A Forever Christmas

Chapter Ten

She could feel her heart hammering wildly in her chest. Angel was swept away by the sheer power of the emotion that had, without any warning, been unleashed full blown, within her.

All sorts of delicious sensations—new and yet not—raced through her, taking away her breath and making her pulse pound even more rapidly. She could feel her body reacting, could feel heat surging through her. Something vague, just out of reach, was trying—and failing—to break through.

It made her want.

It made her afraid.

Damn it, he had better control than this, a far-off voice in Gabe’s head upbraided him. It wasn’t as if Angel actually knew what was going on, or was making a conscious choice between refraining and giving in to a sudden impulse.

Hell, she might not even know what this impulse was at this point. Who could actually say—including her—what Angel knew and didn’t know? Which meant that what he was doing right now was tantamount to plain taking advantage of her.

He should just pull back.

He should just stop…

But, oh, God, she was doing such things to his insides, reminding him what it felt like to be alive.

After Erica had ripped him to shreds, running over his soul with the equivalent of emotional cleats, Gabe had been fairly certain that he wasn’t capable of reacting to another woman to any satisfactory degree. Not anymore. He’d even begun to make his peace with that. The way he saw it, he needed time to heal.

And if he didn’t completely heal, if he remained on emotional lockdown, well, that was all right, too. The pain he’d gone through after the breakup was too huge to risk feeling again, anyway.

Which made what he was experiencing right now come as one hell of a shock to his system.

If they had been anywhere but in the front seat of his truck, front and center right before Miss Joan’s diner…

But luckily for Angel—and maybe for him, too—they were front and center right before Miss Joan’s diner, where any second someone could walk by, coming or going, and see them. He was not about to compromise Angel because his hormones had come back online or, for that matter, do anything that might reflect badly on the office of the county sheriff.

So, with a great deal of reluctance, Gabe took hold of Angel’s shoulders and as gently as possible pushed her back, severing their almost-perfect physical connection.

Her breathing still a bit ragged, Angel looked up at him. The outline of her lips were blurred from the impact of his, and there was utter confusion in her blue eyes.

“Did I do something wrong?” she asked in a barely audible whisper.

“No. Oh, God, no,” he added with emphasis, his voice growing in strength and feeling with each word. “I don’t think I’ve ever felt anything quite so right in my whole life.”

That brief, sizzling connection had sent everything soaring to record heights within him. It would be a while before it all settled down back into place. He tried to resist pulling her into his arms again.

Now she really didn’t understand. “Then why did you stop?”

How did he begin to explain this? How did he tell her why he was obligated to stop something that his entire body was begging him to continue?

He took the easy way out. “We’re in a very public place,” he said.

As if to underscore his point, several people came out of the diner, passing his truck and absently looking in. They nodded as they made eye contact with Gabe.

“And you’re ashamed to be seen with me?” Angel guessed. Otherwise, why had he all but pushed her away like that?

“No! Why would you even think that?” he asked, stunned she would suggest something like that. “I just don’t want to compromise you.”

How was making her feel warm and wanted possibly be compromising her? “I don’t understand,” she told him honestly.

Gabe started up the truck, still waiting for his own breathing to level off. He took his time answering her, hoping the words would fall into place. As he spoke, he deliberately avoided looking at her.

“You’re vulnerable right now and vulnerable people do things that they wind up regretting later on.” It sounded so stilted to his ears, but Gabe doubted he could explain it to her any better than that. Wanting her was interfering with his thought process.

She took a stab at making sense out of what Gabe was telling her. “You think I was kissing you for the wrong reasons.”

It wasn’t her kissing him that had him worried. It was where his kissing her was going to lead. But he wasn’t really all that comfortable explaining the finer points of sexual attraction to her at this point.

So, for now, he took the way out she’d unknowingly offered. “Something like that.”

