A Season of Angels (Angels Everywhere #1)(91)

“Why?” Leah wanted to know. The letter had been written years earlier, and she couldn’t remember any of what she’d said.

“You wrote about being a delivery-room nurse and how you felt about helping young women through labor and birth. It seemed to me you must be someone very special. Then by some kind of fluke the birthing class I was attending toured Providence Hospital and we met you. Naturally I didn’t know your last name, but I remembered what you’d written. When I asked Jo Ann about you she told me you didn’t have any children yourself, I figured you must be the Leah whose letter I’d read.”

“That was why you chose to have your baby here at Providence Hospital?” Leah asked.

Michelle nodded. “It was pure chance that you could be with me. I still hadn’t decided if I could give my baby up for adoption. Then yesterday after she was born, you said something that helped me make up my mind.”

“I said something to help you decide?” Leah was incredulous.

Michelle nodded. “You told me I would be a good mother to my baby. I’m not giving her up because I don’t love her. It’s because I love her so very much that I can.

“Mrs. Burchell explained that you’d had one birth mother change her mind at the last minute. You needn’t worry, that won’t happen this time. I feel very strongly that God led me to you and your husband and you’re exactly the right couple for my baby.”

“How can I thank you?” Leah whispered through her tears.

“By loving her, guiding her through the years for me. When she’s older and has questions about me, tell her how God brought the two of us together, tell her that He handpicked her family for me.”

“I will,” Leah promised, rubbing the moisture from her cheek.

The two women hugged and after she’d dried her eyes Leah returned to the nursery. Andrew was gently rocking back and forth staring down at the face of his newborn daughter. One tiny fist was clenched around his index finger. The newborn was holding onto her daddy’s hand.

“It looks like the two of you are getting along nicely,” Leah commented.

“I still can’t believe she’s really our daughter,” Andrew said.

“I don’t have a single doubt she belongs to us,” Leah assured him.

“Have you decided on a name?”

“Yes,” Leah said, her response automatic. “Angel.” Some day she’d tell her husband and her daughter about seeing the special Christmas angel, but not now. The angel had been His sign to her, His confirmation. She would carry that very special gift with her through the years.

“Angel?” Andrew repeated slowly, glancing up. “But I thought you had three names already chosen and I don’t recall any of them being Angel.”

“It seems fitting to me. Do you object?”

“Angel Lundberg,” he said again as if testing it on his tongue. “It feels right. Angel Hannah Lundberg.”

“My turn to hold her,” Leah said.

Andrew stood and gently placed the sleeping baby in Leah’s arms. Angel arched her back and stretched, yawning before she nestled comfortably in Leah’s arms as if this were exactly where she was supposed to be. With that Angel Lundberg immediately returned to sleep.

“You’re willing to marry me?” Monica asked, unsure if she should trust what Chet was saying. “But why now?”

“Because I know you’re right. I’ll regret letting you go the rest of my life. I love you, Monica. I heard a voice telling me what a fool I was and if it wasn’t the booze speaking, then . . . hell, I didn’t think anyone up there cared about me.”

“I love you, Chet Costello. I can’t explain that voice, but whoever or whatever it was, I’m thanking God.”

He smiled and gently kissed her. “Next thing I know we’ll have a couple of kids and I’ll be a regular churchgoer.”

That sounded like heaven to Monica. “Would you kindly shut up and kiss me again?”

He pulled her to him as if she were the most precious thing he would ever touch, as if he cherished every moment spent with her.

Monica inched her mouth from his and stared up into his face. His eyes met hers and it seemed they were filled with a thousand regrets.

“I love you so much,” she whispered.

“You must.”

“Stop.” She pressed her finger over his lips. “I don’t pretend to know everything there is about the Bible and God, but I do know that He said He would forgive us when we ask. If it’s peace of mind you’re seeking, it’s available.”

“In church.”

“No.” She pressed her hand over his heart. “You won’t find what you’re seeking in any building.”

“I killed a man,” Chet reminded her. “He murdered my partner and attempted to kill me. That’s a little more serious than jaywalking.”

“Do you think you’re the only one who’s ever done something he wishes he hadn’t? You say this man you murdered attempted to kill you first. What you don’t seem to realize is that in some ways he succeeded. He’s reached out from the grave and gotten a stranglehold on your heart and your life.” Monica saw Chet as a man whose life had been shredded to ribbons with the ax of revenge and regret. “Your time of hate is over. You can stop punishing yourself now.”