Rescued by his Christmas Angel (11 page)

He wanted something that would let her know what she had come to mean to him. He wanted something so special. Something spectacular. And yet subtle at the same time.

Something that would make that light come on in her face, the one that he was starting to live for. Something…but what?

Everything he looked at seemed wrong. Gloves? Ridiculously impersonal. Hat and scarf? Too generic. Books? Too stuffy. Lingerie? Not nearly stuffy enough.

He found himself standing at the window of Orchid Jewelers in the mall he had never once been to before he met Morgan.

Maybe,
he found himself thinking,
I should just make her something at the forge
.

Around him was the bustle of shoppers, the tinkle of bells, carolers, the ho-ho-ho of the mall Santa.

All these things—the noises, the colors, the decorations,
the music, the good cheer—all these things a mere year ago would have made him cringe.

He could feel the healing happening in the fact he felt the Christmas excitement, he was enjoying being part of it, instead of apart from it.

And then he realized he was staring at
something
in the window of Orchid Jewelers. It was something that made him understand exactly what was happening to him.

Nate Hathoway realized he was falling in love. The exact kind of love Cindy had once wished for him.

The can't-breathe, can't-think, can't-function kind that he had once thought sounded awful.

And Nate realized that if he didn't make a choice about that soon, if he didn't stop
falling,
and start making some conscious decisions, the ability to choose might be taken away from him completely.

He might become helpless in the face of the enormous power of that thing called love.

If there was a word that had not appeared in a Hathoway vocabulary for several centuries, it was that one.

Helpless.

But that's exactly what he felt as he pushed open the door to the jewelry shop, walked in and went to the counter.

A perky girl in a Santa hat came and smiled at him.

“Can I help you, sir?”

Last chance to break and make a run for it.

Helpless.

“I'd like to see that ring,” Nate said, surprised by how
strong his voice was. How absolutely sure. “The one in the window.”

He felt a breath on his neck. He whirled and looked around the store. He was the only customer in it.

It must have been the bells in the mall that made him think he had heard Cindy laughing. That made him think he had heard her breathe,
yes
.

 

Morgan McGuire was not sure she had ever experienced a more perfect or magical night.

The whole town seemed to have gathered at the Old Sawmill Pond for the skating party that welcomed Wesley Wellhaven to Canterbury.

Wesley was the antithesis of his wife. There was no hiding that he was a shy and self-effacing man. His manner was so mild that Morgan wondered if he could really produce the voice he was so famous for.

She voiced that doubt to Nate in a low whisper when they skated off after being introduced to Mr. Wellhaven, who had thanked them both effusively for their hard work on
The Christmas Angel
project.

“It's probably some trickery of the
brains of the outfit,
” Nate said. Despite the miraculous progress Mrs. Wellhaven had made with the children's choir, Nate had never quite forgiven her their initial encounter.

And then they laughed, and Morgan marveled at how easily they laughed together, and how often, and at how the hard lines seemed to be melting from Nate's face, one by one.

“What are you looking at?” he teased.

“You. You're a handsome man, Nate.”

“Stop. You'll make me blush.” And then he bent and
brushed his lips to hers, and threw back his head and laughed.

Morgan knew it was partly Nate's hand in hers, his easy affection, that made the evening so completely magical. A huge bonfire burned beside the pond, vats of hot chocolate were kept warm, and trays and trays of Christmas cookies sat on tables that had been set up beside the pond.

It was a true community event. Everyone was there, from the mayor to the waitresses, from grandmas and grandpas to small babies being pulled around the ice in sleds.

There were cameras filming some of what would be inserted into the moments right before the commercial breaks of the television special, but after a few minutes of self-consciousness everyone seemed to forget they were there.

But all of this was only a backdrop for what was unfolding inside of her. Nate's hand was always in hers, or his arm around her waist. He would tilt his head to listen to her, or to laugh at something she said.

They were a
couple,
Morgan realized. Everybody knew it. He seemed proud of it and of her.

It came on her suddenly, a delicious sensation of belonging. Not just with him, but in this community.

She did not miss the small smiles people exchanged with them, or the liking and enormous respect these people had for Nate.

She did not miss how much they had hoped for him to be what he was tonight: energized and laughter-filled, mischievous and fun-loving. And because they saw her as part of what was bringing Nate back to them, they accepted her.

Maybe it wasn't even going too far to say that they cared deeply for her, their grade-one teacher, Nate Hathoway's girlfriend.

Girlfriend.
She savored the word, like a caramel melting on the tip of her tongue.

Morgan glided across the ice with Nate and a single word formed in her mind.
Belonging.
It was a whisper of something she had waited her whole life to feel.

Morgan had not skated very much, but she soon found she loved the sensation of gliding along the ice, especially with Nate, a strong skater, beside her.

The children were racing around on their skates, shouting with exuberance, playing games that Ace seemed to always be at the center of.

Nate followed his daughter for a moment with his eyes, then smiled, satisfied. “You've worked a miracle, there, Morgan McGuire,” he said. “She's happy. To be truthful? I did not think we could have a happy Christmas ever again.”

In the past days, he had told Morgan all about growing up with the Three Musketeers, about the closeness of their friendship, about David and Cindy loving each other so much. And then David going away and not coming back.

He told her how for the longest time he had thought he would lose Cindy, too. She had pined, not eating properly, not going out, the light gone from her eyes. Every day he had gone to her, made her eat, made her get out of the house.

They had become a habit for each other. It came to a point that he could not imagine life without her.

And he felt they'd had a good marriage. Solid. Based in respect and friendship.

And then Nate told Morgan about the accident that had taken his wife, about that final errand she had gone to run on Christmas Eve and never come back from.

