A Forever Christmas(64)

Everything seemed surreal.

Her legs felt like rubber as Angel pushed herself to run the short distance to where Gabe was lying on the floor. Shaking badly, she grabbed one of Wynters’s arms and dragged his literally dead weight off Gabe. Once she’d separated the two, she dropped to her knees and anxiously scanned Gabe’s body to see if he had any other wounds on him.

Why wasn’t he opening his eyes? Her panic mounted. “Gabe, are you all right? Can you hear me?” She was sobbing now, afraid she’d been too late.

Behind her there was all sorts of commotion, but she could only focus on Gabe.

“Gabe, please. Answer me,” she pleaded.

He opened his eyes then, just the barest hint of a smile feathering along his lips. “I was right. You really are something else,” he told her weakly.

She let out a ragged sigh, sinking back on her heels. Tears fell freely. He was alive. Gabe was alive. She could handle anything else that came her way as long as Gabe was alive.

Only then did she realize people were talking to her, asking questions. It took her a few moments to orient herself and focus on what they were saying. And then she saw Rick. Angel could have cried with relief.

“Are you all right?” he asked her, taking her hands and helping her to her feet.

She slumped against him, completely spent. Only then did she answer his question. “Yes.”

With one arm around her, supporting the young woman, he looked around Gabe’s kitchen. A fight had obviously taken place before the gun was fired. Using a handkerchief, Alma was picking up the small handgun and depositing it into a self-sealing plastic bag.

“What the hell happened here?” he asked Angel.

But it was Joe who answered his question. “Looks like Angel shot an intruder.” The deputy squatted down beside the body and put his fingers against the side of Wynters’s neck.

She looked at the deputy, afraid to breathe. If Wynters was alive, he’d come after her. No matter how long it took, he’d find her.

“Is he—”

Thinking she was asking if the detective was alive, Joe slowly moved his head from side to side. “No, he’s dead.”

It was the tension and relief that brought on a fresh round of tears, not any sense of loss or grief. That had vanished a long time ago. Taking in a deep breath, she struggled to get hold of herself.

Beside her, Gabe had risen to his feet and now draped his arm across her shoulders, as much to comfort her as to help hold himself upright.

One look at her face and he knew. “You remember, don’t you?”

The nod was all but imperceptible. Everything had returned, not in bits and pieces, but almost in one blinding flash.

She recounted it very slowly, almost as if it had been a movie she’d been watching, starring someone else, not her.

“When I saw him choking you—when I thought he was going to kill you—it all came back, like it was there all along. Jake was a bully. He got off on terrorizing me. I knew he’d never let me go, that he would rather see me dead first. I knew I had to get away and I did. I got away clean. But then one day I accidentally found out that my mother had just died. She was the only family I had,” she told him as tears gathered in her eyes. “I wanted to say goodbye.

“I waited until everyone left after the reception and I slipped into her house to get her album of pictures and her locket. My late father had given it to her and she told me that someday it was going to be mine,” she explained.

“I was about to leave when I thought I heard a floorboard creak. I knew in my soul that it had to be Jake and I just took off without looking back.” She sighed. “I guess I was right. He was the one who must have partially cut my brake lines.” A look of disbelief washed over her face. “He’d told me more than once that if he couldn’t have me, he’d rather see me dead than with another man.”

She looked at Gabe, wanting him to know everything. “I never took his money. He lied about that. I wanted nothing to do with him. I just wanted to be free.”

Gabe knew she wasn’t the type to steal. “So your name really is Dorothy Mandra?” he asked. It was going to take time for him to get used to that, he thought.

She shook her head. “No.” That life was behind her and she wanted it to remain that way. “It’s Angel.” She looked up at Gabe, the man who had given her her name. The man who had given her her life. “My name is Angel,” she repeated again with feeling.