Daddy's Angel

by Annette Broadrick

  Leaving the door to the closet partially opened, she turned away, wondering how Bret was going to deal with his next decision. Yes, he certainly had his hands full.

  She returned to the kitchen, discovered the coffee was ready to brew, turned the machine on and decided to start breakfast, knowing the family would be getting up before much longer.

  The biscuits were in the oven and the bacon was frying on the stove when she heard someone on the stairs. She turned and waited for her first visitor.

  Travis appeared in the kitchen doorway rubbing his eyes. His hair was tousled, his pajamas rumpled and his slippers were on the wrong feet. He clutched a rather battered-looking stuffed giraffe.

  “Good morning, Travis. You’re up early.”

  Still half asleep, he started toward her. “I smelled something good cooking and it woke me up. I was—” He realized for the first time that Noelle wasn’t Freda. His eyes seemed to grow in his face. She removed the bacon, wrapping it in absorbent paper towels, then went over to the table and sat down.

  Travis still stood frozen in the middle of the floor.

  She smiled at him and held out her hand.

  Slowly, like a sleepwalker, he moved toward her. “It’s you,” he breathed in awe.

  “Yes.”

  “I di’nt know you was real.”

  “I am.”

  He stopped when he reached her side. “Can I touch you?”

  “Yes, you may.”

  He stuck out his forefinger and carefully placed it on her denim-clad knee. “W-w-o-o-w-w,” he whispered. “You are real, you really and truly are.” He reached up and touched her braid, stroking it. “I like your hair better hanging loose.”

  “I wear it that way when I’m all dressed up, but when I’m working around the house, I need it out of my way.”

  He walked around her. “Where are your wings—and your halo?”

  “I only wear those for formal occasions as well.”

  “Oh.”

  He came around in front of her again. “Do you have a name?”

  “It’s Noelle.”

  “Noelle,” he repeated, his lips curving. “That’s a pretty name.”

  “Thank you.”

  He leaned his elbow on her knee and casually crossed one foot over the other. “Do you know my mother?”

  Tenderly she brushed his silky hair off of his face. “Yes, Travis, I do. She’s a very special lady.”

  “She’s an angel, too, you know,” he confided.

  “Is she?”

  “Uh-huh. My daddy told me. Is she going to come see us, too?”

  Noelle swallowed. “No, Travis. I’m afraid not.”

  He straightened, patting her knee. “It’s okay. I know she’s pretty busy. I never knew her,” he added matter-of-factly, “so I thought maybe I could see her.”

  “She visits you whenever she can, mostly when you sleep.”

  He grinned. “An’ Chris and Brenda and Sally, too?”

  “Them, too,” she agreed.

  “And Dad? He really misses her, I think. Sometimes when he’s in my room he stares at my picture of her and looks sad.”

  She could think of nothing to say to that, so instead she asked, “Are you ready to eat?”

  “Mmm, yes,” he replied, rubbing his stomach.

  “Would you like some oatmeal, or an egg or—?”

  He looked at the biscuits. “One of those, and some bacon and I guess an egg.”

  She leaned over and hugged him. “Coming right up,” she said, getting up and going to the refrigerator.

  “Are you going to take care of us until Freda comes back?”

  “I’ll be here for a little while, yes.”

  “That’s good.” He climbed up into his chair and watched her, his arms folded around his giraffe.

  “What’s your giraffe’s name?”

  “Harvey.”

  “Oh. Did you name him?”

  “Uh-uh. My daddy gave him to me a long, long time ago.”

  “So your dad named him.”

  “Nope. Harvey named hisself. He jus’ tole me it.”

  “Oh, of course. Silly of me to forget we pick our own names.”

  “Yeah, only I forgot about picking mine. They had to teached it to me again when I could finally remember.”

  Noelle placed his breakfast in front of Travis and sat down across from him to eat her own in companionable silence. They heard a door open upstairs, another door close, a shower come on, and one of the girl’s voices.

  Travis looked over at Noelle, his eyes sparkling. “Boy! Are they going to be surprised to find you here!” He finished his milk and slid down out of his chair. “I’m going to go tell ’em,” he said, racing off.

