by Anne Stuart
It was a lot of information crammed into one artless speech. Gabriel picked it apart carefully, going for the most important aspect. "What do you mean, she'll do anything for anybody, no matter what it costs her?"
A variety of expressions crossed Jeffie's face. Remorse, furtiveness, guilt. "I'm not supposed to talk about it."
"Too late, you already did," Gabriel snapped, not caring if he sounded cold. He was going to get it out of Jeffie if he had to beat it out of him.
"Listen, I promised…"
Gabriel set the maul down and advanced on Jeffie. "You're about to break your promise. What did you mean?"
He heard the door open behind him as Carrie left the house. She was still out of earshot, but he only had a moment.
"Tell me," he said, "or I'll ask her."
"Don't do that, man," Jeffie said wildly.
"Tell me."
Jeffie glanced behind him at Carrie's approaching figure. "She doesn't take care of herself," he finally admitted. "She got pneumonia and almost died last year, she's accident-prone, and no one can get her to slow down. Maggie says she just doesn't care about herself anymore. She's punishing herself, and no one knows why. Maggie says something happened to her in New York, something that changed her, and sooner or later she's going to walk in front of a truck or something again, and there's not a damned thing anyone can do about it." He stopped, breathless, defiant, glaring at his newfound hero. "She's going to die, damn it. Unless someone can find a way to save her. And I don't believe in miracles."
Gabriel looked across the snow-covered ground as she approached. "Neither do I," he said in a low voice. "But we both might be surprised."
Chapter Four
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Carrie Alexander drove an aging Japanese station wagon that had seen better days, but not, in Emerson Wyatt MacVey III's opinion, much better. Its muffler was making a loud, throaty rumble, the bumper was held on by a wire, the once-maroon paint was liberally splattered with rust, and the windshield was cracked. He climbed into the front seat, trying to stretch his too-long legs out in front of him, and stared at the pitted vinyl dashboard, the mileage counter that read well above one hundred thousand miles. It did, however, start on the first try.
"Good baby," Carrie crooned, reaching out a slender hand and stroking the aging dashboard as a mother strokes a child.
"You talk to your cars?" he asked, mesmerized by her hand, the long, delicate fingers, the unconscious sensuality of her caress. And the waste of it, on an inanimate old car that belonged in a junkyard.
She glanced over at him, and there was a glint of humor in her bright blue eyes. "Everything on this earth needs a little encouragement now and then. I've learned not to take anything for granted, including having a car start when it's supposed to."
"I don't wonder, with this car," he said wryly.
"It's not in that much worse shape than your truck."
"My truck's been in an accident."
"You know what I mean. Besides, it's a waste of time bemoaning the fact that you don't have a Mercedes when you'll never afford one. It's better to be happy with what you have."
He had owned a Mercedes, a car he'd taken for granted. He'd certainly never stroked the dashboard and crooned lovingly to the motor. "This is a very nice car," he said.
"It's going to get you into town, which is a lot better than walking," she replied cheerfully, putting the car into reverse and backing out the long, curving driveway without looking.
He didn't look, either, too busy watching her face and thinking about Jeffie's disclosures. It had to have been typical teenage dramatics, but Carrie had come up on them too quickly for Gabriel to cross-examine him. He'd have to wait till he had a few moments alone with Jeffie to beat it out of him, if need be.
What had happened to her in New York that had changed her? It wasn't MacVey—he refused to accept responsibility. But then, if he wasn't responsible, why was he here now? He had miracles, Augusta had told him. Perhaps he could simply mutter a few hookie-pookie words and Carrie would start taking better care of herself. First task accomplished, and then he could be on his way.
He didn't think it was going to be that simple. Even if he'd been given some miraculous healing touch, where all he had to do was reach out to the woman by his side and solve her problems, it wouldn't solve his. He wasn't ready to move on. Away from here. He wasn't ready to go anywhere. Even to heaven and some kind of eternal bliss.
