A Forever Christmas - By Marie Ferrarella Page 0,59

his statement, Rick looked at the young woman in the center of this tug-of-war. “You don’t remember him, do you?” he asked her, just to be sure.

“No.” To assure herself, she shifted her eyes and glanced defiantly at the detective. “No, I don’t,” she told Rick honestly.

Wynters looked from her to the sheriff, stunned. “So that’s it?” he demanded in disbelief. “You just take her at her word and I’m supposed to leave?”

“Not necessarily,” Rick allowed. “We give Angel time to adjust,” he said, no doubt deliberately using the name they’d given her, not the one that Wynters had used. “We give her time to remember. Until then, she stays here, in Forever.”

Angry now, the detective was obviously trying to curb his temper. Rather than uttering the words that first raced to his lips, he bit them back and instead said, “I’ll get my lawyer.”

“Fine. And we’ll get ours,” Rick replied mildly. “By the way, my wife’s a lawyer. She was formerly with the Norvil and Tyler law firm. You might have heard of them,” Rick said, not above dropping the name of one of the most powerful and prestigious law firms in the western half of the country.

Judging by the look on the detective’s face, he was familiar with the firm.

“Now, unless you have other business here…” he continued, his meaning very clear.

“He doesn’t,” Miss Joan informed the sheriff, making sure that the detective knew he was not about to be served in her establishment no matter what he might try to offer as payment.

“Then I’d suggest you leave your name and number with my office so we can reach you the moment Angel’s memory comes back,” Rick told the man pleasantly. “You’ll find the office just north of here. It’s right on your way out of town,” he emphasized.

Muttering a string of curses audibly under his breath and threatening to return with enough legal power to mow down this “Godforsaken pimple of a nothing town,” the detective stormed out of the diner.

Applause met his departure, adding insult to his gaping wounds.

Only when the diner door closed again did Angel release the breath she’d been holding all this time. Visibly relieved, she forced a smile to her lips.

Gabe looked at her. He could literally feel her fear, even if she tried to pretend she was fine. He remembered her first night in his house. She’d woken up, screaming because of a nightmare. Was this man the reason why? Had she dreamed about him coming after her? Was Wynters who she was running from?

His look was intense as he asked her, “Are you sure you don’t remember him?”

Angel shook her head all the harder, as if in denial she hoped to make Wynters’s very presence vanish from her mind.

“No. No,” she repeated with feeling. “I don’t know him.”

Gabe nodded. He could see that she wanted to be done with this. At least he could do that for her. “Good enough for me,” he told her.

“Angel, why don’t you go home?” Miss Joan suggested, even as some of her customers met that suggestion with groans. They’d put up with a lot, all because they were all waiting for one of her breakfasts. “You’ve had a hell of a morning and maybe you should just—”

“No!” Angel refused with feeling. “I want to be here. I want to be doing something—cooking. It’ll take my mind off that awful man with those flat eyes of his. Please?”

Her last words were all but drowned out by several of the customers, raising their voices to egg her on, enthusiastically backing her decision to stay and cook for them.

Faced with Angel’s stubbornness and her customers growing demands to have Angel whip up her specialties, Miss Joan raised her hands in complete surrender.

“Hey, far be it for me to deny you something that makes you happy,” she declared. “Besides, I think I’d probably have a mass rebellion on my hands if I didn’t let you stay.” She looked at the customers who were all but champing at the bit—threatening to eat that bit at any second if they weren’t fed and fed soon. “Okay, boys, place your orders. She’s staying,” she declared.

A round of cheers met her words.

Touched, Angel smiled and retreated to the kitchen. Eduardo was waiting for her. “Thank you,” she said simply, at a loss for any other words.

In threatening the detective with a shotgun unless he retreated, Eduardo had behaved as if he was her father, bent on protecting her. Something told her that