  The family members would be down shortly. She’d better get the rest of their breakfast ready for them. She was sorry Patti wasn’t there, too. For a brief moment of longing, she wished her stay wasn’t going to be so short.

  She was here now, she reminded herself, and she definitely had her work cut out for her.

  She cleared the table of her dishes and went back to fixing breakfast.

  Bret smelled the fresh coffee, frying bacon, warm biscuits and smiled in his sleep. All of it smelled so good, especially the coffee. He wanted a cup…but not enough to let go of the woman he held in his arms. The swaying rustle of palm trees and the gentle swish of nearby water added to the sense of paradise he’d found in her arms. He stroked his hand over her hair, feeling the silkiness ripple beneath his palm as he smoothed his hand over her shoulder, lingered, then moved down until he could cup her breast.

  She sighed and he could feel her lips brush against his mouth just as he—

  “Dad? Aren’t you up yet?” Chris’s adolescent voice jolted Bret into immediate wakefulness. Wild-eyed he stared around him in alarm, relieved to discover that his son hadn’t caught him on a beach with a blond-haired, haunting blue-eyed woman in his arms.

  It was a dream, that’s all it was. He’d just been dreaming about…about…a face popped into his mind and he groaned.

  “Dad?” His door swung open.

  Bret jerked up in bed, trying to look awake. “Yeah, I’m here. Guess I must’ve forgotten to set my alarm.”

  Chris looked at his dad, then back over his shoulder. “Well, if you’re still in bed, who’s downstairs making breakfast?”

  Now that the door was open the aroma of coffee wafted in even stronger, along with the smell of biscuits and bacon, causing his mouth to water.

  Bret yawned. “How’d you know it wasn’t me?”

  “Because your door was still closed. It’s always open unless you’re asleep,” he absently explained. “So what’s going on? Who’s downstairs?”

  “Ida Schulz’s niece arrived late last night. Said she’d heard about Freda and offered to help out for a few days.”

  “No kidding? Ida Schulz? I never knew she had a niece.”

  “Neither did I. Guess you learn something new every day.”

  “So how old is she? Is she good-looking?” Chris turned away as though to take a peek.

  Bret grinned. “Too old for you, buddy. Since when have you been so interested in what a woman looks like?”

  His son shot him a purely masculine expression that spoke volumes. “See you downstairs, Dad,” he finally said with a lopsided grin before he turned around and disappeared down the hall.

  Bret was shaving when he heard Travis calling him. “Daddy! Daddy, where are you?”

  “In here, son,” he said. “What’s the matter?” He leaned around the door into the bedroom in time to see his youngest child bolt around the corner, his eyes sparkling with excitement.

  “Did you see her, Daddy? Did you see? It’s the angel! She’s come to look after us. She’s never done that before!”

  Bret paused in his shaving. “The angel?”

  Travis bobbed his head vigorously. “Our angel. You know. She’s in our kitchen and—”

  “Oh! You must be talking about Noell
e.” He knelt beside his pajama-clad son. “Honey, Noelle isn’t an angel, although I suppose her showing up at such a time could be considered a godsend.”

  “Oh, yes, she is. She tol’ me so.” Travis’s bottom lip edged out belligerently.

  “She must not have understood what—”

  “Daddy!” Sally cried, sounding distraught. She came running into the bedroom and came to a skidding halt beside Travis in the bathroom doorway, her hair standing in uncombed peaks all over her head. “Daddy! I can’t find Mischief anywhere! Have you seen her?”

  Bret straightened to his full height and frowned down at his daughter. “Are you telling me that you let Mischief in the house when you know she isn’t supposed to be in here?”

  “I had to let her in last night,” she replied, dramatically. “It was wet and cold outside and she had nowhere to sleep—”

  “Except in the warm barn curled up in the soft hay,” he reminded her sternly.

  Sally’s shoulders drooped. “But, Daddy, something’s wrong with her. I couldn’t get her to eat last night and she kept pacing back and forth, crying. I couldn’t throw her out in the cold. She seemed a little better when I put her in my room, but when I woke up this morning, she was gone! Do you think she’s died?” Her large gray eyes stared up at him, desolate.

