A Forever Christmas - By Marie Ferrarella Page 0,41

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.

Chapter Eleven

For a moment, when he pulled up to his house, Gabe experienced a feeling of déjà vu.

He thought that he was going to have to carry Angel into his house the way he had that first evening he’d brought her home.

His mouth curved as he vividly recalled that evening. At the time, it had seemed the simplest thing to do: bring the beautiful amnesia victim into his house just for the night and decide what to do about the situation in the morning.

Except somehow, that decision was reached.

Never explored.

Somehow or other, as one day fed into another, there were so many other things to deal with that finding another place for Angel didn’t come up.

Seeing her like this now, sitting in the passenger seat, her head against the headrest, her eyes closed, stirred up all sorts of things within him: nostalgia, desire and a host of other feelings he knew he wasn’t free to act upon.

Automatically slipping his key into his pocket the moment he turned off the engine, Gabe was about to get out of the truck and come around to her side when he heard her ask, “When are you getting your tree?”

With a self-deprecating laugh, Gabe settled back in his seat for a second and looked at her. Her eyes were open, which meant she wasn’t talking in her sleep. “I thought you were asleep.”

“Just resting my eyes,” she told him.

That wasn’t exactly the whole truth. She’d fallen asleep for a minute or two, lulled by the sway of the vehicle and the long day she’d just put in. But she’d woken up the second he’d brought his truck to a stop before his house.

“You didn’t answer my question,” she pointed out. “When are you getting your tree?”

“I wasn’t really planning on it,” he confessed. “My dad always has a really tall tree in his living room that we all help decorate, and, knowing Alma, she’ll have one at her place, too. I didn’t see the need to get a tree for my house, especially since it was just going to be me. All that work for just one person seemed like a waste to me.”

“Not that I agree with you, but even so, it’s not just you anymore,” she reminded him, her eyes holding his prisoner. “Unless you want me to leave.”

“No!” he cried, uttering the single word with a great deal more feeling than he’d intended. “No,” he repeated, clearing his throat and sounding a lot more subdued this time around.

He didn’t want her to think he’d prevent her from leaving—if that was what she wanted. But neither did he want her to think he was holding his breath, just waiting for her to leave.

“Of course I don’t want you to leave. I guess that with everything that’s been going on—trying to find out who you are, looking for a missing-persons file on you—I haven’t been thinking beyond the moment.” He shrugged now, trying to seem open to either decision. “Sure, we can get a tree if you’d like.”

“When?” she asked with far more eager enthusiasm than he’d thought she was capable of right now, given that she’d done a great deal of climbing up and down the ladder, hanging decorations while balancing herself at precarious angles.

Well, it was much too late to