"Do you want me to drop you off at your house, Jeffie, or do you want to come with us to Swensens'?" she asked, navigating the slush-covered roads with a singular lack of attention. The four-wheel drive vehicle held the road surprisingly well despite its decrepit appearance, and Gabriel forced himself to relax in the front seat. He'd never enjoyed being driven—he was a man who liked to be in control of his own destiny at all times. He'd had to accept the fact that never again would he control anything in his life.
"I'll come with you," Jeffie said promptly from the back seat. "Maybe Lars will let me work in the shop for a while."
"Are you making something for your parents?" Gabriel asked.
Jeffie snorted. "Not likely. I just like messing around with wood."
"So do I," Gabriel said without thinking, then stopped, surprised. He glanced down at his hands again, those large work-worn hands, and wondered what talents lay beneath the skin and bone and sinew.
"I have to stop by the drugstore on the way," Carrie said as they pulled into a small town. "Henry's closing early to go Christmas shopping. Do either of you need anything?"
"Are you sick?" Gabriel asked abruptly, remembering the pneumonia that had nearly killed her.
"Oh, man," Jeffie muttered in the back seat.
Carrie's cheerful expression didn't waver. "Nothing that a little aspirin won't cure," she said, parking outside a small storefront with the gilt-lettered Olsen's Pharmacy peeling off the windows. There was a Christmas tree in the window, a fake silver one, and the lights were flashing off and on with dizzying regularity.
"I'm coming with you," Jeffie said, reaching for the door.
Gabriel put his hand out and stopped him. "No, you're not," he said pleasantly. "Keep me company and tell me about this town."
Telling about a town the size of Angel Falls would take exactly thirty seconds, but Jeffie settled back, a mutinous expression on his face as he muttered again, "Oh, man."
Gabriel waited until Carrie disappeared inside the store. "So?"
"So what?" Jeffie responded.
"She's not going to be in there that long, and if you don't tell me now I'll ask you when she gets back out here. What did you mean, she's changed? That she's going to walk in front of another truck or something. Are you telling me she's suicidal?"
"Not exactly. She just doesn't look after herself, and around here life is tough enough that you need to. She's so busy taking care of everyone else that she forgets to eat, doesn't watch where she's going. Maggie says if she doesn't pull herself together it's only a matter of time before something terrible happens."
Gabriel digested all that unwillingly. "How has she changed since she was in New York?"
Jeffie shrugged. "I don't know, man. Neither does anyone else. Maybe she's just still run-down from the accident."
"What accident?"
"Man," said Jeffie, shaking his head, "that's where it all started. She walked in front of a taxi in New York City and nearly got killed. Apparently it was Christmas Eve, she'd just been fired from her job, and she was so upset she didn't watch where she was going." Jeffie stared out at the busy sidewalk. "I'd like to get my hands on the bastard who fired her."
"Who says it was his fault?" Gabriel said, trying not to squirm. "He didn't push her in front of the cab, did he?"
"Carrie still defends the pig. All I know is she nearly died. When she got back here, she was different. Quieter, sadder than anyone remembered. Whatever money she has goes to everyone else, and I know for a fact she barely has enough to get by on."
"Maybe she ought to put that energy into herself," Gabriel argued. "She needs to get a job, feed herself…"
"There aren't any jobs around here. She can't make enough quilts to support the entire town, and Maggie says that's what she's trying to do."
"Is that what she does? Makes quilts?"
"Man, don't you notice anything?" Jeffie's hero worship was fading fast, something that ought to have relieved Gabriel. Instead, he felt curiously bereft.
He tried to stretch his legs out in front of him. "Sometimes I'm extremely unobservant," he said with a weary sigh.
"Hey, I'm sorry, I forgot you hit your head," Jeffie said, suddenly contrite. "You must be feeling like garbage, and here I'm bothering you with Carrie's problems."
"You're not bothering me," Gabriel said flatly. "I want to know how I can help her."
"You and everybody else. There's nothing we can do. Unless you happen to have a miracle available. Fat chance," Jeffie said with all the true cynicism of a seventeen-year-old.
"You'd be surprised," Gabriel said mildly, watching as Carrie left the store and moved toward the car with her usual grace.
