A Forever Christmas - By Marie Ferrarella Page 0,42
go cut one down now, he thought.
“Tomorrow, I guess. Why? You didn’t get enough of decorating today?” he teased. Her eyes, he noticed, were sparkling like a child’s anticipating a meeting with Santa Claus himself.
“Never enough,” she enthused. “I was kind of sorry when Miss Joan declared the tree done,” she confided. “We could have at least put more tinsel on it.”
Gabe laughed and shook his head as he got out of the truck, walked to her side and held the door open. “Any more tinsel and that tree was liable to fall over.”
Without thinking, he slipped his arm around her shoulders, momentarily indulging in a one-arm hug as they walked up to his door. “You’re really one of a kind, Angel,” he marveled. And then he paused just before opening the front door as a thought struck him. “Did decorating the tree remind you of anything?”
“You mean did it make me remember?” He nodded, watching her expression, searching for a glimmer that hinted she was trying to pin down even a fragment of a memory. He saw nothing. “Almost,” she admitted. “But every time I tried to reach for it, for any of the half shadows that slip in and out of my head so fast, they’re gone before I even realize they’d been there. I wind up with nothing,” she told him, a deep sigh accompanying her words.
“Maybe you should stop trying,” he advised, not for the first time.
He closed the door behind them at the same time that he turned on the closest light switch. The lightbulb above their heads popped as the filament sent a surge of electricity through it. Just like that, darkness reclaimed the house.
“Don’t move,” Gabe instructed. “I’ll turn on the next light.”
Feeling his way around, he tried to make his way to the light switch leading into the family room. Instead, he managed to find his way to Angel. His outstretched fingers came in contact with something soft and he instantly knew it was her.
Gabe pulled his hand back. “Sorry,” he murmured.
“That’s okay,” she said, absolving him of any wrongdoing. “I’m not,” he heard her whisper.
Frustrated, wanting her more than was good for either one of them, Gabe momentarily halted his search for the light switch.
“You know,” he complained honestly, “you’re really not making this any easier.”
“Making what any easier?” she wanted to know.
Was it his imagination, or had she taken a step closer? “Keeping away from you.”
“Do you really want to?” She asked the question so quietly, for a brief moment he thought that perhaps he’d just imagined it—or she was communicating with him via her thoughts rather than any spoken word.
He also could have sworn his throat was tightening. “I think you know the answer to that.”
“Tell me,” she coaxed, her voice a sultry whisper.
He tried to steel himself—and failed. “No, I don’t really want to.”
“Then why?”
The words were softly whispered against his ear. He had to consciously struggle against giving in to the shiver.
“Because it’s not fair to you,” he told her. “You’re dealing with a lot here, trying to remember your life before November 26 is just part of it. If I let my guard down,” he said, thinking of all that entailed, all that would result from that simple act of omission, “and then somewhere down the line, you remember that there’s another man in your life who you promised to love to the end of your days—”
“There isn’t,” she told him.
She said it with such finality, he almost believed her. He wanted to believe her. But, given her circumstances, he had to challenge her words. “You have amnesia. How can you say that with such certainty?” he added.
“I don’t know,” she admitted freely, “I just can. It’s a feeling more than anything else. I wasn’t married in that life I can’t remember,” she told him, confident that she was right. “It’s nothing I can prove, it’s just something that I know.”
As she spoke, she drew closer to him until she was so close he could feel each breath she took as her chest rose, brushing against his. When she exhaled, he felt her breath along his skin.
His gut tightened in response as he struggled to hold himself in check.
He wanted to believe her. Wanted so badly just to take her into his arms, to make love with her and not fear the ramifications and consequences that were waiting for them just beyond the night.
But there would be ramifications and there would be consequences.
Gabe gave it one