A Forever Christmas - By Marie Ferrarella Page 0,64

sense of loss or grief. That had vanished a long time ago. Taking in a deep breath, she struggled to get hold of herself.

Beside her, Gabe had risen to his feet and now draped his arm across her shoulders, as much to comfort her as to help hold himself upright.

One look at her face and he knew. “You remember, don’t you?”

The nod was all but imperceptible. Everything had returned, not in bits and pieces, but almost in one blinding flash.

She recounted it very slowly, almost as if it had been a movie she’d been watching, starring someone else, not her.

“When I saw him choking you—when I thought he was going to kill you—it all came back, like it was there all along. Jake was a bully. He got off on terrorizing me. I knew he’d never let me go, that he would rather see me dead first. I knew I had to get away and I did. I got away clean. But then one day I accidentally found out that my mother had just died. She was the only family I had,” she told him as tears gathered in her eyes. “I wanted to say goodbye.

“I waited until everyone left after the reception and I slipped into her house to get her album of pictures and her locket. My late father had given it to her and she told me that someday it was going to be mine,” she explained.

“I was about to leave when I thought I heard a floorboard creak. I knew in my soul that it had to be Jake and I just took off without looking back.” She sighed. “I guess I was right. He was the one who must have partially cut my brake lines.” A look of disbelief washed over her face. “He’d told me more than once that if he couldn’t have me, he’d rather see me dead than with another man.”

She looked at Gabe, wanting him to know everything. “I never took his money. He lied about that. I wanted nothing to do with him. I just wanted to be free.”

Gabe knew she wasn’t the type to steal. “So your name really is Dorothy Mandra?” he asked. It was going to take time for him to get used to that, he thought.

She shook her head. “No.” That life was behind her and she wanted it to remain that way. “It’s Angel.” She looked up at Gabe, the man who had given her her name. The man who had given her her life. “My name is Angel,” she repeated again with feeling.

“We’re going to need a statement, Angel,” Rick told her, deliberately using the name she’d chosen to stay with. “We’ll take it the day after tomorrow,” he added. “Tonight’s Christmas Eve and tomorrow’s Christmas, this will keep until after that.”

But she shook her head. “No, I want to get this over with now, put it behind me once and for all.”

“Your call,” Rick told her obligingly. Turning toward one of the people who had been drawn by the sound of gunfire and had subsequently congregated around them, he said, “Get the doc out here.”

“Then he is still alive?” she asked in horror, staring at Wynters’s fallen body.

“No, he’s dead all right.” Rick’s voice softened just a touch. “I want you and my deputy here checked out. Wouldn’t want to risk losing either of you,” he said matter-of-factly.

Gabe offered no resistance, just asked for an indulgence. “Can I have a minute, Sheriff?”

“You can have ten,” Rick told him genially. “Just don’t go wandering off.”

“We’ll be just over there,” Gabe told him, pointing toward the pantry. Taking Angel by the hand, he went inside the pantry, switched on the overhead light and closed the door.

Most of the pantry shelves were empty. That still didn’t explain what they were doing there. “Gabe?” she asked uncertainly.

“I’ve got something to say before this night gets any weirder,” Gabe told her.

She braced herself, waiting to hear what she felt in her heart was going to be the beginning of the end. Their end. And why not? Taking up with her had almost cost Gabe his life. What man wanted a woman like that to keep hanging around?

“All right,” she whispered, an unbelievable sadness clutching her heart. “Go ahead.”

He reached into his pocket. Good, it was still there. He hadn’t lost it in the fight.

“All right,” he began, his mouth suddenly so dry it felt as if his tongue was going to stick to the roof of his mouth