She didn't look as if she were an accident waiting to happen. She was too thin and pale, but her eyes were bright, her soft mouth was smiling, and he wondered what had happened to her to make her feel that life wasn't worth living. He couldn't remember anything about the three months she'd been one of his secretaries—most of his past was a frustrating blank. But he hadn't been a monster; surely he couldn't have destroyed her life.
He wanted to take her narrow shoulders and shake some sense into her. Right now life seemed very precious indeed to him, and he couldn't stand the thought of her throwing hers away.
She dropped her package onto his lap. "What's this?" he asked.
"Aspirin. You have to have a prize of a headache, after that crack your skull got last night. You haven't complained, but you have to be hurting."
"Do I?" Actually he hadn't been hurting at all, not from the crack on his skull, not from using unexpected muscles when he split Carrie's firewood. Maybe coming back had its own strange blessings.
Before he knew what she'd planned, she reached out and touched his forehead, brushing back the too-long hair, and her hand was as gentle, and even more sensual, than when she'd stroked her car. "It's healing nicely," she said. "In a couple of days you won't even know you've hurt yourself." Her fingers still lingered, warm against his cool flesh. "Unless you cut your hair, of course."
"I was thinking of that."
"Don't you dare." She started to pull her hand away, but he caught her wrist, stopping her with gentle force.
Her eyes met his with startled wonder. "Why shouldn't I cut my hair, Carrie?"
"Maybe you should," she said breezily, not tugging at her hand. "You're a little too beautiful as it is."
His mouth curved in a wry smile. "It won't work."
"What won't work?" She yanked her hand away, and he let her go.
"You keep talking to me as if you're my maiden aunt."
"For one thing, I feel like your maiden aunt," she said with asperity. "For another…"
"For another?" he prompted.
Jeffie chose that moment to interfere. "Yeah, Carrie? For another what?"
"For another thing, I'm saving myself for you, Jeffie," she said cheerfully, starting the car. This time she didn't stroke the dashboard and croon to it. A good thing, too. He would have caught her hand in his again.
The town of Angel Falls was no more than a block long, with a diner, two gas stations, a bar, and a general store beside the pharmacy. Beneath the rapidly melting snow things looked very clean, very shabby, very depressed. It was a town on its way out but putting up a brave front nonetheless. The tatty, sparkling Christmas decorations were going up all around them.
"Isn't it a little early for Christmas decorations?" he asked.
He could sense Carrie's shoulders relaxing as he changed the subject. "It's a hard life up here," she said. "We have to celebrate anything we can. At least we wait till Thanksgiving. I know some places that start the Christmas season in mid-October."
"Like New York City."
She looked at him in surprise. "Did you used to live in New York? You don't seem the type."
"I don't know if there is a type." He avoided answering her question, turning to stare at the scenery. Half the vehicles they passed were pickup trucks, few of them newer than his. "This is a pretty poor town."
"Do tell. Ever since the mill closed down things have been pretty lean. A lot of people have moved out."
"But you moved back."
She didn't ask him how he knew. "I had no place else to go. The same with most of the people left around here. If they had a choice, they'd be gone."
He glanced around at the shabby, yet neat Victorian houses beneath their soggy blanket of snow. "I can see why. It's depressing."
"Not really. This town, and the people in it, grow on you. It's really very beautiful. But people have to make a living, and the summer people don't provide enough of an income for the whole town."
"It sounds like the whole town is in need of a miracle," he said.
"You don't have to sound so gloomy. No one's expecting you to provide it," Carrie said.
He looked at the old houses and narrow streets, and wondered whether that was true. Or whether he really was supposed to save the whole damned town.
The Swensen house was as big, or bigger, than the other old Victorian houses. The paint was peeling, but the woodwork was in perfect shape. Lars was standing on the broad front porch, wearing a flannel shirt and wool vest, hanging a Christmas wreath entwined with dried flowers and pinecones.
He pumped Gabriel's hand enthusiastically when he reached the porch, and there was no doubting the sincerity of his welcome, even to a man like Gabriel, who was used to doubting everything. "Good to see you, Gabriel," he boomed. "Maggie's already made up your room, and there's fresh coffee and bread in the kitchen." He leaned past him and gave Carrie a loud kiss on the cheek. "Some for you, too, little pigeon. We need to fatten you up."
