She watched vacantly as the Ivory Soap cruised in lazy circles over the surface and remembered her silly, wine-inspired illusions of heaven.
They might not be so silly after all. It hadn't been the wine that had put the first notion of Nicholas as her guardian angel in her head. He'd snatched her from death and brought her to this new life where she did not have to lock doors to feel safe. And where she had a whole new kind of family to welcome and look out for her.
If there were mysteries about him that she still could not unravel, that was the way of angels, wasn't it? Maybe after all the years of praying and wishing, someone finally got around to answering her. She didn't really believe that was true. She shouldn't. But oh, how she wished she could. It was such a little thing to ask, one small miracle.
Eventually, the water cooled and reluctantly she climbed from the tub to dress for bed. She discovered that the pajamas Nicholas had brought her were not her own. They were her brother Lonny's. She had snatched them from his drawer and slept with them under her pillow for a month after her brother died. Then she'd tucked them away among her own things and only saw them once in a while when she put away her laundry or went searching for a scarf.
They were flannel, printed with yellow, brown, and orange Indian symbols on a white background, piped in yellow at the cuffs and down the shirt front, garish and ugly, now that she studied them, but warm and serviceable and soft against her skin. There were tiny, white buttons that fastened on the wrong side, but that was the boys' way she remembered and wondered why it would be so. There was a drawstring that she could cinch snugly around her waist, and it only took a few folds up of the pants legs to keep herself from tripping over them.
Covered from neck to ankles to beyond her fingertips, she emerged from the bathroom. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the dim light after the brightness of the bathroom. She did not see Nicholas.
"Nicholas?" she whispered. But there was no answer. She thought he must have stepped out. When she reached the bed and saw him there, sprawled across the bottom, she did not have the heart to wake him. She found a blanket on the sofa and covered him with it. He did not stir. There was plenty of room for her at the top of the bed. She was short and, used to the cramped space of her closet, she usually slept curled on her side. Softly, so she would not disturb him, she crept beneath the covers.
She sat for a moment watching him sleep and remembered a childhood prayer her grandmother had taught her. "Angel at my shoulder, Angel at my side, Angels all around me, keep me safe tonight." Her lips moved with the breath of a whisper. "Good night, my Angel Nicholas."
Chapter Ten
"Nicholas, yoohoo, Nicholas, honey." Trissa climbed out of a cozy dream and recognized Augusta's voice in the muffled whispering. "I brought you breakfast. If you're... uh... busy, I'll leave it out here."
Nicholas was no longer asleep across the foot of the bed where he had lain like a trusty guard dog all night, radiating enough heat to keep her feet toasty and grumbling occasionally in his sleep as if to warn off potential intruders. The trickle and splash of water in the bathroom sink told her where he was. The delicious aroma of brewing coffee permeated the air.
Trissa scooted out of the bed to answer Augusta at the door before she gave up and went away. She did not want her to get the wrong impression, for appearance' sake or otherwise. When she pulled open the door, Augusta seemed both surprised and amused to see her.
"I just love your peignoir, sweetie," she chuckled. "You'll have to show me the rest of your trousseau sometime. Is it all right to come in?"
"Yes, please do." Trissa looked down at Lonny's pajamas, wrinkled and drooping off one shoulder. One pants cuff had come unrolled and trailed under her foot, threatening to trip her at any moment. "I'm afraid there wasn't much time for a trousseau, Mrs. Blackburn."
"I thought we agreed on Augusta last night," she smiled as she entered and laid the breakfast tray on the coffee table. "That Nicholas of