How even in excruciating pain, she had
something
that he could never hope to have. A simple faith. A belief that somehow everything, even this, was unfolding according to a larger plan.

And then Nate told Morgan about his own black days after. There was no one to come rescue him from that feeling of sinking into a mire that he could never get out of. He had told her the worst of it was a sense of having failed.

“A man wants to believe he can protect those he loves from harm. But he can't. Not always. Learning that,” Nate had told her, “has been the hardest lesson of my life.”

But for a man who had learned hard lessons, he seemed only at ease now as he guided her around the firelit surface of the frozen Old Sawmill Pond. Nate Hathoway seemed only enormously sure of himself and his place in the world.

Morgan wanted the night never to end, but of course, all good things had to end.

As the magical evening drew to a close, Wesley Wellhaven left no doubt about the genuine gift of his magnificent voice.

As far as Morgan knew, what happened next was completely unscripted. Wesley Wellhaven stood by the fire, facing toward all the people skating on the pond, and he began to sing.

No televised concert, no CD could prepare a person for the pureness of his voice in person. It cut through all the chatter, and it soared above the shouts of children. It
rose above the skate blades hissing on ice, and climbed above the crackle of the fire.

It inspired silence. The chatter and laughter died. Even a crying baby stopped its caterwauling.

Everyone drifted across the ice to where Wesley stood in front of the fire, his eyes closed, more than his voice pouring out of him.

His spirit. For such a mild man it was so evident his spirit was gigantic.

“His voice must make angels weep,” Morgan whispered, and Nate's hand tightened around hers.

It was one of those moments where time stood still, it was a moment that shone with an inner light, that moved with the life force itself.

He sang the oldest of the Christmas songs, but the way he sang it, it was brand-new.

Morgan felt as if she had never heard it before.

Silent night, holy night,

All is calm,

all is bright…

It felt as though Wesley was describing
this
night in its calmness, in its brightness, the hope that was buried in the stillness.

And as he finished, and the people of Canterbury stood in the stillness left by his voice and the winking stars above them, Morgan knew what she felt was more than belonging.

She glanced up at the man who stood beside her, at the strength in the lines of his face, softened only slightly by the flicker of the fire.

And she knew what she felt was
love
.

Love. Terrifying. Electrifying. Comforting. Calming.
It was both breathlessness, and the deepest and most steady breath of all.

Wesley allowed the silence to envelope them, but after a subtle prod in the ribs from his wife's elbow, he cleared his throat, humbly, sweetly uncomfortable being the center of attention.

“And now I have an announcement that many of you have been waiting for,” he said. “Mrs. Wellhaven and I have agreed on the child who should sing the final song in the concert, a song called ‘Angel of Hope.'”

Morgan knew she was not supposed to hope it was one child above another. And she knew for the one she did hope to be chosen it would take a miracle.

“That child is Brenda Weston.”

Though Morgan had known Brenda was likely to be chosen, and though she loved all her children equally, she could not help but feel deflated. Her eyes sought out Cecilia in the crowd.

“Well, I know at least one angel that will be weeping now,” Nate said, his voice gruff and hard.

But when Morgan saw Ace, she wasn't weeping. She was hugging her friend with the exuberance of a second-place finalist in a beauty pageant.

“See?” she told Nate. “She's taking it fine.”

But Nate was watching his daughter, too, and he said, “If you think she's taking it fine, you don't know the first thing about her.”

She looked at his face. Something had hardened in it. She was not sure what, but it made her shiver.

She felt as if he had left something unspoken.
You don't know the first thing about us.

Morgan was so aware something had shifted ever so
slightly, changed. The car ride home was silent, Cecilia exhausted, nearly asleep in her car seat.

Nate dropped Morgan off at her house first.

“No, don't get out,” Morgan said, when she saw him opening his door. “Just take Cecilia home and get her to bed. It's a lot of excitement for a little girl.”

And a lot of disappointment.

She opened the back door, leaned in and touched Cecilia's arm.

“I'm sorry you weren't chosen as the Christmas Angel, sweetie,” she said. “I thought you would have made a wonderful Christmas Angel.”

And she meant it. It was too bad the world could not see outside the box. With just the tiniest bit of imagination a child like Cecilia could have easily been the Christmas Angel.

Not that Mrs. Wellhaven had ever looked as if she was burdened with an abundance of imagination.

Cecilia smiled sleepily at Morgan. “But I am going to be the Christmas Angel,” she said.

“No, honey,” Morgan said carefully, “you're not. Mr. and Mrs. Wellhaven chose Brenda.”

“I know it
seems
like they did. But, Mrs. McGuire, I'm going to be the Christmas Angel. I just know it.”

This was announced with such certainty and with such sunny optimism that Morgan was taken aback.

“Stop it,” Nate told his daughter sternly. “It's over. And you are not going to be the Christmas Angel.”

Cecilia didn't say a word, but she pursed her lips together in a look of stubbornness that at least matched her father's.

And then Nate, not missing the fact Cecilia was not “stopping it” even if she had chosen silence, gave
Morgan a dark look that she interpreted as somehow making this her fault. And maybe it was. Should she have better prepared Ace? The girl obviously had had unrealistic hopes that she was now unwilling to let go of, even in the face of evidence it was time to let go.

And maybe it was her fault.

Because as she watched them drive away, it seemed to Morgan she had developed quite a few unrealistic hopes of her own. What had happened to the woman she had been when she had first arrived here in Canterbury?

A woman absolutely committed to leaving her fantasies and fairy tales behind her?

“What happened to her?” she murmured to herself.

“The Purple Couch Club can't hold a candle to what I've felt the last few weeks.”

But what if she was guilty of passing a silly desire to hope for things that were never going to happen on to the children she taught? They trusted her and treated every single thing she said as gospel, treated every single thing she did as an example of how to live.