A Forever Christmas - By Marie Ferrarella Page 0,22

closely.

He forced himself not to get distracted by how very pretty she was and only think of her as someone who had had one hell of a day.

“Really awful to be you right now, isn’t it?” he murmured softly in sympathy.

She seemed to be sound asleep, her head leaning slightly forward. Watching her, Gabe was fairly certain she was going to have a really bad crick in her neck to add to the litany of aches and pains that she would have tomorrow. All of which would be due to the car accident she’d barely survived.

“Angel?” he said softly, trying to rouse her but not startle her.

The only thing he received in reply was the sound of her even breathing.

Gabe frowned, thinking. He couldn’t very well just leave her here, sleeping in his truck, but he felt bad about waking her up. If he did, she might wind up being awake all night.

Still, it was getting really cold and he couldn’t just run the engine so that he could keep the heat on for her. Other than that being an impossibly expensive way to keep someone warm, there was also the very real danger of filling the inside of his vehicle with carbon monoxide.

Maybe she’d wake up on her own if he just gave her a little more time. It was worth a try.

With a shrug, Gabe drove the truck to his house.

His house.

That was still taking some getting used to. Originally it was known as the old Douglas place. He’d bought it several months ago from Alec Douglas. The latter had returned to Forever to settle up his late father’s affairs, sell the house and go back to his life in Virginia where he’d been working for the past ten years.

Both he and Alec had been happy with the deal that had been struck for the two-story house. True, the fifty-year-old house needed a lot of work, but like everyone who lived around here, he was handy, plus he didn’t mind working with his hands. He found it therapeutic and it gave him something to do on his days off—when he wasn’t helping out on the family ranch.

As long as he kept too busy to think, that was just fine with him.

Pulling up in front of the house now, Gabe left his truck parked to the left of the porch steps. He glanced at Angel again. The woman just kept right on sleeping.

Gabe got out of the vehicle, rounded the back and came up to the passenger door. Opening it, he paused for a second, debating his next move. With a shrug, he thought he’d try to wake her by gently shaking her shoulder.

When he did, she just kept right on sleeping as if he hadn’t touched her at all.

“Damn, but you could probably sleep through a twister, couldn’t you?” he marveled, murmuring the assessment under his breath.

Leaving her where she was for the moment, Gabe went up the steps to his front door, unlocked it and left it wide open. Angel was still asleep when he returned to the vehicle.

Her body probably needed to recharge itself, he reasoned.

Leaning over her, Gabe very carefully released the seat belt clip and unbuckled her. Then, as gently as possible, he picked her up from her seat and began to walk up the steps to his front door.

To his amazement, as he reached the top step, Angel continued sleeping. Not only that, but as he made his way into the house, the sleeping woman curled into him. A sigh that sounded suspiciously like contentment escaped her lips as she apparently made herself comfortable against his chest.

He caught himself looking down at her face. It was relaxed and there was almost a purity about it. He reasoned that, asleep, Angel didn’t resort to a barrage of defense mechanisms.

This was the real woman, the one beneath the bravado. Soft, innocent. Relaxed.

He found himself intrigued.

Because he had just recently moved into the house, Gabe wasn’t anywhere near finished furnishing the different rooms. To be honest, he had hardly gotten started.

So far, there was only one bed—his—and that was in the master bedroom. The other two bedrooms had a variety of things piled up in them, none of them meant to provide any kind of rest for the weary. In actuality, the exact opposite was true. Both rooms were in a state of varying degrees of chaos.

Since it had a bed, Gabe decided to give Angel his bedroom while he made himself as comfortable as possible