“I wasn’t,” she insisted quietly. She wanted him to be clear on this. “I was kissing you for all the right ones. Because I’m grateful to you and because you make all these colors explode in my head.” A soft smile on her lips, Angel looked at him, curiosity negating any residue embarrassment that she assumed she was supposed to be feeling—but wasn’t. “Is this the way people feel when they’re…attracted to someone?” she finally concluded.

She’d wanted to say “falling in love with someone” but she had a feeling saying that would make Gabe really back away from her. She didn’t want that to happen, at least not before she had a chance to explore this delicious sensation that was all but taking root within her.

“That’s part of it,” Gabe allowed. Slanting a glance in her direction, he lowered his guard. As he did so, Gabe could feel himself beginning to smile. “Colors exploding, huh?”

“A whole rainbow’s worth,” she told him. “How about you?” she asked, her eyes on his face. “Seeing any colors?”

“No, no colors,” he answered.

“Oh.”

The lone word sounded incredibly sad as well as very isolated, he thought. For a second, he was tempted to come clean and tell her exactly what he really was feeling, but then decided against it. It would be better for her all around if she didn’t know just how much she was affecting him.

He deliberately changed the subject. “So tell me about your day,” he coaxed.

It took a beat, but then he saw Angel’s face light up as she started to fill him in on how she’d fared in Miss Joan’s kitchen with Eduardo.

When she finished, he was impressed and completely convinced that in all likelihood Angel could probably get along with the devil himself if need be. And if her narrative was any example, she would probably be able to find some kind of redeeming qualities about the fallen angel and list them in glowing terms.

She was, at this point, truly one of a kind. He wondered if that would change once her memory returned. He almost didn’t want to find out.

* * *

“CHRISTMAS?” ANGEL repeated.

It was a little more than a week later—a week filled with a measure of self-restraint Gabe never thought he was capable of displaying—and he set the groundwork to tell her about the town’s biggest holiday tradition.

“Christmas,” he acknowledged, then suddenly paused as a thought hit him. Though he was beginning to piece a few things together, he still wasn’t clear on the extent of what she knew and didn’t know. “You do know what that is, right?”

She smiled tolerantly at him. “Yes, I know what Christmas is. My brain is missing some very crucial information, but it wasn’t completely sucked dry or flattened to a pancake by the accident. I do remember some things.”

Just not who I am. Although there had been dreams, dreams that vanished when she opened her eyes, but that brought with them a vague feeling of familiarity while they lasted.

“Just checking,” he told her with a grin. “Anyway, everyone is getting together in the town square this afternoon to watch the annual Christmas tree being put up. It’s being brought in sometime this morning—”

“From where?” she wanted to know.

“There’s this forest north of here. We’ve been getting the town’s tree from there for as long as I can remember. Anyway—”

She wasn’t finished asking questions. “Who gets to pick the tree?”

Another question that had never occurred to him to ask. He’d just took what he’d observed as a given. “Miss Joan usually goes along with whoever winds up bringing the tree back, so I guess, knowing Miss Joan, she does.”

She nodded, accepting his explanation. “Could we go along, too?” She asked the question with all the eagerness of a child.

That would have been a case of too many cooks spoiling whatever it was that cooks conferred over, he thought, unable to remember the last of the old saying.

“We have work to do,” he reminded her gently. It struck him how very domestic that line sounded to his ear. Like what a husband—or wife—might say to their spouse.

The thought did not spook him the way it might have once. As a matter of fact, this past week with Angel had played like a scene right out of that same fantasy, he couldn’t help thinking. They went off to work together in the morning and he dropped her off at Miss Joan’s diner, then stopped by there for lunch. And after his shift was over, he picked her up and they’d go home together.

To his house, not their house, Gabe emphasized pointedly. He had to remember to keep that in perspective. Once her memory returned—and more and more of him was beginning to really hope that either it wouldn’t, or that that day was really far in the future—she, whoever she was, would leave and go back to her life.

And he would go back to the emptiness of his.

