Angel Baby (Heaven Can Wait)

by Laura Marie Altom

  Watching him go nuts sniffing the room, trying to place the alluring eau de Woodstock, she grinned.

  Job well done.

  Equally so on her appointed task of getting Angel and Jonah together.

  Take that, Teach. This six-week thing would be a cakewalk. On an official scroll, he’d laid out her new rules. Learn six afterlife lessons and her job was done. As to what those lessons were, she hadn’t a clue. Teach had told her that after accomplishing each one, she’d receive unmistakable signs—signs he’d promised she’d enjoy.

  Yeah, right.

  They’d probably consist of little more than dorky bell ringing, like in all those sappy Christmas movies Jonah always wanted her to watch.

  For the moment, all she had to do was sit tight, making sure she kept Jonah and Angel together, and the police chief and Angel’s family apart.

  Now, honestly, how hard could that be?

  Chapter Fifteen

  “Crochet?” Angel said in front of the kitchen sink, wrinkling her nose at the purple, brown, and orange afghan Jonah proudly waved before her when he got home.

  Katie sucked a plastic key chain, cooing in her wind-up swing.

  “Yeah, you used to crochet up a storm around here. You averaged a blanket a week—even gave lots of them to charity.” Jonah supposed it was mean, blaming his mom’s poor taste in colors on his houseguest. But the more he got to thinking about the list that Angel had requested, the less he’d been able to put on it.

  When Geneva hadn’t been complaining, she’d watched TV—game shows, talk shows, a few soaps.

  What if Angel turned out to be a brain surgeon? Or an astrophysicist? What if telling her that all she’d done each day was sit around watching TV transformed her from a brilliant career woman into a couch potato?

  True, the afghan bit wasn’t an especially appealing hobby—at least not to him—but it wasn’t as if Angel was going to be there that much longer. He supposed the craft did take a certain amount of finesse his bumbling hands would never possess. If she was a surgeon, she could keep up her dexterity. If she turned out to be a mathematician? Well, she could hone her skill by counting stitches.

  That afternoon, Sam called the diner with news that while connection problems were stopping him from following up on any of the most positive leads, he did have a few. He promised to check them using his home computer and cell phone, which meant all Jonah could do was wait… And hope.

  Hope that, like a kid who found money in a lost wallet, no one stepped up to claim it—or, in his case, her.

  Casting him one last frown, his pretend wife turned her back on him and the ugly blanket in favor of turning the chicken she had frying on the stove.

  “Sure smells good,” he stepped up behind her to inspect.

  “Thanks.” She headed for the sink but, not realizing he was behind her, plowed full on into him.

  “Whoa.” Instinctively, Jonah reached out to steady her, grasping her upper arms. “Good thing Sam isn’t around. He’d have to write you up for speeding.”

  “What was that? A real, live joke from the solemn Jonah McBride?” She grinned.

  Oddly enough, he found himself grinning, too. “What can I say? Accidents happen.”

  “Like this?” On her tiptoes, she brushed her lips across his, so soft, so fleeting, that by the time she slipped from his hold to continue on to the sink, he was left wondering if he’d imagined her having kissed him at all.

  Brushing his fingers over lips still tingling far too much for the moment to have been dreamed, he said, “Angel, I—”

  “Save it.” She turned on the faucet. “I know. We’re going through a rough patch in our marriage, which means I’m not allowed to kiss you, right?”

  “Well… Had he repeated the line so often she knew his speech by rote?

  “It’s okay,” She finished washing the Mixmaster beaters she’d used earlier for whipping mashed potatoes. “In fact, thinking about the way things must’ve been between us reminds me of something that happened yesterday that I wanted to ask you about.” He sat at the table.

  Tucking her long blond hair behind her ears, she said, “Guess I might as well go ahead and ask. Am I, or I guess it would be better to ask, was I an alcoholic?

  All day the question had been weighing on Angel’s mind. Just getting it out lightened her heart. What didn’t make her feel lighter was Jonah’s gaping mouth. “I take it my question caught you off guard?”

