity, Angel stopped asking Gabe if he’d found out anything when she saw him at the end of each day.
Instead, she focused on the evening ahead, whether that involved just the two of them in his house, or visiting with his family, or just staying at Miss Joan’s diner after her shift was over, enjoying the company of the people she’d come to think of as her friends.
* * *
“HARD TO IMAGINE what it was like without her around, isn’t it?” Miss Joan commented to Gabe as Angel disappeared into the kitchen after volunteering to prepare dinner for one of her regular customers. The man had been unavoidably detained and looked genuinely disappointed when he realized he’d arrived too late for her to make his dinner. Taking off her jacket, Angel was quick to set his mind at rest as she headed back into the kitchen.
She’d been touched by the man’s apparent disappointment so she’d told him to hang on and away she went to prepare his dinner, tossing a “you don’t mind, do you, Gabe?” over her shoulder.
“No, I don’t mind,” he’d called after her, but he doubted if she’d heard.
How could he stop her? Her selflessness was one of the things that made Angel Angel. And it was one of the reasons why he’d fallen in love with her.
“Yeah,” Gabe heard himself admit, answering Miss Joan’s question.
And it was true. He’d gone from zealously guarding his feelings to allowing others to see just how caught up he was in this woman.
Damn, he’d sure come a long way from that man Erica had trampled. That man who, right after that, had sworn off any and all relationships for the next decade—if not longer.
“Making any headway finding out her real name?” Miss Joan asked. Her voice had a mildly disinterested ring to it, but she wasn’t fooling him. The woman had ears like a bat and could listen to three different conversations at once. “The IT guy from County said he finally got rid of that virus that took all your systems down.”
Gabe eyed the older woman. Everyone who lived in or passed through Forever wound up eating at the diner, and somewhere along the line they’d find themselves, quite unintentionally, baring their souls to Miss Joan. Gabe wasn’t too surprised that the woman knew something that only he and the other deputies in the sheriff’s office knew.