Empty in comparison to the way it was now, he deliberately specified for himself. Because right now, his life was filled with her chatter, her spontaneous laughter and her incredible cooking. Not to mention her warmth.

And because of that, Gabe was finding it harder and harder to restrain himself. Restraining himself when what he desperately wanted to do was sweep her into his arms and revisit the pulse-accelerating experience of kissing her.

Being alone with her—as pleasurable as it was—only seemed to insure that someday very soon he would find himself stepping over the line…hell, racing over the line, and making love with her.

To avoid that, he forced himself to have as little time alone with her as possible. And, with Christmas approaching, he’d come up with the perfect, albeit temporary way to be with Angel, but not alone with Angel.

“Because the tree is usually anywhere between eighteen and twenty feet tall, almost everyone in town turns out to help with the decorating,” he explained, doing his best not to get lost in those upturned, wide blue eyes of hers. “I thought, while you were still here, you might want to join in.”

There wasn’t as much as a fraction of a second’s hesitation. A wide smile curved Angel’s mouth, spreading out, up to her eyes.

“I’d love to!” she declared enthusiastically. Swept up in the moment, she threw her arms around his neck, kissing Gabe.

Angel loved connecting with these people who had taken her in and offered her their friendship. Loved the idea of taking part in what the townspeople regarded as their tradition. Just as she loved working in the diner and listening to snippets of conversations around her.

Angel had taken it upon herself to learn as many of the customers’ names as possible. She’d already learned the names of everyone who worked at Miss Joan’s. Doing so gave her a warm sense of belonging. Something she sensed—without being able to offer herself any real proof—she hadn’t really felt before.

Whether that meant that her “previous” personality was such that she had shied away from people, or that she had lived in isolating circumstances, she didn’t know. All Angel knew—or rather sensed—was that this was different from the life she’d had before.

Different and preferable.

For just a split second, he almost gave in. Almost kissed her the way he so desperately wanted to kiss her. But he knew where that would lead and they both had places to be. And people who would ask questions if they didn’t turn up.

So, digging deep for what might have been just the last of his resolve, he disengaged himself from her arms, gently placing them at her sides.

“All right, then,” Gabe said as cheerfully as he could manage with his heart beating triple-time in his throat. “I’ll stop by the diner around two and we’ll go to the town square together.”

She would have gone anywhere with him, including to the edge of the earth and beyond. But she had a sense of responsibility, especially to the woman who had given her a chance to explore this side of her that had flowered unexpectedly. “But I can’t. I’ll be at the diner, working, at two.”

He shook his head. “Trust me. Nobody will be working at two today—at least, not at their regular jobs.” He paused for a minute to take something out of the hall closet. “Practically everyone will be out in the town square, offering advice and encouragement, while a few poor souls struggle with widgets and a crane, trying to get the tree upright.”

“Great. I’m game,” she told him.

He caught her arm as she started heading for the front door. “Wait.”

“Okay.” A shiver of anticipation danced through her as she turned around. But before she could ask him what she was supposed to be waiting for, he thrust the shopping bag at her.

“I thought you might need this,” he mumbled.

“‘This’?” she repeated uncertainly. Looking into the bag, she was surprised to see what appeared to be a suede sleeve. The sleeve was attached to a jacket. A tan suede jacket with fringes that ran along the length of each sleeve and were also along the bottom of the jacket. She held it up against her. “Gabe?” she questioned uncertainly.

“Temperature’s dropping,” he told her. “Don’t want you turning into an icicle.” Although he couldn’t help thinking there were other ways to keep her warm. Not exactly practical ways, but ways all the same.

“It’s beautiful,” she cried, quickly opening up the buttons.

Angel slipped the jacket on over the sweater she’d been wearing. That, too, had been a gift, but from his sister, Alma. Up to this point, all her clothes had been gifts. Alma and she had turned out to be the same size and on the second day she was here, Alma had come over to Gabe’s house with a large box of clothing she’d told her were just “lying around, gathering dust.” The jeans, pullovers, everything that Alma had given her comprised her entire wardrobe.