  “A little. What gave you that idea?”

  She shrugged and put the beaters back in the drawer where she’d found them.

  Don’t tell him, warned the voice in her head. He wouldn’t understand. Would never understand. You’ll be labeled a no-good drunk. He’ll use that to take Lizzy away, even though drinking isn’t your fault.

  “Angel?”

  She pasted on a bright smile. “Forget I asked.”

  “That’s a pretty loaded question to just up and forget.”

  “I know, but please—for me, try. I don’t know what even made me ask. Maybe because I feel so close to you that I can’t even imagine what I did that was bad enough to break us apart. So, you know…”

  “Your imagination got the better of you and you assumed you must’ve been a closet drinker?” That his cold demeanor had led her to such thoughts dragged Jonah’s spirits even lower than usual. Where was Sam with news? Because faced with more pointed questions, Jonah wasn’t sure how much longer he could keep up this charade. It was bad enough that Angel was constantly cooking and cleaning for him—not to mention giving life-saving nourishment to the most important person in his life—but now she was blaming herself for the demise of their imaginary marriage. And it wasn’t just ordinary blame, but hard-core stuff.

  The kind of stuff he thought only a woman like Geneva would be capable of—not that she’d been an alcoholic—at least he didn’t think so in the technical sense of the word, but she had liked to drink—a lot. Once or twice he’d caught her smoking pot, too, and had to wonder if she’d experimented with other drugs.

  When they first met, Geneva hadn’t seemed dangerous to his emotional well-being, more like an emotional kick in the pants. A wake-up call to stop taking life so seriously and start taking time out to actually live.

  Problem with Geneva was, moderation wasn’t part of her vocabulary. Whereas he wanted to walk the straight and narrow at least five days a week, she wanted to walk on the wild side twenty-four-seven.

  Okay, so here he was with this woman who, on the outside, seemed so perfect he’d dubbed her Angel, yet she was asking if she’d ever had a problem with alcohol. How far off would he be in wondering if, back in her real life, at least some small part of her suspicion could be true?

  After all, that first night at the diner he had smelled booze on her breath.

  The phone rang.

  Anxious to get his mind off such serious topics, Jonah raced to answer it. “Hello… yes… uh huh… okay, sure. Right. Thank you, too.”

  “Who was that?”

  “Doc Penbrook. A doctor friend of his in Little Rock is squeezing you in at ten tomorrow morning.”

  Sam leaned forward in his home office desk chair and punched on the desktop computer. While waiting for it to boot up, he mused that, by the time he had the toy paid off, the Boy Mayor would’ve built himself a castle complete with moat.

  Sam figured on spending his evening Internet surfing, looking for any news items that might pertain to Angel. If that didn’t pan out, he had some buddies who were detectives with the Little Rock P.D.

  Now they had fun toys. Angel wouldn’t stand a chance of being lost around them.

  “Oh, yeah?” Geneva said.

  Biding her time until Sam typed in his first Web address, she worked her magic and the screen faded to black.

  “What the—” Sam stood, conking the back of the monitor with his open palm. “No, no, no.”

  How could this be happening at home, too?

  He tried rebooting, but it was n
o use. The machine turned on just fine. All self-diagnostics worked. He could even sign on to the Internet to look at anything from camping equipment to bigboobs.com. But when it came to researching Angel? Forget it. Every time he tried finding something relevant to her case, the screen went blank.

  “If I didn’t know better,” Sam muttered, “I’d say someone out there doesn’t want this mystery woman found.”

  “Bingo,” Geneva said. “Give that man a prize.”

  Since her good buddy Sam deserved the biggest prize of all for trashing her both in life and death, she made him a festive new screen saver that sported both smiley faces and peace signs.

  After all, he needed visuals to match all that sweet-smelling incense flooding his house!

  “You sure sleep a lot.” Jonah eyed Angel from his seat behind the wheel. Funny how he’d been up a large portion of the night wondering what he’d talk about cooped up in the truck with her during the three-hour drive when, not ten miles outside of Blue Moon, she’d fallen into a deep sleep.

