Touched by Angels Page 0,56

and English teacher. In the future please remember that." He reached for a piece of paper and started writing.

Brynn sat where she was for several awkward moments.

After a while, he glanced up. "You may leave."

When Brynn walked out of the office, she found three secretaries staring at her. Their looks were sympathetic as she whisked past. The whispers started the moment she was around the corner.

"Hello, Hannah."

Hannah looked up from the novel she was reading. "Carl," she said, unable to hide her surprise and her guilt. No one had told her he planned to stop by that evening. "How are you feeling?" She hadn't spoken to him since his bout with the flu.

Her fiance claimed the recliner across from her. "Much better, thank you."

Hannah noted that her heart didn't leap with excitement the way it did whenever she saw Joshua. Nor did she experience a twinge of pleasure just because they were together. Carl was Carl. Dedicated, devout, determined. But soon, if everything went as their mothers had planned, he would be more than an unexpected guest. He would be her husband.

"My mother stopped by to talk to your mother," he explained with a wry grin. "They're discussing the details of the wedding."

Hannah's gaze fell back to the pages of the novel. "My mother wants to hire a wedding coordinator," she told him. "I heard her discussing the matter over the phone."

"She must have been talking to my mother, because I heard her say something about it as well."

Hannah smiled and looked away. She noticed with regret that they didn't seem to have a whole lot to say to each other.

"I thought we should set a time to shop for the engagement ring," Carl suggested, almost as if he were grateful for something to discuss.

"That would be nice."

"How about after the first of the year?" he proposed.

"Great." The further into the future, the better.

A disjointed silence followed, as though there were nothing left to say.

"Carl." Her father's face lit up with delight as he walked into the living room. "Ruth didn't mention that you were coming."

Carl stood, and the two men exchanged hearty handshakes. David Morganstern slapped Hannah's fiance across the back. "By heaven, it's good to see you. You've been making yourself scarce around here these last few days."

"I've been busy."

"Ruth said you'd come down with a twenty-four-hour bug the other night."

"I'm fine now."

Hannah watched as the transformation took place in the man who was to be her husband. It seemed his face brightened as soon as her father walked into the room.

Soon the two entered into a lively debate over some political matter that didn't interest Hannah. While they chatted, Hannah went into the kitchen, brewed tea, and served that along with freshly baked sugar cookies.

Helen Rabinsky and Hannah's mother were engrossed in their own conversation and seemed unaware of her. As she expected, the women were debating the pros and cons of hiring a wedding coordinator.

After a time, Hannah escaped to her bedroom and closed the door. She doubted anyone would miss her.

Sitting on top of her bed, her knees bent, Hannah closed her eyes and remembered her time with Joshua at the skating rink. It wasn't right that she should be thinking of another man. Not with Carl on the other side of the door.

Joshua's business card remained inside her coat pocket, but she didn't need to retrieve it to find the number. In the last two days, she'd stared at that card so often, she'd committed the phone number to memory.

When she feared she might be missed, Hannah returned to the living room. Carl glanced her way and smiled affectionately.

"Carl," she said, "would you like to go for a walk, or something?"

"A walk?" he repeated with a decided lack of enthusiasm. "It's below freezing."

"How about if we went ice skating?" she suggested next.

"Tonight?"

"I don't know what's gotten into that daughter of mine," her father commented, and chuckled. "Two nights ago she walks over to Rockefeller Center and goes ice skating."

"I don't skate," Carl said with a touch of sadness.

"I could teach you," she offered expectantly. "It isn't difficult, and we could have a lot of fun."

Carl looked from Hannah to her father and then back again. "Would you mind if we stayed here?"

"Remember your young man's just getting over the flu, Hannah," her father reminded her gently. "Carl will take you ice skating another time."

She tried to hide her disappointment and must have succeeded. An hour later, Helen Rabinsky announced it was time to leave.