  How did they learn how to do that at such an early age? Bret wondered.

  “I doubt very much if she died, Sally. Mischief looked perfectly healthy the last time I saw her. Have you checked everywhere downstairs?”

  “Downstairs? Oh, she wouldn’t go downstairs. She hates Rex, remember?”

  “I don’t know what to tell you, Sally, except that you need to go eat so you won’t be late for school.”

  Sally walked away, carrying the weight of the world on her delicate shoulders.

  Bret turned back to Travis. “C’mon, sport. We need to get you dressed. From the looks of that pajama top, you’ve already had your breakfast.”

  Travis smiled sweetly at his father. “Noelle’s a real good cooker, Daddy.”

  “I’m glad to hear it, son,” he said. “Let me finish shaving and I’ll be in your room in a few minutes to help you dress.”

  When Bret walked into the kitchen Noelle was the only one there. “Mornin’,” he muttered to the woman standing at the stove, her back to him. He strode over to the counter and poured himself a cup of coffee.

  She turned around, smiling at him. “Good morning,” she replied, and carried a plate of perfectly basted eggs to the table and set it at his place. “Help yourself to the bacon and biscuits.”

  He couldn’t resist taking a sip of the savory coffee before he cleared his throat and said, “Look, you didn’t have to make breakfast this morning. I’m perfectly capable of looking after this family. I just happened to oversleep this morning. Otherwise I would have—”

  “Oh, but I’ve enjoyed it. This is what I came to do, to help out wherever I’m needed.” She looked past his shoulder and smiled. “Good morning.”

  Bret heard Chris say, “Mornin’,” his voice cracking slightly, before he circled the table and sat down across from him. Bret noted that his son—who normally paid no attention to what he looked like—had carefully combed his hair and put on a freshly ironed shirt. When Chris’s gaze met his father’s, Bret lifted his brow slightly and watched his eldest child blush a fiery red.

  Bret had almost finished his breakfast when he was interrupted by a wail coming from Sally in another room. “Daddy, I can’t find her anywhere!”

  He glanced around in time to see the tragic face of his youngest daughter, still in her pajamas, having gone nowhere near a hairbrush since his last glimpse of her.

  “Sally, go get dressed or you’re going to be late for school. The cat will show up sooner or later, you can depend on it. She’s a survivor and she knows how to take care of herself.”

  “The cat?” Noelle repeated. “Are you looking for your cat?” Everyone looked around at her in surprise. She grinned and silently motioned Sally to follow her into Freda’s room. Chris immediately followed. Reluctantly, Bret shoved his chair back and joined the parade.

  From the doorway he watched Noelle tiptoe to the closet and widen the opening. There, on a couple of blankets lay Mischief with four tiny lumps of fur beside her, none of them the same color. When it came to romance, Mischief obviously lived up to her name.

  Sally fell on her knees in front of the cat. “Oh, Mischief, look at you! A Christmas present for each one of us. Aren’t you the sweetest thing?”

  The cat arched her neck so that Sally could scratch her behind her ear in the prescribed manner while Bret attempted damage control. “Now wait just a minute, Sally. Four more cats around here are the very last things we need.”

  Chris peered over Sally’s shoulder and grinned. “Look at that one. All black except for white-tipped toes. I’ll call it Lucifer.”

  “I want the striped one. It looks like a ferocious tiger, doesn’t it, Chris?” Sally whispered. “That’s what I’ll call it. Tiger.”

  “What ’cha looking at?” Travis wanted to know, pushing past his dad into the room.

  Bret sighed, knowing when he was on the losing side of an argument.

  “Kitties!” Travis exclaimed, dashing to get a closer look.

  “Shh!” Sally and Chris echoed.

  “Don’t scare ’em,” Chris went on. “Or she’ll move ’em somewhere else and we won’t be able to find them.”

  “Heaven forbid,” Bret grumbled. He happened to glance at Noelle and saw a sympathetic look in her eyes. He turned and went back for another fortifying cup of coffee. Unfortunately for his digestion, he could still hear the conversation in the other room.