  “Sorry.” She smoothed her adorably mussed hair. “Guess I should be keeping you company, huh?”

  “Don’t sweat it. I’ve enjoyed having time to think.”

  “’Bout what?”

  A semi passed and he tightened his grip on the wheel. They were just south of Conway on I-40 and traffic was starting to pick up. “Ka—I mean, Lizzy. The diner. Most of all… You.”

  She angled onto her left hip, tucking her legs beneath her. “Were those good or bad thoughts when it came to me?”

  “Mostly good.” He winked.

  “Only mostly?”

  “Well, you know, I have to count off for that habit of yours of falling asleep on me.”

  Grinning, she gave him a playful swat. “How much longer?”

  “Depending on traffic, twenty—twenty-five minutes.”

  “Good. Then I still have a while.”

  “A while for what?”

  “To be normal.”

  He glanced her way. “I don’t get it.”

  “You know. Be normal. If this doctor tells me my head’s about to explode and I only have a few days to live, I’d rather not know. I want to be oblivious and enjoy whatever time’s left.”

  “I suppose that makes sense.” Jonah accelerated to pass an RV. Geneva used to call them rolling states because of how much room they took up on the road.

  Wearing a ghostly smile, for the first time since Geneva had left, Jonah realized how refreshing it was to think about one of the few good times in their relationship. During the last couple months, it’d been all too easy placing blame for their marriage’s collapse solely on Geneva, but he’d had his faults, too. Unrealistic expectations and ragging her about spending too much. Guess it was high time he stopped viewing his marriage as a waste of time and started seeing it for what it really was—a learning experience. What he’d learned was that oil and water don’t mix. If he ever became involved with another woman, he’d make damn sure she was nothing like Geneva and more like Angel.

  “Now, what’re you thinking about?” she asked.

  “Marriage.” Just not ours.

  “What about it?”

  “How it takes two to make one go bad.”

  For a long time he felt her staring. “You really mean that, don’t you?”

  “Wouldn’t have said it if I didn’t.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “In relation to what?”

  “To us, goofy. Does this mean you’re at least willing to try?”

  “You mean on us? On this marriage?” Inside, Jonah groaned. How had he gotten himself into this mess? An even better question was, with spring sun streaming into the truck’s cab bathing Angel in light, why did he get the feeling this was one mess he wouldn’t mind being mired in for the rest of his life?

  Chapter Sixteen

  “That’s about it,” the doctor said to Jonah out in the bustling hall, while Angel was still in the exam room changing from her hospital gown back into her street clothes of comfortably faded jeans and a pretty floral halter top.

  Damn, she’d filled out the seat of those jeans.

  Jonah kicked himself for concentrating more on what his pretend wife was wearing, than on the man who was spilling the results of all those tests they’d made the trip to the hospital for.

  “Physically,” the doctor droned on, “aside from her memory loss and understandable soreness from the bruising still left from the accident, she’s fine. In most cases like hers, with rest, her memory should return.”

  “Did you hear the good news?” Angel burst through the exam room door to squeeze Jonah in an impromptu hug. “Looks like you and Lizzy are going to have me around for a long, long time.”

  “Great…” Jonah wished he’d grabbed a few minutes alone with the doctor to address some issues while Angel had been dressing, instead of calculating the odds of her full breasts compromising the structural integrity of her thin cotton top.

  “Let’s get out of here.” She tucked her arm around his waist.

  He had to stall her. But how?

  “If there’s nothing else,” the doctor said, “I should be—”

  “Wait,” Jonah said. “Angel? Where’s your purse?” She’d put makeup and what little cash he’d given her into one of Geneva’s leather bags. Over Monday night’s dinner, Angel asked him about getting her a replacement driver’s license and credit cards. But he’d stalled, crossing his fingers on yet another lie when he urged her to hold off since, any day now, Sam would probably find her old purse still in the wrecked car.

