Touched by Angels (Angels Everywhere #3)(91)

“What did my father say to you?” she demanded. Her eyes were full of fire. “I don’t need your pity, Joshua Shadduck.”

“My pity?” This came at him out of the blue. “If anyone is asking questions, it should be me. The last thing I heard was your father inviting me to your wedding to another man.”

Hannah’s shoulders went stiff. “The last time I saw you, you were kissing another woman.”

He frowned. “Who?”

“How should I know?” she flared.

The door at the bottom of the stairs opened. “Upstairs, Hannah. The entire deli is listening in on your conversation.”

If ever Hannah needed an incentive, this appeared to be it. She raced up the remainder of the stairs.

Joshua was left with no choice but to follow her, which he did gladly. He found her standing in front of a window, looking out, her back to him, her arms folded around her middle.

“Her name’s Carol,” he said gently, wanting to clear the air as soon as he could so they could move on to the more important matters. “I’ve known her for a number of years.”

“You should marry her,” she suggested, turning to face him.

“I can’t. She’s a wonderful woman, but she isn’t you. You’re the one who owns my heart. You have from nearly the first moment we met. I had to let you go, Hannah, surely you understand that. My love was hurting you. The family pressures on you to marry Carl were overwhelming. Stepping aside was the only decent thing to do.”

“It didn’t take you long to recover, did it?”

She was jealous of Carol, and Joshua thrilled at the realization. “I see it’s done a bit of good for you to know how I’ve felt these last few weeks. It wasn’t easy on me when you were spending time with Carl. It was probably the most difficult thing I’ve ever done.”

“I always loved you, and you knew it. You never had a single reason to be jealous.”

Joshua longed to hold and kiss her too much to argue the point. “Are you going to marry me or not, Hannah Morganstern?”

Her eyes searched his as if she questioned the sincerity of his proposal.

“I love you,” he added tenderly, and held open his arms to her.

It didn’t take her long to find her way into his embrace. When she slipped her arms around his middle, Joshua sighed with a sense of peace, of homecoming. He’d been waiting all his life for this woman, and now that she was his, he didn’t intend to lose her.

Tunneling his fingers through her hair, Joshua positioned his mouth to kiss her.

“I’ve been so unhappy,” she admitted on the tail end of a soft moan.

“Me, too.” He kissed her again.

“But you weren’t lonely,” she accused. “I was miserable and lonely.”

“I love you, Hannah,” he said, laying his heart at her feet. “You’re going to marry me, aren’t you?”

“Oh yes.”

“Good.” He held her against him protectively. “It’s the oddest thing,” he mumbled, nuzzling his face close to hers.

“What is?” she said, thrilling him with small kisses along the underside of his jaw.

“Your father claims I gave him my business card. I never did. I haven’t a clue where he got it.”

“Me either,” Hannah said. “Does it matter?”

Joshua chuckled. “Not in the least.”

The last thing Brynn anticipated when she was ready to leave New York was car problems. Ever since Roberto had worked on her carburetor, her Escort had been running like a dream. Now, however, the engine wouldn’t so much as crank.

The first thing she did was contact her family and tell them. Her parents were concerned about her, and they weren’t happy to have her traveling home alone, but she couldn’t very well desert her vehicle.

Sitting inside her apartment, she thumbed through the telephone directory, looking for a garage listing, knowing full well her chances of finding someone willing to work on her car on Christmas Eve were damn near impossible.

Her doorbell chimed, and disheartened, Brynn slipped off the stool. When she checked her peephole the first person she saw was Emilio, but there were a number of others she recognized with him.

After flipping open the latch, she found herself facing a throng of her students and their parents.

“What’s going on here?” she asked. There must have been close to fifty people jam-packed into her hallway.

“We don’t want you to leave, Miss Cassidy,” Emilio said, serving as spokesperson for the group. “After Mike’s funeral a number of us went and talked to Mr. Whalen. We asked that the school refuse to accept your letter of resignation.”

“I don’t know how much we were able to influence him,” Yolanda said, laughing nervously. “I think our parents had a far greater impact.”

Suzie Chang’s delicate mother pressed forward and in halting English said, “You say it honor to have Suzie in class. We say it greater honor to have you for teacher.”

A cry of agreement followed the Chinese woman’s words.

“We love you, Miss Cassidy.”

Brynn couldn’t speak for the lump in her throat. Never in all her dreams had she expected anything like this.

“Mr. Whalen says you can have your job back, if you want it,” Denzil’s mother told her. “For the first time in his life, my son’s doing well in school. He’s talking about something other than video games.”