A Forever Christmas - By Marie Ferrarella Page 0,48

two of them in his house, or visiting with his family, or just staying at Miss Joan’s diner after her shift was over, enjoying the company of the people she’d come to think of as her friends.

* * *

“HARD TO IMAGINE what it was like without her around, isn’t it?” Miss Joan commented to Gabe as Angel disappeared into the kitchen after volunteering to prepare dinner for one of her regular customers. The man had been unavoidably detained and looked genuinely disappointed when he realized he’d arrived too late for her to make his dinner. Taking off her jacket, Angel was quick to set his mind at rest as she headed back into the kitchen.

She’d been touched by the man’s apparent disappointment so she’d told him to hang on and away she went to prepare his dinner, tossing a “you don’t mind, do you, Gabe?” over her shoulder.

“No, I don’t mind,” he’d called after her, but he doubted if she’d heard.

How could he stop her? Her selflessness was one of the things that made Angel Angel. And it was one of the reasons why he’d fallen in love with her.

“Yeah,” Gabe heard himself admit, answering Miss Joan’s question.

And it was true. He’d gone from zealously guarding his feelings to allowing others to see just how caught up he was in this woman.

Damn, he’d sure come a long way from that man Erica had trampled. That man who, right after that, had sworn off any and all relationships for the next decade—if not longer.

“Making any headway finding out her real name?” Miss Joan asked. Her voice had a mildly disinterested ring to it, but she wasn’t fooling him. The woman had ears like a bat and could listen to three different conversations at once. “The IT guy from County said he finally got rid of that virus that took all your systems down.”

Gabe eyed the older woman. Everyone who lived in or passed through Forever wound up eating at the diner, and somewhere along the line they’d find themselves, quite unintentionally, baring their souls to Miss Joan. Gabe wasn’t too surprised that the woman knew something that only he and the other deputies in the sheriff’s office knew.

“Not yet,” he told Miss Joan. “Up until now, Alma’s been combing through the files by hand, placing calls to other sheriffs’ offices and police stations. At first it was only within a hundred-mile radius, but then she expanded it somewhat when she didn’t get a positive response.”

He’d found out that his sister had made up a small poster with Angel’s picture. She made sure it was mailed out to all the various offices.

The process was painfully slow in comparison to what they’d become accustomed to, but in lieu of a functioning computer—each would shut down the moment the internet was accessed—that method had to suffice.

Now, however, they had gotten back on track and things would move far more quickly again.

If there was anywhere to move, Gabe silently qualified.

On a personal level, though he knew it was selfish, he hoped that they would never find out who Angel actually was and where she belonged. She was his Angel and that was all that really mattered to him.

But, as one of Forever’s deputies, he felt obligated to do whatever he could in order to get answers for Angel—or whatever her real name was.

As if reading his mind, Miss Joan leaned her head closer to his and suggested, “Why don’t you let it go until after Christmas?”

Not that he wasn’t sorely tempted, but that would be giving in to a personal whim. Gabe shook his head. “Wouldn’t be right.”

To which, in response, Miss Joan shrugged her thin shoulders. “Oh, I don’t know. There’s ‘right,’ and then there’s right.”

She walked away then, leaving him to contemplate the difference—and secretly wishing for the advent of another computer virus.

Chapter Thirteen

The police detective froze as the image of the young woman on the bulletin board he’d just passed registered with his brain.

Stunned, he backtracked the few steps he’d taken and stared at the eight-by-ten photocopy secured onto the overfilled board with thumbtacks haphazardly stuck into two of its corners. The quality of the photograph wasn’t the best, but it was good enough to stop the breath in his lungs.

That was her, it had to be.

But how could it be?

Dorothy was dead.

There were three small, concise paragraphs on the sheet directly below the photograph. The first time he scanned them, not a single word penetrated his brain. Banking down his mounting