"Bah, humbug," said Carrie with unimpaired good humor. "Jeffie will take you up on your offer. Teenage boys never stop eating."
"Aw, Carrie…" Jeffie protested, heading straight past everyone, presumably in the direction of the kitchen and food.
"Nice wreath," Gabriel murmured, indeed, it was a piece of rare beauty, fashioned of blue spruce, the muted colors of the dried flowers complementing the greeny blue of the pine needles.
"He's been disapproving of all the decorations," Carrie piped up. "He thinks it's too early in the season."
"Don't you be putting words in his mouth," Lars said. "We put our wreaths up at Thanksgiving, and we leave 'em up until the needles drop off and they're brown, usually sometime in April."
"Why?" Gabriel couldn't keep from asking.
"To remind us that we should all have a bit of the Christmas spirit the year round," Lars said simply. "It's a lesson we all need to learn."
"Amen," Carrie said.
Gabriel tensed, waiting in fearful anticipation for one of them to burst into prayer, but that seemed to be enough for a moment. "Come along in," Lars said, stamping the loose snow off his feet. "And I'll see if I can roust Maggie."
The inside of the house matched the exterior. It was spotless and for a moment Gabriel paused. He'd always kept his own apartment pin-neat, with the help of an overpriced cleaning service, but it had never felt like this. Somehow cozy, homey, despite the neatness. The wallpaper was faded, but the woodwork on the curving stair was smooth and polished. The runner was unraveling on top of the shining oak floorboards, and the place smelled of lemon wax and coffee and cinnamon.
"This is what heaven should smell like," he surprised himself by saying.
"I imagine it does," Lars replied, pushing open the swinging door into the huge kitchen that was the heart of the house, the heart of the family. Maggie was sitting in an old rocker near the wood cook
stove, nursing the baby, a cracked mug of coffee on the table close at hand.
She raised her head and smiled, and her careworn face looked as smooth and beautiful as a Madonna's. Gabriel could feel the instinctive flush rise to his face, his desperate need to escape watching her nurse.
But there was no way he could do so gracefully. He had no choice but to let Lars show him to a seat at the wide table and plunk a mug of coffee and a couple of fresh cinnamon rolls in front of him. He stared, with rapt concentration on the rich brown of his coffee, while Lars and Carrie made appreciative noises about tiny Anna Caroline Swensen.
"She's an absolute beauty, isn't she?" Lars boomed when his guest hadn't joined in with the appropriate praise.
"Gorgeous," Gabriel said, staring at his half-eaten cinnamon roll as if it held the answers to the universe. As indeed it might. It was good enough to cure cancer.
Carrie rose abruptly, and he realized in his acute embarrassment he hadn't even been aware that she was sitting close beside him. "Do you mind if I show Gabriel his room?"
Lars waved one burly arm. "Be my guest. It's the back bedroom under the eaves. We thought it would give him the most privacy. Want to go out to the shop, Jeffie?"
Jeffie rose from the table, his mouth still full of cinnamon bun. "You bet."
"Meet us out there," Lars said. "Carrie will show you the way."
Gabriel followed Carrie in complete silence, up the narrow, winding back stairway from the kitchen. Her blond hair hung halfway down her back this morning—she hadn't bothered to do anything more than tie it with a strip of material. A piece that matched the quilt he'd slept under, he realized suddenly.
She opened a burled walnut door and stepped into the room, surveying it with satisfaction. "This is where you'll be," she said. "There's a bathroom down the hall that you'll share with Lars and Harald, and around here you need to conserve hot water, cold water, electricity and heat." She moved forward, into the room, touching the old bird's-eye maple dresser. "They moved this in for you. Lars must approve of you."
It was a beautiful piece of furniture, the only beauty the bare room had to show. The bed was a narrow metal one with a sagging mattress, utilitarian white sheets and an old gray blanket. The one window looked out over the chilly gray landscape, and the chair and table looked extremely uncomfortable.