The Trouble With Angels Page 0,73

celestial call came directly from Gabriel. She was being called back. Goodness didn't blame him; she'd blown this assignment. From the moment she'd pleaded with Gabriel to let her help Paul Morris, she'd been sucked deeper into the quicksand of his problems.

Immediately following his summons, Goodness was ushered into the prayer room in the glory of heaven. She kept her head lowered, her chin tucked in. Her wings drooped so far down, the tips scraped the surface of the floor.

"I understand matters aren't going very well with Paul Morris," Gabriel said.

It seemed to Goodness that his voice boomed louder than thunder. "He wrote out his letter of resignation," she told him in a small voice. "He's leaving the church, walking away from all those people who care about him. He assumes he hasn't got anything to say that will help, but he's wrong."

"I see." Gabriel clasped his hands behind his back and walked around Goodness. "What efforts have you made to help him?"

"Ah..."

"I already know that you put the binder filled with his study notes back on the bookshelf. It's something I would generally frown upon, but in this case, I believe it was the best thing to do."

"You do?" Encouraged, Goodness raised her head an inch.

"I also know about your so-called miracle."

Her head went back down.

"It didn't work, did it?"

"No," she admitted miserably. "I shone with the love of God so brightly, anyone else would have been blinded. Reverend Morris didn't notice."

"What have you done since?"

Goodness bit into her lower lip, afraid she'd disappointed Gabriel, destroyed his faith in her. "Nothing."

"Nothing?"

"I've walked with him," she explained, thinking how weak and useless that sounded. She waited for a chastisement, but when none came, she elaborated. "When he sat in the car alone and miserable, I sat with him. When he stood outside and waved good-bye to Joe and Annie. I waved with him."

"And just now?"

"Just now," she whispered, "I stood beside him in the middle of the church and held him upright." Naturally Paul didn't know that. If he wasn't aware of her presence when she was full of the glory of the Lord, then he wouldn't sense it when she stood silently at his side.

"You held him upright?"

"Yes." Goodness was afraid she'd broken some rule she knew nothing about.

"That's all he needs, Goodness. No tricks. No miracles. No shenanigans. You're doing everything exactly right."

"But he's resigning from the church."

Gabriel cocked one thick eyebrow. "Is he? Why don't you go back and find that out for yourself?"

Chapter Fourteen

"Here, what do you think?" Joy asked, holding up a frilly pink dress that didn't look big enough to fit a doll, let alone a child. The skirt had a white apron trimmed with a lacy ruffle. Just the sort of thing women, no matter what age, enjoyed dressing in.

"It's pretty, but it's not my color," Ted teased.

"It's not for you! The dress is perfect for my niece, Ellen Joy." She added it to the stack of items in Ted's arms.

They were Christmas shopping, and like every other man Ted knew, he wasn't keen on crowds and malls. But he discovered that anything, even plowing his way through cranky last-minute shoppers, was fun with Joy.

"You're not buying anything?" she commented.

"How can I, when you're buying out the store?"

"Oh, dear, you're right. I've been thoughtless, haven't I? I dragged you into the children's section and didn't give you a chance to look for anything you wanted. I've been completely selfish."

He stopped her by pressing a hand to her forearm. "I finished my shopping weeks ago."

She looked at him and blinked as if she weren't sure she'd heard him correctly. "You did?"

"You seem to forget I'm an engineer. I like my life neat and orderly...most of the time," he amended. What he didn't tell her was that a few years back he'd left everything until Christmas Eve. The only store open had been a corner grocery. No one could say his gifts hadn't been creative. His boss had enjoyed the standing rib roast, and his grandmother had gotten a real kick out of the twelve pairs of multicolored panty hose. This year he'd ordered almost everything through a fancy mail-order catalog Blythe had recommended. It had been expensive, but hassle free.

"I love Christmas," Joy said, and her eyes brightened.

Ted discovered he couldn't be with Joy for any length of time and not want to kiss her. He couldn't look at her and not be affected. He'd never felt this way about a woman, never