A Forever Christmas(65)
“We’re going to need a statement, Angel,” Rick told her, deliberately using the name she’d chosen to stay with. “We’ll take it the day after tomorrow,” he added. “Tonight’s Christmas Eve and tomorrow’s Christmas, this will keep until after that.”
But she shook her head. “No, I want to get this over with now, put it behind me once and for all.”
“Your call,” Rick told her obligingly. Turning toward one of the people who had been drawn by the sound of gunfire and had subsequently congregated around them, he said, “Get the doc out here.”
“Then he is still alive?” she asked in horror, staring at Wynters’s fallen body.
“No, he’s dead all right.” Rick’s voice softened just a touch. “I want you and my deputy here checked out. Wouldn’t want to risk losing either of you,” he said matter-of-factly.
Gabe offered no resistance, just asked for an indulgence. “Can I have a minute, Sheriff?”
“You can have ten,” Rick told him genially. “Just don’t go wandering off.”
“We’ll be just over there,” Gabe told him, pointing toward the pantry. Taking Angel by the hand, he went inside the pantry, switched on the overhead light and closed the door.
Most of the pantry shelves were empty. That still didn’t explain what they were doing there. “Gabe?” she asked uncertainly.
“I’ve got something to say before this night gets any weirder,” Gabe told her.
She braced herself, waiting to hear what she felt in her heart was going to be the beginning of the end. Their end. And why not? Taking up with her had almost cost Gabe his life. What man wanted a woman like that to keep hanging around?
“All right,” she whispered, an unbelievable sadness clutching her heart. “Go ahead.”
He reached into his pocket. Good, it was still there. He hadn’t lost it in the fight.
“All right,” he began, his mouth suddenly so dry it felt as if his tongue was going to stick to the roof of his mouth any second now, “before Doc starts poking and prodding me and Rick starts picking your brain apart for details about this horror show, I just wanted to ask you… I just wanted to ask you…”
This wasn’t going to come out right, he thought. His head was really hurting him and all the words he’d rehearsed so carefully had temporarily vanished from his brain.
“Oh, hell,” he muttered.
This was going to be worse than she thought. She could feel tears begin to sting her eyes. She decided to spare him the trouble. “That’s all right, you don’t have to say it,” she told him.
Puzzled, he looked down into her upturned face. “I don’t?”
“No.” She pressed her lips together, afraid she was going to start sobbing. “I’ll leave as soon as I give Rick my statement.”
“Leave?” Gabe echoed. The pain he still felt around his neck was nothing in comparison to what his heart was suddenly going through. “Why would you leave?”
How could he ask her that? Was he playing some sort of a game?
Or was he?
“Because you want me to,” Angel answered. “Don’t you?”
“No, I don’t,” he cried with feeling. “What I want is to give you this,” he said in an eruption of frustration, pulling out his hand and opening it to reveal an engagement ring lying in his palm. “I had a whole speech worked out, but now I can’t seem to rem—”
Snatching the ring from him, Angle quickly slipped it on the proper finger on her left hand.
She didn’t want a fancy proposal. All she wanted was him—for the rest of her life.
But first, she suddenly remembered her own news. “I have something I have to tell you first,” she said, “before I give you my answer.”
“What?” he asked uneasily.
She’d wanted to pick her time, but after what just happened, he needed to know—and the sooner, the better. “You’re going to be a father.”
He looked at her, stunned beyond words. “Are you saying—”
“I’m pregnant.” And then she took a breath, knowing this could change everything. “So if you want to take your ring back—”
He didn’t even hear her. His mind was stuck in first gear. “You’re sure? You’re sure you’re pregnant?” he asked.