Right now, Angel was torn between feeling like an ongoing charity case and very, very blessed. Knowing the spirit that this was intended, she focused only on the latter.

“Thank you. I really don’t know how I’m going to be able to pay you back for all this—for the jacket, the food, taking me in,” she elaborated. “But I am going to do my damnedest to try,” she promised.

Moved by gratitude—just as she had been the first time—Angel kissed him. But the first time had been partially an accident. This time, she brushed her lips against his deliberately. And lightly. Anything else might have raised problems of varying degrees.

So this time, she was the one who drew back first. “We’d better go,” she told him softly. “Before we’re late,” she added.

Damn it, he had to stop staring at her mouth like that when she talked, Gabe admonished himself. It was as if he was deliberately trying to sabotage his efforts to keep her at arm’s length.

She was just here until someone recognized her or her memory came back. In either case, he had to remember that she was only passing through his life. A man couldn’t let himself fall in love with someone who was just passing through. That would definitely be asking for trouble, not to mention heartache the magnitude that defied measurement, even on a Richter scale.

Still, a hundred times a day—not just today—he felt like giving in. Felt like giving himself permission to kiss her just one more time.

But he knew there was no “just” about it. If he relaxed his guard instead of maintaining it as vigilantly as he had been, there was no telling what would happen.

Or maybe there was, he amended, slanting a quick, stolen glance at Angel.

With quick, deliberate steps, he hustled out of the house ahead of Angel, then waited for her to follow so that he could lock the door.

Not that he had anything of importance to protect even if someone did invade his house. No, the thing in his house that needed protecting was walking ahead of him to his truck.

* * *

“THE MORE HANDS the better,” Miss Joan declared later that day. It was two o’clock and, right on the dot, Miss Joan and the “Christmas tree hunting party” had returned with their prize.

Her words were addressed to Angel when the latter told her that she wanted to help with decorating the town’s tree.

“You’re going to be helping out, too, right?” Miss Joan asked, pinning Gabe with a look.

The question was a mere formality, since Miss Joan expected everyone to join in, especially if she actually asked them to.

Gabe had briefly entertained the idea of begging off this one time. Doing so would give Angel some space and himself some breathing room. But he did enjoy this tradition, and even if he didn’t, there was no arguing with the look on Miss Joan’s face. What Miss Joan wanted, she got. Almost anyone in town could tell him that—if he hadn’t known that for himself.

She’d never bothered asking him before, just assumed that he—like everyone else—would be there. That she actually had asked him made him think that either he was allowing his feelings for Angel to show, or Miss Joan was reading his mind.

Being that this was Miss Joan, it was most likely the latter, he decided.

In either case, he had to admit to himself that he was relieved that the decision was no longer his to make. To turn Miss Joan down was plain asking for trouble and he already had more trouble than he needed.

“Right,” he replied, flashing a grin at the owner of the diner. “Wouldn’t miss it for the world,” he added for good measure.

“Good to hear,” Miss Joan said with a nod.

Then, as her husband came to join her, the woman stepped back. With her fingers laced through his, she watched in rapt attention as the men she had accompanied on the “tree hunt” slowly righted Forever’s latest Christmas tree.

She cheered and applauded as enthusiastically as everyone else once the tree was up and secured into place. “Never get tired of seeing that,” she confided. When she saw Harry looking at her, grinning, she cried, “What?”

“Like seeing you all caught up in this,” he told her. “Makes me think of what you had to have been like, as a young girl.”

“I was skinnier,” she retorted dismissively. “C’mon, c’mon, grab some decorations,” she urged her husband as well as Angel and Gabe. “We’ve got a lot of work cut out for us and the sun’s not going to hang around, waiting for us to get done. Time’s a-wasting,” she declared, clapping her hands together, as if that would get everyone working faster.

Because it was Miss Joan doing the clapping, it did.