  “My bag’s right here.” Her aquamarine gaze narrowed while she wagged the purse from her left shoulder.

  “Did you have another question?” the doctor asked.

  Rolling her eyes, Angel said, “Tell you what, sweetie. While you figure out whatever it is you wanted to ask, I’m going to the ladies’ room.”

  The minute she was out of earshot, Jonah asked the man in the white coat if Doc Penbrook had filled him in on the peculiar nature of Angel’s case. When the hospital clinician admitted that, yes, he was aware of Angel’s belief she was Jonah’s wife and Katie’s mother, Jonah said, “Then you must also know how badly she wants to care for my baby while I’m at work. I don’t want to hurt her feelings, but I also don’t want Katie being in danger.”

  “Of course,” the doctor said. “But, rest assured, I’ve done a thorough round of testing and, as long as Angel’s not left alone with the child for extended periods of time, she should be fine.”

  Relieved to at least have that issue out of the way, Jonah asked, “You said that, in most cases like Angel’s, people get their memories back. What you didn’t say was how long that takes.”

  “There are no set rules for this sort of thing. She could regain full memory tomorrow, or just pieces of it, or maybe none of it. The trick is not to force her memory, but to let it trickle in. I’m sure, Mr. McBride, that having a stranger believe she’s your wife is no easy task, but you’re doing a kind, altruistic thing. Memory lapses of this sort are usually brought on by trauma—and I don’t necessarily mean just Angel’s accident. Perhaps something even worse happened right before her accident. Or possibly was the cause of the accident. Only Angel knows for sure. The fact that whatever happened was so painful her mind chose to forget it rather than face it speaks volumes. If it helps, you should think of your role playing as doing her a favor.”

  Jonah sighed, dragging his fingers through his hair. Checking to ensure Angel wasn’t on her way back, he said, “That’s just it. This connection between her and my baby. I don’t know what to think of it. My Katie was on the verge of being hospitalized for malnutrition. Ever since my wife died, she just flat out wouldn’t eat. Now, ever since Angel showed up, Katie’s back to her old self. Even Doc Penbrook calls it a miracle.”

  “So? What’s the problem? You and Katie and Angel are all fulfilling mutual needs. Angel needs you. Katie needs Angel. You need Katie to be healthy. The way I
see it, for the time being anyway, the three of you make a perfect triangle.” The doctor put his hand on Jonah’s shoulder. “Until Angel’s real family is found, you’re the only family she’s got, and vice versa. Instead of being bothered by that fact, Mr. McBride, embrace it. Release the guilt, embrace hope. In the end, you’ll both be better off.”

  “Let’s not go home,” Angel said. “Let’s celebrate.”

  In the tree-lined lot of St. Vincent’s Hospital, Jonah started the truck and put it into gear. “You mean like spend the night?” This was just the kind of crazy idea Geneva would’ve spouted. Forget the baby and the diner. She’d made a habit of focusing solely on herself instead of her responsibilities.

  “No! Good grief, I’d die spending a whole night without Lizzy, and I know you need to get back to the diner. I was just talking a fancier lunch than a takeout burger. Maybe even a salad? Or would that be over the top?” She winked, and that, combined with her easy, breathtakingly pretty smile, put him over the top.

  Lunch. All she wanted was lunch.

  After all she’d done for him, how could he turn down such a simple request?

  Twenty minutes later, they were sharing a quiet table in a normally hopping seafood place overlooking the Arkansas River. On weekends the establishment pulsed with life, but at midday on a Tuesday, aside from a few other couples and one family with two toddlers and a table ringed with saltine crumbs, they had the place virtually to themselves.

  After the colas, salads, and a bucket of boiled shrimp they’d ordered had been delivered, they were once again alone.

  Jonah fiddled with his spoon.

  Angel nibbled her lower lip. “Thought we were supposed to celebrate?”

  Glancing out the window, then back at her, he said, “Sorry. Sitting in another restaurant like this, one I know is successful, I get to feeling that much worse about mine.”