  “The tiger-striped one is mine,” Sally was explaining to her awestruck little brother, “and the black one is Chris’s. Which one of the other two do you want?”

  Normally Bret was a logical man. He considered himself totally rational. But the past several hours had been far from normal and for a brief moment he actually found himself blaming Noelle for the fact that Mischief had decided to present the family with four kittens just before Christmas.

  Being—on the whole—a fair person, Bret admitted to himself that Noelle could certainly cook up a mean bunch of biscuits. What she had done with the eggs and bacon was almost mystical. He forced himself to be fair. Noelle was no more to blame for Freda’s fall than she was for those blasted kittens.

  The children chattered over their breakfast, filling in all the exciting details to Brenda when she arrived downstairs.

  Bret noticed that all of them were chatting with Noelle as though they were old friends. Children continued to amaze him. They had taken her presence in stride, adapting to a new order of things without a grumble. They were already gathering up their books, putting on their coats, getting ready to leave, the whole time chatting with Noelle as though she’d always been a part of their family circle.

  Not that their attitudes made any difference to the outcome of the situation.

  She could not stay and that was the end of it. Just as soon as the older ones left for school he would set her straight. He would—

  Travis walked over to Noelle and said, “I hope you’re going to stay with us for a long, long time.”

  Bret and the children stared with varying degrees of disbelief. Travis was quiet. Travis took a long time to warm up to people. Even with people he knew, Travis was aloof. Seeing his son with his arms entwined around the woman who Bret had fully intended to send away shook him. What was going on here? How had she managed to bewitch his son?

  “Are you going to tell me some more stories? Will we get to—”

  “Travis?”

  Travis looked around at his father.

  “I’m afraid you must have confused Noelle with someone else. I don’t believe you know—”

  “Yep, I do!” His son nodded with emphasis, then reluctantly let go of Noelle’s waist. “She’s the angel.”

  Chris paused
in shoving his foot into his boot. “The what?”

  Big people could certainly act dumb, sometimes. Travis put his hands on his hips, unconsciously mimicking one of his father’s habitual poses, and said in a very patient voice, “She’s the angel…you know.” He waved his arm toward the living room. “She comes to visit every year!” He spun back to her. “But I like you best when you’re just like real people.” He threw his arms around her again in a big bear hug.

  Bret shook his head, dumbfounded. Not so his vocal children.

  “Wow! Travis is right. She does look like the Christmas angel,” Chris said in awe.

  “I knew you looked familiar!” Brenda exclaimed.

  “Wait until I tell my friends,” Sally added, her eyes wide.

  “Whoa, whoa, wait a minute.” Bret finally found his voice. “I don’t care who she looks like, or who she reminds you of, this is Noelle, Ida Schulz’s niece.” He glared at his younger daughter. “If you go spouting to your friends that an angel cooked your breakfast, they’re going to have you taking all kinds of mental tests.”

  Noelle hadn’t said anything. Now she leaned down and whispered something in Travis’s ear. He nodded, relaxed his hold on her and scampered out of the room.

  Chris broke the silence. “We’ve gotta go. The bus will be here shortly.” He turned to Noelle. “Thanks for breakfast. It was great.”

  Travis returned with one of his small trucks and perched on one of the chairs. Bret tried to think of something to say. His son looked very content. Was there really a good reason to drag him outside in the cold when he could stay here with Noelle? He knew he didn’t want her here, but he had to look at the larger picture. He had to decide what was best for Travis, as well.

  He wished he knew what to do. He wished he knew what to say. Since she hadn’t sat down since he came downstairs, he asked, “Aren’t you going to eat?”

  Noelle chuckled. “I already ate. There’s something about the air this time of year that’s given me quite an appetite.”

  “I didn’t know angels got hungry,” Travis said.

  Noelle acted as though his comment was perfectly natural. She didn’t smirk or smile in a patronizing way. Bret appreciated her tact. He wouldn’t have wanted her to hurt Travis’s feelings. Instead, she slid into one of the vacated chairs and propped her chin on her palm. “Normally angels don’t get hungry,” she admitted. “It depends on what they have to do and where they’re working.”